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	Donald Trump was a Social sciences and society good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones Date Process Result June 2, 2006 Good article nominee Not listed February 12, 2007 Good article nominee Not listed September 18, 2016 Good article nominee Not listed May 25, 2017 Good article nominee Not listed Current status: Former good article nominee

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This was the most viewed article on Misplaced Pages for the week of December 6–12, 2015; January 31–February 6, February 21–27, February 28–March 5, March 6–12, March 13–19, October 9–15, October 16–22, November 6–12, and November 13–19, 2016; January 15–21 and January 22–28, 2017, according to the Top 25 Report.

Open RfCs and surveys

• #Should we mention the Forbes 400 tapes in the 'wealth' section of the article?
• #North Korea in lead
• #Amend consensus item 2, unlink New York City in the infobox

• v
• e

NOTE: It is recommended to link to this list in your edit summary when reverting, as:
] item
To ensure you are viewing the current list, you may wish to purge this page.

01. Use the official White House portrait as the infobox image. (Dec 2016, Jan 2017, Oct 2017, March 2020) (temporarily suspended by #19 following copyright issues on the inauguration portrait, enforced when an official public-domain portrait was released on 31 October 2017)

02. Show birthplace as "Queens, New York City, U.S." in the infobox. (Nov 2016, Oct 2018, Feb 2021) "New York City" de-linked. (September 2020)

03. Omit reference to county-level election statistics. (Dec 2016)

05. Use Trump's annual net worth evaluation and matching ranking, from the Forbes list of billionaires, not from monthly or "live" estimates. (Oct 2016) In the lead section, just write: Forbes estimates his net worth to be billion. (July 2018, July 2018) Removed from the lead per #47.

06. Do not include allegations of sexual misconduct in the lead section. (June 2016, Feb 2018)

09. Include a link to Trump's Twitter account in the "External links" section. (Jan 2017) Include a link to an archive of Trump's Twitter account in the "External links" section. (Jan 2021)

12. The article title is Donald Trump, not Donald J. Trump. (RM Jan 2017, RM June 2019)

13. Auto-archival is set for discussions with no comments for 7 days. Manual archival is allowed for (1) closed discussions, 24 hours after the closure, provided the closure has not been challenged, and (2) "answered" edit requests, 24 hours after the "answer", provided there has been no follow-on discussion after the "answer". (Jan 2017) (amended with respect to manual archiving, to better reflect common practice at this article) (Nov 2019)

14. Omit mention of Trump's alleged bathmophobia/fear of slopes. (Feb 2017)

22. Do not call Trump a "liar" in Misplaced Pages's voice. Falsehoods he uttered can be mentioned, while being mindful of calling them "lies", which implies malicious intent. (RfC Aug 2017, upheld by RfC July 2024)

25. In citations, do not code the archive-related parameters for sources that are not dead. (Dec 2017, March 2018)

26. Do not include opinions by Michael Hayden and Michael Morell that Trump is a "useful fool manipulated by Moscow" or an "unwitting agent of the Russian Federation". (RfC April 2018)

27. State that Trump falsely claimed that Hillary Clinton started the Barack Obama birther rumors. (April 2018, June 2018)

28. Include, in the Wealth section, a sentence on Jonathan Greenberg's allegation that Trump deceived him in order to get on the Forbes 400 list. (June 2018, June 2018)

29. Include material about the Trump administration family separation policy in the article. (June 2018)

30. Supersedes #24. The lead includes: "Many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racially charged or racist." (RfC Sep 2018, Oct 2018, RfC May 2019)

31. Do not mention Trump's office space donation to Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/Push Coalition in 1999. (Nov 2018)

32. Omit from the lead the fact that Trump is the first sitting U.S. president to meet with a North Korean supreme leader. (RfC July 2018, Nov 2018)

33. Do not mention "birtherism" in the lead section. (RfC Nov 2018)

34. Refer to Ivana Zelníčková as a Czech model, with a link to Czechs (people), not Czechoslovakia (country). (Jan 2019)

37. Resolved: Content related to Trump's presidency should be limited to summary-level about things that are likely to have a lasting impact on his life and/or long-term presidential legacy. If something is borderline or debatable, the resolution does not apply. (June 2019)

38. Do not state in the lead that Trump is the wealthiest U.S. president ever. (RfC June 2019)

39. Supersedes #21 and #36. Do not include any paragraph regarding Trump's mental health or mental fitness for office. Do not bring up for discussion again until an announced formal diagnosis or WP:MEDRS-level sources are provided. This does not preclude bringing up for discussion whether to include media coverage relating to Trump's mental health and fitness. This does not prevent inclusion of content about temperamental fitness for office. (RfC Aug 2019, July 2021)

40. Include, when discussing Trump's exercise or the lack thereof: He has called golfing his "primary form of exercise", although he usually does not walk the course. He considers exercise a waste of energy, because he believes the body is "like a battery, with a finite amount of energy" which is depleted by exercise. (RfC Aug 2019)

41. Omit book authorship (or lack thereof) from the lead section. (RfC Nov 2019)

42. House and Senate outcomes of the impeachment process are separated by a full stop. For example: He was impeached by the House on December 18, 2019, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. He was acquitted of both charges by the Senate on February 5, 2020. (Feb 2020)

43. The rules for edits to the lead are no different from those for edits below the lead. For edits that do not conflict with existing consensus: Prior consensus is NOT required. BOLD edits are allowed, subject to normal BRD process. The mere fact that an edit has not been discussed is not a valid reason to revert it. (March 2020)

44. The lead section should mention North Korea, focusing on Trump's meetings with Kim and some degree of clarification that they haven't produced clear results. (RfC May 2020)

46. Use the caption "Official portrait, 2017" for the infobox image. (Aug 2020, Jan 2021)

47. Do not mention Trump's net worth or Forbes ranking (or equivalents from other publications) in the lead, nor in the infobox. (Sep 2020)

48. Supersedes #45. Trump's reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic should be mentioned in the lead section. There is no consensus on specific wording, but the status quo is Trump reacted slowly to the COVID-19 pandemic; he minimized the threat, ignored or contradicted many recommendations from health officials, and promoted false information about unproven treatments and the availability of testing. (Oct 2020, RfC Aug 2020)

49. Supersedes #35. Include in lead: Trump has made many false and misleading statements during his campaigns and presidency, to a degree unprecedented in American politics. (Dec 2020)

50. Supersedes #17. The lead sentence is: Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. (March 2021), amended (July 2021), inclusion of politician (RfC September 2021)

51. Include in the lead that many of Trump's comments and actions have been characterized as misogynistic. (Aug 2021 and Sep 2021)

52. Supersedes #23. The lead should contain a summary of Trump's actions on immigration, including the Muslim travel ban (cf. item 23), the wall, and the family separation policy. (September 2021)

53. The lead should mention that Trump promotes conspiracy theories. (RfC October 2021)

54. Include in the lead that, quote, Scholars and historians rank Trump as one of the worst presidents in U.S. history. (RfC October 2021) Amended after re-election: After his first term, scholars and historians ranked Trump as one of the worst presidents in American history. (November 2024)

55. Regarding Trump's comments on the 2017 far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, do not wiki-link "Trump's comments" in this manner. (RfC December 2021)

56. Retain the content that Trump never confronted Putin over its alleged bounties against American soldiers in Afghanistan but add context. Current wording can be altered or contextualized; no consensus was achieved on alternate wordings. (RfC November 2021) Trump's expressions of doubt regarding the Russian Bounties Program should be included in some capacity, though there there is no consensus on a specific way to characterize these expressed doubts. (RfC March 2022)

57. Do not mention in the lead Gallup polling that states Trump's the only president to never reach 50% approval rating. (RfC January 2022)

58. Use inline citations in the lead for the more contentious and controversial statements. Editors should further discuss which sentences would benefit from having inline citations. (RfC May 2022, discussion on what to cite May 2022)

59. Do not label or categorize Trump as a far-right politician. (RfC August 2022)

60. Insert the links described in the RfC January 2023.

61. When a thread is started with a general assertion that the article is biased for or against Trump (i.e., without a specific, policy-based suggestion for a change to the article), it is to be handled as follows:

1. Reply briefly with a link to Talk:Donald Trump/Response to claims of bias, optionally using its shortcut, WP:TRUMPRCB.
2. Close the thread using {{archive top}} and {{archive bottom}}, referring to this consensus item.
3. Wait at least 24 hours per current consensus #13.
4. Manually archive the thread.

This does not apply to posts that are clearly in bad faith, which are to be removed on sight. (May 2023)

62. The article's description of the five people who died during and subsequent to the January 6 Capitol attack should avoid a) mentioning the causes of death and b) an explicit mention of the Capitol Police Officer who died. (RfC July 2023)

63. Supersedes #18. The alma mater field of the infobox reads: "University of Pennsylvania (BS)". (September 2023)

64. Omit the {{Very long}} tag. (January 2024)

65. Mention the Abraham Accords in the article; no consensus was achieved on specific wordings. (RfC February 2024)

66. Omit {{infobox criminal}}. (RfC June 2024)

67. The "Health" section includes: "Trump says he has never drunk alcohol, smoked cigarettes, or used drugs. He sleeps about four or five hours a night." (February 2021)

Should we mention the Forbes 400 tapes in the 'wealth' section of the article?

Please consider joining the feedback request service. An editor has requested comments from other editors for this discussion. This page has been added to the following lists: Politics, government, and law Biographies When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the lists. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.

Since it seems like everyone has presented their arguments and there are requests for an RFC... this discussion led to debates over whether we should include this edit, which covers tapes by reporter Jonathan Greenberg that he says shows Trump lying in order to get on the Forbes 400 list. The main argument seems to be over whether the topic is WP:DUE (and, therefore, whether it would be a WP:BALANCE issue to include or exclude it.

Some relevant sources: , the initial article; secondary coverage in these: --Aquillion (talk) 04:12, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Survey

• Include as proposer. The heavy coverage more than adequately demonstrates that a single sentence devoted to this is not WP:UNDUE; beyond that, we already mention that Trump was on this list, and covering that without at least noting a high-profile controversy related to that inclusion is clearly a WP:BALANCE issue. The existence of the tapes is not in doubt (Greenberg has produced them), and their interpretation with regards to Trump lying about his wealth to get on the Forbes 400 does not seem to be particularly controversial, in the sense that no sources have contradicted Greenberg's interpretations and several have unambiguously reported it as fact. This is a high-profile controversy related to Trump's wealth that must be mentioned in the appropriate section of this article to ensure proper balance with the (sometimes primary-sourced) figures already there. --Aquillion (talk) 04:12, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
• Include per what I said above. Notable controversy, there isn't a "old stuff" relating to events 30 years ago clause in NPOV for disinclusion, and by the same token would disinclude all his old net worths. As Aquillon says, noting that he is on the list without the doubts/controversies associated is contrary to NPOV, representing all the significant viewpoints there. We should also include all the other doubts about Forbes's figures, which we currently present without comment. E.g, in 1982 his net worth was actually 5 million$ not 100 million$, according to this same article. Doubts about forbes figures were also reported in the 2005 nytimes source which we use the in the article. There is also a lot more coverage about his..very high, ludricuous..claims, as in Trump Revealed, "Yet his claims were questioned, time and again.". We do include the claims, but not how they are questioned - we mostly present the point of view of that of forbes estimates and himself without all the questions about them. Galobtter (pingó mió) 07:11, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
• Include This should be included we but only if we keep it an appropriate size and mention that it is just an allegation so far. --Emir of Misplaced Pages (talk) 11:05, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
• Include - as noted earlier => definitely of public interest and reliably sourced - iac - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 14:30, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
• Include: WP:RS. Would be a WP:POV decision not to include.Casprings (talk) 01:02, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
• Include The proposer's first sentence hits the nail on the head. Greg L (talk) 07:12, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
• Exclude - edited audio tapes, no proof of dates or authenticity, purportedly dating back 36 34 years when the reporter was in his early 20s. He was an ex-writer for Forbes, so I guess he moved up the ladder 40 years later to become a blogger for HuffPo? Nah. It's just another allegation scraped up from the bottom of the barrel. It has no encyclopedic value.  03:26, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Atsme, can you at least provide a reliable source to back up the claim that these audio tapes have been edited in misleading way? (Also not sure what the reporter's age has to do with anything) Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:25, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Sound editorial judgment is all that's required - tape 1 clearly isn't the full conversation - it's a 1:47 sound bite - no proof of who called whom, there's no recorded date only Greenberg's word, no way to confirm what the conversation was actually about much less in what context it was taken, it ended as abruptly as it began. The same with the 2nd tape - a 1:07 sound bite - all you know is what Greenberg reported. As for Greenberg's age - he brought it up in the WaPo article: I was a determined 25-year-old reporter, and I thought that, by reeling Trump back from some of his more outrageous claims, I’d done a public service and exposed the truth. I must've missed his exposé while reading his online resumé. In the WaPo report he claims innocence - that he and his Forbes colleagues thought of it as "vain embellishments on the truth"...until 34+/- years later? Meh! And where does his story show up? Front page? No - it's in a Perspective column (opinion piece) that WaPo defines as: Discussion of news topics with a point of view, including narratives by individuals regarding their own experiences. Poorly sourced for contentious material about a BLP (circular reporting counts as one source, and the opinion piece is the primary). He's barely getting any baitclick mileage out of it in the anti-Trump markets - zero lasting encyclopedic value - poof, the buzz is already gone. 03:14, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

OK. So, razor sharp acumen and unassailable logic of some select wikipedians could be used when the RSs don’t seem to catch on to these drop-dead obvious truths, Atsme. I suppose I might be able to go along with that. Moreover, your proposal seems to actually embrace the last of Misplaced Pages’s Five Pillars (Misplaced Pages has no firm rules), though this concept of yours seems to run afoul with the second Pillar (pertaining to citing reliable, authoritative sources) as flawed as the RSs can be at times. Greg L (talk) 04:15, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

As long as observers realize that my razor sharp acumen and logic is also supported by policy including NOTNEWS, V and NPOV, and the guideline that defines RS. 21:41, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

• Include - notable and reliably sourced. Also, including the fact that he was on the list, while deliberately ignoring the controversy about how he got there is a pretty clear violation of WP:NPOV.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:25, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

So you think this comment should be included because an ex-Forbes reporter is a more reliable source than the President of the United States? Brian Everlasting (talk) 05:05, 1 May 2018 (UTC)g

That is a terrible argument, on multiple counts. 1. We're not excluding Trump's viewpoint, nor saying that the report is more reliable than POTUS (strawman), but merely including all significant viewpoints per NPOV 2. Trump's history of exaggeration and falsehoods is well documented and yuge. The ex-forbes reporter, meanwhile, is a investigative journalist who would be fired if he repeatedly lied etc Galobtter (pingó mió) 12:08, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

• Exclude. This seems extremely trivial. Everyone already knows that Trump puffs himself up at every opportunity. His buildings are the greatest, his TV ratings are the highest, his poll numbers are the best, etc. This is just more of the same thing. This is useless trivia at best. Rreagan007 (talk) 07:00, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Isn't the fact that it is so common mean we have to address it in his biography? Galobtter (pingó mió) 07:12, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

• Include - notable and reliably sourced. Trump's primary claim regarding his qualifications for becoming president was that his wealth was proof of his competency. Each and every lie he told that is subsequently exposed is therefore notable. 71.46.56.59 (talk) 07:11, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

• Exclude - trivia lightly covered tabloid piece, simply not a major action by Trump or significant effect to his life that would make it suitable for BLP. Out of 10 M google for trump I got 39 on this and they mostly seem listed above. Most of those cites are tabloids or unknowns -- skipping past all those kgw, zeenews india, gq, esquire, ktla, hugoobserver, uproxx, pasemagazine, ... whats left? Seems a USAtoday CNN and CNBS is all thats left, 'Greenberg says in a 20 April WaPo piece', so apparently not significant effect or coverage. Markbassett (talk) 00:56, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
• Comment: We should be nice to Donald Trump because if he likes what he reads about himself on Misplaced Pages, he will be more likely to be nice to Misplaced Pages. Therefore I believe this unreliable personal attack on Donald Trump should be strong exclude. This unreliable personal attack accomplishes nothing. Brian Everlasting (talk) 04:05, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

I can't tell if this comment is meant as a joke or not.Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:24, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

• Comment I wouldn't include it in the form presented in Special:Diff/837621017, but I'd support including it as a caveat to the sentence He appeared on the initial Forbes 400 list of wealthy individuals in 1982 with an estimated $200 million fortune, including an "undefined" share of his parents' estate. The WaPo reference claims that he was reported to have a $100 million fortune at that time. The NYTimes reference says Forbes gave him an undefined share of a family fortune that the magazine estimated at $200 million. The fact that Trump attempted to inflate his reported wealth in Forbes magazine shouldn't be controversial, and if we're including those numbers, we should mention it. power~enwiki (π, ν) 04:56, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

I'd say the tapes are relevant but there are other portions even more relevant, as you say, as a caveat. Galobtter (pingó mió) 06:36, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

• Exclude 30+ old allegations are encyclopedic or relevant to this article. Sovietmessiah (talk) 00:33, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
• Include. Obviously good content about a notable situation. Properly sourced documentation of one more of the deceptions he used to create an undeserved reputation. That it reflects poorly on him is not the fault of the sources or editors, but of Trump himself. The fact that it's a combination of deceptive acts makes it even more notable, and not a passing, insignificant, and trivial factoid. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 04:55, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
• Include. Fascinating insight that speaks to the kind of person Trump is. Well-sourced, interesting content that is relevant and notable. What's not to love? -- Scjessey (talk) 20:50, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
• Include Sources show that it is relevant and notable. LK (talk) 06:51, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
• Exclude per UNDUE. Secondary coverage only repeats claims from the original reporting. Mr Ernie (talk) 20:08, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Thereby proving it's worth mentioning... Drmies (talk) 04:34, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
• Exclude as this isn't suppose to be a tabloid newspaper. GoodDay (talk) 02:42, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

• Could you explain the relevance of that statement to the sourcing and significance of this content? Thanks. SPECIFICO talk 02:53, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

• Include This content is well-referenced and the fact that the incident is 30 years old is actually a good thing for a BLP prone to problems of recentism. Cullen Let's discuss it 04:32, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
• Include Heavy coverage in RS. Puts the net worth claims already in the article in context. Certainly doesn’t run afoul of recentism/notnews. O3000 (talk) 10:31, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
• Exclude – Undue old story, apparently unearthed only to smear the BLP subject. Who cares how rich he ever pretended to be? I remember him stating his net worth was "over 10 billion dollars" when he started his campaign. The whole world laughed it off, and professional estimates oscillated between 3 and 4.5 billion. I guess that's "over 10 billion" in typical Trump-speak… — JFG 10:46, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
• Include. Properly sourced documentation of one more of the deceptions he used to create an undeserved reputation. That it reflects poorly on him is not the fault of the sources or editors, but of Trump himself. The fact that it's a combination of deceptive acts makes it even more notable, and not a passing, insignificant, and trivial factoid. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 14:03, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

@BullRangifer: You already voted above, on May 2nd here. You should strike one of your votes. PackMecEng (talk) 14:07, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 14:11, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

• Include in this article, or add in here or here. However, the place in the main article in an ideal place to put it. I change my !vote for exclude to include. Emass100 (talk) 03:21, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

• But in that case, how do we let readers know that the wealth figure in this article is a fabrication? SPECIFICO talk 03:27, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

• If you are referring to the wealth figure he fabricated 30 years ago, I think it is not important that it be included in the main article. Emass100 (talk) 03:36, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

• There's no factual basis for any of the estimates of his wealth. What do you suggest? I would be OK just omitting any estimate of his wealth from all the articles or any other articles where the wealth is privately held and unverifiable. SPECIFICO talk 03:47, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

• (Summoned by bot) Exclude as presented. The edit made was deceptive, as its location and wording imply that the ranking he manipulated is the current one when it's actually one from 30 years ago. The information, however, is not unwarranted. I could support something more along the lines of Power~enwiki's proposal, which would be useful for establishing some context to disputes over his exact wealth. —Compassionate727  14:35, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
• Include, preferably in the False statements section. Another important whopper that precedes his presidential tenure. He lied – both as himself and as the fictitious "John Barron" – to get on the list and then lied to the banks with the list as proof of his creditworthyness? Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 15:30, 19 May 2018 (UTC) And a sentence to the Wealth section, citing Greenberg's WaPO article, e.g.: He appeared on the initial Forbes 400 a list of wealthy individuals in 1982 with an estimated $100 million fortune; for real estate wealth, the list "relied disproportionately on what people told" Forbes because most of the relevant records were not public. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 15:44, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
• Comment if I analyze this by the main purpose of why Misplaced Pages exists and its policies, indeed, we have a WP:POV issue if RS are ignored. Yet, we all know how news like these spread and this is a topic many newspapers we trust would pick up easily. Robertgombos (talk) 07:54, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
• Comment: The challenge resulting in removal said that it was "WaPo opinion piece (including 2 other sources citing that same piece) by ex-employee of Forbes...UNDUE, poorly sourced." It is not an opinion when a reporter reports what happened to him in 1982 and has tapes to back up his story. However, another journalist, Timothy L. O’Brien, had already reported 13 years earlier - without naming anyone on Forbes staff - that Trump had bamboozled Forbes into putting him on the lists from the very first one published in 1982 and on through 2004. Trump sued O’Brien for $5 billion for defaming him by contradicting Trump’s claims of being a multi-billionaire. After he lost, he appealed the case and lost the appeal, (too). Also, Forbes has admitted that people have lied to them about their wealth "occasionally" while a Forbes editor said in an interview that it was "not unusual to catch billionaires lying about their net worth — and Trump has a long history of exaggerating his numbers". Since the Forbes 400 figures prominently in the Wealth section, I think the text and the reliable sources I added under the subheading are WP:DUE. Greenberg’s article is merely additional confirmation of stuff other journalists found out years ago, so also WP:DUE. I just added a subsection to Wealth and used Greenberg's recent report as additional confirmation of O'Brien and other sources' reporting. I don't believe that that's a violation of the active arbitration remedies. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 16:48, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
• Comment - insignificant details based on he said-she said allegations over inclusion on the Forbes list is just plain silly and UNDUE. If memory serves, they had just started that list so it's not issues with a new anything is not unusual. Summaries of major issues/accomplishments are what belongs in the article, not the details of an insignificant alleged screw-up by Forbes. What we need requires long-lasting encyclopedic value, verifiable statements of fact in high quality sources...(1) the alleged Forbes screw-up fails in that regard; (2) Space, we currently have 86 kB (14003 words) "readable prose size", and the material you added made it 88 kB (14244 words) "readable prose size". Considering WP:Article size suggests > 60 kB Probably should be divided (although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading material) and that >100 kB almost certainly should be divided we should be trimming this article to make room for the important summaries of his life, not all the little details and after-the-fact he said-she said allegations which are so obviously UNDUE. 17:28, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

@Atsme: All of that stuff provides important context. The fact is, the most notable fact of Trump's entire life is that he is a person who exaggerates his wealth, his sexual prowess (and related organs), his importance, his crowd sizes, his effectiveness, the size of his hands, the height of his buildings, and a whole host of other things. In fact, using UNDUE as an argument against inclusion is so deliciously ironic it made me laugh out loud. Anyway, this discussion is nearing its scheduled end with a significant majority of editors in favor of inclusion. I would prefer nobody edits (either to add or remove) content until the discussion has been closed. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:08, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Understood, but the Wealth section was not well-written and it did not reflect what the sources say. I fixed some of it - cited the NYTimes article which included their analysis of the actual required financial disclosure that Trump submitted, not the "predicted one". I fixed the Forbes statement and why they actually reduced their evaluation. I think you'll find that it reflects what the sources actually say, and flows a little better. We really don't have to tell readers that he exaggerates - the sources do that for us if you'll let them. Read the paragraph and you'll see what I mean. It is better not to beat our readers over the head with a specific POV, just report the facts and they'll get the message loud and clear - that's what I've tried to explain from the beginning...and I do hope one day y'all will find that my copyedit skills are an asset, not a liability. 19:38, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Nobody should be editing a section currently under discussion, and particularly a section that has been "challenged" by editors, regardless of how much of an "asset" any editor thinks they are. You're making content changes, not just innocently copyediting. Please stop and self revert. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:37, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Scjessey, what I did was copyedit material that was already there, which has nothing to do with adding those potentially "edited" tapes to that section which is what this survey is about. If you still don't understand how DS sanctions work, ask an admin to clarify it for you. Your Nobody outburst was unwarranted, and foolish. I suggest striking your comment because it comes across as BATTLEGROUND when I was trying to have a meaningful discussion with you. 22:34, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

• Include - The article already discusses Trump's wealth and Forbes 400 status, so it would be absurd to omit this aspect, which is supported by numerous sources. In fact, the mere 24 words proposed is probably insufficient considering how it relates to the overall theme of Trump's character.- MrX 🖋 20:59, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
• Include no more than a single cited sentence. Any more weight given to this factoid would be undue. ~Anachronist (talk) 21:52, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
• Exclude per Atsme and leaning toward Compassionate727's proposal. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 02:20, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

North Korea in lead

Yesterday I updated the information about the North Korea situation in the lead section, and Signedzzz reverted, saying "restore neutral, verifiable version". I submit that my version is just as neutral and verifiable, and is more accurate given the current state of the negotiating process. Calling our fellow editors to pick a version. — JFG 08:22, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Version A

He accepted an invitation from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un for direct talks regarding the latter's nuclear weapons program.

Version B

He pressured North Korea over their nuclear weapons program, and scheduled a summit with Kim Jong-un towards denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Survey on North Korea status

• Version B – More informative and up to date. Per my original edit summary, Kim-Jong-un didn't wake up one morning and say "gee, I guess I should invite my old chap The Dotard to a treat of noodles." The reality is that US and China applied exceptional pressure on the North Korean economy, so that Kim was forced to come to the negotiating table. In turn, he played the high-ground maneuver by making big friendly gestures to South Korea, and Moon played good cop to Kim by agreeing to take de-escalating steps, and restore sensible relations between the two Koreas. All considered, Trump's bio should mention Trump's role in this process, and not be reduced to the fantasy that NoKo and SoKo did their thing spontaneously, and only then invited US to the ceremony. — JFG 08:28, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

• Version A is more neutral and accurate, however it should be reworded to avoid the construct "regarding the latter's nuclear weapons program". Also, we should not rely on Fox News as the only source for this content.- MrX 🖋 12:28, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Prefer that we omit this from the lead until there is some tangible accomplishment. I'm not aware that we have ever put WP:CRYSTAL meeting plans in other presidents articles. - MrX 🖋 11:52, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

• B. It's accurate. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 12:37, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• Version B: um, it's what every single news agency is reporting. Do we have to have an RFC to determine if the sky is blue? – Lionel 13:31, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• Version A The sky isn’t always blue. I don’t see how anyone can argue with A. I can see neutrality arguments over B. O3000 (talk) 13:49, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• Version B is the most up to date and accurate. The wording is improved. Easy choice. Mr Ernie (talk) 13:50, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• Version B Considerably more accurate, neutral, and per sources. PackMecEng (talk) 13:50, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• Version B Much more accurate and up to date. L293D (☎ • ✎) 14:12, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• Version A Besides name-calling, Trump did absolutely nothing to put additional pressure on North Korea that wasn't already being done by previous administrations. It's not at all clear why North Korea suddenly and unexpectedly offered talks with the US. The mainstream media has speculated it may be for many reasons, including (but not limited to) the success of the Winter Olympics collaboration with South Korea and the apparent disaster at the primary North Korean nuclear testing facility. Apart from in fringe right-wing sources, there's very little support for the revisionist nonsense espoused in version B. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:48, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

• Version B - Pompeo NBC summarized: We've watched administration apply pressure and now, we've watched come to the negotiating table." 15:09, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

1. RS clearly support B - NYTimes "President Trump and South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in, say their policy of “maximum pressure” on the government of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, has helped bring him to the bargaining table.", and The Guardian published the announcement by Chung Eui-yong, Seoul’s national security office chief: "I explained to President Trump that his leadership and his maximum pressure policy, together with international solidarity, brought us to this juncture."
2. Washington Post: "Trump has told aides to schedule his summit with Kim in late May or early June, and CIA Director Mike Pompeo made a secret trip about two weeks ago to meet Kim in Pyongyang." Option A is dubious, and fails to mention the basic premise that sanctions/economic pressures are why Kim Jong Un agreed to meet with Trump and would consider dismantling his nuke program. 21:11, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

• Version B seems to be the clear choice. Sir Joseph 15:18, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• Version B is far more accurate, with a possible addition re: the widespread rumblings of the Nobel Peace Prize for Trump, even from news orgs that serve as the DNC's de facto communications team. Mr. Daniel Plainview (talk) 16:20, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• Version B--MONGO 17:01, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• Something else Version B probably gives Trump too much credit by suggesting a causality between the pressure and the summit when there were probably other factors involved (Olympics for example). Version A doesn't give Trump enough credit, suggesting that it was Kim who set things up. I could live with something like having just the second half of B, saying that he set up a summit with Kim, and that drops the vague "applied pressure". ~Awilley (talk) 17:22, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• The sources clearly say Trump applied pressure and many suggest his efforts were successful, so if we're following RS's option B does a better job of reflecting them. Factchecker_atyourservice 17:44, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• Weak oppose any of these. I'm not sure it's worth including this in the lead until after the summit actually happens. Both proposals seem acceptable in the meantime, though "pressured" isn't a great choice of word IMO. power~enwiki (π, ν) 21:49, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• Version A - B is original research, misappropriating passing mentions of the word "pressure" to spin a narrative no RS has presented, that Trump's clown tactics could influence the NK's to surrender their nukes. SPECIFICO talk 02:15, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Baloney! Mainstream RS have consistently reported for several months that the Trump administration initiated renewed pressure on the North Korean regime, in reaction to the intensification of their nuclear and missile tests in 2017. This coordinated effort with China is unprecedented compared with prior administrations (Clinton, Bush, Obama). What you call "clown tactics" refers I suppose to the name-calling and threats exchanged by the two leaders over Twitter and the NoKo press agency, which are not what is being discussed. Rather, the "pressured" wording refers to the well-documented tightening of economic sanctions, military drills / show of force by US and aliies, and an effective maritime blockade, including the targeting of foreign companies trying to circumvent sanctions. — JFG 08:29, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

• Version A. There are only two sentences in the article about the meeting (which may or may not take place, according to developing news), so the current brief mention in the lead is more than sufficient. Also, a A couple of semantic points about objections to your proposed wording:

1. JFG: If you have any RS to support saying that Trump pressured Kim into anything, please present them, because I searched and didn’t find any. The word pressure was used by Trump, Pompeo, and Sanders, and they were quoted verbatim by, for example, Fox News, which is the only source for the two sentences in the article and says that "Trump unexpectedly accepted an offer of talks."
2. If you have any RS to support saying that Trump scheduled the meeting, please present them, because I searched and didn’t find any. When two countries agree on a date and place for a meeting between their heads of state, they scheduled it. Saying that one of the parties scheduled it makes it sound like "be there or else." Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 04:59, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

1. We need not search very far to find dozens of mainstream sources mentioning extra pressure initiated by the Trump administration, with help from China. Other editors have already exhibited some recent sources, and here's a sample of older ones (cited in a December 2017 discussion), clearly showing that this "maximum pressure" policy has been ongoing for several months.
2. I have no objection rephrasing the second part to avoid hinting that the US alone did the scheduling. For example, say a summit was scheduled instead of scheduled a summit. Naturally, this part will be updated if/when the summit takes place in a few weeks. — JFG 08:49, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

• Version A, since it's much more concise; but as I mentioned below, this is entirely undue to for the lead in the first place. At least currently, the sources don't support the idea that this is a defining achievement of his administration. --Aquillion (talk) 06:15, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
• Comment: Close requested. — JFG 20:01, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
• Version A. Version B, in addition to being wordy and ungrammatical ("their" should be "its") has several insurmountable problems:

• "towards denuclearization" is vague at best, misleading/inaccurate at worse. Literally today, it appears that the administration might accept allowing Kim to retain nuclear arms.
• "Pressured" is not only vague, but also not defining or distinguishing; U.S. presidents have pressured North Korea, to greater or lesser degrees, for years and years.
• The truly defining thing is accepting an invitation from a North Korean leader - that's never been done before

--Neutrality 22:44, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

• Version A is more neutral and accurate IMO. Gandydancer (talk) 14:31, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
• NEITHER. I came here to potentially handle the AN/Requests_for_closure, but replied instead. See the probable consensus in the section below: Talk:Donald_Trump#The_North_Korea_talks_are_WP:UNDUE_for_the_lead. We shouldn't to be re-writing the lead based on the latest news-of-the-day. Especially not when those events are an ongoing muddled mess of uncertainty. We all know either text will be rapidly tossed in the trash when the US-NKorea meeting does or doesn't happen. If/when anyone closes this, I strongly suggest closing both sections as a single unit. The two sections are different aspects of the same question: What, if anything, should the lead say on this subject. Trying to close this first would be a disaster. Whichever way it goes, it invites people to support their preferred version and then argue the topic is undue for the other version. Alsee (talk) 21:13, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
• Agree with neither. This is early enough to include in the lead if and when any US-North Korean talks have led to some sort of agreement. Marcocapelle (talk) 09:41, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Discussion on North Korea status

The last thing we, as an encyclopedia, should do is claim to know the inner workings of Kim Jong-un's mind. We must stay neutral. O3000 (talk) 16:51, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Agree. Please point out wherever this occurs so we can deal with it. Mr Ernie (talk) 16:55, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

I did. Version B suggests we know why Kim Jong-un made a decision. O3000 (talk) 16:58, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

"pressured North Korea" does not suggest we know why Kim Jong-un made a decision.

In any event, it is pretty ubiquitously stated in the RS's that Trump "pressured" North Korea. Factchecker_atyourservice 17:00, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Putting both some increase in pressure and the summit in the same sentence suggests a connection which is not known. O3000 (talk) 17:03, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Per the sources, which you apparently disagree with? Factchecker_atyourservice 17:07, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

I looked at one of your sources, and you misrepresented it. The source stated in great detail that there exist opposing views on any connection, or if this is a success or failure. We must stay neutral. O3000 (talk) 17:13, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

I didn't "misrepresent" any source. That's a dumb accusation and I request you strike it. Factchecker_atyourservice 17:35, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Vox gave two arguments: one that Trump succeeded and the other that he failed. You quoted from one argument and ignored the other suggesting that Vox favored your position. That was a misrepresentation, and I suggest you stop telling other editors to strike their comments. O3000 (talk) 17:39, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

In what fantasy make-believe world is that a "misrepresentation"? Factchecker_atyourservice 17:41, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

In the world of Neutrality. O3000 (talk) 17:45, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

You have no reading comprehension. I didn't say Vox supported Trump, I said they published a POV suggesting Trump's pressure may have worked, and that is a fact.

Moreover you're ignoring all the other sources. Factchecker_atyourservice 17:47, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

You have no reading comprehension. I do not respond to churlish insults. O3000 (talk) 17:54, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Well I had already said I didn't say what you said I said, but you continued insisting I said things I never said. "No reading comprehension" is just a way of summarizing that.

Again, the sources state ubiquitously that Trump pressured North Korea, and many sources credit Trump's pressure for producing a breakthrough. That's objective reality for ya. Factchecker_atyourservice 17:55, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

And you again misrepresent one of your own cites. You cherry-picked a sentence when the article also provides an opposing argument. The article as a whole does not support your position. But, what do I know? I have no reading comprehension. O3000 (talk) 18:14, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

@Objective3000: If you cannot understand what you are reading, there are only so many ways to say it, and none of them is going to sound like a compliment.

User:Scjessey said a bunch of patent nonsense utterly misrepresenting RS's, falsely claiming that RS's have not speculated that Trump's "pressure" may have contributed to a diplomatic breakthrough, and falsely claiming that that POV comes from "fringe right-wing sources" .

It is quite easy to see that this is not remotely true, and so I posted a bunch of fact RS coverage referring to Trump's diplomatic pressure campaign and various POVs arguing it was a success or may turn out to be a success.

The RS commentary generally discusses Trump's pressure as a contributing factor, which is what I said, and this was not a misrepresentation in any way. And again: your obsessive fixation on this one non-issue regarding one source completely ignores all the other sourcing. Factchecker_atyourservice 19:08, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

@Scjessey: your comment is ignorant and insulting. Please strike it and apologize for your offensive wrongness. It is very well established that Trump has been pressuring NK, , and The New York Times even refers to "levers that Mr. Trump used to pressure Mr. Kim to come to the bargaining table."

The commentary generally says his pressure may have paid off, e.g. the top foreign policy analyst at Brookings Institute clearly suggests Trump's military threats may have influenced Kim's decision. Sources abound, here are a few:

• White House officials are ratcheting up pressure on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in advance of a summit between him and President Donald Trump in Singapore on June 12, where the two leaders are expected to discuss denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Both sides say they hope for a breakthrough.
• The Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign against North Korea is working. That is, if “working” is defined by creating an environment in which Kim Jong Un has great incentive to cooperatively dismantle his nuclear missile program.
• As the U.S.-North Korea summit looms, President Donald Trump's maximum pressure policy on North Korea may be working — thanks to China.
• Republican Sen. Ron Johnson said Sunday that President Donald Trump must continue to ratchet up pressure on North Korea to denuclearize, even as the two countries prepare to meet for talks.
• Trump’s hardline position, combined with increasing economic pressure, sends a message to the North that this time, the United States means business. Trump’s crudeness, on this theory, is useful inasmuch as it signals a break from the past. Factchecker_atyourservice 17:37, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

I disagree with your conclusion, O3000. The event as reported by NBC indicates the opposite is true, regardless of your opinion about Pompeo or anyone else, which is actually what impedes NPOV, not what JFG has proposed to add per "B". In fact, The Guardian stated: "Administration officials portrayed the invitation as a victory for Trump’s policy of “maximum pressure” and stressed that the US would not relax its stringent sanctions regime before North Korea began disarming." 17:44, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

I have no idea what you are talking about and haven’t said a word about Pompeo or NBC. And of course the White House said the White House was victorious. I’m sure Kim’s administration said Kim was victorious. How is that meaningful? My “conclusion” is that I have no idea what’s going on and we should remain neutral. O3000 (talk) 18:11, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

My sincere apologies, O3000 - I struck that part of my comment, and will further acknowledge that your responses have actually been collegial, even though I disagree with your position. 18:28, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

User:Objective3000 please point out how version B suggests we know why Kim made a decision. I can't see it. Also please point out in the sentence what decision Kim made that you are referring to. Mr Ernie (talk) 18:45, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Including both the fact that there was pressure and that Kim was willing to talk in the same sentence suggests a connection. After all, the two events are connected by a conjunction. Of course it's not that simple. Pressure has been severe and increasing for a long time. Kim appears to have completed his testing, and his test site is collapsing, and his reactor is on its last legs, and there is a newish SK President who ran on reconciliation with NK, and there was the recent SK Olympics with close NK/SK participance. Besides, Lucy (Kim) has pulled the football several times in the past. What I am saying is I have no idea what goes through the mind of Kim (and not sure I want to see into his mind), and think we should remain neutral -- not suggesting a connection that may or may not be valid and even if valid is but one of many factors. O3000 (talk) 19:25, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

But, as previously mentioned, isn't this connection made by RS's? E.g. the New York Times piece that refers to "the two levers that Mr. Trump used to pressure Mr. Kim to come to the bargaining table." That's pretty explicit in saying that Trump pressured Kim to talk. The same article also cites "senior officials and analysts" in saying that Trump's military threats contributed to Kim's decision to talk. I'm sure other sources say similar things. Factchecker_atyourservice 19:33, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Incidentally, news just coming out is that NK cancelled a meeting with SK scheduled for today and just threatened to scrap the summit with Trump. RECENTISM raises its head again. We must be careful and avoid overly optimist wording. O3000 (talk) 19:42, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

I've been off Misplaced Pages for a few hours and just come back to a shit storm on my talk page about Mike Pompeo. I stand by every comment I have made and make no apology. This article specifically uses the same "Trump's lackey" terminology. In a Google search of news sources, "Trump lackey" gets 1,700 hits, so it is a legitimate description. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:44, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Psssst...Scjessey, the Washington Press is less than unreliable...there is no evidence of fact-checking, who funds the sight, who the editor-in-chief is, and it comes across as pure propaganda (not unlike the WND site). It's not getting good reviews at RS/N, either. You might want to reconsider your position, and stand down considering BLP requires: Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion. 03:17, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

@Atsme: I would argue The Washington Press is more reliable than an obsequious Trump official. As I've said before, I will not be changing or striking any of my comments. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:33, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Scjessey, considering the following discussion at Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Washington_Press, your argument is absurd. NeilN, as it pertains to discussions about BLP vios and RS, we should probably all take note that The Washington Press is unreliable, and as one admin said in the RS/N discussion, Fake news site is not an unreasonable description. 14:55, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

@Atsme: I'm not saying The Washington Press is reliable. I'm saying it is more reliable than one of Trump's sycophants. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:16, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Ok but your other comments about "revisionist nonsense" and "fringe right-wing sources" were just ignorant and insulting and I still request you strike them. Factchecker_atyourservice 19:47, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

I disagree with your opinion. I think the notion that North Korea's actions are based on Trump's actions is absurd. I will not be changing anything, and you are simply wasting everyone's time by perpetuating the mock outrage, which is what this really is, isn't it? -- Scjessey (talk) 20:04, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

@Scjessey: Respectfully, what really sounds "absurd" is your opinion that Kim's recent moves were independent from Trump's approach to the issue. South Korean officials up to President Moon have repeatedly credited the Trump administration, and Trump personally, for forcing Kim to pivot towards friendly gestures and détente with SoKo. Don't tell me that was just more flattery. And yes, calling my edit "revisionist nonsense" is borderline PA; given our usual good-spirited relations, I would appreciate either a strike or an apology. — JFG 09:01, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

@JFG: It's blindingly obvious SK officials are stroking Trump's ego, because everyone on this planet knows that Trump will always respond positively to an ego massage. I will not be changing or striking any of my comments, and this is my last comment on the matter. We'll just have to agree to disagree. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:33, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

We have two leaders that are known for making ultimata and switching back and forth on various issues. Today, NK has threatened to withdraw from the summit. I imagine this will switch back and forth. I don’t see why we should include anything at all about this in the lede for the DJT article, at least until the summit occurs. It certainly belongs in an article about N. Korea. WP:RECENTISM WP:NOTNEWS. O3000 (talk) 21:46, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

• This is hilarious. This "pressuring" is really in the lead of his biography? And what's so cute is that we're talking about the person who called Kim Jong Un "honorable" and "nice" and "excellent", in the most sycophantic manner you can imagine--are we making up for that in our encyclopedia by saying "oh yeah Donald pressured them"? I came up with a fun Google search, "kim jong un plays Trump", and the Irish Times, Bloomberg, Vanity Fair, the Washington Post, and CNBC are feeling me. In other words: if y'all want to stay so close on the news, and inject the POV terminology you see in the headlines, you should be prepared for other headlines too. I propose "in April and May 2018, Trump's vanity was stroked to such an extent that he allowed himself to be played like Nero's fiddle and agreed to a meeting with a dictator whom Trump had thanked after said dictator graciously didn't execute American citizens captured for the purpose"--but I'm open to discussion. Or you just play it straight and keep it factual. Drmies (talk) 01:19, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Drmies, all that could be true and Kim has played this game before, as have his predecessors. Nevertheless, there is significantly more forward progress going on now in the quest to get NK to abandon their missle and nuclear weapon development than I ever saw when Obama was President. Could be pressure was applied at the most opportune time (nuclear test mishap, heavy sanctions taking a big toll, etc.) But correct that we should likely wait and see how this ends before we jump to any conclusions about what happened and who can be blamed or thanked.--MONGO 01:33, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
    • I wouldn't object to not adding another thing to anything Trump until his term is over. Editors who want to be journalists can knock themselves out over at WikiTribune. 01:40, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Discussion of process RE: informal polls after routine reverts

I am copying several posts that Mandruss hatted. Arguably they didn't belong in their former location, thank you Mandrus! But they are relevant to how we do business on this talk page, so I have unhatted and presented them below

SPECIFICO talk 02:13, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

• This was reverted because it is no good. It's flippant, unsupported original research, it promotes a narrative that's already been rejected after a lot of wasted discussion over the past year or so, and it is contradicted by the overwhelming weight of RS accounts of these developments. Cloaking a bad edit in a welter of trite cliche and racial slurring about "noodles" does not help talk page discussion. It's not necessary to fight tooth-and-nail with these "informal polls" on every bad edit that gets reverted. I suggest OP withdraw this section and move on to other issues. SPECIFICO talk 12:10, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

• This wasn't a fight until you tried to make it one. That's the pattern, I've noticed. Any editor may dispute any edit they wish and start any discussion they wish. That's what this page is for. If you wish to file some kind of disruption or POV-pushing complaint, AE is that way (as I believe I've told you before); otherwise I would appreciate you altering your approach to opposing editors and JFG in particular. Your persistent sniping is unhelpful. ―Mandruss ☎ 12:23, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

• Mandruss, you know very well that these "informal polls" serve no purpose in our WP process. They are not dispositive, as an RfC would be, and they promote endless tail-chasing. And what comes of it? Half the time there's then dispute over what the poll decided. Then what? If that's resolved it goes on the meaningless "consensus list" atop the article, another stupid idea. When an edit is reverted, it's often a good idea simply to move on to other matters. If there were overwhelming support for the Korea version B, it would have emerged without the pouty-faced cute racist slur about noodles and the next 2 weeks of POV A-B that is now set in motion. So I hope you'll reconsider your pattern recognition proclivities and expertise. Cheerio what au revoir. SPECIFICO talk 13:06, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

• Many durable consensuses have been established by these surveys which you say serve no purpose. And there is fairly wide agreement that the consensus list has been a benefit to this article, saving us from rehashing the same issues over and over again because it's too much trouble to hunt down the supporting discussions and argue about whether they show an actual consensus. I'm not aware of a single regular editor here who shares your view on that. So please, take note of the fact that you have little or no support for your views, and don't present them as fact. I'm collapsing this as off topic and unconstructive. Feel free to post a !vote below and/or continue this discussion on my UTP. ―Mandruss ☎ 13:22, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

• I would say it differently. Agreement has sometimes been reached despite the polls. The polls limit and confuse discussion and make it hard to integrate broader views that emerge in the course of discussion. The polls thus serve, (unintentionally I'm sure) to give a first-mover advantage to the OP in such threads. We sometimes need formal polls, but these informal polls do not have clearly defined process and are never the best way to structure a discussion. SPECIFICO talk 15:48, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

The North Korea talks are WP:UNDUE for the lead.

The above discussion seems to have gotten derailed into the exact wording for them, so I think we need to tackle this aspect more directly, especially given this news story. A summit that has not yet occurred and which, in fact, may now not occur at all is definitely undue for the lead. (If it is left in the lead, we would need to make it clear that North Korea has threatened to pull out - but the uncertainty is probably part of the reason why a speculative meeting doesn't belong in the lead in the first place, since at the moment it isn't particularly significant relative to the rest of the article.) We can always restore it to the lead if / when it occurs, assuming the results are significant enough to go in the lead of a president (not at all a given.) --Aquillion (talk) 03:20, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

North Korea has been mentioned in the lead since December 2017, and the "pressured" wording has been stable since 14 January 2018 until deleted on April 14. You'd need a pretty strong editor consensus to remove it now. The back-and-forth posturing about which side gave up leverage or stood firm, and whether the summit will indeed take place, are too much detail for the lead. — JFG 09:16, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Kim shocks world with bomb and missile tests. Hawaiians panic! Ivavka chases biz deals in China. Rockets threaten Japan. NY Post says Trump is pressing NK. That mule has left the "stable". SPECIFICO talk 09:53, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes, then perhaps it belongs in the lead of Kim Jong-un or Mule Train. In related observations, has anyone noticed that the lead photo on Kim Jong-un shows dear leader in front of what appears to be a nuclear explosion?- MrX 🖋 11:35, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Kim has Trump scared silly. Pressuring him into erratic tweeting and grasping at "overtures" that US intelligence learned years ago are empty snares. If anything, RS tell us that Trump pressured himself into taking the bait. SPECIFICO talk 11:39, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm seeing a pretty strong consensus to remove it right now. I think it's notable that only a single person in this discussion has unequivocally and directly argued that it's WP:DUE (notably, you yourself are not yet making that argument, merely saying that it's been there for a while - which I take to be an implicit concession that the argument that it is WP:DUE for the lead is otherwise weak.) If you think it's WP:DUE for the lead, go ahead and present your reasons, but I'm noticeably not seeing them now. It's not an iconic achievement or policy position, merely one of the administration's innumerable stances coupled with some speculative discussion of a potential upcoming meeting. It's worth mentioning on the administration article, or perhaps with a sentence or two in the body here, but it obviously falls far short of the standard needed for inclusion in the lead of Trump's personal article, and the fact that it was left there seems to me to be an accident that we are now (fortunately) in a position to correct. --Aquillion (talk) 06:25, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

I have been thinking the same thing as Aquillion. Until there is some tangible outcome from this meeting (if it even happens), I don't think it belongs in the lead. The amount of time it has been in the lead, or the "stability" of the wording, are not really valid considerations. I'm not aware that we have ever put WP:CRYSTAL meeting plans in other president articles.- MrX 🖋 11:26, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Well yes, aside from mocking the absurd claim that Trump "pressured" his puppeteer Kim, it should be stated plainly that this bit is false, ill-sourced, and undue for the lead. SPECIFICO talk 11:41, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Agree. This isn’t even the presidential article. One of the things Trump the person is most known for can’t be a meeting that may or may not happen, and if it happens, may or may not result in significance. O3000 (talk) 11:43, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

@SPECIFICO: Article talk pages are not the place to express your opinion that mainstream sources are wrong. Even your own user talk isn't a good place for it. Facebook is a better bet. Factchecker_atyourservice 19:06, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Being new to this page, I had to do some digging into the archives. Going to take up some space on this Talk page, with my apologies to the editors who are familiar with this:

• On Dec 11, 2017, Galobtter added "pressured North Korea to reverse the acceleration of their missile tests and nuclear program" per talk page proposal by Anythingyouwant (814842058)
• A few hours later, JFG changed the text to "pressured North Korea over the acceleration of their missile tests and nuclear program" (814861774)

I'm wondering why the addition to the lead wasn't objected to at the time because IMO the body of the article at the time didn't support either version; the contents were about NK actions and Trump's hopes and rhetoric.

North Korea became a major issue in mid-2017. During the campaign and the early months of his presidency, Trump had hoped that China would help to rein in North Korea's nuclear ambitions and missile tests. However, North Korea accelerated its missile testing, leading to an increase in tensions in April 2017. In July, the country tested two long-range missiles identified by Western observers as intercontinental ballistic missiles, potentially capable of reaching Alaska, Hawaii, and the U.S. mainland. In August, Trump dramatically escalated his rhetoric against North Korea, warning that further provocation against the U.S. will be met with "fire and fury like the world has never seen." North Korean leader Kim Jong-un then threatened to direct the country's next missile test toward Guam. Trump responded that if North Korea took steps to attack Guam, "hings happen to them like they never thought possible."

And the body of the article still doesn't support either version. The last sentence was replaced by the two sentences I bolded below, i.e., Trump warning of "strong retaliation" and the SK president doing some pandering:

North Korea became a major issue in mid-2017. During the campaign and the early months of his presidency, Trump had hoped that China would help to rein in North Korea's nuclear ambitions and missile tests. However, North Korea accelerated their missile and nuclear tests, leading to increased tension. In July, the country tested two long-range missiles identified by Western observers as intercontinental ballistic missiles, potentially capable of reaching Alaska, Hawaii, and the U.S. mainland. In August, Trump dramatically escalated his rhetoric against North Korea, warning that further provocation against the U.S. will be met with "fire and fury like the world has never seen." North Korean leader Kim Jong-un then threatened to direct the country's next missile test toward Guam. Trump responded that if North Korea took steps to attack Guam, "hings happen to them like they never thought possible." Trump warned Kim of strong retaliation if North Korea attacked Guam or U.S. allies. In January 2018, South Korean president Moon Jae-in praised Trump's tough stance toward the North, stating that Trump deserved "big" credit for his efforts in facilitating talks between North and South Korea. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 13:58, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I overlooked the last paragraph which IMO needs to be deleted: In March 2018, the White House confirmed that President Trump would accept a meeting invitation from Kim Jong-un. The two will meet by May. Press secretary Sarah Sanders said that "in the meantime, all sanctions and maximum pressure must remain." He has accepted, they won't be meeting in May, and why is Sanders being quoted here? Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 14:12, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

• Not undue at all. NK has been a prime focus of Trumps foreign affairs and mentioning that his administration has applied pressure is not UNDUE. per the references provided by JFG in above threads, this matter should be mentioned in brief and written in summary style in the article itself.--MONGO 14:25, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

• Those references are over whether sources have used the word "pressure". Whether it's due to mention NK in the lead at all is a totally different question - putting it there is putting a tentative future meeting, or some discussion of the Trump administration's vague "stance" on NK, on par with major policy changes such as withdrawing from the Paris agreement. I don't feel that we have the sources to support the idea that it's a signature accomplishment or action by the Trump administration on that level, at least not so far. This is Trump's personal article, not the one on his administration, so the standard for inclusion in the lead here is extremely high - speculative discussion about future meetings or vague talk about his "stance" towards North Korea obviously doesn't meet the required standard. --Aquillion (talk) 06:25, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

• That is absolutely right. Mentioning the NK talks in the lead is a classic example of WP:RECENTISM and WP:SPECULATION. It does not belong. Yet. If the talks ever happen, and something great comes from them, or something terrible, THEN they would belong in the lead. HiLo48 (talk) 06:32, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

I agree with HiLo48, the North Korea situation should not be in the lead. Emass100 (talk) 18:59, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

I strongly object to calling the North Korea situation "undue for the lead". We are not only talking about the upcoming summit, but about a very significant and widely-covered situation of international tension that has been unfolding over almost a year now. Extensive sourcing has documented the acceleration of the North Korean nuclear and missile tests, the war of words between Trump and Kim, the focused pressure being applied to North Korea by US and China, the resumption of dialogue with South Korea, and the preparations of a peace summit. Other foreign policy issues currently regarded lead-worthy are arguably less important (Cuba tightening, Syria missile strikes). — JFG 20:17, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Probably, so remove them too. HiLo48 (talk) 22:07, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

I'd be happy to remove those if there is consensus to do so. Wouldn't act unilaterally. Regardless of what happens to these other stories, the lead should still mention North Korea as a top foreign policy story, unless we decide to totally remove foreign policy from the lead (and that wouldn't make much sense at all). — JFG 03:56, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Mention what? Maybe we can add a "breaking news" ticker at the bottom of the lead, NK talks are on/off/remain tentative, hint of flexibility (US-want my Nobel)/keeping our nukes (NK). Joking aside (or not), whether the talks take place (or not), whatever the results (Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un has already won), but right now they're WP:CRYSTAL. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 16:36, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Increasing international tension is not exactly a noteworthy achievement. With the passage of time it will be easy to reach consensus as to what's significant. SPECIFICO talk 22:46, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

The fact that RS have published the info makes it DUE, but above all - consensus supported "B" as the choice for inclusion. Why are we debating this issue all over again? #1 - close the above survey first - include what was agreed upon per consensus - and if things change, we modify it. Isn't that how everything else is done with Trump articles? Publish now - correct it later? 22:58, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

I am not aware of any "consensus" for "B". When did that get decided? That discussion isn't closed. Is the new tactic to simply declare a consensus and hope nobody notices? -- Scjessey (talk) 04:32, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

@Atsme: Scjessey is correct, we need to wait for an uninvolved closer to assess consensus. — JFG 06:46, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

My suggestion was #1- close the above survey first. Of course it would require an uninvolved closer which I see as a given. Perhaps I should have qualified my statement that consensus supported B by preceding it with IMO, and not take the obvious for granted - anything can happen - but I simply thought it would be understood when I followed it with #1 - close the above survey first - include what was agreed upon per consensus. I didn’t think anyone would take it any other way if they’re AGF but I’ll try to be more explanatory in the future as long as I’m not chastised for verbosity. 14:02, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

@SPECIFICO: If anybody increased international tensions, it was Kim Jong-un firing missiles above Japan, claiming he had developed an H-bomb, and directly threatening Guam, a U.S. dependency. Trump addressed the issue with a combative tone (which you are entitled to dislike) and more effective sanctions thanks to joint diplomacy with China and South Korea. There is no disputing that these developments have been among the most important foreign policy actions since Trump took office, hence worthy of the lead. — JFG 06:46, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

I don't have any opinion about US policy wrt North Korea. I agree with you Kim increased tensions on (AKA "pressured") other nations with his displays of weapons technology. I don't recall stating I disliked the tone of Trump's responses, (a personal opinion that would be irrelevant here) but RS accounts have not suggested that Trump's rhetoric is "pressure" commensurate to Kim's pressure having launched surprisingly advanced missiles recently. And various media instances of the word "pressure" that have been cited in these discussions do not make any such equivalence. Moreover, we really do not know what the posture of China and Russia has been or what arrangements they may have made with Kim on this and other issues, so WP can't state anything about the Trump Administration's joint diplomacy in this regard. At any rate, I think there's a range of views on the table here and a closer will sort them out for us. SPECIFICO talk 12:13, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Trump canceled the meeting. Don't see it on the 'Net yet. O3000 (talk) 13:56, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

...and so it turns out that the "let's wait and see what happens" approach here was the correct approach. An actual meeting with North Korea (I refuse to use the word "summit" which should mean talks between the leaders of the most powerful nations - nations at the "summit" of world power - not talks between the president of the United States and the leader of a small country) might have belonged in the lede, depending on the outcome of said talks. A proposal to hold a meeting, not so much, and this is why. --MelanieN (talk) 20:17, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Correct. Andrevan@ 20:21, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

• Do not include in the lead at this time. Per my comment in the previous section, we shouldn't be re-writing the lead based on the latest news of the day. Especially not when the story is an ongoing muddled mess of uncertainty. Alsee (talk) 21:20, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Swedish - false statement

JFG removed this with the editorial comment that it's a claim Trump's father first made and that it's undue for Trump's biography: "Until 1990, Trump claimed that his paternal grandfather had emigrated to America from Sweden while his German-born grandmother was living across the street until her death in 1966; (1) he wrote in his 1987 bestseller "The Art of the Deal" that his grandfather emigrated to America "from Sweden as a child." (1, 2, 3, 4) (my edit in the article contained the wrong url to the New Yorker article; I've corrected it here). I say it's due because DJT was using it for decades, including in his book "Art of the Deal", knowing it to be false (has it been corrected in later editions?), and we shouldn't restrict "False statements" to those made during his tenure as president. Thoughts? Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 03:57, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

The family lie, repeated for a couple generations. It's been a fundamental part of the family's identity. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 04:30, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Since Trump famously attacks Elizabeth Warren for allegedly misrepresenting her ancestry, it would seem this sort of thing is biographically significant. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:12, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes, RS do call out that hypocrisy: CNN, Axios, BuzzFeed, The Week, IJR, The Atlantic, Chicago Tribune, Time, and of course many RS just about the claim, like Daily Beast. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 14:07, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

User:Scjessey How is that attacking warren makes this other thing becomes biographically significant? Trump portrays she cheated into college and job benefits by falsely claiming American Indian heritage; that seems WP:OFFTOPIC of his bio as being insignificant to his life. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 06:56, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

@Markbassett: Because, as shown by BullRangifer, many of the reliable sources talking about the Swedish ancestry claim also mention Trump's attacks on Warren and the resulting hypocrisy. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:57, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

User:Scjessey lying to avoid embarasment versus lying for personal gain ... not the same in Ethics of lying, and way too involved for here. Never mind it. Just take it as presumed other stuff exists. Markbassett (talk) 18:05, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

It would be helpful to provide a link to the edit. I notice that the text quoted omits that Fred Trump claimed Swedish ancestry because of anti-German sentiment, which is mentioned in the source. By only telling half the truth, the text is misleading. That's ironic when accusing the subject of dishonesty. And Warren's article is irrelevant. TFD (talk) 10:41, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

My edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Donald_Trump&oldid=841647106. JFG's removal: https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Donald_Trump&oldid=841763017. Does it matter that his father started the falsehood? This article is not about him. Trump kept it going, e.g., in a magazine article in 1984 and in his 1987 book. I found another RS where his cousin is quoted as saying that father and son discussed whether to continue. So Dad might not have liked it but by age 40 Trump should have grown a pair. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 15:02, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

Not a major action or event affecting his life, so not needed in BLP. This is 30+ year old trivial bit. Cheers. Markbassett (talk) 03:49, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

It's not up to us to provide a value judgment on the Trump. That belongs to secondary sources. In this case it means presenting all the facts they consider relevant, not selecting facts to place the subject in the worst possible light. TFD (talk) 00:49, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• Exclude It's trivia, unencyclopedic, and is largely about his father and grandfather rather than the article subject. Lot of families have tales of relatives and ancestors who came from here and there or something else, it gets retold numerous times until it is disproven. Why wouldn't DJT believe his father's story told to him by his father? It's just not Misplaced Pages-worthy. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 03:58, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Amend consensus item 2, unlink New York City in the infobox

Almost trivial (sorry). Wouldn't need prior consensus but for the existing consensus item. Propose amending #Current consensus item 2 to unlink "New York City" in the infobox. This is not an invitation to revisit the rest of that consensus, please stay on topic.

• Support as proposer per WP:OVERLINK, which lists New York City as one of the examples of things that don't need linking, and has done since 1 August 2016 without challenge. That was 3+1⁄2 months before the consensus 2 discussion and we just missed it. Overlinking bad. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:47, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support - overlinking...a pet peeve for many. 17:24, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose - Sorry, I dislike overlinking as much as the next guy, but a standalone link in an infobox does make sense to help readers who may want to indulge in exploratory clicks. The guideline mostly refers to avoiding links to common terms in prose, where they can degrade the reading experience. Infoboxes typically have plenty of links, and I rarely see people complaining of overlinking there. Shall we unlink President of the United States because it's a common and well-understood term? I don't think so. Ditto New York City. — JFG 17:09, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• This is the problem with whataboutism. Yes, you could make a case for unlinking President of the United States, but then you would face strong resistance from the Misplaced Pages Presidential Infoboxes Consistency Coalition. You would probably have to seek a community consensus to change all 44 at the same time, a very different proposition. That's a false equivalence. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:20, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

I just sampled 30 articles from Politicians from New York City, and all of them have their birth and death places linked from the infobox. There is some variance as to mentioning the borough, the state, and linking thereof, but all instances of New York City are linked. You're facing an uphill battle if you wish to de-link them… — JFG 19:49, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

I don't think cross-article consistency should be the first concern in this case, and I don't seek to unlink any but this one. WP:WIP. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:14, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Trump's inspiration (Early life and education)

Context: ―Mandruss ☎ 18:06, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Dane Suggest you revert your reinstatement and take it to this Talk page, per warning of active arbitration remedies. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 17:31, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Was the content you removed added recently? I don't believe so (the remedies apply to reinstating edits not material) Galobtter (pingó mió) 17:47, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

From what I see Space4Time3Continuum2x removed longstanding material here and Dana challanged the removal here. The material appears to have been in the article since at least March 8th. If that is the case it is not a DS violation. PackMecEng (talk) 17:56, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

That's correct, and bullet 1 of the restrictions is quite clear on that point. Dane disputed an edit by S4T3C2x and S4T3C2x has to seek consensus for it. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:59, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Space4Time3Continuum2x for raising your concern here. At this time, I stand by my revert. The information is sourced and relevant to the section in my opinion and removing it creates a fractured section that doesn't flow as smoothly. I am aware of the discretionary sanctions that apply to this article and I have not violated those and will not violate them. -- Dane 18:02, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support first sentence as fairly standard bio information. No opinion on second sentence. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:08, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Dane,Mandruss,Galobtter I hadn't noticed that I removed the sentence preceding the one about Trump being inspired. Sorry about that, it was unintentional. The second sentence is unencyclopedic and IMO misquotes the source. So how do I remove it? Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 18:21, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

You seek consensus to remove it, right here. If you get said consensus, you or anybody else removes it. If not, not. As I indicated, I have no opinion on that sentence, so I'm useless here. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:24, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

• Well, after a closer look I'll agree that it misrepresents the source, significantly spinning it in the Trump-favorable direction. On the other hand, if you represent the source accurately in wiki voice, you're cherry-picking the Trump-unfavorable. I think Dane's concern about fracturing and flow might well be different now that you've clarified that you only seek to remove the second sentence. I think I would either remove the sentence as relatively unimportant, or replace it with a quote attributed to the authors of the book. In the end it's just their opinion. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:04, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
• I agree with Mandruss. Also, I would shorten "After two years, he transferred to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, because it offered one of the few real-estate studies departments in United States academia at the time." to After two years, he transferred to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the only Ivy League undergraduate business school." (per Kranish & Fisher, p47 "the sole Ivy League school with an undergraduate business school", or paraphrase differently if necessary). Also, since Trump has boasted of being the top student at Wharton, perhaps the section should mention that there is no evidence of that. zzz (talk) 19:30, 22 May 2018 (UTC) + 20:24, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
• The reference to William Zeckendorf is meaningful in this bio, as one of the precious few hints about Trump's drive to become "big in Manhattan" instead of just managing his father's ventures. About Wharton, I'd remove the mention of "because it offered… at the time", that sounds more like an ad for Wharton and the causation is probably a matter of opinion or hearsay only. — JFG 19:52, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
• Seems to me that we have consensus to remove the sentence, with three editors agreeing, one opposed, and one, Dane, having left the discussion (has been editing since Mandruss's notification). Other editors have removed other parts of the two sentences Dane reinserted, and nobody has objected. Aside from that, there's also the egregious mispresentation of the source. The pages cited in the article are 47,50,104,105. 47 & 50 mention Zeckendorf, but not Trump's father. The preview doesn't show 104 & 105, so I got ahold of the book. Talk about cherry-picked, out of context, and - I believe - intentional misrepresentation because how could anyone overlook one of three men mentioned, the third one being Roy Cohn. Quoting from page 104: "In his book, Trump: The Art of the Deal, Trump plainly spelled out his media philosophy, the product of three men who influenced him and New York's unique media environment in the 1970s and 1980s–his father, Fred; developer William Zeckendorf; and Donald's lawyer, Roy Cohn". And on page 105, finally the word inspiration: "Fred Trump knew the value of good publicity. As a young developer, he routinely sent out press releases promoting his latest projects, somethimes referring to himself as "Brooklyn's Largest Builder." Donald's touch for the dramatic probably drew more inspiration, however, from another developer. Zeckendorf employed a press agent to keep his name in the papers, ideally in stories emphasizing his lavish lifestyle, or announcing outlandish building plans that never came to fruition. As Donald started getting press in the late sententies, some reporters referred to him as a young Zeckendorf. Trump was flattered, even if Zeckendorf's company did end up in bankrupty." So, there you go, JFG, another hint about Trump's drive: vanity. (I'm also adding copycat to Trump's resume.) The NYT article mentioned on page 105 is available online. Good read; the earliest mention I've found so far of some of his recurring themes: Swedish, graduated first in his class at Wharton. Quote: "Mr. Trump, who says he is publicity shy, allowed a reporter to accompany him on what he described as a typical work day." Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 17:29, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Peripheral indictments in lead

A turn of phrase mentioning peripheral indictments in the Russian interference affair was recently added to the tail of the lead section. The content was swiftly removed, re-inserted in slightly-amended form, challenged on procedural grounds with a request to obtain prior consensus, and restored in a lengthened form with a combative edit summary. ("Not mentioning this in the lead is malpractice.")

It is high time to sit back and open a discussion. @Andrevan: please self-revert your latest addition pending consensus here. @Mandruss and MONGO: please comment. — JFG 04:32, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

I removed it and now both Mandruss and Andrevan violated the page requirements to obtain talkpage consensus first. I stand by my removal as the passage even now reworded somewhat less implicatingly alludes to guilt by association. Furthermore, this is the lead section of the article and is not the place to be bringing up persons out of focus of the subject.--MONGO 04:39, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

My revert was a good-faith mistake, as I said here. If I had re-reverted after being corrected by JFG, MONGO would have reason to refer to me in that tone. Agree that Andrevan needs to self-revert pending consensus, and someone else should do it if Andrevan fails to do it in a timely manner.
There is no guilt by association as it refers to Trump's denial of campaign collusion. If the lead is not the place to be bringing up persons out of focus of the subject, we need to remove content about DOJ appointing special counsel; Trump had nothing to do with that.
On balance I think the paragraph is more neutral with the addition than without it. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:59, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Hi, my 2nd change was not the same as the first change. It was not slightly amended, it was rewritten, to attempt to address the reason it was reverted and clarify that there is no implied "guilt by association," simply a reporting of the basic facts of the Trump campaign and its associated controversy. You may of course revert it as well, though it would be my position that you are the one being combative, not I. I will have to read up on the special sanctions in effect on this page to see if my edit ran afoul of them. However, as an editor previously uninvolved, it seems to me that your hawk-like instant reversion of the addition of the indictments and guilty pleas to the lead section, along with tendentious editing to defend Mr. Trump and his associates from transparency or basic reporting, is probably what would run afoul of discretionary sanction on this page, as opposed by my simple attempt to describe the facts of the case in a complete way in the lead section. To ignore these facts is absolutely journalistic malpractice, and probably partistan protectorship and ownership of the article in a POV pushing vein. Andrevan@ 05:14, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

@Andrevan: We can say the second edit is equivalent to the first for purposes of the ArbCom remedies. Or if it's a different edit, MONGO can challenge it separately. Either way we end up here seeking consensus for the second edit, so what's the difference? Please self-revert pending consensus and we can get on with the content discussion. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:21, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes, @Andrevan:, it is a good time to familiarize yourself with those editing restrictions as I already politely tried to discuss with you on your talkpage. Should you feel a need to pursue this further it will indeed provide you the opportunity to somehow prove my (and others I assume) alleged "tendentious editing".--MONGO 05:27, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Hi, in my reading of the sanctions, 2 edits with different text and meaning are not mentioned to be specifically equivalent, though of course anyone who hasn't reverted yet in the discussion could revert me. I also haven't reverted yet, nor do I intend to, and I wouldn't construe my 2nd edit to be a revert at all since it was an original sentence. Additional constructive edits to article text which address revert or removal reasons are, to the best of my knowledge, not considered reverts. Now, MONGO is challenging the second edit. I agree that we should seek consensus on how to change the text rather than simply revert or edit warring. Any attempt to protect Mr. Trump's lead section from mentioning the fact that his campaign manager and top surrogate have been indicted and pleaded guilty would be remarkable light on an issue that Mr. Trump himself mentions constantly, not to mention all of the RS and our own article content. Andrevan@ 05:28, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Actually your second edit was challenged by JFG but I see no difference between the two really.--MONGO 05:32, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Which means JFG can revert the edit, unless he can't because he already reverted once in the conversation? Also, my edit isn't contrary to established consensus, because it's a new constructive sentence that didn't exist in the article before. Unless there's some specific guidance that states otherwise, or a previous discussion on the inclusion of what I wrote that you can point to. Andrevan@ 05:35, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Oh for Pete's sake. MONGO, will you kindly revert the second edit per routine process? Please write an edit summary that goes beyond IJDLI. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:38, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

@Andrevan: Its the same thing, you just tweaked the wording a bit but the message is the same. As I found out this isn't about right or wrong its about how this page is permitted to be edited. I suppose I can claim some moral high ground since I did self revert when alerted. If you don't like the way the editing restrictions are set up then welcome to the party....and no way am I reverting this mess again. The whole thing gives me a migraine.--MONGO 05:41, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Ok, so we have two editors who are determined to manufacture as much completely unnecessary conflict as possible. It's all yours, I'm out. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:44, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

@Awilley, MelanieN, and NeilN: We may need some admin attention here. Andrevan contests the editing restrictions, and none of Mandruss, MONGO and me want to accidentally trip up a mine by reverting him again. Only after the procedural issue is resolved can we perhaps actually discuss contents… — JFG 05:57, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

I don't believe I am contesting the editing restrictions, but claiming that my 2nd edit is distinct from my first edit, both in meaning and text. It clearly states that members of Donald's campaign were indicted and pleaded guilty, but that Donald and his family were not implicated. The first version did not say that. I don't see how I am revert warring if I have a total of 2 edits on this page, and they are both different. Andrevan@ 06:55, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

I agree. Your second edit is considerably different than your first. It also a good example of how collaborative editing is supposed to work. The edit is good.- MrX 🖋 12:34, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

I've made a slight copy edit. See what you think. SPECIFICO talk 12:52, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

- "despite guilty pleas and indictments from several members of his campaign."
- "although there have been several indictments and guilty pleas involving campaign staff that do not directly implicate Trump or his family members."
The basic meaning of the two additions is identical. Andrevan, you need to work out wording on the talk page if you wish to re-add substantially identical material that has been challenged. --NeilN 13:15, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Agree, in general people respect the restriction as meaning revision etc is not enough to be considered different. Galobtter (pingó mió) 13:25, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

@Galobtter: Thanks for reverting to a stable version, and for getting the ball rolling on suggested content below. — JFG 17:12, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Proposed content

Well, I restored the stable version of the last paragraph. I have to say that in the revised version by Andrevan, that "although" rather seemed classic WP:SYNTH (see the UN example there), and overall it was very badly written; the version just before I reverted back was the best, but still could be revised; proposing

After Trump dismissed FBI Director James Comey in 2017, the Justice Department appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel in an investigation into coordination or links between the Trump campaign and Russian government in connection with Russian interference in the 2016 elections, and related matters, resulting in several indictments and guilty pleas involving campaign staff. Trump has repeatedly denied any collusion with Russia.

As a better written one that is basically a short update that indictments have resulted than trying to do something more. Galobtter (pingó mió) 13:25, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support - Comprehensive, yet short. This material is should be in the lead because of it's persistent and extensive coverage in reliable sources.- MrX 🖋 13:33, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
• Adding, the basic change I made was adding "resulting in several indictments and guilty pleas involving campaign staff", and I think it perfectly reasonable to devote 12 words to the indictments considering how much coverage they've gotten.

I do have a v2 version, not really related to whether we mention the indictments though

After Trump dismissed FBI Director James Comey in 2017, a special counsel began investigating coordination or links between the Trump campaign and Russian government in connection with Russian interference in the 2016 elections, and related matters, resulting in several indictments and guilty pleas involving campaign staff. Trump has repeatedly denied any collusion with Russia.

The current formulation rather unnecessarily wordy, I find, more important is what the investigation has led to not how precisely it was appointed Galobtter (pingó mió) 13:43, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose both--MONGO 16:51, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

  Adding that maybe this level of detail would be better served in the Presidency of Donald Trump article?--MONGO 17:26, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose as UNDUE – If we are going to talk about indictments and guilty pleas, we should make sure that they are significant with regards to the article subject (Trump himself) and/or to potential collusion with Russia (the declared subject matter of the FBI's and Special Counsel investigations). Turning to the list of indictments to date, we see the following:

• George Papadopoulos charged with a process crime (lying to the FBI)
• Rick Gates and Paul Manafort charged with multiple crimes related to their prior activities supporting an Ukrainian political party and former president
• Michael Flynn charged with a process crime (lying to the FBI), similar to the reason he was fired (lying to the Vice President) – even though the lie was about his conversation with a Russian ambassador, that happened after the election and within his duties as incoming National Security Advisor; he was specifically not charged with helping or soliciting Russia to interfere in the election, or for anything he did during the election campaign.
• Richard Pinedo charged with identity fraud in relation with Russian propaganda; this person is unrelated to the Trump campaign.
• Alex van der Zwaan charged with making false statements in relation to his work with Gates and unspecified Ukrainians; this person is unrelated to the Trump campaign.
• 13 Russian nationals and 3 Russian or Russian-controlled companies charged with interference proper (mostly peddling propaganda under false identities); none of these people have been reported to be related to the Trump campaign.

In summary, none of the criminal charges show any collusion and none of them implicate the BLP subject directly. Hence mentioning them in the lead of his bio would be massively UNDUE and POV. — JFG 17:00, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose both - it implies that special council was hired as a result of Comey's firing. NYTimes states that by appointing Mueller: ...Mr. Rosenstein could alleviate uncertainty about the government’s ability to investigate the questions surrounding the Trump campaign and the Russians. WP doesn't need to get caught up in the partisan spin - just states the facts - and keep in mind, it was upon Rosentein's recommendation that Comey was fired. And there's also what JFG said in his iVote above to consider. 17:05, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

  The special counsel was hired as a result of Comey's firing. That's really not in dispute. Andrevan@ 18:07, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

It seems to me that discussion of this topic is driven by partisans who, through tendentious editing, protect this article from factual truths. Overly broadly construed sanctions have allowed any workshopping of article text, including minor changes below, to become stymied by a log-rolled slowplay of talk page wrangling. For example, it's a fact that several members of Trump's campaign pled guilty. That's a very different situation from if 0 members had been charged with a crime and the entire investigation dismissed or closed, such as in the scandals that are discussed on pages like Barack Obama or Bill Clinton. BLP doesn't mean whitewashing or PRing articles. Andrevan@ 22:15, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• Andrevan, I hope you're not thinking my oppose had anything at all to do with partisanship - it does not. In fact, I'm a resident of two different countries, and rarely if ever vote in the US or on Bonaire. My thinking is that it may be considered more partisan to say it was the result of Comey's firing instead of perhaps following Comey's firing, or you could qualify it by saying it was the result of escalating pressure from a majority of Democrats, although there were a few anti-Trump Republicans in the mix. According to the NYTimes, Mr. Rosenstein had been under escalating pressure from Democrats, and even some Republicans, to appoint a special counsel after he wrote a memo that the White House initially cited as the rationale for Mr. Comey’s dismissal. And that's why I opposed and suggested what the NYTimes stated as the reason. 22:42, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• Trump himself stated that he had fired Comey because of the Russia investigation. He later contradicted it, because it's an inconvenient fact for his obstruction of justice case. The line you've just quoted to me, that Rosenstein fired Comey because of the Democrats or some such, might also be part of the story, but in this CNN article, which is more recent than the May 2017 NYT piece, it says: Trump told NBC News' Lester Holt in an interview, "regardless of (Rosenstein's) recommendation, I was going to fire Comey." Andrevan@ 22:55, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

"Rudy Giuliani: Special counsel appointment was 'really about the firing of Comey'" * Andrevan@ 22:59, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm ok with what the most recent RS say (in retrospect rather than it being RECENTISM as in breaking news)... 23:10, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

This article should permanently be tagged with the current events warning, although I'm guessing that it was in the past and some past discussion determined that it would not be? Is there a sanction or precedent about having that tag? Otherwise, I will throw it on. Andrevan@ 23:22, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Fine with me. I can't remember which of the Trump articles NeilN suggested adding inline tags because a NPOV header tag was quickly removed, so good luck. Maybe you can make one stick. 00:38, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

If you're thinking of the {{current}} tag, I don't think it's appropriate. Usage guidelines for this tag say:

• As an advisory to editors, the template may optionally be used in those extraordinary occasions that many editors (perhaps a hundred or more) edit an article on the same day, for example, in the case of natural disasters or other breaking news.
• It is not intended to be used to mark an article that merely has recent news articles about the topic; if it were, hundreds of thousands of articles would have this template, with no informational consequence.
• Generally it is expected that this template and its closely related templates will appear on an article for less than a day; occasionally longer.

All of this guidance speaks against such tagging here. The article has been remarkably stable despite the stream of news, as recent events get incorporated in orderly fashion when relevant, and older or less important details get trimmed. — JFG 03:39, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. This article completely fails the usage guidelines in that template. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:01, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

That's fair. The days before the Trump era seem quaint now in terms of how often things in the news cycle change. Andrevan@ 05:05, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

• Comment See the discussion below for current and proposed wording for the sentence about Trump's denials.--MelanieN (talk) 15:19, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Collusion?

Why is the word collusion in there at all? Collusion isn't a legal term or a term of art. The relevant facts are that several members of Trump's campaign have been indicted and pled guilty to a criminal investigation, but Trump himself has not been directly implicated. His denials and repeated claim of "no collusion" are undue weight given to the subject's own narrative. Andrevan@ 17:59, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• See the recent messy discussion where the denial was added Galobtter (pingó mió) 18:06, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• I propose we change it from "colluison" to "wrongdoing" since he has also denied other forms of wrongdoing. Maybe we could even say he has called the investigation a witch hunt. As written, the article basically says this, paraphrasing: Trump was investigated, but NO COLLUSION! That's not NPOV. Clearly the investigation is a major albatross that gets discussed massively like a slow motion train wreck on a daily basis by RS, unlike, say, Benghazi or the Fast and Furious scandal which, while they may have taken up a lot of Congressional time, were mostly a blip in RS. The comparison to the Trump investigation is Watergate. Andrevan@ 22:18, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Have boldly added language about the witch hunt to the lead. Please discuss here. Andrevan@ 23:14, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Looks fair, although a bit long-winded; will copyedit. What's your source for "demanding the Department of Justice drop the matter"? Apart from Twitter rants about the "witch hunt", I do not remember seeing any request from the Trump administration to DOJ to shut down the investigation. Plenty of rumors of his alleged desire to fire Mueller and the impending doom, but again no action. — JFG 03:25, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Well, he generally says it is a witch hunt that MUST END NOW and he's expressed desire to fire Mueller, Sessions or Rosenstein on several occasions. Giuliani recently said the false end date. Andrevan@ 03:35, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

You are correct, and none of these musings amount to a "demand" to the DOJ, so we cannot write that. — JFG 03:41, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

In order to convey Trump's impatience with the investigation, may I suggest a simpler wording: calling the investigation a witch hunt that should be wound down. — JFG 03:44, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

That's awfully charitable to go from "MUST END" to "wound down," wouldn't you say? Andrevan@ 03:58, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Encyclopedic tone… — JFG 04:37, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

The special counsel investigation has produced almost 20 indictments, 5 guilty pleas, 3 from Trump's team & 1 already serving jail time. Defendants are facing 100+ criminal charges including conspiracy against the US, bank fraud, lying to FBI investigators. Trump has demanded that the witch hunt must end. What about that is unencyclopedic? Andrevan@ 04:43, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Would this be your new proposed text? It's certainly encyclopedic in tone, but undue for the lede of this bio – better suited in the lede of Special Counsel investigation (2017–present). I see you trimmed the phrase in the article already, and I took the liberty to copyedit further, conveying a strong expression of Trump's wish that the investigation was "terminated". — JFG 05:26, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Now, we need another sentence at the end. Trump has called for the investigation to be terminated. Instead, it has continued, resulting in a number of indictments and guilty pleas of his campaign staff. Otherwise you're leaving it dangling with simply Trump's narrative without the reality. Because, of course, as you know, it is not a witch hunt at all -- or do we disagree on that? Andrevan@ 06:02, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

I have no opinion on whether this investigation should be called a witch hunt, a fishing expedition, or the last refuge of democracy. Whatever it is called, I stand by my earlier argument against mentioning indictments at this stage and in this BLP lede section, because all known indictments as of today are unrelated to Trump. The continuation of investigations is due, and is reflected in the very existence of this last paragraph. — JFG 08:18, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Many of the indictments are related to Trump. SPECIFICO talk 13:32, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

I don't see how anyone can think the indictments aren't related to Trump. Of course they are. Trump has been associating himself with, hiring, or appointing shady characters who have ended up being indicted/charged/convicted. These associations Trump has are far stronger and have greater implications than, for example, Barack Obama's tenuous connections with Jeremiah Wright or Tony Rezko that the right wing succeeded in making a big deal of. I'm not a fan of guilt by association, but Trump's connections with some of the indicted people are pretty strong. He's STILL trying to defend Mike Flynn, despite some pretty disturbing revelations. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:29, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Guilt by association is an interesting concept to entertain, but it's still UNDUE here until such time as somebody from Trump's campaign or inner circle gets indicted for actually conspiring with Russia, not merely for fumbling their FBI interview. Incidentally, what do you call "disturbing revelations" about Flynn? I haven't seen anything new being reported recently. — JFG 16:57, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

JFG, do you mean to be saying that collusion, collaboration, or conspiracy are equivalent to "guilt by association", which has the universal meaning of an unfair and unfounded disparagement? For AGF's sake, I'd really appreciate some clarity on what you intended by the preceding comment before I respond. SPECIFICO talk 17:47, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Not at all. I'm just saying that the indictments of Trump-related people so far have not mentioned any "collusion, collaboration, or conspiracy" with Russia regarding election interference (double-check the list above). Hence, mentioning those indictments here would be peddling guilt by association. I'll be happy to change my mind if/when Mueller comes up with more meat. He did indict a bunch of people for "conspiracy to defraud the United States": they are all Russian and unrelated to Trump, so they have nothing to do in Trump's bio. — JFG 18:10, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

That doesn't matter. Trump fired Comey, Rosenstein appointed Mueller, Mueller has indicted a number of Russian conspirators and Trump campaign associates. Some have pled guilty, some are going to trial. It doesn't really matter that the crimes are not "collusion." That isn't how this works. There's a major ongoing investigation of the Trump campaign that Trump called a politically motivated witch hunt, which has made some major indictments and guilty pleas of Trump campaign staff. There's no rule that all of that has to be "collusion" to be relevant to Trump. Andrevan@ 18:17, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

On the contrary, the exact charges matter a lot! The facts that have been laid bare by the investigators help us determine relevance to Trump's BLP lede, or lack thereof. — JFG 18:20, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

JFG, I'm unable to understand your response as anything other than doubling down on the equivocation that is in your initial statement above. We'll see what others think, but I see no merit at all in your argument. SPECIFICO talk 18:22, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

That's fine. Perhaps you could present counter-arguments that would explain how any of the currently-known indictments are DUE for Trump's BLP lede? This would help our fellow editors reach an informed decision one way or the other. — JFG 18:34, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

You've just completely ignored the point I've made clear twice now. Conspiracy is a crime. "Guilt by association is unfounded disparagement". You have repeatedly referred to a alleged crime, conspiracy, which is what's being investigated, as if it were the illogical and untoward "guilt by association" that most rational people dismiss out of hand. Deflection on a straightforward editorial decision makes it extremely difficult to achieve good article text and requires an undue level of diligence to catch subtle but significant distortions of language. SPECIFICO talk 20:32, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

The idea that Trump's campaign staff have merely pled guilty to fumbling their FBI interview on a technicality is not at all true, and is a Republican talking point. For example, Rick Gates pled guilty to "conspiracy." Andrevan@ 18:07, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Gates pled guilty to "conspiracy" indeed… about having been an undeclared foreign agent for Ukraine, and lying to the Special Counsel about a 2013 meeting as he lobbied Congress on behalf of Ukraine. Off-topic. — JFG 18:18, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

What is the "topic"? Whatever Donald Trump says is the topic? It's relevant because it is a matter that arose out of Mueller's investigation concerning members of Donald Trump's campaign. As I'm sure you very well know, the way prosecutors generally work is they obtain guilty pleas and cooperation agreements from involved individuals in order to build cases against the targets of the investigation. For example, Don Jr., Michael Cohen, Jared Kushner, Roger Stone, etc. The fact that Gates and Manafort are being charged with their work with Ukraine does not mean it's totally irrelevant to Donald Trump. In fact, he makes it all the more relevant with his nonstop tweeting and commenting about it. Furthermore, it's completely relevant that Michael Flynn pled guilty and is cooperating, it's not a "technical" crime at all. He is cooperating with the investigation, ie he has "flipped." The claim that these investigations are simply peripheral and irrelevant is a Republican talking point. Andrevan@ 18:30, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Now you are just speculating. — JFG 18:36, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

I most certainly am not. The above is covered extensively in RS. Which statement of mine do you find possible speculation and I will furnish a source. Andrevan@ 18:37, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Speculating that Flynn has "flipped", speculating that Don Jr., Cohen, Kushner, Stone, etc. will be indicted, speculating that Ukrainian lobbying over the last 10 years has anything to do with Trump's candidacy, speculating that Trump's tweetstorms have anything to do with reality. But we're drifting into WP:FORUM territory and we should stop. — JFG 18:46, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

'Team Trump in shock as Flynn flips' 'Flynn Flipped. Who’s Next?' 'The explosive video that shows how Flynn flipped' 'Flynn flipping is a major break for Mueller — and bad news for the next big target' 'Mueller Seems to Be Flipping More and More Former Trump Allies' 'Michael Flynn has signed a plea deal with Robert Mueller. Trump should be very worried' Andrevan@ 18:52, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Okay, Google is our friend. But I do make a distinction between "cooperating with the investigation" (which is true and well-documented), and "flipping", which is speculation that such cooperation will lead to any damning charges against Trump or his inner circle. As for the rest, it's all WP:CRYSTAL. — JFG 18:56, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

No, RS say that Flynn flipped, and we should report as such. Do you disagree? I'm not saying that Flynn flipping should be in the lede in this article. My point is that guilty pleas and indictments are relevant to Trump himself. There's no crystal balling by simply stating the fact - the investigation has led to a number of guilty pleas and indictments. Andrevan@ 19:00, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Flynn pled guilty to lying about his conversation with Kislyak, and he is cooperating with Mueller; we agree on that much. You also admit that's not lede-worthy material for this BLP. Per my own advice, I'll stop arguing now. Good night! — JFG 19:04, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

I don't want to mention Flynn specifically by name, but the total impact of several guilty pleas and indictments IS relevant to Trump. To keep it out of the lead is giving cover to Trump and his public relations interest. NPOV means stating Trump's position "it's a politically motivated witch hunt" and then stating Mueller's action as it pertains thereto "Mueller has indicted and obtained guilty pleas from a number of members of Trump's campaign, and has indicated his desire to interview Trump himself." Andrevan@ 19:08, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

I agree with JFG in that the investigation is ongoing. I'm of the mind that these indictments and guilty pleas should not be included in the Trump bio - they belong in the Mueller investigation article, and to make it NPOV compliant, all relevant views should be included. Where is the factual statement that was published in a high quality RS that formally or even informally indicts Trump as having a direct connection? Yes, Gates pleaded guilty to lying about Manafort, and for conspiring to defraud the U.S. via false statements regarding his status as a foreign agent. Did he say Trump was involved, and if so where is that report? Papadopoulos (briefly a foreign policy advisor) made material false statements and material omissions about his contacts with Kremlin-connected Russians - did he say Trump was involved? Flynn pled guilty to making false statements, did he testify under oath that Trump was involved? Manafort has not pled guilty to the charges against him, so in the US, one is innocent until proven guilty and the investigation is ongoing. Facts only, please. In addition to the aforementioned, we have a partisan divide over what I'll refer to as Bubblegate based on the linked article. To summarize, unless we present all relevant views, we're teetering on noncompliance with NPOV. With regards to the Manafort issue we are treading into NOTNEWS territory since it's all still based on allegations, journalistic opinion/speculation until after the trial. We must be careful about how the information is presented, but again, it doesn't belong in Trump's BLP; rather it belongs in the Mueller investigation article. 20:17, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Au contraire, all of the claims you dispute above are not speculation or allegation, but in fact are reported in RS. I have never heard of Bubblegate, but the article you are citing seems to be from today, as opposed to nearly a year of RS reporting on the Mueller investigation and the conspirators. For example, Oct 17: "The big problem for Trump is that Manafort was present at a meeting in June 2016 with a Russian lawyer who promised damaging information on Hillary Clinton. That meeting in Trump Tower was also attended by Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law." To act like that meeting didn't happen or hasn't been covered extensively in RS is giving POV push to Manafort's case. Andrevan@ 21:06, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Andrevan - please see the NYTimes breakdown. That meeting is drowning in speculation, and until it reaches dry land and surpasses the phase of being a conspiracy theory, there's simply no substantial evidence that Trump is directly connected or that the meeting was even noteworthy. The NYTimes stated in closing: Finding a final answer, though, will likely be left to the special counsel. Democrats do not have subpoena authority, and Republicans have shown no interest in pressing for fuller records. If it belongs anywhere, it belongs in the Mueller investigation... 22:04, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

That NYT piece clearly says, "a 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between members of the Trump campaign and a Russian lawyer who promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, attended the meeting, as did Paul Manafort, then the campaign chairman, and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law." This is Trump-related, and other RS confirm this time and time and again. The claim that this is not relevant to Trump himself is even alluded to in the NYT piece you link in terms of discussing whether the "blocked number" was a call to Trump. There doesn't need to be judicial proof that Trump had specific knowledge of the meeting, it's still relevant to his claims of "no collusion" and "no obstruction" and that the investigation is a "witch hunt." Andrevan@ 22:11, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Should the lede mention obstruction?

(Sub-discussion extracted from above thread — JFG 18:23, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

We now say Trump has repeatedly denied accusations of collusion and obstruction of justice, calling the investigation a witch hunt that should be terminated. I don't think that accurately reflects what he has said. To the extent possible we should use Trump's own words. Those words, repeated so often as to become catch phrases, are "NO COLLUSION!" and "witch hunt". He also repeatedly insists that the investigation is politically motivated. He rarely mentions obstruction of justice, and I haven't seen him use the word "terminated". In fact I think the calls to "wind down" or end the investigation have mostly come from his attorneys or members of his administration, not from Trump himself. How about this: "Trump has repeatedly denied any collusion, calling the investigation a politically motivated "witch hunt". --MelanieN (talk) 15:16, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Right. I think you should insert your text and we can take it from there. SPECIFICO talk 15:23, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

SPECIFICO, thank you, but no. We should agree on a text before inserting it. Some additional points that occurred to me in support of this wording: Trump always talks as if collusion was the only issue under investigation. He may even interpret "collusion" as meaning personal collusion by Trump himself, and that may be what he means with his continual denials - that there was no collusion BY HIM. If that's his understanding, then any collusion by members of his campaign is irrelevant to him, and his denials do not take them into account. That's why I think "he has repeatedly denied any collusion", without any embellishment about guilty pleas and such by campaign associates and without any mention of obstruction, best expresses what he has said. --MelanieN (talk) 15:36, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

I'd be fine with MelanieN's terse suggestion, although I'm fine with the current sentence too. The accusations of obstruction of justice have been prominent enough to be mentioned here as well, per DUE. Perhaps we can combine them, saying Trump has repeatedly denied accusations of collusion and obstruction of justice, calling the investigation a politically-motivated "witch hunt". Thoughts? — JFG 16:54, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

JFG, yes, the ACCUSATIONS of obstruction are prominent, but his DENIALS of obstruction of justice - or even mentioning that issue - are few and far between. In describing his denial, we should only report what he has actually denied and not put words in his mouth. In this sentence we are not talking about what he has been accused of; we are talking about what he has denied. His denials virtually always consist of "there has been no collusion". In a search I could find only one citation, from January 2018, that was titled as Trump denying obstruction - and even then all he said was "I did everything properly". Obstruction is simply not a charge that he has paid any attention to, or made any effort to deny. --MelanieN (talk) 17:18, 24 May 2018 (UTC)--MelanieN (talk) 18:27, 24 May 2018 (UTC) Since Andrevan has demonstrated, below, that Trump has specifically denied obstruction on several occasions, I now agree with your proposed wording here that includes his denial of "obstruction of justice".

Trump has actually denied obstruction on several occasions and it's been discussed by the media as well, so I strongly disagree with MelanieN's description above. I also strongly disagree that we should hew as close as possible to the subject's own words or catch phrases. What policy guidance is that inspired by? Andrevan@ 18:02, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) OK, Andrevan, thanks for the research. Seeing that, I now agree with JFG's proposed wording Trump has repeatedly denied accusations of collusion and obstruction of justice, calling the investigation a politically-motivated "witch hunt". As for your "policy guidance" question, it seems pretty obvious that when you are trying to cite a statement or opinion to someone, such as "so and so denied it", you should stick as closely as possible to what they actually said, and not put words in their mouth or go beyond what they said. --MelanieN (talk) 18:26, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

I like and support the proposed wording per you and JFG, but I think we need to be careful about the difference between citing a statement to someone, and giving them a public relations soapbox for spin and lies, with no rebuttal or fact checking done by reliable 3rd party sources. As per above, I believe we should outline that Trump has denied obstruction and called the investigation a politically motivated witch hunt. In the meantime, the investigation has racked up several points to the contrary. Andrevan@ 18:37, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Thanks MelanieN. @Andrevan, Atsme, Galobtter, Mandruss, MrX, MONGO, and SPECIFICO: Can we proceed with this wording for now? (Surely it can and will be improved later…) @Scjessey: Sorry I forgot you in the mass-ping. — JFG 18:49, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Trump has repeatedly denied accusations of collusion and obstruction of justice, calling the investigation a politically-motivated "witch hunt".

• Support - well done, and sincerely appreciate the productive collaboration. 18:46, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
• OpposeSee no reason to mention this issue if the intro has no mention of the North Korea issue. In the foreign policy portion of the intro every talking point aside from possibly Trump conducting missle strikes in Syria after they used chemical weapons, is in fact all items his opposition disagree with Trump on.--MONGO 19:30, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

• The North Korea summit was cancelled today. Andrevan@ 19:37, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Mongo, I don't understand your "oppose" comment. The question here is about the wording of a sentence saying that Trump denies having anything to do with Russian interference in the election. Are you really meaning to say that we should not include his denial? --MelanieN (talk) 20:05, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

See no reason to mention anything about the investigation(s) at all if we are omitting his biggest foreign policy issue of his presidency, namely North Korea. All these should be over at the article about his presidency anyways not in this bio, least not in the intro.--MONGO 22:07, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

It looks to me that we have enough agreement to insert this sentence into the lede, and I will do so. --MelanieN (talk) 14:16, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

• Weak support - I don't oppose this wording, but I do think that obstruction of justice is not as prominent an issues as collusion at this point. We may also want to include money laundering, although I don't know if Trump has actually denied those allegations.- MrX 🖋 22:14, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Should the article mention money laundering?

• There's been extensive RS discussion and circumstantial evidence to indicate a long history of money laundering. While we do not know the outcome, we do know this is under investigation. SPECIFICO talk 22:27, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

I think it should be mentioned in this article, but maybe not in the lead section. Andrevan@ 22:34, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

I absolutely oppose any mention of money laundering, either in the lede or in the article text. The special counsel is investigating the Russian interference in the election and anything which may arise in connection with that (such as obstruction of justice). That much we know. There has been a lot of speculation that the investigation will turn up money laundering, tax evasion, bribery, you name it - but speculation is what it is. There has been no indication from the special counsel's office that they are looking into anything along those lines. (SPECIFICO, you said "we do know this is under investigation." How do we know? Aside from speculation in the press?) --MelanieN (talk) 22:57, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

MelanieN, are you acting as an WP:INVOLVED editor or an impartial administrator on this matter? While I don't specifically think that we've come across good language or evidence to conclude as yet, your statement that this is all speculation is worrisome to me, since we have a number of relevant facts that do pertain to money laundering and other bank- and tax-related issues, which should be included in the article in some fashion, as many of them deal with Trump's businesses prior to the presidency as well as his relationship with Rudy Giuliani prior. We do know that the Southern District of NY and the FBI raided Michael Cohen's office in connection with a slush fund and issues to do with loans and funds paid from major corporations . We know there are issues involving major cash transactions for real estate that are tied to money laundering There are also issues involving Felix Sater and the NRA Misplaced Pages policy is that we cover how subjects appear in reliable sources. We can't synthesize or connect the dots, or speculate. But I'm confused by your assertion that the PRESS are speculating. The press aren't speculating, they are REPORTING. For example: "Those transcripts reveal serious allegations that the Trump Organization may have engaged in money laundering with Russian nationals," Mr Schiff said. Andrevan@ 23:15, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Obviously, Andrevan, I am WP:INVOLVED at this article, because I am here discussing content. I participate at many of these political articles, and I function there as a regular editor, not an administrator - a role that I am very clear about and that is well understood by the other editors here. I assume the same is true for you, at this article at least, since you are also here discussing content. My point in this discussion is simply this: Yes, many people believe or assume that Trump’s business has been involved in unsavory or illegal practices such as money laundering. It is possible that the Muller investigation, or the separate New York investigation involving Cohen, are looking into these issues. But we don’t KNOW whether they are, and nobody in a position to know has said so. (SPECIFICO said we "know" this is under investigation, but I haven't seen that evidence.) Some people have voiced their suspicions, but we don’t use unsupported suspicions in a BLP. Rep. Schiff suggested that Glenn Simpson may have made such allegations in his testimony to the intelligence committee, but that is not strong enough evidence for us to mention it in a BLP. We might be able to bring out some of these issues at the article The Trump Organization. But especially for purposes of this article, we mustn’t get ahead of the evidence. --MelanieN (talk) 14:11, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose per MelanieN. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 04:10, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

MelanieN, what about covering this article? "Trump's casino ended up paying the Treasury Department a $477,000 fine in 1998 without admitting any liability under the Bank Secrecy Act." Or this one: FinCEN Fines Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort $10 Million for Significant and Long Standing Anti-Money Laundering Violations Andrevan@ 21:32, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

If they aren't in the Trump Organization article, they should be. --MelanieN (talk) 21:42, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

@MelanieN:I do not say that Mueller is investigating money laundering. I say there's substantial discussion and circumstantial evidence that have led to widespread discussion and suspicion of it. e.g. . that does not seem undue. It's a lot more solid than chatter about how Trump pressured N. Korea, for example, or how Trump is worth $3.1 billion according to a third-tier "capitalist tool" business magazine, IMO. SPECIFICO talk 22:58, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

"cirmumstantial" means probably bad idea to have it in a BLP.--MONGO 01:04, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Why is that? Its very widely covered in impeccable RS. SPECIFICO talk 01:45, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Minor edits to the lede

When reverting recent additions to the last paragraph in the lede, Galobtter also undid some minor edits I had performed in the policy paragraph. Can we review them together?

1. added a helpful link on "insurance mandate" – I believe this is informative and harmless; I for one had to look it up to understand what we are talking about. We can save our readers some research by just adding the direct link to the appropriate section that explains it. Agree to restore this link?
2. replaced "eliminated" with "cancelled" when referring to the aforementioned individual mandate – that sounds like a more neutral word – maybe it's just my imagination, but "eliminated" rings like a B-movie gunshot murder to my ears. Can you agree to using "cancelled", or how would that bother you?
3. replaced Affordable Care Act with Obamacare – my rationale was that the "Obamacare" nickname is more well-known than the official name of the Act, hence easier to understand for a majority of our readers, but Galobtter objects that it's a "more charged term" – can you explain how this common name is "charged" and why it should be "trumped" by the official name?
4. removed a redundant mention of the United States, I think it's clear enough in context. Agree to trim?
5. avoided stating the obvious, namely that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 was a "tax-cut bill". However, this edit was replaced by a version which does not name the Act, so that there is no redundancy. The question is now whether we should use the official name here, or keep the piped link on tax reform legislation. I'm neutral on this.

Comments welcome. Thanks for your consideration. — JFG 21:26, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

These minor edits all seemed fine and I don't feel strongly about any of them. Andrevan@ 22:24, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

If Obamacare was the accepted common name, it wouldn't be a redirect to the bill's actual name, so I don't know why you'd cite that policy here. It is, like our own article says, a nickname. Parabolist (talk) 00:58, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

I agree it's a nickname and described it that way; I'm not implying that the article title should be changed. I'm just saying that for most readers (especially non-US), "Obamacare" is much easier to recognize than "Affordable Care Act". WP:Readers first! — JFG 03:21, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

I added the link, I replaced eliminated with "repealed" - what do you think of that (I don't particularly like cancelled), most high quality sources I see when searching the phrase "insurance mandate" use Affordable Care Act at-least when describing in the body, putting the "Obamacare" in parenthesis or something like that, I've removed the redundant United States, on the tax reform bill I basically restored the stable text, which had "tax reform bill" Galobtter (pingó mió) 05:55, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

All good, thanks, except one thing: I'm not fond of "repealed" because this verb has been used to describe the much-touted "repeal and replace" of the full Obamacare legislation that did not come to pass, whereas the tax bill only cancelled the tax to pay if you elect not to purchase "essential health benefits". If not "cancelled", could we use "removed", "revoked", "rescinded", "abrogated", "annulled"? I'd pick "revoked". — JFG 07:41, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

The only words that apply to this action are "repeal" or "rescind". I think "repeal" is much more commonly understood and will be clearer to our readers. SPECIFICO talk 13:33, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

How about "removed"? Also - I agree with Gelobtter that at first mention (or first mention in a long time) we should say "Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"). " --MelanieN (talk) 15:04, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

"Eliminated" - if you don't mind its other connotations. SPECIFICO talk 15:09, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Eliminated was the original word, which JFG objected too. Galobtter (pingó mió) 15:10, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Oop. Well we know googling a thesaurus didn't come up with anything new. Also I agree we should reference the popular name "Obamacare" especially since it was part of the opponents' slogans on this issue. Moreover "repeal" is in fact what legislatures do, and it is simply the fact that (relative to Trump's campaign slogan) he left the job half-done. Who joins JFG to object to "repeal"? Also, as a matter of procedure it really would be better to come to talk before making multiple edits that change the meaning of the article. Things get very cumbersome and the software won't let us undo edits where they're tangled up with other unrelated ones. It really is an impediment to article improvement. SPECIFICO talk 15:20, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

My views on JFG's points:

1. Good edit.
2. "Eliminated" was better. It's the term lawmakers use and it is well understood. Not to be confused with EXTERMINATE!
3. It should remain as "Affordable Care Act" as a shortened form of "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act". I would accept "Obamacare" only if it placed in scare quotes.
4. Good edit.
5. We should definitely NOT use the term "tax reform legislation", because there wasn't actually any "reform" in it whatsoever. "Tax bill" would be more neutral.

I like to see explanatory sections like this for clusters of minor edits. Good idea, JFG! -- Scjessey (talk) 15:16, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

This all looks settled. Current text keeps "Affordable Care Act" and uses the verb "rescinded" instead of "repealed" or "cancelled". Regarding "tax reform", many sources have used this term, I don't see an issue there (apart from personal opinion about the scope and effectiveness of such reform). — JFG 17:03, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

I don't see any such consensus. I see Scjessey saying this talk page thread was a good idea. I see everyone rejecting rescinded in favor of better words, e.g. "eliminated. I see other disagreements with your view. Please don't edit these bits until your "settled" assertion is confirmed. Let someone else reinsert your preferred wording if indeed it's consensus here. @MelanieN: SPECIFICO talk 17:50, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

FYI I have not edited this part after Galobtter's partial revert; I started the discussion, others gave their input, and Galobtter made further changes. — JFG 18:28, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

I prefer not calling it "tax reform legislation," because it's a bit wordy. It was mostly called "tax reform" before the bill was written and voted and signed, after which it was usually called the "tax cut." It was a "tax cut bill," it didn't really change the existing tax system (despite intention of doing so), it just adjusted rates and deductions. We could also use its proper name. I think most of the source material calling it "tax reform" is from before it was signed. Andrevan@ 18:50, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

"his victory upset the expectations of polls and analysts."

This is idiotic and misleading wording. His victory did not upset the expectations of polls, it was within a normal polling error. His election upset the expectations of some analysts. His election also upset the expectations of data analysts within both campaigns. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 19:40, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Agree somewhat. Maybe change it to upsetting pundits? I mean, it's true that 538 and other analysts were giving Hillary 80-90% odds of winning. Then again, that was before the impact of the Comey letter October surprise. Andrevan@ 19:42, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

538 gave Trump a 28.6% chance to win on election night and had a piece days before the election noting, "Trump Is Just A Normal Polling Error Behind Clinton". Snooganssnoogans (talk) 19:46, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

I stand corrected. Carry on... Support above Andrevan@ 19:48, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Good catch - awkward wording. The picture was murky, and particularly murky because of the vagaries of the electoral college. What was unexpected was the lopsidedness, less than 88,000 votes in three states deciding an election where the winner received 2.8 million (2.1%) less votes than the loser. Aside from that, the polls & the expectations of pundits may belong in the lead of the article on the 2016 general election and the individual campaigns, but not in Trump's general bio. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 13:00, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

By most accounts, this election was a historical upset, we need to mention this somehow. I agree that the previous wording put too much emphasis on pundits. Fact is that everyone was surprised. — JFG 13:16, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Accordingly, I called it a "surprise victory" like most sources did. — JFG 14:07, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

A historical number of people were and are upset but whether the election was an upset, historical or otherwise, depends on who you ask. Anyway, more awkward wording: Can you be elected against someone? Campaign - yes; win - yes; elect - I don't think so. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 14:11, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

The wording is now "in a surprise victory over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton". I believe that's fair. — JFG 15:10, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Can we hat all the N Korea discussions and limit what's added?

Ahhh...one of the issues with RECENTISM. How about hatting (or archiving) the above N. Korea discussions to make scrolling easier for cell phone and iPad users? I suggest that we add a sentence or two saying there was cautious optimism about the summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un in May but events leading it up to it caused Trump to cancel. The York Times reported: "President Trump, citing a flurry of hostile statements from North Korea, pulled out of a highly anticipated summit meeting with Kim Jong-un on Thursday, telling the North Korean leader “this missed opportunity is a truly sad moment in history.” 21:47, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

I have problems with "events leading it up to it caused Trump to cancel". We don't know what caused Trump to cancel. We can write what he says, making sure make it's clear it is what HE said, but he's not known for always being totally truthful. HiLo48 (talk) 09:00, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

I don't think we should so quickly hat or archive the discussion. I would like to see the impartial admins hold folks accountable for their arguments on that topic now that we have seen the outcome shift. I also think the text you've written here is bordering on a Trump-spin press release. Andrevan@ 21:50, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Hmmm...when did in-text attribution to the New York Times become a Trump press release? - now that's a pretty hefty accusation, there for sure. You have twice made accusations of pro-Trump partisanship when addressing my questions, so perhaps you're correct in that we shouldn't hat anything. 22:32, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Per discussion hatted above, I have filed a note at WP:AN for some broader feedback. If I am off my rocker right now, I will be soundly taken to task there. If I have a point that Russian/GOP agents are hijacking this article, hopefully that will be discovered there. Andrevan@ 03:32, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

So after being soundly taken to task, please redact your aspersions. Спасибо — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8800:1300:16e:f99e:293d:e019:1350 (talk) 08:23, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Russian/GOP agents are hijacking this article Huh? And did you really say at AN  I suspect at least some of these users to be paid Russian/GOP/NRA advocacy agents -- Trump World PR reps. ? Incredible. You were lucky they closed the AN discussion quickly, and with only a warning. If you weren’t an admin you would probably have been topic banned - and that could still happen if you keep up this kind of wild accusation. --MelanieN (talk) 21:37, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

On the advice of many users, I won't be discussing my allegations further at this time. I'm sure you agree that's for the best. Andrevan@ 21:39, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

One thing we can depend on regarding the news...it changes. See the CBS update...may still happen...and as Bill Maher said, “"This could be the one thing that Trump, honestly, is uniquely qualified to pull off," ....who knows....? We wait and see what comes of it, and include what RS say. 15:03, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Challenging "spygate" in lead

I'm challenging the recent edit(s) by User:Andrevan adding the following to the lead:

Trump has said "Spygate" could be one of the largest political scandals in history. Conservatives and progressives alike have said that the scope of Trump's scandals may be bigger than the Watergate scandal.

First, when Trump says something could be one of the largest X in history is nowhere near unique. His best friends will admit that hyperbole for him is a regular manner of speaking. Possibly this could fit somewhere in the body, but it has not been proven to be worthy of the lead. Second, the second sentence is not backed up by the source which merely says that conservatives say Spygate could be bigger than Watergate, but liberals say it is unfounded; neither talk about "the scope of Trump's scandals". --GRuban (talk) 01:00, 25 May 2018 (UTC).

Alright. Perhaps, instead of removing or reverting altogether, you could have moved the content elsewhere and edited it to more closely reflect the source material. What I'd like to ultimately add to the lede is the idea that Donald Trump is the most scandal-ridden president in recent history. Andrevan@ 03:12, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm just wondering..spygate isn't a scandal of Trump, it is trump accusing the FBI - how that is supposed to be about Trump's scandals is beyond me, or how that it is important enough for the lead when it isn't even mentioned in the body. Actually, it'd be better if you'd even read the source - seriously, the USAToday source has nothing to do with the statement that Trump's scandals are bigger than watergate. We should probably add something about the various accusations trump has levelled in the body (e.g Obama this too), but anyhow, what you could add per your goal is "Trump's presidency has been characterized by many scandals and turmoil among Whitehouse staff and cabinet." At-least the latter portion about turmoil is supported by the body; but not the scandal portion, where you'd want to add that to the body first.. Galobtter (pingó mió) 06:47, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

I support your wording. Andrevan@ 07:00, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

References

1. "Trump seethes over Russia probe, calls for end to 'Spygate". Boston Globe. May 23, 2018.
2. "Conservatives say alleged FBI 'spying' on Trump is bigger than Watergate". USA Today. May 23, 2018.

Before adding something like that to the lede, it would have to be in the article; that's the nature of ledes, to summarize the main points of the article. Do you want to draft up a paragraph or section about "Trump administration scandals"? We would certainly need clearer sourcing than that "Bubble" article, and it would probably wind up getting discussed here until there was consensus to include it. Also, I would not want to see us use Trump's latest buzzword "Spygate" anywhere; the word is pure propaganda, promoting a claim for which we have seen no evidence. AFAIK it has not been picked up by the general media, except in quotes attributed to Trump. --MelanieN (talk) 21:24, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Agree with all of that, @Melanie. Andrevan@ 21:25, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

"citing security concerns" on Muslim ban

This formulation appears to me to validate the idea that these security concerns are valid and it seems clear to me that they are not. I would like to edit this but am a newcomer to the page and any prior discussion of this point. Elinruby (talk) 01:15, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

This sentence has been discussed at length and has stable consensus. Please read the archived threads linked from Talk:Donald Trump/Current consensus, item 23. Note that the current text does not voice an opinion whether the "security concerns" are valid. This may change after the Supreme Court publishes its ruling, expected in June or July. — JFG 10:16, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Racial Views/"Birtherism"

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.

Apologies if this has been addressed already (the archive is gargantuan), but why is the Obama birth certificate controversy nestled under the "Racial views" section? What does the former president's birthplace have to do with race? Mr. Daniel Plainview (talk) 01:25, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Nothing. And it should be moved to an appropriate, pertinent section. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 01:39, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Many believe (and there was actually a big discussion on this recently elsewhere on Misplaced Pages - can't remember where) that when Trump pushed the Birther thing, hinting at a "foreign" background for Obama, he knew full well he was tapping into the racist views of many Americans. Whether it showed that Trump himself is really racist on this front is unclear, but he was certainly using the Birther controversy as a racist tool. HiLo48 (talk) 01:49, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict)"hinting at a "foreign" background for Obama" He does have a "foreign background". His father was Kenyan and Obama lived in Indonesia for many years. "he knew full well he was tapping into the racist views of many Americans" And you know this because you can read his mind? Because you have a direct quote from a reliable, verifiable source where he said it? Of course, the answer to this is 'no' for both questions. Don't speculate and please be aware of BLP policy for article talk pages. "Whether it showed that Trump himself is really racist on this front is unclear" It's unclear because you are making the scenario up. "he was certainly using the Birther controversy as a racist tool." Bullshit. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 01:57, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your wisdom. I needed that re-education. HiLo48 (talk) 02:01, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Winkelvi, please don't WP:CRYBLP. You're dealing with experienced editors here and it is pointless. SPECIFICO talk 02:04, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

When an editor is blatantly violating policy, it's the responsibility of other editors to remind them about the policy they are violating. Experience obviously has nothing to do with it, otherwise he wouldn't be violating BLP TPG, would he? Experienced drivers violate the law daily - does that mean they shouldn't be warned or ticketed? Give me a break. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 02:10, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Do you really think nobody had racist views against Obama? Do you really think nobody had those views reinforced by the Birther controversy? Do you really believe Trump is so stupid he had no idea it would have that effect? Do you think it bothered him? Don't be silly. This is about politics. I know how it works. I suspect you do too. HiLo48 (talk) 02:22, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

It is generally considered to be a racist conspiracy theory. The reasoning is that the theory gained traction among people who did not believe that a non-European could be a real American. In fact, former Republican candidates George Romney, John McCain and Ted Cruz were all born outside the United States, but it never inspired a movement. TFD (talk) 01:53, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

What reliable source (non-editorial piece) states that birtherism is racist? I recall Hillary Clinton pushing that narrative during the election, but I don't see how this placement can be seen as NPOV. Inserting this material underneath material about "Racial views" (which probably shouldn't even be in the article in the first place, honestly) makes no sense. Black people live in, and are born in, Hawaii. Barack Obama is a great example of a black person from Hawaii. There are also plenty of white people in Kenya. Unless Donald Trump specifically linked skin color or race with Obama's place of birth, this material needs to be relocated to comply with NPOV - otherwise we have an OR/SYNTH situation on our hands. Mr. Daniel Plainview (talk) 02:16, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

WP:OR\WP:SYNTH is exactly what it is. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 02:24, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Do you really think nobody had racist views against Obama? Do you really think nobody had those views reinforced by the Birther controversy? Do you really believe Trump is so stupid he had no idea it would have that effect? Do you think it bothered him? Don't be silly. This is about politics. I know how it works. I suspect you do too. HiLo48 (talk) 02:23, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

"Do you really think nobody had racist views against Obama? Do you really think nobody had those views reinforced by the Birther controversy? Do you really believe Trump is so stupid he had no idea it would have that effect? Do you think it bothered him?" None of these things have anything to do with this article if you don't have a reliable source and/or direct quotes to back it all up. So please stop pretending it does (or thinking it does). If you want to believe all this, fine. But your personal feelings aren't reliable sources. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 02:26, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

I have some news for you. Politicians don't always tell the truth, not even those you (or I) adore. Any sensible human being thinks about what is going on when politicians make declarations. I am amused at your trusting view that Trump didn't have intentions or was unaware of the racist implications of the Birther thing. Seriously, he is not that stupid. HiLo48 (talk) 02:31, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

I haven't given my viewpoint on the issue one way or another. I've only given my viewpoint on whether or not it's been proven that Trump's search for Obama's birth certificate was racially motivated. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 02:41, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

That is not now nor has it ever been consensus among the editors on these articles. SPECIFICO talk 02:20, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm not going to argue consensus and I don't think a formal RfC should be called, but if it is, I'll cast my iVote. This issue has already been argued. Just a tip of the hat to TFD - hope all is well - just wanted to mention that I recall quite a bit of hoopla surrounding the requirements of other candidates: The Atlantic on Cruz; New Yorker; Fordham Law Review rethinking presidential eligibility, and more. The preponderance of evidence tells us the questioning of birth right was a political maneuver, not a racist one so it depends on what RS are cited...and that's why exceptional claims require exceptional sources and in-text attribution. 02:27, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Holy cow. This is tendentious POV pushing in the extreme. Andrevan@ 02:33, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Two opinion pieces, one article not about Trump but one of his picks for a position, and an unreliable source. You'll have to do better than that, Andrevan. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 02:45, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

"Birtherism, as it became known, was denounced as a racist dog-whistle by critics — and Trump publicly renounced the position in September, 2016, while campaigning to be president, before falsely claiming his presidential rival Hillary Clinton had first spread the theory in 2008." , Andrevan@ 02:57, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

The Newsweek link clearly states, "Birtherism, as it became known, was denounced as a racist dog-whistle by critics — and Trump publicly renounced the position in September, 2016". It doesn't state Trump's motivation was racism. Nothing in the Rolling Stone article proves Trump's motivation behind finding Obama's original birth certificate to be racism. Nothing in the PBS piece proves or even alludes to Trump's motivation re: Obama's birth certificate to be racism. Nothing in the Chicago Tribune article has any proof that Trump's motivation was racism - there's one mention in it that Colin Powell calls Trump a racist. Powell's quote is not a reliable source or proof of anything other than Powell having an opinion. The Psychology Today article is an opinion piece, therefore, not a reliable source regarding this issue. The Science Direct piece doesn't even mention Trump. The Journal link with abstract and theory by Pham is opinion, not proof. So far, you're striking out in providing proof that Donald Trump's motivation in the search for Obama's birth certificate to prove his citizenship that would qualify him to be a candidate for president was racism. We're still looking at WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 03:14, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

No. The RS clearly describe birtherism as racism. We don't need to get inside Trump's head to know his true soul. Andrevan@ 03:19, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

No, it's you who is striking out. And providing reasons for a topic ban. The manner in which you respond, and ask for 'proof', shows that there is no amount of 'proof' that would satisfy you. You are Tendentious and disruptive. Dave Dial (talk) 03:25, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Wanting to keep the article free of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH and asking for reliable sources that support unproven claims as to what the article subject's motivation was for his participation in wanting to see Barack Obama's original birth certificate is grounds for a topic ban? Sorry, I'm not following your line of reasoning. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 03:32, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

• Comment -- At this point, editors arguing that birtherism doesn't belong in racial views, or that it had nothing to do with racism, are trying to insert Fringe views. There are more than enough reliable sources describing britherism as racial. If editors wish to have this article handled in a different manner than it has been, keep trying to push fringe bullshit. Next stop is probably ArbCom anyway. Dave Dial (talk) 02:34, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Really? What reliable sources will support Trump's search for Obama's birth certificate to prove his citizenship that would qualify him to be a candidate for president as racism in a definitive and proven manner? -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 02:40, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

• The influence of racism on birtherism has been heavily covered by RS for many years. It makes no sense to ignore this. O3000 (talk) 02:41, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

It may have been "covered", but unless it's been proven, it's a violation of WP:SYNTH. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 02:45, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

• If anyone has an alternative suggestion as to the subject heading to discuss this content (which I feel does need to be discussed), please suggest it. Otherwise, this seems acceptable to me. power~enwiki (π, ν) 02:57, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

"Role in Barack Obama birth certificate controversy" would be a significant improvement. A nice and neutral title, and probably a trim would be in order for WEIGHT issues. Mr. Daniel Plainview (talk) 03:17, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

No. That title is not an improvement, it is a whitewash, unsupported by sources. (I doubt if you will find any news story referring to the subject as the "Barack Obama birth certificate controversy"; it is called Birtherism both because that is short for headlines and because there really wasn't any "controversy".) We take our titles from Reliable Sources, and there is no getting around that this particular claim was called Birtherism everywhere. --MelanieN (talk) 03:27, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) with MelanieN As a subsection of "Political career and affiliations up to 2015"? I'd support that, but I'm not confident enough there would be consensus for that to WP:BOLDly change it without discussion. power~enwiki (π, ν) 03:23, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Here we go again. Please see Archive 78, Archive 77, Archive 73, Archive 21, etc. We have discussed this to death. The most recent discussion, now in Archive 78, was a formal discussion with a formal close. That close showed a consensus that material about birtherism is appropriate for the Donald Trump article and should remain here. The closer left it open whether to keep that material under “Racial views” or move it to “Political career and affiliations up to 2015”, with the default being to keep it in Racial views because it is there now. We can discuss, here, where in the article to put the material since there was no consensus at the last discussion. Whether birtherism has racial roots is not open to question, we have long since settled that. Birtherism emphasized Obama as the “Other” and challenged his right to be president, and that was very appealing to a lot of the Republican “base” for purely racial reasons. Whether Trump himself promoted birtherism out of personal racism, or simply because it was working for him in the polls and ratings, is undetermined. That was one of the reasons given for possibly moving the birtherism material to the campaign section. --MelanieN (talk) 03:22, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

There are many RS that allege it is part of a history of racism including the Central Park Five incident. Andrevan@ 03:23, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose content in racism section, as it is unproven in regard to Donald Trump; support it being placed in the campaign section, but with no alluding it has to do with racism on the part of Trump. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 03:25, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Comment my personal opinion is that the claims that Obama is not "African-American" are based in the fact that most people assume African-Americans are the descendants of slaves, while Obama's father was a Kenyan immigrant and his mother was Caucasian. This isn't particularly relevant to the encyclopedic content of this article. I'm somewhat disturbed that we still need to argue this point; reliable sources are clear Obama was born in Hawaii, which is a State of the United States. The fact that Donald Trump prominently advocated an argument to the contrary is notable, as it was a political position which somewhat directly led to his presidential run (you can find a link to the 2011 White House Correspondent's Dinner on your own). Whether this is a "racial view" or a "political view" is a dispute I really don't care enough to argue either way; the material must be included in the article in a section about something other than his business career or presidency but I can't be bothered to care where. power~enwiki (π, ν) 03:31, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

• Comment Rather than debate the content (that's another issue, in my mind), we should move it to the "Political affiliations" section or the campaign section. The material's current location is implying a falsehood in Misplaced Pages's voice, and is a point of view held by Trump's detractors. Arguments like "we can put it in there because I know what's in Trump's soul" are invalid, and I am bewildered how an administrator and bureaucrat could ever make that argument for content. Mr. Daniel Plainview (talk) 03:41, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

• Mr Plainview, if you had arrived 11 days ago you could have !voted in the RfC that reached no consensus on this question. I don't think the addition of !votes by you, Winkelvi, Andrevan, and/or ten other randomly selected editors would have made a difference in the outcome. I do think another RfC would be needed, and I know 11 days is far too soon to do that. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:53, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
• You completely misunderstood my argument. I said we don't need to know if Trump had a motive or was simply accidentally being racist. Andrevan@ 03:56, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

If that's not what you meant, then I'm completely confused by why you seem to have felt it necessary to show his motive and prove his motives were racist with all the links you provided above. That, and your statement now, really do seem to be completely contradictory. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 03:59, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Trump is a racist and birtherism is racist, period full stop, because the majority of the RS describe them as such. Doesn't matter if we've "proven" that Trump himself has a racist brain in his skull. Understand now? Andrevan@ 04:04, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Trump has the best brain. A big, bold, beautiful brain. If that beautiful, bready, burgundy brain is racist, we should have Reliable Sources to that effect. power~enwiki (π, ν) 04:07, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

BLP policy is getting roughed up good and proper today. Yes, now I see what a problem those "tendentious POV-pushers" can be on these pages, who you referred to earlier. Mr. Daniel Plainview (talk) 04:10, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

I think we have some editors here who would still argue that Trump isn't racist even if he said "I am a racist, and I used Birtherism as a racist tool." No politician will say that about themselves, so we follow what the sources say. HiLo48 (talk) 04:12, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Mandruss, I would have voted in that discussion had I seen it. At the outset of this section I stated that I apologize in advance if this has already been discussed. But is an RfC even necessary for this kind of blatant policy conflict? BLP policy states that flagrant policy violations (such as referring to a living person as a "racist") can be removed immediately without discussion. Here we have an absurd placement of content in a biography, that states without much subtlety that Trump is a racist for questioning if Obama was telling the truth about being born in Hawaii. No facts. Just opinions. But we still need an RfC to fix that, for some reason? Something is broken. Mr. Daniel Plainview (talk) 04:16, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

That's the rub, isn't it? We follow what the sources say. Not what Colin Powell says. Not what Hillary Clinton says. Not what a 24 year old editorial writer at the Observer says. We create content based on what is verifiable and factual. Mr. Daniel Plainview (talk) 04:16, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

We of course do have tons of reliable sources linked above, and many more, that describe Trump's policy, rhetoric, etc. as racist. We can of course cover minority views and his own statements that he is "the least racist person you ever met" or whatever, but BLP doesn't mean this majority held consensus is somehow invalid SYNTH or OR. Follow the sources. Andrevan@ 04:17, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

No editor has to prove "intent", that's neither a requirement to answer you nor policy. If people spout off about how the Holocaust didn't happen and the Jews are running some racket, we don't have to prove what's in that person's mind to say that they are spouting anti-semitic canards. Just like we don't have to prove what's in Trump's mind when he spouted off about the racist Birtherism bull. And people that don't understand how it's racist show their true selves. Luckily, we don't have to rely on what is in people's heads, we go by reliable sources. The overwhelming amount of reliable sources state that birtherism is a racist conspiracy theory. Full stop. Dave Dial (talk) 04:18, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Now it's Trump's policies that are racist? That's not what you said here. Which is it? Mr. Daniel Plainview (talk) 04:19, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

You only have 500 edits since November so I'm guessing you haven't figured out how things work here. The majority of the sources address birtherism as a Trump race relations issue. There were already past discussions on the topic which settled the consensus that birtherism and racism are connected in Trump's biography. There's no rule that living people who are racist, such as David Duke for example, can't be described as such if the sources say they are. Andrevan@ 04:31, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Andrevan, you only have 500 edits in the last three years. For all you/we know, Daniel has been editing as an IP and "figured out how things work here" quite a while ago. In fact, he knows this talk page and the article has specific and numerous arbitration remedies, something you didn't seem to know just 24 hours ago until someone pointed it out to you. All that in mind, do you think you should be looking down at their number of edits as a non-IP account? Please, remember WP:FOC, okay? As far as your claims that reliable sources state Birtherism + Trump = Racism, that's opinion. It's still not proven nor do you have a direct quote from Trump that would label him as such. No matter how many times you or anyone else will claim it is/does. It really doesn't matter what you or I or anyone else thinks about Trump's views on race relative to this article. Why? Because we're all supposed to adhere to BLP, RS, SYNTH, and OR policy. Can we just forget that this is a politically-based article, drop the differences in the way of personal political beliefs, stop attacking each other based on assumptions of who believes what and votes for whom, and just get back to writing an unbiased and un-agenda-ized encyclopedia. Pretty please? -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 04:50, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

The consensus is settled here and "it's not proven" is not the consensus. That's the relevant point. Andrevan@ 04:56, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

(responding to Plainview 04:16 UTC) Most Misplaced Pages policy is necessarily vague and open to interpretation. You have your interpretations, others have theirs. You feel your interpretation is crystal clear and self-evident, as do your opponents. The "correct" interpretation is decided by consensus and there is no higher court. If that is not sufficient, then something is in fact broken, and Misplaced Pages is largely a failed proposition. For the time being I choose to believe that it's sufficient enough. The current consensus on this question is "no consensus", which means leaving the status quo. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:32, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

"A balanced view does not need to be a sympathetic view – our article on Adolf Hitler does not portray him as a sensitive and misunderstood individual who was kind to his mother – but it does need to reflect the balance of opinion among reputable authorities." WP:BALASPS Andrevan@ 04:46, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Trump is not Hitler. The comparison is disproportionate, irrelevant, and off-topic as well as inappropriate. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 04:53, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Godwin himself of Godwin's Law fame said his law doesn't apply to Trump. Regardless, it's the example cited in Misplaced Pages policy. I didn't write it. (Misplaced Pages:Tendentious_editing#One_who_assigns_undue_importance_to_a_single_aspect_of_a_subject)Andrevan@ 04:56, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

If BALASPS WP:TE intended for the principle to be restricted to individuals like Hitler, it would have very little utility as a principle. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:05, 26 May 2018 (UTC) I have notified WP:TE that its BALASPS shortcut box is incorrect. Use the above wikilink instead. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:35, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

By the way, Plainview, my !vote in the RfC was consistent with your position, but the fact that I lost doesn't make me support another bite at the apple after only 10 days. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:52, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes, this has already been addressed extensively. It would be much less of a resource drain for the OP to actually read the archives, the sources, the noticeboard discussions, and spinoff article rather than for all of us to WP:REHASH this.- MrX 🖋 12:21, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

• Note that User:Mr. Daniel Plainview, who started this thread and made a dozen subsequent comments in it, has been blocked as a sock of Hidden Tempo. Their comments have been struck. --MelanieN (talk) 15:42, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Right, which speaks even louder for a close of this thread, which "Hidden Plainview" started and which revisits an issue covered by an RfC closed about 10 days ago. If they hadn't blatantly violated policy we wouldn't be here, and to allow this to continue is to reward that and encourage more of it. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:47, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Well, now the comments have been unstruck, but the problem of sockpuppetry remains. I agree with Mandruss that this discussion should be closed soon, since it was started and urged along by a sock. --MelanieN (talk) 15:57, 26 May 2018 (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.

"Racial views" need to be balanced

There were numerous discussions about Trump's purported racial views at Talk:Racial views of Donald Trump. In particular, it was hotly debated whether that article included Trump's views on racism and race relations, or merely perceptions of racism by his critics. The jury is still out. See for example Talk:Racial views of Donald Trump/Archive 2#The title chosen for the article. The examples chosen in that article tend to imply racist motives, but other examples from Trump's life tend to imply inclusiveness. Strangely enough, when we add a racist-sounding event, it gets vindicated, and when we add a clearly non-racist event, it gets discarded. Examples: Talk:Racial views of Donald Trump#Removal of Palm Beach clubs, Talk:Racial views of Donald Trump#Trump donated Wall Street office space to Jesse Jackson's PUSH Coalition. Compare these:

• Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio (a white man criticized for racist profiling): he's definitely racist!
• Trump pardoned Jack Johnson (a black man convicted on racist grounds): not a word on the "Racial views" page…

Such an attitude does not sound encyclopedic to me. — JFG 10:43, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

That's cherry picking. You want balance? American balance or global balance? By the standards of a majority of people in most countries outside the USA, Trump is, without any doubt at all, a racist himself, and smart enough to use racism as a political tool. HiLo48 (talk) 10:48, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Cherry-picking goes both ways, and that's precisely what we should avoid as Wikipedians. Actually, Trump has attacked people irrespective of race, gender or political party. When he attacks a black politician like Barack Obama he is considered racist, and when he attacks a female politician like Hillary Clinton he is considered misogynist. When he attacks a conservative politician like Jeb Bush or Ted Cruz, he is considered a traitor to Republican values. When he attacks a veteran like John McCain he is considered disrespectful to the military. But when he praises Martin Luther King, when he hires Ben Carson, when he pardons Jack Johnson, is he racist? When he appoints Nikki Haley, Linda McMahon or Gina Haspel, is he a misogynist? When he wants a military parade, is he smearing the military? (Oh right, then he's a childish dictator…) Everything he does is viewed under a lens of evil symbolism, and that is quite puzzling to behold for a dispassionate outside observer of American politics. — JFG 11:03, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

That reads almost as if you're trying to prove that Trump is inconsistent and hypocritical. Is that your point? HiLo48 (talk) 11:19, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Quite the opposite: he seems very consistent in not caring about race, gender or political affiliation. And in my book, that's the exact opposite of a racist, a misogynist or a partisan hack. — JFG 11:20, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

JFG, It's helpful that you forthrightly concede that these issues puzzle you. That's much more constructive than saying they do not exist. But the consensus of editors here accepts RS reporting that these issues do indeed exist, and although they are at times complex, cloaked, or controversial, we are past the point of glib denial of any of them. SPECIFICO talk 11:43, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

JFG, the editors here are by and large well-read and thoughtful. When you promote your POV by claiming, e.g. that Arpaio's problem was "racial profiling" (fuzzy, controversial and political) rather than the serious crime for which a US court sentenced him to prisonconvicted him, it's very unlikely that editors are going to seriously consider whatever parts of your argument may actually have some merit and result in article improvement. SPECIFICO talk 11:37, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Arpaio was never sentenced to prison. In fact, he was never sentenced at all. And if he had been sentenced to serve time, it would have been to jail, not prison. Facts, and knowledge of them, are important -- as well as being thoughtful and well read. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 11:50, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Is jail better than prison? Weird. Maybe it's some strange American thing. HiLo48 (talk) 12:11, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Prison and jail are two very different types of incarceration with different legal involvement and government jurisdictions. Nothing weird about it and definitely not just an "American thing". -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 12:30, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the arrogant, unhelpful response. They are NOT different things in my country. Why do you think I asked the question? Where in the world DO they differ? Got a formal definition? HiLo48 (talk) 23:17, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

In the US it is a somewhat loosely defined difference between a local place of incarceration such as one run by a city or municipality where inmates are either awaiting trial or serving short sentences that are usually not felonies whereby prisons are usually run by a state or the federal government and house inmates convicted to serve longer sentences (like more than a year) and/or felonies.--MONGO 04:18, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

If it's any comfort, this distinction is also nonsense in the USA, where Federal facilities are uniformly called "prisons" and that's where folks chill after criminal contempt of Federal Court. SPECIFICO talk 23:22, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

I will accommodate you by revising to "convicted him" - the meaning is the same and then you can reply to the substance of my remark -- or not. SPECIFICO talk 11:56, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

"Accommodation" was neither requested nor necessary. But, I am glad you accepted the correction in good faith. I saw the substance of your comments to be chastising JFG and reminding him editors are well read and thoughtful before you stated incorrectly the result of Arpaio's trial. Hence, I believe already commented on the substance when I pointed out the misinformation in your retelling of events. Plus, it's important for those reading this to not be mislead by the furthering of bad information, which is why I corrected you. That kind of good faith effort should be the focus and substance of most comments regarding encyclopedic knowledge, don't you think? -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 12:24, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

@SPECIFICO: I have no personal opinion about Joe Arpaio, never heard of him before his pardon came to the news. I strongly object to your trying to discredit my arguments by accusing me of "promoting my POV" because I wrote that Arpaio was indicted for "racial profiling". I was only reading what is documented in our articles about this man and his pardon, namely: In the case of Melendres v. Arpaio, Arpaio's office was found to be racial profiling Latinos and ordered to stop. Arpaio was found to have violated the court order, resulting in a finding of criminal contempt against him. The article does not mention any other indictment than contempt of court for refusing to answer charges of racial profiling and cease the practice. If there are other charges, please enlighten us and add them to the relevant articles.

Now this deflection is out of the way, I'd love to read comments about my actual point, which compares the pardon of a white man to the pardon of a black man, and wonders why an encyclopedic article or section on Trump's "racial views" should expound on the first and ignore the second. — JFG 14:10, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

No, your deflection is not "out of the way" because if you do not understand that you have again (this time very explicitly) misrepresented the facts and the RS accounts, then you should not be citing that matter in an editing discussion here. Note that this is based on an assumption that you have in good faith misunderstood the issue. As to your second point, the fact that you are holding "white" and "black" out as the relevant issues in a matter relating to US law or the Presidential power to grant a pardon, is itself a fundamentally racist POV and is precisely what we're trying to avoid here. The essence of prejudicial thinking and attitudes is to tag folks with race, religion, creed, or other classes when the actual facts on the table relate to the merits of a specific instance of action, law, or other principle. Again, this is not a disparagement of you or your motives, it's an indictment of the ideas and arguments you are trying to advance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SPECIFICO (talk • contribs) 14:36, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Nice. I was countering your deflection, and I did not misrepresent anything. I won't argue further; readers of our dialogue can make up their own mind as to who is deflecting and how facts are represented. Plus I take note that you just called me a racist. Cool story, sis. — JFG 15:19, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

And speaking of "the merits of a specific instance of action", that was exactly my point. Was the pardon of Arpaio morally justified? Probably not. Was the pardon of Johnson morally justified? Definitely, absolutely, unambiguously yes. But we mustn't talk about it in Misplaced Pages because of the "Trump is a vile racist" trope. Sigh. — JFG 15:25, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

A good place to start is with multiple reliable sources that cover "other examples from Trump's life tend to imply inclusiveness" in a racial context, and that establish due weight. The case is not made by an editor using original research.- MrX 🖋 12:13, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Yeah. And that Jesse Jackson nonsense has already soaked up plenty of editor time here and been put to bed. It was rejected. SPECIFICO talk 01:13, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

The case is made by applying good editorial judgement and non-partisan views. Trump’s views have been expressed predominantly from a one-sided perspective; i.e., journalistic opinion and publication of the views of Trump’s detractors (biased) which appears to dominate for various reasons, but that does not address the issues of DUE, BALANCE or NPOV overall...the latter of which states that we include all relevant views. Omission of relevant views is noncompliant with policy. We also need to focus less on journalistic opinion and look to more academic opinion. For example, a view that is relevant and encyclopedic was presented by Carol Swain in Campus Reform. Include it using in-text attribution, and that is also how we should include other views per policy instead of lump sum news views that tend to be political in nature. An interesting article that speaks to the latter was published in Psychology Today but I’m sure there are higher quality sources available, although the author of that article is Ruth C. White, Ph.D., M.P.H., M.S.W. who passes the RS source test. Also keep in mind that if we’re going to start labeling people racist, there is hardline evidence in the Congressional record dating back to the 50s and 60s, and some of those people are still in office or public life today - just look to see who voted in opposition of integration and supported segregation. 14:19, 26 May 2018 (UTC) PS: I can’t remember the academic sources Drmies suggested to me a while back or if they were related to racial views but they were also academic, so if relevant here, maybe he will weigh-in.

One of those sources has nothing to do with the subject of this article and the other merely shows that a conservative television analyst and former professor of political science has an opinion which is at odds with the widespread view that Trump makes racially provocative remarks and has taken actions perceived as racially motivated. There are also a few scholars comprising a tiny minority who don't believe in anthropogenic global warming. - MrX 🖋 14:37, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

"the other merely shows that a conservative television analyst and former professor of political science has an opinion" Let's be sure we are concise here (because knowledge and facts are important for people writing an encyclopedia) and give an honest perspective: that conservative television analyst and former professor at Vanderbilt is a Black woman with a Ph.D. She grew up in poverty, dropped out of high school, was a single mother of three at age 21 who supported herself and her kids by working at McDonald's while getting her GED. She went to community college while still raising her children and continued on to get her undergrad and graduate degrees, eventually achieving her Ph.D. and after that, a Master's in Legal Studies from Yale Law. All of that background, all of that education, and having her scholarly work cited by two Associate Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court makes her "opinion" on Trump and racism/misogynism quite relevant as well as important. And certainly much more relevant and important than anyone who is not Black, not a woman, wasn't raised impoverished/extremely disadvantaged and has no proof of Trump's alleged racism/misogyny while maintaining he is a racist sexist. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 16:57, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

This conversation needs to be closed. It was started by a sock puppet. The consensus and the reliable sources all link birtherism to racism. There was a recent RFC and consensus was reached on some things; no new consensus is reached here. That's not up for dispute. If someone has a concrete point to make make it, otherwise let's discuss real article issues and not abstract stuff. Andrevan@ 18:45, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

I agree that the birtherism thread should be closed, both because of the socking and because it's kinda pointless. However, the present thread about Trump's racial views in general should remain open because the conversation is only starting, and the sock is not involved in it; accordingly I have changed it to a level-2 header. — JFG 20:35, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

• +1 agree with JFG. I started reading the Racial Views section in this article, and the first thing that caught my eye was the 1st sentence in the 3rd paragraph which is clearly spun to support a particular POV as the following will demonstrate:
• First sentence in WP article states:

Trump launched his 2016 presidential campaign with a speech in which he described Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists.

• In the cited sources, Time, and Sky, both quote Trump (the Time quote includes a bit more than the Sky quote) as follows:

“They are not our friend, believe me,” he said, before disparaging Mexican immigrants: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

• See 2018 report by the Center for Immigration Centers, and this BBC report. I think the paragraph needs to reflect what editors are obligated to include per NPOV (WEIGHT & BALANCE) and BLP. There is far too much omission, even when it's included in the cited sources as what I just demonstrated. 21:38, 26 May 2018 (UTC) Adding New York Times, 2016 ICE stats, USA Today, and whatever else you want to read. 00:11, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Are you saying that we should include, "and some I assume are good people"? I'm all for that. Gandydancer (talk) 22:13, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

You think using a source with a 'study' that has been debunked and labeled an anti-immigrant hate group provides "weight and balance"? You believe listing a story from the BBC about a drug tunnel proves that "Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists"? I have to wonder what kind of thought process one has to have to believe these are NPOV. Dave Dial (talk) 23:16, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm not saying to cite the sources I included - you're free to skip the ones you don't like or read none at all - but please keep your comments focused on the omission of material that was in the already cited material, and not the thought process of other editors. 00:11, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Atsme, you seem to be saying that because there are stories of actual drug trafficking and cartels, and immigration enforcement, that therefore Trump's comment about Mexican immigrants is justified. What I think is important to understand is that Trump's blanket statements about immigrants being rapists or traffickers are racist regardless of the statistics of how many people that statement actually describes. Even if 51% of Mexicans were criminals it would still be racist. Do you disagree? I realize we're veering off-track a bit relative to issues of sourcing or article text, but I'm really shocked that you are offering this material as proof that Trump was making a defensible, and not racially-motivated point. Andrevan@ 00:23, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

"Even if 51% of Mexicans were criminals it would still be racist." Xenophobic, maybe. Racist? No. Talking about criminals who come from other countries is not "racist". If he had mentioned the color of their skin, I could see the racism tag being applied. But commenting on the people coming into a country illegally from another country is not racist. After all, if Trump had commented on anyone coming here from Canada illegally who committed crimes -- that would not be considered racist, would it? Of course not. This is an encyclopedia. The hope is that editors helping to write the encyclopedia would know the difference between racism and possible xenophobia. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 00:51, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Here's the thing - it doesn't matter if you or I can split hairs successfully about whether the true descriptor is "xenophobic" or "racist." It matters what the sources say. If there's a reasonable dispute about what the sources say we can hash that out in depth, and ultimately consensus wins the day. The sources tend to describe Trump and his actions, behaviors, and other stuff as racist. If there's a minority view that it is "xenophobic" only, that may merit a sentence in a sub-section depending on how WP:FRINGE it is. Andrevan@ 01:06, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict)What reliable sources (and not opinion pieces) declare Trump's comments as quoted above to be racist? And if the actual term for his comments are xenophobic, who really cares if it's a minority view or not? I know I don't on a personal basis. Right is right, regardless of whether it's accepted by a minority or majority of people overall. And honestly, that's a big part of the problem with consensus decisions in Misplaced Pages: a consensus borne out of the majority being dead wrong doesn't make the minority view any less correct or true. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 01:15, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

You appear to be saying you reject NPOV. If so, you should not edit articles where you do not accept the consensus view. SPECIFICO talk 01:21, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Not sure how you got that out what I said, but no -- that's not what I'm saying at all. My editing history should speak for itself in that regard. I go with the consensus view and fight for NPOV constantly, full stop. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 01:46, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

I don't think that view even rises to the level of FRINGE. SPECIFICO talk 01:10, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Why don't the people that feel the article is biased add some edits to the Analysis section at the Racial views article. There are around 12 comments by recognizable names that say he is a racist. People that are asking for balance could start there by adding equally well-known people who say he's not. Gandydancer (talk) 02:28, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

True we should be trying to prove a negative. Everyone is racist these days, kind of sad. Similar to a lot of articles about right wing issues transformed into the derogatory alt-right with challenges to find sources that say the subject is not alt-right. PackMecEng (talk) 03:00, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Here's my take on it: The part of Trump's quote that gave it proper context - And some, I assume, are good people - was omitted, and it belongs in the article. It is not our job to "justify" anything or RIGHTGREATWRONGS, and we should not be stating opinions as facts or cherrypicking quotes, or stating seriously contested assertions as facts, we state them as opinions. Contentious labels or value-laden labels are best avoided unless widely used by reliable sources to describe the subject, in which case use in-text attribution.

1. The 1st sentence in that paragraph, which is stated in WikiVoice, omits part of the quote which changed it's context. That needs to be fixed.
2. The 2nd from last sentence in that same paragraph states: "His remarks were condemned as racist worldwide," which is also in WikiVoice, and that needs to be replaced with in-text attribution.
3. The 2nd half of that sentence states "as well as by several members of Congress."

I looked for the quotes in the 3 cited sources and all I found are allegations of racism by Congressional Democrats and the statement issued by the Haitian government. Following is the source breakdown:

• Vox (1st cited source) supports neither the statement "several members of Congress" nor around the world condemnation.
• WaPo (2nd cited source) reported that Gutiérrez (D-ILL) said, "The answer is this racist outburst of the president." That was the only statement about anyone in Congress using that term that I could find in that source. Keep in mind, the statement itself is alleged, and what is considered a seriously contested assertion (by Trump & others who attended that meeting) so it falls under WP:REDFLAG;
• Politico, (the 3rd cited source), reported that the Haitian gvt. issued a statement "that Trump’s remarks reflect a “racist view of the Haitian community”" - referencing an alleged comment that was denied. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) tweeted, “I could call @realDonaldTrump’s comments racist, vile and disgusting because that is what they are." Black Caucus chairman Cedric Richmond (D-La.) and Rep. Richard Nadler (D-N.Y.) condemned his racist statement. All I've found so far is partisan-based. Haiti's statement doesn't support "condemned as racist worldwide" to be stated in WikiVoice.

In summary, the aforementioned is why I believe the 3rd paragraph needs to be rewritten to (1) accurately reflect what the cited sources say, (2) be compliant with V regarding WP:REDFLAG challenged claims "with an apparent conflict of interest". Per the Neutrality section in V, (and NPOV) ...use in-text attribution: "John Smith argues that X, while Paul Jones maintains that Y," followed by an inline citation. 02:15, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

• Agreed and support the change. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 02:17, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose rewriting para, because there are a zillion more reliable sources that we can add to support the description of that sentence as racist. But if what you're asking is to add that "and some I assume..." part, fine, go ahead. Andrevan@ 02:23, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

• Comment Here is a link for There's no other word but racist': Trump's global rebuke for 'shithole' remark Are you sure that it's a good idea to include the names of all of the (many) congress members that commented on the shithole remark? I have no prob adding the "and I'm sure..." wording. Gandydancer (talk) 03:19, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

• Gandy, an example (very rough) could be something like...several Congressional Democrats responded to Trump's alleged *&%@* remark, including Gutiérrez (D-ILL) who said, "The answer is this racist outburst of the president" (putting it in the context of whatever his comment was in response to) or something along that line - or...instead of Gutiérrez go with Black Caucus chairman Cedric Richmond (D-La.) and Rep. Richard Nadler (D-N.Y.) condemned Trump's racist statement ....(quote) yada yada." Remember when Obama said Libya was a *&#@ show? It was downplayed pretty quickly before it became an issue - media defended it. All forgotten today. Anyway, I would not venture into trying to make Trump's alleged comment appear to be more than what it is as far as long term encyclopedic material goes. We still have a few more years left to add content. 05:25, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Atsme, re the remarks from Congress, other than changing "several" to "many", which is more accurate (we list nine at the racial views article but many were trimmed when the list grew too long), I see no reason to changes the wording. However if you feel that it would be more balanced to add a name I'd suggest John Lewis. As for comparing Trump's remarks to one that Obama made, there is no comparison IMO. Obama condemned rich white nations for the mess/shitstorm in Libya while Trump called several black nations shitholes which resulted in worldwide condemnation. Gandydancer (talk) 13:57, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Fact: Democrats are the ones calling Trump's alleged statement racist and that's what we are obligated to keep in perspective and out of WikiVoice. We can simply say "several Congressional Democrats responded to Trump's alleged *&%@* remark as being racist" which complies with NPOV and BLP policy. While there may be no perceived comparison between the two statements, the facts I attempted to make known are (1) Obama actually said those words, he never denied saying them, and the media agreed with him, regardless of his reasons, excuses or whether or not anyone believed it and (2) in Trump's case, the statement was repeatedly denied, the allegations were made by his opponents, and there is no factual evidence that he actually said those words, much less in the context his opposition believes they were said. We are discussing the inclusion of racist allegations against a BLP based on allegations made by his opponents. Let's at least try to get this BLP right by attributing the bias per policy. I'm not arguing for exclusion, I'm arguing for DUE and BALANCE because like it or not, we're still dealing with an unsupported allegation that lacks evidence - it's a he said/she said allegation - and the denials are as equal in weight as the allegations. 16:01, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Atsme, To add Democrat's congressional reaction would be fine with me as it is more accurate. As for your memory of the incident, it is far from accurate. Here is an overview of it: If you are calling the incident a lie made up to harm Trump you are calling an awful lot of people liars, including people who are not known for lying. Whereas Trump is famous for his lies. Perhaps there were some who saw it as a he said/she said incident but by and large the world did not. The heads of nations responded; even a UN spokesperson responded with condemnation. This incident in no way even comes close to a comparison to the Obama's statement. Gandydancer (talk) 16:52, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

• Comment: "And some, I assume, are good people." If anything, that makes Trump sound even more of a racist, so add it by all means. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:49, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
• Since we’re now continuing the discussion as if it hadn’t been started by a sockpuppet and as if this former subsection were a new and separate discussion, and since - with references to the closed discussion in the mix - it got too convoluted to tell who was responding to whom or what, just adding this opinion below what's here right now.

• JFG: This is not the Racial views of Donald Trump article, so you may want to move your arguments concerning that page over there. Also: "…Joe Arpaio, never heard of him before his pardon came to the news." So the Stephen Colbert persona was right: "Misplaced Pages - the encyclopedia where you can be an authority even if you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about." (Let me help: CNN, NPR, in case you want to continue this on the other page. Arpaio wasn’t just criticized for racist profiling, a court ordered him to stop racial profiling practices, and he was convicted of contempt of court because he ignored the orders (he just can't be punished for it). BTW, having been pardoned doesn’t make Arpaio innocent, and it doesn’t wipe his conviction off the records.)
• There is an archived discussion from four months ago; this looks very much like a continuation of it so it should be unarchived and continued properly.
• Balance? As in, "OK, so he makes racist remarks all the time, but we need to balance that by adding that he doesn’t mean it because it’s just Trump-speak, and we all know he’s not racist because he says so." I had a good laugh at was a bit puzzled by the proposed "balancing" of the first sentence by adding "And some, I assume, are good people." That sentence just drove home what Trump was doing, i.e., generalizing (Mexicans in general are this and that), and that’s exactly what the current sentence expresses; Trump didn’t say ALL, and Misplaced Pages doesn’t say that he did. The added sentence (saying he’s guessing based on little or no evidence that some may not be) makes it worse, so go for it. Nah, just kidding; it’s fine the way it reads now. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 13:02, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

To your first point, that's exactly what I said after reading all the Arpaio articles we have: he was indicted convicted (not sentenced as somebody pointed out above) for contempt of court after refusing to answer charges of racial profiling and stopping the practice. Some other editors mentioned unspecified "serious crimes" and I invited them to bring those to the relevant articles if any. Now, once again, why do y'all only talk about Arpaio's pardon and not about Jack Johnson's pardon? (third time I'm asking, and all I hear is crickets). — JFG 13:14, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Sylvester Stallone recommended the pardon to him, a pardon is not an annulment of the conviction, and the dead man probably doesn't care. Maybe Trump would apologize for his very public condemnation of the Central Park Five if Sylvester Stallone were to tell him that that was the right thing to do. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 13:37, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Arpaio was convicted, not merely indicted. The case did not enter the sentencing phase because of the presidential pardon, but the conviction still stands. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 13:47, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I mixed up "indicted" with "convicted". While editing this comment, I had initially written "sentenced" but noticed that was wrong, and changed it to "indicted"; convicted it is. This should assuage SPECIFICO's concerns as well. — JFG 19:35, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

To your second point, this discussion is legitimate here because the "Racial views" section takes up a significant amount of real estate on Trump's main bio, and it looks slanted because it only mentions accusations of racism citing various incidents, while deliberately ignoring other events that would speak against racial animus in Trump's actions. Sorry if I sound like a broken record, but I'd rather have a proper discussion of bias on this talk page rather than fighting over NPOV tags in the article text. — JFG 13:18, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

@JFG:, to resume the editing discussion, now that you've hatted various editors' remarks, let's get back to what is on the table, given that you've read everything in this thread prior to your inexplicable comment about nobody demonstrating a "serious crime". Now that you have conceded that, in the matter of Arpaio, we are discussing a person convicted of criminal contempt of court, a felony under US Federal law -- do you deny that this is a "serious crime"? If so, this confuses and biases the conversation, deflecting discussion away from the core issues raised above that might lead to constructive improvement of article text. A felony is by definition a serious crime. Did you not know that when -- after reading this entire thread you referred to "unspecified serious crimes"? Thanks SPECIFICO talk 19:59, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

You seem more astute than I am regarding criminal vocabulary of the U.S. judicial system; I'll defer to your expertise. In your prior remarks, I had the impression that you alluded to other "serious crimes" that I would have failed to notice. That does not seem to be the case, thanks for the clarification. — JFG 20:05, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Good, thanks. Note that in my oft-stated concern about your use of English to insinuate POV in politics articles, I have not said this was an intentional deception. I have noted that the bias always seems to align with a particular pro-Trump viewpoint, but by itself this would not prove malicious intent. I do think that it would be helpful if you would try to be more receptive to the comments you get about such issues here. Small twists of language and sentence structure can make a huge difference in these American Politics articles, whereas the wording is not anywhere near as critical in most other topic areas on WP. SPECIFICO talk 21:03, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm always receptive to polite and good-faith commentary. Let's not see POV insinuation where we all wish to improve article quality, tone and balance. — JFG 21:45, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Strikes on Syria undue for lede?

The lede section currently mentions the two missile strikes on Syrian infrastructure in retaliation for chemical weapons attacks. As evoked in an earlier discussion, these events were one-off actions, and as such they do not look notable enough to be included as a key foreign policy event. I would suggest to remove this sentence. What do my fellow editors think? — JFG 13:27, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

• Exclude - I encourage editors - please - go read the bios of past presidents - eventually, this bio will end-up along the same lines as those of former presidents in size and presentation - and those presidents served 2 terms. Unless the plan is to start Trumpipedia, and I imagine he'd like nothing more, we cannot include all of his actions as president in his personal bio. It's quite obvious that even Presidency of Donald Trump is going to need trimming to keep it inline with statements of fact, and less journalistic opinion (currently news style instead of/should be encyclopedic). Content forks will be created, and that's where some of this outlying material needs to go - keep relevant material in relevant articles, and clean-up the problematic syntax and challenged spin, such as what I've pointed out above. WP:NOTNEWS: While news coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion and regarding the syntax and MOS: Misplaced Pages is also not written in news style. Wikinews and WikiTribune are thataway. ↗ 14:29, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
• Exclude. As JFG pointed out, these are one-offs and because of that, the content is not lead appropriate. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 14:39, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Syria two occasions -> two strikes_two_strikes-2018-05-27T14:47:00.000Z">

@JFG: pinging due to refactoring into separate section. SPECIFICO talk 15:00, 27 May 2018 (UTC)_two_strikes"> _two_strikes">

• related problem - recent "copy edit": JFG, you made what you marked as a "copy edit" that changed the meaning of the article text. You removed the reference to "two occasions" and replaced it with "two strikes". Two strikes could easily be (mis)interpreted as referring to two salvos on a single occasion. Please restore the "two occasions" text you removed. We may decided to strike this from the lede, but meanwhile the meaning should not have been changed under edit summary of "copy edit." Thanks. SPECIFICO talk 14:47, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

I did not remove "two occasions". Prior text said "twice". New text is equivalent. — JFG 19:27, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

It's now ambiguous as to whether it was one order for two strikes or two orders for one strike each. The question is whether that's important. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:31, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

JFG, you're simply denying my complaint based on what? That I paraphrased? Once again, this feels like deflection on a straightforward matter. As Mandruss I believe has confirmed, the explicit clear meaning is now ambiguous and unclear to at least some of our readers. That was my initial point and so I once again ask you to restore the clear version you "copy-edited". SPECIFICO talk 19:41, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

OK, I'll restore "twice". I'll keep the "in retaliation" part because it's more precise than "after". Hope you agree. — JFG 19:47, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Coal

Why doesnt the article mention Trump support of coal? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.51.215.40 (talk) 15:19, 27 May 2018 (UTC) De-shouted and removed 22 of 23 question marks per WP:IAR. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:26, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

I dunno. Because it's super embarrassing? -- Scjessey (talk) 16:45, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Not helpful. Also not necessarily accurate. (Personal attack removed) -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 17:03, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

@Winkelvi: For the record, I am not an American; however, for the last seventeen years I have lived in "The Coal State". -- Scjessey (talk) 22:38, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Then for my comment above, I accept responsibility for making a completely wrong judgement re: your home-status. I was under the false belief you lived across the pond. Of course then, you are aware of what people in and outside the industry feel from a personal, first hand perspective. You have my sincere apologies. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 22:47, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Do you have any reliable sources mentioning the steps he took to "support coal," whatever that means? In the last quarter of 2017, coal jobs and production were down. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 17:25, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Actions don't always indicate support. Support is also an expression, not just a deed or action taken. Trump has been vocally for coal production and use in the past. All that considered, I'm not sure that coal itself needs to be singled out, although it could be mentioned (if not already) in regard to his energy policy in general. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 17:42, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Looks like a minor thing; place it in Energy policy of the Trump administration or some such. Undue for the bio. — JFG 19:52, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Add note about House & Senate investigations

"Similar investigations were begun in the House Intelligence Committee, which closed concluding there was no collusion, and the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is ongoing." Andrevan@ 18:40, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

That would need to be more like, "The House Intelligence Committee opened a similar investigation, but it was terminated by the Republican majority, who stated that there was no collusion. A parallel Senate Intelligence Committee investigation is ongoing as of May, 2018." SPECIFICO talk 18:46, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Sounds good Andrevan@ 18:54, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

OK with me. May as well insert. SPECIFICO talk 19:07, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Take a look at what Time reported - they quoted the HIC: “While the committee found no evidence that the Trump campaign colluded, coordinated, or conspired with the Russian government, the investigation did find poor judgment and ill-considered actions by the Trump and Clinton campaigns.” Of course, it's no surprise the Democrats would object and call foul - the same would happen in reverse - but we have to ask ourselves, where is the evidence? If they have it, turn it over to Mueller because he doesn't have any, either. The articles of our past presidents are excellent guidelines - especially Barrack Obama which was promoted to FA. It wouldn't hurt to refer to it every now and then, and I would think it would be quite helpful to review the discussions that took place during the FARs. 19:16, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

There's nothing on the table about the Clinton campaign, Obama, Jefferson, or others for this brief addition to the article. SPECIFICO talk 19:20, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Atsme, could you elaborate as to the nature of your objection to this text? Andrevan@ 19:34, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Apologies if I left you with the impression I objected. APPROVE <--- does that help? I should have stated that first but for good measure I added that the HIC admonished both sides, and would not object to using their conclusion as in-text attribution with the added material. 19:51, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

@Andrevan: Where do you suggest to insert this? — JFG 19:53, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

In the lead, directly after Trump's claim of "no collusion." Andrevan@ 20:47, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Would look a bit overly detailed there, wouldn't you say? Surely can be mentioned in the "Investigations" section, which needs some update and text improvement anyway. — JFG 21:48, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Not the lede. The investigations section. And I do favor using something like SPECIFICO's version, making it clear that the House Intelligence Committee report came only from the Republican members and not from the full committee. --MelanieN (talk) 22:09, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Repeat sentence challenged

@MrX: About your revert, here was my rationale:

1. The article says, when discussing Trump's "shitholes" comment: His remarks were condemned as racist worldwide, as well as by several members of Congress. Two lines later, we say practically the same thing: Trump's racially insensitive statements have been condemned by many observers in the U.S. and around the world. I thought that sounded redundant, so I trimmed it. You do point out that the first instance only talks about the "shitholes" incident, while the latter is more generic. Perhaps we could keep just the generic version then? I don't think it makes much difference, because the international outcry was rather focused on the shitholes incident.
2. The Vox source does not talk about international condemnation, which is why it is superfluous here, as the sentence is already supported by three very good sources.

Would you agree to restore my edit, or do you have an alternate suggestion to resolve the above two concerns? — JFG 20:03, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Just to point out the discussion above is in regard to this same topic. Can we merge them for local consensus or should we call an RfC and skip the middleman arguments? I'm willing to do whatever is best to find resolution with minimal argument... 21:11, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Indeed, since there is no consensus right now about Trump or racial issues or the article text involving such, the stable version should stand. An RfC would be out of order at the current time. We need to discuss in further depth the considerations and concerns being raised. For example, there are a million Google results for trump racist shithole, many of which are reliable sources in 3rd party authoritative voice. Similarly there are many sources for the condemnation of the world, and so on. We can discuss which sources we prefer. I'm trying to find if there had been a prior discussion on this or another article about the reliability of Vox.Andrevan@ 21:19, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps we can all agree on a couple of things that Atsme and I discussed. She correctly said that the Democratic congress called the remarks racist, so that word could be added. I correctly said that more than "several" members of congress condemned the remarks. (See our discussion above). Perhaps the wording could be changed to "a number of"? Gandydancer (talk) 21:29, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Actually, Republican congressmen have attacked Trump's racism many times. Lindsey Graham said, "America is an idea, not a race,” In the aftermath of Charlottesville, Orrin Hatch and Marco Rubio both had critical comments Andrevan@ 21:35, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps...though I did not find any Republican using the word "racist" following this incident, though I could have missed some. Gandydancer (talk) 21:39, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Utah Republican Rep. Mia Love, whose family came from Haiti, called the president's comments "unkind, divisive elitist." They "fly in the face of our nation's values. This behavior is unacceptable from the leader of our nation," she said. Andrevan@ 21:45, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

So it looks like she refrained from calling those comments "racist", as Gandydancer pointed out. Thus I would have no objection to qualifying Congresspeople's condemnation as "Democrats". But I can also live without it, that is not such an important distinction, as this shitstorm did not look like a partisan issue. — JFG 22:00, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

@Andrevan: I don't think anybody is questioning the reliability of Vox as a source; I certainly am not. All I'm saying is that the cited Vox article by Zack Beauchamp does not support the sentence it is tacked on, as it says nothing about international or even domestic condemnation of Trump's remarks. Because we have several other great sources supporting this sentence, we can dispense with citing Vox here. — JFG 22:00, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

@JFG:. My suggestion would be to change the first occurrence of "condemned" to "characterized" or "criticized", and change "worldwide" to "widely". Something like "His remarks were widely-characterized as racist, including by several members of Congress." How's that sound (to anyone)?- MrX 🖋 21:32, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Listen to Graham's own words - CNN interview summarizes it. This section is about racism, not the opinion of his detractors, although we do include them with intext attribution. Include what Graham says but make sure it is a factual quotation of his statement as relevant to this section regarding racism. 21:51, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Graham attacked Trump for what were described in 3rd party voice by many RS as "racially charged comments." Mr. Graham referred to Mr. Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign as a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot." It's true that he walked back his critique and said he doesn't believe Trump is racist per se. We can include that too. Andrevan@ 21:56, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Trump doesn't strike me as a very religious person. 24.51.215.40 (talk) 03:27, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Right; Graham's statements while he was fighting Trump in the primaries should be given less weight than his more moderate words during the presidency. — JFG 22:04, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

That seems fair Andrevan@ 22:07, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

I don't understand the relevance of Graham's words to a sentence that summarizes a broad reaction. What are we talking about?- MrX 🖋 22:08, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, some editors mentioned Graham as an example of a Republican criticizing Trump; I don't think it's necessary to name names. — JFG 22:23, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Based on the diffs, I thought this was about his *&6^@ comment and the responses from Democrats that followed. If we're going to ID the HIC as majority Republican, then every decision should follow suit - the majority of Democrats considered his comment racist. Someone said Lindsey Graham supported the latter, and it simply isn't true based on the interview I included above. Graham denounces the claims of racism, and actually supports what you said JFG - he's that way with everybody. 22:31, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

For an example of Republican criticism, it's not appropriate to use the self-serving comments of an active politician who may support or oppose Trump on a per-day and per-issue basis. So forget Graham. But because so many Republicans and Conservatives do consistently condemn Trump, I suggest using one who's not in office -- e.g. David Frum, Jennifer Rubin, John Podhoretz, Steve Schmidt... SPECIFICO talk 22:42, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

So many "Republicans and Conservatives do consistently condemn Trump"? We need specifics please SPECIFICO. As for adding more pundits and bloggers like David Frum, Jennifer Rubin...uh, nope. If we're going to start identifying Republican House members in investigative decisions, then we should maintain consistency across the board - we either do or we don't include identity politics. Cherrypicking those we like in Congress is not NPOV, so I think we need to follow your original suggestion across the board regarding identity politics and say if it was a Republican or Democratic majority. The few stragglers in each party are not really notable. 23:09, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

I just gave you 4 prominent Republicans. SPECIFICO talk 03:46, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

@MrX: Your suggestion waters down the reactions; "condemned" is imho the adequate word reflecting most sources about this affair. And even if we adopted your change, there would still be a lot of redundancy between the two sentences. I would keep "condemned" after the "shitholes" incident, and briefly mention in the same breath that it was not the only time Trump's "racially-insensitive remarks" had met with widespread pushback, so that we don't have to keep two sentences that look very similar with only a denial and a paragraph break between them. We could then move Trump's denial near the "why his supporters accepted that" bit, as suggested in another edit by Space4Time3Continuum2x that was self-reverted due to your challenge of my prior edit. Putting it all together in Draft A below for comments. — JFG 22:53, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Draft A

As happened with several other incidents, his racially insensitive remarks attracted widespread condemnation domestically and worldwide, including by several members of Congress. Trump has denied accusations of racism multiple times, saying he is the "least racist person". His supporters have embraced his controversial statements either as a rejection of political correctness or because of their own racial views.

Thoughts? — JFG 22:53, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Oppose - with all due respect, that's lazy writing. There is no way to determine "widespread" either domestically or worldwide, and it certainly should not be stated in WikiVoice. None of us can say that for certain, not even media. 23:14, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

NYTimes, Politico, 5:38, NYMag, Vox, The Guardian...just some food for thought considering we have a mixed audience, and why I prefer to more closely adhere to policy when it comes to intext attribution and generalizing in WikiVoice. I'd rather err on the side of caution when all we have to cite are news sources rather than well researched, unbiased academic/scientific studies. 00:37, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

This kind of linking -- to sources questioning the media and talking about liberal bias -- is not productive here. See Misplaced Pages:Identifying reliable sources#News organizations Andrevan@ 02:45, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

I don't know why not. There's nothing wrong with questioning sources/media. It's not as if we have taken an oath to be true to the sources deemed reliable by Misplaced Pages when we created our accounts. There is liberal bias, just as there is conservative bias. I see discussions on talk pages at every politically charged article that talks about conservative bias and questions sources. What's good for the elephant is good for the donkey. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 03:08, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Do you have a source used in the article that you feel is not reliable because of liberal bias? Andrevan@ 03:17, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

We are talking about calling a US President a racist in WikiVoice, so I thought that since we're using some biased news sources and journalist opinion to do that, it would prove helpful for editors to be reminded of what media thinks of themselves, and maybe encourage the use of more academic sources. If we constantly cite news sources and say what they say, then what will distinguish WP from all the other news sources? It certainly doesn't hurt to provide a list of RS under such circumstances, especially where sound editorial judgment is needed. 03:24, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

You didn't answer my question. Basically every domestic and international news outlet covered Trump's racism on several occasions, not to mention academic sources. Is there a specific source or situation where you feel a source was not reliable that we can discuss? Andrevan@ 03:26, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm not saying they aren't RS - they can be biased and still be RS. What we're dealing with is stating an opinion in WikiVoice, and that is noncompliant with NPOV policy - and it is something that consensus cannot change. We state opinions as opinions per REDFLAG, NEWSORG, CONTENTIOUS LABELS and NPOV. I have already stated that it requires intext attribution. 03:37, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

"Basically every domestic and international news outlet covered Trump's racism" You have your terminology mixed up. News sources didn't "cover" Trump being a racist, individuals referred to Trump as a racist and news sources covered that. News sources published opinion pieces that referred to Trump as a racist. If you think I'm wrong about this, then please, Andrevan, post links to news sources that covered Trump being racist. And when you do that, make sure it's the kind of coverage that David Duke received over him being racist (that's coverage of racism) or that Richard guy the White Supremacist (can't remember his last name right now). That's covering an individual's blatant racism where they make undeniably racist statements and perform undeniably racist acts. Calling Trump a racist in an opinion piece is not covering "Trump's racism". Individuals calling Trump a racist is not covering "Trump's racism". You believing news sources have "covered Trump's racism", when they didn't is not proof of such coverage. It needs to be on par with news coverage of actual racism - then we can say they have "covered Trump's racism". I will look forward to seeing what you are able to come up with. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 03:44, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Here's a thought - When Senator Tim Scott was asked by Politico's Tim Alberta if he thought Trump was a racist, he shook his head and said “I don’t. I don’t,” he replies. “Is he racially insensitive? Yes. But is he a racist? No.” There are many other sources that say similar things so when you ask me if we should state in WikiVoice that he's racist, I say no - we use intext attribution, and we provide all views in the same manner. That is how it is supposed to be done with contentious labels and derogatory comments based on opinions. 03:49, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

(Responding to above thread) It's not a question of bias whether Trump has met with "widespread condemnation" on many occasions. He's scarcely cracked 40% approval rating in the US alone, and he's deeply unpopular abroad. His individual statements have also met with widespread condemnation. There's no OR in observing the basic facts of the descriptions of Trump and his actions and activities in everything from WSJ, Fox News, NYT, WaPo, BBC, Guardian, BuzzFeed, Trump is condemned by tons of people for almost everything he does or says. There are also plenty of scientific and scholarly treatments of Trumpism already. That's me talking, not the article. "We are talking about calling a US President a racist in WikiVoice, so I thought that since we're using some biased news sources and journalist opinion to do that, it would prove helpful for editors to be reminded of what media thinks of themselves," sorry, lost you there. In what way does Misplaced Pages policy say that US presidents get special treatment? "and maybe encourage the use of more academic sources" You mean like this one? Trust me, the academy is not going to help salvage Trump as a reasonably not racist person. At least in newsland there is the soft centrism that is actually right wing bias. The academy is where the socialist ivory tower academic intellectuals live, according to you guys, remember? Andrevan@ 03:51, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

The link you provided is another opinion piece. Where is the coverage of Trump being a David Duke? -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 04:01, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

That's actually not an opinion piece. It is a work of academic political science written by a professor whose job it is to write backward looking scholarly treatments, which is why he didn't publish until March 2018 and it's about the events of 2016. I only brought it up because Atsme referred to wanting more academic sources versus the bread and butter news org sources we generally use for current events stuff. There's plenty of all kinds of sources describing the widespread condemnation of Trump racism. But if you want the David Duke ones specifically here it's in a journal called "Terrorism and POlitical Violence." Did you know Trump has his own journal symposium now? Andrevan@ 04:06, 28 May 2018 (UTC) (P.S. the author is quite accomplished Michael Barkun so we could even call him out by name and give him a few sentences about his interpretation of Trump)

White supremacist support

In August 2016, he appointed Steve Bannon—the executive chairman of Breitbart News—as his campaign CEO; the website was described by Bannon as "the platform for the alt-right."

This seems like WP:OR. The citation makes no mention of white supremacy. Those words don't even appear in the linked article. 24.51.215.40 (talk) 03:14, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

No, not OR. Andrevan@ 03:16, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Then the Bannon quote should be moved elsewhere or the citation changed. The citation as it stands doesn't support the claim in the heading. 24.51.215.40 (talk) 03:20, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Nope - it's already in Donald_Trump_presidential_campaign,_2016 which is actually where it belongs. 03:30, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

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