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To a degree unprecedented in American politics

Closing pointless discussion. No specific action was proposed, but people discussed proposals anyhow. MelanieN (talk) 03:32, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

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.


The decision to keep this statement in the lead section (regardless of whether the statement is true, or even provable) is biased:

Trump promoted conspiracy theories and made many false and misleading statements during his campaigns and presidency, to a degree unprecedented in American politics

I know this topic will be closed with no action, but I'd like to offer a caution to the editors in power - the purpose of Wikipedia is to document human knowledge, not to convince people what to think. The line between those two is thinner than most people realize.

Before you close this topic, think about the reasons that statement (even if it is true) was deemed significant enough to be included in the lead section. Then try to play your own devil's advocate. 2600:1700:7F:9250:ADF:8F55:4CF5:679C (talk) 21:46, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

This is "human knowledge". It's significant because, while all presidents lie, none ever have like this one did. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:49, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
Get a consensus for what you propose. GoodDay (talk) 22:28, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
Please identify the proposal you reference, GoodDay. SPECIFICO talk 23:44, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
I'm not proposing anything. My response is to the IP. GoodDay (talk) 00:01, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
Please read more carefully. You told IP to get consensus for their proposal. I see no proposal from the IP. If you also see no such proposal, it's hard to understand your request that they seek consensus for that which is not stated. What proposal were you telling them to get consensus for? SPECIFICO talk 02:45, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
He wants to remove a sentence from the article. GoodDay (talk) 02:53, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
Thank you, but the IP just registered disapproval and did not to propose an edit. I think this can be closed. SPECIFICO talk 03:22, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Seeing as the IP hasn't pursued removing the sentence, they've complained about. I reckon we might as well shut down (i.e. hat) his complaint. GoodDay (talk) 03:27, 4 January 2023 (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.

RFC: terminating the Constitution

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
There is a strong consensus not to include the proposed text. It is not yet clear whether or not some other text might might gain a consensus. —Compassionate727 (T·C) 15:54, 5 January 2023 (UTC)


Should this content be included?

During his 2016 campaign, legal scholars across the political spectrum said Trump's rhetoric showed contempt for the First Amendment, the separation of powers and the rule of law. After his many failed attempts to overturn the 2020 election he had lost, in December 2022 Trump called for "the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution" so he could be reinstated as president.

sources: [1][2][3][4] soibangla (talk) 17:36, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

No, simply because it's too soon. Right now it seems important, but I imagine it will be forgotten before Christmas. We don't need to document everything dangerous this guy says, and especially not so soon after he has said it. This page would literally explode under the pressure. Cessaune (talk) 22:11, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
Leaning No It is significant that the candidate of the party that claims it is strictly Constitutionalist wants to shred the Constitution for personal gain, but I'm always hesitant to add much to this very large article. Would Donald Trump 2024 presidential campaign suffice? Zaathras (talk) 22:32, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
Yes, but with adjustments (see #Discussion). TheFeds 00:28, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
Poor RfC, please amend - discussion in the section immediately above shows support for a few options, including directly quoting Trump. The text proposed in this RfC from soibangla - thanks for this first draft - doesn't include a direct quote. Instead we get a lot of editorial comment. Let's reformat this RfC by adding a few more options. And please note where this text is supposed to go, otherwise we're all wasting our time. -Darouet (talk) 00:58, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
Obvious Include It should go without saying that a former president making calls to rescind the Constitution should be included. Really nothing more should need to be said here. This is clearly notable, relevant, reliably sourced, and of encylopedic interest. Add it to the lede. There-being (talk) 01:49, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
And, there was no "massive fraud". No fraud at all. (Well, calling it a fraud is a fraud.) He is always saying there is massive fraud, even in elections before they have taken place. The difference here is calling for "the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution". That gives this WP:WEIGHT. O3000, Ret. (talk) 15:03, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
"Termination of all rules, regulations, and articles" — does that include the traffic code? Mr. Law and Order calling for anarchy — every news outlet reported it, and two days later its gone from the news because it's completely bonkers, and it's just another one in a long line of idiocies he's uttered. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 15:14, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
  • No - I am uncomfortable about directly linking people's opinions on his 2016 comments with his 2022 comments. It feels a bit like "you said we were crying wolf, but look at what he's said now!"--Eldomtom2 (talk) 14:31, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
Poor RfC, please amend - I don't have an objection to having the quote in the article, but this RfC doesn't say where this quote would be included. It seems like this should have been worked out in the previous discussion before doing a RfC. Thanks! Nemov (talk) 15:02, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
  • No There's a difference between stating what he did, and characterizing what he did. This goes too far into the latter. It's perfectly fine for Op/Ed columns and political opinion makers to do so; but we serve a different purpose at Wikipedia, and this seems to be a violation of WP:TONE for the type of writing we do. --Jayron32 15:34, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
    No. Agree that "There's a difference between stating what he did, and characterizing what he did". Lukewarmbeer (talk) 12:56, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
  • No While I heavily appreciate the reliance on scholars, my comment above was supportive of including scholarly views about his actions related to the rule of law while President; not about his campaign rhetoric. The latter would be due if he'd never been elected, but we're past that. Current and future scholarship about Trump's negative impacts on the rule of law (or anything else) are far more noteworthy than tweets, since they impact real people (and American history). As is, I support neither the first part (about legal scholars), nor the second part (about his termination call), nor the juxtaposition of the two, which is reasonable but seems like WP:OR.
I'd also strongly caution against supporting RFCs that propose long passages of content; if this passes, and anyone wants to modify it a year from now, they may need to start a new RFC, and for that, they'd need to show that circumstances changed since the current RFC. Let's avoid "locking in" large portions of content with RFCs when informal discussions are more than appropriate.
For similar reasons, I also suggest we avoid RFCs that aren't over verbatim long passages of text, but still propose including very recent news (like: Should this article mention Trump's call for terminating the constitution?). We should avoid "locking-in" things that may fail the WP:10YT, due to the inherent difficulty in overturning previous RFCs. RFCs are better reserved to what goes in the lead, or to agree on specific wording when there's already consensus to include. DFlhb (talk)
  • No per tone and OR/ SYNTH issues as previously discussed. Also wanted to echo that this is a poor and improper RfC. I'd support inclusion but the wording is atrocious Anon0098 (talk) 05:25, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
  • No - If we added every quote from Trump? the page would be ten times longer then it currently is. GoodDay (talk) 06:10, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
  • No - This is a pretty straightforward example of WP:NOTNEWS. We can't mention every contentious, controversial quote that Trump says. This brings back of memories of when we decided to not include Trump saying Putin was smart back during the start Russia invasion of Ukraine on NOTNEWS grounds. Furthermore, the linking of Trump's comments from 2016 with his comments in 2022 is problematic with WP:NPOV and WP:SYNTH; it's not Wikipedia's place to make such connections. Iamreallygoodatcheckerst@lk 16:09, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
  • No. Each individual fact in this text may be appropriate somewhere in the article if they prove sufficiently relevant, but combining them in this fashion gets into OR territory. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:17, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
  • No Certainly not in the form proposed here, which as noted above is combining different things in OR fashion. And no, even without the OR, because Trump tweets all kinds of outrageous stuff; even something this outrageous is routine for him. (Maybe they'll bring it up at his trial for obstruction or sedition.) Anyhow, 2 days later he denied that he ever said it: "The Fake News is actually trying to convince the American People that I said I wanted to ‘terminate’ the Constitution. This is simply more DISINFORMATION & LIES." [5] -- MelanieN (talk) 22:28, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
  • No Trump says stupid things every day which often dominate the 24 hour news cycle, especially when he was president. Whether or not his latest comments will be remembered only time will tell. I notice that U.S. mainstream media reported this as Trump wanting to abolish the constitution, when in fact he merely asked to ignore it in a specific case. TFD (talk) 22:42, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
    Once it's ignored, what would be the benefit of going back through the portal? At least that was how sources and a significant minority of dissenting Republican Senators and Governors reacted to the remark. SPECIFICO talk 22:46, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
    A significant number of leading Republicans have distanced themselves from many comments Trump has made. TFD (talk) 23:28, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
    Source for that? RS reporting and broadcast interviews with senior R's show more criticism of this recent bit than, e.g. the tiki march in Charleston or the various 2016 post-nomination dust-ups. It appears to be on a par with "why wouldn't I believe Putin over US intelligence?" or the intitial but quickly reversed Republican condemnation of the 1/6 faux pas. It's certainly more than various of the Covid or race-related flaps that came and went. SPECIFICO talk 23:45, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
No. More information is needed to identify who the "legal scholars across the political spectrum" are. This topic needs to appear extremely factual, using very specific names and information to ensure credibility. Pickalittletalkalittle (talk) 21:02, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
Obvious include but no in the current SYNTHy editorializing format. Nix the idea that "we hear" "from everyone" "GREAT PEOPLE" "on BOTH sides" were haranguing him in 2016. IF that were kept, it needs to address that the never-Trumpers were a media-hyped but utterly impotent group of pundits who were completely ignored by the electorate and eventually ignored by almost all elected Republican officials. There wasn't an actual broad consensus on this—howevermuch there should've been—and it's cherrypicking FRINGE to pretend otherwise. The actual quote, yes, of course. This is unquestionably going to be the go-to historians will use as shorthand for all the other insanity, pending an actual coup attempt. (呸呸呸) — LlywelynII 10:54, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
  • No, not of singular importance to be noted on the page.--Ortizesp (talk) 04:01, 12 December 2022 (UTC)
  • No (Summoned by bot) he has made numerous absurd comments about …  errr well, pretty much everything, but particularly about the 'stolen' election and he never stated that the Constitution should be terminated, but that he believed the Constitution was allowed to be terminated. Unfortunately we would only be 'playing his game' by getting 'hot under the collar' about every incendiary remark. Perhaps rephrased it belongs on a more specific page, (Truth Social? ) but is simply another dose of - the daily - fireworks relative to this biog. AKA the remark fails WP:WEIGHT.Pincrete (talk) 10:23, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
  • No. For a couple reasons, but first this is too recent and I would like to see if it has a lasting impact first. At the time I do not think this quote is anymore notable than many Trump quotes. I would also like to see where this would be added on the article. Grahaml35 (talk) 21:41, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Discussion

  • Consider stating instead of After his many failed attempts to overturn the 2020 election he had lost, in December 2022 Trump called for "the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution" so he could be reinstated as president., Asserting that an election fraud of large magnitude had taken place, Trump opined that this circumstance "'allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution'", and advocated that the 2020 election be overturned. I would source it to at least [6], which implies the need for quotation in quotation. (It is a controversial statement that must be clearly seen as not a paraphrase, but per WP:SELFSOURCE we would presumably avoid citing the social media post itself.) Importantly, this characterizes his ongoing motivations, using his particularly pithy December statement as a definitive example. (In contrast to just reporting on what he said in December as an item of its own.) The distinction between bluntly calling for the removal of the constitution (not what he said: he is obviously using "all" to mean "any", instead of to advocate for an utterly lawless society) and advocating a supralegal rationale for deleting inconvenient parts of the constitution (even if the rationale is self-serving and based on false beliefs) is important; retaining "allows" assists in this. TheFeds 00:28, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

@Soibangla: in light of the comments, would you consider adding an alternate wording that avoids the uncomfortable juxtaposition? SPECIFICO talk 15:45, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that this was under discussion, so I added information, taken from the Truth Social page, about Trump's claims that alleged fraud allows for the termination of the Constitution. I think someone removed the since I don't see them now. I think we could include info, but we should (1) quote the full post and (2) word his claim as being that alleged fraud "allows" for rather than "calls" for the termination of the Constituion. Most likely, they mean the same thing, and many sources interpret his post as "calling" for the Constitution's claim. However, Trump subsequently denied he called for the termination of the Constitution and shared a link to an article claiming that by "allows for," Trump meant that those engaging in voter fraud were effectively terminating the Constitution, not that Trump was calling for the Constitution's termination. Again, I'm not saying this is right, but since Wikipedia articles are suppposed to be neutral, "allows" for is the most objective term to use since that's what he said. —The Sackinator (talk) 14:44, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Less links is best The links do not need to appear immediately in the lead section. The lead should provide a relatively quick, concise summary without - as has been said - distracting the reader or leading them to click off into other pages before getting the full contextualized summary of what we have determined are the principal significant points. SPECIFICO talk 16:14, 30 December 2022 (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.

Hello,

Since we seem incapable of deciding this as a collective issue, I'm seeking individual consensus for adding each of the following links to the lead. The justification is the same in each case: these are specific, meaningful, and notable things that a typical reader may want to learn more about, not generic terms like "protectionist" or "nationalist".

Please discuss these individually, and not collectively, since consensus may be different from link to link. My position is that we are here to be helpful to readers, and these links are helpful. There are no Easter egg links here, nor would they lead to a sea of blue. —Ganesha811 (talk) 22:17, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Well, I will speak collectively, and say I agree with all of the the removals. We do the reader a disservice by providing link after link after link, where they feel they have to endlessly branch off elsewhere to find what they're looking for. Let the the readers actually read and not click. Links, where appropriate, can be made in sub-sections. At the lead stands as of 6:55am California time, I like it. A few links to some prominent names and intuitions. ValarianB (talk) 14:56, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
I find this line of reasoning completely bizarre. The lead right now is only useful if you already have some understanding of what all these unlinked terms mean. For example, the lead currently says "the Iran nuclear deal." This deal is not mentioned again until thousands of words later in the Iran subsection, where it is not referred to as the "Iran nuclear deal", but instead "the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action." How is a reader supposed to understand what "the Iran nuclear deal" is supposed to refer to in the lead unless they already know? Are we supposed to send them hunting through the 16,000-word text for references to Iran so they can deduce that the JCPOA is the same thing as "the Iran nuclear deal" previously mentioned? How is that helpful?
Variations on this logic apply to all of these terms. Take the Affordable Care Act; what if readers haven't heard of it? What if they know it as Obamacare? Keeping these terms unlinked means the text is only comprehensible to those who already know what these terms mean! We are not doing anyone a disservice by giving them the option to learn more about things they might not know about! That's what we're here for! —Ganesha811 (talk) 15:06, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
Leads seem to be written with linking to other pages in mind. Why? Because we're uncertain about the information contained in this article? Take this sentence, for example: In foreign policy, Trump initiated a trade war with China and withdrew the U.S. from the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, the Paris Agreement on climate change, and the Iran nuclear deal. We could say that "Trump initiated a trade war with China and withdrew the U.S. from international trade, climate, and disarmament agreements" or something along those lines (disarmament). That would or should induce the reader who wants to know more about Trump's trade etc. policies to look at the body / presidency / foreign policy. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 16:26, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
So we should add vagueness and reduce specificity in order to force readers to spend their time scrolling through a 16,000-word article hunting for information, rather than just linking to full articles with reasonably-sized leads that a reader can click on any time they wish? Leads are not written with linking to other pages in mind, but they are often the only part of an article a reader reads (per years of research by WMF). We owe it to readers to make the lead comprehensible on its own without needing the rest of the article for context. Many of the proposed links above are proper nouns that should be linked per the Manual of Style. By my reading of MOS:UL and MOS:OL, the lead is currently severely underlinked. —Ganesha811 (talk) 17:34, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
There is no vagueness, it is called "readability". Articles become unreadable when every other word takes you to a different topic. Introduce, then expand. This is very, very basic Freshman Composition. ValarianB (talk) 20:22, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
The fact is that these words do describe different topics, and they only "take" the reader there if the reader chooses to be taken there by clicking on a link. It's also unhelpful hyperbole to say that I'm proposing "every other word" be linked. This is not a Freshman Composition which we expect to be read all the way through, in order, like a well-crafted op-ed. It's an online encyclopedia article. Almost every other high-profile article (such as those on the 44 other US presidents, most directly comparable) has many more links in the lead than this one; this is well-established precedent and while local consensus here may override it, I'm baffled by the hostility to less than a dozen simple links to specific, non-fungible things. —Ganesha811 (talk) 20:32, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
The average reader (and the average editor) does not want to hunt through this massive article to find a tiny paragraph of text about the individual insurance mandate, for example. They just want to know what it is. There is nothing wrong with gonig to a new article. Why do we want to keep people here? How does it benefit them? If their journey takes them to a different Trump page, then it takes them there. All the Trump articles are good enough that we should be encouraging people to seek out the spinoffs that go into more detail, rather than hunting down that same link in the body, an unnecessary step that wastes time.
The article does not become unreadable with a lot of blue in the lead, and what is being proposed here is much more reasonable than what you seem to be saying. I'm inclined to believe, based on experience, that the average reader does not care how many links are in the article. However, editors of this page, arbitrarily IMO, despise blue in the lead. As an example, the article January 6 United States Capitol attack has tons of links. Adding these links wouldn't even come close to the number of links and citations in the lead on that page. Either links to separate articles or section links in the lead solve this problem, but something should be implemented. No more searching through a long article to realize that the thing you were looking for is only covered in minimal detail, or, better yet, scrolling down and ending up clicking on the same link that you would have if it were in the lead. Cessaune (talk) 22:25, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
The extreme link removal was a worthwhile experiment, but IMO a failed one. The whole point of a Wiki is to allow articles to be linked, and build on each other. I get that editors here want users to read the full article, but we can't decide how people use Wikipedia, and most people just spend a few minutes here before bouncing. Links help them rapidly get to whatever's relevant to them, which IMO increases the chance they'll spend more time here. DFlhb (talk) 00:22, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
It makes zero sense to me to avoid links in the lead. Readers can choose to follow the links or not, no one is forcing anyone to click anything. This is a really bizarre choice inconsistent with the entire rest of the site, links should be added. Basil the Bat Lord (talk) 02:52, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Adding a subsection for discussion and a few more Wikilinks currently linked in the lead. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 16:16, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Heading to consensus

  • So far I'm seeing 4 editors in favor of restoring the links, and 3 editors against. It would be helpful if more folks weighed in who watch this talk page! —Ganesha811 (talk) 00:16, 22 December 2022 (UTC)
    This discussion is heading towards an RfC. Cessaune (talk) 18:21, 22 December 2022 (UTC)
    Add me to the list of those in favor of restoring the links to his policies and significant views in the lede. I see no example in my decade of Wikipedia experience where all wikilinks were removed from a US president's lede because the thinking was that it's better to scroll through thousands of words to get to more information. It goes against what I thought Wikipedia did, which is make things easy to navigate and learn about. A 5+ paragraph summary with no links to more information seems ridiculous and brand new to me. Most people, in my view, don't sort through 50 sections of an article to find each piece of information in the lede they want to learn more about. -Teammm talk? 14:30, 29 December 2022 (UTC)
    Well, that makes it 6 editors in favor of links (see IP below), and 3 against. If the trend continues in this way, I'm going to re-establish the links tomorrow, since clear consensus seems to be forming. 14:58, 29 December 2022 (UTC) —Ganesha811 (talk) 14:58, 29 December 2022 (UTC)
Did you count me as one of the against editors? GoodDay (talk) 23:49, 29 December 2022 (UTC)
I was counting people who had commented in this discussion, so no: Space4Time, ValarianB, and Khajidha were the 3 I was counting. —Ganesha811 (talk) 00:51, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
I'm against adding links, so that makes it four. GoodDay (talk) 01:06, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
Are you counting the IP address with a total of three edits, two on this Talk page, one on Obama’s, made within 6 minutes of each other? Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 10:49, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
What does that have to do with anything? Cessaune (talk) 11:27, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
Ganesha811, I just made a comment regarding one of the links, trying to get back to your original request, "Please discuss these individually, and not collectively, since consensus may be different from link to link." Bob K31416 (talk) 02:36, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Discussion

Suggest changing,
"The 2017–2019 special counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller established that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to favor the election of Trump."
to
"The 2017–2019 special counsel investigation established that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to favor the election of Trump."
and it wouldn't change the number of wikilinks. Bob K31416 (talk) 02:21, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
The above two bullet points propose two Wikilinks (bolded) for one sentence: The 2017–2019 special counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller established that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to favor the election of Trump. We should consider changing the sentence to "Several investigations" or simply "Investigations" established that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to favor the election of Trump. The hamstrung Mueller special counsel investigation seemed much more important in 2019 than now. There were also the FBI investigation FBI Crossfire Hurricane investigation that was terminated with the false announcement that Mueller would continue it; the joint conclusion of CIA, FBI, and DNI that Russia interfered; and the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the interference. The last one’s not mentioned in the body - does anyone remember whether it was discussed and not added or removed for some reason? Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 10:45, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
1. Crossfire Hurricane (FBI investigation) did not establish that Russia interfered, was a flawed investigation, and later resulted in one of its FBI lawyers being convicted of making false statements during the investigation.
2. I would agree with not having the wikilink Russia interfered in the 2016 election but instead have the wikilink 2017–2019 special counsel investigation as I suggested above in the previous bullet point. Bob K31416 (talk) 16:57, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
Did you miss the memo on the Durham investigation having been a $6.5 million bust, not including the money Durham spent from 2019 to September 2020? You’re repeating debunked Trumpian and Republican claims. The one problem the IG report found was then-FBI attorney Clinesmith’s good-faith but "inappropriate shortcut", the altered email, to obtain FISA warrants against one individual, Carter Page, the FBI had been investigating since 2013. Page had hyped his largely nonexistent Russian connections and was hired and fired by the Trump campaign as an advisor in 2016. Mueller was allowed to continue the Crossfire investigations against Manafort, Flynn, Stone, Papadopoulus, van Der Zwaan, etc., which resulted in convictions. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 11:07, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
Bob K31416, you wrote "Crossfire Hurricane (FBI investigation) did not establish that Russia interfered,.." Is a word missing there? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:13, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
Valjean, I don't see what you mean. Bob K31416 (talk) 18:38, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
Currently, that is a very false statement. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:47, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
I think you may have interpreted the statement to mean something that I hadn't intended. Crossfire Hurricane did not establish whether Russia interfered or did not interfere, if that clarifies it for you. Bob K31416 (talk) 19:40, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
Bob K31416, I'm not sure that helps at all. Are you implying there was no interference? The Mueller report described the findings of the CH investigation, and it found a lot of interference by Russia and knowledge of it by Trump and his campaign. This is from the lead of Crossfire Hurricane (FBI investigation)
"The FBI's work was taken over on May 17, 2017, by the Special Counsel investigation of 2017–2019, which eventually resulted in the Mueller Report. Mueller concluded that Russian interference occurred in a "sweeping and systematic fashion" and that there were substantial links with the Trump campaign, but the evidence available to investigators did not establish that the Trump campaign had "conspired or coordinated" with the Russian government."
We have quite a few articles that go into much detail about the various ways the Russians interfered, as well as how Trump and his people reacted to the interference. They welcomed it, facilitated, aided and abetted, cooperated with, secretly met with Russian intelligence agents, lied about, and denied there was any interference. Then, as the evidence became stronger, they denied knowledge of it; then said it was not performed to help Trump win; then that it wasn't the Russians (even dangling the offer of a pardon to Assange if he denied it was the Russians, so he placed the blame on the innocent Seth Rich); then that the Trump campaign did not collude with the Russians; then that Trump wasn't involved; then Giuliani's "loose lips" partially let the cat out of the bag: "I never said there was no collusion between the campaign, or people in the campaign" "Giuliani added that Trump himself has never said there was no collusion at all, just that he did not assist with Russian efforts to interfere with the election." That too was a lie. The story kept changing.
Trump had already been planning his candidacy with the Russians since November 2013 at the Miss Universe contest in Moscow, and already in January 2014 they publicly promised to help him. Of course, he denied that possibility. Another lie. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:59, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
Re "Are you implying there was no interference?" — No. Bob K31416 (talk) 01:06, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
  • This is the first link in a sentence with two of them. It links to a subsection of a page that contains the history of failed pre-ACA efforts to institute a mandate plus info on a few individual state mandates and some odd info on purpose ("free-rider problems" and "death spirals"). I, for one, am not looking for any of that when I read the lead of Trump's bio. The subsection doesn’t mention the ACA except in one aside ("as they are under the Affordable Care Act.") and in the subsection about Massachusetts. I don't think we need this link in the article at all, and definitely not in the lead. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 16:16, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
This is a fair argument and I wouldn't mind not implementing this link to maintain consensus if the others find adequate support. —Ganesha811 (talk) 00:37, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Obama example

To avoid disrupting Wikipedia itself to make a point, I've created a sandbox article (link here) that shows what a similar culling of links from the Barack Obama lead would look like. Take a look and read it from the perspective of someone who, for instance, may be a non-American child learning about Obama for the first time. Is the lack of links helpful? If the editors here feel the less-linked equivalent on Donald Trump is genuinely better than the more-linked version, then so be it, but I still struggle greatly to understand your perspective. —Ganesha811 (talk) 20:45, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

I believe there should NEVER be links in the lead. That's what the body is for.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 20:47, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
Well, that goes against long-standing consensus, and is unrealistic. Cessaune (talk) 22:27, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Most paragraphs on the policy changes put in place by US presidents have lots of hyperlinks to other Wikipedia articles on those specific legislation.

However, this paragraph ("Trump ordered a travel ban on citizens from several Muslim-majority countries, diverted military funding towards building a wall on the U.S.–Mexico border, and implemented a policy of family separations for apprehended migrants. He rolled back more than 100 environmental policies and regulations in an aggressive attempt to weaken environmental protections. Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 which cut taxes for individuals and businesses and rescinded the individual health insurance mandate penalty of the Affordable Care Act. He appointed 54 federal appellate judges and three United States Supreme Court justices. In foreign policy, Trump initiated a trade war with China and withdrew the U.S. from the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, the Paris Agreement on climate change, and the Iran nuclear deal. Trump met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un three times, but made no progress on denuclearization. He reacted slowly to the COVID-19 pandemic, ignored or contradicted many recommendations from health officials in his messaging, and promoted misinformation about unproven treatments and the need for testing.") has almost no links whatsoever. This should be changed, I think? 2405:201:E00B:6E35:A429:8F69:3C87:EAE (talk) 12:14, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree! Please feel free to join in the discussion above if you would like to say more on the subject. —Ganesha811 (talk) 04:57, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Don't add any links, we've got the Trump administration page to handle those events. GoodDay (talk) 01:07, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

To be clear, at the time of writing this, the lead has a less-than-average amount of links and citations, and, if this change is implemented, it will still have a less-than-average amount of links and citations, when compared to the pages of other US presidents, at the very least.

Yet: User:ValarianB: We do the reader a disservice by providing link after link after link, where they feel they have to endlessly branch off elsewhere to find what they're looking for. Let the the readers actually read and not click. What? No one, let me repeat this, no one reads Wikipedia. (Okay, I do, but I'm an outlier, as are a lot of Wikipedia editors, likely.) They scan an article to find the infomation they want and dip. As such, we should be branching readers off to more detailed article elsewhere. If someone comes here and something catches their eye and they leave, what is wrong with that? Explain to me what a reader gains from staying on this page, or loses from leaving it?

User:Space4Time3Continuum2x: Leads seem to be written with linking to other pages in mind. Why? Because we're uncertain about the information contained in this article? No, because we are certain that the information contained in other articles is more detailed and will provide the reader with a better understanding of the topic. Simple.

Then there are a scattering of statements such as Articles become unreadable when every other word takes you to a different topic or Don't clutter it with a million links and the like. Okayyy... but what does that have to do with this article? If the claim is being made that these ten or so additions will turn the lead into a blue soup, I respectfully disagree. Nearly every single major Trump page has more links in the lead than this one. To say that these links will add "clutter" is a matter of personal preference and does not fit the de facto standard set by the more than two decades of editing preceding this simple change. (Really, we need to make MOS:CONTEXTLINK and MOS:LEADCITE more specific, it's killing me how much they suggest without actually stating anything.)

This is the second-biggest Trump page (after Presidency of Donald Trump) and in the top-100 biggest pages by filesize. Adding ten links to this massive article is no going to add much in the way of blue, but it is going to add a lot in terms of navigability. It also complies with the way other articles are written. The current way the lead is written complies with guidelines (in the fact that the guidelines do not address a standard amount of links and only suggest what should be linked), but does not match other articles. The local consensus here is that links in the lead should be used sparingly, which is fine. I just disagree. And, in my opinion, though de facto standard and local consensus are normally on an even playing field, de facto standard is strong enough to overpower local consensus in a style sense, as we all want Wikipedia to look the same stylistically (in most cases).

Give me a single reason why a reader will benefit from the current state of the lead as opposed to the proposed one. Give me a single reason why a reader will not benefit from the proposed state of the lead as opposed to the current one. No more 'it's cluttered' or 'they can read down and find it'. Actually explain why the current version is better than the proposed one. That's all I ask. Cessaune (talk) 11:27, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

They scan an article to find the infomation they want and dip. Someone's tracking my eye movements while I allegedly scan and dip? what does that have to do with this article? Everything since this is the article we're discussing. This article has 3,743 watchers plus at least one watcher (me) who's not signed up to watch. Ten people contributed to this discussion, so the vast majority appears not to care one way or another. The regular editors of this page have managed to handle the occasional complaint of "not supported by ..." (they have tapered off considerably) by pointing out the supporting material and cites in the body. Have you read every article you want to wikilink from the lead to make sure it supports what we're saying in the lead? Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 16:31, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
They scan an article to find the infomation they want and dip is based on my super informal survey of friends who all agreed that there is no way the would actually fully read an article this long, which makes sense. Before I was an editor, the only long article I had ever read completely through was the Orgasm article (I would recommend it, it's actually pretty interesting) and my main use for Wikipedia was either to easily find reliable cites or to play the Wikipedia game. I thought the idea that no one (referring to the vast majority) actually reads Wikipedia was common sense. I would bet a lot of money that the vast majority of people who read this article at all are not going to read the whole article, or half, or a fourth. That's a reasonable assumption. This is one of the biggest articles on the English Wikipedia, after all.
What does that have to do with this article?—I was suggesting that it's unreasonable to think that ten cites will make the lead cluttered or be too many when compared to the de facto standard present on most pages this long. And I struggle to understand that perspective. From a purely style standpoint, the lead as it is right now is fine, but this isn't a purely style question. In fact, it shouldn't be a style question at all, as there are zero policies or guidelines governing the number of links in a lead. It should be a question of which provides the biggest benefit to the readers. No one except us editors care if every third word was blue. People just want information.
Please answer my question above. I want to understand the logic. Cessaune (talk) 17:34, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
Well, this discussion seems to be stalemating. I will say that generally, I see no reason to treat the mostly link-free version in place at present as the default - for Trump's entire presidency, the lead was full of (perhaps a few too many) links and I cannot find any established consensus to remove them. A few editors seem to have taken a dislike and made substantial changes, which is fair, but never clearly established consensus for the dramatically link-less version we have now. Not sure where to go from here. —Ganesha811 (talk) 15:29, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
RfC. Discussion has reached a stalemate. Cessaune (talk) 16:56, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
I don't often (or ever, really) start RfCs - would you be willing to begin one? —Ganesha811 (talk) 17:14, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
checkY Done. Cessaune (talk) 00:34, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
NOTE: RfC has been moved to a new section below, "RfC on links in the lead". Please head there to vote and discuss. —Ganesha811 (talk) 02:51, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

RfC started below

To all those who participated in this discussion, please note that an RfC has been started below (RfC on links in the lead) to help us formally resolve this question and your participation there is welcome. —Ganesha811 (talk) 02:59, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Trying to cut down on article size

The last paragraph of Donald trump#Special counsel investigation contains a bunch of facts about people that aren't Trump. I propose we delete the whole paragraph and leave the first sentence. Cessaune (talk) 01:50, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

The two sentences about Stone need to stay, too. The release of the hacked emails is related to the 2016 election, and the judge pointed a finger at Trump by saying that Stone "was prosecuted for covering up for the president". We'll eventually have to take another look at the entire section and the many cited sources. A less-redacted version of the report was released in June 2020, and the Justice Department [] released portions of a previously unseen alternative version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on ties between former President Donald Trump and Russia in 2022, also heavily redacted on grounds of ongoing investigations, privacy and protecting internal deliberations. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 14:30, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
Agreed. It should be sufficient to say that several people related to Trump's campaign have been investigated and convicted of such crimes, without detail about specific individuals. If there is anything directly related to Trump, such as anything related to the hacked emails in the 2016 election, that should be contained in the section relevant to the election. Onetwothreeip (talk) 03:42, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Lead: electoral fraud allegations

While in of itself it would mean roughly the same, I feel that using wording such as "Trump made unsubstantiated allegations of widespread electoral fraud" would come over as more neutral and nuanced than "Trump falsely claimed widespread electoral fraud". Synotia (talk) 10:20, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

They have been determined to be false and that's how reliable sources state it. So, that's how we state it. MOS:DOUBT O3000, Ret. (talk) 12:51, 29 December 2022 (UTC)
"Unsubstantiated" means "without proof", "false" means "proven to be contrary to fact". All evidence shows NO widespread fraud, so "unsubstantiated" is itself a false statement. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 22:24, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
Unsubstantiated is exactly how its described in the article. Trump's unsubstantiated allegations of widespread voting fraud... Cessaune (talk) 01:36, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
"were widely refuted..." The sentence in the article says that Trump made claims with no evidence that were then disproven by evidence. The request above leaves out the fact that such claims were shown to be false. Far from being neutral it is an attempt to hide Trump's lies.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 21:28, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
I don't like your characterization of the statement as an attempt to hide Trump's lies. It was an attempt to cut down on perceived bias in the article. It was a reasonable attempt, at that. ...an attempt to hide Trump's lies comes off as uncivil IMO. Cessaune (talk) 21:51, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
When the claims have been shown to be false, any attempt to remove mention of that is, by definition, an attempt to hide lies.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 22:13, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
Or not fully understanding complex grammatical nuances and the exact meaning of a specific word. What you're saying is correct, but correctness isn't always civil. Cessaune (talk) 03:42, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
So far the only one in this conversation that has been uncivil is you.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:36, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
I am very sorry if I have come off as uncivil. I wasn't intending to, and I am truly sorry. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I'll try to be more specific.
You stated that the proposed change was "far from being neutral" and "an attempt to hide Trump's lies". Let's analyze this.
"Far from being neutral": well... Every proposed edit on this page of this sort are made to push a POV, whether explicit or implicit. Always. About half try to push their POV through the pseudo-legal processes that run the English Wikipedia (the other half are generalizations of bias that don't state anything useful and are attempts to push POVs that disregard the framework of Wikipedia entirely in doing so). There is nothing wrong with pushing a POV civilly, as long as you respect the procedures and processes of Wikipedia. Pertaining to the proposal itself: to state that is isn't neutral is a fair statement.
You said that "The request above leaves out the fact that such claims were shown to be false." Yes. This is an unbiased analyzation of the proposed edit. But you continued, and this is where my issue lays: "Far from being neutral it is an attempt to hide Trump's lies." In my opinion, this sentence does not WP:ASSUMEGOODFAITH. To state that a proposed edit, one that very clearly intends to follow the framework of Wikipedia (they stated their problem and offered a potential solution in a neutral tone), is an attempt to hide lies... I don't like it. This is why I accused you of uncivility. And in doing so, I may have come across as uncivil myself. Again, I am very sorry for that. Cessaune (talk) 14:55, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
As Trump's claims have been shown to be false, suggesting that we not mention that fact is neither NPOV or reasonable. And pointing that out is not uncivil, it is the proper response to an attempt to spread falsehood --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 17:31, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
Again, why does it have to be an attempt to spread falsehood? Why can't we just assume good faith while also shutting it down? No one suggested that we shouldn't mention that the claims are false. It wasn't willful omission. Cessaune (talk) 17:44, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
If you can't see how removing the specification that something known to be false is false and replacing it with the statement that it has an unknown value of truth is itself spreading falsehood, then I don't see how this conversation can continue. Assuming good faith is not meant to be a suicide pact. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 19:08, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
I agree with your point, I just don't agree with your method of conveying that point. Cessaune (talk) 20:18, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
I would prefer "Trump made false claims of widespread electoral fraud". Onetwothreeip (talk) 02:10, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
Active voice straightforward statement is better. The point is that Trump claimed, not that Trump made. SPECIFICO talk 13:51, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
Whether he actually believed it or not, Trump falsely claimed that he won re-election. GoodDay (talk) 15:16, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

@SPECIFICO: et al, do we have any evidence to suggest that this is a particularly unusual distinction for a large company or prominent business figure? Onetwothreeip (talk) 23:48, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Has Goldman Sachs gone bankrupt 6 times? Why are you calling Trump a "large company or prominent business figure?" Source for that?? SPECIFICO talk 00:32, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
That is not a reasonable comparison, for reasons that are irrelevant to this discussion, while the comparison to Goldman Sachs itself is also completely irrelevant. I did not call Donald Trump a large company, I implied that The Trump Organization is a large company, and that Trump himself is/was a prominent business figure. Why I use both of those terms is because they are accurate descriptions and they are the basis of comparison with similar entities to assess if the amount of "state and federal legal actions" involved is unusual. Onetwothreeip (talk) 20:10, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
I requested a source because your "implications" are false, as you likely discovered given your failure to provide a source in response to my request for verification. SPECIFICO talk 22:00, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
A source is not needed for the phrases I used, as those are not words I'm proposing to include them in the article. It's very strange that you would not only reject, but express that where others can see you doing that. The Trump Organization has much more than 200 employees, and Donald Trump is a very prominent person. I am thinking that asking for verification on these very obvious facts is some attempt at evading the initial question or something to discourage me from participating in talk page discussions. Onetwothreeip (talk) 02:02, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
You don't need to cite that the sky is blue, especially not in a talk page. Anyone who's businesses are "involved in more than 4,000 state and federal legal actions" is probably a large company. Secondly, Trump is a prominent business figure. You don't need to cite that. Everyone knows that. Cessaune (talk) 03:54, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, that, and, according to USA Today, [t]he sheer volume of lawsuits is unprecedented for a presidential nominee. No candidate of a major party has had anything approaching the number of Trump’s courtroom entanglements, and he was involved in more lawsuits than five top real-estate business executives combined: Edward DeBartolo, shopping-center developer and former San Francisco 49ers owner; Donald Bren, Irvine Company chairman and owner; Stephen Ross, Time Warner Center developer; Sam Zell, Chicago real-estate magnate; and Larry Silverstein, a New York developer famous for his involvement in the World Trade Center properties. Due to the size of this article, I haven't added this USA Today article, used in the main article Legal affairs of Donald Trump, to the USA Today lawsuit tally we do use. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 12:23, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
I am comfortable with relying on this source for information. On the lawsuits issue, we shouldn't be comparing him to other presidential candidates, we should be comparing him to similar business executives. The key information here is that Donald Trump himself was involved in more like 3,500 legal disputes, with similar amounts as a plaintiff and as a defendant. Onetwothreeip (talk) 20:22, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
USA Today kept updating the tally between the June 1, 2016, article and the final interactive tally five weeks later when it stood at 4,095. This is the edit, by a WP admin, updating the number, two weeks before my first edit of the article. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 22:13, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
I can't see the >4,000 figure, but assuming it exists as you say it does, I have no objection to that figure being used. Onetwothreeip (talk) 03:50, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
"Similar business executives" -- Such as who on earth? You seem to be seriously misinformed as to the nature of Mr. Trump. Just e.g., there are hundreds of more noteworthy individuals active in NY real estate during the period he was active, and tens of thousands of more noteworthy business executives. The article text and source citations do not verify your vision of his business activities. Moreover there are extensive and detailed narratives of Trump's tutelage under Roy Cohn as to the art and practice of media and legal manipulations such as brought Trump to the spotlight -- briefly in NYC and then, when Gotham tired of him, to the broader cohort of his later support. SPECIFICO talk 23:30, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
"Similar business executives" -- Such as who on earth? Executive officers of comparable businesses. The article text and source citations do not verify your vision of his business activities. I have not expressed anything about any vision I have about Donald Trump's business activities, and any vision that any editor has on this is thoroughly irrelevant. Onetwothreeip (talk) 02:16, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
You seem to have dropped your objection to the longstanding content, so there's no need to continue here. SPECIFICO talk 04:11, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
@Onetwothreeip: Are you recommending we delete the info, from this BLP? GoodDay (talk) 04:32, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
Not particularly. However, it seems that these are better described as legal disputes than legal actions. Onetwothreeip (talk) 05:08, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
Reading the Wikipedia sentence, it looks very negative for Trump. However, looking at the legal actions/lawsuits/disputes in the source [7], it doesn't look so negative. For example, regarding 1600 of the 4000 lawsuits in the source there is, "About 1,600 cases involve suits against gamblers who had credit at Trump-connected casinos and failed to pay their debts." It's a misleading item and should be deleted from the lead. Bob K31416 (talk) 16:49, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
You are providing personal analysis of the source, which is not permissible. Zaathras (talk) 17:04, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
This is normal talk page discussion, not a Wikipedia article page. See the last sentence of the lead of Wikipedia:No original research, "This policy does not apply to talk pages and other pages which evaluate article content and sources..." Bob K31416 (talk) 17:43, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
Its almost a direct quote form the source "Close to half the court cases involving Trump and his businesses over the last three decades involved his casinos. About 1,600 cases involve suits against gamblers who had credit at Trump-connected casinos and failed to pay their debts. " Slatersteven (talk) 17:07, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
But so what? Lead follows article content and sources. SPECIFICO talk 17:14, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
Reword it, as as to make it clear, so it reflects what our article is talking about? 17:18, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
You want to re-word it, to make Trump look less negatively? GoodDay (talk) 18:36, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
This raises an important point which I hadn't considered. While the amount of legal disputes with Trump's involvement is unusually high for a real estate business, this may not be the case for a casino business. If the amount of disputes is also unusual for a casino business, then we should include that statement. Otherwise, if it's not unusual, then it doesn't belong here. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:49, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
Do any RS say that lawsuits concerning the casinos don’t count? Operating casinos was one of his businesses, and extending credit to gamblers was a business decision — a bad bet, as indicated by the lawsuits and the bankruptcies. The House doesn’t win if the customers gamble with the House’s money, unless you’re the mob laundering money obtained elsewhere. Follow the link in the text to another USA Today article, Trump casino empire dogged by bad bets in Atlantic City, for more information. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 11:32, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
That article title appears to refer to bad business bets that Trump made, not gambling debts of casino customers. Bob K31416 (talk) 14:46, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
I hadn't even noticed that you redacted "unless you’re the mob laundering money obtained elsewhere." The proof for not laundering money obtained elsewhere was actually in the pudding, i.e., the bankruptcies. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 17:34, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Neutrality 30 December 2022

You are begging for money and in you repeated requests for money you stated Wikipedia is a neutral information site. Please read your page on Donald Trump and then tell me you are a neutral information site. 47.180.169.216 (talk) 20:28, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

You might try expressing your thought at User talk:Jimbo Wales instead of here. Bob K31416 (talk) 20:46, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
None of us like the "begging for money" run by the Wikimedia Foundation, and none of us see a penny of it. Best, DFlhb (talk) 22:36, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
Wikipedia does not claim to be a "neutral information site." That's a misunderstanding of the NPOV policy. It is a site that neutrally documents the sum total of human knowledge, and much, if not most, of that knowledge includes bias and is not neutral, therefore it is editors, not sources or content, that must remain neutral as they document all of that. So as you read, if you find bias, that bias should be the bias in the source, not bias introduced by an editor. Check the references for that content. If the source does not say what our content says, then complain (in a civil manner) at the talk page so it can be fixed. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:00, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
Could we at least get an example? Neutrality is a fair enough concern to have for any Wikipedia article, particularly on contentious subjects. Wikipedia should remain as neutral and objective as possible, which includes not adopting bias that may exist within reliable sources. Unfortunately, many complaints about bias and neutrality seem more politically motivated, such as this one. Onetwothreeip (talk) 01:50, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
Documenting bias is not the same as "adopting bias." Refusing to document the bias is itself an editorial interference, IOW a biased decision that takes sides against the source. We don't do that. And yes, the initial complaint by the OP does seem to be the typical "politically motivated" objection we see all the time, the type of objection made by people who misunderstand our NPOV policy. NPOV expressly does NOT require that sources or content be neutral, but it does require that editors edit neutrally. An article on any controversial topic should not be neutered of opinions and biases. The biases and opinions of the sources should be evident. Editors should keep their own opinions out of the article. They should not neuter sources. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 02:02, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
That would depend what you mean by documenting bias. What I mean is that the tone of Wikipedia articles should not necessarily have the same tone as the sources we rely on. I am affirming that we should rely on sources which may have their own biases. Onetwothreeip (talk) 02:35, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
not adopting bias that may exist within reliable sources 123, please read WP:NPOV. SPECIFICO talk 02:14, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
IP47.180.169.216, if you find any content that seems to include editorial bias from editors here, please let us know. Please provide examples. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 02:05, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
In the subsection Presidency (2017–2021) > COVID-19 pandemic > Initial response there is,
"Trump continued to claim that a vaccine was less than a year away, although HHS and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials had repeatedly told him that vaccine development would take 12–18 months."
This implies that Trump was making a false claim, when in fact he was right. See [8] for example. Bob K31416 (talk) 02:53, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
Not a fan of this sentence. Would be better to have a few sentences on him not caring to understand nuances, somewhere in a leadership section (which is the real point of including this sentence), while focusing more on events and less on words in the presidency section. DFlhb (talk) 03:16, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
Bob, 12-18 months was a forecast made by actual scientific experts at the time, while Trump's "less than a year" was evidenced-free braggadocio. Being right by happenstance does not gainsay the initially-valid opinions of those who actually knew what they were talking about. Zaathras (talk) 04:22, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
Yes, but the wording is terrible. Trump continued to claim that a vaccine was less than a year away, although HHS and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials had repeatedly told him that vaccine development would take 12–18 months. Trump claimed, yet the CDC and HHS knew based on the wording? How could they have known how long it would take to develop the vaccine? Obviously, it was an educated guess, but a guess nonetheless. The wording treats it like Trump was guessing while the CDC and HHS were stating the facts, which isn't true, as they were both guessing. Cessaune (talk) 00:10, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
That ignores what Zaathras explained immediately above. SPECIFICO talk 00:38, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
How? What Zaathras said is true, and what I said is true. Zaathras uses the word "forecast", which implies that they didn't actually know how long it was going to take, and their "opinion" was that they did not believe that vaccine development in less than a year was possible. The statement Vaccine development would take 12–18 months implies that they knew that it would take a year or more. They didn't know that, and they could not have known that. Yes, they are the experts, yes, Trump went against the experts. That doesn't change the fact that they didn't and couldn't know how long it would take, and the implication that the experts knew the facts is incorrect. In reality, Trump was just being confident and the experts were just being realistic in their estimates, a common theme between politicians and experts. Delete the whole sentence. Cessaune (talk) 04:58, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
You seem to be under the impression that a forecast is some sort of random guess, which it is not. There is a huge difference. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:34, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
I never said it was random. I even described it as an educated guess, not a normal guess. Cessaune (talk) 15:07, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
You said, which implies that they didn't actually know how long it was going to take. That is the typical all-or-nothing reasoning people use when they want to present a well-supported statement as dubious. Fact is, Trump, as usual, said exactly the opposite of what experts had told him. "Claim" is the right term for his claim, "told him" is the right term for what experts told him, and treating his uneducated guess the same as the forecast is WP:FALSEBALANCE. Wikipedia should continue to clearly separate well-founded statements of experts from the delusions of incompetent, fantasy-prone, notoriously dishonest laypeople. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:17, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
As I said, Trump was just being confident and the experts were just being realistic in their estimates, a common theme between politicians and experts. The fact that Trump is incompetent, fantasy-prone, and notoriously dishonest (apparently) has nothing to do with that. All presidents are confident. Your WP:FALSEBALANCE arguent is well-received, but it is a fact throughout all modern history that politicians are more confident than scientists. This is not a Trump thing. Cessaune (talk) 15:22, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
Not really. Scientists can state the degree of confidence and probability of error in their estimates. Moreover, based on the recorded conversations between Trump and Woodward, Trump's public statements were deceitful and far from confident. SPECIFICO talk 15:42, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
For reference, here are statements made by Trump and Pfizer:
Trump, March 5, 2020 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/05/coronavirus-trump-vaccine-rhetoric-121796
“So you’re talking over the next few months, you think you could have a vaccine?” Trump asked during a meeting with top health officials on Monday.
“You won’t have a vaccine,” corrected Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar after some cross talk. “You’ll have a vaccine to go into testing.”
“All right, so you’re talking within a year,” Trump said moments later.
“A year to a year and a half,” interjected Anthony Fauci, a government veteran of disease outbreaks under six presidents
In the above, Trump is not claiming that a vaccine was less than a year away. He's trying to get timing information from the experts. He's asking what they think.
Pfizer, April 9, 2020 https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-advances-battle-against-covid-19-multiple-fronts From the second section Applying Pfizer’s ...,
"The companies estimate that there is potential to supply millions of vaccine doses by the end of 2020 ..."
Trump, May 15, 2020 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/fact-check-coronavirus-vaccine-could-come-year-trump-says-experts-n1207411
"We're looking to get it by the end of the year if we can, maybe before," Trump said Friday during in a Rose Garden event centered on his administration's efforts to fast-track a vaccine.
Note that this comment on May 15 came after the previous Apr 9 statement from Pfizer "that there is potential to supply millions of vaccine doses by the end of 2020". Bob K31416 (talk) 20:47, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
Also, there is no mention in this article of the Trump administration's Operation Warp Speed, which expedited vaccine development. And looking at Wikipedia's article on Operation Warp Speed, there is no mention in the lead over there of Trump or his White House despite sources in the lead over there with the titles, "Trump Administration Announces Framework and Leadership for 'Operation Warp Speed'", "Trump's 'Operation Warp Speed' aims to rush coronavirus vaccine", "Unveiling 'Warp Speed,' the White House's America-first push for a coronavirus vaccine". Bob K31416 (talk) 03:52, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
Bob, OWS was largely ineffective, and actually hindered Pfizer's early production goals. Zaathras (talk) 04:22, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
Agreed, but why isn't this mentioned in the article? We shouldn't exclude something just because it failed; why not mention it, and mention that it failed? DFlhb (talk) 22:29, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
How about we simply do away with Trump's claims of when a vaccine would be produced, at least for this article? It might be relevant in the articles specifically about Trump and the response to the pandemic. Whether one sees it as an example of a visionary or a blusterer (for lack of a better word), it is hardly relevant enough to be considered an important aspect of his entire life. If it is being included to help indicate the latter (the bluster element), we have more than enough of that in the remainder of the article. Onetwothreeip (talk) 06:46, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
An attempt was made to include the Abraham Accords, which went nowhere. AFAIK, the US didn't get into any 'new' wars while he was president, so perhaps that can be mentioned. GoodDay (talk) 04:09, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
The Abraham Accords were largely symbolic and meaningless. It gets a footnote in his Presidency... article, which is sufficient. Zaathras (talk) 04:22, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
@47:180:169.216:, if there's something you want added to this page, then propose what that something is. Whether it gets added or not, depends on how many editors you can get to support your proposal. GoodDay (talk) 04:28, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

I went to reexamine the sentence under discussion (see my message of 02:53, 31 December) and the source [9] does not appear to say that Trump claimed a vaccine was less than a year away. This is looking like a mess. Bob K31416 (talk) 18:03, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

On that basis, I would support any editor boldly removing the claim from the article. Onetwothreeip (talk) 02:03, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
Right. But the bigger question should be whether this is due. Who cares if he made a correct prediction, which experts were seemingly wrong on? Predicting when a product will go-to-market is not some kind of scientific calculation, where expertise would matter. On the contrary. Him making a guess, and an expert making another guess, is utterly non-noteworthy.
We're only bringing up this trivia in order to depict him as having little respect for expertise. So why not bother to find a proper source for that, and then say it explicitly? Why hint at things?
There's way too many instances of us mentioning massively undue things for the sole purpose of hinting at due things we should be stating outright. Would save us a fair bit of word count. DFlhb (talk) 02:11, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
The first step would rightly be to remove this sentence from the article. Onetwothreeip (talk) 03:11, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
No. Not without doing as DF says. SPECIFICO talk 03:31, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
It seems you're misrepresenting what DFlhb is saying. They are saying that the sentence should not be in the article because it is not due, and I agree with them. Onetwothreeip (talk) 04:03, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
I don't mind if we wait for better material to be proposed before removing; though I don't see it as a necesssity, since it makes editing the page a bit too formal a process for my tastes. Regardless, it's unlikely you'll get consensus without proposing a replacement. DFlhb (talk) 04:11, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
The sentence itself never had a consensus for its inclusion, so we can remove it without consensus. This shouldn't be something that rises to the level of requiring a discussion. Onetwothreeip (talk) 04:15, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
That comes with the territory of editing a page that's both controversial, and very highly discussed. When editors dispute potential changes, affirmative consensus is required. There's good and bad aspects to that, but it's defensible. DFlhb (talk) 04:25, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
Remove the sentence. GoodDay (talk) 06:33, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Regarding Trump and his administration's efforts to expedite a vaccine, here's an article from CNN, Trump scores a long-awaited coronavirus win with vaccines on the way. Bob K31416 (talk) 03:31, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

2 years old. Find something newer that has analysed Trump's "victory" after the passage of some time. Zaathras (talk) 04:19, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
The same article says that some of the scientific work that led up to the development of the vaccines had been going on for 15 years. Also, the vaccine first out of the gate, BioNTech/Pfizer, was developed without Operation Warp Speed funds, and other countries weren't all that thrilled that the Trump administration bought up the entire initial vaccine production at the asking price. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 18:23, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

In addition to not being neutral by leaving out positive aspects of Trump's presidency like the covid vaccine expediting, the article goes into excessive detail on negative aspects. As an example of the latter, an editor recently tried to reduce some of the excessive detail with this edit [10] and was reverted [11]. Bob K31416 (talk) 15:56, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Today's Wordle solution is *****. As a result of the investigations into Russian election interference, the president's friends and close and not-so-close associates were convicted of felonies, and then he pardoned every single one of them (except for Cohen who cooperated with the investigators). Any other presidents proudly looking back on that kind of legacy? Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 18:23, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
There is some excessive detail on the criminal investigations in this article, such as going into detail on who of his advisers and campaign staff were convicted of crimes, and the lengths of their sentences. This is an article about Donald Trump, not anybody else, and the criminal records of those associated persons should be found in other articles. On this article, it should be enough to say that several of his associates have been investigated and convicted of such crimes, and detail what Trump himself did or influenced in doing. Onetwothreeip (talk) 23:04, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

The IP is actually correct, article has become very biased

Despite the poor tone of the IP, there is some substance in their observation that the article is biased indeed. Much as I personally think Trump should be in prison and despise the man, some editorial choices here are rather surprising and, well, biased. The Abraham Accords are never even mentioned. A US President helping to establish peace deals between Israel and several Arab states is highly important, yet not even included here while many marginal aspects get plenty of space. Sorry to say, but the impression is that several users have come to believe that including anything positive about Trump is to endorse him. Trump is a horrible man who was a horrible President and occasionally did a few good things as well. Jeppiz (talk) 00:27, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

I don't agree that the Abraham Accords are (considered, by reliable sources, of course) important enough to be included here, except maybe a brief mention, as the agreements made are quite inconsequential. One of the main problems with this article is that it overly and unnecessarily details negative events and characteristics of the subject's presidency and political career. Onetwothreeip (talk) 00:35, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
This has been discussed several times. Trump had little to do with these dubious "accords", which sources say were largely Netanyahu's media announcement of arrangements de facto in place for some time. SPECIFICO talk 00:37, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
@Jeppiz: in order to get something (I assume you're hinting) positive added to this BLP? You have to get a consensus from editors first. An RFC (which brings in outside editors), is likely the best route to take. GoodDay (talk) 02:58, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
That is absolutely incorrect. Issues are resolved by discussion. But repetitive discussions for no new reason are pointless. SPECIFICO talk 03:49, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
What? No. Discuss first, always. There are enough editors watching this page that can weigh in if they want. You start an RfC after discussion has taken place. Cessaune (talk) 05:01, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
Any editor who wants to begin an RFC, to include or exclude anything on this BLP (if they think it necessary), are free to do so. We few who frequent this BLP (and talkpage), can't stop them. GoodDay (talk) 05:24, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
You are technically correct, however WP:RFCBEFORE suggests discussion first. ...likely the best route to take goes against this. Cessaune (talk) 05:30, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
If any editor sees this BLP as being biased (i.e non-NPoV), then it'll be up to them 'how' they handle it. GoodDay (talk) 05:35, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
Yes, but you suggested that, against information widely agreed upon not just in a de facto sense but fully codified, that starting an RfC is likely the best route to take. Why? Cessaune (talk) 05:38, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
It's the best route to take, for more input. GoodDay (talk) 05:39, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
But why is "more input" needed? The talk page is consistently being edited. What's wrong with the current input? Cessaune (talk) 05:47, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
A question for those who feel this page is biased, to answer. GoodDay (talk) 05:50, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
Yes, of course anyone can start an RfC. Read WP:RFCBEFORE. We shouldnt waste editor time, resources. More input comes after initial input, such as discussion. RFCBEFORE is very clear: If you don't have to start an RfC, don't. What is the benefit of starting an RfC if a) there are capable editors always watching this page, b) there has no attempt to discuss with said capable editors, c) editor resources will be wasted in dealing with an RfC, d) RfCs on this page are almost always a mess of uninformed editors who vote based on political ideology and not RS, e) RfCs on this page tend to end in status quo ante bellum? Cessaune (talk) 05:59, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
This seems to be a massive overreaction to a fairly benign comment from GoodDay. I agree it may have been better written, but there's no real issue here. Onetwothreeip (talk) 06:57, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
Not at all overreaction. That was a highly disruptive suggestion and this issue is nowhere near the stage at which an RfC would be constructive or elucidative. The comment is contrary to our basic processes of collaboration, hence the decisive rejection. SPECIFICO talk 22:45, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Seeing as @47.180.169.216: & @Jeppiz: have left this overall discussion, which was begun by the IP? Perhaps it's time to hat it. Side note: I wish IPs would stop making complaints on this BLP's talkpage & then disappearing, never to be heard from again. GoodDay (talk) 22:37, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

No new wars since Jimmy Carter.

My recent edit was reverted by Space4Time3Continuum2x on the following grounds: "If it's not in the body, it doesn't go into the lead. Unreliable source."

Would the content be suitable to reinstate if an appropriate paragraph was present in the Foreign Policy section? I believe it is noteworthy as it is one of the few positive policies that Trump has in his legacy.

It was also said that the source I cited was an unreliable source, while I don't believe that to be the case, there are many other publications which verify the claim including USA Today, Newsweek, and Reuters. - GA Melbourne (talk) 00:06, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

If you have a source that the US didn't get involved in any 'new' wars, during the Trump administration? Then by all means, add it to the page. GoodDay (talk) 01:29, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
"By all means what??" We do not add everything with a source to our articles. Please consider NPOV. SPECIFICO talk 13:10, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
Dumb trivia, not worthy of mention. Zaathras (talk) 03:41, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
I disagree seeing multiple international publications have dedicated entire articles to the topic. - GA Melbourne (talk) 07:39, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
It's worth adding a sentence on this.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:46, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
They were debunking social media claims, not writing news articles about Trump's legacy. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 11:56, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
I think with the USA Today and the Reuters source this can be introduced into the foreign policy section, but should not appear in the lead. Iamreallygoodatcheckerst@lk 07:57, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
The three sources look at different claims. USA Today: This was the first four-year term without a new war since Eisenhower. They rated the claim FALSE. Newsweek: Donald Trump Is First President Since Jimmy Carter Not to Enter U.S. Troops Into New Conflict. Newsweek points out that, like Carter, Trump was only in office for four years and, unlike Carter, did order air strikes in Syria in 2017 and 2018; they don’t mention the killing of Iranian general Soleimani at Baghdad Airport in 2020. Reuters: Which U.S. presidents led the nation into new wars? Reuters verdict is false, saying that "[w]hile defining military interventions can be difficult, Trump is not the only president not to start a new war during his administration. … If we also consider other military interventions, Carter and Ford join Trump in not starting or escalating existing foreign conflicts with U.S. military involvement." IMO, using these sources to support was the first president since Jimmy Carter not to involve the U.S. in a conflict is SYNTH. It’s also trivial and luck of the draw - during his term, the U.N. didn't ask for intervention, and there was no attack on a NATO country, for example, that might have forced the U.S. to come to the defense of the NATO member. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 11:53, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
All the articles come to the same conclusion though that trump was the first president since Carter to not start a new military operation.
Whether or not it was luck of the draw it's not for us to determine in fact the Newsweek article have the following quote from Thomas Gift, the director of the Centre on US Politics at University College London, "Trump hasn't faced a similar monumental national security event that's compelled him to shift focus and become a 'wartime president.' As a result, Trump's brand of belligerent isolationism has led him to avoid foreign wars." - GA Melbourne (talk) 05:27, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
Trump also didn't invade the Netherlands, or shave a narwhal. We don't list the things a a person didn't do in a biography, it isn't relevant. Zaathras (talk) 06:36, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
I disagree. Being the first president in four decades not to enter the U.S. into a new conflict is something he did do rather than something he "didn't do". - GA Melbourne (talk) 10:12, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
Did he, 'though? Or did Kelly or Milley or Miller or Esper distract him with plates of fries so that he forgot all about his plans to "take the oil" or Greenland by force? Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 14:09, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
Unless you have a source for that I don’t think it is in anyway relevant. See WP:OR. - GA Melbourne (talk) 23:43, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
Why is it significant no wars since Jimmy Carter? That is only about 40 years and 6 presidents. Also it may not even be true [[https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-modern-us-presidents-new-wa-idUSKBN2A22SN "Trump joins Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy and Dwight D. Eisenhower in not having officially brought the United States into a new war since 1945." note that Three of those are post Carter. Slatersteven (talk) 10:25, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
That quote relates to officially declared wars. I’ll be sure in the edit (if approved) to stipulate that Trump was first since Carter “not to involve the U.S. in a new conflict” rather than that Trump was first since carter “not to involve the US in a war” - GA Melbourne (talk) 23:48, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
Yes, which is the problem, how do you define it, its clear different sources define it in different ways. At best we would have to attribute this claim, which then leads us into wp:undue territory. Why is one newspaper view relevant? Slatersteven (talk) 11:11, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
@GA Melbourne: let me save you the trouble. Proposing anything that puts Trump even remotely in a positive light, isn't going to get local consensus on this talkpage. GoodDay (talk) 18:39, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
That is disappointing seeing whether or not it is positive or negative shouldn’t matter. The only thing that does matter is Wikipedia’s policies - GA Melbourne (talk) 00:23, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
I disagree. Most of the things proposed that place Trump in a positive light are trivial and relatively unimportant to him as a person. "No new wars since Jimmy Carter" is random, useless trivia that gets at most a sentence. It's not like there were no wars under him, just no new ones. WHy even include it? What does it even tell us? Cessaune (talk) 03:58, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
It is significant because it was the first time this was the case in 40 years (a long time). - GA Melbourne (talk) 05:01, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
But how does that make it important? Cessaune (talk) 10:36, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
40 years is not a long time. Slatersteven (talk) 11:11, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
@GA Melbourne: We need to follow the weight of mainstream Reliable Sources, and this is not considered significant in that body of thought about Trump. We do hear a lot about Trade Wars and isolated military adventures like the precipitous withdrawal from northern Syria, the chocolate cake MOAB attack, etc. but this 40-year thing sounds more like a sports statistic, most times stealing 3rd base under a waning moon. SPECIFICO talk 12:06, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
It's a trivial, arbitrary statistic. But Trump has used military force in other foreign countries under the broad authorization to use force granted after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. His administration has ordered airstrikes and drone attacks, supplemented allied militaries with U.S. troops, deployed special operations forces in the Middle East and beyond, and ordered the killing of Iran’s Gen. Qassem Soleimani, which critics claim nearly triggered an armed conflict. "With that authorization in place, I am not sure it is possible to start a new war these days," said DeThomas. "They all fit under the legal umbrella of the old one." ... Trump did not seek authorization from Congress for use of military force, or a formal declaration of war against any other country. He did not engage the U.S. in any new protracted conflicts during his four years in office. But Trump did order and oversee new military operations under existing authorizations, including counterterrorism raids that have spread to several countries in the Middle East and Africa. From this source. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 12:50, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
Yes, and this points to the problem with the word: “war”. Putin made it illegal to call the Ukraine War a war. We still haven’t admitted that the 30 year Vietnam war was a war, despite over a million deaths. Eisenhower called it a “police action”. Grenada wasn’t called a war. The stat no longer has any meaning. O3000, Ret. (talk) 17:48, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
I think you mean Korea, not Vietnam... It appears to be true, according to sources, that Trump is the first President since Carter not to commit troops to a new conflict. I think that's significant If not only because it cuts against the image he might have. You can call him a chickenhawk — as some have — but the fact is he hasn't committed troops to new conflicts.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:26, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Nomination for House Speaker

Is Trump the first former US president, to be nominated (and gotten a vote) for Speaker of the US House or Representatives? If so, should it be added to this BLP? or is it too trivial. GoodDay (talk) 03:39, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Too trivial. -- MelanieN (talk) 03:43, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
Not a serious enough nomination. Maybe if it was twenty votes, but not one vote. I don't see much media coverage taking it seriously. Onetwothreeip (talk) 23:50, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
Should be added to the electoral history though. Onetwothreeip (talk) 23:50, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
John Quincy Adams also got votes for speaker when he served in the House. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:52, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
Mickey Mouse has received votes for many positions. O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:59, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
Alright, since nobody mentioned it yet? I will. The fictional character Archie Bunker got a delegate vote for the 1972 Democratic vice presidential nomination. GoodDay (talk) 01:34, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, but unlike Mickey the Mouse, Archie was fictional. O3000, Ret. (talk) 02:03, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
Too trivial for a mention. Iamreallygoodatcheckerst@lk 07:50, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
On the other hand, it signifies the hold that Donald J Trump has over the elephantine party.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:55, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
If his hold is still so strong, then why did it take so many votes for some of his most ardent supporters to back his chosen candiate?--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 11:36, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
I don't think one vote signifies anything important. Cessaune (talk) 16:24, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Removal of diplomatic style

A few days ago I added a BBC characterization of Trump's diplomatic style, but it's been reverted. It's reliably sourced and explains his approach in a clear and understandable way. I think it should included because it's specific to Trump himself and how he behaved in regards to foreign policy. What do you all think? Iamreallygoodatcheckerst@lk 03:02, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

One source says something or other and you want to use that to describe a broad, wide-ranging characteristic of the man and his presidency? The essence of UNDUE. Not to mention untrue. Picked a fight with Putin? Picked a fight with MBS/Saudi Guy? Fought with Abe? Just one silly opinion in the daily press. SPECIFICO talk 03:39, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
Support: It provides an insight into his strategy, for example, with North Korea, and it is brief. I can't see a reason to oppose it.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:22, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
I am unsure one source is enough. We do not need every view about him expressed by RS. Slatersteven (talk) 11:44, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
Support: As long as it's written well, go for it. It's just as encyclopaedic as anything else. Tim O'Doherty (talk) 16:34, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
Please see WP:ONUS. You would need sufficient reason, per WP:NPOV SPECIFICO talk 16:57, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
Support - the proposal. GoodDay (talk) 18:30, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
Support - seems fine to me. Mr Ernie (talk) 20:22, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
  • To be honest, Mr. Ernie, this is just "I Like It" and not really a meaningful input into the discussion. Your support is giving the appearance of being part of your zeal to revert and oppose a particular user (one, two, three, in 24 hours). Not a good look. Zaathras (talk) 03:22, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
No - This is a simplistic view from one correspondent and is also a simplistic view of his simplistic view. It's a good article. But, it is not even, as stated, the view of the BBC. It's just one interesting view from one correspondent, when you read the entire article instead of trying to put it into a sentence as to his entire philosophy of negotiation based on an example or so. O3000, Ret. (talk) 22:56, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
Eh Not as it is now, no. The entry lacks the broader context of his escalation, the personal attacks, and the showmanship involved. Trump Diplomacy was at its core, an exercise in narcissism. Zaathras (talk) 01:41, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
No - this source is too old for me. Find something newer and you would have my support. Cessaune (talk) 21:40, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

I would not include this. It is old (2018) and if we are attempting to summarize Trump’s actions abroad, especially when making generalizations, we should attempt to use the best, most comprehensive, and most recent sources. This random snippet is neither the most comprehensive nor the most recent. It is bloat. Leave it out. Neutralitytalk 05:20, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

The article is inexorably and inevitably bloated. You can't exclude one single solitary sentence on the grounds that it contributes to "bloat".--Jack Upland (talk) 06:02, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
That makes no sense. If the article is already bloated, the first thing to do is to make sure it doesn't become moreso. If there are 362 sentences of bloat already in an article, that doesn't mean we should let in one more.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 18:50, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Neutrality

Hello. I want to preface this by saying I do not, in any way, endorse his views or his actions. Indeed, I am a foreigner and am not too terribly invested in this (barring the couple of things that do affect me).

However, I get the impression this article is not, like, terribly neutral. The entire preface seems designed to evoke negative feelings in the reader.

What do you think?

Also, I am sorry for my low English proficiency. ~~ Nowy Prywaciarz (talk) 19:11, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Nowy Prywaciarz, WP:NPOV means "neutrally reflecting what the sources say". It does not mean "presenting a neutral picture of the subject". This is a common misconception. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:22, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
That's not what it means. Look at the original neutrality policy:
http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view&oldid=270459
The neutral point of view attempts to present ideas and facts in such a fashion that both supporters and opponents can agree.
No look at this article. Do you want to tell me that supporters and opponents of Donald Trump are going to say "Yes, that's neutral article. It describes perspective of both sides"? Mintus590 (talk) 14:00, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
The state of a policy page as it was 22 years ago, as written by a much-discredited early contributor, is not at all applicable to a discussing being held here in 2023. Go by the current version of WP:NPOV, please. ValarianB (talk) 14:08, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
If you have a specific editing suggestion, then make it. Otherwise this serves no purpose. Zaathras (talk) 03:14, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
Yes, but it does show that many people disagree or are confused about the neutrality of the article.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:02, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
Not really. I'm a "foreigner" too and obviously have no horse in this race, yet I think this article is fine neutrality-wise given the difficulty of covering the subject. Many people can disagree about this article's neutrality, but unless they're making the better argument (they're not) – then yes, without "specific editing suggestions", a section such as this one serves no purpose. —MelbourneStar☆talk 00:26, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Please read WP:FALSEBALANCE. Slatersteven (talk) 11:42, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
A rough consensus has emerged to implement Option 1, which is to insert the 10-ish links described in the proposal. While Option 2 had substantial support, especially among later commenters, many suggested Option 1 as an alternative in case Option 2 failed to gain enough support. While proponents of Option 3 (de-linking) widely mentioned SEAOFBLUE, a rough consensus of editors have argued that, as paraphrased from Rhododendrites' comments, this is a wiki, and that links are what make Wikipedia unique among reference sources. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 01:05, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Should we add more links to the lead?

  1. Yes, the ten (or so) described below
  2. Yes, the ten described below, alongside a few more links
  3. No, the lead should stay as is

Thanks, Cessaune (talk) 00:32, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Voting

You think we won’t be discussing every single link? See discussion, below. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 11:23, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
Maybe. There was just no efficient way to start an RfC asking people to look at each individual link on its own merits. Objections can be raised and sorted out, of course, but I just don't think there was a better way to start it. Cessaune (talk) 15:11, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
I'd say we have chaos now. Seems to me that this comment nominated five additional links, including a MOS:EGG. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 15:18, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
How else should I have done it? Cessaune (talk) 15:29, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
Army wisdom: "never volunteer". If I remember correctly, I started exactly one RfC ever. Advice on what not to do: WP:RFCBRIEF. In this case, I think the third "bad questions" bullet point applies. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 17:10, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
It need not be chaos. For example, I could say Yes to A, B, D and F, and No to C, E and G. Tallying up the responses for each link would help us understand which links would be overwhelmingly supported, which ones would be overwhelmingly opposed, and which ones remaining would require further discussion. I would be willing to start such an RfC, once this one finishes. Onetwothreeip (talk) 03:47, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
Ranked-choice voting for two options but not for the third one, with option 2 being "anything really", then another RfC on individual links 1–10 or 1–n — yay process! Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 11:57, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
  • 1 all are informative links. Iamreallygoodatcheckerst@lk 07:52, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
  • 2 then 1. These were all here before (~1 year ago) and I don't see why they were taken out. Linking to the articles for things is how Wikipedia works. ─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 14:23, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
  • 1. It would be helpful to people reading the article, who didn't know what those things were and wanted to jump over to that article. Besides, the article is pretty under-linked.Professor Penguino (talk) 00:48, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
  • 1 definitely, maybe 2. No good reason not to link a president's policy articles in the lead, especially relatively decent ones. Easier navigation for a Wikipedia user, and it's what Wikipedia does universally across all articles. Not WP:SEAOFBLUE. Regarding 2, a link to the article on his tens of thousands of false statements (significant, and unique to his presidency where a User would want to navigate quickly from the lead). -Teammm talk? 13:44, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
  • 1 for sure. See above as the users has told the reason why so. CactiStaccingCrane 01:04, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
  • 3. The blue sea navy can sail away. There is no need for their depth charges here. We assume that patrons can speak English and navigate the Internet. If not, they wouldn't be here.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:52, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
  • 1 or 2. Add some more links already. Any event that is both (a) worth mentioning by name in the lead plus also (b) notable enough to already have a separate article written about it should get a link. (If you want fewer, then take out that unimportant sentence about which college he attended. Nobody except the alumni donation office actually cares where he went to school, okay?) WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:34, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
  • 3, then 3. See my remarks in the discussion, above. This RfC shouldn't have been started. The discussion had low participation, as does this RfC. If we put links in the lead, they should be kept to a minimum and link to the section in the body that has details and links to other articles, if appropriate. Absolute no to links to dictionary words. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 20:38, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
    Twelve people participated in the initial discussion. Twelve. "Low participation"? Disregarding the fact that there is no real participation threshold to start an RfC, how is twelve people "low participation"?
    Secondly, I thought it was the perfect time to start an RfC. The discussion started on December 13, 2022, and 'concluded' on January 6, 2023 in a stalemate. Discussion had run its course over nearly a month's time with the odd editor chiming in, and there was, if anything, weak consensus for linking more in the lead. I decided to start an RfC, abiding by the very clear rules of WP:RFCBEFORE. I am wholly against and fully despise the misuse of RfCs, but come on. This seemed like a clear time for one. Maybe it wasn't, though. I would very much appreciate it if you would explain why you think this RfC shouldn't have been started. Cessaune [talk] 23:34, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

3 Adding more and more links really does get excessive. Some on that list -- affordable care act, e.g. have little to do with Trump's core bio. The clutter is confusing and excessive, particularly for readers on a mobile device. Any link to any WP page is "informative" but that does not mean they are key to understanding the lead summary. SPECIFICO talk 23:44, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

I have trouble reconciling your position with the leads of other articles mentioned in the section Statistics below. Bob K31416 (talk) 01:15, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
Just wanted to add that the links pertaining directly to Trump’s administration and policies were deleted by SpaceContinuum years after being in the article, while he selectively left others in place (ie. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act) along with generic links. Some are phrasing it as “adding links” when really the links to Trump’s policies would actually be ‘’’restored’’’ to position before it was claimed they were excessive. Any policy of his should be linked for more information in the lead. Mind you, this is much less wiki links that were in the lead before, and would be an improvement in my opinion. Again, I am a 1 and a 2 for my reasons given above. -Teammm talk? 20:20, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, I struggled to find any discussion where a clear consensus formed for removing the links. They were long-standing, and then they were gone. There was some talk about it, but nothing with high participation or anywhere near as formal as an RfC. —Ganesha811 (talk) 21:19, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
For the record, several editors removed the links whenever various editors who mostly didn't take part in the discussions on this Talk page added a ton of them. Other editors who also didn't take part in the discussions on this page then added individual links nobody bothered to remove. You can find the discussions of links, no links, what kind of links from Archive 149 on forward. And high or low participation appears to be very much in the eye of the beholder. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 13:49, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

I believe that we should link our Environmental policy of the Donald Trump administration article. Trump rolled back more than 125 environmental safeguards. From a Washington Post article:]

[Trump called himself "the great environmentalist"] but over the course of nearly four years, his administratio has steadily loosened oversight of polluting industries, eroded protections for endangered wildlife and stymied Obama-era efforts to address the globe’s most daunting environmental threat: climate change.[13]

His entire cabinet were either oil or coal men or lobbyists who worked for them. Not one of them believed in man-made climate change. Many climate/environmental scientists agree that four more years of Trump would have pushed us beyond the point of no return. Please do read our article and I believe that you will agree that it should be linked. Sectionworker (talk) 22:29, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Statistics

By way of providing some statistics, by my count:

For comparison:

The highly rated articles about modern presidents average almost exactly three times as many links in the lead, and one link for every 10.5 words.

If we want this article just to come barely up to the average number of links found in a high-quality article, we need to triple the number of links in the lead. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:30, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

From the above statistics, we can add to the above part "For comparison" the following,
I checked a couple others and got the following approximate values
and similarly for George H. W. Bush and Gerald Ford, to fill in the gaps in the original list. Bob K31416 (talk) 18:01, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for completing the statistics check. If you have not yet participated in the RfC, you may be interested in doing so. —Ganesha811 (talk) 01:18, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Comment on the value of statistics. One 5-second glance at Barack Obama, and I found a MOS:SEAOFBLUE and a MOS:EGG. The statistics can also be read to prove that those leads are overlinked. BTW, Ronald Reagan was a featured article in 2008, has a number of justified tags (it reads as though it was written by his publicist), and is currently being overhauled. He's also been out of office and dead for decades, not likely to engage in current affairs. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 14:42, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Wait, how can the stats be read to prove that those leads are overlinked? I'm confused. Cessaune [talk] 18:11, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
@Cessaune, didn't anyone tell you how Wikipedia works? All articles are overlinked if I think they have too many links, and all articles are underlinked if I think they have too few links.
That's why I gave the numbers only for GA- and FA-class articles. Those are the best articles, and FAC specifically checks articles for compliance with the MOS, including Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking. While a B-class article such as the Obama one might not be in full compliance ("George W. Bush's tax cuts" probably isn't technically a SEAOFBLUE because of the unlinked 's in the middle, but I personally think it is suboptimal), but the FAs are in full compliance at the time of their promotion, and the GAs generally do quite well on that point.
My ultimate question is: Should the links in this article about a former US president be treated in a significantly different manner than the links in all the other articles about former US presidents?
One could argue, and perhaps @Space4Time3Continuum2x would do so, that this one is correct and all of the others should be made to match it. But my own question is: Should this one be treated abnormally? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:11, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
Yes, I know this, but there is no correct in this sense, only preference and precedent. The articles you listed above set a precedent for what is accepted by the Wikipedia community, and that includes the amount of links in their leads. This article should comply with the precedent of others, not the other way around. If sufficient support can be gathered to override the precedent, then fine, but the precedent has been set by the Wikipedia community, and not a small group of editors, so changing it is near impossible.
In this case, how can you prove that those leads are overlinked? You can't, just as you can't prove that this lead is underlinked. However, you can look back at what was accepted by the community in the past as the standard for excellence, and draw conclusions based off of those. This isn't a style issue, this is a functionality issue, so personal preference is overriden by general community consensus, and the unofficial consensus between featured articles of a similar length to this one is one of inclusion. Cessaune [talk] 23:31, 27 January 2023 (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.

Riddled with falsehoods

It would be great if this page would be edited with the knowledge of today. We know so much more today 93.95.147.202 (talk) 14:42, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

What falsehoods, based on what reliable sources? O3000, Ret. (talk) 21:12, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Proposed Rewrite of Lead

I recently finished reading through the leads of each U.S. president, which in almost all cases provide clear information that is easy to read. Though I understand that many of those articles are not BLP, and I also understand the difficult task of editors for this page (who have done an excellent job in many respects) I still found this article's lead to suffer from a few fixable problems.

First, it is poorly written. I believe that the controversial subject matter forced editors into using short, repetitive sentences. Just because editors need to be precise with a topic does not mean that it cannot be written in a way that reads naturally.

Second, it is not arranged in a compelling manner. Most articles on U.S. presidents follow a chronological pattern that presents information in a straightforward way, then offers a sampling of critique/analysis in the final paragraph. This article does not follow a chronological pattern and inserts critique/analysis throughout, which led to accusations of bias.

Third, this lead fails to take advantage of the various articles in the Donald Trump series. These are in-depth analyses of various aspects of him and his presidency, yet the lead links to very few of them.

In good faith, while trying to uphold BOLD, I rewrote the lead while trying to incorporate these changes.

PROPOSED REWRITE: User:DynaGuy00/Rewrite of Donald Trump Lede

This rewrite is almost solely a reworking of the existing information, and it conforms to all current consensus points. So see this more as a cleanup attempt than a portrayal of new information. It is certainly a rough draft, however, as evidenced by a lack of sources.

The only purpose of this is to provide a helpful starting point for improving the lead. Hopefully this does that to some extent. DynaGuy00 (talk) 17:59, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Please post a pro-forma diff between the current lead and your proposed text. Then editors can make specific comments or suggestions. SPECIFICO talk 18:29, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
If the re-write attempts to add 'positive' info & remove 'negative info', to any degree? Then I'll be quite surprised, if it's accepted. GoodDay (talk) 19:21, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
The rewrite is available above, so you can try reading it. Dimadick (talk) 20:45, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
I already have, read it. GoodDay (talk) 21:17, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
GoodDay, this is the second time you have recently failed to WP:AGF without even a wit of evidence. O3000, Ret. (talk) 21:46, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
My apologies. GoodDay (talk) 22:04, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Overall, I do think it's better written. It's unclear to me, for example, why we mention promoted conspiracy theories and made many false and misleading statements during his campaigns and presidency, and the racially charged comments, in the paragraph about his 2016 campaign, when the text itself makes clear that these were part of a wider trend that continued during his presidency.
However, I oppose including Operation Warp Speed in the lead; it's just undue. Would support this rewrite if this is fixed. DFlhb (talk) 22:28, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
I just removed it. There seems to be critical consensus against Operation Warp Speed, which I understand. The only complicating factor is that Trump himself received a COVID-19 vaccine, although it is possible to receive the vaccine and promote COVID-19 conspiracies at the same time. DynaGuy00 (talk) 18:15, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
For some other complicating factors, see this article from CNN, Trump scores a long-awaited coronavirus win with vaccines on the way. Bob K31416 (talk) 17:22, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
Support, thanks to this change. DFlhb (talk) 19:22, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
Support The proposed changes, although I think that the draft version could do with a copyedit. AryKun (talk) 10:40, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
Support Perfect example of a well-written lead. -Teammm talk? 13:40, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
Support as the changes follow timeline order which I like, and gets rid of much of the negative connotation I disliked. Cessaune (talk) 18:48, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
Support - that is a vast improvement over what we have currently; I've been meaning to do something similar. I do think it's too heavily weighted to recentism; but it would be very hard do do anything else. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 20:44, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Support with a few caveats - the biggest being that I don't think it's really accurate to say that Mueller's investigation was sparked his election or policies. I also think the 'misinformation' link is unnecessary, but a link to Affordable Care Act would be helpful. Valarian is correct that this lead, if adopted, should follow the results of the RfC above. —Ganesha811 (talk) 02:54, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
  • You added stuff that you think is important but the consensus so far didn't. They need to be discussed individually.
  • under the campaign slogan "Make America Great Again."
  • and appointed Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett to the United States Supreme Court. (The sentence also uses appoint twice.)
  • withdrew the U.S. from several agreements of the Obama administration
  • The close of Trump's term was dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • one week before the inauguration of Joe Biden
  • Trump has been the subject of significant controversy and critique before, during, and after his presidency. (Victimized, as usual, and how do the 4000 lawsuits fit in between the controversy and critique and his comments having been characterized as racist and mysogynistic?)
I thinks it's better to keep the two impeachments in the same paragraph. Putting the first one into the third paragraph is in effect hiding it, just another day at the office. Your draft is also quite a few characters longer than the current version even though you removed all references to the current consensus which aren't visible to the reader. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 21:24, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
I mean, they don't have to be discussed individually. So far there is unanimous support for the proposal as a whole. There is no requirement for discussion. This doesn't meaningfully tamper with any of the previously agreed upon 59 consensus points above, either. I really don't see a reason we should discuss any of it if most of us like it as is. It's an extra unnecessary step that is ordinarily needed on this page but doesn't seem to be needed this time. Cessaune (talk) 21:36, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
Requiring individual discussions for each change is unnecessarily bureaucratic; points of contention should be specific, not general. @Space4Time3Continuum2x: do you actually oppose each of these, or just the impeachment placement? DFlhb (talk) 21:40, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
Unanimous, no reason to discuss any of it ... Huh. I'm at a loss for words, temporarily. Hasta mañana. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 22:41, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
Of course we can discuss, we just don't have to discuss every change if we don't want to. Discussing specifics is fine, but it seemed to me like you wanted to discuss every change just to discuss every change, and not necessarily because you disagreed with them, which just seems like a waste of time IMO. Cessaune (talk) 23:05, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
Somebody needs to post a pro-forma diff of the changes so that we can go through them individually and discuss any pros and cons. A bunch of quick OKs that may not even recognize all of the changes is not going to rewrite the lead of one of our most frequently viewed articles. This is simply a matter of good procedure. Just as any workplace would review an important document or multi-faceted issue. SPECIFICO talk 23:16, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
I will weigh in briefly with a few thoughts but after this I will put the remainder of the discussion in the hands of other Wikipedians, considering I do not have the clearance to even edit the actual page. If this actually ends up getting up there then someone else will have to take it to the finish line. I appreciate the positive feedback, and of course welcome any improvements.
1. None of the edits that @Space4Time3Continuum2x said need further review are factually inaccurate. They are just differences between this and what is up there now. For example, the lead there now mentions Trump withdrawing from several Obama-era agreements, just not with those exact words.
2. One of the reasons I found them helpful was because (as I mentioned above) this article in my opinion should conform where applicable to the other articles on U.S. presidents, particularly modern presidents. I found it strange that the article for Trump did not mention his Supreme Court appointments, while the articles for Clinton, Bush, and Obama all did. Many presidential articles also included info about the type of campaign run, though this one did not (which is why I included his "Make America Great Again" slogan). Much of this is because consistency is usually a positive thing.
3. Wikipedia should be careful, but also a place where things get fixed. I am of course not demanding (nor necessarily expecting) that this gets implemented. I would just like to see Wikipedians not allow bureaucracy to prevent a poorly written lead from being improved. DynaGuy00 (talk) 00:13, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
Dyna, post a diff so this can be resolved. Otherwise your work will have been wasted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SPECIFICO (talk • contribs) 00:20, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=User:DynaGuy00/Rewrite_of_Donald_Trump_Lede&diff=prev&oldid=1134780970 — Preceding unsigned comment added by DynaGuy00 (talk • contribs) 16:32, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
Uh-uh, baby, we have to. You think I want to discuss changes I agree with? With the editors who proposed them? Wouldn't be much of a discussion. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 19:55, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

@DynaGuy00: What we need is a diff between your proposal and the pre-existing article text for the lead. So take your sandbox page and do a dummy edit that reverts your entire proposal and inserts the current article lead in its place. Then UNDO that removal and the resulting diff will show everyone the changes that you are proposing here. From a quick look, I am a bit uncertain about whether you have been altering your proposal after editors have !voted here, in which case they may not have been referring to the current version in your sandbox. For example, it appears that you went back and removed the 4000 bankruptcies, which is text we recently discussed here without consensus to remove it. That's why an explicit diff will be helpful and then you can ping everyone who's participated here to chime in. Thanks. SPECIFICO talk 16:49, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

The diff was added in the previous DynaGuy00 message of 16:32, 20 January 2023. Bob K31416 (talk) 17:38, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
@Bob K31416: No, Bob it was not a diff. That was not a diff. Then, I even posted again after seeing it was not a diff and explained to OP how to post the diff. But nobody has done it. And FYI, I am not "involved" and have no opinion about this and have participated only to ask way too many times that any discussion proceed in an orderly and thorough manner so that it can reach a conclusion. Very disappointing that you apparently didn't bother to click on that link. You should reinstate the hat, because this proposal -- whatever it is -- will not be implemented in its current form. SPECIFICO talk 18:33, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
It's clearly a diff as it says so in the URL. Maybe your request is unclear with regards to what you think you're requesting. Since it's just a matter of manipulating versions that anybody technically able can do, perhaps you can do what you want yourself for the editors here to see. Regarding the other part of your message, I think you were involved because you were posting messages. BTW, the discussion is currently active. For example, two editors are discussing what should go into the rewrite. Bob K31416 (talk) 19:58, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
You can call a diff from a blank page a diff, but that'd not what is needed, and fully described above. This is going nowhere. SPECIFICO talk 20:48, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
Is this not what you asked for? [14]? This was done a while ago. If this is not what you're looking for, then I'm lost, as it has already been done in the exact manner you described above. Cessaune [talk] 22:03, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

DynaGuy00, you added material and you moved content around, so it's pretty difficult to compare the before and after.

  1. If, as you said, the current version is "not arranged in a compelling manner", which you define as chronologically, then why did you move Trump's bankruptcies from the second into the last paragraph which, also according to you, is supposed to be "a sampling of critique/analysis"? How does a sentence stating facts about the bankruptcies and the number of lawsuits he's been involved in fit in between "significant controversy and critique" and "racist/mysoginistic comments and actions"? The second paragraph deals with his business ventures, and all of the bankruptcies in the 90s and 2004 and most of the lawsuits arose from his business ventures.
  2. Trump ran as an outsider candidate in the 2016 United States presidential election under the campaign slogan "Make America Great Again." We don't mention this in the body, so it does not go into the lead. Do we need this in the body? Is it as important as the dog-whistle racism and mysogyny?
  3. As for mentioning the 2016 campaign or naming the SC justices in the lead to maintain consistency with "many presidential articles": consistency with other articles has been discussed and declined a number of times, due to the size of lead and body, for one thing.
  4. His election and policies sparked numerous protests as well as the 2017–2019 special counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller. The Mueller investigation was "sparked" by Barr and Rosenstein in their endeavor to end the FBI investigation into the Trump Campaign's Russian involvement (alleged, for the "this article is biased" folks).
  5. He was then impeached by the House of Representatives on January 13, 2021, one week before the inauguration of Joe Biden: it's been two years. Why are the exact date and the factoid that it was a week before Biden's inauguration lead-worthy? Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 19:36, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
  6. ¥ou changed falsely claiming widespread electoral fraud ..., mounting scores of unsuccessful legal challenges to claiming widespread electoral fraud ..., and mounting legal challenges. Why? "Falsely", "scores", and "unsuccessful" add important info.

You also removed the hidden references to the current consensus. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 20:03, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Pertaining to 6, "scores" and "unsuccessful" don't really add that much meaningful context, and, IMO, they seem to have this unnecessary negative connotation. "Falsely" is useless. It doesn't at all describe the extent to which Trump has claimed electoral fraud. He did (obviously) falsely claim electoral fraud, but it's way more nuanced than that. It's been two years and he's still claiming it. Very weak characterization of his actions IMO. I prefer removing falsely to putting it back. Cessaune [talk] 23:47, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
negative connotation: you're misinterpreting WP:NPOV. The lead is based on the body, the body is based on RS, and they say that he lost in dozens of courts. That's "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." nuance: what would be a better characterization of Trump's actions, based on which RS? Our RS in the 2020 campaign and the post-presidency section don't say that there’s nuance to Trump’s (obviously) false[] claims. Why are we still discussing this? The proposer appears to have left, after telling us to "talk amongst yourselves. I’ll give you a topic. Discuss.". Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 15:26, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
If the proposer has left, then I'll spearhead it. This change has the most support of any change on this page since I've been watching it. I'm not letting it go to waste. Cessaune [talk] 17:10, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
Okay...
  1. Move the bankruptcies back to the first paragraph
  2. Delete, unnecessary
  3. Keep as there is really no reason to exclude the Supreme Court mentions
  4. Split the sentence so it looks like it does now: His elections and policies sparked numerous protests and The 2017–2019 special counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller established that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to favor the election of Trump.
  5. Take out the dates (though I don't really see why it matters)
  6. Change the sentence to: Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden but refused to concede defeat, falsely claiming widespread electoral fraud and attempting to overturn the results by pressuring government officials, mounting many unsuccessful legal challenges, and obstructing the presidential transition. (I really hate that word scores, I don't know why.)
Is this okay? Cessaune [talk] 18:07, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
@Space4T: I addressed your issues, are these solutions okay? Cessaune [talk] 14:54, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

It's been a full week now, since this proposal was made. Recommend closure, via hatting. GoodDay (talk) 16:41, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Why should we hat the discussion? Just wondering what you think. Cessaune [talk] 17:11, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Pinging @DynaGuy00, SPECIFICO, GoodDay, Dimadick, Objective3000, DFlhb, Bob K31416, AryKun, Teammm, ONUnicorn, ValarianB, Ganesha811, and Space4Time3Continuum2x:

I went through and readded the hidden references to previous consensus and took out most links that aren't currently in the actual lead of the article. It can now fit into the article as is without disrupting any prior consensus, I think.

User:DynaGuy00/Rewrite of Donald Trump Lede

Please take a new look and recast your vote. Cessaune [talk] 03:21, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

No, we don't vote on a bundle of changes. This discussion is not constructive. SPECIFICO talk 03:29, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Why not? Cessaune [talk] 03:31, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps we should wait until the "links in the lead RFC" has been closed. One item at a time. GoodDay (talk) 03:37, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Loss of common sense?

Why are the terms not wikilinked in the lead? Imagine trying to look up "populist", "misogynistic", "appellate", or "Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement" every time, when had the links are available, you can just hover on the links and read the definition. This is antithetical to Wikipedia's ethos of building the web and I cannot think of any valid reason for unlinking such as vast amount of text that would satisfy ignore all rules policy. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 15:11, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I'm specifically referring to Talk:Donald_Trump#Seeking_consensus_for_individual_link_additions_to_lead and Talk:Donald_Trump#RfC_on_links_in_the_lead. No wonder people says that Wikipedia is a bureaucracy. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 15:13, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
Conversely, I believe that the leads of articles should have no links at all. It's a short digest, quick and uncomplicated. If something is unclear, there is a whole article full of detail and links. And it really isn't that hard to search for something. And I find those popups to be massively annoying.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 17:39, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
Khajidha, I will always struggle to understand this position. I get your reasoning, but is there a benefit to completely avoiding links in the lead that is compelling enough to make it a viable option? I'm just wondering what you think. Cessaune (talk) 18:26, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
I struggle to understand your question. To me, my proposal is just good writing. I don't see the benefit in cluttering up what is essentially an abstract. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 03:10, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
Okay, so your position is that links clutter up the lead? I agree, though I err on the side of overlinking as I believe it is always beneficial to the reader, and it's really only us editors who give a damn about how blue the lead is, for example.
MOS:LEAD states:

The average Wikipedia visit is a few minutes long.[1] The lead is the first thing most people will read upon arriving at an article, and may be the only portion of the article that they read.[2] It gives the basics in a nutshell and cultivates interest in reading on—though not by teasing the reader or hinting at what follows.

Taking into account that the average time a reader spends on Wikipedia is definitely not long enough to read this article, or multiple articles of a more standard length, and the fact that most people only read the lead section of the article, wouldn't it be beneficial to provide links in the lead that help a reader get to where they want to go or to what looks interesting? We shouldn't deny editors those rabbit hole experiences (the whole reason I'm an editor is because of those long rabbit hole experiences). I see what you're saying, but removing links from the lead entirely when we have a knowledge that the lead is the most visible part of the wiki and oftentimes the only part of an article that is actually read seems... weird. I don't know. Cessaune (talk) 03:41, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
I assume that if they don't read past the lead, they HAVE found what they are looking for. If they are curious, they will read the article. That seems more like common sense to me. But we are just going round and round now. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 16:08, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
I would think that most people don't read past the lead because they have clicked a link in the lead that led them to something more specific. But anyway. Cessaune (talk) 18:40, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
In developed countries, most readers are looking for a particular detail. If you want to know how old he is, it only takes a few seconds. BTW, the MOS:LEAD quotation is misleading. Around 4 minutes is how long the typical users spends at Wikipedia during a whole day, across all articles. That source suggests that people frequently spend less than one minute on any individual article. For reference, most adults read about 250 words per minute. An average reader will get down to somewhere around "Trump ordered a travel ban on citizens from several Muslim-majority countries" after 60 seconds.
For this page, about half the readers of this page go on to another Wikipedia article, and about half just close the tab.
A little less than half of readers arrive at this article by clicking a link on another Wikipedia page (e.g., the Main Page or the article about another US president).
You can see more about the sources and destinations for this article at https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=Donald_Trump WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:57, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
Are we caught in a time loop? Didn't we already have discussions on this? We don't want to clog up the lead, via overlinking. GoodDay (talk) 15:55, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
We trade off navigability and ease of use for a superficial decrease in clutterness. You guys are assuming that an average reader would understand every single word that is in the lead, and that they won't be bothered to scroll up, type and look at the word multiple times instead of just clicking on the link. I still don't understand how can such a faulty consensus be developed. CactiStaccingCrane 23:09, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
I think, given your strong views on the subject, you should participate in the RfC above. I believe GoodDay has already participated. —Ganesha811 (talk) 00:34, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
Khajidha, if you have not participated in the RfC either, you may be interested in doing so. —Ganesha811 (talk) 02:11, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
@CactiStaccingCrane, I don't think you've described their view fully. They're saying that we don't need to provide links in the lead, because anyone who really wants to know what the Trans-Pacific Partnership is will of course be willing to read another four thousand words down into the article, to find the One True™ link to that article. If you aren't willing to spend an extra 16 minutes reading the "whole article full of detail and links" to find the second mention of the TPP, then you must not have really wanted to know what the TPP is anyway.
There's also the option of searching. Of course, it can be difficult to type on a smartphone (=the relevant form, since most of the readers are on mobile), especially since you can't see the article while you're typing in the search box on a smartphone, but if you aren't willing to go to that trouble, you must not have really want to read that article anyway.
This does not appear to me to be a sensible argument, but perhaps others can see some value in it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:05, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ As of March 2020, Alexa's entry for wikipedia.org reports that the average Wikipedia user spends 3 minutes and 52 seconds on the site per day. "wikipedia.org Competitive Analysis, Marketing Mix and Traffic". Archived from the original on 1 May 2019.
  2. ^ See meta:Research:Which parts of an article do readers read.

FBI investigation header

@Space4Time3Continuum2x: there needs to be some distinction in the header of the investigation into his handling of documents so people know which investigation the section is addressing; as you know, this isn't Trump's only investigation. The current header is not providing that necessary distinction. Iamreallygoodatcheckerst@lk 15:34, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

He's being investigated for obstruction of justice and possible violations of the Espionage Act. A bit lengthy for a header. SPECIFICO talk 16:32, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
Space4Time and SPECIFICO, what about "FBI investigation into handling of classified documents" Iamreallygoodatcheckerst@lk 16:42, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
That is not what's under investigation. How about "criminal investigations..."? Just askin'? SPECIFICO talk 17:18, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
We should maybe change the header to plural, FBI investigations? There are two separate ones, the one into the documents (classified and unclassified) found at Mar-a-Lago and Trump's months of refusing to hand them over to NARA and the one about January 6. Smith heads both of them. The January 6 investigation is mentioned in the last sentence with a huge Wikilink that makes up for what the mention lacks in detail. Since we don't know whether or how that investigation involves Trump we should leave it at that for now. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 18:52, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
What is the 'header' you propose? GoodDay (talk) 17:21, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
Please familiarize yourself with the article text under discussion before commenting. SPECIFICO talk 17:47, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
@Iamreallygoodatcheckers: Would recommend a shorter version. GoodDay (talk) 20:11, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

"Tonald Drump" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Tonald Drump and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 February 5 § Tonald Drump until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. — Ingenuity (talk • contribs) 02:47, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Democratic decay addition

A biography of Trump that doesn't contain the words "dysfunction", "institutional", or "norms" is hard to take seriously. And How Democracies Die, "the most important book of the Trump era" according to The Economist, wasn't used anywhere in the article.

I've added a "Democratic decay" subsection to cover the last two terms, and the book.

As for dysfunction, that concept should be the main thrust of an entirely-rewritten Personnel subsection; personnel shuffles are just one symptom among many of his administration's well-documented dysfunction, and as I've argued before, we should focus less on matter-of-fact WP:PROSELINE and more on synthesis and scholarly analysis. The Personnel section should cover the ways in which he had to be "managed" by his Chief of Staff, the fact that he could side against his advisers if someone slipped a Breitbart printout on his desk or if he received a phone call from a fringe figure, and it should cover his overall policy-making process (which, for him, relies far less on personnel than for other presidents). DFlhb (talk) 09:41, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

62.8% of eligible voters, cast their votes in the 2020 US presidential election. The highest percentage since the 1952 prez election. Trump's certainly charged up the American people, to participate in democracy. It can't be denied, that he draws out (for him & against him) the people to the polls. GoodDay (talk) 01:09, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
"Democratic backsliding" or something similar would be a better title IMO. "Democratic decay" feels too aggresive. Cessaune (talk) 18:45, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
Sure; when I learned this at school, it was still called "democratic decay", but I guess scholars renamed the concept since then. DFlhb (talk) 18:48, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
Right. We have no article called democratic decay though we have something similar. Maybe you went to Magic Puffin Elemental School and did Pollywaffle 101 with a Willy Wonka Major. So what?--Jack Upland (talk) 07:35, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
Google Ngram viewer: "democratic backsliding,democratic decay" DFlhb (talk) 12:25, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
This was unnecessary, the problem had already been solved. Cessaune (talk) 16:25, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
Are these scholars first out of the gate or are they/their views notable enough to go into this top bio? I moved the section to subsection Trumpism for now but IMO the content should be moved to the main article Trumpism if it isn't there already. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 12:03, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
Don't think it would fit in that article; Trumpism either refers to the movement, or more widely to the relationship between Trump and his base, or even more loosely to Trump's style of politics. What I added is strictly about the consequences of actions he took as presidency, which would therefore fit in the Presidency section. It likewise doesn't fit in "public profile", since it has nothing to do with how anyone (not even scholars) view him. It's stricly about actions he undertook. I oppose moving it out of the presidency section, or out of this article; we need more scholarship here, and fewer political reporters; this is just the first step in that direction.
As for whether they're representative of scholars as a whole: that's my strong impression. I only picked a few representative studies, but found more than a dozen more. I only remember reading a single paper that was somewhat posiitve; it argued that Trump was the most pro-constitution president in decades, and was written by a GWB lawyer if I remember correctly; but unless a few more can be found, that seems very much like a minority viewpoint (I hate using the word "fringe"). I invite you to check for yourself if you have any doubts. DFlhb (talk) 16:58, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
This is definitely something that would require consensus prior to addition. Onetwothreeip (talk) 20:44, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
Perfectly fine by me, but are we going to discuss it, or just let it get archived? As it's written by scholars, it's certainly more reputably sourced than a lot of the other things we discuss here, and even than most of what's currently in the article. DFlhb (talk) 11:09, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
Not to belabor the point, but @Space4Time3Continuum2x, do you really think this is remotely as well-supported and as due as my proposal above, when yours is sourced to an advocacy organization and a NYTimes newsletter, while the Democratic backsliding section represented strong scholarly consensus?
I would argue that your "anti-democracy" edit would belong perfectly in Trumpism, since it's a wide-ranging effort pushed by a large amount of establishment conservatives. There's a fantastic in-depth New York Times video on that same "anti-democracy" angle which you might be interested in, but citing it may be a problem since it's a video labelled "opinion", despite the fact that it relies mostly on an interview of a scholar.
edit: Ah, I see the problem. I shouldn't have used "Trumpism" in the first sentence; "Trump's presidency" would have been a far better paraphrase of the source. I assure you it would be a poor fit at Trumpism. DFlhb (talk) 00:01, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
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