Talk:2020 United States presidential election/Archive 6

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Stormy Daniels

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Consensus was to not list Stormy Daniels. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 13:56, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

---

Should Stormy Daniels be listed as a "Potential candidate" on United States presidential election, 2020? power~enwiki (π, ν) 23:08, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

• I oppose listing her. Public Policy Polling are notorious for "joke" polls, and no credible sources believes she will run. power~enwiki (π, ν) 23:08, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

• Darn! Those campaign posters would be collector's items. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 00:15, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose - This is a joke right, especially considering the source? PackMecEng (talk) 15:08, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
  • The poll is a joke, IMO. The RfC is not. I tried to BOLD-ly remove this and was reverted; an RfC is the easiest way to find consensus here. power~enwiki (π, ν) 01:16, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
• Neutral - As I said, a poll is a poll is a poll. I think it was actually quite interesting how they polled her against President Trump twice, once using her real name (Stephanie Clifford), and once with her significantly more well known stage name (Stormy Daniels). The large discrepancy (42-41-17 for Clifford|32-41-27 for Daniels) shows that the electorate would narrowly elect some generic Democrat they've never heard of named Stephanie Clifford over the incumbent President, however they would not actually vote in the porn star Stormy Daniels, even if she were the Democratic nominee. Really, it does come down to whether or not it's satirical, and we have a track record of bending the rules of the article in order to remove satirical candidates (Stephen Colbert and Vicente Fox, namely). I feel this could also eventually apply to Kanye West, as well. So in conclusion, while the neutralist in me wants to keep her (as well as Colbert and Fox) for the sake of adhering to the pre-established rules and the consensus on the article, I don't think we'd be losing much by removing her (let's keep her polls in the polling section, regardless). IOnlyKnowFiveWords (talk) 00:29, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Did you include bofa Deez Nuts in 2016? [1] power~enwiki (π, ν) 01:16, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose - There is no indication that she will run, furthermore, the source could be better and most likely isn't serious considering her current profession.Qballer82 (talk) 01:54, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oh, come on. Vanamonde (talk) 05:32, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

• Please remove her, i've asked for her name to be removed before and have been ignored for whatever reason. There's no reason to believe she is even interested but for some reason people seem to really want her up there. It's weird honestly. FuturePresident (talk) 17:15, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
• Do not list Daniels (which should really have been Clifford to begin with). There's no indication that she would run and the source is somewhat questionable. K.e.coffman (talk) 04:33, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

PPP is a frequently cited poll that currently has a B+ rating from FiveThirtyEight. IOnlyKnowFiveWords (talk) 06:49, 12 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.

#Kanye2024

Kanye is going for the Republican nomination in 2024, to continue Trump's legacy [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]. This page needs to remove him as a "2020 independent" ASAP if it wants to maintain ANY credibility. Stormy Daniels as a candidate seriously? Grow up.--2A02:C7D:892B:3D00:39F4:FA94:D0CF:5925 (talk) 05:14, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

We only cite public statements, not social media posts. You're mocking Stormy Daniels, who has met the criteria of the article by being featured in a national poll, but if we allowed social media posts to dictate who's on the article, this would open the floodgates to include the likes of Chris Rock, Katy Perry, Ron Perlman, and Charlie Sheen. I've always been a bit skeptical of West's inclusion at all, but he made a public announcement at the VMAs rather than Perlman for example, who's only made a Facebook post about 2020. We must be non-partial. Daniels might seem ridiculous, but why should she be excluded over, say, someone like Ted Cruz, who was on the page solely based on his polling appearances before formally endorsing Trump for 2020. IOnlyKnowFiveWords (talk) 10:38, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

I also suggested removing Kanye at one point. However, what with no social media, he needs to stay. However, I take issue with the fact that Brad Thor is listed as a candidate, he only did a social media post. - A person who sadly doesn't quite understand how to sign my posts, 5/8/18. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.110.185.157 (talk) 20:20, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

In defense of Thor, he would've normally not met the criteria as he initially only tweeted about running. However The Washington Times, who broke the story, received an exclusive statement from Thor which counts as a public statement outside of social media. IOnlyKnowFiveWords (talk) 22:07, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

OK, I missed that. My bad. Out of curiosity, when/if Kanye doesn't make the ballot, will he be listed as failed to qualify or declined? - dont know how to sign — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.30.52.201 (talk) 19:49, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

I don't think West's bid can be in any way compared to that porn star, it sounds like he's serious about running, plus he probably has the money, connections, and base of support to run, and likely would be able to bring a large new voting block to whichever party/platform he chose. West might not be running as soon as 2020, but I support his further inclusion in this article until we can say for certain. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7D:892B:3D00:2D8D:8ADA:BC12:3330 (talk) 11:00, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Democratic paragraph

I think the paragraph on the Democratic Party is overemphasizing the party division thing. Also, why is it mentioning House races and impeachment and whatnot? The comment about the "old folk's home" is inappropriate, too. I understand the need for Wikipedia to have critical narratives, and full disclosure, I am a Democrat, but it almost seems like the purpose of the paragraph is to elevate division, distract from the discussion at hand, disqualifying potential candidate's abilities, and other major distractions. I think the Democrats are over the Perez-Ellison rift (I think) and it wasn't very big to begin with. I don't see how impeachment is relevant here, especially in the context of House races. Perhaps some of this information could be shifted over to article(s) on House races. Note I am not asking anyone to add this, but nothing is mentioned about momentum an opposition party often has when not in power. We have seen that in the past with the Tea Party and now with the so-called "blue wave." Granted you could take what I say with a grain of salt, but I feel like some of this might have been written to dwell on certain House races other than the 2020 Presidential election.

Anyone have thoughts? Feel free to critique me if you see fit. It's also ok to partially or fully agree/disagree with my assessment. I might be somewhat clouded by bias but want others' feedback.

-TenorTwelve (talk) 04:07, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

I agree, I think that the irrelevant information should be removed and moved to an appropriate page. I am also speaking as a democrat, but I do agree, unless similar information is added to the republican paragraph BananaIAm (talk) 20:14, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

I trimmed down a lot of the details, but Democrats trying to out-progressive each other (and whether or not the more progressive candidate actually gets nominated) in the midterm primaries is widely considered a prelude to the 2020 primaries. The Republican section has similar mention to potential "shadow campaigns" against President Trump. Senator Reid's comments also are both relevant and noteworthy, similar comments are featured for Republicans from Senators McCain, Flake, Collins, Paul, and Governor Christie. IOnlyKnowFiveWords (talk) 04:57, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

What do you guys think of these official wiki rules?

I think we may be breaking some of these rules in our page. Im just saying maybe. I want to know what others think. WP:NOTNEWSPAPER

• Ensure Wikipedia pages are not:

1. A diary. Even when an individual is notable, not all events they are involved in are. For example, news reporting about celebrities and sports figures can be very frequent and cover a lot of trivia, but using all these sources would lead to over-detailed articles that look like a diary.

1. Who's Who. Even when an event is notable, individuals involved in it may not be. Unless news coverage of an individual goes beyond the context of a single event, our coverage of that individual should be limited to the article about that event, in proportion to their importance to the overall topic.

My take: A diary: Just because someone has a wikipedia page and is involved in an event that also has a wikipedia page doesnt mean they merit being mentioned in that event's wiki. Kanye West, Lawrence Jackson, Jonathan the Impaler are all notable but not necessarily worthy to be mentioned in everything they are involved in, such as the 2020 election.

Who's Who: Yes, Jeff Boss, Jack Fellure, Harry Braun and others are all running for president. But they haven't received any news coverage at all. We need proof that they are notable enough to include in this article, not just proof that they are running.Crewcamel (talk) 02:38, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Considering that one of this article's primary purposes is to provide a list of notable candidates, and that the consensus is that "notable" is defined as when an individual has their own biographical Wikipedia article, I'm fine with the way things are now. Perhaps we should create and link some kind of "Minor 2020 candidates" article for people like Boss and Fellure, who are indeed mildly notable people running in 2020, but haven't received any media coverage. That's a good compromise, I think. Overall, I don't really think it's that much of a big deal yet. There's only 9 non-major candidates that've declared so far from both parties. 4 of them (Thor, Fieger, Wells, and Yang), have received press coverage. The other 5 (Fellure, Sharkey*, Boss, Braun, and De La Fuente) have not (Although I did find mention of Sharkey in the NY Daily News after West had first announced at the VMAs in 2015, they didn't outright mention 2020, just that he's also a strange politician seeking the presidency in a future election). IOnlyKnowFiveWords (talk) 06:22, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

"The consensus is that 'notable' is defined as when an individual has their own biographical Wikipedia article." This is one of the rules that i think is made up. I believe either you or someone else came up with it without a consensus and then pretended it's always been that way. "Lawrence Jackson is notable enough for this page because Wikipedia says he is notable in completely unrelated subjects." That contradicts the diary rule written aboveCrewcamel (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:43, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

I remember it was reached in regards to the inclusion of Bill Bayes, who as you may have noticed no longer has a Wikipedia article. He's running for the nomination of the Constitution and Prohibition Party simultaneously, before this he was the Vice Presidential nominee for the latter party in the 2016 election, he also ran for local office in Hattiesburg, Mississippi as a Republican. His article was nominated for deletion shortly after being put on this page. It was fully deleted in September 2017, so if you go back far enough in the talk page archive (probably anywhere from around June to September 2017) I'm sure you can find us discussing his notability while his article was still up. For the record, I'm in favor of keeping the status quo (shocker). It's also worth noting that the 2016 page currently has a bunch of third party candidates listed without pages of their own (including the Independent candidate Princess Khadijah Jacob-Fambro). IOnlyKnowFiveWords (talk) 22:30, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Youre right Bill Bayes was mentioned in the archives right here in topic #32, however it doesnt look a consensus (of any kind) was reached. I did some more digging though and i think the rule that "candidates have to have a wikipedia page" was invented by user:Vote 4 DJH2036. The rules for inclusion used to say this: Please only include candidates in this section who've stated that they will run for President and who haven't declared their run via social media. He changed it on May 1st 2017 without a consensus. He changed it here, here and here. He said he made the changes because a consensus was previously reached "awhile back".

Im looking at the archives and between the creation of the article and April 1st, 2017, that "rule" was mentioned once, by user: Vote 4 DJH2036 here in topic #16.

Having a wikipedia article as a requirement isnt mentioned again until i tell him the rules dont say that anywhere on April 30th, 2017. He then changes the rules on May 1st telling me "this is what was agreed to".

In conclusion, no there was no consensus to add that rule, user: Vote 4 DJH2036 made it up and then lied that everyone agreed on it. Crewcamel (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:40, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Actually, this was reached on a previous Presidential election article (I wasn't involved in the article's rules at the time). I simply carried the rules over. Vote 4 DJH2036 (talk) 03:39, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

I believe that you think youre right, but if youre confident it was already agreed upon then you can tell me where this discussion took place. We need proof these rules were agreed upon. It needs to be written somewhere. Like IOnlyKnowFiveWords pointed out the 2016 election article currently has candidates that dont have wikis. It also included candidates without wikis before the election took place like this one in october 2016.

You know what I don’t really care anymore. I’ll go another break. I’ll check back on this page in like a year or two years or never.Crewcamel (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:30, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Good. Callmemirela 🍁 ^talk 00:01, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

John McAfee is 2020 candidate

Please add John McAfee as a presidential candidate. He has announced he is running. (Source: http://fortune.com/2018/06/04/john-mcafee-president-2020/) Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Legocabs (talk • contribs) 21:10, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

So far, he's only made statements on social media. We need to treat him like we do, say, Ron Perlman or Chris Rock. Until he either makes a public declaration on some platform that isn't social media or files with the FEC, we can't include him. If he's serious, I expect he'll file with the FEC again eventually. IOnlyKnowFiveWords (talk) 16:39, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Kamala Harris

With this, we have our first woman in at least a long time to publicly express interest in running as a Democrat.

https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/immigration-border-crisis/sen-kamala-harris-not-ruling-out-2020-white-house-run-n886166 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:242:600:5BA0:352A:D44:17D7:14D5 (talk) 12:48, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 July 2018

The declared Libertarian candidates should include Arvin Vohra and Dan "Taxation Is Theft" Behrman. Macdabby (talk) 14:08, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 14:14, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Lawrence Jackson

How certain are we that the Lawrence Jackson who filed a Form 1 with the FEC to declare a presidential candidacy is the ex-football player? Granted, the purported candidate and the football player have the same middle name, but we have no sources indicating that the football player is a candidate other than that FEC filing. There are no newspaper articles where sports reporters are writing "Ex-NFLer makes White House bid" or anything like that, as one might expect. There are at least three possibilities as to how a Lawrence Christopher Jackson could have filed with the FEC if it wasn't the football player: (1) the candidate coincidentally shares the same name as the athlete; (2) the candidate is using a pseudonym (as did some of the Form 1 filers for the 2016 election), or (3) the Form 1 was submitted as a hoax. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 05:11, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

From what I've gathered, Lawrence Jackson uses this Twitter handle (@LoJackson94). The name is pretty consistent with one of his nicknames: LoJack. Using the Wayback Machine, I found that the account used to be verified up to its most recent capture in December 2016. As of now (July 2018), the account is not verified anymore. The same user also posts to this website with the tagline "I retired from Americas greatest sport so I can be happy." He also discusses his past career in the NFL here. The Twitter account used to have "2020 presidential candidate" in its bio, I know because I remember looking him up when he was first added to the article. It doesn't at the time of writing and would have come after the latest capture on the Wayback Machine. Other than that, though, I don't know of any other concrete proof. IOnlyKnowFiveWords (talk) 05:34, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

First of all, thank you for looking into this issue. I looked at the Twitter page and the website, and while Jackson has some interesting things to say, one thing that I couldn't find anywhere on either of those pages was a mention of him being a candidate for President of the United States. I am going to suggest a possible resolution for this in the section below. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 01:47, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion:

• ArvinVohra.jpg

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. Community Tech bot (talk) 23:22, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Merkley Second Source

CNN backs up the NYT interview.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/22/politics/merkley-nyt-2020-bid/index.html

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.223.184.94 (talk • contribs) 02:00, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Proposed new criterion for listing

I mentioned this above, but I want to separate it into a separate section on this page.

Currently, to be listed as a declared candidate, a person must:

1. have declared their candidacy
2. be notable enough to already have a Wikipedia article.

I would like to suggest a third requirement:

3. The person must have an official website specifically for their presidential campaign.

If, in the present day, someone is supposedly running for president, but doesn't have a website for their campaign, it's unlikely that their campaign is significant enough to justify listing in this encyclopedia article.

(To be clear, this is an additional criterion. Merely having a campaign website doesn't mean that a person should be listed; they also must have declared their candidacy and be notable. Also, this criterion is not meant to be retroactive to past elections; I don't want to remove Abraham Lincoln from United States presidential election, 1860 because he didn't have a campaign website.) --Metropolitan90 (talk) 02:00, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

I think that's a pretty reasonable requirement. I'm not entirely sure Jack Fellure even knows what a website is, though. Regardless, I've also seen a proposal for adding the requirement to have the candidate receive some sort of news coverage for their campaign. That would still exclude Fellure, but would include Brad Thor, who doesn't have a campaign website but definitely stirred up a lot of media attention and received the endorsement of a Never-Trumper. In any case, I don't think these rules should be applied to third party candidates, since very few of them actually hold office, so they practically are all "minor" candidates. And I still support the possibility of just moving all these "minor" candidates to a subarticle if need be. IOnlyKnowFiveWords (talk) 23:39, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

As I see it, the advantage of the website criterion is that it can be applied to candidates from the major parties as well as third party/independent candidates; it's purely within the ability of the candidate and their supporters to accomplish. By contrast, someone like Kanye West, or comedian Ron White in 2016, can get news coverage of their supposed campaign without actually running an actual campaign, merely by being a celebrity. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:24, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

I guess you can count me as a soft yes for the website thing. Maybe with the caveat that we still create a subarticle for a more "complete" list of minor candidates. Possibly on the individual primary pages? IOnlyKnowFiveWords (talk) 01:47, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, I am hoping to get some more support as well. If we can reach any kind of consensus on the website criterion, we can probably find a way to get some mention of the candidates with no website somewhere. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:27, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

I agree with these requirements for declared candidates. What bother me more is the unseemly list of "potential candidates", which includes some people merely because some journalist or some pollster decided they might be running some day. That's flawed. For example, I removed Steve Bannon and Ann Coulter because of media speculation,[7] and I removed Trey Gowdy and Colin Powell because they were mentioned in just one poll.[8] Those people have since been restored to the article,[9] but we need clear criteria. Here are my suggestions:

• List as "potential candidates" only people who have been mentioned in at least 5 national polls, or who have received at least 5% of support in at least two national polls.
• Also list as "potential candidates" people who have hinted at a potential run in a mainstream media interview. That would for example include Carly Fiorina who said she would "certainly consider" running, but exclude Steve Bannon whose candidacy is only a matter of speculation by our cited sources.
• I would keep the list of "Declined to run" for people who have personally responded negatively to a direct question about their potential candidacy. This helps avoid renewed speculation and gives accurate information to readers who may otherwise wonder about some unlisted names.

What do you think? — JFG ^talk 09:35, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Well the reason your edits were reverted is because they go against our current consensus: at least 2 (but no more than 3) sources of speculation or 1 national opinion poll. I think the speculation is an important aspect of the early life of articles like these. You can see very similar setups in other articles on elections that haven't happened yet. The only primary difference is the inclusion of pictures of each person. I've mentioned before that who the media thinks will run can be a pretty good gauge of how the race is being viewed by the general public at the current time. We've already tightened the rules a bit from where they used to be (where we allowed "kitchen sink" articles and articles based on social media posts). We can't actually have a "declined candidates" section without media speculation. I've found that a number of notable people have said that they won't be running in 2020 (including but not limited to: Greg Abbott, Condoleezza Rice, Rick Santorum, Stacey Abrams, Jimmy Carter, Mark Dayton, Claire McCaskill, Brian Schatz, Jeff Bezos, and Dave Rubin. The thing is that none of these people have actually received any significant media speculation that they might run in the first place. Our current consensus for that is at least 1 (typically 2) speculative article and 1 instance of them declining to run. IOnlyKnowFiveWords (talk) 03:45, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed explanations. I had not seen where the prior criteria for inclusion were listed. They should be made more prominent in a non-archivable section of the talk page. On substance, I think "1 national poll" is insufficient, because it puts us at the mercy of an isolated idea by a pollster: that's what brought us Gowdy and Powell. This is why I suggest to require at least 3 national polls (my suggestion of 5 above is a bit excessive, or perhaps we could accept 2 polls from different pollsters), or one poll where the candidate polls above 5%. I don't like speculation-based listings because they have no basis in fact. I could accept them if there is a strong filter on source quality, but that's hard to define. What do you think of my proposed criteria for "potential" and "declined" candidates? — JFG ^talk 11:50, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm more leaning towards a numerical amount (probably 2 polls rather than 1) than basing it on their poll performance. Depending on how many people are in the poll could drastically change their placements (For example: Martin O'Malley won a plurality in the 1 and only Iowa primary poll, but the poll failed to mention any of the biggest likely candidates like Biden, Harris, Sanders, or Warren). IOnlyKnowFiveWords (talk) 22:07, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

I support these changes, both the website requirement (and more?!) for runners and JFG's removals. It's ridiculous that just one random private polling company can decide to do a kitchen sink poll of names that no one is seriously expecting to run, and this article lists them. If we disallow kitchen sink articles, why allow kitchen sink polls, which have even less than the one paragraph articles may have? If we require two media sources, why not require at least two polls? This article is far too permissive and loses usefulness and credibility when it includes so many people. With respect to criteria for declined candidates, I still fail to understand why it should be included at all, especially once the primaries get going - If they aren't running, they obviously declined to run! Anyway, there should still be at least the same criteria of two articles implying they might actually run, not just one guy suggesting they'd be a good candidate. Reywas92^Talk 18:33, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Especially in the pre-primary environment (which we will be in for the next 18 or 19 months), listing notable people (that have been the subject of speculation) who've officially ruled out running is very important. For example, Gary Johnson has already said that he has no plans to run for a third time, so the LP is currently scrambling to find someone to take up the helm as the face of the party. Hillary Clinton has also ruled out a third run, something that the incumbent President basically challenged her to do. It seems like this is moved to the respective primary pages once the election actually happens (example). I see how it's a bit hypocritical to require 2 speculative articles but only 1 national poll (setting aside the fact that writing a speculative article is much easier and faster than organizing a national poll). It just seems like a solution without very much of a problem? I haven't checked each individual instance of it happening, but it appears to only really apply to Gowdy and Powell (both of which I've seen crop up in "kitchen sink" articles and informal chats regarding the race (like FiveThirtyEight's). But for a declined individual, typically their article in which they rule out running is treated as their second source (as they almost always are directly asked about it to give that answer). IOnlyKnowFiveWords (talk) 22:07, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Kanye West

I thought he was running in 2024,not 2020?157.52.9.151 (talk) 20:26, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Nobody knows if he's running, that's just hype. Undue for this article. — JFG ^talk 18:00, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/kanye-west-us-president-run-bid-2024-twitter-campaign-latest-a8321106.html 69.165.135.62 (talk) 04:39, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, I have moved West to the "withdrawn candidates" section instead of the "declared candidates" section based on that article, which indicated that West now says he is going to run in 2024 instead of 2020. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 15:51, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

That's based on a social media post, though, which we don't allow (see: John McAfee). IOnlyKnowFiveWords (talk) 21:48, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Where has he said he's running in 2020?104.247.238.46 (talk) 17:23, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand

There are reports that Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand are preparing campaigns and PACs and money to run for president,can we put them in the potential candidate section for Kirsten Gillibrand and Publicly expressed interest for Elizabeth Warren,or do we put both in the potential candidate category.Alhanuty (talk) 21:39, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

here is a source for Elizabeth Warren https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/02/elizabeth-warren-2020-election-democrats-319045.Alhanuty (talk) 21:41, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

They would both hypothetically be put in the "potential" category, but Gillibrand and Warren have both publicly denied that they're running in 2020. Unless they make a public statement about the race, then they should stay there. IOnlyKnowFiveWords (talk) 01:41, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Can I change them to potential Candidates.Alhanuty (talk) 02:32, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

No, because they have publicly denied it. — JFG ^talk 20:38, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Okay,so publicly denying equals,not running,but the article from this month clearly says that Elizabeth Warren is making moves in preparations to run,so there is a potential here,then why is Tulsi Gabbard on the potential list here.Alhanuty (talk) 21:49, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Bloomberg

Bloomberg should be moved from declined to potential. All he said was that he has no plans to run in 2020. That doesn't mean he's ruled it out. Prcc27 (talk) 23:22, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

I think when you're asked if you're gonna run in 2020 and you respond with "I could, but I won't" that counts as saying "no." He didn't add on anything like "we'll see," or "it's too early to think about that," like most others do, it was just a flat "no." Especially since he prefaces it by saying he "could," meaning running in 2020 would be theoretically possible, but he has no interest in it. IOnlyKnowFiveWords (talk) 07:17, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Well it's obvious he didn't express interest in running, which is why I'm suggesting he should be in the potential candidates section. The fact that he's insinuating that it's *theoretically possible* that he will run makes him a *potential* candidate. He didn't say he won't run, just that he doesn't have any plans on running. If you don't say that you aren't running, you shouldn't be in the declined section. Prcc27 (talk) 04:24, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 August 2018

I am requesting my addition as an announced independent candidate.

I am the independent candidate William Hurst, born 4 July 1983, Announced candidacy 4 July 2018. Images from the website williamhurstcampaign.org are welcome to be used. Tekbred (talk) 19:46, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: Please provide reliable, published sources that are not your personal website (especially a website rife with spelling errors and lorem ipsum). ‑‑ElHef (Meep?) 20:12, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 August 2018

Republican David J Silver businessman from Arizona expressed his interest to run 2600:8800:8900:5800:D53:3D43:EBED:DBD (talk) 03:56, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Additionally, since all of the other people on the list have Wikipedia articles, please make sure candidates have their own article before adding them to the list. — Newslinger talk 05:08, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Removal of policy-violating material

There is no need for a CONSENSUS or an RfC to remove policy-violating material from an article, and this article was full of violations of CRYSTAL, WEIGHT, OR, SYNTH and POV, much of which I have removed.The article was (and in some ways still is) a massive piece of dreck, and should probably never have been allowed to exist this far in advance of the election -- for chrissake we haven;t even had the mid-terms! All it should have is the official information about the when and the where, and ZERO speculation about WHO. This is not someone's personal political blog. Strip it. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:26, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

I'd just throw out there that we should probably at least keep the polls and candidates that've, y'know, already started running like the incumbent for example? Oh well, I guess. IOnlyKnowFiveWords (talk) 10:45, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

The primary campaign has started, at least in Iowa and New Hampshire. I've reverted your change as you've thrown the baby out with the bathwater; though I probably support more than half of the individual removals. power~enwiki (π, ν) 15:54, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Proposed design with new criterion

This will illustrate how I propose to apply the website requirement, in the case of the Democratic "other declared candidates".

Other declared candidates

[to be commented out, being shown in this example for reference -- ***Please only include a candidate in this section if the candidate has a Wikipedia page, has stated that they will run for President on a source other than social media, and has a campaign website]

Name	Born	Current or previous positions	State	Announced	Ref
Jeff Boss	May 20, 1963 (age 61) New Jersey	Conspiracy theorist Candidate for U.S. Representative from New York in 2018 Candidate for Mayor of New York City in 2013 and 2017 Candidate for Governor of New Jersey in 2009, 2013, and 2017 Candidate for President in 2008, 2012, and 2016 Candidate for U.S. Representative in 2010 and 2016 Candidate for U.S. Senate in 2008 and 2014	New York	August 5, 2017 (Website)
Robby Wells	April 10, 1968 (age 56) Bartow, Georgia	Former college football coach Natural Law nominee for U.S. Representative from California in 1996 Candidate for President in 2012 and 2016	Georgia	May 24, 2017 (Website) FEC Filing
Andrew Yang	January 13, 1975 (age 49) Schenectady, New York	Entrepreneur	New York	November 6, 2017 (Website) FEC Filing

Other notable persons who have announced that they are running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 but have not established campaign websites are:

• Harry Braun, a renewable energy consultant and researcher from Georgia
• Rocky De La Fuente, a businessman and political activist from Florida
• Geoffrey Fieger, an attorney from Michigan

Let me know what you think. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 04:35, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Sources

Looks good to me. — JFG ^talk 20:24, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

I think those without a website in this case should be removed entirely. This essentially turns the declared candidates section into three categories: "Major," "Other," and "Other-other" candidates. I still think news coverage would be a better way to go about this. This method, as I've mentioned before, would exclude GOP challenger Brad Thor who's received a notable endorsement and a lot of media attention. IOnlyKnowFiveWords (talk) 01:46, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

I prefer the website criterion to the news coverage criterion. Either a candidate has an official campaign website, or they don't. That's an objective criterion. But it's more difficult to determine what counts as significant news coverage -- and if we were evaluating how much media attention a candidate had received, we would probably want to require an increased amount of media coverage as we get closer to the election. No matter how many bloggers endorse Brad Thor, if he is serious about running for president, he ought to have a campaign website. He has an official website, but I don't see anything there that even mentions that he is running for president. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 13:23, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

I think we ought to make a certain level of notable endorsements grounds for makings someone a major candidate. Yang has four, so maybe five? - 7/29/2018, anonymous. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.110.185.157 (talk) 12:41, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

I wouldn't want to make a number of endorsements a criterion we use in this article at all. I mean, three of Yang's four endorsers are people I've never heard of. The criteria we use should be more objective than that. Also, I wouldn't want to set the criteria with the goal of intentionally excluding a candidate. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 04:47, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

• Yes, please. Anything to keep this article focused a bit more on actually notable (not Wikipedia notable) people. If they're a joke candidates who can't even take themselves seriously enough to have a campaign website, why should we take them seriously? Reywas92^Talk 23:00, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
  • I would like to go ahead and make that change, but I think I need at least a little more support from editors to do so. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:39, 11 August 2018 (UTC)
    • I'm fine with this (for now) as a test for being a bona fide candidate. It's better than relying on an off-hand comment to a reporter. power~enwiki (π, ν) 15:55, 11 August 2018 (UTC)
      • Okay, I went ahead and made those changes. Hopefully they will be accepted by the community. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 01:25, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 12 August 2018

Change Michael Avenatti's status that he is "not registered to the political party of this section, but has been the subject of speculation or expressed interest in running under this party" to a Democrat. He has called himself a "lifelong Democrat". Source: https://www.salon.com/2018/08/11/exclusive-michael-avenatti-reflects-on-his-candidacys-serious-debut-in-iowa/ Curdlash (talk) 01:20, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

• Based on the source you cited, I have removed that note. If other evidence appears that suggests otherwise, the note can be restored in that situation. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 01:35, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Proposal: Remove all polling data from this article

Polling data 2+ years before a general election (and 1+ year before a primary election) with speculative candidates is not particularly useful. With 67KB of it already, it is already too much of the space on this page. I'm not sure the data needs to be WP:PRESERVEd on Wikipedia at all, but if so, it should be spun into an article such as 2018 polling of the 2020 United States presidential election and not included in this article. power~enwiki (π, ν) 02:36, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Opinion polling for the Democratic and Republican primaries should be moved on to their respective pages, as has been done for all US elections. As for global election polls, I would say to just create separate articles for nationwide and statewide polls, just as it's done for previous elections: Nationwide opinion polling for the United States presidential election, 2020 and Statewide opinion polling for the Republican Party presidential primaries, 2020 would be the names to go, as it is done for the previous election. Just to note that opinion polls with speculative candidates are not really speculative by themselves, as it is obvious those polls do exist, and that they will later get considered ahead of debates and the such.

I nonetheless concur that the amount of information that was shown in here was excessive, specially when much of this is already covered in the articles for the Democratic and Republican primaries. Impru20^talk 10:43, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

I'd at least like to preserve the polling data, there's pages of early polling for previous elections (see: 2013 or 2009 polling for '16 and '12 elections, etc.). IOnlyKnowFiveWords (talk) 10:40, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Totally agree, all polling at this stage is meaningless crystal fancruft. — JFG ^talk 12:24, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 11 August 2018

Before the page protection, I conducted an edit fixing a cite error issue resulting from the name "d" being defined multiple times with different content (this edit). As a result from Rhian2040's indiscriminate re-addition of content, the error fix was reverted, so the error is again visible in the "Notes" section. I do not think the massive content disputes that currently pague the article do include such a technical issue, so I merely ask for the error to be fixed (basically it would mean to conduct the same edit as the one I linked). Thank you. Impru20^talk 20:42, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

• I think I have fixed that now. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 01:31, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Thank you. Impru20^talk 12:46, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Proposal: Remove all photos of people who are not declared candidates from the article

As this is caught up in "consensus required", let's start cleanup proposals. The galleries here are absurdly excessive. We should remove all of them except for declared candidates. The Republican Party presidential primaries, 2020 and Democratic Party presidential primaries, 2020 pages are more than sufficient. power~enwiki (π, ν) 02:32, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm of the opinion that usage of photos within the article text is usually unnecessary and space-wasting – maybe it's more appropriate on each individual primary article, but on this page it's just excessive. Mélencron (talk) 14:25, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Agree to keep photos only for declared candidates. — JFG ^talk 12:27, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Support keeping photos only for the declared candidates. I am in 100% agreement with the OP on this one.--Thatotherdude (talk) 20:56, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Proposal: Remove candidates from the article

Which candidates should be included in this article?

Option A: Keep as-is.

Option B: Remove all "declined" candidates, keep "potential", "interested", and "declared" candidates.

Option C: Remove all "declined" and "potential" candidates, keep "interested" and "declared" candidates.

Option D: Remove all "declined, "potential", and "interested" candidates, keep declared candidates.

Option E: Remove all candidates.

My !vote is for Option C; though the "interested" field may need to be changed to require them to have actual campaign-style events (and not just comments to reporters). power~enwiki (π, ν) 16:17, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

• My !vote is for Option C alternative as described above by power~enwiki of interested candidates needing to have had actual campaign style events. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:35, 11 August 2018 (UTC)
• Clearly, of all the proposals, option C is the one that would best combine having a useful amount of information on candidates and avoiding the article becoming an indiscriminate collection of gossip. Impru20^talk 20:55, 11 August 2018 (UTC)
• Option C seems like the best option. I don't see the value in listing "potential" and "declined" candidates. Elspamo4 (talk) 23:38, 11 August 2018 (UTC)
• Option B is my preference for now. The value of the "potential" candidates listing is that it is likely that at least some of them will wind up actually running for the nomination. The "declined" candidates can be listed in the separate articles pertaining to their party's primaries which can go into more detail about the candidates under discussion from that particular party. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 01:39, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
• Option C + Declined – I think we should keep the "Declined" section with brief mentions of denials, because that would avoid repetitive discussions about "didn't Senator X say he may run at some point?" and it's informative to readers to find out who is out of the race. The worst category today is "potential" because it's entirely based on speculation of journalists, pollsters or random joes. — JFG ^talk 12:33, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Detail: is we keep the Declined section, it should be condensed to just the names of people, without their current title or list of prior positions, followed by one citation documenting their refusal to be a candidate. The section would end up being a single paragraph in prose, so as not to distract. — JFG ^talk 12:41, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

I think it is just too soon for having a "declined" section. What prevents a candidate who has declined at this stage to renegue on their declination and running for the office? Specially when most declines are based on rather ambiguous statements. Even someone who said right now "I'm definitely not running for the office, EVER" could make up their minds in one year. We would also have the issue of whom should we add to such section: should we include any person who says 'no', or should we require that the person in question has openly considered it at first, then renegued on it? I believe such a section would be too open to WP:OR and WP:CRYSTALBALL material. Impru20^talk 12:56, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

• Option C is definitely the most reasonable, but the individual primary pages should keep their lists of potential candidates; that way, those pages actually provide info the main article doesn't. - EditDude (talk) 01:04, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
• Option C seems like the best one to me. It wouldn't be based as much on speculation. David O. Johnson (talk) 05:39, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
• Option C We should not have such excessive speculation on the article, nor retain people who are not in fact involved in the election at this point. If someone is not listed as running, readers would assume they did not run - no need to explicitly list a negative. As an ever-changing website, we can add or remove any changes in status without retaining every future, past, and present individual at all times. Those declared should at least have a website as proposed above to exclude non-serious candidates. Reywas92^Talk 00:28, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
• Option C The most sensible option IMHO, in agreement with the majority of those have commented so far. I agree with EditDude that the primary pages - and possibly other sub-articles - should keep the lists of "potential" candidates, as those articles are intended to provide more detailed information (including reliable, well-documented speculation) pertaining to candidates and related campaign matters.--Thatotherdude (talk) 21:00, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Closing

Looks like we have a WP:SNOW consensus for option C. Accordingly, I will request removal of the extra sections. They may be restored if a new consensus later emerges. — JFG ^talk 15:27, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Edit request: remove "potential" and "declined" candidates

According to WP:SNOW consensus in the discussion "#Proposal: Remove candidates from the article", all sections on "potential" and "declined" candidates should be removed from the article. Thanks in advance. — JFG ^talk 15:32, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Proposal: Remove the section "Advantage of incumbency"

This got caught up in the candidate issues, but I don't believe anyone has objected to its removal (by Mélencron). I agree with the removal. power~enwiki (π, ν) 16:22, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Removal looks fair. — JFG ^talk 12:38, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Totally unsourced WP:OR, by the way. — JFG ^talk 15:35, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Removal of Alec Balwin from "Individuals who have publicly expressed interest"?

I don't think the clip this entry is based on is substantial enough to count as "publicly expressing interest." Baldwin appears to be joking when he talks about how he runs his campaign and how he would most likely win. Also, when he says he would win it seems to be more of a statement on the quality of Trump as a candidate than a reflection on his own chances in a serious campaign. He also says "I'm only saying that [I would win] because people don't really have a sense of who's going to come up. I mean, somebody great's going to come up I hope," directly indicating that he's not serious about the concept. The thing he says that may have most contributed to his name being added to the list was "the only reason I say that is because I'd love to run for that kind of position," where I think "position" is more likely referring to public office in general than the presidency in particular. I can't find anything else he's said that would indicate that this was an expression of interest. He even said that he was "not going to do that"Here's the link to the source provided. Consensus to remove?

pluma♫ ♯ 03:07, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support - per proposal. Work permit (talk) 13:57, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
• Support More nonsense devaluing the article. Reywas92^Talk 00:20, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
• Support power~enwiki (π, ν) 00:42, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
• Support – Not a clear intent to run. — JFG ^talk 15:33, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
• Support per Pluma. Impru20^talk 15:39, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Full protection edit request to uphold the DS sanction

Unless I'm misunderstanding, this article is under a "1RR, consensus needed to restore a revert" sanction. My edits, made consecutively, constitute a single edit for the purpose of counting reverts [10]. The restorations of that material ([11], [12]) were all made without a consensus to do so, so they are all invalid, and in violation of the DS sanction.

I appreciate the protection of the article, which was appropriate, and understand that full protection is always of the "wrong version" (to someone), but in this case, the restorations were violations of Discretionary Sanctions, so an administrator should edit through protection to remove the material again to uphold DS and policy. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:34, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

See my reply here; this is not the case (the overall point of the restriction is to promote the stable form of the article, which was the version before Beyond My Ken's edits) Galobtter (pingó mió) 20:48, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

That may be your interpretation, but it is not what the sanction says, nor -- at least to my knowledge -- was that the purpose of the sanction, which was not to protect the status quo but to discourage edit warring. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:32, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: The page's protection level has changed since this request was placed. You should now be able to edit the page yourself. If you still seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. ‑‑ElHef (Meep?) 16:55, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 18 August 2018

Can we get a blank photo for Arvin Vohra? I believe in the past we've used this:

File:Gray - replace this image male.svg

as a placeholder for candidates that have no publicly available photos of themselves.

In addition, U.S. Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) has expressed interest in running as of August 14. IOnlyKnowFiveWords (talk) 00:15, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: The page's protection level has changed since this request was placed. You should now be able to edit the page yourself. If you still seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. ‑‑ElHef (Meep?) 16:58, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Sources

Galleries

There's been a bit of back and forth with galleries of candidates. In the section about potential third-party candidates, it seemed to me inconsistent to have pictures for people who simply "expressed interest", and no pictures for those who actually "declared" a candidacy. However, as we had consensus to remove pictures of declared candidates with no web site, I was reverted, and I took the extra step of removing galleries of people who only "expressed interest". Finally, I kept the galleries for "interested" candidates for the Republican and Democratic parties, because there is actually a nomination process in the major parties, and they have more credibility than potential non-party candidates. Further opinions on this topic welcome. — JFG ^talk 10:01, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

I mean, there's most certainly nominating processes for every third party (even if that process is, in the case of the Prohibition Party in 2016, to decide on their nominees via a conference call). There's even full-blown primary elections for Libertarians, Greens, and Constituion...ites, just not in every state (worth noting that major party primaries weren't held in all 50 states until 1976 for the Democrats and until 1980 for the Republicans; then until 1996 and 2004 respectively to include the 5 inhabited territories). I see no real reason to treat members of third parties that've expressed interest any differently than members of major parties, especially since we've now removed the distinction between them, just listing them all in the same category. IOnlyKnowFiveWords (talk) 06:35, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

So, are you in favor of removing the gallery of "interested" Democrat and Republican hopefuls until they actually file their candidacy? I think that would considerably diminish the readability of the article. — JFG ^talk 10:41, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

My preferred solution would be to re-instate pictures for the "declared but no web site" candidates, just in short gallery format, not as a full-fledged table; that would remain reserved for "declared with campaign site" candidates. What do our fellow editors think? — JFG ^talk 10:44, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

I mean doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose of having the website parameter in the first place? Building from that, I think we should take the Fellures and Fiegers of this page and just move all mention of them to their respective primary pages as a sort of "Oh yeah, these people are also 'running' in some form or another." In addition, I feel that the website thing shouldn't be mentioned in the article proper, only hidden before each section (Like where it used to say "Only add people with two or more speculative sources, no kitchen sink lists, blah blah blah"). Honestly it feels kinda arbitrary and unprofessional to have the introduction to each section say "Here are the guys running for President that have publicly announced their candidacy and also have a campaign website," then go "Here's the ones that don't." Now that we've actually implemented this rule, we may as well go all or nothing here, we're currently standing with one foot in and one foot out the door. Removing that awkward middle segment would make it nice and consistent to have photos of the declared and interested candidates. And I also believe that it's more appropriate to show a photo of the presumed frontrunner Joe Biden (in both the primary and general elections) over someone like self-described vampire Jonathon Sharkey, even if the latter is the only one that has actually joined the race so far.

And while I'm at it, where does Zoltan Istvan fall in all this? He declared he's running as a Libertarian, and has a website that was also used for his 2016 run and his 2018 run for Governor of California. IOnlyKnowFiveWords (talk) 01:48, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes, Zoltan Istvan has a website, but he doesn't mention specifically that he is running for President in 2020 there. He does have a section for "Governor Run" and a section for "2016 US Presidential Run", but nothing for "2020 US Presidential Run", which I think says something about his priorities. If he doesn't feel like putting up a web page for his 2020 presidential candidacy, that's his decision -- but in that case, I don't feel like giving him the same level of recognition on Wikipedia as other candidates who have taken the bare minimal step of putting up campaign websites. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 05:25, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

RFC on article contents

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.

---

Should a massive amount of information, including all discussion of minor, potential, or "declined" candidates, be removed from this article? power~enwiki (π, ν) 06:03, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

This article has, for quite some time, operated on what I feel are a ridiculous set of "rules" that amount to original research and synthesis. A positive result from this RFC should invalidate *all* page content rules, requiring them to have a new consensus.

It is undue to mention gadflies and publicity-seekers like Jonathon Sharkey or Jeff Boss, some "declared" candidates like Geoffrey Fieger are not actually declared candidates, and speculation on whether Kanye West is going to run is not encyclopedic. It is certainly synthesis and probably false that the football player Lawrence Jackson is the same person that filed an FEC report. The coverage of the potential Democratic Party race is also ridiculous; statements 2-3 years out are notoriously unreliable as to whether people will actually run, as other elections in the interim time period often change this.

I see no way to salvage the article as it stands, and feel removing most of the content is the only way to bring this article up to encyclopedic standards. An article that is 260KB in size (much of it tables and references) about an event that will not occur for over 12 months is ridiculously over-detailed; this diff shows the changes I want to make, though I feel even more could be removed than I did remove. power~enwiki (π, ν) 06:03, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

• Yes It is absurdly undue to give such prominence to idiot perennial candidates like Rocky de la Fuente and Jack Fellure as well. We should not be highlighting them with pictures and large table rows or anything at all just because they can fill out an FEC form. It's also ridiculous to list so many people as having declined to run. Perhaps in subarticles, but this page should be what is happening in the election, not what isn't. If someone isn't listed as running (potentially running) it should be self-explanatory they are not running. Your edit is a bit extreme, but yes I would support most any trimming of this article, as most of it is unnecessary or outdated speculation and minor irrelevant nobodies. Reywas92^Talk 08:31, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose - no to unlimited authority to ignore prior consensus and do massive unspecified changes. Limit it to the specific names listed above and then I think it might be OK -- or state some specific principle for content, or say delete all the ones declining, or anything else that is specific and it might be acceptable. But just "massive" changes or "invalidate *all* page content rules" without detail or massive support is not proper. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 23:42, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

• No -- we should not remove all discussion of "minor, potential, or 'declined' candidates" from the article. At this stage, much of what there is to say about the election revolves around potential candidates -- and while I don't claim to know who the Democratic presidential nominee will be, I think there is a good chance that they are probably listed in the "publicly expressed interest", "potential candidates", or maybe even "declined candidates" section right now. I would, however, like to propose a suggestion for narrowing down the minor declared candidates. Currently, to be listed, a person must only (a) have declared their candidacy and (b) be notable enough to already have a Wikipedia article. I would like to suggest a third requirement -- the person (c) must have a website specifically for their presidential campaign. That would apparently take out Jack Fellure, Jonathon Sharkey, Brad Thor, Harry Braun, Rocky De La Fuente, Geoffrey Feiger, Zoltan Istvan, Vermin Supreme, Lawrence Jackson, Dan Rattiner, and Kanye West. I mean, Kanye West is definitely notable, but despite his past claims, he hasn't shown himself to be definitely running for president in 2020. If someone is serious enough to run for president, they ought to be serious enough to have a campaign website. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 01:57, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose - I'm very much in favor of having rules to keep track of everything, we're Wikipedia, we need to be impartial. There are literally hundreds of people that've filed with the FEC, but we only include individuals that are notable enough to already have their own biographical Wikipedia article. I've proposed that we could move the "minor" candidates to their own subarticle if it really bothers people, but nobody ever follows up with that. This article is very similar to other American future election articles, with a "speculative" and "declined" sections, just look at any U.S. Senate or gubernatorial election page for 2018. Who the media is anticipating will run is notable (for example, how Joe Biden was expected to jump into the 2016 race). You're also just being incredibly vague with your proposed changes. What kind of "rules" would you like to implement in place of the ones we already have? IOnlyKnowFiveWords (talk) 02:11, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

• No to the arbitrary and unnecessary changes proposed. Letupwasp (talk) 03:30, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose Wikipedia does not operate solely on how editors "feel" about an issue. David O. Johnson (talk) 03:52, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
• Yes. Including candidates who have not explicitly declared an intention to run is a massive failure of WP:CRYSTAL. While we have to broadly reflect what reliable sources say, we do not simply parrot all reliable sources; we are required to exercise editorial judgement, as directed by the policy linked above (and several others). The media has a 24 news cycle which it fills with speculation, among other things. We cannot do the same. Vanamonde (talk) 04:39, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose: Candidates should not be excluded because how of editors feel. This is about facts, not opinion. NDACFan (talk) 19:02, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose - If these exclusionary changes are applied to this article, then they must be applied to every other article on future U.S. elections as well. I think I'm not alone in saying that this would be far too massive and unnecessary of an overhaul. If anything, the rules should be refined to reduce the number of "kitchen sink" candidates, but otherwise the typical Wikipedia reader wouldn't take much of an issue with this article. EditDude (talk) 02:11, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose: No, as the information will winnow itself out over time; the closer we get to the time frame in question, the more the unsourced and unimportant information will be dropped, removed, re-worded. No need to rush that. However, perhaps removing those folks who have not explicitly declared (and been covered, of course, in RS) would be a better direction for this RfC. —Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 04:32, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
• Soft Support: The article is in nightmarish shape. Bad enough to warrant your proposal as a stopgap solution. But I suggest that, in cleanup, we establish clear rules. For instance: Only mention the intersection of candidates with an FEC filing and enough notability to warrant a Wikipedia article. The less opinion involved, the less potential for abuse. --Elephanthunter (talk) 21:29, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
• Support Article is currently horrible mess of disconnected news reports and pure speculation that doesn't serve the aim of cataloguing relevant encyopediac informaition. It should be rewritten completly like the original support suggested, a comprimise might be moving most of the current article into another "List of Canidates for the 2020 Presidental Election".Zubin12 (talk) 06:14, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
• Strong support – We should have clear criteria for inclusion, and we should mercifully weed out all speculation, wishful thinking and personal opinion from the contents. A lot of the current article borders on WP:FANCRUFT, and that is not acceptable for an encyclopedia; it's an insult to our readers. Also, excess reliance on speculative polls. — JFG ^talk 11:36, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
• Support as per the comments made above; the current criteria for inclusion and separation of speculative/declined candidates is farcical and unhelpful. Mélencron (talk) 13:53, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
• Unarchived to request closure at WP:ANRFC. Cunard (talk) 23:31, 28 July 2018 (UTC)
• Soft support: In agreement with Elephanthunter, the page is in dire need of cleanup, but clear rules/guidelines need to be established for that to be done efficiently. I agree as well with others who have argued that listing "declined" candidates is overkill for this article, and belongs on sub-articles instead. Also in agreement with Metropolitan90's suggestion that a campaign website be requirement for listing of declared minor candidates.--Thatotherdude (talk) 17:09, 8 August 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.

Websites vs. No Websites

Now that this distinction has been made, I propose that we move all mention of notable candidates without campaign websites to their respective primary pages. The independent and unaffiliated candidates should probably be removed or moved to some sort of "List of Third Party Candidates in the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election" page. Something similar is there for 2016. For clarification:

Minor candidates with campaign websites that would stay in the main article:

Democratic Party

• Jeff Boss
• Ken Nwadike
• Robby Wells
• Andrew Yang

Minor candidates without campaign websites that would be moved to primary pages or outright removed:

Republican Party

• Jack Fellure
• Jonathon Sharkey
• Brad Thor (withdrew from the race)

Democratic Party

• Harry Braun
• Rocky De La Fuente
• Geoffrey Fieger

Libertarian Party

• Zoltan Istvan

Independent / Unaffiliated

• Lawrence Jackson (still don't even know if this is actually him for sure)
• Dan Rattiner
• Kanye West
• Jeremy Gable (withdrew from the race)

IOnlyKnowFiveWords (talk) 09:43, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Cecile Richards

To avoid an edit war:

Cecile Richards, former President of Planned Parenthood, was recently removed from the "expressed interest" section for the Democrats.

In the article, Richards was attending an event and was asked questions that were written on index cards from audience members. The two in particular that Refinery29 followed up on were "Are you running for office?" and "#RichardsWilliams2020" (referring to the comedian Jessica Williams, who was the one interviewing her on stage).

To this, she responded "never say never, right?"

I feel like that counts as expressing interest in running for President, since it was in response to a direct question (albeit tongue-in-cheek) about the 2020 election. IOnlyKnowFiveWords (talk) 01:08, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Why are your standards so low for inclusion in this article? There is absolutely no way to reasonably conclude from that that she's actually considering running for president in 2020. Of course it was tongue-in-cheek. It was a vague, impromptu response to a broad, unexpected question, which she used to make a general comment for women to run for office. She could certainly run for Congress, for Senate, or, just like like any other natural-born citizen of this country, for president, and she could do it in the upcoming election, but I see no reason this scant one-off nothingness must be mentioned here as something serious or predictive. I appreciate your contributions to Wikipedia, but I liked the section you just deleted from here, "Proposal: Delete the damn article at this point." Sure I could be in the minority here, but it's historically a lot easier to add speculation to election articles than to remove it or keep it from popping up on the large number of them (and separate, semiduplicative articles on the primaries!), so I don't want to take previous years' articles as hard precedent. I feel too many people have the idea that "It has a reliable source! It's connected to something/someone notable! You can't remove that from anywhere, ever!" Reywas92^Talk 01:48, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Sorry I got a bit worked up there, I've been commenting on this talk page and article too much lately. I need to try to focus on real life work and will be cutting back on my editing for a bit. Reywas92^Talk 02:04, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Well damn. I mean to answer your question; I've always taken I guess you could say a neutralist stance on Wikipedia? Where I try to sort of treat everything kind of equally, I suppose? (I'm sure you've seen plenty of me defending the status quo) Basically, I don't see Richards' expression of interest as any different from that of Booker's or Hickenlooper's, they're notable people that were asked about 2020 and didn't say "no." I figure an article like this has to have rules, and we can't really just expel certain people just because we think it's a bit silly (I think Kanye West's supposed candidacy is quite silly, but I've advocated that he stay on the page regardless), but that hasn't stopped consensuses to be made to exclude specific people (Vicente Fox's satirical campaign, Stephen Colbert saying he was interested in running, Stormy Daniels being included in two national polls, and most recently Alec Baldwin saying he'd be able to win against Trump if no one good showed up). This was just sorta meant to come to an agreement as to whether or not Richards' statement technically counts and I'm leaning towards yes with a pretty egalitarian view of "expressing interest."

I'm sorry if I, like, upset anybody based on my editing patterns. Like I said, it's mainly for the purpose of maintaining a sense of continuity, where we include people if they meet the criteria - period; I'm open to said criteria changing over time, though. IOnlyKnowFiveWords (talk) 09:58, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

No sorry, you have been consistent and been editing in good faith. I've been paying attention to these articles since before the 2012 election and I just think with the deluge of news sources and sites that do speculation (and pollsters that like to have nonspeculative fun), it's so easy for dozens and dozens of names to be thrown about, and it's just not relevant at this point; at any level of elections, we should just cover who runs, not who could run and who didn't run – at least not without prose explaining their importance. I had to nominate the 2024 presidential election article for deletion in January 2016! I haven't examined the Booker and Hickenlooper sources but they at least have had substantial coverage in preparing for a run or considered as strong likely candidates, unlike Richards. As we've all been discussing with even the declared candidates, there is discretion to be had. Anyway, back to work, you all know my opinion for anything else on the article... Reywas92^Talk 02:47, 26 August 2018 (UTC)