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Talk:Donald Trump/Archive 92

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Latest comment: 6 years ago by Frayae in topic Treatment of facts
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Change of wording in intro

Latest comment: 6 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion

What do you think of editing the sentence about controversial and false statements to this-

"many of his public statements during and since the campaign were controversial or false conspiracy theories."Hoponpop69 (talk) 19:39, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Honestly, I think the existing wording is fine, although "Virtually everything that dribbled out of his pie hole was a blatant lie" would be something I'd agree to.   -- Scjessey (talk) 20:18, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, but no. It's very important that the "false statements" material be well sourced to Reliable Sources, and Reliable Sources have repeatedly said "false" without adding "conspiracy theories". Besides, a lot of his falsehoods are not conspiracy theories, they are simply assertions that are untrue - misstating facts, rather than pushing any agenda or spreading any theory. --MelanieN (talk) 20:26, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
A longer conditional is naturally occurring less often so has less WP:WEIGHT. And besides, the existing words seem OK and it was already hard to get to. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 00:03, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

NYT anonymous op-ed

Latest comment: 6 years ago35 comments11 people in discussion

Don't think this can be used anywhere, at least at this time. But, I can't remember anything like this in the past: [1] O3000 (talk) 20:45, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Interesting read, basically a we are the deep state situation. Agreed not sure we could use it, but neat. PackMecEng (talk) 20:50, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
Interesting, and well worth using up one of my (carefully rationed) views of the NYT. But you're right, I don't see anyplace on Wikipedia where we can use it. For those who don't want to spend that carefully hoarded NYT view: the anonymous author is described as a senior official in the Trump administration, describing how they and their colleagues work behind the scenes to keep Donald Trump's worst ideas and impulses from going into effect. --MelanieN (talk) 20:54, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
I have always disliked the word unprecedented as it is overused at an unprecedented rate. But, akin to your effort to spend carefully hoarded NYT views, I’ll use my hoarded nonuse of the word to say this is unprecedented. In a week or so, this may be usable in the presidency article. O3000 (talk) 00:22, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
O3000 - CNN's Stelter said "almost unprecedented". I do not know what he felt was "almost", but would guess the last few administrations leakers and mudslingers. Though the precedent is usually to resign in protest first and then tell-all, not the other way around. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 23:08, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
Much as I dislike the word unprecedented, I dislike more modifiers to absolutes.   Which is why I dislike the word in the first place. The concepts of leak vs. resign are, fortunately, beyond our paygrade. Cheers. O3000 (talk) 23:17, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
First of all, LOL "deep state" situation! So funny that people think it is an actual thing that exists. Second, I think the only way this op-ed is going to get used in this article is if the author is "outed" somehow; however, that doesn't preclude its use in other articles. At the very least, it corroborates much of what has been said by other Trump officials, both on and off the record, and confirms what many people have been thinking about Trump anyway. -- Scjessey (talk) 01:25, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
Not useful for statements of fact. PackMecEng (talk) 01:28, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
The lowest point in Death Valley is 279 feet below sea level. Clearly, California is the deep state folks must be talking about. O3000 (talk) 01:32, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
Ha! Yup exactly what I meant!  PackMecEng (talk) 01:36, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
Definitely not useful for this article. Doubtful it's useful in a Trump administration article. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:34, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
WP:OFFTOPIC for this article -- it's not an official act and not a major event faced by the Presidency. The closest match I can think of would be Protests against Donald Trump, and it really does not seem a protest, more of a publicity stunt along the lines of Donald Trump baby balloon. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 23:12, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
  • We cannot use the op-ed itself for statements of fact (outside of the bare minimum that it happened, and even that, if we had no other sources, would risk WP:SYNTH issues.) However, we do have secondary sources now. Many, many secondary sources, most of which are not themselves op-eds and which can therefore be cited for statements of fact. When such secondary sources take an op-ed, place it in context, and draw conclusions from it, we can report those conclusions. This is how we handle eg. Trump's tweets - there are only limited things we can do by citing them directly, but we can cite WP:RS, non-opinion reporting on them for statements of fact. So if we have a bunch of reporting saying "this means such-and-such", we can put that in the article (although if it's contested between sources we might want to use in-line citations.) --Aquillion (talk) 23:17, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

This looks extremely notable to me and the general content of the article and the White House response should be mentioned. This is already international news. Casprings (talk) 01:35, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Even if the op-ed isn't notable, Trump's response to it certainly is. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:30, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Has Trump made a response other than his completely normal use of Twitter? power~enwiki (π, ν) 15:38, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
Okay it can go in the timeline article. But it's not really that relevant to him as a person. It doesn't tell us anything we don't already know. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:43, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
I agree it can go in the timeline. This turned out to be a much bigger deal than I expected on reading it. I was surprised it caused such a ruckus because, as Scjessey points out, it has been obvious for a long time that something like this was going on - simply because Trump will often announce a new policy or direction via Twitter, but somehow it never actually gets implemented. Maybe the reason for the uproar (his anger described as "volcanic") is that he hadn't noticed that quiet deep-sixing of some of his announcements and proposals. --MelanieN (talk) 21:56, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
You've got to be kidding. We have long had a tendency here to make a new article out of every Trump headline, but this is ridiculous. However, it will probably be no use AFDing it. They always get kept. --MelanieN (talk) 21:58, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
There is far too much written and kept, but sometimes silly ones like Covfefe do get deleted. Err... or get folded into another article at least. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 22:59, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
How about we wait and see after a few news cycles have passed whether it was just a flash in the pan or something worth keeping? – Muboshgu (talk) 22:57, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
That's the funny thing about this presidency. There's a notable event/scandal/outrage in every news cycle. It's exhausting, but really it should all be covered. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:09, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
The more I'm thinking about this, the 25th amendment trial balloon being floated, and the response it has gotten, is probably enough for this to deserve its own article. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:35, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

At this point I think it's clear that it has enough coverage to be mentioned, but it probably doesn't need a huge amount - one sentence or so would be enough (possibly worked into a larger sentence or paragraph summarizing concerns about his competence or about the perception that he is essentially a puppet.) It does have a spot in this article, since it focuses on Trump's personal competence directly and how much he actually does as president (things that are central to his personal reputation and biography, as an individual) but as I said above we will need to look at the WP:RS non-opinion secondary sources reporting on and summarizing the op-ed, and then we'll have to weigh their WP:DUE weight. --Aquillion (talk) 23:18, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

User:Aquillion At this point, a lot of the RS is chaotic criticism of the letter and production -- "Deep State" (Fox), "Coward" (Ted Lieu, D-Ca), “To ensure that Democrats win in the fall”, self aggrandizing treachery caliming to be 'noble staffers', "RIP journalism" - the op-ed versus regular journalists, barely OK in BBC "Trump op-ed in New York Times passes the key tests", Atlantic "more dangerous turmoil", does not warrent coverage (not a lot of new here), "Why Democratic Strategists Are Slamming the Anonymous Trump Op-Ed", "Democrats aren't buying anonymous Trump official's claim to an internal 'resistance': 'You’re complicit'", ... Its a mess. Markbassett (talk) 23:33, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
Markbassett, at this point, I disagree with most of what you just posted – but agree with your conclusion anyhow. I’d wait a few days. But, I think this should and will be added to some DJT articles at some point. I just find it hard to believe this will quickly fade. O3000 (talk) 00:20, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
User:Objective3000 - try looking at some of the many items touted as major or significant in the last year... not many are talked about in the last month. Even with 24/7 and internet, there is only so much bandwidth and the market keeps wanting to all pile on story du jour ... and then want something else the next week. It would perhaps be good to prune down to the stories that have proven more durable ... but I think folks would object to deleting anything, anything at all... Cheers Markbassett (talk) 01:01, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
And that's why I agree to a delay, as is my common stance. I just think this is one that will outlast the news cycle. We'll see.O3000 (talk) 01:14, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict)@Aquillion: I think Objective3000 is correct overall as well, give it some time to marinate and then see if there is any there there or if it just the next flash in the pan controversy. PackMecEng (talk) 01:16, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Interesting discussion at the new article's talk page: to expand it from being about one op-ed to being about resistance to Trump from within his administration. There has been plenty of reporting on this before the op-ed came out; I cited six references there just for starters. At this point there is no agreement to do it, much less what to call it. --MelanieN (talk) 05:36, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

? Linking items by perceived similarity sounds like a WP:SYNTH. Markbassett (talk) 00:01, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
It would depend on the specifics. Aggregating together a number of sources which make similar observations is not only appropriate, it is a cornerstone of forging neutral content. Such activities only stray into SYNTH territory where an editor arrives at (and relays in Wikipedia's voice) an assertion which cannot itself be found in any one of those sources alone, but is instead deduced by the editor by combining predicates from multiple sources. That does not seem to be at all what MelanieN was talking about, however. Instead she seems to be merely contemplating expanding the scope of coverage, which is a different matter, and one that would have to be resolved through a WEIGHT analysis. Snow let's rap 18:46, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
User:Snow Rise - think it would need a RS to connect the items or it falls into WP:SYNTH of combining material from multiple sources that would reach or imply what none of them do. Think that at the moment though you are right the WEIGHT of #resistance is by itself, and the WEIGHT for the letter is by itself, as two separate topics. There may be some making a comparison, perhaps saying not connected, but such linkage would seem tiny so more a footnote of a solo article than a cause for merger. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 00:40, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Small change to "travel ban" consensus wording

Latest comment: 6 years ago8 comments7 people in discussion
Consensus to remove the (2nd) word "several". Amends #23. ―Mandruss ☎ 07:24, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

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

Reading the lede section again after a few months, I think we could slightly shorten the sentence describing the travel ban. I suggest changing from:

Trump ordered a travel ban on citizens from several Muslim-majority countries, citing security concerns; after several legal challenges, the Supreme Court upheld the policy's third revision.

to:

Trump ordered a travel ban on citizens from several Muslim-majority countries, citing security concerns; after legal challenges, the Supreme Court upheld the policy's third revision.

In other words, just remove the word "several", which is already implied by the plural form of "legal challenges", and makes the sentence heavier than it can be. There's also a link to the detailed article about said legal challenges, giving them enough emphasis. — JFG talk 13:22, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

  • Support - Seem uncontroversial. Means the same thing and is cleaner. PackMecEng (talk) 13:45, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Support - It seems fine to me, as long as it is explained in the body of the article.- MrX 🖋 15:01, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Support - I don't think "several" is sufficiently implied by the plural form of "challenges" at all; nevertheless, the matter is adequately described in the article body. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:49, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Support as per PackMecEng. --MelanieN (talk) 16:23, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Neutral - Personally, I would have rather retained the "several", which to my eye is subtly different in meaning, implying the context that there were several different causes of action arising in multiple jurisdictions--as well as several different "challenges" in the sense of discrete legal questions, some of them directly addressed in the SCOTUS holding, others less so. That said, the difference is trivial in the grand scheme here and, as the OP notes, the full story can be found at the Wikilinked article--and as Scjessey notes, it is discussed in broader detail even in this article. Additionally, there seems to be support for the change between editors who often sharply disagree even as to the small details here, so the last thing I'd want to add to that rare occurrence is a pedantic argument. So looks acceptable, even if I can't outright support. Snow let's rap 19:15, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. Noting support from editors with various points of view, I'll go ahead and implement the change. — JFG talk 07:08, 23 September 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.


Wording for sentence in lead on racial stance

Latest comment: 6 years ago196 comments36 people in discussion
Although I was WP:INVOLVED in this discussion, I have undertaken to close it per the discussion below, because we need to have a formal closure and no uninvolved person would accept the invitation to do so. After analyzing the discussion I conclude that both the strength of numbers and the strength of argument support adding the “both” or “compromise” sentence "Many of his comments and actions have been perceived as racially charged or racist” to the lede. This was not a strong consensus but I think it is clear enough. --MelanieN (talk) 21:33, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

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

Per the close of this RfC, I added "Many of his comments and actions have been perceived as racially charged." to the lead; I expect the wording of this to get discussed/modified a lot, so I'm preemptively starting this discussion; my own preference is actually for something like "Many of his comments have been criticized as racist, which he has denied." as I proposed 6 months back. That IMO is better because it is clearer and avoids the vague/euphemistic "racially charged". Galobtter (pingó mió) 13:28, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

As the initiator of the RfC, I support the current wording proposed in the RfC ("Many of his comments and actions have been perceived as racially charged.") I would also support "Many of his comments and actions have been racially charged." per several arguments in the RfC. I'm still not convinced that we should use the term "racist", but I'm open to persuasion. If we do add "criticized as racist" I don't think that we should add that "he has denied" in the lead. It goes without saying and would be better covered in the body of the article.- MrX 🖋 13:40, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
(vaguely (edit conflict) - also struck out most of my initial) - I reread that RfC and sources and racially charged or a variant does seem most preferred by sources, so I guess that's what we'll go with. Do you think there should be "perceived by some" though, which is what you actually proposed in the RfC? I support dropping that "by some" per the sources not qualifying their statements on race controversy with that. One could even drop "perceived", or use "were racially controversial".. Galobtter (pingó mió) 13:55, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
If we are going to do it there are kind of two things that needs to be updated. The qualifiers like many and perceived should be change per WP:WEASEL. Also per WP:PUBLICFIGURE " If the subject has denied such allegations, that should also be reported", so while it may be a given that he would deny it, we are required to report it. PackMecEng (talk) 14:05, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
Actually, while it is true we are "required to report" his denial, we already do this in the body of the article. We need not do so in the lede. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:54, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
Yeah I saw that as well, just seems a bit off to exclude it in the first and most prominent mention of it. PackMecEng (talk) 15:08, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
It's also debatable whether it's an allegation or an observation.- MrX 🖋 17:23, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
An allegation based off observation then? But either way, does it matter as far as BLP is concerned? PackMecEng (talk) 17:26, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
  • I agree with the proposed wording "Many of his comments and actions have been perceived as racially charged." Leave out "by some"; that adds nothing and virtually demands a [who?] tag. We don't have to use the exact wording at the start of the RfC; there were several suggestions for other wordings during the discussion and there was no consensus for that particular version. I strongly oppose changing it to "racist" since most of our sources do not use that highly inflammatory word. Anyhow the sources do not describe his actual beliefs (and are not capable of doing so) - just his words and actions. --MelanieN (talk) 15:38, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
While I wouldn't say there was particular consensus for that wording or that we necessarily have to use the wording of the start RfC, I think it is best here for something so contentious to have a specific wording as a "Current Consensus", and so I chose the one at the beginning of the RfC for now that per the RfC opener was what was specifically being "supported" or "opposed" on; hopefully we can relatively quickly get a consensus to remove "by some" and update current consensus, linking to this discussion. Galobtter (pingó mió) 15:49, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
  • I think the WP:RSes support simply using the word racist. High quality WP:RS's agree. For example, see Donald Trump’s Racism: The Definitive List . If the standard is not what WP:RSes use, what is it? I would ask those who oppose using the term racist, when does your opinion change? If next week, a tape comes out in which trump uses the word nigger to describe African Americans, which may happen, is that a high enough standard to drop the use of racially charged? At some point, the use of racial charged is not neutral. It is a Wikipedia:Weasel word. It stops being WP:NPV and starts to display a point of view. I think we are already there. I wonder what is the standard for other editors?Casprings (talk) 16:02, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
  • I think "racially charged" works just fine for now. We can always look at the language again if it turns out Trump's been recorded using racial epithets. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:31, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
The USA today article is a blog post and The Guardian article is quoting others, not saying in their voice for racist. PackMecEng (talk) 18:09, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
I don't see any evidence that the USA today article is a blog post; the author is listed as "Christal Hayes, USA TODAY". And of course both articles cite others rather than saying it in their own voice, which could only happen in an op-ed anyhow. But then, we would not say it in our own voice either. We would say "have been perceived as..." or "have been described as" or some such wording. Note that I am speaking theoretically; I am not yet to the point of wanting to use the word "racist" in the lede. --MelanieN (talk) 18:23, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
@MelanieN: Look at the URL it is part of their onpolitics section. If you do a search of "usa today on politics" you get "OnPolitics | USA TODAY's politics blog" first result. Correct we do not state it in our voice just like they do not state it in their voice as fact. PackMecEng (talk) 18:37, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
I looked through that list, and I only saw three people specifically insulted on intelligence: Maxine Waters ("Low I.Q"; black woman), Mika Brzezinski ("Low I.Q"; white woman), and Don Lemon ("The dumbest man on television"; black man); this seems to perfectly support the conclusions of the RS (which are the only things that matter, anyhow): "But whereas the likes of James Comey, John McCain and Mitt Romney receive a smorgasbord of other insults, the congresswoman Maxine Waters and TV host Don Lemon, both of whom are African American, appear to be denigrated for their intelligence alone." Galobtter (pingó mió) 10:06, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
This is a good albeit outdated list, and I had to look hard to find a black person he called dumb. But women, yes; he called a lot of women dumb. But women have nothing to do with this discussion, which is about race. wumbolo ^^^ 11:21, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
  • OPPOSE - that prior rfc was not really enthusiastic 10 Opposed, 8 in favor (2 of those conditional), and now its being rendered invalid by immediately reopening the language. I’m for instead let’s justrevert to consensus 24 until folks figure out what language to propose and take it to rfc. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 05:34, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

"by some"

Just to focus the discussion on whether there is or is not consensus to say "by some" in this sentence, so we can at least reach agreement on that point: Should the sentence say "have been perceived by some..." ? Include or not? --MelanieN (talk) 18:13, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

  • Identify who said it and who opposed it per NPOV, or alternatively mention the flip views as admirers would have it if their POV is not in the same playground. And meanwhile take out the whole line until things are figured out ... a rfc is for a specific wording, and changes to language should have been IN the rfc. This change is contrary to the consensus #24 or #30. And p.s. please do not hat things within hours. That is unnecessary and just winds up incomplete. Markbassett (talk) 05:45, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
The closer of the RfC said "feel free to tweak the wording, as necessary by normal t/p discourse". Sorry if I hatted it while people still had things to say, but it was clearly a case of WP:SNOW. --MelanieN (talk) 23:56, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Just a little perspective, how many times has Trump been labled a rascist? I can't remember turning on the news without seeing it. Is his being rascist or even alluding to it informative or spreading political views. CaptainQuizBowl (talk) 04:25, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Racist versus racially charged

Same idea as above. Should the sentence include the wording racist versus racially charged.Casprings (talk) 22:50, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

  • Racist Both as per Scjessey below. As OP. One, it is supported by WP:RSes. Two, "racially charged" is a Wikipedia:Weasel words. The people making these comments, per WP:RSes are saying that these are racist comments. Not "racially charged". Wikipedia should not take on the role of making less of that. Just state the reality. I would ask anyone to go to the article on Racism and explain why we should use the wording "racially charged". Call a spade a spade We should be straight forward and match what WP:RSes are saying.Casprings (talk) 22:55, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
    • Changed my vote to reflect what I think was a good suggestion. However, I think we should remove the passive voice. I would reword.

      Commentators described many of his comments as racist or racially charged.

      Casprings (talk) 22:51, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
      • "Commentators...comments"? 0;-D Aside from the awkwardness, I think in this case the passive is preferable. "Commentators" sounds like the description is just coming from media talking heads, but in fact it is coming from everyone from journalists to politicians to celebrities of every stripe to ordinary people. Anyhow, this subsection is supposed to be just focused on "racist vs. racially charged"; I think we should not introduce other changes here. --MelanieN (talk) 23:33, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Racially charged. "Racist" is a very strong accusation - virtually fighting words. To say something that negative in a BLP we need stronger evidence than we currently have, and more unanimity among sources. Trump's racial positions are never overt, they are inferred - through things he says ("they're bringing crime, they're rapists", "she has a very low IQ", "shithole countries", "I want immigrants from Norway"), his unwillingness to condemn people and groups who are frankly racist, the enthusiasm that racists (e.g. David Duke) feel toward him. "Racially charged" is a good way of describing these things without crossing over the BLP line to say "he is a racist". (BTW in discussing racial issues, "call a spade a spade" is probably not the best idiom to use. 0;-D ) --MelanieN (talk) 00:07, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Racially charged Racist or racially charged. Personally, I think Trump is a racist. I think he’s a lot of –ists. But, I think it’s a charged term in itself, is difficult to use as a descriptor if it is not self-identified, ignores his long known history of making statements for some manner of gain that may or may not have anything to do with his personal beliefs, reverses himself constantly, and it’s, frankly, difficult to determine any of his personal beliefs. There is little question that he makes use of the racism of others (which IMO is actually worse than being a racist oneself). I just think we have access to language that can describe his relationship with whatever people classify as “races” without using that particular word. O3000 (talk) 00:15, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
Altered my vote after Scjessey’s suggestion as I think it is a better fit to RS. O3000 (talk) 00:24, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
Considering the just two deleted edits, WP:NOTFORUM O3000 (talk)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
What about "race realist"?107.77.221.160 (talk) 00:38, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
Never seen that in any source covering the subject. What does this even mean?? — JFG talk 00:44, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
It's Scientific racism. So yeah... PackMecEng (talk) 00:46, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
It's a synonym for racist and let's not encourage trolls. O3000 (talk) 00:54, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Racist just because it's unclear sometimes does not mean it's never clear. wumbolo ^^^ 09:56, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Neither - I've been reading up about the difference between "racist" and "racially charged" and there are many sources by prominent black and Latino commentators who regard the latter as a euphemism designed to soften the language in order to prevent white people being too offended. I can understand their point of view, and it does seem to be shared by some of the Wikipedia editors on this article. So I propose a compromise:

    Many of his comments and actions have been described as racist or racially charged.

    We have sources for both, so let's take it out of Wikipedia's voice and use both. That should satisfy proponents of either description, should it not? -- Scjessey (talk) 15:54, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Neither - I agree with Scjessey, the best way of wording is as he suggested. We need to go with the sources which use both descriptions.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 15:59, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Racially charged, but prefer neither because of NPOV issues. I have read into this issue more and considered the article body of text this sentence is summarising. Sources describe Trump’s comments as either racist or racially insensitive (e.g., due to rejection of political correctness) and Trump denies he is racist. Therefore describing the comments as either racist or racially charged downplays the racially insensitive text in the article body and also if we are going to apply a very damaging label of racist in the lede then we need to include Trump’s denials, per WP:BLP and WP:NPOV.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 23:23, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
"Race realism" trolling, IP blocked — Preceding unsigned comment added by Acroterion (talk • contribs) 11:48, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
  • Race Realist. It means, among other things, acknowledging that the races have different levels of intelligence and aggression genetically (as well as every other trait) and that letting people into your country who have lower intelligence or higher aggression than the national average is a self-destructive act. Things like that. True but "politically incorrect". Another example would be to say that the white race is being bred out of existence through immigration of non-whites into every white nation and that this should be stopped, not only because it's incredibly monstrous towards whites who want to save their race but because it's destroying human diversity.107.77.221.160 (talk) 01:32, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
Wow. Where would you even start... BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 11:22, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
Well, I'll start by saying that's an ignorant, racist comment from our IP contributor. And Trump is an expert at pandering to the kind of people who make comments like that. HiLo48 (talk) 11:42, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
Being insulting to someone is not reason to avoid saying something if it's true. HiLo48 (talk) 22:41, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
Agreed, of course. But if the two words are interchangeable, as they may be here, why use the inflammatory one in the lead? Maybe moot point, "both" is looking good, but if it's either or... (Sorry Mandruss, I don't know where to put this or what you mean, I should leave). Sammy D III (talk) 23:17, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
I mean the argument that we should avoid insulting people has no basis in Wikipedia policy. (And generally your comment would follow mine below, with the same indent level as mine, since they are both replies to HiLo48's comment and I posted mine first.) ―Mandruss ☎ 23:25, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
I'm struggling to see the policy connections for several of the arguments here, this is just one of the more obvious cases. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:03, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
User:Sammy D III For concern on insults maybe WP:LABEL and WP:RACIST suits, or in wider sense WP:Attack page or the WP:BLP guides to be restrained ? Cheers Markbassett (talk) 06:43, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Both as proposed by Scjessey would be an improvement over the current text. As I mentioned above, I still have not seen a strong argument for 'racist' by itself. - MrX 🖋 20:43, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Racist per WP:NOTCENSORED. "Racially charged" is a euphemism, plus many RS use "racist". K.e.coffman (talk) 00:30, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
    WP:NOTFREESPEECH. wumbolo ^^^ 12:08, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Racially charged if anything at all. How many times must we have this conversation when nothing substantially new has happened? If anything it has gone the other way in some areas. But I digress. PackMecEng (talk) 00:38, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment. "Racially charged" may seem like a reasonable compromise to some people, but I have to say I think it's terrible and that something else should be used instead. What precisely does "racially charged" mean? It is an ambiguous phrase that has to be interpreted by the reader and it does not belong in an encyclopedia that is meant to be clearly written and accessible. If what is actually meant is "racially insensitive", then just say that. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 03:27, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment "Racially charged" is simply non-encyclopaedic. It has no clear meaning. Trump almost certainly IS a racist, but he is even more a populist. He says what he thinks the audience he is targeting at any particular time wants to hear. That means he panders to and encourages racists, saying seemingly racist things, when he wants their support. HiLo48 (talk) 03:36, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
@HiLo48: In the version I have put forward, we are not saying "racially charged" is a thing or not. We are saying that the term has been used by commentators (rightly or wrongly). In fact, there is great sourcing for racially charged, racially insensitive and racist all over the internet. "Racially charged" is certainly the term most used by reliable sources, with "racist" a close second and "racially insensitive" a distant third, as far as I can determine. Wikipedia need not say which term we think is most appropriate, and I believe this compromise will get support from most editors here. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:01, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
Then maybe some words like you have just written here need to be in the article. Words about the frequency with which those labels are applied to Trump. But can that be done with original research? You see, "racially charged" is still a nebulous term, and I doubt if any observer of the sources has published a count of its usage that we can refer to, and a definition. Is it in any dictionary? HiLo48 (talk) 22:34, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
You don't need to come here to ask if a word is in a dictionary, you can find the answer yourself. Multiple dictionaries provide online access. For example, Merriam-Webster "charged" definition 2: "capable of arousing strong emotion : a politically charged subject". Add the modifier "racially" and you have: "capable of arousing strong emotion about racial issues". ―Mandruss ☎ 22:54, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Our job is to reflect what sources say. If they use a term that we think is nebulous, that's the term we use. It is not up to us to decide it is nebulous or to try to interpret it for the reader. --MelanieN (talk) 22:56, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
The lead states, at present, that, "Many of his comments and actions have been perceived as racially charged." That is not the same thing as saying that commentators have used the specific term "racially charged" to describe Trump's comments and actions. The fact that the words "charged" and "racially" both have meanings does not mean that the expression "racially charged" has a clear, properly understood meaning. HiLo48 is correct that the phrase has no clear meaning, and it is disingenuous to suggest otherwise. Readers of the article are likely to be totally unclear about its intended meaning, and it should not be used if some more easily understandable term can be used instead. Despite what Mandruss states above, there is no certainty whatever that readers will understand that the term is supposed to mean, "capable of arousing strong emotion about racial issues". There is no need to use an unclear expression when the lead could instead simply state, in so many words, that Trump made comments seen as arousing emotion about racial issues. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 23:18, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
@FreeKnowledgeCreator: What "so many words" do you propose? "Racially insensitive", which you mentioned above, does not say the same thing as "racially charged", nor does it say what RS say nearly as frequently as they say "racially charged". ―Mandruss ☎ 23:31, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
You are missing the point. "Racially charged" does not say anything because it is not a phrase with a commonly understood or recognized meaning, even if it is sometimes used in the media. Readers of Wikipedia will come here and ask themselves, "what on earth is that supposed to mean?" The fact that the media use an unclear expression of this kind does not oblige us to present it to readers with no explanation of any kind. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 23:33, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
FreeKnowledgeCreator: What wording are you suggesting, that is used by Reliable Sources and is clearer or more easily understood? --MelanieN (talk) 00:06, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Both as per Scjessey. I don't presume to put myself above Merriam-Webster on issues of language. They are in the business of documenting common usage, it's what they do. If the article is to be written at an 8th grade level, we have a bit of work to do. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:37, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Racially charged. What MelanieN said. Kerberous (talk) 01:39, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
  • What the hell does "racially charged" even mean??? Like they took some words, hooked up a battery loaded up with some racism to them and charged them up? In this context "racially charged" is a grammatically awful weaselly euphemism for "racist". It's a phrase you use when you purposefully don't want to be clear about your meaning. It's non encyclopedic. Now. Wait one minute. "racially charged" actually does have a precise meaning. It describes ... an atmosphere or a situation (here's one source on the history of the term [2]). An atmosphere can be "charged". A situation can be "charged". BUT IT DOES NOT DESCRIBE STATEMENTS. This actually has nothing to do with politics or POV or ideology. "Racially charged" as is being suggested here is just horrible bad writing. Closest example off the top of my head is like someone writing that "people were evacuated". It "sounds right", but is just wrong.Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:39, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
Despite comments to the contrary, every single editor in this discussion knows full well what "racially charged" means. Don't even pretend you don't, people. The fact is, reliable sources frequently contort themselves to avoid using "racist" by substituting it in favor of "racially charged" when commenting on Trumps comments and actions. By using both, we avoid the ambiguity some editors are claiming. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:47, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
Well that reasoning just supports the weaselly euphemism claim. I disagree, as the definitions are quite different. Maybe those reliable sources actually meant racially charged and not racist, we don't know and shouldn't care. ―Mandruss ☎ 16:38, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
Closest example off the top of my head is like someone writing that "people were evacuated". It "sounds right", but is just wrong. - Again, the dictionary disagrees. "Evacuate" definition 4a: "to remove especially from a military zone or dangerous area".
You seem to make a claim to vocabulary "correctness" that transcends the dictionary, which is a fairly common misunderstanding. In vocabulary, what's "correct" is what people do, that's how the English language has evolved, and dictionaries seek to document what people currently do. Merriam-Webster has determined that enough people use that sense of "evacuate" to qualify it as "correct" usage, so they added it to their dictionary. It may have been incorrect in our lifetimes, but we have to be willing to change with the language. There is no static "correctness" in vocabulary. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:17, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
Mmm, yeah ok but see [3] where it's the fourth or third usage of the term. Thanks though. Volunteer Marek 19:50, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 1

Just so we are clear what we are talking about in this subsection (since the discussion has wandered a little): This is a very limited and specific question with three proposed wordings for the sentence for the lede:

  •  "Many of his comments and actions have been perceived as racially charged." (currently in the article)
  •  "Many of his comments and actions have been perceived as racist."
  •  "Many of his comments and actions have been perceived as racist or racially charged."

I think most people have understood, with their comments above ("racist", "racially charged," "both" or "neither"), that these are the choices, so no need to repeat yourself if you have already chimed in. I just wanted to be sure we are staying on topic. (Casprings at one point suggested an entirely different format for the sentence, but that was beyond the scope of this discussion and would have to go somewhere else. The "what does it mean" discussions above do not seem to be targeted toward making one of these three choices, or with proposing alternate wording.) --MelanieN (talk) 23:46, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

"Racially insensitive" is just an even softer euphemism of the much more prevalent term "racially charged" (per reliable sources). -- Scjessey (talk) 21:08, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
I know, but that's the point. Many of those "reliable" sources are politically biased, while we're seeking NPOV. That said, I'm not really opposed to "racially charged"; it just sounds like interpretation. UpdateNerd (talk) 05:11, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
@UpdateNerd: That's a very slippery slope to go down. We evaluate the quality of reliable sources at WP:RSN. Once they've passed scrutiny, we accept them. From that point on, "bias" is filtered out by using language that reflects the preponderance of wording in reliable sources, and particularly from prominent examples. Individual media organs may lean one way or another, but we examine the body of that work and make sure our language reflects that. By a considerable margin, "racist" and "racially charged" are the two terms which appear most in this already-vetted body of reliable sources, which is why I suggested we use both above. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:42, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
As long as it's made clear what sources are being reflected, I think that's the best call. UpdateNerd (talk) 03:03, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
@UpdateNerd: References always include information about the source. What more is needed than that? Honestly, this "biased sources" crap is almost as bad a "skewed polling" was. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:57, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
They include a link to the source, but does it say where it falls on the political spectrum? We could at least be checking such charts to attempt a degree of non-bias. UpdateNerd (talk) 15:42, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
Well, with respect to the clearly good-faith motivation of your suggestion, we're not going to be filtering our coverage based upon an idiosyncratic chart (from a non-reliable source, no less) that presumes to fix the political position of our sources as if they were celestial bodies on a star chart. 1) That's an absolutely absurd notion, and 2) Even if that weren't the case, and even if this chart came from an WP:RS, this would still be the most absolutely blatant violation of WP:Original research (by way of WP:Synthesis) imaginable. I don't wish to sound acerbic about this, but these kinds of assertions have become the single most problematic and recurrent issue/proposed violation of policy on WP:ARBAP2 talk pages and it needs to stop on this page in particular, because it needlessly protracts every single discussion. On this project, we do not interject our own personal analysis of sources and how we feel they are likely going to come down on an issue. That would be original research through the backdoor; we might as well not have an WP:OR policy at that point, since every editor looking to insert their own perspective on a matter (be it knowingly or subconsciously) would just shift their editorializing of any given personal perspective to be about where the source fits on some perceived right vs. left spectrum (or catholic vs. protestant, or "social justice" vs. "reactionary", or whatever social or political dimension they could conjure in their minds to justify the original research, try to remove it from their own experience conceptually, and then just pretend it isn't blatant original research).
When we decide whether to include a description of a topic on this project, we ask two questions: 1) which of the sources being proposed as relevant to this analysis are WP:reliable sources as community consensus defines them (which never includes where our editors or even other RS view that source to be on a political spectrum), and 2) once we've established the corpus of sources which are clearly RS, what does the WP:WEIGHT from amongst those sources say about the proposed description--e.i., is it WP:DUE or WP:UNDUE. At no point in the analysis do we cross reference the sources against a chart or filter them through our own political lens of "too right"/"too left"/"too anything", because that manifestly and necessarily involves the introduction of synthesis and original research. Snow let's rap 19:04, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
Correct. I can't say I blame Nerd, however, since similar extra-policy analysis is widespread, even among experienced editors, including a few of the regulars on this page. We call it editorial discretion or editorial judgment. That's the larger problem, and more worthy of your well-informed and articulate commentary. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:52, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
That said, rolling the discussion back one step to what you are Scjessey were originally discussing, which comes down basically to attribution, I don't think it's unreasonable to want something more than just the source linked in the reference. The trouble becomes, when we are dealing with sources as numerous and varied as are involved here, how do you attribute a commonly held (but by no means universal) impression, without falling back on the kind of prohibited OR-based editorial analysis discussed immediately above? In most cases the kind of meta sources you would need just do not exist, and in the rare cases where they do, it is difficult to apply them in a neutral fashion that does not just torture the prose and confuse the reader. I'm afraid the best we are likely to be able to do here is just use a long string of references (in accordance with WP:extraordinary) for any controversial claims, and trust the reader to be able to evaluate the claims themselves. After-all, at the end of the day, that is our job--to present the reader with the weight of what reliable sources say on a topic and let them arrive at their own conclusions. Snow let's rap 19:27, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
The issue with that wall of text is that it is not really true. Not in practice at least. Yes the chart has little to no value, but we do routinely evaluate sources for reliability and their bias is a factor in that. While there are times bias sources are fine and even encouraged in certain situations, that is by no means a non-issue. Also there is no community consensus any source is always reliable, that is always a case by case basis. There are sources that you can safely say are generally reliable, but again nothing is above being challenged. Take Fox news as an easy example, the community has routinely agreed they are a RS. They are also routinely removed as a biased source. Which is fine, there are plenty of times they should be removed. By that same token that logic does apply to other sources as well. Now if you challenge a source you better have a reason past WP:IDONTLIKEIT otherwise it is disruptive, but it is not a conversation that should not be had.
After that weight is the most difficult part to assess as editors. It is way too easy to fall into the trap of "well I have RS here so that's good enough", its coverage in relation to the subject needs to be considered as well. With this subject that is especially difficult as there are hundreds of articles almost daily from RS about almost every aspect of his life. We also have to look past news of the day situations to see if there is lasting impact. (That is not to imply this particular part is news of the day, it certainly has continued coverage, it is more of a general statement). So how would you go about evaluating the weight of this addition? PackMecEng (talk) 19:50, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
"[T]hat it is not really true. Not in practice at least ... we do routinely evaluate sources for reliability and their bias is a factor in that." Well, while I won't disagree that this is becoming an increasingly common tactic attempted on WP:ARBAP2 talk pages "in practice", that doesn't remotely change the fact that this an unambiguous violation of our most basic editorial policies and longest-standing points of community consensus as regards verification, original research, and neutral point of view. That's just not how analysis of reliable sources is meant to precede here, as that just moves the WP:battleground for editors looking to insert their personal analysis of matters a few steps to the side, by letting them cherry pick sources which are "appropriate" enough to source a given fact in relation to a given topic, based on their personal analysis, in a manner that is functionally no different than if they had asserted that the fact cannot be included because it is "wrong", based on their personal analysis; in other words, textbook original research.
That said, you've absolutely identified exactly the larger issue involved here: how do we forge a realistic summary of WP:weight, given the insane volume of sources regarding this man and his actions? As you note, this opens the door for all manner of confirmation bias, as most vaguely reasonable opinions about the man (and many quite ridiculous ones) can probably be sourced to something that passes the RS bar. And I'm afraid that, as far as I can provide anyway, there are no easy solutions to that problem. As to how I would proceed in this specific instance, the only (admittedly obvious) advice I can propose is to treat any claim remotely likely to be regarded as controversial (that is, just about anything discussed on this talk page, if we are being realistic) as default WP:extraordinary and require a substantial number of RS to source it. And also set the bar exceptionally high for which sources should be used in the references themselves (not with regard to whether they are politically or ideologically neutral enough as judged by one of our editors, but with regard to their general stature as a source in their particular media industry, allegiances our editors think they perceive put very much to the side). But honestly, its never going to be easy for this article, and I wish I could give a satisfying, brief, and straight forward answer on how to reliably filter the bias, other than to say that editors choosing to contribute on this and related articles need to continuously scrutinize their motivations and be prepared to go the extra mile in reading through far, far more sources than are usually employed for any WP:WEIGHT analysis, while trying not to let commitment bias take hold and make their analysis conform to previous conclusions. But one thing I can tell you with certainty is that original research is never a path towards an WP:NPOV analysis; rather, it is the exact opposite of how we achieve that end under our policies. Snow let's rap 20:32, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
I think we agree on the issue with the second point. It is a complex situation there. The first point I still rather disagree. There is no gold standard publication that is always a RS, they need to be evaluated on a case by case basis. That is part of the base of how we define what a RS is, in this situation WP:RSCONTEXT for judging if a source is reliable and for this article we rely mostly on WP:NEWSORG type source that also need to be properly evaluated. The number of opinion sources or sources that mention it in passing is an issue.
So lets take a look at the sources used for the recent RFC on this topic. All the NY Times articles are from their "White House Memo" section which is a conversational opinion section basically.[4] The Fortune source is in their real estate section from 2 years ago which would be an issue of WP:RS AGE. The Rolling Stone is the same article listed twice by a self described Democrat activist.[5] PBS is again listed twice from a correspondent but is basically just a list article with the non-list part not really supporting the RFC text. The Washington Post article seems pretty solid for reporting and covering the text in the RFC. The LA Times is another list article the little text from the authors that is there, at least is close to supporting the RFC. The New Yorker is straight up an opinion piece so only good for the authors opinion and with something like that its probably not good enough. The Atlantic is again an old piece from 2 years ago but otherwise on topic and fine. Finally the BBC that is almost 3 years old at this point, and is just listing what other people said in tweets and emails about Trump. So out of that big list, not many are that strong. That all goes back to my original point, yes there are sources out there but it does not seem like that many good ones. If that is the case weight becomes the leading issue. PackMecEng (talk) 22:28, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
Well, while I think the WP:RSCONTEXT argument applies better to some of those examples than to others (the WP:RS AGE arguments in particular are not strong, given that the statement being sourced is that some people think Trump is "X with regard to race" and whatever you want to plug into "X" there, it's going to be as true today as it was two or three years ago), every one of those examples is of a category that is different from (and much more acceptable than) the kind of "this source is too leftie/rightie" kind of analysis that I was noting as WP:original research. Each of your arguments there is about the format, depth, or recency of the content (all acceptable grounds for objecting to a source in some context or another), rather than subjective speculation about the supposed slant of the the institution or individual behind the source. I may not agree with every one of your conclusions about those particular sources, as an editorial call, but the arguments themselves are within the vein of analysis allowed by policy. Not so with the "I just don't think they can be trusted, because they lean too far towards [insert OR appraisal by editor on the suspected ideological biases of source]". That's an important distinction, I think. Snow let's rap 23:00, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
Agreed there needs to be some grounding in policy past a bias claim. More explanation is needed. PackMecEng (talk) 00:24, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Racially charged. Given the volume of sources and the relative weight of the contemplated terms between them, I don't see another option. Some sources do prefer to "call a spade for a spade" and label Trump as outright racist, as some have argued we should do here, but the vast majority are more measured in their language and we must follow suit if we want to be able to claim that the article faithfully and neutrally presents a summary of what reliable sources say on the topic, as the wrestle with the dividing line between objective analysis and polemics. Personally, I can understand those who feel many of Trump's views and actions are blatant and transparent in their racism, but we're not here to present the views of our editors. Snow let's rap 07:14, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

  • Both: "Many of his comments and actions have been perceived as racially charged or racist" reflects what the sources say. Some (maybe most?) news sources may wish to use the term "racially charged", but it's clear that a significant number of RSes have said that his comments have been seen by others as racist. That's what the article would be alleging if we were to put "racist" in the lead, and that is accurate. --Bangalamania (talk) 23:20, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 2

Currently, we have at least 10 editors supporting using both terms, 6 choosing just "racially charged" and 3 choosing just "racist". This isn't an RfC, but I would suggest we have a clear consensus to have both terms, which means changing this:

Many of his comments and actions have been perceived as racially charged.

Into this:

Many of his comments and actions have been described as racist or racially charged.

If there are no objections in the next 24 hours, I shall go ahead and implement this change. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:21, 1 September 2018 (UTC)
If this change is made (which I don't necessarily support), I would suggest grouping the citations to show which sources are using each term to avoid any controversy later. UpdateNerd (talk) 20:41, 1 September 2018 (UTC)
@UpdateNerd: This will replace a sentence in the lede of the article, and we have adopted the convention of not putting references in the lede section of this article. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:13, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
@Scjessey: Another reason not to make the change. UpdateNerd (talk) 17:22, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
@UpdateNerd: Well that's too bad. This is a discussion about the exact wording of a change we have already decided to make. We're not relitigating the already closed and endorsed RfC. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:34, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
If I may make a suggestion, perhaps putting both phrasings in quotes would help maintain WP:NPOV and show they're coming from sources UpdateNerd (talk) 19:14, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
@UpdateNerd: You are talking about scare quotes. They are not necessary, and simply cast doubt on referenced facts. Also, you need to go back and fix the mess you made of this talk page. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:37, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
Please make sure my vote gets counted for "racially charged". UpdateNerd (talk) 21:52, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
Consensus 30 was not this proposal It seems hypocritical to tell him he cannot relitigate in the middle of your relitigating. Either respect the prior RFC consensus or start a new one. In such a contentious article, any edit in violation of the RFC results should be reverted and the editor admonished. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 20:26, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
@Scjessey: Unless I am mistaken your count is way off. I got 8 Both, 3 Racist, and 7 Racially charged. For both I had Casprings, Objective3000, Scjessey, Galobtter, MrX, Mandruss, Alphalfalfa, and Bangalamania. For Racist it was Wumbolo, K.e.coffman, and Signedzzz. Racially charged was MelanieN, Literaturegeek, Sammy D III, PackMecEng, Kerberous, Kierzek, and Snow Rise. PackMecEng (talk) 21:08, 1 September 2018 (UTC)
The headcount is not that important. What troubles me is that we are gliding from a "weak consensus" in the RfC to say that "many" of Trump's deeds were "perceived as racially charged" into another weak consensus to call them "racist or racially charged". Given that many people took issue with the "racist" WP:LABEL, and that this whole sentence is a blatant case of WP:WEASELING, I strongly object. — JFG talk 01:25, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
JFG, That my previous closure has been endorsed, I'll leave a note that my close (and the weak consensus, therein) has no bearing on the exact word or the combination to be used.I have mentioned in my detailed explanation of my closure that I have explicitly allowed for some latency in the wording and that the consensus was basically in endorsement of the inclusion of the broader theme. If there is a consensus for Scjessey's version, that shall be implemented.
Also, whilst I have not much interest in evaluating this discussion, I fail to see where there is consensus to call them as "racist or racially charged" (Calling typically means to use WP's voice and AFAIS, no such proposal is in the airs).∯WBGconverse 04:59, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
@Winged Blades of Godric: Thanks for your note. Indeed, obtaining a better consensus depends strongly on the details of the turn of phrase. I have no objection to mentioning the broader theme, as you noted in your conclusions. This is why I suggested an #Alternative wording below. — JFG talk 09:24, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Although it would probably be best for this to be closed by an uninvolved admin, I think that (reading their arguments) it's reasonable to interpret most of the comments siding with "racist" as supporting "both" over just "racially insensitive" in the case where we have to settle on one. Figuring out cases like that is a vital part of closing a close RFC. At a bare minimum, zzz unambiguously says they would find the inclusion of both to be an acceptable compromise; similarly, an argument that only pushes for the inclusion of one term, without objecting to the other, can reasonably be taken as being at least partially satisfied by using both as a compromise when evaluating consensus, if their first choice clearly fails to have a consensus behind it. One of the advantages to consensus-based !voting is that admins can make that sort of determination rather than resulting in awkward situations resulting from vote splits. But ofc that's just one of many things that a closing admin would need to consider. --Aquillion (talk) 03:09, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
- Neither: Before you put that up, I had an interesting idea, based on Bold and Brash's "offensive". What about something like this?: "Many of his comments and actions have been described as offensive by minorities, women, (etc)." It allows more flexibility, removes the word in question while implying it, and, combined with "described" over "perceived", draws it much closer to NPOV. The Legacy (talk) 07:31, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Both, since there is capacious sourcing for each. The fact that his comments and actions have been described that way is factual, extremely well-sourced, and most of all important in the sense that large amounts of the public debate and discussion over him doesn't make sense except in light of those facts. People who oppose using those terms would be better off trying to come up with an acceptable alternative way to cover it (while avoiding WP:WEASEL), since I don't think it's defensible to say that the widespread description of comments and actions as racist has no place in the article. For the better or worse, that description is a major part of how his public persona is perceived. --Aquillion (talk) 02:59, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
The sources have been discussed above, they are rather poor. Also in regards to your comment above this is not a RFC. PackMecEng (talk) 03:19, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
Your objection to the sources was specifically called out as groundless by name by the closer of the previous RFC. Continuing to hammer it at this point - when you know it's a minority view that failed to gain traction - is WP:TENDENTIOUS. The sourcing is excellent, and your personal feelings otherwise don't mean anything if you can't get support for your position; so repeating that objection at this point is just wasting people's time. --Aquillion (talk) 18:07, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
@Aquillion: I am referring to my discussion with Snow Rise here after the close had happened. So it was not called out in the close... Please look over the sources again keeping in mind the issues I mentioned. Also keep the personalizing to yourself please. PackMecEng (talk) 22:25, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
@Aquillion: I should also mention I was not "called out" in the close for my argument on sourcing. I did not mention sourcing in the RFC vote so do you perhaps have me confused with someone else? PackMecEng (talk) 11:31, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

The count is now 10 for "both" (Casprings, Scjessey, O3000, MelanieN, MrX, Mandruss, Banglamania, Aquillion, Alphalfalfa, Galobtter), 7 for "racially charged" (MelanieN, LiteratureGeek, Sammy D III, PackMecEng, Kerberous, Kierzek, Snow Rise) and 3 for "racist" (Wumbulo, k.e. coffman, zzz). Note that MelanieN has cast votes for "both" and "racially charged". This is not an RfC, so no "uninvolved close" is necessary. It's simply a straightforward summary of what is referenced in the body of the article, so I really don't know why this is such a big deal. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:32, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Still bad count, and still partly blind Let’s again appreciate WP:VOTING miscounts, and of apparent ability to not even see opposing views like the word “neither” and throw this count out as wrong on a couple levels. This all seems WP:TENDITIOUS. Either stick with the language of consensus 30, or do a RFC proposing specific language and accept whatever results. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 20:39, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
Consensus 30's closing does not specify a specific wording. One was given as an example, but the closer specifically said But, feel free to tweak the wording, as necessary by normal t/p discourse. That's what this discussion is. We'll go with whichever wording seems to have a consensus, and go to an WP:RFC if none do. --Aquillion (talk) 18:07, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
MelanieN Could you clarify your vote, you originally posted racially charged but later said you might be okay with both? PackMecEng (talk) 20:40, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
I prefer "racially charged" but would accept "both". --MelanieN (talk) 21:57, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

* Neither or charged Partisan POV insults are not enough WEIGHT for WP:LEAD, and are contrary to WP:BLP and WP:RACIST and prior consensus 24 and 30. If perceived as racially charged does not suit, go back to nothing. And stop asking over & over & over & over and... Cheers and over.... Markbassett (talk) 19:51, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Consensus seems to say NOT “racist” Let’s try counting again, a bit more accurately, shall we? I am not only getting different numbers where minor majority are not going “racist”, I also observe some people apparently cannot even see the word “Neither” so let’s just toss out that count as wrong on a couple levels. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 20:07, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

  • Revert (neither) or charged Go back to consensus 24 if the “charged” weak consensus does not suit. Seriously, this is WP:TENDENTIOUS . The restraint about WP:RACIST and WP:BLP got bent weakly for the “perceived” RFC 30, clearly the consensus was NOT stronger language, and that RFC is not being respected by asking over & over so... either stick with “charged” weakly gotten or go back to the prior long standing consensus 24 and drop the whole topic or else make a new RFC with specific language proposed and see if it passes a RFC. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 19:34, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
 ?? Seems to have been a major delete in this a couple days ago, and I somehow made the above repetitive bits so will strike out a bit. Markbassett (talk) 00:10, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Alternative wording

In order to avoid the inevitable weaseling around "many of his comments and actions", and the "racist" vs "racially-charged" hopeless debate, while acknowledging the issue that has been hammered by RS, I would suggest a totally different approach to the wording:

His public comments on immigration issues have been widely perceived as racist.

This focuses on the specific issue of immigration, which reflects the majority of the criticism ("Mexican rapists", "Muslim ban", "shithole countries", "more people from Norway", pardoning Arpaio, etc.) The "birtherism is racism" trope is not important enough for the lede, and the other accusations are debatable. Hence we do not lose much by focusing the lede on perceptions of racism with regards to immigration policy, and we gain clarity for our readers. Opinions welcome. — JFG talk 01:45, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

No, that would be be a gross understatement. What about his actions? What about his long history of racially provocative remarks that have nothing to do with immigration? What about Obama's birth certificate? etc., etc.- MrX 🖋 01:55, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
What about his actions? – Which actions are you referring to? What about his long history of racially provocative remarks that have nothing to do with immigration? – Not nearly as significant as what he said since entering politics and making immigration a flagship issue. What about Obama's birth certificate? – Settled, and not lede-worthy. (and arguably race-neutral, see Trump's pilloring of Ted Cruz as a "Canadian" or McCain as "from Panama" in addition to "not a hero") — JFG talk 02:05, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
We have an entire article for your reading pleasure. The euphemistically titled article Racial views of Donald Trump.- MrX 🖋 19:53, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
That's a very interesting article; I remember working on it with you and a bunch of other editors after it was created. To this day, and I just read it again, I still see only words and comments and statements that get interpreted as innuendo and "dog whistles". In terms of racist actions, I can't see a thing beside the 1973 discrimination lawsuit. But please enlighten me. — JFG talk 20:45, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
MrX - Obama’s birth certificate seems about 1 month in 2011 that he has basically avoided ever since — claimed the result was due to his own participation and not said that he was wrong, but it seems avoided as bad for his 2012 election bid. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 20:59, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
That, actually not true at all, but even it was, I'm not aware of any minimum amount of time that someone can spew racism before being described as having done such. Give me a break.- MrX 🖋 21:47, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
User:MrX - actually, it is not only true but obvious: once the long form was delivered the whole crying for it was pretty much over. And your label racism seems fairly weak -- confusing a nationality ding with something of Racism means it was never racist unless any unpleasantness to other than white men is automagically racist/sexist -- which seems a fairly racist/sexist assumption to hold. Markbassett (talk) 00:23, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
We're not here to debate your definition of racism or whether you would consider any given individual racist by applying that standard. Please review WP:Original research, a policy that should be second nature to you by this point in your tenure on this project (though, unfortunately you would be far from the first person on this article to forget that principle, however they feel about Donald Trump). Whether or not we describe Donald Trump's views and actions as racist (or racially charged, or racially provocative, or whatever) will come down exclusively to how reliable sources describe him, and any digression into why he is (or isn't) "this or that" based on your own idiosyncratic logic is (in addition to being WP:OR), also a useless WP:Notaforum exercise. Please predicate all of your discussion upon evaluating descriptions in terms of their WP:WEIGHT in the sources, rather than the question of what personally seems most accurate to you. Snow let's rap 07:49, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the suggestion, but no. It's not just his comments about immigration that have been described as racially motivated or racist. It's things like his comments after Charlottesville, and his ripping of NFL athletes for taking a knee without "having a real issue", and his descriptions of black critics as having "a very low IQ", and the enthusiasm from David Duke and other white supremacists saying that Trump has empowered them and brought them into the mainstream. It's a lot more than just immigration. --MelanieN (talk) 03:42, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
Eh so far it is the best suggestion of the lot. Most specific to the most covered aspects, the others you mentioned have for the most part died out. It also actually gives context vs the other proposals that just throw it out there with no thought. PackMecEng (talk) 03:50, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
User:MelanieN - (sorry, the big wipe in this thread seems to have lost my prior input): Belittling invective to critics does not seem racially biased. He seems kind of an equal opportunity tweeter. Tweeting vs intelligence of Helsinki critics “So many people at the higher end of intelligence loved my press conference performance in Helsinki”, or as being Deep state, or sanity in Trump Derangement Syndrome, or Fake news seems widely distributed. See response to Michelle Malkin ‘coward’ tweet about ‘born stupid’, Danny Zuker as “(stupid!)”, Stephanopolos as stupid... Maybe there is variation between his personal and presidential accounts, but Trump twitter archive doesn’t show it. Seems like mostly calling things stupid rather than people, and otherwise mostly dinging person-of-the-day individuals rather than races, but it’s certainly not just black people being dinged. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 00:28, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Nope. Absolutely wrong. Trump has said and done racist and racially-charged things, and they are by no means restricted to immigration. I understand some people don't like the result of the RfC and the clear consensus emerging in the wording discussion, but this is just a delaying tactic at this point. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:37, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
@Scjessey: you can't seriously be talking about a clear consensus emerging in the wording discussion, as several editors already pointed out to you above. That discussion is even murkier than the RfC was. — JFG talk 20:37, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
@JFG: The number of people who support "racist" AND "racially charged" is roughly equal to the combined totals of "racist" OR "racially charged". The "both" suggestion is meant to be a compromise position (which is why it uses "described" instead of "perceived"), so arguments against it are much weaker than arguments against either of the other positions. MelanieN gets it, in that she favors the softer "racially charged" but would accept the compromise of both terms. So yes, I do believe the prevailing consensus for the compromise wording is pretty obvious. The RfC decreed a change MUST happen, so I now see this sideshow bullshit as a stalling tactic. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:18, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
Stay classy, mate. — JFG talk 22:35, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
Dude, I'm British. "Class" is my middle name.
Actually, it isn't. It's Christopher, but you can blame my father's side of the family for that. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:08, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
User:Scjessey Factually, the consensus 30 did not "decreed a change MUST happen, so I now see this sideshow bullshit as a stalling tactic." The wording proposed was "Should the second paragraph of the lead include a sentence summarizing Trump's history of racially charged comments and racially motivated actions? Specifically, something like: Many of his comments and actions have been perceived by some as racially charged." The conclusion was "There is a weak consensus in favor of the proposal." and a final line "But, feel free to tweak the wording, as necessary by normal t/p discourse." That is not a decree to change the wording or a carte blanche for anything, it is an approval for the line as submitted and anything else should just do its own RFC already. Seen way too many false statements on this topic and asking over & over. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 23:49, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

"...or racist"

User:Casprings has added “or racist” to the statement “perceived as racially charged” in the lede. The edit summary says “Per rough consensus on talk page to use both”. Where is that rough consensus? Current Consensus #30 still just says “racially charged”. Link 2 went nowhere; I have repaired it. That huge discussion appears to have been archived without ever being closed, and no attempt has been made to actually analyze or summarize the discussion. It looks as if Casprings just decided on his own that he thought he saw a “rough consensus.” I think we need a more formal result before we go changing the established consensus, and I have reverted “or racist” pending a clearer result. How about if Casprings and I each actually analyze the discussion, explain our reasoning, and see what we come up with? He and I were both involved in the discussion, but I don’t think we are going to persuade any outsider to tackle that enormous mess of a discussion. If he and I come to the same conclusion, then we have our result. To do this we might need to un-archive the discussion, with an explanation that we are doing so only for the purpose of determining consensus. Or maybe we should leave it archived, to prevent the discussion (which had wound down) from starting up again, and analyze it there in the archives. What do people think about this? --MelanieN (talk) 02:58, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

It looked like most editors preferred that outcome. I saw it was archived so I figured it wasn't going to get a formal close. I did request one.Casprings (talk) 03:02, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
Yes, I know you did - almost a month ago. There were no takers. Are you up for doing an actual analysis, rather than just "it looked like"? --MelanieN (talk) 03:03, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
Sure. You have a great number high quality sources that support both. The question comes down to BLP concerns on one side and WP:NOTCENSORED on the other. I tried to count the various sides, but the discussion is a bit of a cluster. I would just do an RFC on the current wording versus user:Scjessey . That said it appears to me that the compromise has the most support and on a solid policy foundation. Casprings (talk) 03:20, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
Indeed that discussion is really hard to parse, as it was open-ended; that's probably why we did not get a volunteer closer. I would suggest the best course of action now would be to open an RfC suggesting Casprings' exact edit, and ping all participants from the prior two discussions on this subject (the one recently archived + the prior RfC). — JFG talk 09:04, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
Oh, please God, not another RfC! At least not yet. Let me go through and do a formal analysis of the latest discussion (it may take a day or two) and see if I come up with the same conclusion as you did, or what I think the result was. It will not be a simple matter of head counting because there were a lot of different opinions and different rationales; it was not either-or. --MelanieN (talk) 09:32, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
I endorse MelanieN's offer to conduct an analysis on that earlier discussion, and go where even brave souls fear to tread! -- Scjessey (talk) 18:30, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
I would support an FBI investigation with limited time and scope. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:33, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
I absolutely deny the allegations - whatever they are. 0;-D --MelanieN (talk) 19:27, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
Sure, but take your time Agent Melanie. Obviously one week is not enough!   — JFG talk 10:06, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
Looking at the arguments (and not having done any counting) I'm personally most convinced by this argument against "racist": To say something that negative in a BLP we need stronger evidence than we currently have, and more unanimity among sources. Trump's racial positions are never overt, they are inferred - through things he says ("they're bringing crime, they're rapists", "she has a very low IQ", "shithole countries", "I want immigrants from Norway"), his unwillingness to condemn people and groups who are frankly racist, the enthusiasm that racists (e.g. David Duke) feel toward him. "Racially charged" is a good way of describing these things without crossing over the BLP line to say "he is a racist". By contrast, the Racist per WP:NOTCENSORED argument falls flat on its face, as WP:NOTCENSORED by itself is definitely not a sufficient argument for inclusion. It's clear that there's consensus against "racist" by itself, but it's not clear to me that there's consensus for "both" over just "racially charged". ~Awilley (talk) 22:44, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
  • OK to Delete the line - Either do an actual RFC with the whole wording -- or give it up. If the line is an issue, one can just delete it as not a major part of the BLP. If consensus 30 already cannot sustain support then revert to the long-standing #24 or just delete it entirely due to collapse of prior support for this line and to stop the general pain of dealing with it over & over. RFC 30 here was only weak consensus to say "Many of his comments and actions have been perceived by some as racially charged." and "this wording (or very similar)", with comments making it clear that some supporters did not want to go any further and that even this needed to have his denial added. Making it "criticized as" or "labelled as" or "Some of his statements" would seem suitable minor edits -- but putting it in wiki voice, or adding "Racist", or removing the portrayal of it as a POV not held by all are definite escalations and simply incorrect handling. I actually think starting any article with a vague pejorative is bad style, since it simply casts things as Biased, is not informative, and diminishes the credibility of other claims of more factual issues. But if it's wanted then to find out one should do an actual RFC with the whole candidate wording -- not a vague discussion about a section of the wording. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 00:21, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
Everyone already weighed in on this before, so there is no need for people to restate their positions. Let MelanieN do her analysis. if the result is ambiguous enough that we need another RfC, we can start afresh. -- Scjessey (talk) 10:33, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Closure

I have analyzed the discussion “Wording for sentence in lead on racial stance” currently in the archive. I have evaluated the discussion and am proposing a close, which I will add to that discussion unless there is strong opposition to my doing so.

DISCLOSURE: I am closing this, even though I was involved in this discussion, because it needs closing; a discussion involving 30+ people deserves to be treated with respect and not just allowed to die out; but requests for an outside closer were not successful. In discussion here, it seemed that people were willing to allow me to undertake this even though I am involved; my opinions in the discussion were not firm and in fact a little contradictory. I have ignored every comment from myself in this analysis.

BACKGROUND: The previous consensus, established February 2018, was to omit accusations of racism from the lead section. (Consensus #24 above) A later RFC was launched by MrX on July 15, 2018, “Should the second paragraph of the lead include a sentence summarizing Trump's history of racially charged comments and racially motivated actions?” The RfC gave an example of such a sentence, “Many of his comments and actions have been perceived by some as racially charged.” That RfC was closed August 16, 2018 by Winged Blades of Godric: “Weak consensus in favor of the proposal”, “Rough consensus to include a sentence in the lead about Trump’s racial stance; feel free to tweak the wording as necessary by normal t/p discourse.” That close was reviewed at AN and endorsed Sept 1.

This discussion, “Wording for sentence in lead on racial stance”, was opened August 16 as a followup to the RfC. There was heavy discussion for three weeks; discussion died down the first week of September; one additional comment was made Sept. 22; the discussion was bot-archived without a closure Sept. 30. That left us with a consensus to replace the old consensus #24, but no consensus on the wording. I proposed to do a closure even though the discussion is now in the archive, and to add it to the discussion there if my action appears acceptable to most people at the talk page. (Recognizing that there is no such thing as a close that is supported by everyone.)

SUMMARY: 32 people took part in the discussion, excluding Winged Blades of Godric who just clarified his close of the previous RfC; one troll; and myself.

The sentence under discussion was:  "Many of his comments and actions have been perceived as racially charged." That sentence is currently in the article lede.

The key issue at discussion was: racially charged vs. racist vs. both. Ten people supported racially charged; six people supported racist; eleven people supported the “both” suggestion, including many who also supported one or the other. Four people specifically opposed racist; five opposed racially charged. There was clear consensus to omit "by some" which had been part of the suggested sentence at the RfC.

Regarding strength of argument:

  • Arguments for racially charged included sources, NPOV, bias, WEIGHT.
  • Arguments against racially charged said the term is unclear and ambiguous, or that it is a euphemism.
  • Arguments for racist were sources and NOTCENSORED.
  • Arguments against racist cited BLP, that something so negative requires stronger and more unanimous references; also that the term is insulting or opinionated.
  • Arguments for both stated that both terms are used about equally by Reliable Sources so we should not try to choose between them, we should reflect what the sources say; also that it is a compromise likely to be at least partially acceptable to people who preferred one or the other.

Other suggestions that were raised but did not receive much support:

  • abandon the whole discussion and remove the sentence (two people).
  • change “have been perceived as” to simply “are”; proposed by four people.
  • change the subject to “his public comments on immigration issues”: supported by two, opposed by three.
  • alternate wordings including “racially insensitive” (three people) and “offensive” (two people).
  • proposal to include his denial in the lede: two people supported, one opposed. Outside the scope of this discussion, can be proposed elsewhere.
  • argument that only the exact wording suggested in the RfC could be used; that was refuted by the closer of the RfC who had explicitly allowed for tweaking of the wording.

CONCLUSION: My conclusion is that both the strength of numbers and the strength of argument support adding the “both” or “compromise” sentence "Many of his comments and actions have been perceived as racially charged or racist” to the lede. This was not a strong consensus but I think it is clear enough. --MelanieN (talk) 23:19, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Discussion of closure

Weird I got a different count then you. PackMecEng (talk) 01:11, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
It's a complicated page, hard to follow who said what. I will double check. Tomorrow. --MelanieN (talk) 01:25, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
Haven't double checked yet, but this could be why we differ: if someone spoke in favor of one of the alternatives (racially charged or racist), and also spoke in favor of the "both" alternative, I counted them both places. --MelanieN (talk) 04:42, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
Could be, when I saw that I generally took their primary view only and discounted the alternative. For instance if someone said I would like X but would be okay with Y I put them as a X. PackMecEng (talk) 12:35, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
@MelanieN: So why would you discard those votes? PackMecEng (talk) 18:33, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
The only !votes I discarded were my own and the troll's. In some cases, where a person had expressed support for more than one option, I included them in the "support" count for each option they had supported. --MelanieN (talk) 18:37, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
That is what I mean, if they expressed support for an alternative you canceled out their vote. Back to the example I mentioned before, if it was I support X but would be okay with Y. If you put them as a vote for X and Y then their vote does not matter. PackMecEng (talk) 18:41, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
It wasn't a binary choice. The original choice was X or Y. Then another choice "Z" was added (X and Y). Anyone expressing support for X and Y can also be described as supporting Z. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:49, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
And many people expressed support for the "both" alternative - which came up after a good deal of discussion had already happened - without canceling their support for one or the other original options. They didn't say "I support X but would accept Z" as some kind of second choice, nor did they say "I now support Z so I no longer support X". They said "I support X and I support Z." --MelanieN (talk) 19:15, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

@MelanieN: Many thanks for your neutral analysis. I would suggest that both the RfC outcome and the consensus you are finding in the followup discussion are too weak to bring stability to this sentence in the lede section. Small variations on the exact phrasing may convey a vastly different message (compare "Trump is racist" with "Trump has been called racist", or "Trump made racially-charged statements" with "Trump took actions perceived as racist". As encyclopedic writers we must be conservative in what we report. The RfC sentence is already oozing with weasel words; listing both "racially charged" and "racist" would only muddy the waters even further. The phrase begs so many questions: what actions has Trump taken on racist grounds? what is the difference between racist and racially charged? is Wikipedia calling Trump a racist? if not, who has "perceived" his deeds as "racially charged"? No other sentence in the lede is so laden with subjectivity, and we had several debates to remove opinion from there as much as possible. I think we should pause and think harder about alternative phrasing. Hopefully somebody will come up with more precise text that is acceptable by a wide enough cross section of editors. — JFG talk 23:46, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

JFG, re both the RfC outcome and the consensus you are finding in the followup discussion are too weak to bring stability to this sentence: The RfC outcome is not at issue. You already appealed that outcome to AN, where it was “endorsed by the vast majority of uninvolved editors commenting”. And you argued against it again in this discussion, where again you did not find consensus. Please drop that stick. As for your complaints that the sentence “begs so many questions” (i.e., fails to provide details or proof), of course it does; this is the lede. The specifics are dealt with in the text as well as in a whole separate article. Yes, variations on the wording do matter; that is why we had a detailed discussion about the exact wording, for example retaining "have been perceived as" and rejecting "are", which would be Wikipedia's voice. As for alternative wording, you did suggest one alternative wording, but it did not win support. Of course you are free to continue to suggest alternative wordings, but in the meantime this sentence is the result of a 32-person discussion. --MelanieN (talk) 18:21, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
I'm not contesting the RfC endorsement, I'm just saying that adding a weak consensus on top of an already admittedly weak consensus risks making the final product even weaker, and therefore not suitable as a stable wording for the lede. We've been through many similar cases over the last three years, where contested phrasings with multiple choices only brought more dissent. Those were only resolved after a fresh input was proposed, or after new information emerged. For example I'm thinking of the "lost the popular vote" debate and the "travel ban upheld" debate. I feel that we are not at that stage yet with this "racially charged" debate, and adding "or racist" now would just invite more contentious discussions. On the other hand, we haven't had super contentious discussions recently, so perhaps we need that.   — JFG talk 12:52, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
Sorry, but this is a weak excuse for delaying a much-needed change. There are lots of "weak consensus" decisions that end up changing the article, and this needs to be one of them (just as I said below). -- Scjessey (talk) 13:03, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
I understand your objection, JFG. However, you are just one person. I'm going to give it another day or two for input, and then implement this closure. --MelanieN (talk) 13:26, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
Given it was a one vote majority with an off count that is an odd thing to say. PackMecEng (talk) 15:56, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
Well, let's look at that, Pack. Just now I have gone back and rescored it according to what you seem to be proposing - that is, I did not double-count any votes. If anyone supported "racially charged" or "racist" at first, and then later supported "both", this time I eliminated the earlier choice and counted only their final choice of "both". That gives a result of: six people preferred racially charged, five people preferred racist, eleven people preferred both. Does that seem more equitable? --MelanieN (talk) 19:32, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
I had gotten eight for racially charged, three for racist, and nine for both. Eh seems weird. PackMecEng (talk) 19:38, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
I agree; just because the lead doesn't, e.g, mention what statements of Trump are false doesn't mean that should be excluded; same here. I think the questions are largely answered in the body. Galobtter (pingó mió) 13:37, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
It's clear the analysis shows that the "both" language has more support than what currently exists, or the alternatives, even if that support isn't emphatic. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:45, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
I agree with the closure, though of course I supported this result; the both option had by far the most support and overall over the current wording it had support. We aren't really stacking "weak consensus"'s; the previous weak consensus could've meant that there would be no consensus for anything more negative, but it hasn't in this case. Also, I don't think we should decide wording based on how contentious talk page discussions would be; that would inherently favour exclusion of negative/controversial material, which isn't something I think should occur for someone so controversial and for whom so much negative sourcing/commentary is there.
I think we should wait for this discussion to conclude before discussing changing the wording more, but I think changing "perceived" to the more clear "described" would be beneficial and resolve some issues with "perceived" raising the issue of who is doing the perception Galobtter (pingó mió) 13:31, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
I agree with some of the thoughts of JFG above. It's vital for the lead section of a BLP to have a neutral and encyclopedic tone, without straying into opinion or becoming too opinionated or heavy on accusations from political critics. I personally think the previous wording "racially charged" was ok, but to add on to that "or racist" seems in my view to be unnecessary and further invites controversy. Some of Trump's critics do indeed say that he's a racist. Trump emphatically denies that he's a racist. To be balanced and neutral, if it was personally up to me I would also consider adding a denial from Trump to the accusation of racism, but then that might make the lead section too long. Trump's critics, mainly on the Democrat / Liberal wing of politics and in liberal journalism would of course seek to attack Trump in a strong manner, but many defenders of Trump, mainly on the Republican / Socially Conservative wing of politics, would deny that he's a racist. I just think that Wikipedia needs to be careful, balanced, neutral and conservative (in the cautious sense of the word rather than the political sense). From the main body of the article itself, it states that "In a June 2018 Quinnipiac University poll, 49 percent of respondents believed that Trump is racist while 47 percent believed he is not." Or in other words, opinion is pretty evenly divided. To give an example of another controversial leader (although of course I accept what is put in other articles doesn't mean this article has to follow) Margaret Thatcher was accused by many of her critics on the liberal wing of politics of being jingoistic, nationalistic, anti-European and even a racist for suggesting Britain was being "swamped with immigrants" and for her policy of not wanting to impose sanctions on apartheid-South Africa and for describing Nelson Mandela as a terrorist. But in Thatcher's lead section, she is merely described as controversial. Trump is controversial. I think "racially charged" was ok, but in my view to add on "or racist" is unnecessary. Kind Tennis Fan (talk) 22:55, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
Citing polling data as your rationale for saying opinion is "evenly divided" doesn't work, because that is a form of synthesis. Our article must reflect what is said in a preponderance of reliable sources. We have scores of sources reporting Trump's racially charged comments, and scores of sources reporting notable figures describing Trump's racist words and actions. I am not aware of a single reliable source claiming Trump has not spoken or acted in a racist or racially charged manner. Wikipedia would be failing in its responsibility to be neutral if we sanitized the article so as not to ruffle the feathers of Trump's deplorables. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:43, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
WP:WEIGHT: Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public. Galobtter (pingó mió) 13:10, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
Exactly. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:45, 8 October 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.

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 1 October 2018

Latest comment: 6 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

In the category of Family and Personal Life, subcategory Religion, last sentence of first paragraph: "... issued a statement noting that is not a Presbyterian church" needs to be changed to "... issued a statement noting that it is not a Presbyterian church." Marysehile (talk) 07:26, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

  Done Thanks for pointing this out. --MelanieN (talk) 09:39, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Donald Trump’s Ghostwriter for “The Art of the Deal”

Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Tony Schwartz, Donald Trump’s Ghostwriter for “The Art of the Deal” wrote in 1985, an article for New York Magazine called “A Different Kind of Donald Trump Story,” prior to the book.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/25/donald-trumps-ghostwriter-tells-all
mentions the article:
https://books.google.com/books?id=SsEBAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA35&dq=trump
perhaps this is a useful reference

69.181.23.220 (talk) 02:55, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Manual of Style linking

Latest comment: 6 years ago7 comments4 people in discussion
Withdrawn by OP. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:30, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

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

Recent work I performed on this article to remove many duplicate internal links in the references section, and some in the article, was reverted, with an edit summary stating "OVERLINK and DUPLINK do not apply to citations and for very good reasons" (diff). Was this just a made-up rule by the reverting user? Nowhere on the Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking page does it state that WP:DUPLINK or WP:OVERLINK does not apply to references. So, why does the article need to be overlinked in such a manner? Does the reader really need dozens of duplicate internal links to news organization articles in the references section? I don't think so. Did I miss something, or was this the reverting user's own idea, rather than stated on the MOS page? It seems like the former.

Posting here for input, in part since it says atop this page, "All editors must obtain consensus on the talk page of this article before reinstating any edits that have been challenged (via reversion). This includes making edits similar to the ones that have been challenged."

So, should the article and its references be formatted per the wording of Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking, WP:DUPLINK and WP:OVERLINK, or should it have all of those unnecessary, duplicate internal links? North America1000 20:51, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

  • Support formatting per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking in the article and references section. North America1000 21:05, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose - The following is excerpted from my user talk page, where the OP also posted.
    While the guidelines don't say they don't apply to citations, they don't say they do either. That leaves us to reason, which is preferred to blindly following rules. So let's talk reason.
    1. If you're a reader looking at a citation and you want more information about the news organization, do you think it's reasonable to expect you to go find another citation containing the desired link (or other occurrence of the link)? It would be far easier to just use the Search box, defeating the purpose of the wikilinks. 2. The point of the guidelines is to avoid links to less important things, so as to convey to readers what is likely to be of more interest or use to them. But the References section is rarely read sequentially, so the concept applied to the article's body does not apply there. Each citation tends to stand alone in its usage, and the citation links are equally important in all citations. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:35, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Mandruss. Also, on the desktop version of Wikipedia you get a tooltip when you hover over a reference. These tooltips include clickable links, which were removed by NA1000's edits. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:43, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Link within citations (which I gather is oppose): Overlinking is a problem because it annoys and confuses the reader as he reads the article. People don't "read" the references one after the other -- they dip in. The links should be right there where they're needed in each citation. EEng 21:44, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Withdrawn. Now I see. I get it. Cheers, North America1000 22:22, 4 October 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.

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 5 October 2018

Latest comment: 6 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

Make some information of him talking about fake news please XAnonymous666Dx (talk) 06:48, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

  Not done The article already addresses that at Donald Trump#Relationship with the press. If you feel that is not adequate, please submit another edit request for consideration. Per WP:Edit requests, "Requests should be accompanied by a clear and specific description of the requested change, and consensus should be obtained before requesting changes that are likely to be controversial." ―Mandruss ☎ 07:11, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
The Fake news article has a whole section about Trump: Usage of the term by Donald Trump. In fact the whole 21st century section is well worth reading. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 06:11, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 8 October 2018

Latest comment: 6 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

Add a Main Article: The Apprentice (U.S. TV series) link underneath the The Apprentice heading in that section of Donald Trump's media career. Buster Reynolds (talk) 15:38, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

It is already listed as the first link in that section. I do not think it would need an additional link as a see also. PackMecEng (talk) 16:29, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
  Not done per above. Also linked in two other places in the article. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:43, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

NYTimes article on Trump’s early money

Latest comment: 6 years ago11 comments8 people in discussion

An article today[6] contradicts parts of this article. For example, the one million from his father was $14 million. It claims he was on his father’s payroll at $200,000 in today’s dollars at the age of three. That his father funneled money to him for decades in numerous ways. As great as the source is, care must be taken as it is but one source. O3000 (talk) 20:34, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

The New York Times has just published an extensive piece about Trump's tax schemes. [7] It is also being covered by other sources: [8][9][10] This will provide some good material for fleshing out the Business Career and Public Profile sections of the article.- MrX 🖋 21:27, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

This edit sailed under the false flag of "added info" while actually deleting the paragraph on the NY Times report – which has been reported on extensively in other reliable news sources - without explanation in the edit summary. I restored it on the assumption that the deletion was an error. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 14:55, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

@Space4Time3Continuum2x: Unfortunately, that restoration means we have some duplication. See this edit for details. Please try to consolidate as best you can. I agree that "added info" was a disgraceful edit summary. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:45, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
@Scjessey:Thanks. I hadn't noticed the addition of the sentence. I think I fixed the duplication issue. Since the second paragraph begins with Trump's statement that he started his business with a small loan, that seems like the logical place for the NY Times refutation and also their assertion that part of his wealth derives from tax fraud. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 16:37, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
It's already in the "Wealth" section, with a quote from it ("streams of revenue"). Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 19:34, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

I agree with putting this in the "Wealth" section where Trump describes his start in business. I have made a few edits to the material. I am surprised to see that this has not been added to the Fred Trump article since it is basically about him. I don't have time today but I suggest someone work on that. --MelanieN (talk) 17:22, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

@MelanieN: I have further condensed and clarified the Times material here, and I have added a "Wealth and estate" section to Fred Trump's article. — JFG talk 01:10, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Keep calm and steady on and don't run amok with WP:Recentism to do it today as it's just not that new, exciting, or correct.
- $1M to start is correct, $14M was debunked There has already been extensive discussion about the $1 million in the archives and sources, from back in October 2015 when he was trotting out the narrative in the primary debates, and again in March 2016 with the presidential debates. It seems 'literal' truth, which is to say yes but only part of the tale. There was a loan of $1Million "to start" his business. It was not the last loan or the first money his father gave him, but is the money loaned at the start of his business. The $14M amount seems what was shown in casino filings in the 1980s, years later. Reality check or Politifact
- tax avoidance was in the debates CNBC had his response "That makes me smart". It just normal for the rich to try and dodge taxes, and for real estate developers to penny-pinch, short-pay subcontractors, use lawsuits, and to take advantage of bankruptcy law.
- just wait a bit - right now this story has not been around long enough to have shown how much WEIGHT it should have or for more details to show up. It seems just the attack du jour and does not need a breathless rush to put it into Wikipedia.
Cheers Markbassett (talk) 22:21, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
Trump's pubic image is based on his perceived success as a businessman and self-made billionaire, and the NYTimes piece largely rips it all to shreds and exposes him as a liar and a cheat (again). As Stephanie Ruhle said yesterday, Trump could've just sat on all the NY real estate he inherited and he'd easily be worth $10 billion without doing anything at all. There's no conceivable way this causes any WP:RECENT or WP:WEIGHT concerns. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:28, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Alcohol

Latest comment: 6 years ago44 comments15 people in discussion
Consensus found on shorter text — JFG talk 12:43, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

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

We say: Trump does not drink alcohol except occasional wine, such as at communion. This decision arose in part from watching his older brother Fred Jr. suffer from alcoholism that contributed to his early death in 1981.

That could be read as meaning "He used to drink, but has not done so since 1981". Yet he's on record, most recently today, as saying he has never had a drink in his entire life. That's a rather different thing. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 22:04, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Good catch, there is a problem with that statement. Let’s look at the sources. There are two references for the “alcohol” line in the article. At CNN, he says about Communion, “When I drink my little wine -- which is about the only wine I drink -- and have my little cracker…” Saying ABOUT the only wine he drinks implies that he does occasionally drink wine. But that would be WP:OR; we should take his word for it that he doesn’t drink. (In the religion section he claims he takes Holy Communion as often as possible. And he also claims to be a Presbyterian. At a Presbyterian church he is not going to get wine and a cracker; he is going to get grape juice and bread. Just another indication that he doesn’t really practice religion and basically knows nothing about religion. But I digress.)
The other source in the article is the White House doctor saying he has “no past or present use of alcohol.” Of course, that kind of history is self-reported by the patient. Neither of these is a very good source, and neither mentions his brother.
The source we should use is this one from CNN, in which Trump tells the story of his brother. I suggest something like this, based on the source: "Trump says he never drank or smoked because of advice that he was given by his older brother, Fred Trump Jr., an alcoholic who died in 1981 at age 43." --MelanieN (talk) 01:54, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
That would obviously be contradicted by “When I drink my little wine -- which is about the only wine I drink..." Concerns about OR (which I don't really understand) cannot override the need for what we write to make sense. HiLo48 (talk) 03:02, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
I was just watching some type of televised conference that looked like it was recorded outside the White House. Trump was speaking, and it was very clear from his statements that he never had alcohol at any point in his life and he would be worse off if he had. There were a bunch of unidentified people behind him seemingly laughing in agreement. I don't really care what the circumstances are, but drinking alcohol in church is certainly drinking alcohol which would make his statement false. I'm sure I'm missing something. 108.200.234.93 (talk) 06:40, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
Do you think we should try to find some way to square these things? For example, to use the sentence I proposed above where he says he never drank or smoked, and add him saying that "about the only wine" he drinks is when he takes Communion? --MelanieN (talk) 06:49, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
But the quote about communion is "...which is about the only wine I drink". My emphasis, of course. He didn't need the word "about" if the only time he EVER drinks is in church. I know Trump is not always the world's clearest speaker, but I don't think we can ignore that little word. HiLo48 (talk) 07:15, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Trump has been known as a teetotaler for decades. The communion wine quote is a self-sourced remark made jokingly in passing, and should be discounted. I think we should cite sources reporting on Trump's absence of drinking at various times during his life. — JFG talk 10:21, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

I agree we can leave out the "ABOUT the only time" comment; reliable sources do not seem to have pounced on it to say "Aha! So he DOES drink!" And I don't see any need (or any sources) for the various stages of his life. He doesn't drink now and he never has - self reported but not contradicted by anyone. One or two sentences, in the health section, is exactly the right amount of coverage. --MelanieN (talk) 16:56, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
Whether or not Trump drinks alcohol is an unremarkable bit of trivia. Seriously, who cares? Let's just cut it out of the article completely. -- Scjessey (talk) 10:34, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
No, the fact does deserve short mention. It's a rather unusual position for a public person. People can interpret it as a strength (alcohol abuse and alcoholism are negative) or a weakness (can one trust someone that different from the rest of society?). Those are just opinions, but it's a notable fact that he's a teetotaler. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 14:41, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
There are about eleventy-billion things more notable than his alleged abstention from alcohol. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:44, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
This is not the suppository for every bit of trivia. Just because it is verifiable does not make it notable. PackMecEng (talk) 16:52, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
Suppository? I do not think that word means what you think it means. [FBDB] --MelanieN (talk) 17:01, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
That is exactly the word I meant   PackMecEng (talk) 17:09, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
Sorry, Scjessey and PackMecEng. This is a notable fact, virtually always mentioned in anything written about his lifestyle, and it deserves to be here. Not many politicians can say they don't drink alcohol and never have. --MelanieN (talk) 16:53, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
Allegedly don't drink it. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:57, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
There is no reason to disbelieve it. If he did drink alcoholic beverages, in private or on the sly, it would long since have been reported. Is it really so impossible to believe that a person chooses not to drink? Hey, I don't smoke and never have; is that "allegedly" too? --MelanieN (talk) 17:09, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
@MelanieN: It might be if you had a decades-long reputation for dishonesty, particularly about yourself. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:14, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
You mean I don't? Good to know. --MelanieN (talk) 21:37, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Debatable. Heck the last bush did not drink either. That fact was only notable for him because of his DUI incident. There is no notable incident tied to Trump and drinking. Just useless trivia. PackMecEng (talk) 16:59, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
He’s said in the past that he very rarely drinks. I have no problem with saying he doesn’t drink. I just don’t like the word “never”. Never is a long time for a 72 year old. O3000 (talk)

What would you all think about this proposed sentence and reference - to replace what we now have? (This thread was started because the current info is ambiguous, not to mention that it's not supported by the cited sources.)

Trump has said he does not drink alcohol because he was advised not to by his older brother, Fred Trump Jr., an alcoholic who died in 1981 at age 43.[1]

Sources

  1. ^ Merica, Dan (October 26, 2017). "Trump discusses his late brother's addiction in anti-drug message". CNN. Retrieved 2 October 2018.

--MelanieN (talk) 18:07, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

  • Weak oppose - The article is about Donald Trump, not Fred Jr. If we must have this trivia, I think it would be sufficient to simply say "Trump has said he does not drink alcohol." With that said, my opposition to this is very weak - almost to the point of not caring. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:35, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
    There are many reports about his abstinence, and every one of them mentions his brother. [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] It’s a significant part of his life story. BTW I deliberately did not say "never" in my proposed sentence. --MelanieN (talk) 20:39, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
  • oppose - Total trivia - Hillary clinton drinks alchohol, Obamha drinks alcohol is not in their articles. Govindaharihari (talk) 18:58, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
    First, remember WP:OSE. That being set aside, the fact that politician X or Y drinks some alcohol is not notable, because most people in society do, to varying degrees. If somebody does not drink at all, that is out of the ordinary, and therefore worth mentioning. If somebody drinks a lot and consequently gets in trouble, that is also unusual and worth mentioning. — JFG talk 19:06, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Support His claim that he does not drink alcohol is out of ordinary for an American president or as a matter of fact for anybody who is not bound by religion to do so is encyclopedic and worth mentioning! Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 19:56, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Support - Noteworthy per JFG, avoids wiki voice, clears up the ambiguity in the current content. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:22, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment - We cannot decide for ourselves which of Trump's own claims about himself is true. He has made a statement about his church drinking that says he does drink alcohol there, with an implication that he also has a little bit at other times. Yes, he talks crap at times, but we cannot choose to ignore that statement. Let's frame something that reports what he has said, including the church stuff, simply attributing the statement directly to him. No synthesis thanks. HiLo48 (talk) 21:15, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Support. This should be mentioned because it's so unusual and has been mentioned many times in RS. One sentence is enough. I like MelanieN's version above. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 02:43, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Support--along the lines of "Trump abstains from drinking alcohol and claims to never drink a drop" or words to that effect--and I don't mind a note (like, maybe in a note) on the "little cup of wine with the cracker" (I actually don't even believe that--not that he drinks the wine there, and not that he goes to church either). These are simply frequently mentioned things and they matter. Oh, Melanie's--sure, that's fine, except for that I don't like the "because": he may have given that as a reason, but it is unlikely that he never started because his brother advised him so. A period will do just as well as that "because". Drmies (talk) 02:50, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose - No change needed and this seems WP:OR creative writing that is not a match to sources. Just follow the cites. The language of the cites is stating it as fact he does not drink, not just phrasing it as a claim by Presidents Trumps testimony. The cites have "no past or present use of alcohol" (Time), and "no alcohol" (People). We could also go to BBC.com Teetotal Trump, or back in 2011 at Forbes.com Donald Trump and Nine Other Teetotalling Moguls. It's consistent with his saying it way back in Art of the Deal ("I don't drink." pg 96), or recently by Ivana's book Raising Trump about first meeting him "surprised that Donald didn't drink". Unless a quote from him is being inserted, it would be wrong to have a 'Trump has said'. The existing phrasing "does not drink alcohol except occasional wine, such as at communion" is fine. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:50, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Proposed revision: Mark makes a very good point about the sources. Sources do not say "Trump says he doesn't drink"; they say "Trump doesn't drink". And I have not seen any sources casting doubt on his claim. With that in mind, I would propose an alternate version of my sentence, below. I would like to retain the comment he frequently makes attributing his abstinence to his brother's advice. The "communion" reference is directly attributable to him, but it was a one-off comment that no other source has picked up or made much of a point of, and I think it should be left out. I still prefer the CNN reference over the two currently in the article.

Alternate version 1: Trump does not drink alcohol; he says this is because he was advised not to by his older brother, Fred Trump Jr., an alcoholic who died in 1981 at age 43.[1]

Sources

  1. ^ Merica, Dan (October 26, 2017). "Trump discusses his late brother's addiction in anti-drug message". CNN. Retrieved 2 October 2018.

Thoughts? --MelanieN (talk) 16:48, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

  • Support either. Both are much better than the current unencyclopedic "watching his older brother Fred Jr. suffer from alcoholism". wumbolo ^^^ 18:10, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Keep prior content - Better sources and if it isn't broke, why make more work here. Still see no reason to change "Trump does not drink alcohol except occasional wine, such as at communion. This decision arose in part from watching his older brother Fred Jr. suffer from alcoholism that contributed to his early death in 1981". That has minor advantages in long-standing stability, broader cites (Time, CNN, People, and NYT), and that cites are WP:SECONDARY. The CNN piece cited above is short and just one cite, and is showing a side-remark from Trump in his speech, which is not as deliberate a communication and is PRIMARY. So WP:BESTSOURCES would favor the existing cites. (Actually, I suspect WEIGHT of coverage likely is at 'because of his brother', instead 'says because of his brother' since it just seems like there are always going to be more journalists commenting on him being a teetotaler than there are speeches where he mentions it and gets quoted.) Cheers Markbassett (talk) 23:10, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment - If we have to have something, I would prefer just having "Trump does not drink alcohol." I am not in favor of having biographical details about his brother in this article. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:17, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Simpler version

Taking into account Melanie's proposal and comments wishing for fewer details about Trump's brother, I would suggest this simplified version:

Trump does not drink alcohol, a reaction to his elder brother's chronic alcoholism and early death.

How do you like it? — JFG talk 23:22, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

I'd be OK with that. --MelanieN (talk) 18:03, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
Looks good to me. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 18:25, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
That seems to have a MOS:EGG problem. wumbolo ^^^ 13:09, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
I don't think so; it is pretty clear what "his elder brother" would link to, i.e the page on Trump's elder brother, Fred Trump. Something like "his elder brother" would be problematic Galobtter (pingó mió) 13:15, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
That's correct. Consistent with his 2017 inauguration, his political positions, his presidency, and so on. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:59, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. Barring objections, I will insert this version into the article within a couple days. — JFG talk 12:42, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

  Done — JFG talk 12:43, 10 October 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.

Mention blocked by court rulings in lede

Latest comment: 6 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

Beyond the protests, expand lede section to note policies have been delayed or blocked by numerous court rulings, which I think there are many sources to cite the volume of court rulings to oppose Trump. Otherwise, the protests seem less significant as everyone gets a protest of some sort. -Wikid77 (talk) 04:54, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

This is mentioned in the lede with regards to the travel ban. Which other policy actions would you like to see there? Is this not better suited to the Presidency of Donald Trump article? — JFG talk 12:40, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
User:Wikid77 - Do you have a specific one you feel as important as the things already in LEAD ? The WP:LEAD says the top should be a summary of the article, and I'm not aware of any court events in the article (or outside) with that level of prominence. This might fit better at the Presidency article anyway, but what exactly are you thinking of ? Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:26, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

"...or racist"?

Latest comment: 6 years ago9 comments4 people in discussion

I think we are to the point where I can close this meta-discussion, move it to the archived discussion, and formally close that discussion. Thank you, all, for your input. --MelanieN (talk) 21:20, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

P.S. All of the discussion on this topic - both the earlier discussion which had been archived without closure, and the later discussion which took place here - can now be found in one place at Talk:Donald Trump/Archive 92#Wording for sentence in lead on racial stance. --MelanieN (talk) 21:44, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
FYI to all, this appears to be a WP:IAR. Except for removing discussions that have been restored to the talk page, it's my understanding that archives should not be modified without EXTREMELY good reason, such as repairing damage to the archive page. In my experience there is virtually always another option that is at least acceptable if not ideal. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:59, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
Yes, it is unusual to modify archives, and yes, this was IAR. The problem was that the discussion had been archived without closure. If I wanted to have the closure attached to the discussion I was closing, this seemed like the only way to do it. --MelanieN (talk) 00:03, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
@MelanieN: A premature archive before closure is not unusual and, no, that's not the only way to do it. The standard action is to copy-and-paste the discussion to the talk page, remove it from the archive (see Except for removing discussions that have been restored to the talk page, above), and then close it on the talk page as normal. If caught early enough, it can be as easy as two "undo's" on the talk and archive pages. {{DNAU}} can be used to prevent premature archival. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:43, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

FWIW, I endorse MelanieN's IAR action in this instance. FBDB, YMMV, GCHQ. — JFG talk 15:20, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

GCHQ?? --MelanieN (talk) 04:01, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
I can neither confirm nor deny the influence of our employers on the 'pedia.   — JFG talk 09:26, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
UK interference in the Donald Trump Wikipedia article Galobtter (pingó mió) 09:30, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Mention remarks as sexist in lede

Latest comment: 6 years ago10 comments6 people in discussion

More than "racial" remarks, I would note his remarks as "sexist" against women (such as mocking women who complain or speak against him; re Senator Elizabeth Warren (D) as Pocohontas etc.), which I think is easier to cite, and add into the lede section. -Wikid77 (talk) 04:47, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Trump mocks men and women equally, as evidenced for instance in List of nicknames used by Donald Trump. — JFG talk 12:38, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
In the first place, we don't put things in the lede that are not already established in the text. In the second place, there has been much more coverage about his racial attitudes (not just nicknames or mockery) than about his attitudes toward women. I personally agree that his public treatment of women is sexist or misogynist (look at the way he treats women reporters compared to men), but our coverage is not determined by what we think; it's determined by what Reliable Sources say. And Reliable Sources have not focused on the woman issue as they have on the racial issue. --MelanieN (talk) 13:33, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
It's certainly a truism that we must predicate content based on the assertion of WP:reliable sources, but I wonder from where you are drawing the rather overarching conclusion that he is better known for (and received more coverage regarding) the act of belittling people on the basis of race, as opposed to gender? Do you have some sort of source or formal analysis which supports that assertion or are you just making a generalization based on your own impressionistic memory of his past conduct? There doesn't seem to be exactly a shortage of sources discussing either propensity, honestly. I could be wrong of course--one might very much outweigh the other as a matter of WP:WEIGHT--but it would be good if we could work from something a little more concrete than "I feel he is better known for X". Of course, I understand the difficulty in making strong arguments about the relative scale of discussion of this or that behaviour, because of the sheer number of sources talking about Trump (and the resulting fact that people can always cherry-pick a few sources to support an assertion in concert with the availability heuristic). So I'm not suggesting we demand a comprehensive analysis of the whole world of Trump RS. But some summary of the evidence for the position that "concerns about racial comments overwhelm those about sexist comments in the RS" would be appropriate if we are going to orient our content accordingly. Snow let's rap 23:24, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
Well, I just did a search to see if Reliable Sources are making an issue of this. I found two articles making that explicit point, both from 2017, one from a British paper. I found a 2018 opinion piece in CNN and some news stories about Seth Myers calling him sexist. This just does not seem to be near the top of the RS agenda. --MelanieN (talk) 23:35, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
That's strange to me that you only found two sources discussing that topic, because when I did a simple google search for "Trump's history of sexist comments", I received results which seem to be in the hundreds with regard to RS discussing the accusation (in regard to both stories of specific instances, and many discussing the overall pattern): omitting the sources you already mentioned and those with only video content to be friendly to our mobile editors, here are the relevant results from just the first three pages (the results go on for many thousands of pages, of course, as is typical of any query with Trump in it, no matter how refined the search phrase): [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30]. These sources range in publication date from 2012 to as recently as the last few weeks, cover a very much larger span of time, and I've no particular reason to suspect that the RS dry up on page five or even page one hundred of the search results for that particular phrase (let alone all possible search permutations on the subject). I'm not saying that even such a large number of sources doesn't need to be balanced against the larger scope and context we are dealing with here, but I am saying the number of sources explicitly talking about Trump's history of purportedly sexist comments is orders of magnitude larger than "two or three". Snow let's rap 00:35, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
You make good points. There do seem to be a lot more sources than I realized. Well, before we can talk about putting anything like this in the lede, it would have to be in the article. A subsection could be created in the "public profile" section, comparable to what is already there for "False statements" and "Racial views". Once it is well documented and stable in the article, we could talk about putting something in the lede. As far as I can see there would not need to be discussion or consensus before putting something in the body of the article. IMO it should not just narrowly cover sexist comments, but should also include actions where documented. --MelanieN (talk) 00:44, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
I agree, and that's part of the problem in searching for sources on this topic; the discussion of Trump's public statements in that area tend to get overshadowed by the accusations of personal misconduct that have been made against him (and discussion of the former tends to get subsumed into articles about the latter). Disentangling the two and keeping all statements neutral and in proportion will require some skilled writing. Given the balancing act of appeasing disparate editorial perspectives here, I don't imagine a very extensive section will unfold surrounding this subtopic, but I do think some discussion of specific allegations and comments which have created particularly widespread reactions would be appropriate. Honestly, I could see that content coming out to anywhere between three sentences and four paragraphs in length, but I suspect it will end up much towards the smaller end of that scale. Anyway, as you say, once that content has taken shape, we will be in a better position to evaluate if the subject is appropriate to the lead. Snow let's rap 02:39, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
JFG - you're right, not LEAD, not BLP, but ... somewhere? Yes Trump seems an equal opportunity insulter judging from the Trump Twitter Archive and general viewed Google. And this is not WP:LEAD suitable for a summary of his BLP life. I'd also hold this is not a biographical item of life decision he made or event with enduring impact to his life so this BLP is even the wrong article for it anyway. But there are still articles claiming some sexist or racist pattern in tweets exists. Wrong or not, if a claim meets WP:WEIGHT then mention of it should go somewhere, just make it attributed as claim rather than fact. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:18, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
It is already stated in the lead that many of his public statements have been controversial or false. It seems to me that "controversial" may include such things as birtherism or previous sexist comments he has made, without the need to further highlight sexist comments in the lead section, which should have a neutral encyclopedic tone. Trump is already accused of racism in the lead (or the perception of his comments and actions as racist). Hypothetically, if Trump makes comments in the future perceived by some as anti-gay or anti-transgender, would he then be accused in the lead of being racist, sexist, homophobic and transphobic? I would have no particular problem with such labels in the main body of the article, if reliable sources backed them up. But it seems to me not needed in the lead, when it's already stated that Trump has made controversial or false comments and it's important for the lead to have a neutral tone. Kind Tennis Fan (talk) 22:30, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Critical analyses of his business career

Latest comment: 6 years ago9 comments5 people in discussion

I propose to remove this paragraph from the "Wealth" section. (It has been there a long time so it can only be removed by consensus.)

A 2016 analysis of Trump's business career in The Economist concluded that his performance since 1985 had been "mediocre compared with the stock market and property in New York."[97] A subsequent analysis in The Washington Post similarly noted that Trump's estimated net worth of $100 million in 1978 would have increased to $6 billion by 2016 if he had invested it in a typical retirement fund, and concluded that "Trump is a mix of braggadocio, business failures, and real success."[98]

This looks like a couple of cherry-picked (both negative) evaluations, both of them undertaken after he became a serious presidential candidate. I really don't see the value of quoting these two critiques of his business career. Let's just show the facts, to the extent that we know them. --MelanieN (talk) 18:26, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

I would support deleting this dated paragraph, especially now that the Wealth section was expanded due to the recent New York Times piece. — JFG talk 00:44, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
I'm not so keen on removing this entirely. It's an oft-repeated analysis of the performance of Trump's portfolio of business. Perhaps it could be summarized without the need to rely on excessive quotes.- MrX 🖋 01:09, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
I agree with MrX. I also don't think these are particularly cherry picked. I searched for "Trump business career analysis", the first WP:RS result is the WaPo link, and other RS analysis I was able to find are a negative one from fortune, a negative one in newsweek, and a negative one in the National Review, and then the Economist's analysis. A google search is hardly definitive or anything, but it seems to me that it is hardly cherry-picked analysis and that most analysis of Trump's business career is negative (and that should be reflected here per WP:NPOV; his performance being "mediocre compared with the stock market and property in New York" is as much fact, a fact that gives context to the other facts we present of his business career) Galobtter (pingó mió) 06:37, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
The comparison of Trump's fortune to average economic performance of the stock market would make anybody look mediocre. Put in terms of more mundane sums of money, the sources state that if you invested $10,000 in 1978 and held onto the funds untouched, you would have a $600,000 nest egg by 2016. It's not specific to Trump, therefore it's not encyclopedic for his biography. Such observations are perhaps more appropriate in articles about economic growth, the stock market, and investment strategies. Trump is no Warren Buffett, so what? The ups and downs of his actual life and business ventures are what readers need to know. The only part of this paragraph that specifically addresses Trump is the one quote that says "Trump is a mix of braggadocio, business failures, and real success." I'd support keeping that alone, duly attributed to the Post of course. — JFG talk 08:35, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
Respectfully, JFG, your last post entangles the content analysis with your own WP:Original research regarding the "soundness" of the statements made in those reliable sources, and you must be aware that such independent analysis is not relevant or useful in a content determination. Candidly, we just don't care if the math and logic employed by the WP:RS do not add up to you, under your personal analysis. Indeed, under policy we are not even allowed to consider it. And I say this despite the fact that I happen to agree with you (quite strongly, in fact) that said analysis is framed and presented in a pretty ham-fisted manner, by using that retirement fund device (retirement funds do not scale and operate under the same constraints as real estate investment and high finance for very basic economic reasons). Nevertheless, the statements are clearly quoted and attributed, and readers can decide to accept them at face value or follow up on them and question their analysis if they so wish. But we can't excise content just because you or I (or any other editor) are not convinced the source is right or because it, according to our individual analysis, applies incorrect empirical metrics when arriving at their conclusions. Excluding content based on such an analysis would involve substantial WP:OR.
Now if you can find sources which directly cast doubt on the analysis undertaken by those RS (or in the alternative, you find RS which present a different story of the subject's business fortunes) you may, of course, add them to present the span of perspectives on the topic (provided, of course, that they too are fully attributed). What we can't do is use our own analysis as a reason to "invalidate" the statements of reliable sources, illogical as they may seem to us. Nor are these the only sources out there questioning Trump's business record. The fact that so many exist is not at all surprising, given that Trump used claims about his business acumen to bootstrap his presidential run, often quite literally claiming that he has one of the "greatest business minds in existence" (if not the greatest, as if you could ever quantify such an absolute position) and that he could replicate his track record of "overwhelming success" on the national scale. And no, I am not now saying that we should present evidence to the contrary just to fact check his claims; that would not be a neutral approach to the content. I'm saying that his constant boasts in this area have led others to do just that for their own reasons (be they political or journalistic) and that these analyses now have significant enough WP:WEIGHT that some of them are bound to be discussed here.
But let's suppose for the moment that we go out on an WP:IAR limb and put WP:OR to the side, and we remove the first part of the statement attributed to the Washington post, because we feel it is a clumsy analysis (and yes, again, we are in agreement that it is). That still leaves the first sentence regarding the statements sourced from The Economist. Why do you find that sentence inappropriate? Snow let's rap 03:42, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
Dear Snow Rise, I am not advocating to insert any original research into the article, and contrary to the thoughts you seem to be assigning to me, I'm in full agreement with the source's "math and logic"; I was only explaining to our fellow editors on the talk page that there is nothing exceptional about the Post's claim that investing in the stock market or real estate could yield good financial returns if left steady over 40 years (although, as you correctly note, investing on the scale of Trump's fortune would not work the same as for you and me). Such discourse is allowed and useful on the talk page, where we all exercise editorial judgment to evaluate relevancy, neutrality and due weight of various sources. It is my opinion as an encyclopedist that this particular comparison is neither very relevant to Trump's biography nor especially weighty, as few sources have picked up on it.
Seen from another angle, the Economist's article is actually much more nuanced than the cherry-picked quote calling his financial performance "mediocre", as it mentions historical rises and falls of Trump's fortunes alongside the real estate market: he bet big, won big, and lost big. Therefore I believe we should dispense with opinion, and let readers decide for themselves whether Trump's financial saga is heroic, pompous, average or fraudulent. — JFG talk 15:51, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
I see; in that case, do you have a proposal for how we can summarize the conclusions from the The Economist source more neutrally. Having read through the entirety of that source, I would agree that it is indeed a nuanced piece and conservative in its claims, noting that some details of Trump's finances (and thus the ultimate aggregate "success" of his business ventures) are somewhat unclear and open to debate. But the thing is, when a investigative journalistic source does make that kind of meandering analysis, with no central direction in its conclusions, it doesn't necessarily mean that individual statements presented within the article are not in themselves relevance and appropriate for inclusion; that's not generally considered cherry-picking, if the information is presented neutrally. However, re-reviewing the article, I have to agree that if we use just that one isolated bit, it could definitely be framed more neutrally; while everything in that sentence is technically accurate, the overall effect is to suggest that the statement is the general conclusion of that piece--in reality, the piece ends by concluding that "the jury is still out on Mr. Trump's business career".
That is not, of course, directly in conflict with the "mediocre" statement before; both can easily be true at once and accurate reflections of the conclusions of the source. However, revising that statement to make it clear that comparing Trump's successes against the average results in the stock market and New York real estate (whatever that means, it's a little vague) is just one metric that the source uses to evaluate his successfulness, could make the statement more neutral and faithful to the source. Alternatively, as I opened this post my saying, we could try to work out a summary of the source without a quote, partial or otherwise. But again, the piece is so back and forth, I can't imagine what such a statement would look like, if we were trying to be certain it was meaningful and clear to the reader. Snow let's rap 23:56, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
I would simply refrain from inserting any subjective evaluation of Trump's business performance, or a comparison to other metrics. Just erase the paragraph, as initially suggested by MelanieN. — JFG talk 00:12, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Removal of content

Latest comment: 6 years ago15 comments5 people in discussion

Perhaps JFG can expand in this removal of content a bit? Does JFG have access to the article in question, or was the rationale given in the edit summary referring to the text available in the abstract? This is a significant change of content that surely requires more discussion. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:46, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I've read the source, and it did not support the sentence. The quoted page 101 is the first page of the book's conclusion, called "Seven Theses on Populism", none of which mention Trump. They are essentially opinions by the author about what can be called populism and how dangerous it is. Trump is mentioned elsewhere in the book, but I could not find a passage that supports the sentence that was in the article, hence my removal. — JFG talk 14:56, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
This is a relatively recent insertion by ZiaLater who I'd ask if it is supported by the source anywhere? Galobtter (pingó mió) 15:18, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
Actually, no. It has been in the article in it's current form since July 8, 2017 (added by Asqueladd) without challenge. That's an extraordinary enough record of stability for the edit to draw some scrutiny. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:40, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
Scjessey, though the diff is confusing, JFG did not remove that sentence attributed to Barkun Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:10, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

@JFG: @Scjessey: Yes, the quoted source—not a book but a peer-reviewed article published in Terrorism and Political Violence—(Barkun, 2017, page 437) mentions the Trump Campaign (it basically entails the entire article); 1st paragraph:

"The 2016 election was notable for many things, but one feature that distinguished it along with the early days of the Trump presidency was the extraordinary role played by fringe elements, individuals, and ideas. By the ‘‘fringe,’’ I mean ideas, beliefs, and organizations that have been ignored, rejected, marginalized, or that have voluntarily separated themselves from the dominant society. Virtually by definition, these are outsiders, made up of those systematically excluded from access to any influence on mainstream cultural and political life. Remarkably, the Trump campaign and the administration that followed brought this pariah realm into the mainstream, with yet unclear implications for the likelihood of violence later on."

— Barkun (2017, p. 437).[1]

--Asqueladd (talk) 15:52, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Barkun, Michael (2017). "President Trump and the Fringe". Terrorism and Political Violence. 29 (3): 437. doi:10.1080/09546553.2017.1313649. ISSN 1556-1836.
@Asqueladd: The Barkun source is not in dispute, and the sentence it supports was left untouched. We were talking about the What is Populism book by Jan-Werner Müller, and the sentence I removed stated Acts of populism that proved successful for Trump included recognition of some Americans who felt "anger" towards cultural changes, sexual liberty and the potential of white Americans–especially white Protestants–becoming a minority group in the United States. That reads like an opinion essay, and is absolutely not what the cited source said. — JFG talk 16:07, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
@JFG: Oh, I was "summoned" and I replied on the presumption that the verifiability of the bit I added was disputed. Thanks and have a nice day.--Asqueladd (talk) 16:11, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
No worries. — JFG talk 16:18, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
Oh, jeez. Galobtter is absolutely correct - I misread the diff. Sorry, JFG and everyone else who has participated in this thread. My bad.
Simon goes and stands in the corner with shame on his face. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:02, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

@JFG: The Jan-Werner Müller quote states: 

"It is with the rise of the Tea Party and Donald Trump’s astounding success in 2015–16 that populism as understood in this book has really become of major importance in American politics. Clearly, 'anger' has played a role, but as noted earlier, 'anger' is not by itself much of an explanation of anything. The reasons for that anger have something to do with a sense that the country is changing  culturally in ways deeply objectionable to a certain percentage of American citizens: there is the increasing influence of, broadly speaking, social-sexual liberal values (same-sex marriage, etc.) and also concerns about the United States becoming a 'majority-minority country,' in which traditional images of 'the real people'—white Protestants, that is—have less and less purchase on social reality."

I apologize if this was misinterpreted, but the way this was presented by the author seemed to be that successful populism used by the Tea Party and Donald Trump was based off of "anger". The "anger" is then explained by the author.----ZiaLater (talk) 22:39, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

@Neutrality:, @K.e.coffman: Seeing that you were involved in the discussion below, what do you think of this discussion?----ZiaLater (talk) 04:49, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
@ZiaLater: Thanks for finding the relevant excerpt from the book. Looks like the opinion of the author, and he is not a particularly notable analyst. Lacks enough weight to include. There have been myriads of reasons advanced by various people to explain Trump's election (and a myriad more to explain why he shouldn't have been elected!) — JFG talk 00:08, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
@ZiaLater: @JFG:"and he is not a particularly notable analyst". Jan Werner Muller is one of the leading non-laclauian scholars of populism. To the extent the use of the source relates to Populism he is heavily relevant. There may be another issues with the citation (I don't know about the whole context but from the literal citation above it may look a synthy use of a somewhat vague passage), but the author is indeed relevant.--Asqueladd (talk) 00:30, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
@Asqueladd: Müller is certainly a respected author with regards to populism in general, although as a German, he has focused mostly on European countries. He is not particularly notable with regards to American politics, and indeed he is mostly citing Trump as an example of a populist leader, rather than attempting to explain Trump's success in detail. In any case, the sentence I removed was definitely over-interpreting the source, which itself was essentially opinion. — JFG talk 10:45, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Removal of three peer-reviewed studies with the claim "This is opinion"

Latest comment: 6 years ago47 comments16 people in discussion

The editor JFG removed peer-reviewed academic research with the assertion "This is opinion. Please get consensus."[31]. This text should be restored immediately. Per the RS guidelines, peer-reviewed publications are usually the best sources,[32] and they are absolutely not "opinion". The publications in question are by recognized experts and published in the best academic presses (Princeton University Press, Yale University Press)[33]. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:21, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

The sentence is attributed to "Political scientists and historians", and the sentence doesn't seem particularly like an opinion, so I'd like to know what part of the edit JFG thinks is opinion Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:26, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
First, the start of the paragraph was changed from calling Trump "a major proponent of "birther" conspiracy theories" to "the most prominent proponent" of such. That is most certainly opinion, which we cannot state as fact in wikivoice. Second, regarding the added sentence citing Princeton political scientists, stating that "Trump's support among Republicans correlated with beliefs that President Obama was foreign born or a Muslim or both" is a highly partisan charge that should at a minimum get consensus prior to insertion. This is especially important to lay out for debate because the OP recently started an RfC on the same subject. — JFG talk 16:41, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
We might well find a consensus of Reliable Sources saying that he was the "most prominent" proponent; I'll leave that up to the research and discussion here. But we absolutely should not use the "correlated with" sentence, because it implies something that cannot be proven. "Correlated with" means absolutely nothing, because there is no way to tell if there is any relation at all, and if so, which one is the cause and which the effect, or if some third thing is the cause of both. "Correlated with" is one of the most common, and notorious, ways to lie with statistics. See Spurious Correlations. --MelanieN (talk) 21:49, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
This seems like a knee jerk reaction to hearing the term correlation. No causal claim is being made in the text (i.e. birthers supported Trump because he was a birther or that Trump gained support because he was a birther). The fact that his support was concentrated among those who held Obama birther/Muslim beliefs is noteworthy, and no causality has to be implied or inferred for it to be notable. Which is why John Sides, Lynn Vavreck and Michael Tesler (all of whom have published quant studies and survey research in the top political science journals) mention this in the first few pages of their peer-reviewed book on the 2016 election published in one of the best academic presses and immediately after they note that Trump was the lead birther. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 22:38, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
his support was concentrated among those who held Obama birther/Muslim beliefs See, this is exactly why we must not use "correlation" material in the article. You are saying that his support was "concentrated among those who held" that belief, as if they constituted a majority of his support. The data do not suggest that at all. The inverse is more likely - that a majority of birthers were Trump supporters, not that a majority of Trump supporters were birthers. Correlation is so misleading and so easy to misinterpret that we absolutely should not mention it here.--MelanieN (talk) 04:11, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
To me this seems a rather WP:ORy reason to exclude. If that correlations are easy to misinterpret or some point like that is made in those books written by experts who certainly know that one can lie with statistics, then exclude certainly, but if not, then this, at-least, isn't a reason to exclude.
Here's a washingtonpost article that makes the same point. From that data, it seems to me that both majority of birthers were Trump supporters and majority of Trump supporters are birthers largely because the majority of the republicans are birthers. Galobtter (pingó mió) 06:02, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
Possibly we could say a version of what that article says: "Birtherism was why so many Republicans liked Trump in the first place." No need for us to interpret the data; the source has made the interpretation. No need for us to consider majorities or correlations. BTW, I am still open to use of the wording "most prominent proponent". And just noting for clarity - since there is also another active thread here about birtherism - we are talking here about what to say in the text section. I am still opposed to mentioning it in the lede. --MelanieN (talk) 15:30, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
My views align with MelanieN's here on pretty much each of those details, with the one exception that I think a mention of birtherism in the lead is entirely appropriate, Snow let's rap 03:33, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
Its not wiki voice when we follow what reliable sources say. Here is another source that says "For years, Trump has been the most prominent proponent of the “birther” idea." https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2016/09/16/trump-finally-says-president-obama-was-born-in-the-us So that is more than well sourced and not opinion. ContentEditman (talk) 16:49, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
I'd be really interested to hear which proponent of birther conspiracies is more prominent than Trump. Guy (Help!) 21:49, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
@K.e.coffman: This is a discussion not a vote. Why not join the discussion? PackMecEng (talk) 02:47, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
I have reviewed the discussion, and that was my recommendation. K.e.coffman (talk) 02:48, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
For... reasons? Got it, fair enough. PackMecEng (talk) 02:55, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
I have provided a reason; it's immediately above, in my initial comment. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:00, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
I agree with K.e.coffman that this material should be restored; it seems to me to be (very) well-sourced, appropriate weight, biographically significant, and so forth; indeed, these are the kind of sources we should strive to rely upon. I haven't seen anyone offering a policy-based reason to exclude. Neutralitytalk 21:26, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

"Major proponent" vs. "Most prominent proponent"

The above discussion involves several aspects of the disputed edit, and at this stage of the discussion it isn't entirely clear exactly what change is being proposed. By contrast, the disputed edit to the first sentence is a simple binary choice. We discuss birtherism in the second paragraph of the "Racial views" section. The question is: Should the first sentence of that paragraph say "Starting in 2011, Trump was a major proponent of "birther" conspiracy theories," as it now does, or should it be changed to "...was the most prominent proponent of..."? --MelanieN (talk) 19:17, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

I think it is quite clear that "most prominent proponent" is the way to go. Plenty of sources support this known fact. For example, just before Trump's walk back on the issue, the Chicago Tribune said:

"For years, Trump has been the most prominent proponent of the "birther" idea. He used the issue to build his political profile, earn media attention and define his status as an "outsider" willing to challenge conventions."

-- Scjessey (talk) 21:03, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
WP:PEACOCK comes to mind. Any superlatives should be avoided, even if sources use them (and here not all sources call him the top birther). Conversely, "a major proponent" is fully supported, and places appropriate emphasis on Trump's major role in the spread of birtherism circa 2011 (although that myth apparently emerged in 2008). — JFG talk 00:05, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
Well, an MoS page advising on effective prose does not supersede WP:WEIGHT, arguably the most important section of one of our pillar policies. If sufficient weight exists in sources describing Trump as the single most significant figure of this movement, then NPOV binds us to faithfully describe him as such (albeit perhaps with caution in attribution and additional "has been described as" phrasing), and WP:PEACOCK cannot abrogate that requirement. That said, I can't claim to have read every one of the hundreds or thousands of reliable sources discussing Trump and birtherism (though I have, unfortunately, had to read a good many of them) so I can't say (and I doubt any editor can) that "most" is absolutely, without question, a more faithful representation of the collective sources than "major", and I'm comfortable with either. Snow let's rap 01:06, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
The term "most prominent" is ambiguous, since it can mean either that he was the most prominent person advancing the theory or that he more prominently advanced the cause than anyone else. I think Orly Taitz received more media coverage. There were also a number of Republican politicians and right-right talk show hosts promoting the theory who were arguably more prominent than Trump. Trump's involvement became a bigger issue once he ran for office. TFD (talk) 01:09, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
All of which is WP:original research; we are required to faithfully report how WP:reliable sources describe a topic, not the description we think better reflects reality, even if we're very much convinced, as a personal matter, that our analysis is more accurate. Snow let's rap 02:12, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
There were plenty of birthers, and I've read that at some point half of America was questioning Obama's birth records. Strange but what else can you expect from politics? Just like today half of America calls Trump a puppet of Putin. This country seems to love conspiracy theories. — JFG talk 02:29, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
No it is not original research, it is accurately reflecting in unambiguous language what reliable sources say. The Manual of Style says, "Avoid ambiguity." Note that ambiguity may not exist in the original source, because context determines what terms mean. Here of course there is no context. Is there any reason you think ambiguous wording should be used? (Incidentally, it's easy to name drop policies and guidelines, but totally worthless if you do not explain their relevance.) TFD (talk) 20:15, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
Yes, but half of America wouldn't have come to this conclusion without a prominent conspiracy promulgator. O3000 (talk) 11:24, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
Just like today half of America calls Trump a puppet of Putin. This country seems to love conspiracy theories. ------ WHAT???— Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.210.129.21 (talk • contribs)

"For years, Trump has been the most prominent proponent of the “birther” idea." is what sources say. Its not OR for us to use what reliable sources say, in fact its what we should do. So I would say most prominent proponent is what should be used. ContentEditman (talk) 18:31, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

  • Exclude - seems like we’re doing paraphrase either way rather than direct support from sources, and while I personally think “the most prominent” is a better paraphrase than “major” for only 6 weeks at the late long-form stage of it all.... I think that portrayal ( a) fails WEIGHT in having lots less actual semi-direct support, and (b) an absolute like “the most” is kind of EXTRAORDINARY and needs a LOT of support. CheersMarkbassett (talk) 14:30, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
This is a laughable rationale, Mark. First of all, if you look at my quote from the Chicago Tribune above, it is word-for-word identical - not a paraphrase at all. Secondly, how in the hell can it fail WP:WEIGHT when Trump built his entire campaign for the presidency upon his birtherism? Finally, there's TONS of support for Trump being the most prominent proponent of birtherism. Countless thousands of articles, in fact. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:48, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
@Scjessey: Trump built his entire campaign for the presidency upon his birtherism. Say what???? I thought he built his entire campaign on building The Wall™. I thought he built his entire campaign on calling opponents "Low energy Jeb", "Lyin' Ted" and "Crooked Hillary". I thought he built his entire campaign on chastising China and Mexico over trade. I thought he built his entire campaign on bashing the PC culture. I thought he built his entire campaign on supporting the police and the military. I thought he built his entire campaign on projecting a vision of putting his country first. I could go on. Whoever says his campaign was based on birtherism has not been paying attention. — JFG talk 18:35, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
@JFG: Nonsense. Trump hates Obama, so he threw himself into the whole "birther" bullshit and took it to a new level with fake investigations and fake claims. Once he'd attracted a suitable enough number of Obama-hating racists to his cause, he then built a campaign that would appeal to them and the rest of the deplorable horde in his cult. And serious, country first? You don't really believe that shit, do you? -- Scjessey (talk) 19:46, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
He seems to be the only one here making sense. Just calm down. PackMecEng (talk) 19:52, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
User:Scjessey not laughable at all. WP:WEIGHT has to be a preponderance of RS so your offer of your logic of it fits is just OR, same as my own in that direction. And with an absolute “the most”, we would have to see multiple cites that literally compared by some measure and made that literal statement. Just a table showing X is not enough, it is OR for us to state conclusions the RS did not. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 20:17, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
Peak birtherism was in 2011. Trump started his campaign in 2015, didn't say a word about Obama's citizenship until one journalist asked him if he still believed that myth. Trump replied that he did not want to discuss this again, but that he was "very proud" to have been the one harassing Obama into releasing his long-form certificate. Typical Trump bombast and taking credit for everything. That's all there is to it, really, it was a minor blip among his myriad campaign statements. I'm not into "half the electorate are racist deplorables" delusions, but knock yourself out. Nuff said. — JFG talk 20:08, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
?? "Peak birtherism was in 2011. Trump started his campaign in 2015."?? That gap was FILLED with Trump birtherism, ("fake investigations and fake claims", per Scjessey), with the help of Joe Arapaio, building up to the official start, in this country (in Russia he started getting help and preparing back around 2011, possibly earlier), of his campaign. Hardly a "minor blip". -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 20:28, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
“Filled”??? Seriously ? Have to call BS (coincidental pun there) on that. Hyperbole even in discussion has to be a bit more plausible. Primary speeches or debates are easily available - maybe could say filled with immigration, condemning trade deals, talking make America great... could say Apprentice and real estate maybe also. Birther??? Just not there let alone “filled” the space. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 20:48, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
Well, 2011-2015..., there was lots of birtherism during that time (no hyperbole for that time period, which is what I'm addressing), and later, once the campaign started, it continued, but with lots of other stuff. You're right there. By then, all the birthers were rounded up and firmly his supporters, a large part of the GOP, so there was room for other stuff and it wasn't emphasized as much. No need to do it. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 21:33, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
  • I am rather against most prominent just because it is a very subjective term. Yes sources use it a decent bit, they also use other terms as well. To be honest though, the birther stuff has not been that important over all. It really gets overshadowed with the last two years of controversy and accomplishment. So while I would vote against most prominent, I would not be against removing it from the lead in general and falling importance. PackMecEng (talk) 15:26, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
LOL. I'm shocked. Shocked. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:46, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment. I find it odd that strong Trump supporters are arguing to downplay his notability in any manner, especially this issue. It's what helped him grab headlines and become more notable. He's arguably more notable than God, Jesus Christ, Mohamed, Buddha, and Gandhi, all lumped together. (None of them promote birtherism, thus vacating that status for Trump.) Why so shy, especially since RS confirm this? Trump would be ashamed of you for not supporting his daily efforts at self-promotion.  
Seriously, let's apply a little logic here. Can anyone here name a more prominent proponent of birtherism? No? I thought so. There is no one more prominent than Trump at just about anything. If he promotes something, that means he is automatically "the most prominent proponent" of it, and, in this case, RS actually put it into words. No need for OR or SYNTH for us to arrive at that conclusion. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 17:00, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
Feel better now? PackMecEng (talk) 17:53, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
Well, BullRangifer is right. Folks like Alan Keyes and Orly Taitz may have been the first to try to profit from the birther lie, but Trump turned it into a gold painted gin palace of a whopper. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:46, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
User:BullRangifer ONUS requires the statement to pony up cites, asking for disproof is ...saying you cannot do so? Otherwise... you mean “was” the most prominent, yah? Or perhaps “is the most prominent former birther” hmm? Notability, yes Trump seems by coverage more WP:NOTABLE in the U.S. and gotten more WP articlespace than any of the religious figures - or Obama, Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Washington ... or all of them combined. It is IMHO not a good/healthy thing, suggest it would help perspective to read BBC.com or CNBC or Daily Mail more often. But thats all side discussion as well as OR, not suitable for WP articles. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 20:29, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Treatment of facts

Latest comment: 6 years ago14 comments8 people in discussion
MOVED
Thread moved to Talk:Veracity of statements by Donald Trump. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 09:41, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

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

There's an endless stream of reliable news articles about Trump's false statements, and about his treatment of facts more generally. E.g.: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/18/us/politics/donald-trump-foreign-leaders.html When are we going to have more than 5 sentences on this subject? Isn't it past time for a spinoff article? R2 (bleep) 16:09, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

I don't see enough for an article, since you could probably tell the whole story in 15 or 20 sentences. We are not going to enumerate the falsehoods, that wouldn't be encyclopedic and at that level of detail we're limited to just a few sources (notably WaPo). You could probably count the different major viewpoints on the fingers of one hand.
I've long felt this article needs more on the subject per WP:WEIGHT, but we've yet to achieve consensus for that, not for lack of talking about it. ―Mandruss ☎ 08:01, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
There's more than enough for a fairly long article about this, his most defining trait (all through his business and public life, and likely private life since childhood). Other matters are populist political positions, not deeply ingrained character traits. The only reason we don't have an article is that it won't be allowed, largely because of attitudes like yours, backed up by those editors here whose top priority is deleting or blocking anything negative about Trump, no matter how well-sourced. The struggle to create the article would be too daunting, so we give up before we even start (okay, I do have a substantial article on the drawing board, with sources... ). (I say "we" because I suspect I'm not the only one who sees a need for this article.) The wikilawyering wall is too high to be worth the grief. Until admins start handing out DS sanctions and topic bans, this won't get off the ground. Political protectionism must be stopped firmly.
Stop and think about it. His MOST notable and BEST documented trait, which affects everything he does, and affects America's fate, is absent from the encyclopedia. There is a huge and obvious hole in our coverage. We're failing in our mission here. Any subject this notable should have an article. Do you not see that lack, and the reasons why, as a symptom of a deeper problem? -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 15:56, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

what a bunch of bunk there are lots of negative Trump content here on Wikipedia עם ישראל חי (talk) 16:17, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

That's not the subject here. This is about his dubious relationship to truth, facts, and reality, IOW habitual lying and deception. Fact checkers have never encountered a more deceptive person, and place him in a category of his own. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 16:54, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
  • As mentioned above this has been talked to death far to many times. If you have a specific change in mind feel free to purpose it. Otherwise this should be closed. PackMecEng (talk) 16:57, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
  • I doubt that Trump has any relationship – dubious or otherwise – with truth, facts, or reality but RS do not use "lie", verb or noun. WaPo's latest Fact Checker analysis (Sep 13) counting more than "5000 false or misleading claims" uses "lying" once, and it's not about Trump (One of his campaign aides has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. Until they do, we're stuck with false and misleading, I think. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 18:14, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
  • WP:NOTBLOG - Please propose edits or go make a page, do not just retweet what URL you saw in your mornings feed here. There could be a long amount about facts vs truth vs Truth, misinformation, dismediation, media manufactured controversies, alternative facts, hyperbole vs joking vs spin etcetera -- but it would be SYNTH to do so and definitely not stuff for the Trump biography article. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 20:39, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Way to go Mark. I think "clueless" is the word. There are huge amounts of very solid RS about this subject. If you used RS you would have noticed it every single day. That you are clueless about this indicates you don't, or are just being a POV obstructionist running interference for Trump. I'll AGF and trust it's the former. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 21:33, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
  • I undid the following inappropriate close by PackMecEng: "Closing before this gets out of hand with personal attacks. If there is a purposed edit, open a section on it and we can discuss it. PackMecEng (talk) 21:37, 21 October 2018 (UTC)}}" Please don't censor my good faith and specific proposal. R2 (bleep) 16:25, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
That is not censorship, also no assumption of bad faith was made on your part. You stated no specific proposal, just gave a source and said there should be more. As they say post a specific change x to y or add x. PackMecEng (talk) 16:30, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
I said that we should have a spinoff article on Trump's treatment of facts. That's a specific proposal, and it deserves discussion. To my knowledge there's no "change x to y or add x" requirement for talk page discussions. R2 (bleep) 23:25, 22 October 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.

Last two paragraphs of lead

Latest comment: 6 years ago20 comments10 people in discussion

They should be reduced to a few sentences, or a short paragraph, at most. In fact, this brings up a much larger issue, the fact that we aren't following WP:SPINOFF very well at all. The whole Presidency section should be reduced to a summary. The easiest way to do that is to use the lead from the Presidency article, and leave it at that. That would radically reduce the size of this article. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 01:41, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Like I said already: That would not be in line with what we do at other articles about presidents. It is standard practice here for the lede of an article about a president to contain an extensive summary of their actions as president… and little or nothing about their personal character traits. See Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, etc. What you are suggesting is not in line with WP:WEIGHT in terms of how Reliable Sources cover them, and it would be a radical departure from standard Wikipedia practice. And it’s not just presidents. Take a senator (Lindsey Graham, Chuck Schumer), or a secretary of state (Rex Tillerson, John Kerry), or a justice (John Roberts, Anthony Kennedy) - our BLPs generally focus on the person’s professional activities, which often take up half the lede and half or more of the text. To minimize their professional activities in their biography would be completely incompatible with how we do BLPs. --MelanieN (talk) 03:49, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
What Melanie said. — JFG talk 03:54, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
I would also strongly oppose a reduction. Love or hate this man, it's clear that the overhwelming majority of the sources in existence today which discuss him and his life do so through the lens of his role as President of the United States; it is about as simple a WP:WEIGHT interpretation as you are ever going to encounter on this project that his political role and the effects it has had (and will have) on the world at large are going to be the core topics of discussion (though certainly not to the exclusion of his business and entertainment roles and pre-presidency public image). WP:SPINOFF in no way directs us to change the normal parameters of WP:WEIGHT; of course there will always be fuller detail as to the presidency in the "Presidency of" article than in this one--nobody is suggesting otherwise--but the proportion of this article dedicated to the presidency must be apportioned in a way that reflects the foci converged upon by the WP:reliable sources and the relative rate of discussion therein. Snow let's rap 04:35, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
Hmmm. So we ignore the reason we have the Presidency article. We ignore "off-topic" here. We ignore "other things exist", instead of fixing that problematic situation here, and then elsewhere. Why not do it right here? We just have to live with substantial duplication? Of course we mention his presidency, but we deal with it in depth elsewhere. We're just giving it too much space here because we are ignoring multiple policies and practices which apply everywhere else. What policy says we are to make an exception here? -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 06:06, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
The exception would be your proposed approach: a biography that does not highlight the person's most prominent accomplishments in its lede section. In your world, Einstein played the violin and wore no socks, while Hitler was a painter, vegetarian and dog lover. Be realistic. — JFG talk 11:13, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
That's not my proposed approach, just put a bit less weight on it, since it's only part of his life, which is very different than other presidents. I doubt we're going to see any change on this, but we should then make it policy that "this is the way we do Presidents, and certain other prominent persons". We need to have a policy that makes it okay to make an exception for them, IOW that we have a reason why we ignore other policies and practices. I'd be fine with that. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 14:53, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
WP:IAR is the policy you're looking for. Iffy★Chat -- 15:02, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
@BullRangifer: Generally my opinion is that substantial duplication between articles isn't really a problem (WP:NOTPAPER and such). On another note, you seem to have found a consensus to dismiss arguments like these: [35] [36] [37] [38] ~Awilley (talk) 15:11, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
@Awilley: I appreciate you becoming involved in the content aspects of this article. We can always use more help! But I am curious what you mean that you think there is consensus to dismiss all those peoples input? PackMecEng (talk) 19:39, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
@PackMecEng, I didn't say anything about dismissing the input of people, just a specific kind of argument. ~Awilley (talk) 22:23, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
I suppose I should be more clear then, what above would lead you to believe those arguments could be dismissed? PackMecEng (talk) 22:35, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
@PackMecEng: The arguments I linked above seem to be based on the premise that details of Trump's presidency belong in the Presidency article while personal details go here, because this article is about the man himself. A couple suggest that details in this article should be weighted in proportion to the number of years of Trump's life that they were relevant. Here's a sampling of relevant snippets from those diffs:
  • "this is an article about the man, not his presidency, it would make sense not to include the controversy over enforcing federal law at the southern border." [39]
  • "This is not the presidency article, this is his main BLP. You should be asking if it is a major issue for his whole life." [40]
  • "...its an issue of his Presidency not so much Trump as the person himself." [41]
  • "This article is Trump's BLP, not the Presidency of Donald Trump article...The man is 72 years old. He lived 70 years of life prior to becoming president, literally more than 85% of it not related in any way to politics. This article and the lead are supposed to highlight the span of his life, not the last two to three years years since he announced his candidacy" [42]
  • "Mueller investigation has very little to do with Trump's life...is very relevant to Presidency of Donald Trump, though" [43]
That premise seems to be rejected by the people commenting in this thread. (See comments by MelanieN, Snow Rise, and JFG.) Is that more clear? ~Awilley (talk) 19:24, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
Ah I see what you mean. The issue is you are conflating individual events and their notability with any mention at all. Which no one was making an argument for. Of course parts of his presidency should be mentioned in this article, the question is which parts. All the arguments you list are about specific aspects that were deemed not notable enough for the lead here, which is of course differant than no mention in the lead of any of his presidency stuffs. So the comparison is not like versus like there. PackMecEng (talk) 19:31, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
This is not "the way we do Presidents", this is the way we do everybody. We are an encyclopedia, we emphasize what each person is most notable for, period. Until 2015, Trump was most notable as a real estate developer, TV star, and serial philanderer. Since then, he is most notable as a disruptive campaigner and as President. We have also seen on this very talk page people arguing that we assign too much weight to stuff Trump did before he became President. I find the current lede section to be well-balanced. The full article has maybe a bit too much emphasis on negative coverage of relatively minor things, but then again controversy is a key aspect of Trump's notability, so we're fair. — JFG talk 19:03, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
Honestly, although I think a couple of minor changes could be made to the lead to make it better, I think the overall balance is just about perfect. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:20, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
User:MelanieN yet it needs some guidance and limits so that a persons page remains a biography page and focus remains on their life story, their significant choices and things of enduring impact to their lives. I see too many things trying to jam into LEAD based on asserted ‘important’ rather than being much in this article or his life. And too much tempest du jour trying to jam into the body of BLP. Especially when there are topical WP:SPINOFF alternatives like in this case, a BLP should avoid going WP:OFFTOPIC of their life. And when there are personal quirks of note, it has to rate WEIGHT within the story of his life and get in even if it is not big in the political arena overall coverage, because that is a different topic. When something is written about an executive order or veto or even a Secretarial act that is part of Presidency but if the cite is not mentioning words or acts by Trump ... it should go only there, not here. (It is not just this page askew, I noticed Nikki Haley has dozens of screens, even a couple on her 2005 state house votes - and her actual personal life rates a quick 7 and a fraction lines pushed down to item 8. What kind of bio is that? Not a reputable coverage.). Lastly ... he has 70 years of other life, so I think articles of Ronald Reagan or Dwight Eisenhower that mostly did other things are closer comparisons than that of those notable only as politicians. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 02:40, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
The difference with Reagan and Eisenhower is that they are dead, and so we know the story of their lives. Also, why is this discussion about the last two paragraphs? I think the third last could be condensed, since we know the outcome of the election.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:13, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
User:Jack Upland - Trump, Reagan, and Eisenhower all came to the office late in a life which mostly was NOT in politics, so the story of their lives need more space before the presidency that the ones MelanieN had. List of presidents of the United States by age also shows Andrew Jackson and George Washington similarly, though those to seem too long ago to use. Cheers. Markbassett (talk) 02:59, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
Trump may be late in life, but he is not late.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:10, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

North Korea

Latest comment: 6 years ago7 comments6 people in discussion

Back in June, at the time of the US–North Korean summit, there was a discussion that rejected mentioning North Korea in the lead. North Korea is not mentioned in the lead of Presidency of Donald Trump either. At the time it was said it was too early. I think it's time for a reassessment of this. North Korea has kept a moratorium of nuclear and missile tests since the start of the year. Remains of US soldiers are being returned by North Korea. Military exercises in the South have been halted. There has been ongoing diplomacy involving the US, North Korea, and South Korea. President Moon has been to Pyongyang, and another meeting between Trump and Kim is planned.[44] Trump's diplomatic foray has been covered round the world, with some seeing it as a historic breakthrough and some as a historic blunder.[45][46][47] While some see it as heralding peace, some say it could unravel the strategic position of the US and its allies in North-east Asia.[48][49] It's hard to argue this isn't significant.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:43, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

The feud and détente with North Korea definitely belong in the top impactful events of Trump's presidency so far, even if there is still a long way to go until peace and denuking are achieved. Let me suggest some wording to get the ball rolling:

Trump responded to North Korea's escalating missile and nuclear tests by introducing harsh sanctions coordinated with China, while keeping the door open for dialogue. He attended a bilateral summit with Kim Jong-un in Singapore, where both sides agreed to work towards establishing peaceful relations and denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.

Comments and suggestions welcome. — JFG talk 00:54, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Not ledeworthy per WP:WEIGHT. The "harsh sanctions" are no more harsh than those already in place under the previous administration, and sanctions are enacted by Congress (not POTUS). In return for an American naval retreat, Kim Jong-un has not conducted any tests he may not have been able to conduct anyway. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:55, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Support - it could easily be shortened if need be. If North Korea has achieved an "American naval retreat" that is surely noteworthy. I haven't seen any evidence that North Korea cannot conduct tests. It certainly didn't have any trouble last year. Yes, the topic is contentious, and the outcome is unknown, but that is no reason for excluding it from the lead.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:14, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Support small amount - per WP:LEAD as summary of the article content, this seems comparable to others items in paragraph 4 of the lead. (Excluding Artic Refuge and Dodd-Frank since they lack article content so ... but that's OFFTOPIC of this thread.) I wish Presidency article was more getting Presidency content, but the lead should reflect what is here. Not as much as the example shown though. This really should be discussing it as what para 4 should look like and that lead should just identify the subtopic in about 5 words. I think the appropriate spot would be into the para 4 end listing of things done, making it something the size of "He recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, imposed import tariffs on various goods, triggering a trade war with China, and advanced denuclearization of North Korea." (Have to consensus what appropriate paraphrase for the Korea discussions shown here as "advanced denuclearization".) Cheers Markbassett (talk) 17:28, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
Support mentioning in the lede. This is not only a major theme of his actions as president - it is something that he is doing himself, a personal initiative of his, as opposed to signing something that Congress did. Thus it has a stronger claim for being mentioned in the lede of his biography. --MelanieN (talk) 17:35, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Support small amount — I suggest a single line at the end of third paragraph, such as "After initially engaging in heated rhetoric with North Korea, Trump later pivoted to a détente policy." soibangla (talk) 17:56, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Dodd-Frank Act

Latest comment: 6 years ago16 comments7 people in discussion

The lede section currently includes:

He enacted a partial repeal of the Dodd-Frank Act that had imposed stricter constraints on banks in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.

However, the article does not mention the Dodd-Frank Act at all, and the 2008 crisis is only mentioned in relation with Trump's investments in golf courses, so we are in violation of WP:LEDE. Hence my question:

  • Is this legislative action significant enough for the lede section, compared to other events of the Trump presidency so far?

If yes, then some more information about this should be included in the body of the article (that would fit the Economy and trade section), with appropriate citations. If no, then the sentence can simply be removed. Comments welcome. — JFG talk 20:12, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Rightly or wrongly, Dodd-Frank barely even gets mentioned in Presidency of Donald Trump. I say delete it. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:59, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
I think it could be mentioned in the body, though frankly I don't give a dodd.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:24, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
"Partial repeal" is how the legislative act has been consistently described by reliable sources, both as regards primary descriptions provided by the involved political actors and stakeholders, and especially within secondary sources arising from news accounts. Taking the wording of that one source and then arriving at our own conclusions about whether other sources are describing the event "accurately" would be blatant WP:SYNTHESIS. Snow let's rap 03:14, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
Hmm, when I was searching for "dodd frank trump" or "Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act" the main phrase seemed to be "rollback some regulations" not "partial repeal" though they could be said to near synonymous; not suggesting a rewording. Galobtter (pingó mió) 10:14, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment: It's tough to support removing this detail from the lead, given the massive implications and the sourcing that exists; despite descriptions by some here that the coverage of this topic was temporary or limited, this has in fact been the topic of a massive wealth of press and legal/policy literature (without meaning to draw ire, I will nevertheless say that I can't imagine any editor saying otherwise could have dug particularly deep, because this is a significant change in policy with big implications for corporate governance, legal ethics, and high finance regulation, and has been treated accordingly in the relevant professional, academic, and journalistic coverage). All of that said, I have to support the idea that if something appears not at all in the main body of an article, it probably does not belong in the lead. The counterargument there is that perhaps the real mistake is not the presence of the statement in the lead, but rather its lack of coverage in the body. I'd suggest that the best action would be to remove the statement in its entirety from the lead, but introduce it as a blurb on the topic below. Should that content then be augmented under consensus discussion, a mention could always be re-added to the lead at a later date. Snow let's rap 03:14, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Certainly, repealing dodd-frank and dodd-frank itself has big implications and pretty substantial coverage, but in regards to coverage of this specific bill/action that partially repealed etc, google searches based on date finds relatively sparse coverage in the news after (though of course news sources aren't the only or even main indicator of importance) and there hasn't even been time for any literature (or at-least I can't find anything on google scholar as of yet) or anything much in books. I'd be interested in what sort of coverage you know/have found; that'd help assess significance Galobtter (pingó mió) 10:14, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Arctic Refuge

Same situation with:

and opened the Arctic Refuge for oil drilling

Keep or remove? The article talks about the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, which were a big deal at the time; we could swap them back into the lede. The article does not mention the Arctic Refuge, but that would be easy to add if considered significant. — JFG talk 22:21, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

People have an unfortunate habit of adding things to the lead that they think are important, and ignoring the body of the article. The issue is only mentioned briefly in Environmental policy of the Donald Trump administration. It definitely shouldn't be in the lead if it isn't in the body, and unless someone wants to rectify that it should be removed.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:24, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
p.s. sidenote - this one is also an example where mention in the Presidency article (as well or instead of here) got skipped. Should think it would be in that alone or in both, but ... not. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:01, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Remove from lede. If any mention is needed, it could be general, along the lines that he has supported pipelines and oil drilling. --MelanieN (talk) 17:37, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Support proposed swap, in some fashion similar to what JFG and MelanieN have suggested. Mention of Trump's strong stance on exploiting domestic oil reserves and his executive actions to that end are certainly appropriate and weighty enough to warrant mention in the lead, even if only in a brief statement buried in a larger sentence. However, I agree that the emphasis is misplaced by focusing on the arctic reserves alone. Honestly, I would support a sentence that mentions the arctic refuge and the actions regarding the major pipelines, fronted by a statement framing his overall expressed perspectives on the matter, but if the choice is between these elements, I agree that a general statement (per MelanieN) or a focus on the pipelines (per JFG) would be the better options. Snow let's rap 03:20, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
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