Talk:Donald Trump

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Current consensuses and RfCs

Current consensuses:

NOTE: Reverts to consensuses listed here do not count against the 1RR limit, per this discussion including an admin. It is recommended to link to this list in your edit summary when reverting, as [[Talk:Donald Trump#Current consensuses and RfCs]], item [n].

1. Use File:Donald Trump August 19, 2015 (cropped).jpg as the infobox image until the official White House portrait becomes available. (link)

2. Show birthplace as "New York City" in the infobox. No state or country. (link)

3. Omit reference to county-level election statistics. (link)

4. Lead phrasing of Trump gaining a majority of the U.S. Electoral College and receiving a smaller share of the popular vote nationwide, without quoting numbers. (link, link 2)

5. Use Donald Trump's net worth value of $4.5 billion, and matching rankings, from the Forbes annual list of billionaires (2016 edition), not from monthly or "live" estimates. (link)

6. Do not mention the Jane Doe rape lawsuit. (link)

7. Include "Many of his statements in interviews, on social media, and at campaign rallies were controversial or false." in the lead. (link)

8. Mention that Trump is the first president elected without prior military or governmental service. (link)

Open RfCs:

• #RfC: Should social network links be added to the External links section?
• #RfC on including "false" in the lede
• #RfC: Should "Chairman of The Trump Organization" be listed as office in infobox?

Rejiggering the Edit Notice

@Mandruss, JudgeRM, Objective3000, MrX, Edge3, JFG, Coffee, Bastun, and Ryk72: In light of our previous discussion at the 1RR heading here and given the material in the above above section, I think we are going to need a bigger box for all the consensus related material in the article. Would anyone object if we swapped out the box I currently have in the editnotice space for the image with the one below? It has been adopted to reflect all relevant consensus points as of December 2016, and can be tweak by the admin corps as needed to reflect changing consensus in the article. TomStar81 (Talk) 12:24, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

No objection, but I think it must absolutely include the consensus for 7. Many of his statements in interviews, on social media, and at campaign rallies were controversial or false. (link) That's far more important than some of the others on this list. - MrX 12:41, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

And it will when the consensus for #7 is formalized. I'll add it myself if I have to, although if we adopt the template we can add a note in this section (well technically the above section) to the effect that consensus - once established - should be added to the template, or if it is already present, updated in the template. TomStar81 (Talk) 13:00, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

I beg your pardon, but consensus is already formalized. There is a standing consensus for the current wording. If it changes (which seems unlikely at this point), then the edit notice can be changed. - MrX 14:59, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

No objection. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 15:10, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

I just checked the page using mobile, and this section does not jump out at you. It is not visible as a notice at all. It is merely a heading in the table of contents. You have to click on it to read it. Maybe if we put it at the top of the page without a section heading, like the lede in an article? --MelanieN (talk) 15:32, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't object to this. JudgeRM (talk to me) 18:19, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

@MelanieN: It wouldn't make a difference. Like I noted below, this is more a foundation issue since the mobile editing version is vastly different to the version on gets on a desktop/laptop/tablet(?). The best we can do is add something in the header that makes it look important and hope for the best...unless the foundation figures out a way to make the edit notices and such pop out at the mobile community. TomStar81 (Talk) 21:33, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

@TomStar81, JudgeRM, Objective3000, MrX, Edge3, JFG, Coffee, Bastun, Ryk72, and Objective3000:
1. Who would have technical control of this? What would be required to get something added, removed, or modified? 2. The list is young and I expect it to grow a lot. Have we considered what it would look like with 30 items? 3. I submit that people are more likely to take the time to review all of it in its current form, than when they have an edit on their mind (those who look at the talk page at all, that is). 4. Re MelanieN's suggestion, I think there is high value in something that you can link directly to, from editsums or other threads. The only way to do that is with a section.
All things considered, I would strongly prefer a big fixed notice about this consensuses list, with a link to it. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:05, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

The longer the notice, the more likely it will be ignored. A big bold judicious phrase linked to the appropriate talk page section would be much more efficient in mitigating innocent ignorance of consensus. I would suggest this: Please review established consensus wording before editing this article, especially the lead section. And we could standardize the practice of adding hidden comments in relevant places, all pointing to this same section. — JFG ^talk 20:55, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

@Mandruss: Technical control would be with the community; once consensus is established, an admin could update the template with the relevant links as needed. Adding or removing to this specific template would require proof of a consensus building discussion on the issue at hand. If this list gets long, we can add coding to collapse the consensus discussion part, leaving only the notice and a link to the talk page for full details. And we can definitely link to this section from the template, that's probably the easiest thing to tweak. Remember, the reason I put this here instead of simply adding it was to get feedback on the template, so all objections, questions, and concerns are welcome. If we decide to move forward with the newer template then I want us to do so knowing we hammered out the relevant details as a group, and if we decide against it I want us to decide against it as a group. Like it says on my userpage, "administrators be thou for the contributors"; if the contributors don't like the proposal, then we change it or scrap it. TomStar81 (Talk) 21:33, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

I think it may be better to keep the list short in the edit notice and limit it to the most important content. The other items could be listed in a sticky at the top of the talk page. Things like whether just the city, or the city, state and country should be listed in the infobox are fairly trivial in comparison with wording of contentious material in the lead.- MrX 22:08, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Adding or removing to this specific template would require proof of a consensus building discussion - This is the point I made in the 1RR discussion. Said "proof" is the discussion itself, so an uninvolved admin would have to be found to do all of a formal close except the close statement. My concern is that this would discourage the inclusion of relatively minor items like #2, which are needed in the list to prevent ongoing slow-burn edit warring. My feeling is that editors of the article should manage the list on their own, using standard BRD, until there is a demonstrated need for admin involvement. And given the perpetual backlog at WP:ANRFC, do we really need to add to this workload?
MrX, we are not space-constrained, so inclusion of the minor stuff has no effect on inclusion of the major stuff; it's not a binary choice. The item you speak of was omitted only because there was another RfC in progress; that was only a rough agreement between 2 or 3 editors (in user talk?), and there is no reason we can't agree to add it now. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:15, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

In my opinion there won't be many editors reviewing the list first, no matter what we do. The main benefit will be that, in most cases, only the one revert will be needed, provided it links to the list and provides the item number. I expect very little edit warring around these items, and in those few cases there will be a clear case for a discretionary sanction against the editor ignoring the consensus. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:45, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

@Mandruss: I realize that we're not space constrained. My only concern is that if it's too extensive, it may be ignored. I would be much more comfortable is we added the consensus I mentioned above. It should be obvious by now that a new consensus is unlikely.The mobile browser issue that MelanieN mentioned should be addressed too, probably at WP:VPT or meta since it seems to be a technical issue. Of course it should not stop us from implementing the changes to the edit notice.- MrX 23:23, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

@MrX: - Well add it per BRD and see how it flies. Demonstrate how this can work without admin involvement. If you're reverted, it won't be by me. There is no question that such an entry would already exist if the list had existed in September. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:46, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

@Mandruss: Only admins or template editors can edit edit notices.- MrX 15:22, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

 Done – I have replaced the edit notice about Trump's portrait with a more generic pointer to this section. Let's see how it goes. — JFG ^talk 16:48, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

@JFG: Thanks, that's a good move in my opinion.
"Changes to established consensus without prior discussion can be reverted on sight and such reverts are not limited by WP:1RR restrictions."
This sentence, which was already present, is poorly worded on two counts.
1. The revert is not undoing a "change to established consensus"; there is no change to consensus; the sentence confuses the consensus and the content resulting from the consensus, as if the word "consensus" applies to both; it does not.
2. "without prior discussion" implies that you can edit against consensus if you discuss it first. To the contrary, you not only have to discuss it but you have to reach a new consensus.
These are not significant problems for those who already understand how things work, but they are not the target audience. My suggestion would be: "Edits against established consensus can be reverted on sight and such reverts are not limited by WP:1RR restrictions." ―Mandruss ☎ 17:56, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

@Mandruss: Thanks for your suggestions. It's true that "Changes to established consensus" does not convey the right message. If our target audience are inexperienced editors, I would just say "Changes against established consensus", avoiding the jargon term "Edits". Your second point is noted but I don't find it confusing and I think we should keep the "without prior discussion" part, otherwise people may think that there is no way to change consensus ever, and that would go against WP core principles. I would simply add a link to the talk page from the "discussion" word, as a clear call to action. — JFG ^talk 18:11, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm thinking primarily of the editor who has been around long enough to know what the word "edit" means and that consensus can change—like, say, a month or two. The purpose of the edit notice is not to teach Editing 101 but to explain how editing this article differs from editing most others. Maybe my proposed wording bears some further improvement, but the current language is simply poor writing and unclear communication. I'll await other comments. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:21, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Fine. Meanwhile I have clarified the part we agree on. — JFG ^talk 18:48, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

External links

Hello. As everyone knows, Donald Trump's official Twitter account and Facebook account are used personally by him as official comunications to the public. I think the cited links should be mentioned there.

• Donald Trump on Facebook
• Donald Trump on X
• Donald Trump on Instagram

Thank you all. Anjo-sozinho (talk) 03:55, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Please see WP:ELNO#social.- MrX 12:51, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

That will have to be revised if politicians continue to use them as primary communication channels. In the meantime I'm not opposed to some WP:IAR here, at least as to Facebook and Twitter, I don't know about his use of Instagram. ―Mandruss ☎ 13:05, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Anyone is free to propose changing the guideline, but they would need to make some strong arguments for ignoring WP:NOTDIR and WP:LINKFARM. Since these social media links would not improve the encyclopedia, IAR would not apply.- MrX 13:18, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

I think the active use of them by the President elect and I, would argue, they are his main means of communication to the public would be reason to violate policy. However, might put up a rfc on this. Casprings (talk) 13:25, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Trump's heavy usage of social media (especially Twitter) makes it permissible in this case, IMO. Edge3 (talk) 14:36, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Let's not confuse issues here. This article is about Donald Trump, not about linking to his social media accounts one by one. Heavy or light use of these accounts still makes linking to all of them irrelevant. Obviously, a factoid can be added to the article that he uses social media frequently, if we have a reliable source that is. But what is the encyclopedic value of painstakingly linking all these accounts to this article? Do we need to spoon-feed the links to the reader for some reason? I can't see any benefits, although I can see clutter in the external links section if that proposal gets accepted. Dr. K. 15:07, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Equivalent to linking to his official website in the infobox, but far less prominent in External links. I differ with the words "painstakingly" and "spoon-feed". ―Mandruss ☎ 15:11, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Still why the clutter? What encyclopedic value do these links have to offer to the reader? Providing a link to these accounts, even in the EL section, implicitly carries the message that the readers are incapable of finding them on their own. It looks like spoon-feeding the links to the readers to me. Supplying links for convenience to readers does not look encyclopedic, at least to me. Dr. K. 15:17, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Same reasoning could apply to the website link. For that matter, everything in the article is something readers are capable of finding on their own, so you might as well argue that the article itself is superfluous. It would be different if he just used social media for the pointless casual chatter that most users use them for (I once saw a woman use Facebook to inform her friends that she had just gotten out of bed and was enjoying her first cup of coffee), but it appears that is not the case. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:36, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

It makes sense to list Trump's Facebook and Twitter pages. He's the first presidential candidate and now president-elect to use them as a means of communication, especially with such heavy use. Trump has already stated he plans to continue to use them to communicate with the American people. They are relevant, and in this instance, Mandruss has made an excellent point with WP:IAR . I don't see this as a violation of policy, but rather as the evolution of the policy as social media gains more prominence with this president. SW3 5DL (talk) 16:32, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Mandruss: Nice attempt at reductio ad absurdum, but here we are not talking about verification of an encyclopedic fact but rather about standalone links to social media accounts. Such links are devoid of WP:V value. The only thing they do is direct the reader to a twitter, facebook, etc. account., not for the purpose of verifying an encyclopedic fact but for the purpose to see the tweets, facebook activity, and so on. That's not needed and it is devoid of encyclopedic value. Dr. K. 16:44, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Hey, no fair with the Latin. If things in External links were needed for verifiability, they would be citations instead. ―Mandruss ☎ 16:46, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Mea culpa. I try to polish my very limited Latin from time to time. :) In any case, yes, since we don't use ELs for verifiability and there is really no compelling reason to have them at the bottom of the article, that's why we have to limit their number per the ELMINOFFICIAL guideline. Dr. K. 16:55, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

From WP:ELMINOFFICIAL: More than one official link should be provided only when the additional links provide the reader with significant unique content and are not prominently linked from other official websites. For example, if the main page of the official website for an author contains a link to the author's blog and Twitter feed, then it is not appropriate to provide links to all three. I don't see Facebook and Twitter links on the website, let alone prominent ones. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:03, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

It is ok to include the official website and perhaps the Twitter link, since you mentioned that it does not exist in the official site. After that, Facebook, Instagram etc. are just the slippery-slope to clutter. Dr. K. 17:13, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

I am prepared to ride that slippery slope to Buzznet, Flixster, and Adult FriendFinder if he is shown to use them for substantive communication (or what a significant, non-fringe fraction of the population considers to be substantive per RS). ―Mandruss ☎ 17:24, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

I don't think the President-elect's Twitter feed qualifies as "significant unique content". His notable Tweets are already covered by the press, and everything else is emphemera.- MrX 17:26, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Agree with Mandruss, and others who support inclusion. The arguments against are weak and press coverage, which is largely against Trump, is not reliable. This is an encyclopedia, this is the President-elect's BLP, and his use of social media is relevant and the links to his accounts belong here. SW3 5DL (talk) 17:34, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

RfC: Should social network links be added to the External links section?

Donald Trump's official Twitter account and Facebook account are used personally by him as official communications to the public. He has stated that as President, he will continue to use these accounts to communicate with the American people. Should links to his accounts be included in this article's External links section? 17:46, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

• Donald Trump on Facebook
• Donald Trump on X
• Donald Trump on Instagram

Support or Oppose

• Oppose - Per WP:ELNO#social, WP:NOTDIR, and WP:LINKFARM. Twitter and Facebook are already linked from the home page of President-elect Trump's https://www.greatagain.gov/official website.- MrX 17:53, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

  Actually, the greatagain.gov website links only to social media accounts owned by the Transition 2017 team, not Trump himself. See Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Trump has separate accounts for his own use. Edge3 (talk) 18:50, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

  Oh, that's a good point. Obviously since this is a biography and not a transition article, the official website listed should be donaldjtrump.com, which does in fact link to all of his social media accounts.- MrX 02:29, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

  That's an even better link. It also includes Instagram. This fully satisfies the phrasing of ELMINOFFICIAL. Dr. K. 02:53, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

  For the BLP-topic of Donald Trump we have [1][2][3][4] (plus about-self-bio[5]), for the CORP-topic of The Trump Organization we have [6][7][8] (plus work-bio[9]), for the ORG-topic Presidential transition of Donald Trump we have [10][11][12][13][14] (plus gov-bio[15] and soon [16] or [17] which are currently 404 errors). Part of the trouble is this page currently has the wires crossed, and we list greatAgain.gov as *the* website. Similar to Ted Cruz where we only list his senate-page, not his still-active campaign-page (Cruz has his fbook + twitr listed however). Contrast with Bernie Sanders where we list bernieSanders.com + sanders.senate.gov within the infobox and also as ELs (plus a fansite about his policy-stances). Old-school wikipedia policy is exemplified by the Tom Hanks page, where we list *zero* social media ELs, despite Hanks having 5m 'likes' and 12m 'followers' on them. We have ELs galore for Bill Clinton, including two clinton-specific-sites, but no social media ones. So it is an inconsistent mess, unfortunately. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 22:27, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose Per MrX and my comments below. Also as MrX stated, the facebook and twitter buttons are clearly visible at the bottom of the official website. They even have a Youtube button. This is a textbook case of not including the social links. Dr. K. 18:17, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose - Per above and above. Any idea how many social sites exist? I don't think this is a road we want to go down. Objective3000 (talk) 18:39, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

*Support per WP:ELMINOFFICIAL - More than one official link should be provided only when the additional links provide the reader with significant unique content and are not prominently linked from other official websites. For example, if the main page of the official website for an author contains a link to the author's blog and Twitter feed, then it is not appropriate to provide links to all three. - The links at the bottom of the website's home page are not those proposed in this RfC. Upon clicking them one can see that they are for the transition team, not Trump the man (this is a bio of Trump the man). Has anyone shown that Trump does not use the personal accounts for substantive communications to the public? Not to my knowledge. Do reliable sources cover those communications to a significant degree? I believe they do. Regardless, I don't know that pictures of a bird and a lower-case f at the rarely-seen bottom of a page clear the prominence bar required by ELMINOFFICIAL. Awareness of those logos is far from widespread. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:45, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose after change of infobox website link, per WP:ELMINOFFICIAL, assuming that change stands. ―Mandruss ☎ 11:57, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
• Support Arguments against are weak and outdated. WP:IAR applies here. Time to bring WP into the 21st century and ignore all outdated rules. SW3 5DL (talk) 18:53, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
• Support per WP:ELOFFICIAL: "it may sometimes be appropriate to provide more than one link, such as when a business has one website for the corporate headquarters and another for consumer information." The transition website is separate from Trump's personal social media accounts. Furthermore, Trump's usage of social media has caught a lot of attention from the press. Edge3 (talk) 19:02, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
• Support This ongoing attempt to suppress opposing views, in this case, Trump's very own, need to stop. The entire article is begging for a pov tag while Wikipedia is being made into a mockery. if the facts are on your side there is no need to suppress anything on such flimsy basis. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 19:27, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

  What needs to stop are your ongoing WP:AGF failures. There is no evidence of "suppressing opposing views" here, let alone the clear evidence required by AGF. What you're seeing are differences of opinion as to proper use of External links. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:48, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Got an edit conflict posting nearly the exact thing: What needs to stop is these constant attacks against other editors. No one is trying to suppress Trump's views by not putting a link to his Twitter account. Although you wouldn't know it by reading some of the cites given on the political articles; not everything is a conspiracy. Yet another WP:AGF violation. Objective3000 (talk) 19:53, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

I note that many of the !votes you call conspiracy come with p&g basis, which you failed to provide in your own !vote. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:56, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose - Per WP:ELNO#social, WP:NOTDIR, and WP:LINKFARM. People can go to his official website for links to these. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 21:23, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

  His official website does not link to his personal social media profiles. There are separate social media accounts for his transition team. Edge3 (talk) 22:24, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

• Support as notable sources of information about the subject (especially given that every tweet from The Donald begets a 10,000-word WP article… ) — JFG ^talk 22:26, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
• Support. He uses them to communicate directly with tens of millions of people and often the mainstream press will pick up what he says it a tweet and make it front-page news. His twitter account is probably the most important twitter account in the world right now and it should be included in the external links section. Rreagan007 (talk) 03:29, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
• Support Trump's use of social media in the way he is using it (as a primary means of communication with the people) as an incoming head of state is unprecedented and the guidelines were not (and could not) have been written with a case such as his in mind. Also, guidelines are guidelines and exceptions can be appropriate, which is, I believe, what we have here. Marteau (talk) 15:56, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
• Comment If we're going to link to these in ELs then shouldn't there be a prose paragraph about it in the text itself? Volunteer Marek (talk) 16:24, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Yes, definitely. I'm surprised Trump's characterization as "the social media candidate" is not yet mentioned in the article. — JFG ^talk 18:19, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

• Support as to Twitter, Oppose as to Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Reddit, VampireFreaks, NextDoor, Couchsurfing, WeeWorld, Plurk, et cetera. Because...Donald Trump's Twitter site is a subject of immense media and public interest, and if it's not in the External Links then it ought to be in the Infobox.Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:30, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
• Support as to Twitter and Facebook (and YouTube). For permanency; we can expect the Infobox Website data to get reverted back to the (outdated) campaign site from time to time. Oppose as to Instagram; see his current Biography page, "Meet The President Elect", President Elect Donald J. Trump, which shows Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube only. --Dervorguilla (talk) 21:24, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose social media sites as External Links, except perhaps for Twitter as a second "official site". I would look favorably on proposals to change ELNO to be less restrictive in most regards, but as of now it applies. That said, I think that there is much good sourcing for an extensive section on Trump's social media presence, and it should include these accounts as citations to the primary sources, providing secondary sources citing each of those primary sources are given also. Potentially this could even end up including a table of social media links in that section, listing various data like number of followers or frequency of use. Wnt (talk) 23:43, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

ELNO is of course a guideline for which exceptions in unusual cases are explicitly permitted. Trump is by anyone's reckoning unusual ;) Marteau (talk) 04:11, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

• Support. He uses them to communicate directly with tens of millions of people and often the mainstream press will pick up what he says it a tweet and make it front-page news. For example, his twitter account is probably the most important twitter account in the world right now and it should be included in the external links section. Anjo-sozinho (talk) 03:32, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

• Weak Oppose First, as a procedural matter, the RfC statement strikes me as non-neutral in tone, seeming to advocate rather clearly for one of the proposed options. Second, the term "official" as it is used in the second instance of the first sentence is clearly meaningless. If we are talking about Donald Trump as a private citizen, then what makes any kind of social media channel more or less "official" for a given individual? If we are talking about Donald Trump as the president-to-be, then no, it won't be an "official" channel in any sense, short of a formal administrative order; the fact that Trump is committed to continuing to use these accounts does not, in any legal or formal sense, make them official channels of the Office of the President, just because he occupies it while he is using them. Now, Trump could, theoretically, perhaps change that (though there are actual substantial reasons why that may be infeasible or even illegal to do so), but we have no reason to presume he will.

But those are all just incidental concerns about the way this issue has been framed. My actual substantive reason for opposing is that I don't think these links would represent useful supplemental resources for an encyclopedic summary of the topic, which I believe is a baseline evaluation that should apply to all of our content, even the outward-facing links. Clearly we will, with some frequency, be covering the content of Trump's tweets for at least the next four years--although, hopefully in a majority of cases, only after they have been covered reliable secondary sources. But just pointing at the accounts strikes me as an indiscriminate and context-less offering just for the sake of promoting everything the man has (or will) say on the account, without any encyclopedic framing. It will also open the door on validating social media accounts as de-facto acceptable links in other articles and in other contexts, an issue that I feel the broader community ought to weigh in on before greenlighting.

It's a tough call for me, because I generally view the external links section as a field for assisting our readers in reaching information that they may be interested in and which shouldn't be included in a Wikipedia article for any of a number of reasons, but on the balance of factors, I think this particular variety of link should be avoided. At the very least, we absolutely should not list it as an "official" page for Donald Trump, as this could easily mislead the reader into thinking it is an official instrument of the head of state and government of the United States, which it absolutely is not. Snow ^{let's rap} 05:17, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose Per Snow, very well stated. I have read all of the arguments and find this a slippery slope that could create a bad precedent for the encyclopedia.  g@rycompugeek  talk 12:53, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

While I totally appreciate the slippery slope argument, it can also be contended that our beloved encyclopedia should evolve with the times and reflect current means of communication. In 2005 your identity was a web site, in 2015 it's a social media profile. I believe that infoboxes about notable persons should list one social media account of their subject; it's usually fairly obvious to determine which platform is the subject's main outlet. Maybe a debate on Template talk:Infobox person would be the better venue? — JFG ^talk 14:23, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Yes it would be.  g@rycompugeek  talk 18:41, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

As an aside, I'm not sure the word evolve fits. Evolution generally moves toward more complex forms. I wouldn't characterize communication via tweet rants as evolving. An editor on one of the political pages suggests we stop using the "obsolete" NYTimes or WaPo as RS and start using far-left/right wing "news" sites since this is where younger people get their news. Evolution is slow partly because most changes fail, allowing the few that are actual improvements to thrive. Objective3000 (talk) 14:34, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Regardless of any editor's individual judgment on the validity of "tweet rants", the issue of documenting the preferred public outlets representing notable people is a legitimate question for the wider Wikipedian community to ponder… I for one would consider Edward Snowden's Twitter feed as highly relevant to his biography and infobox. There has been a similar debate for inanimate objects such as space probes, although that's a bit more far-fetched. Regarding your discussion of RS, I think the current guidelines are fine. — JFG ^talk 14:54, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Snowden as his situation allows little other communication. Trump has pretty much all communication mechanisms at his disposal as he sits in the bully pulpit. And, I'm fine with current RS guidelines. Objective3000 (talk) 15:18, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

• Support - Assuming that Donald Trump on Twitter is a red link, the bare minimum would be inclusion of the Twitter feed, which is part of his essential essence. Carrite (talk) 15:09, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
• Strong support for Twitter, due to the importance of this form communication from the subject of this article; weak support for the others. Deli nk (talk) 15:27, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose based more or less on what Snow says above. The purpose of wikipedia is primarily to provide encyclopedic information, or information which would be of use to individuals seeking what is basically encyclopedic information, which is what so far as I can tell external links are supposed to provide. Few if any social networking sites provide such information, and much of the information that they might contain which might be useful to someone seeking encyclopedic information will probably be presented without clear context as to what is being said. If information on one of those sites is clearly of encyclopedic utility, I have very very little doubt that rather quickly some more reliable source will discuss it, and very possibly even quote in toto. John Carter (talk) 18:19, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
• Support. Summoned by bot. Given Trump's well-known and widely reported use of social media I think such links are both encyclopedic and necessary.

Coretheapple (talk) 21:44, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

• Support per WP:ELOFFICIAL LavaBaron (talk) 01:24, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
• Support Summoned by bot. I am with Coretheapple no this one - Trump's made it pretty apparent that social media is the most effective way for him to get his message across to the people of the world. While I think it may be inappropriate to cite his social media in the body of the article, I think at the very least it is worth having his social media accounts listed as external links at the bottom of the page. Cheers Comatmebro User talk:Comatmebro 21:04, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
• Support It's useful for people to have links to his social media there, so they don't have to go to his website. It would only add a few lines, and wouldn't crowd anything up. _{Adotchar| reply here} 21:35, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
• Support for Twitter, given the amount of coverage it receives. Oppose for the remainder as there's been no substantive argument for why they are in any way remarkable. TimothyJosephWood 16:58, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
• Support - WP:ELOFFICIAL trumps WP:ELNO#social (no pun intended). Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 17:47, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
• I lean towards qualified "support" because it's already clear that these newsfeeds will be favoured over traditional news briefings to journalists. Thus we are almost certainly witnessing a structural change. However, I wouldn't want the use of such links in this article to be a carte blanche for adding them all over the place. What about a formal trial period of, say, six months, with a review on this talkpage at that time? Just one question for the technically informed here: are such link targets stable? Tony (talk) 05:50, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
• Support for Twitter. I agree with the supporters about the relevance to the subject's biography due to the extensive usage of the website and the notoriety of the posts made on it. Saturnalia0 (talk) 09:17, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
• Support for twitter. Trump's use of twitter should be discussed in the article. It is part of many of the key themes of the campaign, and continues to be a unique aspect of his communication with the American electorate. Linking it is linking a unique primary document, rather than a dogpile list of links. Oppose adding facebook, et al. for the rationale that they did not play this unique role. I understand the WP:ELIMOFFICIAL arguments and respect them and, to be sure, I agree I wouldn't want it to be precedent for other pages, but, again, Trump's twitter is unique. Chris vLS (talk) 06:51, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
• Support - Summoned by bot. As Chris vLS noted, I too understand the WP:ELNO argument however, the policy does state that we should "generally avoid" providing external links to social networking sites. "Generally avoid" gives some flexibility for situations like this. Because Trump has specifically stated that he intends to use his social media accounts as a means to communicate with the public, this is absolutely relevant and his accounts are worth linking. What harm does it do including them? Meatsgains (talk) 06:56, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
• Support . We always give the official or principal social media account, regardless of the importance or unimportance of the person,so we unquestionably should do so here. Whether we should include others, depends on their significance; we don't do it as a matter of course. We frequently do for entertainment figures, or others whose media presence is a large part of their importance, so I consider it appropriate here also. DGG ( talk ) 23:56, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
• Support for Twitter, with other social media to be examined on a case by case basis. Mr. Trump uses his social media accounts, Twitter in particular, as instruments for direct communication with the public. He has already made important announcements regarding the form of his future administration and foreign policy via this means. IMHO WP:NOEL was not intended to be applied as strictly as some of the oppose votes seem to believe. Given the degree to which he uses it, and what it is being used for I think failing to link at least his twitter account would violate both longstanding precedent and commonsense. For those appealing to a more rigorist interpretation of NOEL we could also cite WP:COMMONSENSE. Further, I endorse the above comments by Chris vLS and DGG. -Ad Orientem (talk) 00:19, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
• Support Twitter for now, as being plainly relevant and a high profile presence. Oppose the others as much less significant. Trump is known for his Tweets. Guy (Help!) 10:34, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
• Support as to Twitter. As per other commenters, his user of Twitter is a matter of considerable news attention. This is what External Links is for. Neutral as to other social media. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:32, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose, link spam and promotional advertising for a particular purpose, violates WP:NPOV. Sagecandor (talk) 23:05, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

• Very reluctantly support inclusion of twitr (only), due to exceptional special circumstances. Primary official website of Donald Trump is www.donaldjtrump.com, but only since early 2015.[18] It existed since 2007, but as a private website and/or email-only domain name,[19] and thus as a *website* has always and only been a campaign-website, not a personal official page. Primary official website of Presidential transition of Donald Trump is www.greatAgain.gov, but only since November 2016. Primary official website of The Trump Organization is www.trump.com -- but none of these (donaldjtrump/greatagain/trump.com) currently link to his twitr and fbook feeds. Nor have they ever done so, that I could tell. With beyonce we link only to www.beyonce.com, because her main website links to her social media accounts. With Tom Hanks we do NOT link to his official website (he may not have one), and we do NOT link to his 12m-follower twitr nor his 7m-likes fbook ... which is probably INCORRECT because although those are not encyclopedic content, neither in beyonce.com! ELs are supposed to be "helpful to the reader, minimal [in number], meritable, and directly relevant". Linking to Tom Hanks's fbook-or-twitr would be helpful (readers would want it), minimal (no official website), and directly relevant (about Hanks), but might not be "meritable" since they are technically unofficial (albeit blue-check-verified) and violate WP:LINKSTOAVOID #10. So what is the deciding factor? Sources almost never mention that Tom Hanks has a twitr URL, google-news search returns 24 hits.[20] Donald Trump is a similar case: effectively he has no official website (despite his corp-job site and his guv-job site and his campaign-site) which links to his twitr, and if anything realDonaldTrump *is* the closest thing he has to an official website. Linking to Trump's twitr would be minimal (because no 'official' one links to it), as well as directly relevant and 'helpful' to the readership (they will want it). And there is merit, which overrides LINKSTOAVOID#10 and the unofficial nature, because google-news has 1400+ hits.[21] Reliable sources pay attention to Trump's twitr feed, but not to Tom Hanks's twitr feed. Since no "official" Trump website links to his twitr, and since his twitr is close to being his quasi-official internet homepage, we should link to it. Still support keeping www.greatagain.gov as the infobox-link (until January when it will become whitehouse.gov) since that is what MOST readers will be here looking to find, but the twitr should be in the EL section... and probably as the first external link, followed by his transition-team-link www.greatagain.gov (his twitr is ALL about him whereas the transition team is mostly about cabinet-picks and only secondarily about Trump qua Trump). 47.222.203.135 (talk) 10:26, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and not a vehicle for BLPs to use "as instruments for direct communication with the public". Jschnur (talk) 00:56, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Closing the RfC

The RfC template has been removed as the discussion period has timed out. (30 days) Furthermore, it seems there have been no additional comments since December 19, more than one week ago. Should we ask somebody to close this discussion? Edge3 (talk) 05:02, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Done.[22] Now #31 in line. I recently saw an RfC at Village Pump hatted at the time the close was requested,[23] and that stood until the close 5 days later.[24] I guess everybody agreed that there was nothing else that could be said, and/or was preoccupied with the holidays. I don't see why an RfC should be shut down after 30 days, although it sometimes takes up to a month for one to be closed after the request has been submitted (I think that one got expedited because it was a high-profile one). ―Mandruss ☎ 07:40, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

FYI I had already filed a close request a bit earlier. They have now been merged. — JFG ^talk 09:57, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

The link to the Twitter account is already included in the "External Links" section, and based on my rough reading of the discussion here, consensus seems to be strongly in favor of including the Twitter link (at a minimum). Could it be the case that we have arrived at "implicit" consensus to show the Twitter link?

Obviously, we would prefer to have an experienced editor or admin close this RfC formally. But the RfC closure requests seem to be backlogged, and if an admin is not available, then perhaps we can move on without a formal closure. Thoughts? Edge3 (talk) 19:39, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

RfC on including "false" in the lede

The current wording has been in the lede since September and was based on this RfC: Talk:Donald Trump/Archive 26#RfC: Donald Trump's false campaign statements. Recent discussion here has suggested it may be time to take another look at that wording. Based on that discussion I propose four options. (The number of references may be excessive; that could be trimmed before putting it into the article.) MelanieN (talk) 23:44, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Options

Option 1: Keep the existing wording:

Many of his statements in interviews, on social media, and at campaign rallies were controversial or false.

Option 2: Remove "false" from the existing wording.

Many of his statements in interviews, on social media, and at campaign rallies were controversial.

Option 3: Proposed new wording:

Trump made many controversial statements, and a relatively large number of them compared to other candidates were evaluated by fact-checking services as false.

Option 4: Same as proposed new wording #3, but with an additional sentence (proposing two versions, exact wording to be worked out if this option is chosen):

4_A. Partly as a result, and partly due to his existing status as a celebrity, Trump received more media coverage than any other candidate.

4_B. Along with his existing status as a celebrity, such statements resulted in Trump receiving more media coverage than any other candidate."^{(Added Dec.15th)}

Option 5:

Trump made false statements 78% of the time according to the Washington Post. (see Washington Post reference listed in the box below) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Usernamen1 (talk • contribs)

Option 6: NEW Same as #1, but with attribution (non-WikiVoice) due to the generalization and quantification:

Many of his statements in interviews, on social media, and at campaign rallies have been characterized as controversial or false.

NEW

Late addition: Option 1A

Many of his statements in interviews, on social media, and at campaign rallies were controversial or false.

Late addition: Option 1B

Many of his statements in interviews, on social media, and at campaign rallies were controversial or false but those news sources do not accuse Hillary Clinton of controversial or false statements.

Option 1B is to provide context and because I believe Wikipedia editors may be trying to make that inference. There could be an option 1C that adds "but those news sources also accuse Hillary Clinton of controversial and false statements" but I don't know if that is true. Usernamen1 (talk) 18:39, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

References

Survey

You can comment briefly on each option if you wish, such as "prefer option #X", "option #X is acceptable", "Oppose option #X". Threaded discussion should go in the next section for ease of reading.

• Option #1 as that best fits WP:NPOV since multiple high quality WP:RS reflect that view. We can cobble at least a dozen sources to support this. Would compromise with option #3 if necessary, but the excessive wordiness and qualifications seems too much. Strong oppose to #2 as it is, at best, incomplete. EvergreenFir (talk) 23:49, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option 2 I think the word "false" may well be excessive, as to declare something "false" means, more or less, that the person/entity doing the review made a thorough review of all relevant facts and determined that the claims were, in fact, false. Unfortunately, in a lot of cases of politics, it isn't the case that all relevant facts are necessarily always available. I might also support option 3, if perhaps the word "false" were changed to "unsupported," which I think is probably a more accurate description of the conclusions of the reviews which have been made. John Carter (talk) 00:19, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Follow-up: The phrasing of option 3 is unfortunately, vague. "...and a relatively large number of them compared to other candidates" leaves open exactly what are we comparing, and would be improved by saying something like "compared to the statements of other candidates," or "compared to those of other candidates," or similar. 4, being dependent on 3, I can't support based on problems with 3. 6 might work, but might need some clarification that it is referring to statements he made in the campaign, unless data as it comes in supports that his accuracy remains as weak as it had been during the period between the election and being swore in and, possibly, in office. John Carter (talk) 15:41, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

• Option #1 - as EvergreenFir said, this is amply supported by multiple, high-quality, reliable-sources, and is extremely important in the context of Trump's career. The historic significance is underscored by the large number of sources describing the level and consistency of the false statements as unprecedented. To omit it would be extremely misguided. Like EF, I would compromise with Option #3 if necessary, but it is needlessly wordy. I strongly oppose #2. Neutrality^talk 05:31, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option #3 because we need to have a neutral tone. Alternatively, I wonder if an alternative to "false" could be found that better describes the issue, e.g., "unsubstantiated".--Jack Upland (talk) 09:29, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option #4 I think we should mention that they are false, as it is non a violation of neutrality policies if they are. However I do agree with that should have the extra sentence to clarify why it happened, but I believe it could be more concisely written as Partly as a result of his existing celebrity status and not as Partly as a result, and partly due to his existing status as a celebrity which was proposed. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 14:11, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option #1 It is what it is, and Wikipedia is not censored. We don't need to hide or obscure this important fact with weasel words. I acknowledge John Carter's point that some of what Trump has said (and the subsequent fact checking) is open to interpretation but there's a sufficient number of unequivocal, blatant falsehoods to warrant the current wording with no fear of bias. WaggersTALK 15:02, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option #1 Backed up by multiple WP:RS and WP:CENSOR.Casprings (talk) 15:10, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option #1 This would seem pretty straightforward. Not only is it amply supported by reliable sources, but also it has been a relatively stable sentence in a contentious article for over two months. For editors concerned with the word "false", perhaps it might be better to rewrite the sentence to instead use "falsehoods" (a common word used by fact-checking organizations). Arguments for removing "false" are pretty absurd. Multiple reliable sources over a long period support the position that Donald Trump lies on a regular basis, so I would say it is a kindness to Trump to say that many of his statements are "false" or "falsehoods" when it is clearly understating the egregiousness of his legendary mendacity. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:53, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

  It's only been stable because we're not allowed to change it. I'd be edit warring right now if it wouldn't result in a ban. Morphh ^(talk) 21:38, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

• Option #1 That's what the RSs say. Objective3000 (talk) 20:02, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option #1 per all of the above except the "not censored" part. This has nothing to do with WP:NOTCENSORED as I understand it. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:40, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option #3 per WP:DUE. Substantially the same as #1, but clearer. I think most readers understand that the major fact-checkers are as close to Objective Truth as we ever get, so this is not the usual attribution as "someone's opinion". They understand that those evaluations are the results of reasonably rigorous research, and that they haven't survived as major fact-checkers without fairly good track records for accuracy. Option #3 tells the reader where we got our information, and that this is not merely the consensus view of a group of Wikipedia editors. Further, the words "a relatively large number of them compared to other candidates" are important. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:14, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
• Prefer #4_B/4_A + #3, would accept #3 alone however... against #2 as whitewash, against #1 as logically a sin of false numerical equivalence, #6 is a slight improvement, #5 is good faith but suffers from over-specificity and selection bias. The fundamental bug in option#1 is that is says "many of his statements in interviews, on social media, and at campaign rallies were controversial or false" which can logically be simplified to say "many of his statements were false". The problem is not the word 'false' here, that is not disputed, the problem is the word 'many'. Compared to what? Compared to other candidates? Compared to the 1804 election when candidates were accused of being satanists? According to whom? WaPo? Rival candidates for the Republican nomination? Too many questions here. Option#2 avoids the problem, by keeping 'many' but removing 'false'. Option#4-and-#3 attempts to solve the problem, by splitting 'many...controversial' away from the 'some...false' language, which is an improvement. It is still weasel-words, but it is no longer as biased. It is hard to argue that Trump never said any outright false things, or against their being relatively enough of them that it deserves mention in the lead-paragraphs. It is *also* hard to argue that he said an EQUAL NUMBER of controversial things, as the number of things he said that were outright false; practically every single thing he said was controversial to somebody, whereas the things he said that were false did not rise to *quite* such quantitative heights. Option#1 conflates two things together, and omits that they are substantively distinct in quality AND quantity. To be crystal clear, I do not particularly care if 'some...false' is the qualifier used. I would also be happy with 'many...controversial' followed by 'an unprecedentedly vast number of...false' statements, because that gives the flavor of what we are talking about here. Trump is much more controversial than other candidates, and also much more prone to falsehoods than other candidates, not just in 2016 but in the past N generations. But it is unfair to paint his quantity of falsehoods, as being equal in number to his quantity of controversial statements. That is what option#1 does, and what option#3 (plus #4) attempts to correct. I consider this to be a question of following the WP:Accuracy_dispute guideline. Like the comment by EvergreenFir and Neutrality mention, I am happy to see the wordy choices of "a relatively large number of them compared to other candidates were evaluated by fact-checking services as false" be cut down, and I see little wrong with saying "a relatively large number of falsehoods". Or taking a cue from John Carter, "a relatively large number of unsupported statements and outright falsehoods." But the key word is 'relatively' here, and the key structural change is splitting 'false' away from 'many...controversial' as used in the just-prior sentence-clause. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 21:11, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Updated to cover #4_B, #5, and #6 (see insertions above). 47.222.203.135 (talk) 23:00, 15 December 2016 (UTC) ...oppose #1_B since it is just flat inaccurate, #1C is not an improvement because it begs the question of why the differential happened and says nothing about the steepness of the differential, plus is probably undue weight since it was Trump-versus-other-repubs for the majority of his campaign June 2015 to May 2016 and only a two-way campaign after Sanders suspended, aka June 2016 to early November 2016. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 22:15, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

• Option #6 (just added), but could agree to Option 3 and 4. Would also be fine with including fact checker attribution to 6 and I'm fine with alternative terms to false. Added a new option 6, because I didn't like any of the others. We can't leave #1 because it's in WikiVoice and the generalization of the body of statements and the selective assessment of statements is someone's judgement, which makes it subjective. It needs to be attributed outside of WikiVoice Morphh ^(talk) 21:18, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option #1, seeing as nothing seems to have changed regarding its validity. Oppose #2 strongly unless someone can demonstrate that the veracity of his statements has changed; if it hasn't WP:DUE requires the inclusion of the material. The "reference frame" of NPOV compliance (=when an article is neutral) is set by reliable sources, not by some kind of "balance". About #3, it seemed to me that the veracity of claims is based on comparing the number of falsehoods to the total amount of claims checked, not necessarily between candidates. #4 is claiming that the large number of falsehoods in his claims is merely a matter of the base rate fallacy, in these terms - if nobody can substantiate that the base rate fallacy is indeed the reason why so many of his statements have been deemed false, oppose #4 as a misrepresentation. #5 seems like it may run afoul of WP:UNDUE unless that percentage - and only that percentage - is discussed by many other sources. About #6, I don't think the comments on the veracity of his statements fall under the scope of WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV at all. And if memory serves, when people talk about Trump's statements being often incorrect they are talking about the statements being incorrect, not just about people calling them incorrect. So unless that memory is incorrect, oppose #6 as well as a misrepresentation. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 22:31, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option #6. Not #1. Historical note: Trump purposely made many statements that were false, outlandish, and offensive so as to divert Clinton into focusing her campaign message on his temperament rather than on economic change, causing her to lose the Rust Belt. Michael Scherer, "Donald Trump: The Person of the Year", Time, December 19, 2016. --Dervorguilla (talk) 02:23, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option #1 because it's true and not any less neutral than the other options. However, I would accept option #2 as well because "controversial" can encompass the falsehood of many of his statements in his campaign. κατάσταση 04:07, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option 2 - Though option 6 would also handle the statement being too broad and vague a statement phrased as fact -- which does not fit with WP:V where support is Op-Ed viewpoint expressions. Actually my impression was that Hillary was the one more characterized as 'deceptive' and that Trump was more 'controversial or offensive' (and sometimes just called nuts). Markbassett (talk) 05:58, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option 1 and don't really think this RfC is warranted since we already had one.Volunteer Marek (talk) 07:05, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option 1 It is certainly well-sourced and the mainstream media agrees fully, which is how Wikipedia works. Plus, it highlights for the reader and draws Attention with a capital 'A' to the in general political sensibilities of Wikipedia editors, their consensus and their completely understandable animosity towards pretty much everything Trump says. Although we cannot explicitly alert the reader to the nature of Wikipedia consensus and how it is reflected in political articles, indirect indications such as this will suffice as an alternative and serve a useful purpose. Marteau (talk) 14:12, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option 1, largely per EvergreenFir. Option 3 is not terrible, but it's wordy and amounts to putting the source into the sentence, which shouldn't be necessary. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:37, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
• not option 4 Due to the heated nature of this talk page, I am now limiting comments only to the first 1-2 sentences of the lede except I am making a small exception. Option 4 raises issues that appear to be opinion. That is not to say that other options contain opinion but attention was given to other non-celebrity candidates. Usernamen1 (talk) 04:15, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option 2 - It's is not our role to call out things as "false" or "true", it's not even for us to say that things are "controversial". These are opinions, and carry that kind of weight when we use those phrases. We can point out that people disagree with Donald Trump or have made claims to the contrary of what he has said, but any phrasing such as the words I put in quotes denotes a kind of opinion, a choosing of sides as to who is right and who is wrong. Even Hitler's Wikipedia page introduction does not use the word "controversial" to describe him, it relies on facts of what was done and by whom and to whom. Simply say that people disagree with Donald Trump and have opposed him, and have done with it. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 04:24, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option Zero – Remove the sentence entirely. Given the walls of text consumed in this new debate as well as in prior ones, this sentence looks irremediably flawed. The article text in the campaign section accurately explains his way of speaking, the exaggerations and untruths, the findings from fact-checkers and the impact of this unprecedented approach on Trump's coverage, with the New York Times going so far as admitting to drop "normal" journalism ethics because Trump's campaign was "not normal". I have not seen a proposal yet which would accurately reflect this part of the article contents in the lead section, as we should. Instead, we've got this blanket characterization that "many statements were false" backed by 5 different citations (as if we have to prove it to readers) and no space for a finer analysis. Yes, Trump says weird things, which contributed to his popularity and his eventual election, but also to the backlash against him. No, his words should not be taken literally, and Wikipedia should not fuel the fire of controversy. — JFG ^talk 07:45, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option 1/4: Preferably without "controversial", as that is a separate issue which is harder to quantify objectively - i.e., something like "He frequently made false statements in interviews, on social media, and at campaign rallies. Partly as a result, and partly due to his existing status as a celebrity, Trump received more media coverage than any other candidate." zzz (talk) 09:00, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option 4 is my preference, Option 3 is also fine. I don't much care for #1 (because it generates too much argument) or #6 (we don't have to soften "controversial" by saying "characterized as", everybody agrees his statements were and are controversial), and I oppose #2 (because it omits "false") and #5 (inappropriate for the lede). --MelanieN (talk) 20:16, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option 4B - This wording contrasts Trump with other politicians in the past and explains why his "False" statements are important. By leaving "Opinion 1", it creates an illusion that Trump is the only candidate who had said controversial and/or false statements. Yoshiman6464 (talk) 02:52, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option 2 as the term "false" as it used is POV. The fact that we even have this discussion points out that "false" is not unequivocal. It is by definition, therefore, a non-neutral POV. That cannot be erased by how passionately people hold that view so it needs to be removed. --DHeyward (talk) 03:20, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option 1 as it is concise and accurately states what fact checkers and major RS have said. Strong Oppose to Option 2 as it is misleading and post-factual.Daaxix (talk) 05:10, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option 3 or Option 4. Option 1; WP:DUE. Option 5 is inappropriate, Option 6; same reason as Option 1. _{Adotchar| reply here} 10:32, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option #2 or just remove that line totally. Something like this would never get into obama's page that he lied about obamacare. (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2013/dec/12/lie-year-if-you-like-your-health-care-plan-keep-it/) KMilos (talk) 16:11, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
  • WP:NOTAFORUM, WP:OTHERSTUFF. !Votes which are not based on policy but merely personal preferences are appropriately discounted.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:05, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
    • It's a relevant example of Wikipedia's WP:SYSTEMICBIAS that Obama's "Lie of the Year" award would never be mentioned in his BLP. Why not hold all BLPs to the same standard?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 05:17, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
• 2 or 6. Saying that a lot of his statements were controversial already strongly implies that the statements were considered by many people to include false material. But if we keep "false" in the lead, it should not be in wikivoice (even better than that would be to replace the controversial word "false" with a specific example or two of his most egregious falsities).Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:35, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
• 1, supported by reliable sources, no need to sugar-coat it. 201.27.125.81 (talk) 03:08, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option 1 - The preponderance of sources have not backtracked on their original reporting and fact checking in which they concluded that Trump has made many false statements. In the original RfC, fully 33 editors supported the current wording, and their arguments were seen to have more weight than the 21 who opposed it, by a large margin. The only thing that has changed since September is that Trump is now the President-elect. That fact does not change anything about how we should describe the conclusions reached by numerous reputable sources. Sources continue to amplify the fact that Trump "has little regard for the facts" [25]; that he continues to make false statements [26][27][28]; and in opinions expressed in reputable publications, that he outright lies.[29][30][31][32][33][34][35]. Our responsibility to our readership is to present unvarnished, verifiable facts without sweetening their meaning with euphemisms (option 2), and word salads and equivocation (options 3, 4, and 6). It's ironic that our definition of reliable sources is based on reputation for fact checking and accuracy, yet while no one has challenged the reliability of these many available sources, they still express doubt that the sources actually checked facts. Astonishing.- MrX 15:43, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

• Option 1 This is a declamatory statement of mainstream-documented fact. False is a factual statement, not a moral judgment. It's not clear why we are revisiting this, and I hope we don't make a habit of it. SPECIFICO talk 21:11, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option 1 or Option 3, both are well referenced and well documented and matter of fact and satisfy WP:Identifying reliable sources and WP:Verifiability and WP:NPOV. Sagecandor (talk) 23:07, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option 1 - existing wording is concise and accurate. --Pete (talk) 01:09, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option 1 If people are uncomfortable with the word 'false," they should take issue with the source of the statements, not dissemble reality to suit their comfort levels. RL have been overwhelmingly clear in documenting the atomic basis of Trump's many lies. This wording wouldn't even be controversial hadn't he become a politician and improbably enough, the presumed president elect. (I'm user AgentOrangeTabby, but can't reset my PW right now). 71.91.30.188 (talk) 02:49, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option 2 or remove entirely. Unnecessary non-neutral commentary, exists only to poison the well. -70.162.247.233 (talk) 07:11, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
• None; my thoughts mirror JFG's almost to the word. FoCuS contribs; talk to me! 14:22, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option 1 - Concise, supported by reliable sources, and gives WP:DUE weight reflecting the relative importance of this topic. Option 2 and 6 are acceptable, but I still favor Option 1. Options 3-5 are too lengthy for the lead. If we cannot reach consensus, then I would also be fine with removing the sentence entirely. Edge3 (talk) 03:43, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option 1 There is no question about this. There has already been plenty of discussion about this and the previous RFC. Cited from multiple RS, obvious, factual. Do I really need to go into detail here? It's the truth and we don't need to whitewash it. Centerone (talk) 08:33, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option 2 This is a POV violation that, even if it may be true, could go in the header of any politician's article, such as other 2016 US election candidates, yet Trump's is the only one that has it. --Baladoxox (talk) 03:26, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
• Option 3 (See comments below): It should not be in the lead while not covered in the body of the article, or at least linked to, and None of the above is not an actual option. Because of fact that, "Trump made controversial statements that have been attributed to falsehoods.", it should be covered in this article, just not using the word "Many". Apparently #1 is the consensus choice but only until another RFC that will eventually come to pass. Using this sentence in the WP:Lead section ("Apart from basic facts, significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article"), is controversial. What are we using as justification that it is a "basic fact" for inclusion in the lead only? There are a multitude of reasonings (policies and guidelines) against using the apparent editorial consensus wording "Many/many", and WP:Bias is only one. Even "IF" there are 560 (I consider this "MANY") false statements (from a source), using "Many" would beg someone to count (certainly tag the word) how many statements he made overall, to quantify "Many". There is reason to question five references (this is a WP:BLP) as being "many", because even fifty references, (out of how many references concerning statements he made?) is considered subjective. Why do we need it in the lead at all? Otr500 (talk) 19:50, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

@Otr500: Seems to me you are really advocating "option zero" to remove this sentence entirely from the lead, unless a lot more of Trump's discourse evaluation is included in the article. As I noted earlier, the text we have in the article is much more nuanced than the lead sentence, however most editors don't seem to mind the discrepancy. — JFG ^talk 08:59, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

One would think it would be a given, content not being in the lead (option zero) not covered in the article. Since that option is not on the table, likely from the previous discussion(s), it is apparent editors want it included. At least one editor correctly but unsuccessfully argued my point, that content, especially when controversial, should not be in the lead when not in the body of the article. I think that consensus, or WP:IAR should be examined very closely concerning this and it "should be" far more critical concerning a WP:BLP. It is my opinion that any previous talks, especially when covered by DS, should be decided erring towards full BLP protection. That does not appear to be the case here, and I was not involved in previous discussions. IF we use IAR as reasoning, that it is to make article improvements, then I would think we are sliding down a slope that consensus trumps policies and guidelines, because exceptions can be used as reasoning. Problems are that, 1)- this is a high profile BLP, 2)- certainly controversial and, 3)- covered under WMF madates subject to DS. This would seem to be enough reasoning that these discussions should have been moot yet here we are. In light of this, I suppose, we are left with capitulation and collaboration, at least until others deem it expediant to "follow the rules".

That content has been allowed in the lead (not covered in the article), by silence, it would seem, would not matter when such content is contested with valid reasoning including policies and guidelines. Since none of the above matters I argue that we should try to make any editorial violations worded as best as possible realizing that consensus can change. The word "Most" (editors) is a lot like "Many" (sources) and subject to vague interpretaion. I suppose I missed being placed in the field with "most" other editors. I just don't understand why something as relevant as up to 560 "lies", "falsehoods", or whatever we choose to call them, are not important to be in the article but "MUST" be included in the lead, and it is so important it has to be in the third paragraph above Trump won the general election.

Anyway, you guys have fun with this. I think I am going to bow out and go visit some of the other 5 or 6 million articles where, if nothing else, common sense might have a better chance of prevailing Otr500 (talk) 15:35, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

• Option 1 is the only neutral-point-of-view option. The other options are all clear non-neutral point-of-view pushing. Gouncbeatduke (talk) 00:59, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Discussion

• Irrespective of references, "false" inevitably reads like the judgement or opinion of the person who wrote the article. For this reason, wording such as "were evaluated by fact-checking services as false" is preferable. 109.146.248.18 (talk) 03:06, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Should we take this as a comment in favor of option 3? --MelanieN (talk) 18:08, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I interpret it as meaning "definitely against option#1" with some implied lean towards #3, but they might also be happy with #4 or #5 (they don't say). 47.222.203.135 (talk) 20:29, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

• Suggestion – RfCs with several options to choose from rarely end up with a convincing consensus. I would suggest proposing only one variant. Alternately, a more elegant solution might be to remove the iron-clad "this wording has consensus" notice in the code, as it refers to a campaign-time RfC and it is obvious from the discussion above that consensus has changed to a point where there is literally neither consensus today for that wording nor against it. Hence I would suggest closing this RfC as an inefficient process and just let editors play with the wording as they please. Sure, there might be some warring but there also might emerge some creative solution acceptable by most editors. — JFG ^talk 07:33, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

  I agree that it's going to be difficult for a new consensus to emerge with a multiple choice RfC, but has the past has shown us, editors frequently make ad hoc proposals in RfCs anyway. I firmly disagree with letting editors play with the wording, given how difficult it was to arrive at the current consensus, and the recent influx of WP:SPA and sockpuppet accounts.- MrX 14:33, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

  Agree with MrX. Something this contentious needs the structure and order of the RfC process, and letting editors play with the content often results in the content being determined by those with the most endurance, not a good way to determine content. If the RfC could be better framed, start over and reframe it. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:51, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Also, to abandon any consensus version and just let editors "play with the wording as they please" would be incompatible with the Discretionary Sanctions in effect at this page. --MelanieN (talk) 18:05, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I think the RfC being held is just fine, although the outcome will be ambiguous (because people will leave short comments only giving their opinion on one aspect). Once this RfC is over, rather than implementing immediately whatever the closer believes was the outcome, it might be a good idea to do as JFG suggests, and have a yes-or-no type of RfC on whatever language is the "winner" from this multi-choice RfC process. We may end up with option#1 being the winner from this discussion, and then have a yes-or-no discussion about whether option#1 is still the consensus... and if *that* future discussion ends in no consensus for change, well then, in some ways we wasted our time. But simply having the shortlist of four (or five) options, that THIS current RfC has formulated, is itself helpful; it narrows down the problems people have with the extant September-consensus wording. Which will be useful a year from now, when and if this comes up again. Nobody said wikipedia is an efficient process! JFG should know that from participating in earlier talkpage discussions here.  :-) Sometimes wikipedia takes a long time to get anywhere. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 20:29, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Sometimes wikipedia takes a long time to get anywhere - Yes, and that's even without requiring separate debates about whether a consensus is in fact a consensus. That's probably why that is never done (to my finite knowledge, that is). ―Mandruss ☎ 20:46, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes 47.222.203.135 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), I know it all too well, that's part of the charm of this project… Believe it or not, some topics are thornier than Trumpianisms. The epic New York titling debates of 2002–2016 last resulted in "no consensus on whether we have consensus to agree that there is no consensus". For your entertainment: Talk:New York/July 2016 move request. — JFG ^talk 22:25, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I stand corrected, it has been done at least once. Short of spending hours researching that at my slow reading speed, it looks to me like certain editors' disruptive refusal to accept a legitimate uninvolved close because it didn't go their way. The solution is policy that forbids that, while providing some recourse to deal with editors who show a lack of competence to close complex debates (that doesn't appear to be the case there). It is axiomatic (but invisible to many) that inadequate process rules result in monumental time sinks around relatively unimportant issues like the title of a single article. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:23, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

• Agree - don't like how it was set up. It guarantees that it stays the same. I added Option 6, but not sure if it's too late for people to review it. The problem with current wording should have been laid out as you can see, people are just going to say it's supported by multiple RS without seeing the problem that the current wording violates NPOV and BLP. Morphh ^(talk) 21:21, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

• About the "option 5" proposal, to cite a percentage of false statements given by one source: I think that is appropriate for the article text but not for the lede. The reason for having it in the lede is that it has been WIDELY reported, by many sources with different numerical results, but the common conclusion that the number of false statements is unusually high compared to other politicians. --MelanieN (talk) 20:41, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
• There have been suggestions to replace "false" with "unsupported" or "unsubstantiated". That would misrepresent the sources, which evaluated his false claims by the "pants on fire" standard, meaning provably false - as when he denied ever having said something that he clearly did say. --MelanieN (talk) 20:48, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
  • I think you missed the problem altogether with this RFC. The problem wasn't the word false, it was the use of WikiVoice and quantifying it with a weasel word "many", then applying it to a generalization. As many have said, the RS support that he made false statements. That's not the problem with the sentence. It's taking a judgement about those cherry picked statements and stating as fact a generalization. Morphh ^(talk) 21:45, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
• Not sure if I need to point this out, but the sources used as RS are media organizations that openly supported Clinton. And there are plenty of sources with Trump's team calling them dishonest. So it adds an additional POV element to it and I think !votes that say "the sentence is supported by the RS" should be measured when we're talking about stating this in WikiVoice. Morphh ^(talk) 02:39, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
  • I look forward to your providing equally research-based reports from independent reliable sources demonstrating that Trump did NOT, in fact, tell more lies than the other politicians in this year's contest. ("Trump's team" doesn't count. They are neither independent nor reliable. Of COURSE they disagree - what would you expect them to do?) As for the editorial position taken by the papers, that's irrelevant - as long as they are sources with a reputation for fact checking, accuracy, and independence of the news/reporting side from the editorial/opinion side. --MelanieN (talk) 04:12, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
    • MelanieN well, you could perhaps visit the Fox fact checker, but really the 'fact-checkers' are just not the level of normal journalism reputation for fact checking, accuracy, and independence you seem to think, they are just Op-Eds from external writers to the paper for example Washington Post is in DC which voted 95%+ Clinton. It's an innovative serial format to make use of web journalism, and perhaps worthy to have regular sniping at politician blurbs besides SNL, and for WP use may have WP:WEIGHT of prominence. But it's not due for much more credence and there are enough criticisms on the web about bias and folks taking this too seriously somewhat mentioned at Fact checking. There's just no overall evaluation, or consistent stated basis of evaluation or even of which statements to pick -- it's apparently just whatever of the copious choices spouted that a writer thought most entertaining to review and if it's not badly written ranting or making stuff up it might go forward. I don't even have to go into the fine difference between 'fact', 'evidence' and 'truth' here -- I just have to point to RS sections on WP:NEWSORG and WP:BIASED. Markbassett (talk) 06:47, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
      • No, fact checkers are NOT "Op-Eds". Sort of the opposite in fact. This betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how we approach sources. Also, this "Washington Post is in DC which voted 95%+ Clinton" is just ridiculous. Are you seriously saying that we should judge the reliability of sources based on what state/area they're located in? Might want to re-read WP:RSN. In light of such comments your !vote should be appropriately discounted since it is based on complete ignorance of policy.Volunteer Marek (talk) 07:08, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

• Volunteer Marek I'll respond in some detail. Fact checkers are opinion articles that should follow guidelines according to my cited WP:RS section WP:NEWSORG. I'm pointing out that stating this line as an article opinion (or else not having the word inquestion) would be more faithful to the WP guidelines and faithfully setting out the cites and that it is only a particular kind of cite involved. Particularly applicable of WP:NEWSORG I think are the bits

"Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (editorials) or outside authors (op-eds) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact. "

"Whether a 'specific' news story is reliable for a specific fact or statement in a Wikipedia article should be assessed on a case-by-case basis."

"One signal that a news organization engages in fact-checking and has a reputation for accuracy is the publication of corrections."

And as an opinion of statements the WP:RS section WP:BIASED also applies, note particularly "Wikipedia articles are required to present a neutral point of view. However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective." and "When dealing with a potentially biased source, editors should consider whether the source meets the normal requirements for reliable sources, such as editorial control and a reputation for fact-checking. Editors should also consider whether the bias makes it appropriate to use in-text attribution to the source."

• For the Washington Post ... allegations of it as biased or part of general media bias has been mentioned in prominent places such as Media_bias_in_the_United_States#Liberal_bias and MediaMatters.org, so regardless of what you or I may feel, the WP:BIASED guide says to attribute the statement. It seems loosely credible -- the paper is writing from a DC-located viewpoint, has an editorial board that endorsed Clinton including with statements like Trump was "bigoted, ignorant, deceitful, narcissistic, vengeful, petty, misogynistic, fiscally reckless, intellectually lazy, contemptuous of democracy and enamored of America's enemies," and said if he's elected president, "he would pose a grave danger to the nation and the world" here. Though the paper also noted she had issues and printed things like that she tells dreadful lies. (Being a DC paper, perhaps critiquing her skill relative to the rest of DC rather than condemning it ? ;-) )
• The Washington post fact-checker series associated to the paper differs from say the Politifact in that it's a 2-reporter series with a link for outsiders to provide topic suggestions that they pick at will from, includes numerous unrated articles and sort of public information items ('guide to detecting fake news', 'everything you need to know about obamacare', 'what may come up in the debate', etcetera). What they say about how they try to run it is as a 'reasonable person' feeling. They also state that differences in coverage for Trump versus Clinton do exist, with more looking at him since he said more. Demonstrably they only did 3 looks at a Clinton line in October for example...
• Secondary views that are negative about their accuracy have been given -- both structurally that the concept is mostly to criticise which drives into inappropriately doing scores - like rating a SNL skit - or indulging in soapboxing like denigrating Cruz saying (correctly) that the tax code is longer than the bible with "This is a nonsense fact." The George Mason University study about Politifact would seem also true here. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:13, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

• MelanieN, The sentence doesn't say anything about other candidates, nor what statements were selected and analyzed. If we were looking at a specific lie, then we could try to find a source that gives a different POV or accept it as such. What we have here is a generalization and quantification, which is fine and IMO an accurate one, but it doesn't make that judgement a undisputable fact. Trump's team can absolutely give their POV on any particular example to say how they think the statement was taken out of context or whatever. Turning it into a generalization can only be combatted with equal generalization, such as the media is dishonest. And there is no shortage or RS on that point, particularly with regard to the RS being used to support the statement. Morphh ^(talk) 14:20, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

• Question about option #6, "have been characterized as controversial or false": I don't think anyone contests that they were controversial, do they? I think it is only "false" that is at issue here. --MelanieN (talk) 04:20, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

  In today's highly polarized American politics environment, it's difficult for a high-level politician to open their mouth and say anything remotely meaningful without it being controversial. I would consider "controversial" a low-value word there, almost noise. In my opinion the word does not convey the meaning supported by RS and appears to be a compromise word that could be dropped with little or no cost to the article. Not that I'm suggestiing yet another option, that can wait for another day and another discussion. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:31, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

  MelanieN - I think 'characterized' is supported as it means only that something was prominently said which is where multiple prominent op-eds would WP:V even where the content is disputed or coming from biased sources. It also is reflecting as noteable a characteristization that it was not the usual platitudes. I think even the Trump camp has characterized the statements as controversial, and even in WP discussions so ironically 'controversial' seems non-controversial. Markbassett (talk) 06:23, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm absolutely okay with Wikipedia's voice being used to say "false" because it is an undisputed fact. We don't need "the sky has been characterized as appearing to be blue." -- Scjessey (talk) 13:54, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Is your measure of "many" (a large number relative to truthful statements) a subjective term an undisputed fact? You're using an assessment of select statements (likely controversial ones) which were analyzed by fact-checkers. That's fine, but you can't use that stick to measure the body of his statements without any attribution in WikiVoice. You can't call someone a habitual liar in a BLP in WikiVoice without it being an absolute undisputed fact - like the capital of France is Paris type of fact, not the weasel worded generalized quantified BS we have now. Morphh ^(talk) 14:34, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

This sounds like an argument for option #3 (and I see Mandruss has changed his opinion from #1 to #3). Option 3 cites exactly where we are getting the information - from fact-checking organizations - and the reader can evaluate how much weight they give to the reports of fact-checking organizations. --MelanieN (talk) 15:13, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

I voted for #3 as well and I like the #4 addition. I think Dervorguilla added an excellent quote from Time Magazine that is appropriate for the sentence context. My thought with adding 6, was that it was a minimal change to 1 which would make it compliant with policy by taking it out of WikiVoice. Morphh ^(talk) 15:24, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, Morphh! But it would be more accurate to say, "Dervorgulla's excellent paraphrase from Time magazine..." :) --Dervorguilla (talk) 05:09, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

@Morphh: My measure of "many" is an undisputed fact. Trump makes false statements more often than truthful statements. In fact, the scope of his lying has been described as unprecedented. Many reliable sources (example) go so far as to state lying was part of Trump's campaign strategy. The language we are considering with "option 1" is very generous, because it should say "most of his statements in interviews, on social media, and at campaign rallies were lies." -- Scjessey (talk) 18:51, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

@Scjessey: I think a reasonable "reality check" would also indicate that we should probably best avoid using clearly prejudicial or judgmental terms, like "lies" without the best conceivable sourcing, particularly when dealing with a BLP who has a tendencey to sue. Some of the other comments above by you, such as the one about how he makes more false statements than true ones, seem to ascribe to you a truly amazing degree of knowledge regarding every word spoken by the man, as it would only be someone who has such amazingly detailed knowledge who would be in a position to be able to determine the relative frequency of accurate and inaccurate statements. And the only "reliable source" among the "many" you allege exist about how "lying" was a part of the campaign strategy is from an editorial, which we rarely if ever consider truly "reliable" for anything other than the opinions expressed.

I am no fan of Trump myself, far from it, but I have to say that some of the comments being made here seem to me to be possibly be problematic in and of themselves, and might merit some sort of review, particularly if they assert things which, apparently, even the sources produced don't necessarily assert. John Carter (talk) 19:37, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

It's not me making these statements. It's reliable sources. I linked to several in my comment. Reliable sources almost universally agree that Trump's public statements are more often lies than truths. That's just a documented fact. That's why I chose "option 1", because any watering down of "false" would be an egregious failure of our duty to the project. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:54, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

I disagree that #3 waters anything down; if anything, it adds weight to the statement. It is not the usual hedging that we associate with attribution. I ask that you consider my !vote argument with an open mind. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:15, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Scjessey - re whether "undisputed fact"... Plainly 'false' is disputed even inside the current TALK. More of interest for article phrasing seems whether it is improperly stating an evaluation as an objective fact, is too vague such as whether this mixes in hyperbole and stupidity or which flavor of 'false' or what percentage of true there is, is unclear why the norm of a politician deception is noteworthy for this particular case, and so on. Since the article word seems putting forward a paraphrase specifically of the fact-checker content, then I think any article use of it should make that clear and reflect the WP:NEWSORG guidelines in both handling and attribution stating it as a specific kind of opinion. If the article line is looking for a generally not disputed overall characterization, then I think both parties have said 'controversial' and perhaps also 'sometimes offensive', but clearly disagree about 'false'. If you think the line is not to be only about the prominence of Politifact et al, then WP:NPOV applies and both positive and negative words would go in according to how prominent they were in use -- and I'm seeing "bigoted, ignorant, deceitful, narcissistic, vengeful, petty, misogynistic, fiscally reckless, intellectually lazy, ..." so 'false' might not make the cut.. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:25, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Markbassett, disagree that the word 'false' is disputed, by most people commenting here, at least. (If it was changed to 'lies'/'liar' then it would be disputed, especially in Scjessey's extremely loose formulation/summarization that we could theoretically say in wikipedia's voice "over 50% of sentences Trump spoke during 2015 and 2016 were lies" because that is both mathematically incorrect *and* incorrect in the connotation that every false statement by Trump was intentionally false, as opposed to being false-on-the-basis-of-unsupported-by-evidence, false-on-the-basis-of-hyperbolically-decorating-the-plain-truth-for-'impact', or the more usual sort of false-on-the-basis-of-being-incorrect-without-further-clarification-of-meaning as well as false-by-accident.) There is little question that sources *do* very much say Trump said *more* false things than other candidates, in percentage terms and in absolute terms. But it is also the case that, as you point out with your list of negative-words, the bulk of the sources tend to criticize Trump's statements in terms of how controversial they were, WAY MORE than in terms of how truthy they were. The main thrust of proposal #3, as I see it, is to stop lumping the 'many...controversial' things in together with the *different* kind of 'relatively-many...false-things-according-to-fact-checkers'. (Personally I believe we could strip the according-to-fact-checkers-bit, as long as we keep the 'relatively' qualifier.) It is correct to say that the quantity of false things was nowhere NEAR the quantity of controversial things, but it would be borderline-non-neutral to simply remove mention of the high relative percentage of false things compared to other candidates (as #2 does in my view), just as it is inaccurate to lump the false things in with the controversial things as #1 does ("Trump has many apples or bananas" is the problem here... we need wikipedia to be saying that Trump had way more apples relative to other candidates, and also-comma had more bananas plus a higher percentage of bananas relative to other candidates.) Saying that without being too wordy is difficult, but #3 is a good start. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 06:43, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

@Markbassett: Most fact-checker organizations use the term "false" with great specificity, when referring to statements that Trump has made that are untrue. There appears to be significant agreement on this talk page that "false" is the most appropriate term. Trump has also made statements that are offensive for a variety of reasons, so the catch-all "controversial" seems appropriate. Again, there appear to be significant agreement on this talk page that "controversial" fits those instances. I would also suggest an argument can be made for using "lie", for those instances where Trump has obviously deliberately said something he knows to be false, as opposed to something where he just didn't have his facts right, but I have chosen not to pursue this line because it is unlikely to get consensus. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:19, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Scjessey - the difference in an article wording TALK is that WP:V for both 'controversial' and 'offensive' exist from Trump and critics, so that wording would be regarded as commonly said (i.e. common meaning both say it). Whether a campaign sub-story (cites Dec 2015- Sep 2016) re 'false' still has enough prominence now to suit the lead would perhaps drive it out, and if it stays perhaps it will be rewritten for this or other reasons. And in a year or so other things may crowd it out anyway. Markbassett (talk) 01:38, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

• Note: Based on a discussion elsewhere, I have added an alternate wording to option #4. If this option is chosen, we can work out the exact wording later. --MelanieN (talk) 17:15, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

• Thanks much 47.222.203.135 (talk) 23:09, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

• Two general comments in response to the above: 1) We are talking about the lede sentence, so detail and explanation are not appropriate. The detail and explanation go below in the text. The lede summarizes what is in the text. It is unusual to have citations in the lede, but that was recommended by the closer of the previous RfC. 2) It is simply incorrect to state that fact-checking sites are "op-eds". Quite the contrary, they are research-based reporting. They take a statement and compare it to reality. If someone says that Obama proposed admitting 200,000 Syrian refugees, and Obama actually proposed admitting 10,000 Syrian refugees, then the statement's truth or falsity is not a matter of opinion. If someone insists they never said something, and there is video proving that they did, that again is not a matter of opinion. That is the kind of statement that fact-checkers evaluate. --MelanieN (talk) 20:09, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

• While it is true that fact-checkers are not op-eds, they can suffer from bias, in particular selection bias where they decide which statements NOT to fact-check (thus altering the final percentages by disproportionately deep-digging for new falsehoods and/or by disproportionately eliding truthful statements on individual candidates). 47.222.203.135 (talk) 23:09, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
• Some of it is extremely nitpicky, like saying Trump falsely used the term "acid wash" when referring to "bleach bit" software, or falsely said Obama drew a "line in the sand" in Syria when actually Obama called it a "red line".[36]Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:12, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

• NBC News is not what MelanieN is calling "fact-checking sites". But I have no doubt you could cherry-pick some extremely nitpicky stuff from the fact-checking sites. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:53, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

• Yes, I could, and will if anyone would like. NBC does fact-checking, so it seems like a fact-checking site, but maybe Melanie meant sites that exclusively do factchecking. Might I suggest that we focus on Trump's biggest falsity, and then consider it for inclusion in the lead, instead of including a vague assertion that smacks of namecalling? What we have now is equivalent to "liar, liar, pants on fire", and it might be better to say that Trump insisted the Earth is flat (assuming he said so), and leave it at that.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:54, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Melanie - the applicable policy for an evaluation isWP:NEWSORG "Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (editorials) or outside authors (op-eds) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact." Without an attribution it's neither clear what the line is referring to and the line is not following WP guidelines.

Secondly - the question of if this is a now past time item or something about a campaign no longer due elevation, may have lead somewhere -- about two thirds of commenters want to reword or delete the line. But it seems those are coming from many aspects and are scattered. It might narrow things down to ask which one folks LEAST want and then pick between the two remaining and work on the specific from there.

And -- you really are giving a fantasy above about fact checkers, but it's not the RFC so I'll suggest you simply accept input was given that opinions about statements are opinion pieces and move along. If you must debate how bad they are more than I've already provided above, then post to my TALK page and we'll see if we can pursue cases. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 01:01, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, User:Anythingyouwant, to answer your question, I do mean "sites that exclusively do factchecking" and that is the kind of source that is provided. And no, User:Markbasset, I do not accept your assertion that evaluating the truth of a statement by checking it against observable reality is an "opinion", any more that it is an "opinion" for a scientist to make a measurement, or a teacher to evaluate a test answer as correct or incorrect. I know that a prominent Trump surrogate recently claimed that "there are no such things as facts anymore,"[37] but I do not accept that - and I don't think Wikipedia does either. --MelanieN (talk) 01:49, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Hi User:MelanieN, I don't understand why we would want to prefer full-time fact-checkers to part-time fact-checkers, assuming they are both at reliable sources, but in any event the former can be just as fallible as the latter.[38][39]. If we want to refer to one as opposed to the other, can we please do so more clearly in the proposed language for the lead? Also, what do you think about the idea of mentioning one or two of Trump's biggest whoppers in the lead, instead of merely a vague accusation?Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:14, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm not MelanieN, but I'll answer. It would be backwards to put a couple of examples in the lead instead of the concise summary that is currently there (see WP:LEAD). Trump's reputation for making false statement is not only documented by fact checking organizations. There is a very large body of sources to draw from. The American Enterprise Institute is not a reliable source for checking facts from actual reliable sources.- MrX 16:57, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

What MrX said. --MelanieN (talk) 19:31, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

MelanieN -- Please base on WP guidelines -- WP:NEWSORG is the WP guidance that states any analysis is to be presented as attributed statement, i.e. that persons opinion, and WP:BIASED allowing attributed opinions. As to your beliefs re their nature ... they go against WP guidelines and are demonstrably not a match to the actual pages behavior or considering the points of their critics, particularly the selection bias of their picking is not an overall on the person or organized but seems largely an hot-item-of-the-day being critiqued however they want to. Seems a decent thing to have a place to ridicule politicians -- but also they seem just getting ratings, lack methodology, and just would not rate highly as sources by WP standards.

• For example: (a) "exclusively do factchecking" nope ... Washington Post fact checker current first 19 items are 8 (42%) unrated articles; and even of rated items I see one condemning the internet at large about Pizzagate, and one aggregating up prior items to a worst of 2016 and not a direct check of someone ; and (b) "checking it against observable reality" -- note the lack of written guidance re methods of selection or mechanism of evaluation and subjective scoring. Looking at their first attributed piece "Trump’s outdated claims that China is devaluing its currency" ... they say "China hasn’t devalued its currency for about two years" ... not saying the specific fact there, and since the fact was August 15 of 2015 their "about two years" is exaggerated. That the Chinese currency controls still exist or that no devaluation steps have been needed since dollar has been rising lately were not mentioned as considered, nor is any alternative way to view the statement or any input of the other side. I can go with outdated a bit re 'devaluation' being a year ago, but why they awarded this 4 bad marks of a 'whopper' is unstated and unsupported by any literal metric or method -- it's just their subjective pick. Neither the 'about two years' nor the worst possible rating seem to meet WP norms of documenting, nor would the lack of other views pass the WP norms of NPOV.
• Look, the Post site is just two columnists in a DC market or viewpoint that are writing items to get ratings for their website ... it's a nice enough thing but they're not claiming to be infallible or objective and WP guidance would not give these two columnists a ranking higher than scholarly pieces for the same topics. That at least one scholarly study cited another such site as biased and that other NEWSORG articles flame some of their pieces as ridiculous are demonstrable facts. WP practice does report notable opinions as a notable opinion and so this seems a reasonable prominence to be in the article -- but not as an imagined prefect measure of truth. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 16:53, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Your view of fact checking sources seems to be in the minority here, probably because it's founded on broken logic like source "not claiming to be infallible or objective". I suggest you raise your concerns at WP:RSN.- MrX 17:07, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

What MrX said. --MelanieN (talk) 19:31, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

What MelanieN said. Objective3000 (talk) 19:37, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

What MrX, MelanieN, and Objective3000 said. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:52, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

MarkBassett is pointing out that fact-checkers, just like journalistic organizations in general, can be *biased*. Fact-checkers are almost unique, actually, because their specific mandate is to cherrypick statements which can be proven false. "Donald Trump held a campaign rally in Ohio during December 2016" is obviously a statement, and it obviously has a truth-value (it might be pants-on-fire or it might be mostly false or partially false or whatever). In this case, it is *slightly* controversial because I said 'campaign rally' and technically the campaign season is over, and it was a presidential rally or maybe a presidential-transition-rally, but since it was paid for with leftover campaign funds, I'll rate the statement as Almost Entirely True. Point here is simple: telling MarkBassett to take his concerns to RSN is wrong. The problem is not that fact-checkers are non-reliable (by wikipedia standards), the problem is that we have to be very careful not to say things like "according to fact-checkers Donald Trump is a fucking liar" as some commenters seem to wish we would, when in fact the only way to neutrally phrase it is to say "according to fact-checkers Donald Trump makes way more false statements than other presidential candidates". Note that we CANNOT say, without violating NPOV, that "according to fact-checkers Donald Trump makes way more false statements than Hillary Clinton" unless we are positive that fact-checkers as a group are not suffering from systemic bias. MarkBassett is arguing that is NOT the case, and his argument is not invalid. But just as there are limits to how far you can go, with known-to-be-biased sources, there are also limits on how far we ought to restrict ourselves: comparing Trump vs Clinton is dangerous, because there is evidence that fact-checking-organizations as a group suffer from bias towards one of the parties, or at least, bias against Trump's party. Comparing Trump to not just Clinton, but to all ~~25 candidates (repub/dem/L/G) in the 2016 cycle, and especially to all 100+ major candidates since dedicated fact-checking organizations became a fad, and saying that "Trump makes more false statements relative to other candidates according to fact-checkers" is a perfectly valid summarization. But we have to be careful here, and communicate to the reader what we are actually saying, and what we are actually not. "Trump makes many false statements" is way too weasel-wordy of a summary, we need to be precise, even if that means we need to be a bit more wordy in our summarization. As simple as possible but no simpler. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 10:47, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't see the words "liar" or "Hillary Clinton" anywhere in the options, and I'm lost as to why you are going to such great lengths to argue against language that is not on the table in this RfC. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:09, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Mandruss, the wording was quasi-proposed, in a running argument which started on the 14th and mostly ended on the 15th. So my going to such great lengths, was to try and convince people that were using unsupported / falsehoods / untrue / lies / damn lies / statistics, as if they were identical (and in particular as if fact-checking was unbiased enough to back up *any* of those terms rather than just merely some of them used carefully), should be considered unwise. We have to be careful with our language, because linguistic precision is the coin of the realm here on wikipedia. Only way to achieve neutrality, only way to avoid endless arguments about whether sentences need to be reworded, and so on. Here is the backtrail, in case you care still, and so that it is all in one place should the topic of 'liar' come up again in the future at some point -- not bluelinking these usernames since I'm just verbatim quoting what they said, here on the talkpage earlier in this thread.

• "...Trump did..., in fact, tell more lies than the other politicians in this year's contest [per fact-checkers/etc]." ... --MelanieN (talk) 04:12, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
• "...the Washington Post ... endorsed Clinton ...also noted she had issues and printed things like that she tells dreadful lies. ... Markbassett (talk) 03:13, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
• "...You can't call someone a habitual liar in a BLP in WikiVoice without it being an absolute undisputed fact - like the capital of France is Paris type of fact, not the weasel worded generalized quantified BS we have now. Morphh (talk) 14:34, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
• "...The language we are considering with "option 1" is very generous, because it should say "most of his statements in interviews, on social media, and at campaign rallies were lies." -- Scjessey (talk) 18:51, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
• "...I think a reasonable "reality check" would also indicate that we should probably best avoid using clearly prejudicial or judgmental terms, like "lies" without the best conceivable sourcing..." John Carter (talk) 19:37, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
• "...Reliable sources almost universally agree that Trump's public statements are more often lies than truths. That's just a documented fact. ..." Scjessey (talk) 19:54, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
• "...If it was changed to 'lies'/'liar' then it would be disputed, especially in Scjessey's extremely loose formulation/summarization that we could theoretically say in wikipedia's voice "over 50% of sentences Trump spoke during 2015 and 2016 were lies" because that is both mathematically incorrect *and* incorrect in the connotation that every false statement by Trump was intentionally false..." 47.222.203.135 (talk) 06:43, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
• "...an argument can be made for using "lie", for those instances where Trump has obviously deliberately said something he knows to be false, as opposed to something where he just didn't have his facts right, but I have chosen not to pursue this line because it is unlikely to get consensus." -- Scjessey (talk) 13:19, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
• and then my own hypothetical above, wherein I argue that fact-checkers CANNOT be used to support 'liar' because they care nothing for intent (and are biased via the combination of selection bias as well as media bias besides)

To be 100% clear, nobody (not even scjessey who was quite clear on that point) was attempting to add the liar-option, and I expect nobody will. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 22:06, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Partial self-correction, there is a new option containing "Hillary Clinton", added after your comments above. Still no "liar". ―Mandruss ☎ 09:13, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

@Usernamen1: - Re: [40][41][42] 1. Your editsum seems to say that my revert was improper per WP:TPO, but the RfC options are "public domain" and your additions are not "somebody else's comment". 2. As I stated in my editsum, Option 1 is for "status quo", "no change", and there is reason or benefit to muddying that water with an Option 1B that in fact requires a change. 3. As you have it now, Options 1 and 1A are the same option, adding to the confusion. 4. Your new option 1B could just as easily be a new option 7. 5. You are creating a mess (similar to the mess of an RfC you started at the WikiProject, which had to be aborted) and I respectfully suggest you use more caution until you have more experience with the organization of complex discussions and RfCs in particular. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:47, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Option 1B gives some important perspective than 1A lacks so if an option 1 is chosen, strongly consider 1B. I am not certain which option and am not entering in an extended discussion but merely raise a consideration worth pondering. Usernamen1 (talk) 19:32, 18 December 2016 (UTC) (Note: I moved this comment from the "Close early" section to the "Discussion" section where it belongs. --MelanieN (talk) 20:54, 18 December 2016 (UTC))

@Usernamen1: IMO Option 1B should be called Option 7, and I would appreciate it if you would change it to an Option 7. It is NOT just a minor variation on Option 1. It is not like 4a&b, which are basically equivalent; they say the same thing in slightly different wording, with exact wording to be worked out if that option is chosen. It is assumed that people who choose 4, 4a, or 4b are favoring virtually the same thought, and will accept any negotiated wording that conveys that thought. But your option 1B is not equivalent to option 1, not at all. It introduces an entirely new idea (which may or may not be sourceable). If someone supports option 1 (your 1A) that does mean that they would be equally happy with 1B; I suspect many would oppose 1B (or 7). Anyhow, I second what Mandruss said. Please do not disrupt this discussion by introducing multiple new options, especially after so many people have already commented. Please leave the Options section alone (unless it is to change 1B to 7), and limit your comments to the Comments section. --MelanieN (talk) 21:13, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

I authorize MelanieN to make those requested changes described immediately above. In an attempt to withdraw from the article, I am abandoning all efforts and edits in this article with the exception of the first paragraph, which I have devoted significant time and wish to see it to a resolution. I could change my mind and expand into more areas of this article but choose not to. Usernamen1 (talk) 04:18, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

@Usernamen1: - mmm think 1 is 'zero change' so you are talking an option 7 here... and for wording might need a relook. "Many of" has been discussed as vague, and "but those news sources do not accuse Hillary" isn't the case and is dragging offtopic a bit. Would it suit your context point if phrased 'unusually' such as "His statements in interviews, on social media, and at campaign rallies were noted by media coverage for being unusually controversial or false" ? Markbassett (talk) 11:18, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 1

@MrX, MelanieN, Objective3000, and Mandruss: What MarkBassett said... There's also a rather troubling piece by journalist Bryan MacDonald (in RT), “Facebook’s ‘Anti-Fake News’ Plan Looks Like Effort to Curb Alternative Media”. It quotes the widely repeated Breitbart story about PolitiFact.

   “As Breitbart observed: ‘When Trump said Clinton wants “open borders,” PolitiFact deemed his statement “mostly false” — despite the fact that Clinton admitted as much in a private, paid speech to a Brazilian bank on May 16, 2013. “My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders.”’”

May I have your thoughts as to the accuracy and verifiability of factchecker–checkers relative to the factcheckers whose fact-checking they check? --Dervorguilla (talk) 06:38, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

@Dervorguilla: - Did somebody propose Facebook as a fact-checker that we should pay any attention to? If not, I'm missing the point there. And are you really citing one "widely repeated" error (if it's in fact objectively an error) as somehow indicative of PolitiFact's overall reliability? If not, I'm missing that point too. If the one error is so rare that it needs to be milked to such an extent, that would tend to suggest more credibility, not less.
In any case, Markbassett's latest comments do not seem inconsistent with Option 3, which is my current !vote. My support for MrX above was meant as opposition to the apparent (or perceived) claim that we should omit the word "false" because fact-checkers are not reliable. I stand by that opposition until somebody shows me something relatively objective that says fact-checkers have a serious reliability problem—something like a peer-reviewed academic analysis from an institution not well-known as being a partisan think tank. Without that, we might as well skip the debate and just democratic-vote, since that leaves us with only our personal opinions and those of the sources we cherry pick to support them. ―Mandruss ☎ 07:13, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

@Mandruss: No comment. --Dervorguilla (talk) 18:26, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

@MrX, MelanieN, Objective3000, and Mandruss: More focusing on discussing article text and WP guidelines of the RFC topic... Even if the Bio lead would still retain this now-past bit of a particular subset of reporters at the lead level, my input was that the wording issues about it seem too broad and vague a statement phrased as fact, which does not fit with WP:V so I recommended option 2 (remove) though note option 6 (attribute-voice) would handle some. I have explained this was based on seems vaguely talking with wording dominant or tied to fact-checker sites but not stating that, which runs counter to WP:RS section WP:NEWSORG ("reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact"), that as crafted it is a general line where WP:NPOV directs other adjectives should be presented (""including all verifiable points of view which have sufficient due weight"). If my input or reasons are unclear RSVP, otherwise just accept that there was an input like this. Markbassett (talk) 10:38, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

@Markbassett: I do have trouble parsing a lot of your language, so it's quite possible I fail to understand you. Option 3 makes no statement of fact except to concisely state what fact-checking organizations have said (which easily passes WP:DUE) and attributes the statement to them. Do you claim that that is not an accurate concise statement of what they have said?
too broad and vague a statement phrased as fact - I reiterate, the word "false" in Option 3 is not phrased as fact. Only Option 1 phrases it as fact, all other options that include the word avoid the use of wiki voice for it. I assume you understand the concept of wiki voice—if something is not in wiki voice, it is not a statement of fact. ―Mandruss ☎ 11:12, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

@Mandruss:} In ranking, Option 2 and 6 came off better. Option 3 attribution and vagueness made it look worse than option 1 though it improves the part for wikivoice aspect. The word "services" and the cites shown convey it as meaning not about websites Politifact et al. But mostly the "relatively large number" seemed adding an additional vague and odd phrase on top of the existing issues. It's just not clear to me what that meant to say or if it's even the right paraphrase for cites or theme perhaps also said 'noted for extreme falsehoods'. The 'relatively large number' could go into 'relative to what' of is it 'relative to who' or is it meaning percentage of what he says or relative to how magnitude number for a richter 8.3 whopper or what. So to me overall Option3 just looked like a worse wording choice. Perhaps a more generic phrasing of it as 'unusual' instead of reltively large number' Markbassett (talk) 11:59, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

@Markbassett:
1. The cites can be changed and in my opinion are not actually a fixed part of any of the options.
2. The meaning of "relatively large number" is explained in the wording: "a relatively large number of them compared to other candidates". What could be more clear than that?
3. All concise statements are necessarily "vague". That includes your current preferred option, Option 2: "Many [how many?] of his statements in interviews [what interviews?], on social media [what social media?], and at campaign rallies [what campaign rallies?] were controversial {controversial to whom?][what do you mean by 'controversial'?]." I can't imagine prose suitable for the lead that could pass your vagueness test. ―Mandruss ☎ 12:11, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

@Mandruss:} Umm ...

Being casual about finding cites later doesn't sniff right. Is there a specific, fixed thing trying to be said there or not ? In any case, this was discussing the options listed with context of cites provided, not as hypothetically other words and other cites could be made.

As to what would be more clear than "relatively large number of them compared to other candidates were evaluated' Well I though if it can be read as "one more fib than Hillary" or "they chose to evaluate him more often than anyone else" it's not only vague but inappropriately so. In any case I saw it as ADDING a potential new mess so that's why that one didn't suit me. Cheers. Markbassett (talk) 13:54, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

@Markbassett: At this point, you're not only repeating the same arguments, you're actually recycling some of the same sentences. You argument is largely premised on the idea that fact checkers are biased, so their fact checks are an opinion, and opinions must be attributed. MelanieN gave the best refutation of that when she wrote " Quite the contrary, they are research-based reporting. They take a statement and compare it to reality."

@Dervorguilla: Your argument seems to hinge on the idea that fact checkers are not always correct. To support that, you provide a single instance of Russia Today citing Breitbart. I rest my case.

Some folks seem to think we can't use the word "many" because it's vague. It's not vague; it's an imprecise generalization, but it has a clear meaning that is understood by any third grader. I explained this in more detail in the previous RfC.- MrX 13:09, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Side note: Given Markbassett's difficulty understanding the language of Option 3, it might be better worded as follows: "Trump made many controversial statements, and fact-checking services evaluated more of his statements as false than those of other candidates." The phrase "relatively large number" would be eliminated. But that decision does not need to be made in this RfC (or any RfC), and we certainly don't need another option. The RfC is not about copy editing questions. ―Mandruss ☎ 13:49, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

If 3 (or 4) is chosen, we can certainly tweak the wording as long as we keep the same meaning. --MelanieN (talk) 19:05, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

@Mandruss - My comment was WP:NEWSORG quote, and if you've chosen to not hear that and a lot of side questions got put in, is perhaps your issue more than mine. Look if you cannot understand I saw three as worse than two then you're not respecting 'Mark honestly sees 3 as worse than 2' or not looking to do WP-based discussion. Meh -- say your piece, and listen for others to make their points. Markbassett (talk) 14:05, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

I cannot believe people are still arguing about the accuracy of "fact checkers". A few right wing opinion sites (like Breitbart) complain about them, but no serious organizations have done so. They are highly regarded reliable sources, because they would lose all credibility if their material wasn't unimpeachably accurate and are thus self policing. It's time for this line of argument to die, folks. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:04, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Use of "Many" in the lead: Many should never be used because it is an unknown quantity and five references (out of all the reliable news reporting agencies) is not a true quantifier. The use of "many" is loaded language and a slippery slope because there are sources (many?) that claim (and possibly 5 might be reliable) that Trump may be the Antichrist". Should this be in the lead? Should any mention that he is considered a liar be in the lead especially when not included in the body of the article? Is it weasel words? Is it original research? Is it SYNTH? Is it labeling? I submit: Yes, yes, yes, and yes. There is no section in the article concerning the current content in question at all. The article and section Donald Trump presidential campaign, 2016#Campaign misstatements does use "many"; "Politifact named "the many campaign misstatements of Donald Trump" as its "2015 Lie of the Year", but that is not one of the references in the article. Was there celebrations in the streets (or rooftops)? Certainly not "thousands and thousands but some evidence that there may have been more than one-- in New Jersey.

If there is an article (with section) on "Campaign misstatements"? Why is some mention (link) excluded from the article body? The WP:lead states "Apart from basic facts, significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article.". Are we considering the sentence a "basic fact" as justification for article lead inclusion?

I could go on but Markbassett did a pretty good job in his comments about certain "fact checkers" and bias. The above mentioned "Campaign misstatements" includes "...fact-checkers "have to be really careful when you pick claims to check to pick things that can be factually investigated and that reflect what the speaker was clearly trying to communicate.". As a BLP we are mandated by the WMF, as well as policies and guidelines, to "get it right", ---or we should "leave it alone". Otr500 (talk) 20:10, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Many seems like a perfectly good word to me. And, it is the word used in the sources. There are no cases of WP:RS claiming that Trump is the Antichrist. No, there were not thousands and thousands of folk celebrating 9/11 in the streets of Jersey City. As for claims of biased fact checkers, this is not the page to argue about what is or is not a reliable source. Objective3000 (talk) 21:08, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Maybe I miised it. Which of the five references uses "many"? I didn't see the word in any of them. It still seems to me to be a vague and ambiguous word. We are using it to list that Trump has told "many" lies (whitewashed of course), supported by five references. Why not use what the references state? If Trump was given the title "King of Whoppers" by FactCheck.org or the PolitiFact.com 2015 Lie of the Year award then why not use that? Do we not use attribution for this reason?

Why, out of all the material in the four paragraphs in the lead, is there the one statement, not supported in the body of the article, that has to have five references? I submit it is because it does not belong there without supporting mention in the main article, or at least a relevant link? I think it is fair to mention and question this. Can we not add something in the article to make the sentence lead worthy? All the sections except religion (and how is the "Health" subsection related to the "Religion" section?), including some sub-sections, have "Main articles", "See also", or "Further information" listed. Something so important, that it just has to be listed in the lead, that also happens to have an article subsection on alledged "misstatements", doesnt' deserve mention in this article?

If there is some reason we don't want mention, in the body of the article about these "controversial or false" statements, then at the least, how about "Many of his statements in interviews, on social media, and at campaign rallies were controversial or false". Otr500 (talk) 05:18, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Close early?

This seems unlikely to happen given continued discussion. This section can be re-opened whenever appropriate. --MelanieN (talk) 19:03, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
My summary of !voting to date follows. We could apply a weighted split-vote system in an attempt to be more precise, but in this case I think looking at only the first-stated !vote is sufficient. As we have a prior consensus for the current language (Option 1), and as the trend here seems clear enough, I think we should consider closing early. RfCs are automatically de-listed after 30 days, but there is no requirement to run one that long. By my reckoning Option 1 has 51.4%—only a slight majority, but a sizable plurality considering that there are 8 options (including Option 0). Comments? (Tallies current as of !vote by user 70.162.247.233) 1 - 18 - EvergreenFir, Neutrality, Waggers, Casprings, Scjessey, Objective3000, Jo-Jo Eumerus, Volunteer Marek, Marteau, Mike Christie, zzz (Signedzzz), Daaxix, 201.27.125.81, MrX, SPECIFICO, Sagecandor, Pete (Skyring), 71.91.30.188 (AgentOrangeTabby) 1B possibly but not 1A - 1 - Usernamen1 2 - 7 - John Carter, Markbassett, Judgesurreal777, DHeyward, KMilos, Anythingyouwant, 70.162.247.233 4 - 4 - Emir of Wikipedia, 47.222.203.135, MelanieN, Yoshiman6464 3 - 3 - Jack Upland, Mandruss, Adotchar 6 - 3 - Morphh, Dervorguilla, κατάσταση (Katastasi) Not 4 - 1 - Usernamen1 0 (remove sentence) - 1 - JFG 5 - 0 ―Mandruss ☎ 21:59, 17 December 2016 (UTC) Not quite yet Thanks for the tally. But the RfC has been open only 5 days. Wouldn't a week be a normal minimum time to keep it open - recognizing that some people edit only on one or two days of the week? Let's look at this again on the 19th. --MelanieN (talk) 22:54, 17 December 2016 (UTC) PS and in the meantime please keep the tally current. --MelanieN (talk) 22:55, 17 December 2016 (UTC) Roger wilco. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:07, 17 December 2016 (UTC) Btw it looks like there are actually four !votes for option "4" (which has two slightly different wordings but is still the same option). So option 4 should probably be listed above the options that had only 3 supports. --MelanieN (talk) 02:34, 18 December 2016 (UTC) Yeah, it's hard to see the benefit of two sub-options with no discernible difference in meaning. Fixed. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:02, 18 December 2016 (UTC) There is a discernible difference, not to my own eyes, but to some people: read the notvote by Emir of Wikipedia saying they support #4, but without the 'partly as a result' portion (materially changing the meaning!), and the final comment over here by Jo-Jo Eumerus where they are okay with #4_B but see #4_A as a "misrepresentation" which is attempting to 'explain away' the prior sentence. Although I personally do not see much difference between 4_B and 4_A, they both sound the same to me, at least two wikipedians interpreted the phrases as being very distinct (and interpreted them differently from Mandruss and myself it seems!). I also think that whether to insert #4A/#4B as a supplement to the existing intro-sentences, is a distinct question from how to phrase the existing sentence about falsehoods, but that is a structural problem with RfC's where people only notvote for one single option. Speaking of which, although as yet they haven't modified their notvote text here, Jo-Jo Eumerus on their user-talkpage indicated that they would support #1 followed by #4_B (although not by #4_A). Does not change the tally above, since (structural limits again) as written #4B can only piggyback on #3, of course. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 11:56, 18 December 2016 (UTC) Agree with MelanieN that keeping the RfC open is preferred. There is always hope that new eyeballs will appear, who can sway the consensus with their wise input... plus from a practical standpoint closing this RfC early, actually changes nothing in mainspace, since the 'winning' option by nose-count is already in mainspace... so why hurry up and close something that results in no difference for the readership? Leave it open please. Lastly, although this nose-counting is not WRONG per se, it is just nose-counting. What matters is whether the arguments are policy-backed. Notvotes like "we already had an RfC months ago with different people participating" are obviously not policy-based arguments! WP:PRECEDENT does not apply, so I think the RfC is in reality closer than the nose-counting would indicate. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 11:56, 18 December 2016 (UTC) "Keep open per RFC guidelines" . WP:RFCEND states that the default is an RFC open for 30 days. With an article like Trump, extra caution should be taken. Therefore, keeping it open for the full 30 days is wise. Usernamen1 (talk) 18:33, 18 December 2016 (UTC) To clarify, nose-counting was never intended to be the end-all, but it is useful information for discussions of early close. Absent some purpose like that, I would never produce tallies because I think they can influence !voting. But now that this section exists, I plan to keep the tallies updated per MelanieN's request unless we prefer to remove or hat this section. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:02, 18 December 2016 (UTC) I'll suggest keep it open more for the said comments and different views as long as they come. Such as the topic of if the line has become dated, the comment that 'controversial' somewhat overlaps 'false' (or my 'offensive'), about whether the line is conveying this as at all unusual, if it's meaning fact-check sites or what, etcetera. I'm also dubious about counting into !votes or early ones who didn't see the later-appearing options, and 201.27.125.81 seems odd... Ehh. input provided, for what its worth. Markbassett (talk) 12:12, 19 December 2016 (UTC) Mark makes a good point about ongoing discussion. Even if the "voting" has slowed down, active discussion suggests that the topic is not ready to be closed. When I summarized the "counties" thread here, it was because nobody had added anything for five days. --MelanieN (talk) 15:24, 19 December 2016 (UTC) @MelanieN: - Given the responses here, this seems likely to go the full 30. My experience with these highly contentious issues is that people will continue to discuss as long as discussion is open, long after discussion has become circular (we're already partly circular after one week). There are infinite ways you can state the same argument, and new participants are always arriving, fresh and ready to receive the baton from their exhausted predecessors in the cause. In that case there is little benefit to the tallies and I suggest hatting the subsection. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:52, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

RfC: Should "Chairman of The Trump Organization" be listed as office in infobox?

Should the infobox mention Trump's business title as Chairman of The Trump Organization in the |office2= parameter, alongside his other title as President-elect? Currently, the title is mentioned in the |occupation= parameter. Edge3 (talk) 13:24, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Donald Trump
President-elect of the United States
Assuming office January 20, 2017
Vice President	Mike Pence (elect)
Succeeding	Barack Obama
Chairman of The Trump Organization
Incumbent
Assumed office 1971
Preceded by	Fred Trump
Personal details
Born	(1946-06-14) June 14, 1946 New York City
Spouses	Ivana Zelníčková ​ ​ (m. 1977⁠–⁠1992)​ Marla Maples ​ (m. 1993⁠–⁠1999)​ Melania Knauss ​ (m. 2005)​

Example infobox shown on the side. Other proposed versions have included the full date, Ivanka Trump as successor, and other slight modifications.

Prior discussions: 1, 2, 3, 4

See also alternate example below, where the business position is listed at the end of the navbox and with a different background color. This might be a more appropriate display option. — JFG ^talk 09:16, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Survey: Chairman, office, infobox

Support or Oppose

• Support - The primary purpose of the infobox is "to summarize ... key facts that appear in the article" (WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE). Trump's business career is an integral part of his biography. In {{Donald Trump}} and in other parts of this article, the "President-elect" and "Chairman of The Trump Organization" positions already appear side-by-side. {{Donald Trump series}} lists articles relating to both his business and political careers. At the bottom of this article, {{S-bus}} is used alongside {{s-ppo}} and {{s-off}}, as if the positions are all equivalent. These examples show that the infobox, as it currently stands, is not giving the equal treatment to both positions that we are already displaying in other templates.

For many biographies, especially for politicians, the infobox shows progression through each office, along with the transitions from one officeholder to the next. Excluding Trump's business position from |office2= would be a glaring omission.

While recognizing WP:OSE, other politician bios have included non-governmental positions. For example, Ronald Reagan lists his prior position as President of the Screen Actors Guild. Edge3 (talk) 13:24, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

• Support – I am sympathetic to the argument that no distinction should be made between political, military, academic or business positions, provided that we list only significant roles. Aside from the Reagan case, we also have the Dwight D. Eisenhower article listing his military posts alongside his academic position as President of Columbia University (1948–1953), which even overlaps his role as Supreme Allied Commander Europe (1951–1952). The Trump case pleads particularly strongly in favor of inclusion because his business career dominates 45 years of his 70-year life, whereas his political emergence only covers 18 months so far. See also a similar discussion on Talk:List of Presidents of the United States#Prior service which was concluded in favor of listing his business title as "prior position" to President-Elect. — JFG ^talk 17:02, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
• Support. Though from now on Trump's presidency will overshadow the other things he's done in life, I think it is important to note that the info box of a highly viewed article is likely to catch a typical reader's eye first. Piggybacking on what User:JFG said above, President Eisenhower's box has his other positions in it. Because the Trump Organization looks like it's going to be handed down Trump's family (see Ivanka Trump's infobox), I think it makes sense to note that he was the 1st Chair and President of the Trump Organization. It needs to be made clear: Trump led this large organization prior to becoming the 36th President-elect. CatcherStorm ^talk 02:19, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
• No idea. Suggestion: read the Infobox officeholder template. "Many officeholders are known for more than just their appointments (e.g., Clint Eastwood), and hence it may be desirable to merge this infobox with another one, like {{Infobox person}}." --Dervorguilla (talk) 19:15, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose. This is a no-brainer. Being chairman of the Trump Organization is not "holding an office". Being "in office" is a very specific term that refers to elected officials in forms of government, and has nothing to do with private sector employment. Just because they effed up the Reagan article, it doesn't mean we should repeat the mistake here. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:26, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose – Per Scessey.—Fundude99^{talk to me} 20:09, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
• What Dervorguilla said, don't screw up the officeholder infobox, just have an officeholder infobox at the top, immediately followed by a Template:infobox person which has the details of his business career(s) and such. Omit the photo-parameter from the 2nd infobox, and voila. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 20:13, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose. "Office" is a public, elected, position. Not a job. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 21:05, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose - While the word "office" can refer to non-governmental positions (office sense 1b), its meaning in {{Infobox officeholder}} follows from the definition of the word officeholder.
  I am not interested in what other editors have decided at other articles, per WP:OSE. The salient points of OSE are that (1) no two situations are exactly alike, and (2) one could cherry-pick examples to support any argument they wished to support. Community consensus lives in policy, in guideline, and sometimes in discussions with wide participation in public venues—not in sampling of things done in other articles. OSE is a widely-accepted essay for a reason. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:30, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
• Support - It is beneficial to the page while quickly and neatly presenting his previous positions. Archer Rafferty (talk) 3:18, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose I do not think it provides any useful information. The field is useful when the office is better known than the person, for example the office of presidency of the U.S. is better known than anyone who has held it, while Trump is better known than his company. Also, Trump's main influence at the company comes from being owner and chief executive officer. A chairman is often a figurehead or non-executive position. As a point of pedantry, he is not chairman of the Trump Organization, but chairman of the board of directors of the Trump organization. TFD (talk) 04:46, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose While it is a significant company and important to his life history, it is not a public office. The President-elect will become the first President without prior public service experience, and that is significant. Placing the chairmanship of his private company in the infobox equates it to elected or appointed office, whether political or institutional (university, red cross, boy scouts, other public-profile instiutions, etc.). This is incorrect to do. His company is important, but being the chairman of the company is not on the same level as being a public officer, elected, appointed, or an institutional head.   Spartan7W §   05:20, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

  Why must the infobox entries be limited to public office only? If, as you say, his business career "is a significant company and important to his life history", shouldn't we reflect that in the infobox? The guideline is "to summarize ... key facts that appear in the article" (WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE). Edge3 (talk) 19:24, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose as it's not a political office. GoodDay (talk) 18:18, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
• Support – It is an appropriate addition to best summarize Trump's career in the infobox, and there are numerous examples of other articles that feature leadership of private organizations, the military, and universities in the officeholder infobox. - Bokmanrocks01 (talk) 22:58, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose - The Trump Organization is not a public office which that parameter is for. Naue7 (talk) 03:13, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose - It's not a public office. The Reagan counter-example doesn't convince me, as it is an elected union position, far closer to a public office than a business position. Michael Bloomberg's infobox omits his business career altogether, even though is business career is arguably far more notable and his political office less so. No great surprise, our first "CEO President," George W. Bush, has no business info in his infobox. Chris vLS (talk) 06:18, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Discussion: Chairman, office, infobox

(Response to !vote by 47.222.203.135) - Dervorguilla referred to embedding officeholder in person, so what you said isn't what they said. Just sayin'. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:23, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

I was referencing their bolded notvote which said "no idea" specifically. As in, this is a poorly-posed question, the correct answer should be something completely different than the binary choice being offered. For the record, I'm okay with embedding person inside officeholder, embedding officeholder inside person, just using person and covering the potus-details as part of that, starting with officeholder and then following it with person... but please don't abuse oficeholder by jamming stuff that does NOT belong into it... and as I understand the rfc, notvoting 'support' means that ceo will be jammed into office2-param whereas voting 'oppose' means that ceo/realEstateDeveloper/televisionPersonality/bestSellingAuthor/'politician'/etc will eventually be jammed into occupation-param ... both of which are sub-optimal, since one is malformed and the other is insufficient space. Thus, since I have no idea whether to notvote support or notvote oppose, I opted to follow dervorguilla and notvoted No Idea, with a specific suggestion for an alternative way forward that does not involve restricting ourselves to a single infobox and trying to force-fit everything. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 21:26, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Interesting suggestion... maybe we don't have to use {{Infobox officeholder}} after all. Edge3 (talk) 02:12, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

@47.222.203.135: Nailed it. --Dervorguilla (talk) 03:25, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree with others here that we should not put his business career into the politician infobox. But can we use two separate info boxes? Politician followed by business person? MelanieN alt (talk) 14:45, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Then we would end up with two infoboxes. Another option is using {{Infobox person}} only rather than {{Infobox officeholder}}, since Trump's business career is equally noteworthy as his political career. His political office can still be reflected in {{Infobox person}}. Edge3 (talk) 16:34, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

And yet another option is to embed officeholder in person, producing one hybrid infobox, as linked by Dervorguilla in their !vote. It's been awhile since I've seen that done, but as I recall the embedded portion is a shrunken version of its normal self (by perhaps 20%), which I felt wasn't very attractive (and would be seen as de-emphasizing his presidency). Obvious pushback for either alternative option due to the widespread but misguided opinion that All Infoboxes For U.S. Presidents Must Be The Same. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:28, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Mandruss, to avoid the shrinkage-effect, you have to specify "| module = {{infobox foobar | embed = yes ... " which you can see JFG doing in his chairman-embedded-within-officeholder example, below. If you forget the embed=yes thing, then you get a shrunken inner infobox (ugly). 47.222.203.135 (talk) 02:01, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Donald Trump
President-elect of the United States
Assuming office January 20, 2017
Vice President	Mike Pence (elect)
Succeeding	Barack Obama
Personal details
Born	(1946-06-14) June 14, 1946 New York City
Spouses	Ivana Zelníčková ​ ​ (m. 1977⁠–⁠1992)​ Marla Maples ​ (m. 1993⁠–⁠1999)​ Melania Knauss ​ (m. 2005)​
Chairman of The Trump Organization
In office 1971 – January 15, 2017
Preceded by	Fred Trump
Succeeded by	Donald Trump Jr.

We have already tried embedding {{Infobox officeholder}} in {{Infobox person}}, as the article used to have a simple Infobox person (or at least I tried it in edit mode, not sure it was ever in the history log). While technically elegant, this method puts all the personal info (children, alma mater, website, etc.) before the various offices held, so it really looks inappropriate for a future president. And it doesn't resolve the question whether his business position should also be listed as an office rather than an occupation. Thus it looks like a dead end to me. — JFG ^talk 00:03, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Note that we have {{Infobox Chairman}} which redirects to {{Infobox officeholder}}, so perhaps we could embed that into the template, thus listing the Chairman position towards the end of the box. See how that would look here to the right. — JFG ^talk 01:22, 24 December 2016 (UTC) –––––––>

{{Infobox Chairman}} is used in only a handful of articles (stubs), and since it redirects to {{Infobox officeholder}} I don't think {{Infobox Chairman}} would help here. The example you propose (on the right) is essentially {{Infobox officeholder}} embedded within itself. Edge3 (talk) 05:11, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

What Edge3 said. Just merge {{Infobox officeholder}} with {{Infobox officeholder}}. This looks like it may be the closest analogue to the most relevant example at Template:Infobox officeholder, which actually refers to an old version of the Clint Eastwood article (not the current version as I'd thought). My error. --Dervorguilla (talk) 08:12, 24 December 2016 (UTC) 20:14, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes it is a secondary {{Infobox officeholder}} within the main {{Infobox officeholder}}, which compared to the |office2= option puts the Trump Org position at the bottom of the navbox (and with a grey background) vs showing it close to the presidential office up top. I think this would resolve the main objection of dissenters. — JFG ^talk 09:11, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't like any of these examples because they use the word "office" when describing his business position. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:47, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

@Scjessey: As a corporate officer of TTO, he's "someone who holds an office of trust, authority, or command". --Dervorguilla (talk) 20:34, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

But few dictionaries make use of the extended definition of "in office", and neither does Wikipedia. It would confuse the reader, perhaps leading them to think Trump may have held some form of public office prior to the presidency. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:29, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

I think part of the problem is that the usual infobox for businesspeople is {{Infobox person}}. We don't have a perfect solution for those who had a lengthy business career before entering public office. Given the dictionary definitions cited, I agree that his chairmanship over The Trump Organization may be construed as an "office" for the purposes of {{Infobox officeholder}}, even though it is not the normal usage for this template. Edge3 (talk) 22:39, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

WP:OUTBOX

Donald J. Trump
President-elect of the United States
Taking office
January 20, 2017
Vice President	Mike Pence (elect)
Preceded by	Barack Obama
Chairman of The Trump Organization
Occupation	Real estate developer
Years active	1971–2017
Preceded by	Fred Trump
Known for	Trump Tower, Mar-a-Lago
Net worth	USD$4.5 billion
Books	Art of the Deal
Television	The Apprentice
Personal details
Born	Donald John Trump (1946-06-14) June 14, 1946 New York City
Political party	Republican (1987–99) Reform (1999–2001) Democratic (2001–09) Republican (2009–11) Independent (2011–12) Republican (2012–present)
Spouse(s)	Ivana Zelníčková ​ ​ (m. 1977⁠–⁠1992)​ Marla Maples ​ (m. 1993⁠–⁠1999)​ Melania Knauss ​ (m. 2005)​
Children	Donald Trump Jr. Ivanka Trump Eric Trump Tiffany Trump Barron Trump
Parents	Fred Trump Mary Anne MacLeod Trump
Relatives	Trump family
Residence	Trump Tower, New York City
Alma mater	University of Pennsylvania (BA)
Signature
Website	greatagain.gov

We could also try the old-school approach. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 01:55, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

@47.222.203.135: Looks good to me. (The 'Nationality' data can be safely omitted, though.) --Dervorguilla (talk) 03:07, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I love this idea! Edge3 (talk) 05:39, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Indeed. The "outbox" looks like the way to go. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:21, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

+1 I would approve of this scheme. — JFG ^talk 14:55, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I've made a few modifications to the proposed infobox so that it is more consistent with the info already displayed on the current infobox. User:47.222.203.135 (or anyone else), feel free to modify as needed. We should also figure out a way to add the images (both the portrait and the signature) through the WP:OUTBOX approach. Edge3 (talk) 04:44, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Proponents should look at the markup and consider the ongoing maintenance problems. Expect the OUTBOX (shouldn't that be OUTFOBOX?) to be broken regularly. If that's an acceptable trade-off to you, fine, but it should be considered. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:53, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

 Done – Added portrait and signature via Module:InfoboxImage. The whole box should probably use Module:Infobox rather than manual markup. — JFG ^talk 14:04, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

I've made the edit to the article implementing this new infobox. I agree that {{Infobox}} might be a better long-term solution. Edge3 (talk) 19:02, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

..and I've reverted that bold change. You've no consensus to make such major structural changes to the infobox. Re-adding the Trump chairman stuff is one thing, but restructuring the entire infobox (which was stable since November 8) is quite another matter. The infobox should structurally match with that at the Mike Pence article. GoodDay (talk) 19:45, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Not sure what level of consensus you're looking for, but we had several editors express their support (above) for this new infobox scheme. Plus, this article need not be consistent with Mike Pence, nor has there been a consensus to that effect. Edge3 (talk) 21:23, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

@GoodDay: Would you be okay with the proposed infobox if we used {{Infobox}} rather than manual coding? Many editors have expressed interest in this solution so I think we will try it one way or another, and reevaluate once we see it. Edge3 (talk) 22:14, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

My personal preference is to keep the infobox we've got, as that's what's being used for all political offices. I'm more anxious though, that we keep infoboxes here & at Pence's article matching. IF I were you, I'd start a new discussion on what type of infobox to use. GoodDay (talk) 22:18, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

I fail to see why a Trump-Pence agreement would be so beneficial to the reader. Where is the community consensus for such linkage? Absent such a consensus, the widely-accepted WP:OSE applies. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:30, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree that we need not be strictly consistent with the Pence article, but I also understand GoodDay's desire for harmony among all political infoboxes. Remember, WP:OSE arguments may be valid or invalid depending on context.

I'm fine with waiting for more discussion, or even starting a new discussion if we can't resolve disagreements here. Edge3 (talk) 04:09, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

I think that I agree with GoodDay, that we want the layout to 'structurally match' what is found at Pence, but more importantly, what is found at Obama and the prior presidents. Per WP:Readers_first, because there will be plenty of readers that want to compare and contrast, and therefore we should try and keep the VISUAL appearance of the infobox we use here, as similar as we can to the ones elsewhere. Basically that means using the same row-labels, and in the same ordering. Thataway people with multiple browser-tabs open, will be able to see the differences easily. We are actually pretty close already, the only question is whether to combine the websites into one single row-label, rather than list the three of them separately, and whether to move up the signature-row above the website-row which is traditionally at the very bottom of the infobox. Now, it will be much harder, obviously, to keep the wikimarkup identical, since the WP:OUTTATHEBOX is just a wikitable rather than a template. Or maybe JFG had some suggestion for solving that with a module, or something? 47.222.203.135 (talk) 23:50, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

I think we can remove all of the external links from the infobox. Isn't that what the "External Links" section is for? Edge3 (talk) 03:16, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Removing all of them would be unusual (for a modern human as opposed to somebody who lived in the 1700s), but typically the infobox contains exactly one "Websites:" row-label at the very bottom, and then contains one (or in rare cases more than one) primary internet 'home' of the biographical subject. See the bottom of the infobox at Tom Hanks (zero URLs interestingly enough), Hillary Clinton (one URL), Leonardo_DiCaprio (two URLs), Barack_Obama (three URLs). In the case of Donald Trump we currently list only greatAgain.gov (peotus 'home') within the infobox, and then in the EL section we list greatAgain.gov (peotus'16), donaldjTrump.com (campaign'15), 58pic2017.org (inauguration'17), twitter.com/realDonaldTrump (celeb'09+), and a few "standard links for presidential biography articles" to CSPAN/NYT/WSJ/etc which cover debate-videos and speechs and the like. In the draft-WP:OUTBOX it is possible to have multiple 'website' rows if consensus permits. If that is considered controversial, those suggestions can be deferred until a future conversation, because I would rather improve things one step at a time: first get the outbox format (or maybe the invoke:ModuleInfobox thing JFG was alluding to) acceptable, so that we can have 'CEO of Trump.com' as part of the custom outbox. Next discuss which URLs to include in the infobox, and whether to lump them all together at the bottom (as is wiki-traditional), or instead to use the power of the custom outbox to add a row for trump.com in the middle, a row for greatagain.gov near the top, and a row for personal sites near the bottom. I will HTML_comment out the additional URLs for now in the draft-outbox, to match what the current mainspace infobox does. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 04:56, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

I think the "relatives" part of the infobox could be removed since that information is covered in the three sections above it, where it mentions his parents spouse(s) and children. CopperWhopper67 (talk) 09:04, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

CopperWhopper67, while I tend to agree (or would maybe even prefer the opposite -- get rid of most of the detailed ancestry-datapoints and just link to the Trump family article for people that want geneaology), the reason it appears is because 'traditionally' wikipedia articles on presidents with extended families have all that same info, see for instance Barack Obama which lists spouses/children/parents/relatives, in the same rough position and the same rough ordering as the draft-outbox for Trump. George W. Bush (spouses/relatives/children/parents), Bill Clinton (elides relatives), etc. The main baby-step goal here, is to try and get CEO of Trump.com into the infobox, without abusing Template:infobox_officeholder and saying he was "in office" as CEO thereof. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 10:41, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree that the current conversation should focus on transitioning to the WP:OUTBOX approach. If there are additional changes to be made (such as adding more external links, removing the "Relatives" section, or other substantial changes) then we may discuss those in another thread. Now that we made a few changes to the proposed outbox and had a bit more discussion, I'm going to go ahead with another cycle of WP:BRD and see where we end up. Edge3 (talk) 05:54, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

1RR volunteers needed

Due to 1RR, I am out of service for another 10 hours as to reverts of clearly bad edits (there is no 1RR exemption for reverting clearly bad edits, short of clear vandalism, clear BLP violation, etc.). Therefore volunteers are needed to spend their 1R's on at least two items.

1. An attempt was made to change the infobox image and add acaption. The image was reverted but the caption remains.

2. [43]

Both edits were against consensuses in the consensues list. It would be very helpful to have a 1RR exemption for reverting such edits, but that would likely require an act of ArbCom or something. If I'm being overly cautious here, the rules sorely need adjustment to better reflect practical reality. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:21, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

 Done both. JudgeRM (talk to me) 21:27, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. You violated the 1RR rule by doing both, and yet benefited the encyclopedia. My point is that we need to either strictly observe the rule, modify it as needed, or scrap it. The current situation is unacceptable. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:30, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

You're welcome (I honestly don't see it as a 1RR violation, and even if it was, I believe this exists for a reason). JudgeRM (talk to me) 21:33, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

1. It clearly was a violation of 1RR as currently written. There is no exemption for that type of revert, full stop. 2. Your IAR rationale is that 1RR can be violated if it benefits the encyclopedia. The problem with that reasoning is that everybody thinks their edits benefit the encyclopedia, so it's the same as removing the 1RR rule completely. The goal is not to provide a defense at ANI but to avoid the need for ANI in the first place. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:36, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

If someone asked me one rule where IAR shouldn't be used, I'd probably say 1RR. Doubt it will cause you any problems. But, if you self-revert one of your reverts, I'll re-revert it. (Try saying that ten times quickly.) Objective3000 (talk) 21:43, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

According on of the edit notice, reverting changes to the infobox image is 1RR exempt per admin TomStar81 here.- MrX 21:47, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, my understanding is that 1RR doesn't apply to the infobox image. The caption is associated with the image, and is thus included in the 1RR exemption. Just my opinion. Edge3 (talk) 22:52, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

By my reading of the 1RR rule, two closely-linked edits can be considered a single revert, so the image and caption can be reverted together indeed. — JFG ^talk 00:06, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

• Arbitration Enforcement Admin Note - As the amended editnotice states: Reversions to reinstate the consensus-approved image in the article are not counted against the established 1RR sanction in this article...; therefore there was no 1RR violation made by the editor reinstating the image (contrary to Mandruss' assertion) — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 23:07, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

MrX and Coffee are correct; 1RR does not - repeat not - apply to the infobox image; this was worded as an exemption specifically because there is a consensus based mandate to keep this image in the article. Therefore, with regards to the image, feel free to revert as many times as needed to keep the currently approved version in the article. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:08, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

@TomStar81:, (edit conflict) The only issue is that we can't make editors using mobile devices see the ARBCOM warning (as was the case in this last switch). Do you think a more strongly worded hidden comment, perhaps listing the potential for being blocked, would satisfy the fair warning requirement? — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 23:22, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

I stand corrected, I could have reverted the caption. But I could not have reverted the birthplace without waiting 10 hours (and then spending my next 1R on that, thus rendering myself impotent for another 24 hours). My essential point stands. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:17, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

@Mandruss: Has there been a discussion held establishing a consensus on how the birthplace should be displayed? — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 23:26, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

@Coffee: Yes, and that discussion is linked from the consensuses list item 2. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:28, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

@Mandruss: Any and all edits, or reverts to edits, that have been fully backed by an established firm consensus cannot be seen as any form of rule violation (1RR or otherwise). This is precisely what WP:IAR is for. Of course, it is highly recommended that you immediately inform an administrator (at WP:ANI - or even WP:AIV due to this page's visibility) so that the offending editor can be blocked ASAP (so as to prevent an edit war from ensuing). — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 23:38, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

@Coffee: That is not in the list of exemptions at WP:3RRNO. If it's an unwritten rule, I submit that it should be written. If IAR is all you need, we could dispense with the exemptions list. All of those things are improvements to the encyclopedia, no? Anyway, no editor can be blocked for editing against a consensus unless it's shown that they were aware of the consensus. We have many "drive-bys" who were not involved in discussions and can't be expected to know about a consensuses list that exists only here and in a few other articles. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:45, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

@Mandruss: The best place for a specific rule to be displayed regarding the proper editor conduct in this article, is in this article's listed Arbitration Remedies... and it is: Consensus required: All editors must obtain consensus on the talk page of this article before reinstating any edits that have been challenged (via reversion). It stands to reason that if the consensus has already been obtained that such a discussion would not need to take place again, so therefore the consensus version always stands until further discussion. This was fully hashed out during the lengthy discussions we had at ArbCom regarding my placing these remedies a few months back, and for all intents and purposes was fairly well accepted by the standing ArbCom. Furthermore, any active Arbitration Remedies supersede any normal courses of action for specifically heated or high-vis arenas. So, as long as you feel that your actions can stand up to any AE review, with the clear purpose of the improvement of the encyclopedia, then you should never feel the need to hesitate in doing the right thing. The administrators can then decide whether the "offending" editor needs guidance or more severe remedies at such a time, even if others feel it may have been a minor mishap it is still best to notify an admin so that we can keep track of and hopefully prevent any repeat violators. - Now as a further way of resolving this I'm also keen on the idea of that list of consensuses being formalized/split to its own subpage and protected, in which case I would gladly add such a link to the current editnotice. But, I'll leave that decision up to the more active editors here. — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 00:14, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

@Coffee: Pretty good idea, thanks! @Mandruss, MrX, Objective3000, TomStar81, and Edge3: et al, wouldn't it be beneficial to list the consensus FAQ in a separate subpage? We could transclude it at the top of the Talk page (expanded) and in the edit notice (collapsed). Hopefully that would raise awareness of the most frequent issues and save time for new editors and regulars alike. Trump is pushing the creative boundaries of Wikipedia: so much winning! — JFG ^talk 01:38, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected or full-protected? ―Mandruss ☎ 01:53, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

@Mandruss: I would suggest full protection, in the same manner as the editnotice itself is. Just to ensure that only administrators familiar with AE procedure can update it per established consensus and to ensure the intentions of the ArbCom rulings are followed. Anyone should feel free to create the subpage though, and just let an admin know when to lock it down and add it to the notice. — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 02:28, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

@Coffee: That means effectively an uninvolved admin close for every consensus, except that a close statement would not necessarily be required. We would no longer be able to agree among ourselves that we have consensus. I don't necessarily oppose that but it would be an added degree of bureaucracy (and I'm not aware of any ArbCom rulings that have any bearing on how consensuses are decided). As it stands now, the list is itself subject to BRD and one asserted consensus has been contested resulting in an RfC now open. I don't disagree that the current setup could be a problem, but it hasn't been yet. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:51, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

While I feel that the absence of an explicit, written 1RR exemption for this invites conflict and edit warring (it is not unreasonable to assume that a list of seven exemptions is a complete and comprehensive list, that anything not listed there is not exempted), I will henceforth ignore 1RR for this type of revert and link to this thread in lieu of that exemption. We'll see how that goes. Again, my goal is not to have a defense at ANI, AE, or anywhere else, but to avoid having to defend my actions there. I think an explicit exemption would be respected by many editors. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:29, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm coming late to this party and I don't know how relevant this is, but a few months ago there were a couple of discussions at my talk page, where I was asking for clarification of the rules. I'm just passing along what others said in other contexts; I am still a learner in this area. Two possibly relevant points:

• Per this discussion: If you remove three unrelated things from an article in three different consecutive edits, that does NOT count as three reversions; it is one reversion. The rules say that "an edit or a series of consecutive edits that undoes other editors' actions … counts as a revert." From what I see of this discussion, it sounds like User:JudgeRM did NOT violate the 1RR rule if he made a pair of reversions in consecutive edits. And User:Mandruss could have made several reversions, if done consecutively, without violating 1RR.
• Per this discussion, about the requirement to obtain consensus at the talk page before reinstating any edits that have been challenged via reversion: On the face of it, this sounds like it gives the advantage to a person who removes content: by removing it they make it "contentious," and a talk page discussion is required to reinstate it. But the discussion at my talk page said, not so. A removal is also an edit. If the edit was to remove longstanding material, and someone restores the material, that means that the REMOVAL was contentious, challenged by its restoration, so that consensus must be obtained on the talk page to REMOVE the longstanding material, and in the meantime it stays in the article. "The removal of longstanding content is the edit that can be challenged via reversion." "the wording carefully specifies "reinstating any edits that have been challenged" instead of "reinstating any additions that have been challenged" for this very reason." "The wording is meant to favor the status quo and stabilize the article." This looks to me like edits to restore consensus are legitimate challenges to an edit that went against consensus, and it is the edit against consensus that needs to be justified at the talk page. --MelanieN (talk) 08:29, 24 December 2016 (UTC) P.S. This is basically what User:Coffee said above: "It stands to reason that if the consensus has already been obtained that such a discussion would not need to take place again, so therefore the consensus version always stands until further discussion."

The elephant in the room is a policy that is so Rube-Goldberg-convoluted—so counter-intuitive—that a 10-year editor and admin is "still a learner in this area", and yet applies to every editor. Policies that are that hard to understand are bad policies.
WP:3RRNO still needs an item 8. It does not follow automatically from the consensus version always stands until further discussion that "reverts to consensus version are exempted from 1RR". That is not an inference that ordinary editors should be expected to make. I tend to take policy very literally and err on the side of caution, partly because my one block resulted from my failure to do so. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:28, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps now you understand my similar frustration with the similarly frustrating Arbcom "Any US political article is subject to 1RR, but furthermore if someone opens an RfC on something, well that's it for pretty much 30 whole days" ruling... Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 12:36, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

@Coffee: Above you wrote that "The only issue is that we can't make editors using mobile devices see the ARBCOM warning (as was the case in this last switch). Do you think a more strongly worded hidden comment, perhaps listing the potential for being blocked, would satisfy the fair warning requirement?" With regards to the mobile editing issue, that sounds like something that the foundation ought to be looking into since a lot of articles here do have edit notices covering editing. As for a strongly worded hidden message, the problem with that is that it would only be seen if someone was specifically editing the effected area, and even then they may not read to much into it since the note wouldn't show in the main space, just in the editing space. We had the same problem at the aircraft in pop culture article, the hidden notice was not terribly effective if editors went to tweak one small section as opposed to editing from the top of the page. That being said, we can try it and see if it helps, but I would not hold out much hope. TomStar81 (Talk) 13:27, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

I added this as consensus #7.[44] While this is not optimal in my opinion (one could argue that this is not subject to consensus, so it has no place in the list of consensuses), it provides some visibility that would not exist otherwise. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:43, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm inclined to moving it out of the list and placing it as a NOTE: above. Thoughts? - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 22:51, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Only that many editors seem to ignore a talk page's prologue as inconsequential "fine print", as evident in the number who don't appear to be aware of the 1RR restriction. A NOTE above would serve to quickly resolve conflicts in this area, but the higher visibility of the thread would probably prevent more of them. I believe in a proactive approach, not a reactive one. (That said, a NOTE above would be an improvement over nothing but this discussion buried in the archives.) ―Mandruss ☎ 23:03, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Or did you mean a NOTE above #1 but still in that thread? ―Mandruss ☎ 23:07, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

@Mandruss: I did mean a NOTE above #1 but still in that thread - below the section header, but either directly above or directly below the "Current consensuses:" list heading was my thought, and with sufficient style as to stand out. Sort of explanatory text for the list. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 23:18, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree with that. It would further increase visibility by making it the first thing read, usually, while eliminating my initial concern. I'll do that, subject to further comments. Objective3000 says below, I think I agree with adding it to the list, but it's unclear whether they prefer #7 to NOTE. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:27, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

My concern is that this doesn’t prevent a trip to AE if some editor wants to cause you trouble over something unrelated. It does provide a better defense. Which doesn’t mean that an editor might not still have to take time to deal with an AE complaint. I think I agree with adding it to the list – perhaps with a warning to be careful with anything that could be construed as a 1RR vio. Objective3000 (talk) 23:12, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I didn't look, and just curious, does every new editor receive the complimetary and informative "discretionary sanctions" notice? Also, since I have not been involved in this type of situation before, could someone tell me why, and what benefit, having "All editors must obtain consensus on the talk page of this article "before reinstating any edits that have been challenged (via reversion)".", instead of the normal WP:BRD? Otr500 (talk) 02:47, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

I believe the DS advice is issued only to editors whose editing suggests that they are not aware of the DS.
I'm guessing that we (they) didn't want to refer to an unofficial essay in an official rule. And that we (they) didn't wish to be connected to the perennial debate over whether to promote BRD to guideline status. Both are pure guesses. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:31, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Russia

Why does the article not mention anything about Trump wanting to improve relations with Russia? I'm sure this is more important than his feud with the pope for example. Burklemore1 (talk) 03:39, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I suppose we could add something about him wanting to improve relations with Russia by greatly strengthening and expanding U.S. nuclear capability.- MrX 03:50, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

In the Foreign Policy section it mentions several ways in which he suggested cooperating with Russia. --MelanieN (talk) 08:36, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I think it should be direct that he wishes to improve relations though, rather than stating he will consider recognising Crimea as a Russian territory and lift sanctions. Statements regarding nuclear capabilities should be added too. If I'm correct also, Trump has made comments about wanting to improve relations with Russia during the Republican presidential primaries. I think it would make a nice addition. Burklemore1 (talk) 16:54, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Lifting sanctions so he and others can make more money and pollute the Arctic is not what one normally thinks of when discussing "improved relations" in the political sense. This is one of his conflicts of interest, where he wishes to use his political power to improve his business opportunities. -- BullRangifer (talk) 00:57, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

BullRangifer, please limit your comments here to what you think we should have in the article - not what you think about Trump. Thanks. --MelanieN (talk) 04:43, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

BullRangifer, are we suppose to consider your opinion on how the article should reflect its content simply because you have a negative opinion about him? Favouring one side of the political spectrum is not a way of maintaining neutrality. Burklemore1 (talk) 07:25, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Our personal political opinions (and we all have them) don't go into the article, but the opinions expressed in RS do make up our content. You asked about "improved relations" and I mentioned the type he has proposed, but which you, for some odd reason don't want to mention ("recognising Crimea as a Russian territory and lift sanctions"). Those are exactly the types of things to mention because they are what RS mention. "Nuclear capabilities" is another suggestion you made above above, although expanding them does not "improve" relations. It increases the risk of war.

A vague mention of the words "improve relations" is meaningless political fluff and puff posturing. We should mention what he has actually said he would do to improve relations. He has already picked ExxonMobil's CEO Rex Tillerson to be Secretary of State, a concrete move which will improve relations because Tillerson is very good friends with Putin, owns huge oil concessions in the arctic, and removing the sanctions which prevent drilling will "improve relations". There are plenty of RS which discuss why this is happening.

So recognising Crimea as a Russian territory and lifting sanctions preventing oil drilling are two things to mention. If RS mention this is done because Trump, Tillerson and Putin will make a lot more money, then that too should be mentioned. We don't add or delete/whitewash content because of our political opinions. We add what RS say. -- BullRangifer (talk) 15:11, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Please tell me where I have said I did not want to mention recognise Crimea as a territory and lift sanctions. Whether or not nuclear capabilities improve relations or not, it should still have a place in the article. However, I will agree with you on that, so it could become a separate subject. "We should mention what he has actually said he would do to improve relations" This is what I'm saying. Give examples on how he would improve relations. This is what I asked for, not opinions attacking Trump. If we are to add such statements about Trump, Tillerson and Putin making a lot more money, it should only be added whenever it is actually happening. I don't think speculation from RS should be added as this may induce instability within the article. Burklemore1 (talk) 03:57, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Prior government experience

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

There has been some tweaking recently about how to describe the fact that he is the first person elected president without ever having held public office or served in the military. Until recently it said just that: "He is also the only individual in U.S. history to be elected president without ever having held public office or served in the military." That's clear enough. But on the 21st it was changed to "without any prior experience in public service", with the rationale that this is the same wording as the 2016 election article. A few days later it was changed to "without any prior experience in military or other official public service," which was then changed again to "without any prior governmental experience." That's how it reads now. What do we think it should say? MelanieN (talk) 18:49, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

• My own preference is for the original wording: "without ever having held public office or served in the military". That makes it clear, since there have been presidents who never held public office but served in the military, and there have been presidents who held public office but did not serve in the military, but he is the first to have done neither. I don't like "prior governmental experience" - what does that mean? We have all had "governmental experience" in one form or another. (I taught for a few years in the public schools, I guess I have had governmental experience.) I also don't particularly like the generic "public service" because, again, nobody really knows what that means. (Does volunteering to clean up the beaches count? Hey, I have done public service!) Reliable Sources[45] are talking about two specific things here - holding public office and serving in the military. Let's not muddy it up. MelanieN (talk) 18:49, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

I just edited the article without first reading these comments. I figure "He is also the only individual in U.S. history to be elected President without prior military or governmental experience" is sufficient. I don't like the sentence structure of that earlier version. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:41, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

I'd be OK with that wording. --MelanieN (talk) 23:32, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

"We have all had 'governmental experience' in one form or another." What was Trump's?Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:53, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Getting a drivers license? Filing for a construction permit? Being sued by the Justice Department? --MelanieN (talk) 23:32, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

I suspect that almost all readers would understand "government experience" to mean "experience in government", but the latter phraseology would be fine with me; it covers experience in political office as well as experience in the military. Without "experience in the public sector" would be okay too.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:51, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

And this reversion by Richi surely violates the usual WP:BRD process, does it not? Trump is unique in modern history as being a president with no prior military and/or government experience (presidents always have one or the other), so it is ridiculous that this should've been removed. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:33, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

I think political office and military service can be rolled into one term, for purposes of the lead, in order to be concise and avoid undue weight. What that term is is something that we ought to discuss, and I have no preference at this point.Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:43, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Public service and military service both fall under government service, since the military is part of the government. IMO not having any prior government service would suffice and it is not loaded. 69.166.119.17 (talk) 23:39, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

• Current wording "elected President without prior governmental experience" is clear and concise, I don't see the need to explicitly distinguish political and military positions here, as both are government jobs. The linked article on prior experience of US presidents is very detailed. — JFG ^talk 09:30, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

• Literally, military service could be considered a subset of government service. However, the preponderance of people these days have a very negative view of government and very positive view of the military and separate the two. So, I think both need be included for completeness. Objective3000 (talk) 14:35, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

I give up on the batshit threading above, so I'm outdenting. Normal human beings understand there is a difference between military experience and regular government experience because the former usually involves putting your life in harm's way. In the context of the presidency, they are always considered to be separate. There is no single word than can be used to adequately cover both, and since we are talking about two words, we can dispense with the notion it would somehow be undue weight. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:30, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

They are definitely different things and both should be mentioned. -- BullRangifer (talk) 00:55, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

• The current edit "without ever having held public office or served in the military" has already caused confusion per this edit. Naue7 (talk) 03:22, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

• No, trying to conflate two different things into oversimplified wording does create confusion. Mentioning both leaves no confusion about what is meant. They should both be mentioned. -- BullRangifer (talk) 15:14, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

• @Naue7: The edit you linked seems to just be one editor who doesn't understand the meaning of the word "or". Vrrajkum (talk) 23:00, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

• I prefer the original phrasing "without ever having held public office or served in the military". It's perfectly clear; I dislike the current edit "He will also be the first president without prior military or other governmental employment" because although military service is technically government employment, the public generally views serving in the military and holding public office as two unrelated things. "Governmental employment" is also rather vague; it could mean something as mundane as working for the DMV, whereas "public office" clearly refers to elected office. Vrrajkum (talk) 23:00, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Incorrect. A public office can also be an appointed office such as secretary of state or secretary of defense. 38.121.92.211 (talk) 23:39, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

• I see that User:Anythingyouwant just changed it from "He is also the only individual in U.S. history to be elected president without ever having held public office or served in the military" to "He will also be the first president without prior military or other government employment." He changed it in spite of the invisible comment "NOTE: This sentence is being discussed at the talk page; please do not change it, but join in the discussion." His edit summary was "No big change here, just ten words shorter." Well, I for one think the change to "employment" was a "big change" and inappropriate. Nobody up to now has proposed the words "governmental employment", and that is not what the Reliable Sources are talking about. They are talking about elective office, not some vaguely defined "employment". He is the first president who has neither served in the military nor held elective office, per sources. I invite Anythingyouwant to self-revert and get consensus before making a change like this, especially to a sentence tagged as currently under discussion at the talk page. --MelanieN (talk) 23:33, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

I didn't see it as controversial, and wouldn't you agree that the sentence has already been changed unilaterally after you installed the little note? Anyway, the word "employment" obviously includes any elective office, but I will modify that per your request.Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:39, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Comment - Without judgement on the appropriateness of the proposed wording, I believe that "elected" is meant, not "elective". - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 00:08, 27 December 2016 (UTC) I stand corrected. Between the Pacific and the Atlantic heading eastwards, "elective office" is apparently correct. The wondrous vagaries of "American" will never cease to amaze. My humble apologies. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 09:27, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

It has been changed a dozen times during this discussion - that's why I added the note. I mainly objected to the word "employment", and you have now changed it to "governmental service"; OK, "service" has at least been part of the discussion here. I still prefer the more precise (and better sourced) "public office" or "elective office," but that is what discussions are for. --MelanieN (talk) 00:42, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

• I prefer the first phrasing "without ever having held public office or served in the military", as best conveying the RS intended message. I also think that phrasing has more WP:WEIGHT appearances in print than the terms "public service" and "governmental experience", and that those terms are actually things Trump could claim, so seem not the way to phrase it. Markbassett (talk) 05:38, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I like this edit from Anythingyouwant (probably because it is similar to the one I did 4 days ago), but how many more times is "This sentence is being discussed at the talk page; please do not change it, but join in the discussion" going to be ignored? Let the discussion play out, please. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:28, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

How's it similar? My trivial edit had nothing to do with the word "military", and was merely for conciseness.Anythingyouwant (talk) 14:33, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Attempt to summarize

This discussion has been going on for five days. There have been lots of tweaks about the exact wording - "public service", "public office," "governmental experience", "government employment" - but I think we can at least decide this: should we specify "military" experience separately, or use "government" alone to include military service? Reviewing the discussion I see that six people want to mention "military" separately, and three say that "government" alone is enough. Can we conclude that there is consensus to specify "military" separately from "government"? (In addition I note that Reliable Sources mostly do.[46] Sources point out that almost all previous presidents had held previous elective office; of the five who didn't, two had held cabinet positions and three were military commanders.) If we can agree on this, that leaves only the exact wording of the other part of the sentence. --MelanieN (talk) 15:13, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

That summary seems consistent with the current wording: "At age 70, Trump will become the oldest and wealthiest person to assume the presidency, and the first without prior military or other governmental service." So shall we leave it and move on?Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:20, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

That would work for me, although I preferred the original version that listed "government service" before "military" - because more than 40 presidents had prior government service, and only three had military service only. Let's give others a chance to comment. --MelanieN (talk) 17:38, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree that government service should come first. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:51, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Okay, how about this: "At age 70, Trump will become the oldest and wealthiest person to assume the presidency, and the first without prior civilian or military governmental service."Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:08, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Ugh. Was the original wording "without ever having held public office or served in the military" so awful? It is precise, and it is what Reliable Sources say. Is it really necessary to muddy the water in order to save a few words? --MelanieN (talk) 18:32, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

How about:

The first elected without prior governmental or military experience, Trump will become the oldest and wealthiest person to assume the presidency.

It's concise and contains everything everyone seems to want. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:52, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I oppose any version that suggests wrongly that military service is not governmental. And I'm against moving the prior service stuff before the age and wealth, given that the latter is more publicized. And I'm against a huge extended wiki link for all of this, as if neon signs were sadly unavailable.Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:58, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

We can avoid that problem by eliminating the vague word "governmental" and saying "held public office" instead. I do agree that the sentence structure of Scjessey's proposal may be a little hard to parse. How about "Trump will become the oldest and wealthiest person to assume the presidency. He will also be the first who never held previous public office nor served in the military. did not previously hold public office or serve in the military." --MelanieN (talk) 19:03, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

That would be okay if you put the wlink over "previously hold". Public office includes military officers, but your language is okay (and not redundant) because it excludes enlisted service. I suggest using one sentence instead of two (removing "He will also be"). I think the language I previously suggested today is less convoluted, but whatever. Heaven forbid we should use a word like "government" that has a slightly inferior reputation to the word "public" (note that your summary above asked "Can we conclude that there is consensus to specify 'military' separately from 'government'?" I thought so, but now we're asked to completely exclude "government").Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:20, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Well, I prefer "public office" because it includes elective office and appointive office (like the cabinet) but excludes things like being a teacher or a policeman or working for the DMV. Those are "government" positions but they are not "holding public office", which is what all but three previous presidents have done. (I don't think many people would describe a military officer as "holding public office" - that would be a real stretch.) But this wording is one of the things still subject to discussion, as I indicated at the start of this section. --MelanieN (talk) 23:45, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Why do you want to include one weekend per month in the National Guard, but not a lifetime career as a state policeman? Anyway, "public office" typically does include policemen and the like (that's why they're called "officer"). Seriously, why not just say he's the first who never before served in government? Everyone knows that includes the military. But if we're going to get specific about the military, I don't see why we need to completely excise the word "government" when referring to civilian positions.Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:54, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I served in the military. I would never claim that I served in government without a clear explanation of what I mean by that. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:00, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

I served in the military too, and it was a government job. Anyway, if we want to be explicit about it, the standard language is that he never had a "military" or "civilian" job in the public sector/government. I've already described at least four versions of this that I can agree to, including ones that explicitly say "military". Are you okay with them too, User:Mandruss?Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:11, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

I did not see a problem with "without ever having held public office or served in the military", as the military needs to be seperate. However, "IF" we are going to nit-pick then "Public office" would exclude police officers ("public officers") in some states and the judicial branch in others. New Hampshire and North Carolina exclude legislators from the definition of "public official". Texas defines "appointed officer", "elected officer," "state employee," and "state officer" separately.

There is clearly an understandable difference between a police officer and a military soldier or officer, and a "civilian". Part of the media attention, besides the fact that he has never held any "government office", elected or appointed, is that Trump has no prior military service. I am sure reaching captain in a military academy will not count. I submit that, "... and the first without prior military or governmental service.", would be as close (and as short) as we can get. Otr500 (talk) 02:30, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

I also agree to the current version as of this post, even though I think the word "military" is superfluous, but can live with it.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:01, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Harassment of teenage girl

I believe his harassment of a teenage girl should be mentioned somewhere in the article, judging by its coverage in reliable sources, e.g.

• Donald Trump’s Harassment of a Teenage Girl on Twitter Led to Death and Rape Threats, New York Magazine
• Here’s what happened when a brave young woman stood up to troll-in-chief headed for the White House, New York Times

--Tataral (talk) 05:12, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

No it shouldn't, I don't recall "reliable" sources having been elevated to that of a court of law. That, and how irrelevant this is pertaining to the biography of Donald Trump's life, and it's pretty debatable calling what he did "harassment" to the point it's grey area territory. User:Archer Rafferty 6:31, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Tataral: If you believe that information from the sources could fit in either Donald Trump sexual misconduct allegations or Legal affairs of Donald Trump, then feel free to add content or bring discussion to the talk pages on those articles. User:Archer Rafferty: Due to widespread media coverage of these events and similar events/allegations about Donald Trump's treatment of women, on Wikipedia these subjects are relevant information to be covered in Donald Trump's biography, though to limit the size of Trump's main article, the content is , effectively making them an extension or part of the series on Trump's life. Thanks. WClarke (talk) 08:13, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

If you think including every allegation of harassment or sexual assault in an article is beneficial be my guest but don't be naive to the fact most of it is either flat out false (ie pedophile claims), irrelevant (ie this), or trivia clutter. (ie nearly everything being edited into this article nowadays). User:Archer Rafferty 4:33, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

(Redacted)

It has not received sufficient attention to merit inclusion. TFD (talk) 01:07, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Agreed, at least for this article. If anyone wants to start List of Donald Trump's bullying, intimidation and attacks on other people, there is loads of information in RS. Seriously, that's a legitimate topic. Just work out better wording for the title. It's a very notable subject. -- BullRangifer (talk) 15:27, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

That would inherently be a WP:POVFORK, no better than List of Donald Trump's most awesome ideas. Both ought to remain redlinks, per NPOV. It is not possible to have a balanced neutral article which cuts up a natural topic (Donald Trump or Political positions of Donald Trump or Cabinet of Donald Trump or whatever) into artificially smaller subcategories like Only the bad stuff about Donald Trump and similarly Only the good stuff about Donald Trump. Somebody suggested that Donald Trump on Twitter or perhaps Donald Trump's use of the Internet were valid topics, and if he continues using them throughout his presidency I don't doubt such articles will be written as valid WP:SPINOFF subsidiary efforts. But there should never be Only bad things Trump said on Twitter and also should never be Only nice things Trump said on Twitter. Having enough sources for an inherently POV topic-delineation, does not make it any less POV -- compare with gerrymandering where the politicians draw the lines so as to guarantee incumbent-re-elections and unfairly tilt the region-wide totals towards one of the major parties, rather than to delineate natural constituencies or geographically neutral tiling polygons or whatever. Topics must be chosen/titled in an encyclopedic fashion, too, not merely sufficiently sourced. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 00:29, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree that this probably doesn't work for this article. His long history of cyber-bullying is now and appears to be building as a significant issue. Post-election, it does not seem to abate. We may need to find a way to add this in some manner. Objective3000 (talk) 00:47, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I think there will be a lot of sources that talk about controversial statements made by Donald Trump, how various pundits reacted thereto, and how Trump in turn tended to double down or make yet another controversial statement or pick an ad hominem fight with some particular critic, thereby generating vast amounts of earned media coverage. Not only do I think there is a pattern, I think it is an intentional one, from his years in wrestling and then in reality television (not to mention his role as a NYC celeb before that). So there is definitely scope for wikipedia noting what the sources say (which may mean 'cyber-bullying' iff actual sources use that phrase and may mean 'intentional pattern' if actual sources use *that* phrase), I just don't want there to be a spinoff article which is title Mean things Donald Trump said or something equally POV, it needs to be melded in with the rest of his biography-stuff and the rest of his campaign & presidency & stances articles, with due weight and neutral balance and all that stuff. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 14:07, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

restart section about whether Trump identifies as a conservative

• now: Trump's positions have been described by scholars and commentators as populist, protectionist, and nationalist.
• new: Trump self-identifies as a "somewhat conservative" Republican, and his positions have been described as populist, protectionist, and nationalist.

References

Does this look okay? Mainspace previously said "Trump identifies as a conservative" but it was removed as being unsourced. See existing Talk:Donald_Trump#.22Trump_identifies_as_a_conservative.2C_and....22 for previous discussion with Tataral and SPECIFICO (courtesy ping in case they want to add anything). 47.222.203.135 (talk) 00:15, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

It is more correct that he said it during a debate. You would need a reliable secondary source that explains how he self-identifies. TFD (talk) 01:13, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

As a general principle, a primary source may well suffice for self identification. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 05:57, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Disagree. There is no policy-based reason to do so and it fails "Self-published or questionable sources as sources on themselves" as it is unduly self-serving or questionable. Note we do not say that Bernie Sanders is a "democratic socialist," but that he describes himself as such. And there are a huge number of secondary sources that say he describes himself that way. We do not call Hillary Clinton a "progressive," although she has claimed to be one. (The claim is dubious.) The article on Tony Blair mentions that he calls himself a "democratic socialist," but does not say he is. There are plenty of sources that question whether Trump is a conservative and no guarantee that he would claim to be one if there were no advantage in doing so. TFD (talk) 15:00, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Not really seeing the unduly self-serving or questionable; particularly w.r.t. inclusion as an (self-)attributed statement. I make no suggestion that a primary source is sufficient for us to include definitive categorisation of a person in line with their identification of themselves; it's clearly not. I do suggest that a primary source of Person X saying "I am a Y" is sufficient for us to say Person X self-identifies as a Y or Person X has described themselves as a Y. Outside our political articles, this type of sourcing is more than sufficient for an (self-)attributed statement. Both Sanders & Blair include attributed statements of self-identification. I would have no issue if these were sourced to statements made by Sanders & Blair, respectively. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 21:54, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

TFD, according to Politico, which is a reliable source for what Trump said in terms of accurately reporting the content methinks, Trump called himself "somewhat conservative" and then went on to say how Reagan was "pretty conservative". It is pretty much the definition of WP:ABOUTSELF that we need to use a direct quote from the subject, to say what they self-identify as. How else could we conceivably get such information? It can be a book they wrote, an interview they gave, or whatever. Saying it in a debate counts, perhaps more than writing it in a diary published post-humously, because Trump was saying it to define himself (aka self-identify) to the wider audience. It is like being a member of the Republican party -- it is a statement about his value-system. Whether it is true aka a reflection of reality, hardly matters. Sanders is not in any realistic sense a socialist independent: he caucuses with the member of the Democratic party, he tends to vote with the members of the Democratic party, and he ran as a candidate for the Democratic party nomination to the presidency. None of which impacts his *self-identification* obviously. Trump has plenty of sourced characterizations of his actual stances: populist/nationalist/protectionist. That is what he is. But he definitely does self-identify as somewhat conservative, and that too is part of what he is; whether it speaks to his aspirations, or whether he is pandering to the crowd, or whether he is completely unaware of what he really truly is deep down, or whether he truly *is* in fact 'somewhat conservative' and the pundits that say he is populist/nationalist/protectionist will turn out to be wrong a few years from now... none of that matters. If you still disagree that politico is a 'reliable source' to verify the facts about what Trump said he identified as, please explain what you *would* actually consider a reliable source? I agree that it would be self-serving to use the Politico source to say "Trump is conservative just like Reagan" because clearly THAT would be self-serving... but I don't see any problem with saying "Trump self-identifies as quote somewhat conservative unquote and has been identified as populist/nationalist/protectionist/semiIsolationist/antiEstablishment/etc. This is the language from Political positions of Hillary Clinton: "Clinton has stated that she prefers the term 'progressive'...Clinton said: 'I consider myself a modern progressive'... 'I'm a progressive who likes to get things done'..." Whether she was saying that because she really believes she meets the definition, or whether she was saying that to appeal to a key voting-bloc, is not really the question. Actual progressives, self-identified and otherwise, generally voted for Clinton in 2016, and actual conservatives voted for Trump, so there is a larger point being made here; their self-identification helps explain their winning the nominations of their respective parties (i.e. was reciprocated to a greater or lesser degree). Nobody would argue that Clinton was the *most* progressive candidate in 2016, but we do utilized a ref which says she 'aligned' herself with that faction, or that Trump was the *most* conservative candidate in 2016. But I see self-identification as important, not trivia. (Contrast with the discussions about favorite ice cream further down this page :-) See also the 'moderate conservative' label which OnTheIssues gave Trump recently, plus variations going back to 2003 which have been some subgroup of 'conservative' since 2011, and some subgroup of 'populist' in earlier years. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 22:51, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

An off the cuff statement in one speech does not count. People say different things at different times to different groups of people depending on how they are feeling at the moment. If Trump self-identifies as a conservative, then you should find a source that says that. Presumably the author will be familiar with the various things that Trump has said and be able to decide whether his statement is consistent with whatever else he has said. And if no one has made this observation then according to weight it is insignificant. My opinion is that since Trump only said it once, it was self-serving, and Trump is inconsistent in his statements, that journalists decided this isolated statement was insufficient to say Trump self-identifies as a conservative. That is my original research as an amateur Trumpologist, but it is as valid as your original research. TFD (talk) 23:28, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Ah, I understand what you are saying now. You would prefer that we have some analysis work by a secondary source, which in addition to just reporting what Trump said at time t, has also looked over his other statements, and his actions, and come to some broader conclusions than just Trump-said-this-once. So in other words, you want something the equivalent of a literature review, before this phrase is put into the lead-paragraphs of Donald Trump? Which may exist, I don't know, we'll see if I can turn something up. But in the meantime, is it correct to assume that you have no objections to adding the 'somewhat-conservative' quote per politico, to supplement the existing paragraphs over at Political_positions_of_Donald_Trump#In_his_own_words? Thanks 47.222.203.135 (talk) 13:58, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

You are making it too complex. "Primary, secondary and tertiary sources" says, "All analyses and interpretive or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, and must not be an original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors." The reasoning is that reporters are familiar with the subject and can apply judgement. We "rely" on them to use judgment in what they report, and for their newspapers to either fact check or publish retractions of errors, hence what they write are "reliable sources." Wikipedia editors are supposed to rely on reliable sources rather than apply their own judgments to primary sources. Furthermore we are supposed to report, per "Balancing aspects", information in proportion to its reporting in reliable sources. If secondary sources ignore a fact, then so should we. We "rely" on the writers of reliable sources to determine what is important and what is not. It could be that you are an expert Trumpologist and know he self-identifies as a conservative and know that fact is important. But the test is what reliable sources report, not what we think. TFD (talk) 21:25, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Okay, I see from looking at your original reply up above, part of what you are objecting to is the specific phrasing... which I didn't catch because I really do not consider 'Trump self-identifies as quote somewhat conservative unquote' to be any sort of analytical claim, it is just shorthand for what Politico reported he said. But you would rather we say something like this: 'During the [specify context here] debate on mm/dd/yyyy Trump said quote [longer soundbite with fuller context] unquote' or similar, for correctness/accuracy/context. Which is fine by me, as something that might fit into the paragraphs over at the In_own_words subsection of the political stances article, but too wordy for the lead-paragraphs here obviously. That said, now that you have pointed it out, though, I do agree with you that not many sources cover Trump's self-identification, at present, which strongly suggests it should not yet be in the lead-paragraph of this biographical article. I'm still digging through refs for the other article, but I will try and remember to ping you when I get around to messing with that one. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 05:17, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Two minor tweaks I still suggest:

• now: Trump's positions have been described by scholars and commentators as populist, protectionist, and nationalist.
• new: Trump's positions have been described by scholars and commentators characterized as populist, protectionist, and nationalist.

Suggest junking the 'scholars and commentators' stuff as WP:PUFFERY, if they weren't reliable sources we would not be using wikivoice. Also, wikilink 'positions' to the article on Trump's positions. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 05:22, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

More substantial wall

I disagree with this edit because it is unintentionally misleading. It suggests (at least to some readers) that there is not already any wall of any sort along the southern border of the U.S. The main text of this BLP uses the language "more substantial" wall, and I don't think two words in the lead about this are two too many. Trump's proposal is to build a big wall, instead of the current small wall, not instead of nothing at all.Anythingyouwant (talk) 14:42, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Where are the reliable sources reporting that Trump says he wants to build a "more substantial" wall? Or where Trump even acknowledges that some parts of the border already have a fence or wall? (BTW re "instead of the current small wall": if you are under the impression that there is already a wall along the entire southern border, you are mistaken.) We need to report what he said, not what we think he meant to say. And what he said, repeatedly, is that he intends to "build a wall" - a "big, beautiful wall". His call-and-response at every rally: "What are we going to build?" "A wall!" "Who is going to pay for it?" "Mexico!" Not a "bigger wall" or a "better wall" or a "more substantial wall", just "a wall". He gives the impression that he thinks, or wants his listeners to think, that the wall will be something brand new, not just an expansion of what is there now, and IMO we misreport his platform if we impose our own interpretation. I didn't notice the "more substantial" in the main text and I will take a look to see if it is sourced. --MelanieN (talk) 16:32, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

That's exactly right. There are only relatively small portions of the border that have any type of wall at all.- MrX 16:47, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Looking at the section in the article's text: it lists three references. None of the references says or implies "more substantial". I will remove those two words when I can (can't right now per DS). --MelanieN (talk) 16:52, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

The BLP says:

“ Trump vows to build a more substantial wall on the Mexico–United States border to keep out illegal immigrants, a wall which Trump promises Mexico will pay for. ”

References

The last of those three references makes abundantly clear that there is already a wall along parts of the southern border.Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:59, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Vice news is not a reliable source as far as I know, and you seem to be reading only the headline anyway. Further into the article is says " But the fence abruptly ends in some places, leaving vast open stretches. In the most absurd cases, 30-foot sections of fence are surrounded on both sides by miles of wide open space." - MrX 17:11, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Why don't you think Vice News is reliable? In any event, both you and Melanie are mistaken if you think Trump is proposing a wall along the entire southern border. Even if he were, it would still be misleading to imply that there is no wall presently along any part of the southern border, which is what our lead is now implying.Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:16, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Of course there are walls and fences along parts of the southern border. Everybody knows that. Our lead doesn't in any way imply there aren't. (And you, in your initial paragraph here, clearly implied that you thought there was already "a wall" - not "some walls" or "a series of walls" but "the current small wall" - along the southern border. I'm glad we agree there is currently not "a wall," but some walls and fences primarily in populated areas, leaving the vast majority of the border unfenced.) Trump's proposal was to built "a wall" - not "to strengthen the existing walls", not to "expand our system of walls" - but to build "a wall". All of the commenters on his proposal (estimating the cost, describing its feasibility, etc.) assumed that he meant a wall along pretty much the entire southern border.[47][48][49] That's what he has said, repeatedly. A new wall, 1000 miles long (with natural barriers taking care of the rest) and 50 feet high. There is nothing in any of the three sources, express or implied, to support our describing his proposal as a "more substantial" wall. More substantial than what? He hasn't even acknowledged the existence of anything current. --MelanieN (talk) 17:33, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Vice.com seems to feature sensationalistic reporting and headlines; does not seem to be frequently cited by others; seems to have an open submission policy; and I can find no evidence that they have a reputation for fact checking. Nothing in the lead implies that portions of the border don't already have a wall, fence, or natural barrier.- MrX 17:44, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I have no quibble with the accuracy of the Vice report. It makes clear that some portions of the border have an existing wall or fence, and vast stretches do not. It does not in any way support a suggestion that Trump is calling for a "more substantial" wall. As I said with my revert: that is putting words in his mouth - words he has never said. --MelanieN (talk) 17:48, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

User:MelanieN, you are mistaken. Trump has taken the position that, "Of the 2,000, we don’t need 2,000, we need 1,000 because we have natural barriers". Even where there's a natural barrier, he said on 60 Minutes that fencing would suffice in some places instead of a wall.[50]. Maybe if we can agree about what he's said, then we can get consensus on the lead language.Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:03, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I was just modifying my comment above to say 1000 miles long and 50 feet high. That's still a new wall. Not a "more substantial" wall than... what? He has never said. He has never uttered those words. And we should not put them in his mouth. --MelanieN (talk) 18:05, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't understand why you think we'd be putting words in his mouth; no one suggested putting "substantial" in quotes or even attributing that word to him without quotes. The point is that he is proposing to expand what's already at the border, and already approved for the border, rather than proposing to build everything from scratch. Surely there must be an acceptable way to indicate in the lead the former rather than the latter.Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:13, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

The problem is that he never says "I'm going to expand" or "I'm going to add to" or anything like this. He says "I am going to BUILD a wall." Period. And the wall he describes - concrete and 50 feet high - is completely different from anything currently in place. It IS, in fact, starting from scratch. --MelanieN (talk) 19:10, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

No, he has actually been much more nuanced than merely saying "I am going to build a wall" (e.g., as I explained above, he allows for some fencing, and some natural barriers too). In any event, I think you're missing the point. There are already some walls, and some fences, and some natural barriers down there, and still more have already been approved by Congress. So he's not proposing to build a barrier along a border that currently has no barriers, which is what the lead currently implies. Do you want the lead to suggest that he's proposing to install the first-ever physical barrier between the two countries? Because that's what you seem to be advocating, intentionally or not.Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:27, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

• "I will build a great wall – and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me – and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words."
• "I'm building a wall, OK? I'm building a wall. I am going to do very well with the Hispanics, the Mexicans."
• "It’s going to be a big, fat, beautiful wall!"
• "A nation WITHOUT BORDERS is not a nation at all. We must have a wall. The rule of law matters."

Yep. That's real nuanced.- MrX 21:36, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't recall having asserted that every single sentence Trump's ever uttered on the subject has been nuanced.Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:39, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

We are talking in circles. I don't see anything in the lede sentence that implies there is nothing there now. Trump himself says, over and over and over, that he is going to build a wall, we must have a wall, we can't have a nation without borders (which he seems to imply is the current situation?). Even when he modifies the proposal a little bit in calmer settings - only 1000 miles of it will be wall, and part of it could be fence instead of wall - he still refers to it as his wall. He still leads the chanting of "build the wall" at rallies. He has NEVER suggested that it will be an addition or expansion of what is there now. Presumably (one hopes) he does know that there is a partial wall/fence along the border now, but he clearly thinks it is nothing that can be compared to his big fat beautiful wall. Anyhow, the bottom line is sourcing. I doubt if we can find a single reliable source that says he is really talking about expanding or "making more substantial" the existing border barriers. If he doesn't say it, and reliable sources don't say it, then we can't say it. Basically this is Original Research on your part. --MelanieN (talk) 00:06, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

You say, "I don't see anything in the lede sentence that implies there is nothing there now." Many readers, especially foreign ones, will not agree with you. How painful would it be for us to extremely briefly indicate that there is something there now?Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:13, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

If we don't have any Reliable Sources pointing this out in connection with Trump's plan to build a wall - and if Trump himself has not pointed it out - it would still be WP:Original research. Or, if you prefer, WP:Synthesis. OR and synthesis are not only painful - they are not allowed. --MelanieN (talk) 06:31, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

I have edited the BLP like this. Please let me know what you think.Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:11, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Well, I think it's unnecessary, but if it solves the problem you see with the sentence, I can accept it. It does seem like a fair representation of what he is saying. --MelanieN (talk) 15:25, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

@Anythingyouwant I edited the sentence to say building an extension of the wall along the U.S.–Mexico border because it is clear that Congress has already approved the "wall" that is already in place. The wall that Trump wants to build was already started under George W. Bush. Trump and his surrogates (Rudy Giuliani for example See here) have made it clear that Trump will be merely picking up on the work that Bush did and was stopped when Obama took office. The following Wikipedia article acknowledges that there is a series of walls, fences, and natural objects that make up the border right now and that 580 miles of barriers are in place. Congress has already voted on and approved and Bush signed into law the authorization to do what Trump has campaigned for. See: Mexico–United States barrier. I understand where you were going with "new wall" but that is not quite accurate. Trump and Giuliani have made it clear that they mean to fill in the gaps in the current system and continue the work already begun under Bush and since that Congressional approval is already in place then an Executive Order is all that is needed to get started.--SlackerDelphi (talk) 08:21, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Slacker, thanks for wanting to improve the article but I completely disagree with this, and I think Trump would strongly disagree as well. He is not planning to fill in the gaps because he would not accept any part of what is existing to be part of his "big, beautiful" 50 foot tall wall. "New" he would probably accept, but he makes it very clear that he thinks what we have now is not working and needs to be replaced - not just extended. MelanieN alt (talk) 17:02, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

I have no problem with your edit, but you can see above that other people had a problem with that. I don't really understand why. In any event, both your edit and mine have now been reverted without discussion by User:PeterTheFourth, so now the lead once again gives the false impression that Trump's proposal will install a wall at a border that now has no wall.Anythingyouwant (talk) 13:43, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

• I object to the insertion of "a bigger and longer [wall]" to the lead and request that it be removed until there is actually consensus for adding such an unnecessary (and WP:OR) qualifier to the simple, factual statement that Trump said he wants to build a wall. These repeated attempts at interpreting his words to make his grandiose, over-the-top campaign promises suddenly seem reasonable violate WP:NPOV. - MrX 20:59, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

If we just say a "wall" without any adjectives, then it sounds like there is presently no wall at the border. Is that false implication desirable? Would that be because we want to portray the project as being as unprecedented and unreasonable as possible?Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:03, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Say what he said. If he was unclear, don't fix it. Use quotation marks if necessary. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:15, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

According to reliable sources, he says that he wants a bigger and longer wall, that we don’t need 2,000 miles because 1,000 is natural barriers, and that fencing would suffice in some places instead of a wall. What the lead says now is a proper summary that is not misleading.Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:25, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Wrong. The best language here is "new wall", which MelanieN already conceded is clear & acceptable. ("New wall" satisfies your need to not imply there is not already a wall of sorts at the border. And your "bigger and longer wall" is deficient and incorrect, because, Trump has made clear the wall he plans to build addresses countering tunnels, and if the new wall were simply bigger & longer as you like to state, it wouldn't do that. [A "new" wall leaves open "different kind of wall", and that indeed is what is the case. And we don't have to be more specific.]) IHTS (talk) 21:36, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

I think "bigger" can include a bigger underground portion to counter tunnels. But I would also be happy with just saying "new wall".Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:54, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

"Bigger" connotes "taller" (and/or "wider"), not "deeper" (and also not "electronically enhanced"). IHTS (talk) 22:25, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

@Anythingyouwant: Blame that on the President elect. It was he who whipped up his supporters into thinking that they were going to be getting a big, fat, beautiful wall, the implication being that the hodgepodge that exists now would be replaced with something rivaling the Great wall of China. It is intellectually dishonest to use equivocation in the lead of this article as a means of helping Mr. Trump walk back those promises. I hope to God that we're not going to have four years of having to defend against this type of newspeak as it tries to make it's way into the encyclopedia.- MrX 21:32, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

8Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:17, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

@Mr. I don't fully see the point of your comment. Trump commented on the wall over and over again, yes. I agree with that point. But since he did comment constantly and consistently on the wall then there is much more nuance to his position than you seem to be willing to admit. He did talk about it a lot and during those other conversations and off hand comments he did hem and haw back and forth on size, cost, style, and who is going to pay for it. It seems that your main point is that he wants a "big, fat, beautiful wall" and that's all he said. Well, unfortunately your comment cuts against itself. He did argue for a "big, fat, beautiful wall" but also argued for cost effectiveness, fences, using natural objects, and made those other less over-the-top comments all of the time on the campaign trail. So, in sum, he did argue for a big wall and he did talk a lot about it, but during those months and months of discussing he DID comment on alternatives and he did talk about extending the wall (and fences) that are already there. It would be nice if Trump wrapped it all up in the phrase that you seem to not care for (i.e., "big, fat, beautiful wall") but he didn't and the lede paragraph needs to show the reader that Trump does acknowledge the current wall and the current federal law that supports the fact that he has stated that he will start work on the wall the moment he takes office. This is not newspeak. You are incorrect. It is called factual. Making the claim that he just wants a big wall is inaccurate.--SlackerDelphi (talk) 21:45, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

I think "new wall" is the best compromise we can get. At least it correctly suggests that there's already some kind of wall, instead of suggesting that Trump would build the first wall ever put at the border.Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:59, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Agree. (And "new wall" easily implies new features. [As does "new car", likely having new features the old one didn't have.]) IHTS (talk) 22:34, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

SlackerDelphi, Trump said a lot of things, often contradictory, sometimes nonsensical, and many times downright false. Obviously, his every word cannot fit into the lead, so we have to summarize the significant points. Sources have overwhelmingly focused on the big ideas he used to promote his candidacy, one of which was building a wall. - MrX 22:33, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

MrX, I agree with you that not everything can fit into the lede and I'm not calling for that. So that is a red herring. All I'm saying is that he has stated that it should be a wall and that wall might be fence and might be electronic monitoring, etc. All of these things were outlined in campaign stops and on 60 Minutes with Lesley Stahl. It is just is not as simple as you would like to make it. And yes Trump can be contradictory, nonsensical and false in his statements--just like his critics.--SlackerDelphi (talk) 00:12, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

SlackerDelphi, "he did talk about extending the wall (and fences)". I don't think he ever said that. Or even implied it. (He talked about *constructing* a new wall, including fences where appropriate. He never said or implied *entending*, which would make use of existing wall/fence structures.) IHTS (talk) 22:40, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Ihardlythinkso, as far as I can tell you have expressed a personal opinion without the benefit of one single reference to a reliable source to support your opinion. All you have offered to support your opinion is: "I don't think he ever said that". Unfortunately that is not a reliable source. Please review the Lesley Stahl interview on 60 Minutes, the many conversations with Guiliani and pull up Trump's many, many speeches on YouTube and you will see that made many contradictory statements on what he wants to do with the Southern border. They only consistent and constant reframe was stopping illegal immigration over the border. His critics have focused on (to paraphrase MrX) "the big wall" while he focused on illegal immigration. There is a true difference.--SlackerDelphi (talk) 00:12, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

You are the one contending he talked about "extending the wall (and fences)", so, *you* are the one with burden to show that with a ref to RS to support saying that, not the other way around. (And you didn't. Just a general finger point to a bunny trail that will not get there.) If this is the level of your arguments on this page, you're wasting my time. IHTS (talk) 01:02, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Ihardlythinkso, I did point you to the references. I reviewed the references in the response I just wrote (60 Minutes interview, Guiliani comments, YouTube speeches, etc. all have been mentioned and links provided). Also, check out: "Yes, Trump will build his border wall. Most of it is already built." Washington Post, November 21, 2016. See also: "DONALD TRUMP: MEXICO BORDER WALL NOW ‘FENCE EXTENSION,’ ORIGINAL PLAN ‘NOT REALISTIC’", THE INQUISITR NEWS, November 12, 2016. Please note in the interview he uses the word "extension". All you have provided is your incorrect opinion that he did not say "extension". Just saying something did not have does not have make it not true. You need reliable sources and your own personal opinion does not ever count as a reliable source. I agree that you are wasting my time by refusing to read the references given.--SlackerDelphi (talk) 01:12, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

You're amazing. (I read your first offer of RS, the Washington Post article, every word of it. And there is nothing there at all to support your contention--nothing. It has lots of conjecture and opinion, but nothing re what Trump said, to your point we're talking about.) How about stop wasting my time!! p.s. I never contended Trump has never used the word "extension" (that word, btw, doesn't even appear in that article), I've questioned that he has ever stated/said/contended what you are saying he has stated/said/contended. Get a grip. IHTS (talk) 01:55, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Ihardlythinkso, I am pretty amazing. You seem to be jumping up and down, not me. I am not the one that needs to get a grip. You just proved that you don't read anything. The word "extension" is used in the article. Yes, you questioned something, but it was a question not based upon any facts, just your opinion, which of course is not a reliable source. My point that Trump made many different claims about the wall and the fence and extending what has already been started and nothing you have stated refutes that fact. Also, I am responding to your comments even though you haven't provide one reliable source to support your contention. Please provide a reliable source. If this discussion is a waste of your time then why are you responding? Am I making you respond? No. Maybe the Russians are making you response. Or maybe it is the vast right wing conspiracy.--SlackerDelphi (talk) 04:32, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

I was clearly referring to the Wash Post article you named, "Yes, Trump will build his border wall. Most of it is already built." Washington Post, November 21, 2016. The word "extension" appears nowhere in that article. (You can't read? Are incompetent? Or just dishonest? What?) IHTS (talk) 19:47, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Ihardlythinkso are you incompetent? Are you dishonest? The word appears: "DONALD TRUMP: MEXICO BORDER WALL NOW ‘FENCE EXTENSION,’ ORIGINAL PLAN ‘NOT REALISTIC’", THE INQUISITR NEWS, November 12, 2016.----SlackerDelphi (talk) 22:17, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

I made clear (twice!) that I read/was referring to the Washington Post article. (So you don't read what others write, or discuss fairly, is that it!?) IHTS (talk) 23:12, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Slacker, please take a look at this discussion. Wikipedia works by consensus. You have tried, over and over, to persuade people that the lede (which is supposed to be a very basic summary of the points in the article) should focus, not on his constantly repeated theme and catchphrase "build a wall", but rather on the occasional low-profile modifications and walk backs by him or his surrogates. Multiple people have disagreed and you have not convinced anyone. There comes a time to let it go. MelanieN alt (talk) 17:11, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

"Build a wall" is an iconic phrase of Trump's, is his direct promise, and would appropriately be included in the encyclopedia without us tacking on an interpretation. Trump obviously plays fast and loose with his terminology and although it would be swell if Trump would be more specific in this and other stated goals it is not ours to do it for him. Marteau (talk) 18:20, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Moving footnotes out of the lead

I don't know if an entire new RFC is necessary to merely move the footnotes out of the lead, but I'd be glad to start one if necessary. IMHO, either the lead should be fully footnoted, or not footnoted. To have four footnotes after one sentence, and no footnotes anywhere else in the lead, looks silly to me, and it's unlike any other lead I've ever seen. These four footnotes should of course go later in the article.Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:37, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

The footnotes follow the most contentious sentence in the entire article. For that reason, I think they should remain and the rest of the lead should omit footnotes for readability. I would not oppose removing them from the contentious sentence if I knew that editors wouldn't simply remove the sentence or alter it to suit their personal POV. - MrX 16:25, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I seem to recall (can't find it right now) that the footnotes on that sentence were inserted at the recommendation of an admin who closed a discussion on the subject. --MelanieN (talk) 16:34, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

You are correct. Sandstein commented that including the footnotes was part of the proposal, thus part of the consensus outcome.- MrX 16:56, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

The footnotes were swept into a discussion of larger issues, and there was never any separate proposal to footnote one and only one sentence. But I'd be glad to start an RFC about that. The most controversial sentences in lots of leads exclude footnotes.Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:02, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

We already have an RFC about that sentence. Let's not start another one while that one is open. The footnotes issue can be dealt with after that RfC is resolved - and may not even be necessary depending on how that RfC is resolved. --MelanieN (talk) 17:36, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

this part is too loaded

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

and the first without prior military or other governmental service.

Government service include teacher, police officer, clerk, mail deliverer, midwife, firefighter, paramedic, senator, representative, governor, mayor, alderman, land commissioner, secretary of state, secretary of defense, general in the army, private in the army, submariner, you name it.

There is no need to split military from other government service. IMO just "and the first without prior governmental service" is sufficient.

207.245.44.6 (talk) 17:16, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Please see the existing discussion above at "Prior government experience". --MelanieN (talk) 17:37, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

This is journalese. All presidents had been elected to government office before becoming president except: Taft and Hoover were cabinet secretaries, Grant was Commanding General of the United States Army and Eisenhower was Chief of Staff of the United States Army. That's not just any government or military employment. Had Trump served in the Peace Corps or not been medically unfit for the draft, his background would still have distinguished him from the others. TFD (talk) 21:29, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't think military should be split from the rest of government. If he worked as a private in the army or worked as a teacher in a school, he would have done governmental service. 207.245.44.6 (talk) 23:30, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Net worth contradiction

The infobox lists DJT's net worth at $4.5B and uses a citation that says $3.7B. The consensus list at the top of this page says that the real-time net worth should not be used. I agree. However, the $3.7B number comes from a detailed Forbes article in September, not from their real-time estimates which are not updated in real-time for DJT as his holdings are generally private. [[51]]. Objective3000 (talk) 20:55, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

There is no contradiction. The cited Forbes page lists both the "real time" net worth of $3.7 billion (apparently derived from their September estimate as you point out) and the annual 2016 billionaires' net worth of $4.5 billion, which is the one we are reporting until the 2017 yearly rankings are published. — JFG ^talk 22:52, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Intro

Can we please keep it simple. Along with his others descriptions, he's President-elect of the United States. He will be sworn in as the 45th President. We don't need to go on about when he was projected elected (November 8) or elected (December 19), as that's too elaborative for the lead. Besides, this will all be changed to 45th President of the United States, on 20 January 2017. Keep it neat, like the Mike Pence intro. GoodDay (talk) 21:03, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

ISIL not ISIS

The usually used and preferred abbreviation of the group is ISIL on Wikipedia. In addition, the group's name is "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" on the article so ISIL makes more sense. Or maybe we should just use its full name at the article here instead. 117.207.145.10 (talk) 22:41, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

That's true, but the media persistently calls it ISIS, and that's what most people seem to call it. (I don't really know or care what a bunch of terrorists call themselves and doubt many people do either.) Maybe we can say something like "the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, abbreviated as ISIL or sometimes ISIS when in Syria", which covers all bases. White Arabian Filly ^Neigh 22:49, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

No just ISIL or the full name. Including the abbreviations and the full name will make it too long. 117.207.145.10 (talk) 23:02, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

It's called neither ISIS or ISIL. It's simply called IS. 207.245.44.6 (talk) 23:27, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I.S. seems better than ISIL or ISIS, because it has spread outside of Iraq, Syria, and the Levant (e.g. to Libya). I would always use periods though ("I.S.").Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:36, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

It's called with all terms whether IS, ISIL or ISIS. The other one is Daesh. I think it is better to avoid the abbreviation confusion and use the full name in the lead. 117.207.145.10 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:04, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Let's find out from the uncontested primary source: Abu Bakr 'Big Daddy' al-Baghdadi himself. Hey Al! What're you calling your organization now? It's The Caliphate, no? --Dervorguilla (talk) 02:09, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 December 2016

My request is to add the artist in which Trump used as his entrance song in his presidential campaign Who is Daniel Robinson The song being Darkness Rises. You can easily google it or if you want I can send you all the links. He has used it many times, and it has gotten media attention, We think it fair to add this to Trump's page or add this artist to Wikipedia. The song Darkness Rises was Trumps main choice for his entrance in most of his campaigns rallies. Djrrecords (talk) 07:38, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

I'll let somebody else handle this, but note possible COI implications in the username. ―Mandruss ☎ 07:52, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

 Not done Apparently this was used as one of Donald Trump's songs, but the only confirmation I can find is at the "Trump Channel"[52] and a few tweets. No independent reliable media sources seem to have taken note of it, and Daniel Robinson himself does not seem ready for an article here, per WP:BAND. --MelanieN (talk) 16:13, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

MSNBC/Salon/TheNation person named Joan Walsh re-tweeted the factoid,[53] but from their personal username rather than from their corporate handle methinks. Interestingly, if this is the French-language branch of Slate.com, then it looks like Bernie Sanders also used the same 'Darkness Rises' music at one of his rallies.[54] As for the rest of Trump's discography, there *are* definitely plenty of sources about Trump's music selections at rallies and for the repub national convention and such, plus feuds with various musicians over performance-rights. (One music critic mentioned a noteworthy omission: "I commend the Trump team for sparing us the obvious: Pink Floyd’s The Wall.") See subsection, Donald Trump campaign rallies#Music. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 21:34, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

FYI for the major editors here

The box on the right is the FAC toolbox, which the Military history Wikiproject has adopted for its A-class reviews. Among other things, this box contains a link to a script that checks the external links in any given Wikipedia article, and when used on the article article Donald Trump its shows that some of these links may not be working. Under the BLP protocol, information in the article can be removed if its sources are not up to par, so someone may want to look into this if they get a moment. TomStar81 (Talk) 12:30, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Trivia added to lede

Somebody added this sentence to the lede: "Trump admires Richard Nixon[12] and, as well, claims to admire Auric Goldfinger[13][14] and P.T. Barnum.[15][16]" I consider this trivial to the point of nonsensical. IMO it doesn't belong in the article, much less in the lede. I can't revert it right now; does someone else want to? --MelanieN (talk) 15:43, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Done. Please deposit brownie points in my account.Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:54, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

@MelanieN and Anythingyouwant: FWIW - Yes, the following "very well sourced edit", published by several "Reliable Sources", such as "The New York Times", "The Washington Post" and "Bloomberg News", was added to the "Donald Trump" article in good faith (see copy below) - and later reverted by "User:Anythingyouwant" - some may consider the edit worthy - and sufficiently worthy to include in the "Donald Trump" article - Comments Welcome by other editors of course - to reach "WP:CONSENSUS" - per "WP:BRD", "WP:OWN" & related - in any case - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 17:53, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Copied from "Donald Trump (10:25, 29 December 2016 version)":

Trump admires Richard Nixon and, as well, claims to admire Auric Goldfinger and P.T. Barnum.

References

Well, in my opinion, you've put undue weight on the people you've chosen to mention, plus distorted the cited sources. Those sources say he also admires people like Clint Eastwood and Orson Welles, but you've chosen to ignore that because you want to make Trump look as bad as possible. And you distort what Trump said about the people you do mention; for example, did he say that he admires Goldfinger, or rather that he thinks it was a great character? I can and do think Uriah Heep was a great character, without in any way admiring him. And, of course, none of this is remotely appropriate for the lead, which is supposed to serve "as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important contents."Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:46, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, Anythingyouwant, there was some problem with the weighting of these particular names, and yes, the exact verbiage needed some work. But it was still a good faith and sourced edit, placed in a reasonable part of the article (#Early life) although personally I would have created a new subsection called Donald Trump#Influences in the vein of articles about musicians and artists, which covers their antecedents and predecessors and how they viewed such things. Let not the perfect be the enemy of the good. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 10:15, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Oppose anywhere in the article, per MelanieN, even if Eastwood and Welles are included. Will retire if added to the lead. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:29, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Support @Anythingyouwant and Mandruss: Thank you *very much* for your comments - yes - agreed - *entirely* ok with me to add "Clint Eastwood" and "Orson Welles" as well - esp if appropriately sourced by a "WP:RS" of course - however - no - did not intentionally try to slight the content in any way - nonetheless - seems being aware of such influences (*any and all*) may be helpful in understanding the person in some way I would think - to me, at the moment, it may be "WP:Undue" to try and hide (and/or "WP:CENSOR"?) such influences from public view instead - also - no - the original edit was not added to the lede at all, as originally claimed by "User:MelanieN" or, later, erroneously repeated by "User:Anythingyouwant" and "User:Mandruss" - the edit was actually "added" to a non-lede subordinate section (ie, "Donald Trump#Early life" - see "edit" ) instead - hope this all helps in some way - in any regards - Thanks again for your comments - they're all *greatly* appreciated - and - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 21:08, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Quite right, User:Drbogdan, you put it into the "Early life" section rather than the lead (I must try not to reflexively agree with User:MelanieN so much!). Anyway, if you would like to draft up a revised sentence and present it here, then we would be glad to give it a look, but you would have to explain why this would be more important than the zillion other little factoids about Trump that we have opted to leave out of this particular article.Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:19, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

I apologize for erroneously stating it was in the lede. But it doesn't fit any better in the "early life" section - in a paragraph about his family. MelanieN alt (talk) 21:55, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

• Are we able to source a preference for vanilla, strawberry or chocolate? - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 21:58, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

• Oh please, Ryk72, the neapolitan triplet? No no no, that will never do. Cherry-vanilla ice cream. Sourced.[55] Probably WP:ABOUTSELF since it is an interview, but Us Magazine back in 2010 probably has enough reliable-source-standing to have correctly recorded for posterity, the flavor Trump verbalized, with enough accuracy for wikipedia purposes. It was founded as a spinoff of the NYT, you know! Before he became the POTUS, he was a pop culture celeb, so we have almost any trivial factoid you might wish for. Bet you are glad you asked  ;-) 47.222.203.135 (talk) 19:40, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

@Anythingyouwant and MelanieN: Thanks for your comments - np - iac - another suggested edit addition to consider may be the following (*entirely* ok w/ me to ce or place elsewhere in the article of course):

Another suggested edit addition to the "Donald Trump" article:

Trump admires Richard Nixon and, as well, claims to admire P.T. Barnum. Hollywood film notables, favored by Trump, include fictional film character Auric Goldfinger and the film actor/director Clint Eastwood; Trump claims that his favorite film is Citizen Kane.

References

Other similar possible edit additions, to help better understand "Donald Trump", may be considered as well of course - Comments Welcome - iac - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 22:16, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Favorite color? Boxers or briefs? Sorry but none of this gives me any great insight into the mind of Donald Trump. If I thought it did, I would probably be wrong. Not encyclopedic. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:08, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

It's hard for me to see how to salvage this proposal, because it doesn't really respect the sources. The sources say Trump sees himself as comparable to PT Barnum but only "a little bit". The sources say Goldfinger was one of his favorite characters, not that Trump favors Goldfinger against his fictional adversaries. Moreover, the stuff about Nixon is too vague to be useful, without saying what it was about Nixon that he admires; surely Trump doesn't admire Nixon's involvement in the Watergate scandal, whereas many people admire Nixon's rapprochement with China.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:12, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

@Anythingyouwant: Thank you for your opinion - and your interpretation of the noted "sourced content" - it's *greatly* appreciated - however - a more objective view of the suggested content may be better I would think - accepting the content from the cited "reliable sources", without such interpretation, and "as is" (and/or "prima facie"?), may be preferred - the suggested edits (see proposed versions above) seem sufficiently worthy to add to the "Donald Trump" article afaics atm - further Comments Welcome of course - in any regards - Thanks again for your own comments - and - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 14:40, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree with MelanieN that the stuff about which politicians Trump has been quoted as being influenced by, is a bit trivial for the main biographical article. (Once he has a few years of governing under his belt, *then* his record of governing will generate some actions-to-actions comparisons to historical politicians.) But I also agree with Drbogdan that this stuff is important. Just as with Trump's professed admiration for Patton, we need to have Trump's commentary on other politicians he has said things about -- both real ones like Nixon and literary ones like Goldfinger -- in almost exactly the way we say that Trump likes Patton because he likes Patton (film). Speaking of which, see also Enlai's action. That kind of stuff speaks to Trump's influences, and probably belongs in Political positions of Donald Trump#Background, along with his statements about Putin and his phone-call to Taiwan/Argentina/etc as peotus, and other such things. It is way more important, for instance, that Trump has professed a personal gut reaction to Nixon (who after watergate is probably most famous for re-opening relations with China), than that Trump endorsed the ethanol-lobby in Iowa (and eventually partially thereby earned the backing of former-Chris-Christie endorser Gov.Branstad the ambassador-designate to China). What particular things Trump says and does not say, do make a difference, and did also in past elections -- Palin was criticized for liking Hoosiers for instance[56] -- whereas Gore was lauded for going to Vietnam yet also lauded for being morally against going to Vietnam[57]. Trump's thoughts on film-characters and politicians are not a huge part of his biography, but they do belong somewhere in his subsidiary backstory articles. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 19:40, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Donald Trump's opinions about historical and fictional characters? What does Goldfinger have to do with his political positions?Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:46, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

That he wanted to rule the world? But somewhat more seriously, please see List of economic advisors to Donald Trump, which includes Judy Shelton, one of the relatively-rare Ph.D economists which had been advising Trump... both Shelton and Trump have spoken favorably of a return to the gold standard, or a modern equivalent thereof, although it tends to be mentioned rarely, and more as "something that would be nice if we could manage it one day" rather than as "something that I guarantee will happen". 47.222.203.135 (talk) 21:41, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

FWIW - and Additionally => "Goldfinger" may represent "wanting more" - both politically - and economically - and even moreso? - perhaps relevant? - perhaps significant? - the alternative - having *enough* - may not easily apply here I would think - *enough* may be something some may never have apparently - if interested, my published "NYT" comments in 2013 may be even more relevant today => " http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/opinion/krugman-the-one-percents-solution.html?comments#permid=380 " - in any case - hope this helps in some way to support adding such notions to the "Donald Trump" article as a possible improvement - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 21:53, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

There's no sense beating around the bush. If reliable sources say that his appreciation of the Goldfinger character somehow indicates a predisposition to reinstate the gold standard into monetary policy, then your draft ought to say so. Seems kind of farfetched though.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:46, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

I can find nothing in Trump's statements that remotely suggests such a connection. If a few "reliable" sources jump to that conclusion, I don't think we are obligated to jump with them. Even if we did, it would have to be handled as opinion/analysis, and I would seriously question the WP:DUE. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:57, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

BRIEF Followup re "Goldfinger", "Donald Trump" and the "Gold Standard" - there seems to be numerous "Reliable Sources" re the Connections - Several Examples are as follows: --

Casual Internet Searches for "gold standard" "donald trump" "goldfinger" gave several "Reliable Sources" (there are more):

• http://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphbenko/2016/04/10/book-review-james-rickards-the-new-case-for-gold/#4739e37a43d7
• http://www.newsmax.com/Finance/StreetTalk/donald-trump-gold-metal-invest/2016/07/23/id/740159/

Casual Internet Searches for "gold standard" "donald trump" also gave several "Reliable Sources" (there are more):

• http://www.npr.org/2016/06/16/482279689/trump-favors-returning-to-the-gold-standard-few-economists-agree
• http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-meeting-john-allison-bank-ceo-abolish-the-fed-gold-standard-2016-11
• http://www.inquisitr.com/3763192/trumps-treasury-pick-has-odd-gold-standard-and-federal-reserve-ideals/

Perhaps helpful for those interested in the above Connections? - iac - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 00:28, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

None of those sources says that Trump likes Goldfinger because he favors a return to the gold standard. Google searches are not enough, you actually need to read the sources you cite. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:54, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Mandruss, my point in bringing up Shelton, was that Trump's formal and informal economic advisors, have some worthwhile impact on his presidency. Drbogdan's point in bringing up Trump's opinions on geopolitical actors (see what I did there?) like Reagan and Goldfinger, is that those opinions do say something about the character of the person holding the opinion, and the decision to publicize the factoid is itself WP:NOTEWORTHY. The requirement here is not to prove that "Trump likes Goldfinger" and therefore "Trump would support a gold standard". That would be WP:SYNTH. The point is that, we have refs saying Trump and some of his advisors support the gold standard, and those belong in the appropriate article -- List of economic advisors to Donald Trump and also Political appointments of Donald Trump since Shelton is under consideration for a formal role in the administration (ditto for Allison who was covered at Cabinet of Donald Trump). There is a *separate* issue as to whether and where the goldfinger/nixon/patton/etc press coverage, ought to go, and the answer is, either in the biographical article Donald Trump in a views-or-stances-or-personal-life-subsection, or in a background-section of Political positions of Donald Trump. The sources exist to prove that the reliable media *does* pay attention to such things, as what Trump/Palin/Gore/etc thought about various issues. That means that WP:NOTEWORTHY has been achieved, an the question becomes, which article is appropriate for the info? We should not add anything about Goldfinger to the economic advisors article, until and unless Trump is on record saying "Goldfinger's positions influenced me to make a speech before congress about economic issue xyz". But *that* is no reason to keep the goldfinger factoid out of mainspace. It is a factoid, and the reliable sources have paid attention to it, thus we ought to see where it fits in an encyclopedic context. Some things do NOT fit, such as Trump's favorite ice cream, because everybody has a favorite food, and that favorite food (unless one is a chef) almost never has impact on history. Trump's love of the movie Patton (film) may yet have impact on history, cf James Mattis and John F. Kelly and Michael Flynn and so on. No moving the goalposts please, this is not a discussion about whether there is a connection between goldfinger and shelton, this is a discussion about whether there is a sourced connection between Trump and his opinions on various politicians/films/etc, and if so where the sourced material best ought be summarized in wikivoice. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 13:44, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

The question is not "where in the encyclopedia should we put these comments?"; it's "should we put these anywhere?" Just because things are sourced, i.e. have been mentioned by a reliable source, does not mean we have to use them. There is no evidence that Trump himself meant anything more than an offhand response to an interviewer's question. We should not clutter up this or any article with stuff like this - unless and until we see evidence that these people actually matter to him in terms of affecting his actions or his philosophy. MelanieN alt (talk) 15:50, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Possibly relevant question to this discussion => Should an "encyclopedia" (like "Wikipedia") present "notable" Facts from "reliable sources" (see suggested edits above) - and let the Reader understand them for themselves - in their own way - OR - should editors first select "notable" Facts from "reliable sources" (perhaps even in some pov way?) for the Reader to view instead - Generally - which seems better? - and more encyclopedic? - iac - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 19:51, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

The key here is that we include notable facts from reliable sources - and not trivial or unimportant (non-notable) facts from reliable sources. And there is no need to add quotes and wikilinks to every other word, which may be regarded as patronizing/insulting/sarcastic/all of the above. MelanieN alt (talk) 04:09, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

@MelanieN: Thank you for your reply - yes - agreed - seems WP:CONSENSUS may be the best way of determining WP:Notability afaics atm - as to the quotes - seemed to me a helpful way of highlighting hyperlinks - never thought this might be understood otherwise - Thank you for letting me know - in any regards - Thanks again for your reply - and - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 04:51, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

47.222.203.135, your last comment decorated this page with 426 words explaining what this discussion about, without providing a shred of RS support for inclusion of anything. With respect, I perceive a very low signal-to-noise ratio. To my knowledge, no RS has been presented to support anything but "Trump's favorite" trivia, and I think we have some agreement to omit that from this article (or at least a lack of consensus to include it). Those of us who don't think the word "Goldfinger" has a place in this article are not required to prove the negative. Unless you can present some RS, I think it's time to euthanize this thread. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:47, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

I think thou dost protest too much. "Sorry but none of this gives me any great insight into the mind of Donald Trump. If I thought it did, I would probably be wrong." That was your comment, and I perceive that you have followed through on your comment with worthy persistence. If you are truly interested in sources, please see below. Or just open and new tab and do some searches, as Drbogdan suggested further up. But worthy persistence is one thing, there is also such a thing as reinforcing one's initial gut reaction, by continually moving the goalposts. As for your implied complaint about length, when I am more brief, you complain about that as well.[58][59] Wikipedia needs to stick to what the sources say, and not have individual wikipedians (or groups of individual wikipedians) deciding what is relevant and what is not relevant for the readership -- that is not what WP:NOTEWORTHY says, and neither is it what WP:UNDUE says. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 10:08, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

MelanieN's opening comment clearly defined the topic of this thread, and it has nothing to do with Shelton or gold standard. For organization's sake, in my opinion, anything that tangential should be kept separate. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:57, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Good idea. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 10:08, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, User:Mandruss. To User:47.222.203.135 regarding this comment above: "Wikipedia needs to stick to what the sources say, and not have individual wikipedians (or groups of individual wikipedians) deciding what is relevant and what is not relevant for the readership -- that is not what WP:NOTEWORTHY says, and neither is it what WP:UNDUE says." Sorry, but this is a complete distortion of Wikipedia policy. You seem to be saying that everything that has been mentioned by a Reliable Source has to be included somewhere. Neither NOTEWORTHY nor UNDUE implies anything like that. The truth is that Wikipedians absolutely DO decide what is and is not appropriate for inclusion in an international encyclopedia; we don't just blindly include everything every said about any subject by any reliable source. As I quoted to you on my talk page, WP:BALASP (a subsection of WP:NEUTRALITY) is the governing principle here. It says "An article should not give undue weight to minor aspects of its subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject. For example, discussion of isolated events, criticisms, or news reports about a subject may be verifiable and impartial, but still disproportionate to their overall significance to the article topic." This is exactly what we are talking about here: material which is verifiable (i.e. sourced) and impartial, but not of sufficient significance to be included in this or any article. (Unless you want to start an article Donald Trump's likes and dislikes Cultural and intellectual influences on Donald Trump, and good luck with that one at AfD.) --MelanieN (talk) 20:53, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

nothing directly to do with nixon/goldfinger/ptbarnum

• Soundbite: "...in some ways, the movies are the defining element of American culture." --William Jefferson Clinton, interview with Roger Ebert, immediately after Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential campaign, 2008.[60]
• Patton (film) mentioned in June 2015, please see Political_positions_of_Donald_Trump#cite_ref-foxnews_June15_2015_669-6 == Trump said that to combat ISIL, he would "I would find you a proper general. I would find a Patton or a McArthur. I would hit them so hard your head would spin."[61]

• Page is locked, somebody please fix the grammar bugs: Trump said that to combat ISIL, he would "I would find you [referring to the voters] a proper...

• James Mattis nominee-designate in December 2016, please see Cabinet of Donald Trump#Secretary of Defense.

• Quite a few pretty-solid sources.[62][63][64][65][66][67][68]
• Plus some more-borderline sources.[69][70][71]

• And of course, that is not the only movie which has received impeccably solid sourcing, plus Trump is not the only potus to be profiled by the media in this way.[72] Nor is Trump the only candidate mentioned, in said impeccable sourcing (plus of course in plenty of less-impeccable sourcing like People Magazine).[73][74][75][76][77] And in some cases it is product-placement for the media-entity giving the interview,[78] while in other cases films like Antwone Fisher are more than just commented on by politicians in passing.[79]

Wikipedia does not currently mention any 'Patton' sources that I have found in a quick skim through mainspace, except for the one June 2015 quote that I noted above. But pretty clearly there are reliable sources, almost enough to pass WP:GNG, let alone mere WP:NOTEWORTHY. Where does well-sourced encyclopedic material like this belong? Once we have answered the trump-faves-patton question, I believe it will be easier to answer the trump-faves-other sorts of questions. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 10:08, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

New York City

The source code for the article currently states that there is a consensus for the birthplace in the infobox, but I could find no such consensus in the archives of this talk page. The closest I got to was this which does not seem to indicate consensus. So maybe I am looking in the wrong place? The current designation "Queens, New York City, New York, United States of America" is extraordinarily superfluous and unnecessary. I think a simple "New York City" is best. Colipon+(Talk) 04:34, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

I've restored it to NYC. --Sunshineisles2 (talk) 05:02, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

The word "currently" in the second sentence is misspelled.

He is cuurently President-elect but is scheduled to take office as the 45th President on January 20, 2017.

Halqery (talk) 04:53, 30 December 2016 (UTC) Halqery

Fixed now! κατάσταση 04:59, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

I removed the word, as it was redundant. AFAIK, there's only one US President-elect at a time. GoodDay (talk) 06:25, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

File:Trump Family Tree.png

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Semi-protected edit request on 1 January 2017

2601:C2:4003:4306:B854:E9BD:C79D:BCF (talk) 17:32, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Not done: as you have not requested a change.
If you want to suggest a change, please request this in the form "Please replace XXX with YYY" or "Please add ZZZ between PPP and QQQ".
Please also cite reliable sources to back up your request, without which no information should be added to, or changed in, any article. - Arjayay (talk) 17:44, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Neither candidate won a majority of the national popular vote

The lead was recently edited as follows:

“ Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016, gaining a majority of electoral college votes, while receiving a smaller share of the popular vote nationwide than Democratic rival Hillary Clinton (48% to 46%). ”

The edit summary said: "There is consensus NOT to add numbers here; that includes percentages. Discuss on talk page if you think this should be included." I do think it should be included, or we could say in words that neither candidate received a majority of the national popular vote, but the numbers are much more informative and concise.

The main text of the Wikipedia article says this:

“ The final popular vote difference between Clinton and Trump is that Clinton is ahead by 2.86 million or 2.1 percentage points, 48.04% to 45.95%, with neither candidate reaching a majority. ”

References

So, there's no question that the percentages (48% to 46%) were accurate, and that they show neither candidate reached a majority. I think this is important and concise info to have in the lead, for several reasons: e.g. it shows that Clinton's popular vote win was not enough to put her over 50%, and it also shows that third party candidates may very well have determined who the next president is. Rarely does a lead get such a big bang from such a small number of characters added, though we could instead say that she "received a plurality rather than a majority of the national popular vote" if we prefer verbosity. (Notice that insertion of the percentages did not revert anything, but rather was an addition to the sentence, and so I don't know whether removing the percentages would be exempt from 1RR, per the pertinent talk page section above.)

As mentioned, the edit summary removing this info claimed a consensus against including it. I disagree. A talk page section above also claims there is consensus for, "Lead phrasing of Trump gaining a majority of the U.S. Electoral College and receiving a smaller share of the popular vote nationwide, without quoting numbers. (link, link 2)" (emphasis added). Let's look at those last two links.

At the first link, User:Markbassett said, "going into Clinton or numbers of votes should be in the election article not the Trump article". I have not suggested putting numbers of votes into any part of this BLP. Percentages are different, more concise, and more informative than raw numbers of votes. At the second link, that talk page proposal did not even involve any percentages, just raw numbers of votes. I oppose drawing inferences about one thing from a survey about another thing, especially without support from any closing summary.

As far as I can tell, the only editor during those two cited discussions who arguably opposed including any percentages was User:JFG who said: "Imagine the text: Trump won a whopping 50% more states than his opponent, a much wider margin than Barack Obama's two terms." But the sentence in question already includes numbers ("November 8, 2016"), so let's consider each proposal for numbers on its own merits. Neither of the two cited "consensuses" included any consensus to omit "48%" or "46%" or even mentioned any percentage of the national popular vote.Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:21, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

@Anythingyouwant: Thanks for the ping. All such details about the election are worth including in the election page, not in the lead of Trump's bio. My argument, which you quoted in part, was that adding any number would invite adding other numbers and people would start edit-warring over which numbers are more significant: electoral college, popular vote, states won, counties won, absolute numbers or percentages of the above, historical comparisons, the possibilities are endless and can delve into partisanship quite fast… People who want details are just one click away from them. And to your side argument, the election date is not a "number" representing the level of support of either candidate, thus it's harmless and could very well be in another sentence depending on general copyediting of the lead section. — JFG ^talk 21:02, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Any number about support levels could instead be expressed in words, and vice versa, so I don't see why we should prefer words over numbers. That said, I would be okay with writing the sentence in question like this: "Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016, gaining a majority of electoral college votes, while receiving a smaller share of the popular vote nationwide than Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, whose share was less than a majority."Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:16, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

1. That's too long a sentence in my opinion. To add that would require a second sentence, as "Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016, gaining a majority of electoral college votes, while receiving a smaller share of the popular vote nationwide than Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. Neither candidate received a majority of the popular vote." 2. But, just to complicate the discussion, I think the appropriate content for the lead of this bio article is: "Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016." 3. I disagree with JFG's slippery-slope argument, as we would be able to stop any such slide at any point we deemed appropriate. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:17, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

If we say in the lead that Clinton got more of the national popular vote, then I strongly support also saying that she didn't get a majority (which implies it wasn't a blowout and the third party candidates were very influential). But I would also support merely saying "Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016." Either way is okay, in my opinion. It might be best to start the first way, and after a few months (as the election recedes) switch to the second way.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:00, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

We've been through this twice already. We agreed not to say that she "won" the popular vote, although many reliable sources do, and that we would not say that she got a "majority " of the popular vote because she didn't. The percentages and numbers are quite properly included in the text of the article. Not in the lede, as you knew, and I am surprised you would suddenly add percentages in the face of all the previous discussion. My opinion is this has no place in the lede. A "smaller share" is accurate and concise and was agreed to in TWO previous discussions. The difference between the electoral college vote and the popular vote is enormous and historic, but we don't put the size of the difference in the lede. We don't point out in the lede that this was only the fifth time this has happened. Just the historically important fact that they were different. The rest of the stuff goes in the text. MelanieN alt (talk) 03:37, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

I wasn't involved in any discussions about that. Anyway, the lead of the Hillary Clinton article says that she received a "plurality" of the national popular vote. That fact belongs in this lead too, if the lead refers to her share of the popular vote. The word "plurality" is not a number.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:32, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

@MelanieN:, you shouldn't add to your comment after someone has replied to it. SW3 5DL (talk) 04:05, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

He won 31 states. He won the majority of the country, he brought out more voters among whites, blacks and latinos than any other Republican candidate in recent history, he won the electoral college, and both houses of Congress. He beat her like a drum. She won coastal states, prominent among them California and New York which allow illegals to have driver's licenses and allow them to register to vote at the DMV. But I agree it does not belong in the lede. SW3 5DL (talk) 03:47, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Reliable sources routinely note that Clinton received more votes. They do not routinely mention the percentages or the fact the Clinton did not receive a majority of votes. The lead should not go beyond what sources routinely note. It seems to me that we are getting distracted by what makes one candidate look better rather than just following what sources say. TFD (talk) 05:45, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

I think it is worth saying that Clinton got more votes.--Jack Upland (talk) 06:41, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Reliable sources routinely say that Clinton got 48%, but we have adopted an artificial rule against using numbers in the lead notwithstanding what reliable sources say.Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:47, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

She did receive 48% of ballots nationwide, and Trump received 46%, there is no questioning these facts. However, mentioning this particular fact would be giving undue weight to a yardstick which is not relevant to the US presidential election system. I'm not against adding any number because it happens to be a number, I'm against emphasizing one number against another, and as we have dozens of potentially interesting numbers to add, I maintain that adding none is the wisest way to go. This is a biography, not an election page. — JFG ^talk 08:36, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

It's not relevant to the US presidential election system that Clinton got more of the popular vote.Anythingyouwant (talk) 08:43, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Agree with TFD, JFD, et al. Also, if you want to make Clinton appear that she won something, you would need to mention that Trump broke the "blue wall." He won states that in the past have always gone to Democrats. Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan. He also took Ohio and Florida. He won the majority of the states. The majority of the country. She was the biggest loser, not the biggest winner. His victory is historic in many ways, including he's a non-politician, never held office, contributed to his campaign, and won traditionally Democrat states. As he would say, he won huge. SW3 5DL (talk) 15:00, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

...but got less votes.--Jack Upland (talk) 16:50, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

LOL, but got more of the votes that count. SW3 5DL (talk) 17:26, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Was it a "yuge" or "bigly" win? Did his opponent get "shellaced" or "schlonged"? Quick, an RfC! — JFG ^talk 00:04, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Historic win:

• New York Tiimes: Stunning repudiation; Historic rebuke

• Financial Times: Historic victory

• IBTimes: Historic Victory

• CNN: Historic win

• New York Post: Historic upset

• Wash Times: Historic victory — Preceding unsigned comment added by SW3 5DL (talk • contribs) 16:38, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

His win was historic, but it wasn't huge. He won by 80,000 votes in 3 states. No, I don't think that should be in the lede. As electoral college victories go, his was 46th out of 58;[80] it was not a landslide. No, I'm not suggesting that go in the lede either. But the simple fact that he got fewer electoral votes than someone else is dramatic and rare enough (fifth time in history) that it needs to be in the lede. --MelanieN (talk) 21:08, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Not huge by numbers. Huge by in historic terms. Historic was my point, and I earlier stated I don't think any of it should be in the lede unless there is mention of the circumstances. Just saying fifth time in history that popular vote higher, means very little. America is a representative republic, not a democracy.. SW3 5DL (talk) 22:51, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

I think that should definitely go in the lead: Trump was not democratically elected.--Jack Upland (talk) 00:08, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

@Jack Upland: I beg your pardon? Are you seriously contending that the US democratic process is dysfunctional or wasn't followed properly? — JFG ^talk 11:09, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Proposal about the word "plurality"

Based upon the discussion above (in the last section), I'd like to suggest modifying the lead as follows, call this Version A:

“ Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016 by gaining a majority of electoral college votes. He received a smaller share of the popular vote nationwide than Democratic rival Hillary Clinton who received a plurality. ”

The only change above is adding the last four words ("who received a plurality"). A more concise version would be Version B:

“ Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016 by gaining a majority of electoral college votes. His Democratic rival Hillary Clinton received a plurality of the nationwide popular vote. ”

Version C is keeping it the way it is, and Version D is removing the second sentence while keeping the first. Also, Version E is deleting everything after "2016".Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:31, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Survey about the word "plurality"

• Support Version B (first choice), Support Version A (second choice), Support Version D (third choice), Support Version E (fourth choice), Oppose Version C. That Clinton won a plurality is notable, it's in the lead of the Hillary Clinton article, and is explicitly stated by numerous reliable sources (e.g. BBC, Washington Post, International Business Times, Real Clear Politics, et cetera). If we omit "plurality" in the lead then we ought to omit discussion of the popular vote in the lead.Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:47, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support Version E, "Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016." There is no reason this option should be off the table, if we're discussing that sentence again. Add detail below the lead. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:11, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Discussion about the word "plurality"

Comment: You need a version that mentions Trump broke the blue wall, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin, and won Ohio and Florida. That is a historic victory and should be mentioned. And as far as the coastal states that Clinton won, Trump did not campaign there. He used modeling to determine what states he needed to win, just like Obama did in the 2008 primary. Those are the states Trump focused on, and those are the states he won. SW3 5DL (talk) 15:04, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but all this "historic victory" narrative you keep trying to push is unwarranted. Trump's electoral college win was, in point of fact, quite ordinary and unremarkable when compared to previous elections. Although he did well in the electoral college, in several states it could've gone either way and flipped the result. The existing text, the result of two previous discussions, is more than sufficient to describe what happened. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:40, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Show me reliable sources that call his historic victory ordinary. Even CNN acknowledges he broke the blue wall. [81]. It was an historic win. A non-politician beats a career politician, and the first woman candidate for president. He wins blue states that had not gone Republican in a very long time. He used modeling to tell him which states he needed to win, just like Obama did in 2008. Yes, it was historic. Not at all ordinary. SW3 5DL (talk) 16:13, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

If the sun comes up, CNN will call it breaking news. Objective3000 (talk) 16:18, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

@SW3 5DL: It is ordinary. Trump ranked only 46th by Electoral College margin, which is statistically a rubbish performance. It is clear Trump won by the skin of his teeth thanks to Russia leaking hacked material to WikiLeaks and an outrageous (and possibly illegal) act by James Comey. Your attempt to paint Trump's win as anything other than unremarkable is hilarious. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:21, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

It certainly was a surprising upset, biggest one since 1948. Pollsters focused so much on national polls, they neglected the state polls.Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:37, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

(e/c) I think Scjessey is not wanting to see the point. It was historic for a businessman who has never held office to win the highest office in the land. It was historic that he broke the blue wall. It was historic on many levels including the behavior of the main stream media, etc. But at the end of the day, here's why Hillary lost: Hillary failed to campaign and 'go to every fish fry' like Obama and Trump. She engaged in pay for play while SecState and put it in emails. It was the content of the emails that lost it for her. The Russians or the Martians or WikiLeaks, or whoever got hold of her emails didn't do it. She did it. Notice, she's never denied what was in the emails. It was just the main stream media chose not to mention that big elephant in the room. SW3 5DL (talk) 19:26, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Accusing Clinton of "pay for play" is a WP:BLP vio. Objective3000 (talk) 19:31, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

There’s no question that the results were surprising. But, if you look at Nate Silver’s win probability chart over time, there were wild swings in polling predictions over the last months. In any case, while the word “historical” may make some sense in a general article about polling; I don’t see it here. Since the set of presidential elections is so small, you can find numerous facts about every election that are unique. And I suppose you could even argue that every presidential election is “historical”. And yes it makes sense to point out some of the unique features of this election. But, the concept that a close election resulting in a win by a well-known, rich, white male from a major party is a “historic victory” seems a huge stretch. Objective3000 (talk) 19:20, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Well using the race angle of a 'rich white male' applies if you're talking about career politicians who've never done anything else in life, like Paul Ryan. SW3 5DL (talk) 19:29, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

SW3, come on, let's not soapbox. There's already enough to do around here! Cheers.Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:47, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Trump was not considered as a running mate for in 1992

Now in the section for Involvement in Politics, 1988-2015, it originally said Trump was considered for the 1988 Presidential election as Bush Sr's running mate, but that contradicts the source which mentions it was the 1992 race. But right after that it brings up Trump as a potential running mate for the 1988 presidential race. Now I looked this up and the source already here by The Hill is the only one that mentions the 1992 race being associated with Trump.

Not only that, but Bush Sr's apparent quote mentioning it "strange and unbelievable", which according to The Hill was in his diary, is not found anywhere but that one source. Which I sincerely doubt would be the case if it was real. I recommend deleting this part, of course he was considered in 1988 since multiple sources back that up, but it is highly doubtful he was considered in 1992 and Bush Sr mentioning him. I suggest deletion. Archer Rafferty (talk) 11:23, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

I think you are right and it should be deleted. The sourcing is weak and contradictory. One source, a biographical book, says Trump proposed himself to Lee Atwater and Bush thought it was a terrible idea. The other source, Trump himself, claims Atwater approached him about it. Nobody else has picked up on the story. I am going to delete the whole section - 1988 and 1992 - subject to further discussion at this talk page. --MelanieN (talk) 21:34, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Agree. Delete. SW3 5DL (talk) 22:46, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Support for Provisional IRA

Shouldn't the fact he attended an IRA fundraiser be mentioned? (AndyTyner (talk) 12:09, 3 January 2017 (UTC))