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Sentence about the Ukraine/Biden controversy

Earlier today I replaced the lead's last sentence that said:

In September 2019, following a whistleblower complaint alleging a widespread abuse of power and a cover-up by Trump, a formal impeachment inquiry was initiated in the U.S. House of Representatives.

with the clearer:

In September 2019, following a whistleblower complaint alleging that Trump abused his power to pressure Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky into investigating the activities of Joe Biden's son Hunter, the House of Representatives launched an impeachment inquiry.

My edit summary was: "Rephrase impeachment sentence; active voice; mention Ukraine and Biden so that readers get a clue of what the alleged abuse of power is about." SPECIFICO later reverted to the original text, stating: "Restore text to clear statement. Newer version refers to abuse of non-existent Presidential "power to pressure"." In response to the possible confusing grammar around the passage "abused his power to pressure Ukrainian President", I would suggest simplifying the proposal with:

In September 2019, following a whistleblower complaint alleging that Trump pressured Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky into investigating the activities of Joe Biden's son Hunter, the House of Representatives launched an impeachment inquiry for abuse of power.

Contrary to my learned colleague's assertion, I do believe stating what the controversy is about is much clearer than letting the reader guess what "widespread abuse of power" we are talking about. Comments welcome. — JFG ^talk 21:48, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

We're trying to condense an entire complicated controversy into one sentence, resulting in an unacceptably long and cumbersome sentence. Readability must come first. I think we're forced to go to two sentences or strip it down to the absolute bare essentials. I submit that the lead could do without "whistleblower complaint" and Zelensky's name. Also, saying that he "pressured Zelensky into investigating" implies that his pressure was successful. And finally, "an impeachment inquiry for abuse of power" seems awkward and unnatural to my ear. I suggest:

In September 2019, following allegations that Trump abused his power by pressuring the president of Ukraine to investigate the activities of Joe Biden's son Hunter, the House of Representatives launched an impeachment inquiry.

―Mandruss ☎ 22:17, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

I slightly prefer the shorter version for reasons of brevity. That said, this is not the Ukraine/Biden controversy. It's the Trump-Ukraine controversy and impeachment inquiry. - MrX 🖋 22:20, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

I was about to remove Hunter's name as well – I think "Joe Biden's son" is sufficient for the lead, readers are unlikely to go away with the false impression that Biden has only one son, and as MrX said this is not about Biden–Ukraine – but I won't since there is a subsequent comment. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:27, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

I agree the shorter proposals are better, but I'm uneasy saying Trump's goal was an "investigation", when his goal was the origination of derogatory narratives without regard to fact or circumstance and needing no investigation for their fabrication. I know it's hard to believe, but that's what was going on. SPECIFICO talk 23:30, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

I cannot support a version that omits the cover-up which is an equal, if not greater, concern in the impeachment as it was with Nixon. If we want to add detail, that's fine, but we should not remove anything from the version at the top of this section.- MrX 🖋 10:24, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

In addition to using active voice, why not put the independent clause at the beginning of the sentence?

In September 2019, the House of Representatives launched an impeachment inquiry after a whistleblower alleged that Trump had pressured a foreign government to investigate a political rival.

This also excludes all names. While "a political rival" could be replaced with "Joe Biden and his son Hunter" I think the former might be more informative to the casual reader. ~Awilley (talk) 23:56, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Should probably describe Trump's side of the vaguely-proposed deal. "Offered Ukraine missile launchers" is about as wordy as "pressured a foreign government", just says a lot more. Maybe "military aid" is reasonably vague for the lead, but I think Ukraine is generally recognizable to casuals worldwide, unlike these Bidens (especially the new guy). InedibleHulk (talk) 05:56, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

@Awilley: The active voice and independent clause are good. Omitting that there was a cover up is a non-starter for me.- MrX 🖋 10:18, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

ETA: I would support any of the following:

In September 2019, a formal impeachment inquiry was initiated in the U.S. House of Representatives after a whistleblower complaint alleging a widespread abuse of power and a cover-up by Trump.

or

A formal impeachment inquiry was initiated in the U.S. House of Representatives in September 2019 after a whistleblower complaint alleging a widespread abuse of power and a cover-up by Trump.

or

In September 2019, a formal impeachment inquiry was initiated in the U.S. House of Representatives after a whistleblower complaint alleging a widespread abuse of power and a cover-up by Trump. According to the complaint and a transcript of a call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump attempted to offer Ukraine missile launchers in exchange for a "favor" in which Zelensky's government would investigate Joe Biden, a 2020 presidential candidate, and his son.

- MrX 🖋 10:45, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Déjà vu all over again. ―Mandruss ☎ 13:03, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

1. Ugh, passive voice. 2. Does the whistleblower document actually use the term "widespread abuse of power"? ~Awilley (talk) 17:24, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Unless used too frequently, Awilley, passive voice is a perfectly fine writing style. "Widespread" is from the original wording that the lead material was derived from. The whistleblower complaint says "a serious or flagrant problem, abuse, or violation of law or Executive Order", but we can just shorten it to "abuse of power" which is widely reported. Perhaps something along these lines:

In September 2019, the U.S. House of Representatives initiated a formal impeachment inquiry against Trump after a whistleblower complaint alleged abuse of power and a cover-up by Trump.

- MrX 🖋 17:58, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

We do not need to say "alleged". A "complaint" is an allegation.

In September 2019, shortly after it learned of a whistleblower complaint that detailed widespread abuse of power and a cover-up by Trump, the U.S. House of Representatives launched a formal impeachment investigation .

SPECIFICO talk 13:47, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

That's a bit on the nose. I think it might be a tough sell.- MrX 🖋 17:59, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Well, let's you put it in the article and see whether anyone objects. BRD. If so they'll give us some detail as to their alleged concern. SPECIFICO talk 21:07, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Sure. Hold my beer. - MrX 🖋 21:27, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm concerned that "widespread abuse of power" is 100 times too vague to describe one particular missiles-for-dirt proposal between two well-publicized and democratically-elected heads of state. Who else should the people entrust to top-level manage international military and intelligence affairs? I also don't understand to what "cover-up by Trump" refers, but that could well be my fault for not digging deep enough. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:34, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

The abuse of power was Trump using military aid as a giant carrot in return for a "favor" of investigating the Bidens. That's clear from the transcript, the whistleblower complaint, and the reporting on all this. The cover-up relates to trying to hide the transcript on a secure server, as well as the machinations of the White House, Giuliani, Barr, Pompeo and others to avoid scrutiny.- MrX 🖋 10:54, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Didn't see this, sorry for asking below. Haven't American presidents normally dangled aid to desperate nations, though? Seems the conflict of interest is the scandalous thing here, not any kind of overreaching. Trump didn't secure those leaky national documents, his national security assistant did. InedibleHulk (talk) 11:40, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes, it's OK as long as the favor accrues to the United States, and not to an elected official's political benefit.- MrX 🖋 13:15, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Hard to say who benefits untill the dirt comes up. If there actually is something destructive to Biden's popularity, the voters should know before they get conned into overlooking it. It's not like Trump really gains that much by eliminating one low-risk candidate and helping take back Crimea; still all of the remaining Caucasus and caucuses to personally worry about. InedibleHulk (talk) 13:52, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

I can only assume that was meant to be sarcastic? Trump personally benefits hugely by eliminating the leading (currently) candidate opposing him in the next election. And if he did withhold assistance from Ukraine, he would still benefit from effectively assisting the Russian invasion of Crimea, those same Russians that actively supported his 2016 election and are actively supporting his 2020 reelection. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:00, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

• Nobody's currrently opposing Trump among Democrats, they're fighting each other still. If Biden advances, this supposed bombshell could be huge for the Republican contender. But not yet. Ukraine got its aid back already, didn't it? Trump could have all the foreign support in the world and as long as only Americans vote, I don't see the problem. Maybe all American politicians couid have foreign support if they were friendlier with world leaders. InedibleHulk (talk) 14:28, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

I think I've summed it up in a short, sweet sentence that anyone can understand without knowing a thing about Biden and Ukraine. One needs actual ammo, one would be compromised by political ammo. Self-evident conflict of interest, even if all the names were switched or blanked, perfect for beginners (in my biased opinion, of course). Can't paste it here, though. If someone thinks it should be, feel free. InedibleHulk (talk) 06:11, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Hulk's short, sweet, inedible sentence:

In September 2019, after a whistleblower alleged Trump sought to trade military aid with Ukraine for political dirt on presidential candidate Joe Biden, the U.S. House of Representatives initiated a formal impeachment inquiry.

―Mandruss ☎ 09:31, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

This doesn't quite do it fo me, and I see its made its way into the lead already. Trump did not just seek a trade. He pressured Zelensky using his disproportionate power. "Political dirt" is a bit vernacular for an encyclopedia lead. My largest concern is that this sidesteps "abuse of power" and "cover up", which are central to the topic.- MrX 🖋 10:47, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Trading always involves pressure, and one side always has leverage. Here, it goes without saying; Ukraine needs war goods more than America needs yet another reason to disapprove of an old white rich male candidate. "Dirt" is mainstream enough, especially since Trump took executive power, but I could go for something "exotic" like kompromat, too. What is Trump hiding, and which power was "abused" (not rhetorical questions)? InedibleHulk (talk) 11:22, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Trump was (allegedly) hiding the record of the telephone discussion. The power abused is the power of the office of President. Everyone should read the complaint.[1] I've built off of your edit, adjusting to active voice and adding the cover up angle:

In September 2019, the U.S. House of Representatives initiated a formal impeachment inquiry against Trump after a whistleblower alleged Trump abused his power by seeking to trade military aid with Ukraine for political dirt on presidential candidate Joe Biden, and then tried to cover it up.

- MrX 🖋 11:36, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Seems fair enough, I suppose. InedibleHulk (talk) 11:43, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

The focus of the sentence doesn't seem right. The whistleblower complaint drew attention to the problem and that led to the release of the "transcript" by the White House. It was that "transcript" which sparked the formal impeachment inquiry, because Trump's own words were damning enough, even without the whistleblower's "color commentary" (for want of a better term). Trump has tried to make it all about the whistleblower, because it is easier to attack that person than defend his indefensible actions. This proposed sentence seems to play into Trump's preferred narrative by putting too much of the focus on the whistleblower. I'm going to post this response and then try to come up with an alternative. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:54, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

I agree with your second and third sentences about the sequence of events, but I don't think we should emphasize the cause. Technically, the decision to pursue impeachment came prior to public release of the transcript. We don't know if the transcript was leaked to Nancy Pelosi beforehand, although that's a reasonable assumption. Scjessey, do want to propose alternative wording?- MrX 🖋 14:35, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

I just got back from having root canal surgery and I can't think straight at the moment. I will try to look at it a bit later. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:15, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, and I am sure that I do. There is no impeachment proceedings, yet. Jerry Nadler started an impeachment inquiry. Nancy Pelosi refused to commit, UNTIL the release of the transcript by the whistle blower. She has only committed to what Jerry Nadler has started, an impeachment inquiry. If sufficient evidence for a proceeding is acquired (the famous "road map to impeachment developed for Nixon) then she might gavel in an impeachment proceeding. Whether anything was leaked to Nancy Pelosi aforehead is irrelevant. However there is no reason to think that it was, she got her hand on the transcript of DJT's call to the Ukranian president at the same time as Nadler, and did not commit to an inquiry until then. An inquiry compiles evidence, which is then brought before Congress, debated and voted on, then it is sent to the Senate for trial, where it DJT will be found innocent by the Republican controlled Senate.Oldperson (talk) 18:33, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

• User:Mandruss had the best phrasing. Partly - the whistleblower complaint didn’t allege ‘widespread’, it alleged a specific. So “widespread” is both vague and incorrect. And the whistleblower complaint mention of concealment is part of or supporting evidence of that abuse, so just abuse includes it — cover-up would imply actions after investigations start, which would mean after the whistleblower complaint and not something it could include. Also, it’s ‘Biden and his son’ in the complaint. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:12, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

In September 2019, the U.S. House of Representatives initiated a formal impeachment inquiry against Trump regarding abuse of office for political gain in the Trump–Ukraine controversy. Trump in July 2019 requested Ukraine investigate rival 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden, while a whistleblower alleged that this was part of a wider pressure campaign on Ukraine, and that the White House had tried to cover up Trump's request.

starship.paint (talk) 02:36, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

I removed "rival" and changed "gain" to "purposes". Biden, though an early favourite in opinion polling, has not won the opportunity to rival Trump yet, and may never. If he does, then his loss is Trump's gain. But during the still-young donkey melee phase of American democracy, his loss is currently and seemingly best for Warren. InedibleHulk (talk) 11:00, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Close, but still think Mandruss a bit better, a bit simpler. Perhaps

In September 2019, following a whistleblower allegation that Trump had pressured the president of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter, the House of Representatives launched an Impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump.

. Just identify the topic, put details below or in linked articles. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:54, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

At this point, with all that has happened, I don't think that's quite sufficient. This is fast moving target, so it's difficult to pin down a version that accurately captures the major points. I think we need to say something about how Trump doubled down by publicly asking Ukraine and China to investigate Biden, and how the State Department was manipulated by Trump's personal lawyer for Trump's political gain.- MrX 🖋 11:41, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks everybody. I have amended the wording and added relevant wikilinks. Here's my version:

Separately, in September 2019, the House of Representatives initiated an impeachment inquiry alleging abuse of office for political gain. In July 2019, Trump had asked Ukraine to investigate the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, a potential rival presidential candidate for 2020, and a whistleblower alleged that the White House had tried to cover up Trump's request.

Keep tweaking as this develops… — JFG ^talk 13:37, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

That wording leaves the impression there was a vote by the House. There was no vote. And let's not forget Schiff lied which needs to be included. In fact, the impeachment inquiry is being debated. For example: The top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, has emphasized that in his view, Pelosi's statements about impeachment carry no legal weight on their own. Let's get the article right. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 19:05, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

"Schiff lied" is not a statement that in any stretch, even if it were accurate, belongs in this article. The House initiated an impeachment inquiry does not imply there having been a floor vote - the impeachment inquiry is not being "debated," the impeachment inquiry was begun by the Judiciary Committee. And of course, there's no way that this article should reflect Doug Collins' personal point of view any more than it should reflect Barr's point of view. I am very concerned about your comments. Why would we uncritically reflect partisan statements of Collins or Barr, any more than we would uncritically report what Schiff or Pelosi or Nadler said about Trump? PunxtawneyPickle (talk) 19:19, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

{{ping|PunxtawneyPickle|Atsme))WP acknownledges reality by acknowledging that editors have, in some instances, POV's. However they are suppose to edit in a neutral fashion. Claiming that Schiff lied, when there is absolutely no evidence or RS to support such a statement is demonstrable proof that said editor has stepped over the bounds and undeniably demonstrated his POV and bias. It would be different if there was a RS to support the statement.Oldperson (talk) 20:05, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Relevant current not world history

I object to this reversion by Mandruss This is not world history but important information as a counterpoise to Trumps justification for betraying the Kurds. I wish this to be reinserted.Other aspects of this event are included in the article. I will not get into revert wars. Please discuss: "Trump justified his action by saying that they didn't help us in WWII The Iraq Levies provided Kurds,Yazidis, Iraqi's, Syrians, Christians that served under French and British command during WWII, whereas Turkey was, until 1944, allied with Germany

Sources

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Oldperson (talk • contribs) 21:21, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Combining two distinct sources to form a point is a terrible idea, at least in article space. To do it back here is merely frowned upon. There's no such thing as counterpoise, at least not in those sources; come back with an article tying Nazi Turkey to Dubious Don and you might have some useable dirt. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:13, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

And you shouldn't refer to us in Wikipedia's voice. Trump is absolutely correct about the utter lack of assistance the vast majority of readers and writers received from "them" 75 years ago in Europe. Is that what you want, a world where the American president appears to be publicly telling the truth again? InedibleHulk (talk) 22:22, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Last nitpick, Trump was talking about the Normandy invasion, which was under American command, so pointing to Kurds under British and French control is a non sequitur. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:28, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

We have an article that is already significantly above the size where our guidance says an article "almost certainly should be divided" (split), despite having already been split twelve ways to Sunday. There is no more splitting that would begin to make sense. We've had complaints about the large file size causing performance issues on some platforms. We've been discussing this literally for years. And yet the problem persists, precisely because editors insist on going into too much detail about political issues, many of which issues needn't be in this top-level biography at all. We have many sub-articles for that kind of detail. Near the top of this page: "Want to add new information about Donald Trump? Most often, it should not go here." – followed by a very incomplete list of sub-articles. That's there for a reason.

#Current consensus #37 represents an attempt to address this issue: "Content related to Trump's presidency should be limited to summary-level about things that are likely to have a lasting impact on his life and/or long-term presidential legacy." I would be interested in hearing how the content in question is likely to have a lasting impact on Trump's life and/or long-term presidential legacy. I don't mean the Kurds–Syria issue in general, but these specific details in particular. That's how #37 should be interpreted if it's to have any beneficial effect at all.

Multiple proposals for easier ways to address the issue have been defeated (remarkably, partly because they were easy), forcing us to laboriously challenge one addition at a time, which I did in this case. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:07, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Actually, that's not the way this article has been written over the past 4 years. We start out adding "too much" content, and we revise and trim it as much as possible. So our initial guesses as to what's enduring and what's clarified, disproved, or replaced, are likely to be pretty imperfect. We should not let that stop us from getting a good first version underway or to assume where we'll end up in a week, a month, or a year. SPECIFICO talk 01:03, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

I've asserted that we've been doing it wrong for 4 years, resulting in the persistent size issues, and your rebuttal is that we've been doing it that way for 4 years? ―Mandruss ☎ 01:26, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, exactly! I think you've got it. Thanks. SPECIFICO talk 01:34, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Article: Conspiracy theories promoted by Donald Trump?

Since there is "Category:Conspiracy theories promoted by Donald Trump" referencing twelve articles, maybe we should have a "Conspiracy theories promoted by Donald Trump" article. Yes, yet another Trump article!

I believe it is warranted by Trump's known affinity for conspiracy theories, including recent ones that are of significant consequence and deserve to be expounded upon at length, such as:

Beginning in 2017, President Donald Trump and his allies — based largely on speculation on internet message boards and repeated across conservative media — promoted multiple threads of unfounded allegations that by 2019 had merged into a sprawling conspiracy theory centered on Ukraine. Trump had long felt that the findings of the American intelligence community and the Mueller Report that the Russian government had interfered in the 2016 election to benefit him had undermined the legitimacy of his election as president. He and his allies — most notably his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani — promoted an alternative narrative that the Ukrainian government had interfered to benefit Hillary Clinton, in coordination with Democrats, the digital forensics company CrowdStrike and the FBI, alleging the Russian government had been framed. Trump falsely asserted that CrowdStrike, an American company, was actually owned by a wealthy Ukrainian oligarch, and the conspiracy theory claimed the company had planted evidence on the Democratic National Committee server to implicate Russia, while asserting the FBI had failed to take possession of the server to verify that claim. Although the FBI did not take possession of the server, CrowdStrike had provided the FBI with an image of the server to conduct its own analysis, which led the Mueller Report to concur with the intelligence community that the server had been hacked by Russian intelligence. Trump also asserted without evidence that Ukraine was in possession of the DNC server, as well as Hillary Clinton's deleted emails. The conspiracy theory later evolved to include baseless allegations of corruption by Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden in their activities in Ukraine. This led Trump to pressure Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to open an investigation into the matters, which triggered the Trump-Ukraine controversy, which in turn led to the opening of an impeachment inquiry into Trump. His staff had repeatedly attempted to persuade Trump that the conspiracy theory had no merit, including his former homeland security advisor Tom Bossert, who later remarked, "the DNC server and that conspiracy theory has got to go. If he continues to focus on that white whale, it’s going to bring him down."

In a parallel effort, Trump directed attorney general Bill Barr to "investigate the investigators" who supposedly opened the FBI investigation into Russian interference for partisan political motives to harm Trump, including with alleged assistance from allied intelligence services. That investigation led to the Mueller investigation, resulting in convictions of some Trump campaign associates. In September 2019 it was reported that Barr has been contacting foreign governments to ask for help in this inquiry. He personally traveled to the United Kingdom and Italy to seek information, and at Barr's request Trump phoned the prime minister of Australia to request his cooperation. Barr sought information related to a conspiracy theory that had circulated among Trump allies in conservative media claiming that Joseph Mifsud was a Western intelligence operative who was allegedly directed to entrap Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos in order to establish a false predicate for the FBI to open its investigation. That investigation was initiated after the Australian government notified American authorities that its diplomat Alexander Downer had a chance encounter with Papadopoulos, who boasted about possible access to Hillary Clinton emails supposedly held by the Russian government. On October 2, 2019, Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Trump supporter and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote a letter to the leaders of Britain, Australia and Italy, asserting as fact that both Mifsud and Downer had been directed to contact Papadopoulos. Joe Hockey, the Australian ambassador to the United States, sharply rejected Graham's characterization of Downer. A former Italian government official told The Washington Post in October 2019 that during a meeting the previous month, Italian intelligence services told Barr they had "no connections, no activities, no interference" in the matter. American law enforcement believes Mifsud is connected to Russian intelligence.

Sources

Also see:

• How a Fringe Theory About Ukraine Took Root in the White House
• Government-by-conspiracy-theory rides again
• Pompeo Defends Trump’s Ukraine Conspiracy Theory

soibangla (talk) 01:39, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Far too tenuous. I'm all for splitting the content about Donald Trump over multiple articles, but we already have an article about the truthfulness of his remarks. For the conspiracy theories themselves, they can be explained in their own articles. Onetwothreeip (talk) 02:01, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Don't see the point of discussing here, if you want to create an article just do it - perhaps draft and publish, then the discussion will come at WP:AFD. starship.paint (talk) 02:06, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

• Maybe also have a Conspiracy theories regarding Donald Trump too. Between them we might offload a lot of this article. Except those both sound like POV forks, so perhaps a joint Conspiracy theories from or about Donald Trump. Probably best instead to just have categories and exclude nutter bits from the serious articles. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 02:18, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

@Markbassett:Trump is full of conspiracy theories, one of hisfavorite means of deflection (projection) project onto others what he is guilty of. However I know of no conspiracy theories about Trump. To date he personally validates about everything said about him,in front of Marine 1 or at photo ops..Oldperson (talk)

@Oldperson: - just saying, editors posted collusion delusion and debunked Trump-Russia conspiracy theory on this very page. starship.paint (talk) 02:43, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Starship.paint Hmm tough one...I was thinking more conspiracy theory as small items of Pizzagate level absurdity and uncommon belief like ‘Trump is a time traveller’ or such. The “collusion delusion” is a derisive term for what was factually a common (false) area, more an article or category itself. Yes, now it may seem silly enough to be in the realm of conspiracy theory. In any case, neither of these seem right for this article TALK unless we’re proposing removal of specific content from here to an article. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 11:30, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

@Markbassett: .I was thinking more conspiracy theory as small items of Pizzagate level absurdity and uncommon belief like ‘Trump is a time traveller’ or such. - ??? Trump is a time traveler??????? You've got to be joking me. By the way, you need the User: in the link to ping. starship.paint (talk) 14:04, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

@Starship.paint and Markbassett:I know nothing about any "collusion delusion" except that the only persons who mentioned collusion was Trump (first) then his cult followers. Nobody on the left has mentioned the word except to quote Trumpand his cult.

And where did you (Mark) come up with whacko "Time Traveller". I've never heard such a thing, or any such. Then again I don't do Twitter, Facebook or any social media as those are not RS,and (especially not is GOP TV aka Fox News and Fox and Friends or Fox lite (CNN), in fact most of the MSM is not a RS in as much as they are owned by a handful of corporations whose motive is profit, as Thom Hartmann calls it "Infotainment", you see only the news that they want you to see,and nothing that could cause damage to their profitability or existence. Best I can do is pull facts and ignore the pundits and talkersOldperson (talk) 15:40, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Starship.paint umm, at least a few different tabloid bits came from Democratic congresspeople talking “collusion”. If you haven’t seen right-wing derisive about “collusion delusion” or “witch-hunt” or “fake news”, you can find lots, and lots, and lots of it. In general I recommend delete from here any bizarre tabloid bits like mentions of him being Hitler, his being a werewolf love-child, secret messages in various kinds, that he via Epstein raped a 13-year old, that he’s anti-Semitic, that Wisconsin votes were hacked, that he did a climate-change website purge, that a MLK bust was removed from the White House, that Trump photoshopped bigger hands, etcetera. I could hope they were all just jokes, but gob-smacked as you may be, it seems some folks believe this stuff. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:25, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

@Markbassett: - your pings aren't working because you're doing it wrong. That you would equate and group werewolf love-child with climate-change website purge smacks of massive ignorance. Here are the sources on the purge Guardian, NYT, and Time. Where are your sources stating that the reports of the purge as bizarre tabloid bits? If you can't provide these, I must really question your judgment on what constitutes bizarre tabloid bits. starship.paint (talk) 03:55, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Starship.paint Well Conspiracy theory being a catch all for absurd stories positing conspiracies and uncommon belief... If you’re convinced climate-change website purge is too commonly believed, perhaps ‘common myths’ or ‘fake news’ or ‘manufactured outrage’ might seem a better fit of it’s category. It seemed a clickbait or sensationalist title about fairly routine shifting old webpages to the historical section phrased as a conspiracy. That the website changes when the Presidency changes should hardly be surprising - it changes even during an administration. That anyone expected Trump to keep it just from ‘new broom’ effect, or given his campaign positions, or that editing a WH website is somehow secret kind of hit me as the mentioned “Pizzagate level absurdity and uncommon belief”. It at least seemed not commonly believable to me - but ehh, people maybe believe surprising things. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 01:36, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

@Markbassett: - I asked you to provide sources. You failed to do so. Your argument is kind of a false equivalency. You argue that such things are routine. The sources disagree. Time Christine Todd Whitman, the EPA Administrator under George W. Bush, says the overhaul is “to such an extreme degree that [it] undermines the credibility of the site”. You essentially continue to defend your grouping of fantasies regarding time-traveller Trump, werewolf-child Trump with climate change website purge - to which, I can only remind you that Wikipedia:Competence is required, especially in controversial topics such as this. starship.paint (talk) 01:56, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

I’m glad someone finally brought up WP:CIR. I don’t begrudge anyone of any political persuasion, but I think there are pretty obvious clear substantive issues in this case. There’s only so much rope you extend. I’m hoping it can be dealt with here, rather than WP:ANI. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 18:45, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Starship.paint but of course not, as the subthread here is (perhaps you’ve forgotten as we’re deeply indented) a discussion about whether the proposed article conspiracy theory from Trump maybe mandates a matching article Conspiracy theories from or about Trump or a joint article ... and I suggested no article but instead category(ies) and exclude any such from this article. I then mentioned a number of such for illustration. Am I to read your request for cites as implying no objection to the large points of this conclusion about the topic (I.e. EXCLUDE ANY CONSPIRACY THEORY) and my general description ‘Pizzagate level absurdity and uncommon belief’, so just now wanting cites explicitly about that one ? And is your concern that ‘climate-change website purge’ does not fit as too commonly believed so belongs to another category, or what ? You’re seem going in two directions here and not clarifying what you’re looking for or why. Markbassett (talk) 05:33, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

@Markbassett: - I do not object to an article about Conspiracy theories promoted by Donald Trump, because the sources have written about it. On the other hand, I am not aware of many significant Conspiracy theories about Donald Trump. Thus I object to Conspiracy theories from or about Donald Trump. starship.paint (talk) 06:58, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

@Mark Bassett: Could you please clarify for me. Does this statement of yours (above)" If you’re convinced climate-change website purge is too commonly believed, perhaps ‘common myths’ or ‘fake news’ or ‘manufactured outrage’ might seem a better fit of it’s category mean that you categorize global climate change as a common myth or fake news? I think we need a discussion of fake news, what is and isn't.Oldperson (talk) 02:08, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Oldperson whether ‘climate-change website purge’ is too commonly believed relates to whether it fit my informal description of conspiracy theory as “Pizzagate-level absurdity and uncommon belief”. The phrase ‘Global climate change’ is a different topic, definitely not uncommon and a mix of - or contributor to ? — several other categories. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 05:42, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Starship.paint Mark I literally do not understand what you are saying above. Please be more clear and up front. I take it from your posts on the subject that you do not believe that Trump has ordered the purging of the words Climate Change from any official documents, if so it is not a matter of common belief but of facts. It is not a conspiracy theory it is a documented fact..Oldperson (talk) 15:55, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Oldperson - ‘climate change website purge’ was described above — it was a false portrayal about some conspiracy or secret moves in the WH website. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 22:04, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Markbassett What is false about the facts that the administration has purged his administration of people (and use) of the worlds "climate change". Those are facts, not theories. As regards conspiracy theories. To date the only conspiracy theories that are hitting the airwaves are those being perpetuated by Trump. Trump apparently makes most of his moves in public, probably as a tactic misbelieving that if it is done in public it is not a conspiracy or illegal.Oldperson (talk) 22:15, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Starship paintIf a conspiracy is carried out in the open,what do you callit?I am referring to climate change purge. Climate change purge is an actual fact here are to RS Donald Trump using Stalinist Tactics to discredit Climate Science and /2019/mar/20/donald-trump-stalinist-techniques-climate-science Trump officials deleting mentions of ‘climate change’ from U.S. Geological Survey press releases These are just two RS, Conspiracy facts not conspiracy theories.Oldperson (talk) 22:35, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

In Canada, we call our open secret operation to keep the Industrial Revolution alive and well-off the Venture Capital Action Plan. No gates, everyone is free to watch the sausage made, speculate on its purpose or allege any candidate's involvement in or response to it. We just don't feel we should. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:57, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Oldperson - to ping Starship it is User:Starship.paint - those pings are to me with his label. Otherwise, ahem ... the position that ‘the only conspiracy theories are those perpetuated by Trump’ isn’t at all plausible, and the opinion pieces that’s linking Trump to Stalin (or Hitler) just aren’t usable RS. They are not just WP:EXCEPTIONAL claims, they are tabloid-level Cheers Markbassett (talk) 00:29, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

@Markbassett and Starship.paint: Let's see if I got that ping correct. Explain to me, with other than finger waving, why "the only conspiracy theories are those perpetuated by Trump" isn't at all plausible". Actually the only conspiracy theories I have seen or heard are those perpetuated by Trump. So correct me if I am wrong. Things like "Climate change Purge" are not conspiracy theories but RS reported facts. As regards linking Trump to Stalin or Hitler, that my friend is a logical fallacy, a red herring, changing the subject,moving the goal posts. No one,not me not the Guardian has linked Trump to Hitler or Stalin,however the Guardian stated that he was using Stalinist tactics. As regards Hitler, well that was Turkey in WWII. Neither I nor anyone I know has made a Trump Hitler connection. To be honest though I do see some scary similarities between Germany 1933 and today, and I am not the only one.Oldperson (talk) 00:49, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

@Oldperson: - your ping worked. If climate change website purging is carried out in the open, we call it horrible, stupid, anti-science policy ... provided the reliable sources say so. starship.paint (talk) 02:47, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Disputed Syria lies

Note: this is related to this revert.

Trump is reported to have stopped supporting Kurdish insurgents because it was wasting money. Saying he did it to allow Turkey to kill them is lying. An anonymous source told Fox Pentagon officials were "blindsided". Pretending it came from those officials, somehow in unison, is a lie. America paid, fed, trained, equipped and directed these Kurds. Saying these Kurds supported American action is a lie.

SPECIFICO thinks differently, so let's learn why. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:20, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Don't make statements about other editors or characterize other editors' views. SPECIFICO talk 01:09, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Sorry to presume by your reversion of all three corrections. I'll ask next time. Do you think these lies aren't lies, differently from how I do? If so, can you explain how, for the good of the page? Have you read anything in a reliable source indicating your preferred version is true? Would you care to share a quote, or add a citation? InedibleHulk (talk) 01:36, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

• Suggest NOTHING here for at least a 48 hour waiting period, and the seriously consider putting it at some article more appropriate than his biographic like the Presidency or Foreign affairs. And please stop avoid any copy-paste-paste-paste to multiple articles. Markbassett (talk) 00:37, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

If these lies have spread verbatim, it's worse than I thought. Aren't Trump haters supposed to be against this sort of echoing harmful deception and willingness to ignore inconvenient mainstream conclusions? I'll take nothing over two days of hypocrisy (real or perceived). InedibleHulk (talk) 01:00, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

If anyone needs a diff to better understand how these lies were already corrected and defended, it's at 00:03 on October 11. Can't paste. Someone else can, if it'll help. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:17, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

I've added a note at the top of this section. ~Awilley (talk) 02:41, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

[2] Today, President Donald J. Trump spoke with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey by telephone. Turkey will soon be moving forward with its long-planned operation into Northern Syria. The United States Armed Forces will not support or be involved in the operation, and United States forces, having defeated the ISIS territorial “Caliphate,” will no longer be in the immediate area. The United States Government has pressed France, Germany, and other European nations, from which many captured ISIS fighters came, to take them back, but they did not want them and refused. The United States will not hold them for what could be many years and great cost to the United States taxpayer. Turkey will now be responsible for all ISIS fighters in the area captured over the past two years in the wake of the defeat of the territorial “Caliphate” by the United States.

Hulk, the White House statement does not mention money at all. It mentions that Turkey is planning an attack. starship.paint (talk) 03:17, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

First footnote, Al Jazeera, cites Trump saying the insurgency was too costly, in money and equipment, for America to keep. Then it quotes the Press Secretary as denying any American cooperation with Turkey in killing its terrorists. No matter who finally cut off American interference, the Turks would've immediately finished what they'd started. It's like when a gambling addiction forces you to let the family pet run free to the whims of fate and natural predators. Domestically, you tell the kids he wasn't that great of a chimp, because remember when he didn't help grandpa fight off those creditors before they were born? Two different fronts, home and abroad. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:50, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

In October 2019, after Trump spoke to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the White House acknowledged that Turkey would be carrying out a planned military offensive into northern Syria; as such, U.S. troops in northern Syria were withdrawn from the area to avoid interference with that operation. The statement also passed responsibility for the area's captured ISIS fighters to Turkey.[550] Congress members of both parties denounced the move, including Republican allies of Trump like Senator Lindsey Graham. They argued that the move betrayed the American-allied Kurds, and would benefit ISIS, Russia, Iran and Bashar al-Assad's Syrian regime.[551] Trump defended the move, citing the high cost of supporting the Kurds, and the lack of support from the Kurds in past U.S. wars.[552][553] After the U.S. pullout, Turkey proceeded to attack Kurdish-controlled areas in northeast Syria.[554] - what I wrote. starship.paint (talk) 03:55, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

I like it. "Military offensive" may be a tad euphemestic for Wikipedia's voice, but fork it. The important thing is the insane notion that America should continue to support, defend and harbour terrorists after their exemption from the War on Terror expires is attributed to some named sympathizer's online literature. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:17, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Whistleblower Shenanigans?

It's recently been reported that the whistleblower form was rewritten mere days or at most weeks before the current controversy to allow hearsay complaints. Given said complaint is exclusively hearsay material shouldn't this be noteworthy? Who authorised the change and when it was finalised is still TBD but we're dealing with a very short timeframe. The current text treats the complaint allegation of a pressure campaign as gospel, and yet we don't even know if we can trust the document! 人族 (talk) 05:08, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

We should start by looking at your sources. Please list a few of the more compelling ones. I don't know what "hearsay complaint" means. - MrX 🖋 09:30, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Hearsay, as in the complainant details what he or she was allegedly told but has no personal direct knowledge. In a legal trial their testimony would almost certainly be excluded. Since this is a political trial the rules differ. As for a source noting that form was rewritten shortly before the complaint, try: https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/27/intel-community-secretly-gutted-requirement-of-first-hand-whistleblower-knowledge/. It's not the only site noting the issue but is probably the best one. Fox News for instance has a clip here: https://video.foxnews.com/v/6090165259001/#sp=show-clips where the matter is referenced but it doesn't cover it to the same level of detail. The information is only a day or so old so more pieces with further information may come out in the next few days. The significance of this information will likely depend on the role\significance of the whistleblower complaint in this article. 人族 (talk) 10:10, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

With any luck, we will not be covering the controversy at that level of detail in this article. This is not the place for point-by-point analysis. We're looking for lasting effects on Trump's life and presidential legacy, not detailed explanation of how we arrived at those effects. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:39, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Mandruss about the level of detail/analysis in this article. We can only afford to summarize the big picture. I would add that Trump's lawyer will never, ever be a reliable source for anything. Also, the whistleblower complaint is a complaint, not testimony in a trial, so the concept of hearsay is merely a partisan talking point intended to distract from the reality of the situation. The whistleblower complaint is a roadmap for where to get evidence and witness depositions which, by the way, is happening.[3]- MrX 🖋 10:51, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Seems a detail more suited for a dedicated article like Trump-Ukraine controversy. And it should have a 48 hour waiting period for whatever WEIGHT and responses to show up. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 13:39, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Three points: 1) The last paragraph in the lead, "In September 2019, following a whistleblower complaint alleging..." gives undue weight to a recent event. There should be very little if anything about impeachment in the lead (and that probably in a context of continuing efforts to impeach) until/unless he's actually impeached. 2) The section on impeachment is too long and too detailed for what is supposed to be a biographic encyclopedia article. 3) It seems to me that the last couple of years have shown that it's better to give things some time to develop rather than jump on the current Trump crisis of the day. Tom Harrison ^Talk 14:29, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

That story came out yesterday. Others have not yet had a chance to dispute it, except on twitter. And it wouldn't belong here anyway. soibangla (talk) 18:18, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

人族, see: https://twitter.com/kpoulsen/status/1177734528833445888 soibangla (talk) 00:23, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Soibangla, the lesson, as always, is to wait for nonpartisan sources. Don't rely on The Federalist or Fox News for facts. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:31, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

To be fair, the Fox video was Trump's lawyer on a talk program hosted by a Trump propagandist.[4] - MrX 🖋 10:55, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Muboshgu, the problem is there are no non-partisan sources, only sources a particular side considers non-partisan. The Left hold their sources to be non-partisan, the Right hold their sources to be non-partisan, and the middle is a myth. Feel free to suggest sources you consider non-partisan but if you consider Fox and the Federalist partisan (Fox falls close to the middle), odds are most of the sources you recommend will be ones that those I mainly communicate with laugh about as highly partisan. 人族 (talk)

人族, if you don't consider Fox News to be a partisan source, we're not likely to agree on anything. "Middle"? Only in relation to OANN and Breitbart. "Non-partisan" sources include WaPo, NYT, CNN, and all the other standard sources that the right says are in the tank for Democrats. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:28, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Muboshgu, My apologies about the belated response. I don't visit Wikipedia on a regular basis and when I visit I rarely think to check messages. Never heard of OANN so can't comment on them. WaPO, NYT and Clinton News Network as non-partisan sources? RoFL. I don't think any American I know would treat that as anything other than a furphy. No that's not true, there's one or two Leftists that would accept them as sources, but whether that's because they consider them acceptably partisan or actually non-partisan I couldn't speculate. If it helps I do periodically read the NYT but they're so far in the tank that it's not funny. It shouldn't be called the Gray Lady but the Blue Lady! This difference of opinion though perfectly illustrates Wikipedia's problem - there are next to no sources that Regressives and Conservatives will agree are reasonable and each side has fundamentally different views regarding the facts of various matters. Yes I understand that facts shouldn't be in dispute, but these days truth and facts have become relative. 人族 (talk) 00:06, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

人族, "Clinton News Network"? They did devote lots of time to manufactured Benghazi and email "scandals". Their bias is corporate, not partisan. The New York Times meanwhile was breathlessly pumping up Giuliani's manufactured Ukraine bullshit, which has backfired. You seem to be too deep in the right wing bubble to recognize what is and is not biased. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:23, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't want to be rude or disrespectful of another editor, but my sides ache over the comment that (Fox falls close to the middle). Fox has been GOP TV, ever since Murdoch hired Ailes. The network lost about 110 million a year for 5 years, until it got up and running. Murdoch has an ultra conservative agenda, as any Brit who can watch Sky or reads the Sun. the Times and Sun Times. Murdoch is typed as a populist. A broad description, as Trump and even Hitler and Mussolini were populists. There is populism of the right (oligarchs, corporations) and populists of the left (labor, the common man).Oldperson (talk) 22:38, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

@人族: - please watch this video and tell me again that Fox falls close to the middle. starship.paint (talk) 00:10, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

If you're talking about pundits, I don't know of any network that is not partisan, do you? ^Atsme _Talk 📧 04:16, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

(1) False equivalency (2) Evidence? starship.paint (talk) 00:24, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Starship.paint, thanks but I pretty much steer clear of Twitter. And if the address refers to NowThisNews, then you're talking about something by an ultra-regressive quasi news site i.e. something with zero credibility. 人族 (talk) 00:06, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

@人族: - here's a YouTube link [5]. Trust me, the video is from NowThisNews, but every single word you hear will be from Fox News. Here's another video on a similar subject. [6] Just 10 minutes of your time. starship.paint (talk) 02:45, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Tree of Life Award from Jewish National Fund (JNF)

Please re-add the Jewish National Fund Tree of Life Award that was removed in edit 919723450. I have located a better reference that I believe meets the requirements of WP:BLPSOURCES, and it is the Haaretz newspaper at https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-inside-donald-trump-s-history-of-donations-in-israel-1.5469673 . To wit, "In March 1983, Trump, then a relatively young real estate mogul, was the recipient of the prestigious Jewish National Fund Tree of Life Award, which honors individuals and families for their dedication to promoting U.S.-Israel ties and outstanding community work." -- Ingyhere (talk) 08:32, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

 Done. Courtesy ping MrX. — JFG ^talk 09:03, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Russia 2016, Joe Biden, impeachment

That sensational news is most likely not essential to his overall life and shouldn't be in the introduction segment. Wikipedia is not a newspaper. I don't think it's appropriate to bring up this topic with the alleged Russian interference in the elections. It just sounds like someone wants to focus on his shady actions. I'm not American, so I'm not a Trump supporter, but this is not neutral writing. --94.222.21.41 (talk) 00:47, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

There is plenty of content in that lead that is either Trump-neutral or Trump-positive, so your someone wants to focus on his shady actions comment doesn't hold water. As for this is not neutral writing, see Wikipedia's policy on neutrality and don't miss the word "proportionately" in the first sentence. "Neutral" doesn't mean whatever we think it should mean; it is defined with some precision on that page. As for Wikipedia is not a newspaper, I agree that the lead of this article should contain quite a bit less detail about his presidency, but I keep getting outvoted. It certainly should say something about the impeachment potential – that would be historical even if there is no conviction, and it shouldn't wait until we know the ultimate outcome. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:02, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

op 94.222.21.41 - in other words, there was prior WP policy that says to cover things in proportion to what’s in press — and the Mainstream media has been been covering extensively, sensationalizing, and 90% negative back to when he was still seeking nomination. We perhaps don’t do great at handling — separating what should go into BLP from the other topics, keeping size down, and recentism issues, but mostly... Your issue is with them, not us. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 12:23, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but the three subjects you've highlighted are essential to covering Trump. pbp 02:11, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Discussion at Template talk:Donald Trump series#Articles related to impeachment efforts and Ukraine/Biden controversy

 You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Donald Trump series#Articles related to impeachment efforts and Ukraine/Biden controversy. - MrX 🖋 10:02, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Polling copy edit

Re: [7]

My edit was in fact a copy edit, since the meaning was not changed. It's redundant to say that 42% is two points below 44%, assuming that the reader knows what a point is and can handle 42+2. So I removed the redundancy, and I added 's following Reagan to maintain the pattern established by "Obama's". That's all. A simple, everyday, innocuous copy edit. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:57, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Seems reasonable to me. I don't see a justification for the reversion. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:21, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

ehh, little change in an unimportant section. Seems innocuous to me. Though my preference would be Just The Facts here of Trump, all this comparisons stuff seems too much detail and a bit OFFTOPIC. I’d say delete all the comparisons out or move to the subtopic article. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 18:55, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, no problem with the change by Mandruss. I will revert. — JFG ^talk 16:29, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Before I revert, justify trimming please

@Mandruss, JFG, and Starship.paint: Please justify this edit where Mandruss trimmed a current and important edit justifying it with appeal to consensus 37. I don't see it, as it meets none of the requirements established.Oldperson (talk) 17:48, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't understand. What requirements are you referring to? ―Mandruss ☎ 17:50, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

MandrussThe requirements of consensus 37, which you quoted in your edit.Oldperson (talk) 18:04, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

You don't have to ping me to a discussion I'm already involved in, 15 minutes after my previous comment in it.

Please explain how the content in question constitutes "summary-level about things that are likely to have a lasting impact on his life and/or long-term presidential legacy." ―Mandruss ☎ 18:07, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

I would argue it was not a "current and important edit" at all. This level of detail is too much for Trump's biography, and should be shunted to Presidency of Donald Trump. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:54, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree not BLP material, but a little-covered rumor of a phone call doesn’t suit the Presidency article either. It might try the chronology section in the trade war article, but even there a phone call-by-phone call level seems dubious. Also, more like yet another partisan snipe than about trade talks. File it under NOTEVERYTHING. Markbassett (talk) 18:44, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

I won’t justify it because I am not involved. starship.paint (talk) 00:46, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Although I was also uninvolved with this edit or this paragraph, the removed text does look like too fine-grained for this biography. I support the trimmed version. — JFG ^talk 16:31, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Trump's role in soft core porn and reverts of reverts

@MrX, Mandruss, SPECIFICO, JFG, and Starship.paint: MrX Reverted my edit about Trump being involved in three soft core porn films.Stating that Daily News was not a RS. I erroneously reverted his revert when I should have taken it to the talk page. so I am here now. Following are two reliable sources.From CNN When Rudy Giuliani said Wednesday that Stormy Daniels has no credibility because she is is a porn star, he neglected to mention that his client, President Donald Trump, has appeared in three Playboy videos that feature nudity and softcore pornographic content. and Cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-porn-softcore-playboy-movie-a7340376.html%7Ctitle=Donald Trump once appeared in a softcore porn movie|last=Walker|first=Tim|date=1 October 2016|work=Independent.UK|access-date=13 October 2019. Question: Are these legitimate citations and is my revert of MrX's revert legitimate.Oldperson (talk) 23:34, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

If we mention his appearances in soft porn merely because we consider that a significant part of his biography, that's one thing (while eminently debatable per WP:WEIGHT). But your apparent motive is to call out the Trump camp for yet another instance of hypocritical b.s., and the purpose of this article is not to participate in those petty political battles. For one thing, we don't have the space; for another, they are petty. In this case, you're not even calling out Trump but Giuliani. What's next, calling out Giuliani's dog because some reliable source reported that it crapped on the White House lawn? ―Mandruss ☎ 23:47, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm fine with restoring it based on these sources, but I think it should be put into context so that it doesn't seem like Trump was a porn star. - MrX 🖋 23:48, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Eh... doesn’t seem that important? Those were short cameos, he didn’t appear nude, and the models were clothed during his appearances? It would be different if Trump was nude. There’s no need to attack his credibility in this way. Trump’s constant lying does that already. If people still take Trump at his word, that’s on them. And of course Giuliani is wrong, Stormy Daniels might be an adult film star, but she is more credible than Trump (and also more credible than Giuliani). starship.paint (talk) 00:05, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

At first, I supported the insertion (ahem), but reading the sources, the recent mentions of this fact are indeed about Giuliani's argument. Trump's cameo appearances in a few Playboy videos are not significant enough for his main biography; they are mentioned in Filmography of Donald Trump. — JFG ^talk 00:27, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Oh, yes they should be added in filmography. Very good, correctly inserted. starship.paint (talk) 00:32, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

@Starship.paint, MrX, and Mandruss:My purpose is irrelevant, and no one but me can guess as to my purpose. But I will say this. History is best served by truth,and that means painting in all of the wrinkles and flaws. This is true of all be he a George Washington, a Lincoln, an Obama, A Reagan or Trump. This has nothing to do with Guiliiani, but takes off from a Guiliani statement. That the POTUS participated in a soft core porn film is very important, as is his sexual "misadventures" and perversions "If she wasn't my daughter I would do her". The man represents the nation, and this is what we have and what people dare to defend. A BLP is not a whitewash, nor is it a scandal sheet, the bad demands recognition along with the good.This entry is especially cogent considering that his so called base considers themselves "family value" Christian evangelicalsOldperson (talk) 01:04, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

@Oldperson: - I don't see anything bad in his participation (likewise, Stormy was earning an honest living). This isn't sexual misconduct. starship.paint (talk) 01:55, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Starship.paintAgreed. I don't look at it as bad, but as episodic as any other event in his life to which encyclopediaists enumerate. It is as worthy of mention as his obtaining a merit medal from one of his sycophants.Oldperson (talk) 02:02, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

There is far more "truth" about Trump than could ever fit in this article – which is already too large as I've argued elsewhere on this page – so we obviously have to draw a line somewhere and omit lots of "truth". I draw the line somewhere before inclusion of this content. As Trump "truth" goes, this is relatively minor. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:07, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

If the following meetsWP:WEIGHT requirements sufficient to merit inclusion then so does his participation in softcore porn films. "n 1983, Trump received the Jewish National Fund Tree of Life Award, after he helped fund the building of two playgrounds, a park, and a reservoir in Israel.[749][750][751] In 1986, he received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in recognition of "patriotism, tolerance, brotherhood and diversity",[752] and in 1995 was awarded the President's Medal from the Freedoms Foundation for his support of youth programs.[753] He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2007,[754] and was inducted in the WWE Hall of Fame in 2013.Let's not have double standards please. BTW the Freedoms Foundation funded in part by the Charles Koch Foundation and is aggressive in tactics to dismantle unions. So freedom from representation in the workplaceOldperson (talk) 02:18, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't find whataboutism useful. If you want to challenge that other content, go ahead, but don't link it to this content. Others are free to differ. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:24, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

There is plenty excess to cut. BTW that is a different organization w. The Koch Bro.s SPECIFICO talk 02:34, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Leave it out. It has far less lasting value than Jimmy's Boomis.com - who cares? It would serve a far better purpose in the Daily Mail or Brietbart, not in this encyclopedia. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 02:50, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Trump once conspired with an oily black beefcake in brief trunks to simulate the violent molestation of a morbidly obese and mentally ill Samoan youth to settle a wager with a fellow rich Republican, and you think untopless Playboy can rattle his cage? Have you seen Umaga's bouncing nipples or Lashley's shiny GTA (General Taint Area)? Trump has, and if anything needs sunlight, it's "that garbage", not Heff and Friends. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:48, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

As for the recurrent themes of the protagonist wanting to "know" his daughter, marry his opponent, forget his wife and kill his son, that can come up when Hogan, McMahon and Flair's leads make a stink about the whole Inverted Atomic Oedipus Complex or whatever it's called. It's not like Trump Zumhoffed, Benoited or Gangrelled anyone. If it goes that far, shout it from the rooftops. InedibleHulk (talk) 06:14, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Quoting one of the models in the CNN report: "I thought he was thoughtful. I thought he was respectful. I had a very good time," said Marks, a registered Democrat who said she is remaining neutral in the presidential election. The claims you're making are WP:EXCEPTIONAL and require multiple high quality RS. WP:DUE applies here as well. It's time to drop the pee tape conspiracy and all the other tabloid gossip. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 06:42, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

If you're talking to me, my sources are in WrestleMania 23. I just "took liberties" with my recollection of this enormous career milestone the lead easily ignores. Huge night for all parties involved, "very decent" Approximate Inflated Attendance, landslide babyface victory. NO URINE! Sad. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:05, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

I think many Republicans have taken part in soft porn, so it's not a big deal.--Jack Upland (talk) 10:56, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Seems like all this would be WP being tabloid, instead of serious topics and reputable coverage. Markbassett (talk) 12:55, 14 October 2019 (UTC) @Markbassett, Starship.pant, Mandruss, and Atsme:There are no claims being made.The fact is not WP:EXCEPTIONAL but factual there are multiple reliable sources. The fact that he has starred in soft core porn films is relevant, especially for that portion of his following that describe themselves a evangelical Christians and defenders of family values. But I consider Starships suggestion viable, to include it in filmography, as a matter of fact that is where it was before being reverted. I will reinstate as it is as valid an entry as any other mentions.Objections to it fall under WP:IDONTLIKEITOldperson (talk) 17:21, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

@Oldperson: JFG's reference to "filmography" was to the article Donald Trump filmography, clearly evident by his wikilink (which is a redirect to same). It is unclear whether starship was agreeing with that or misunderstood JFG's comment, but in any case you do not have enough support to include that content, so I have reverted you. We don't get to declare opposing arguments invalid and ignore them. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:31, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Mandruss Who then does get to pass judgement on arguments? Consensus? Who evaluates consensus. BTW your statement was a red herring. I did not declare any argument invalid.Oldperson (talk) 18:45, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

@Oldperson: Aye, there's the rub. In my experience, we either request an uninvolved close or go by the numbers. Uninvolved closers occasionally close against the numbers, not often.

When consensus is sufficiently clear, an involved editor may close, subject to challenge. If you closed this for inclusion, I promise you that you would be vigorously challenged; an involved close for omission would stand a better chance.

I did not declare any argument invalid. I beg to differ. You declared all opposing arguments IDONTLIKEIT, hence invalid. Objections to it fall under WP:IDONTLIKEIT. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:54, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

There is a difference between declaring an argument invalid or using IDONTLIKEIT. An argument can be totally valid but still "WP:IDONTLIKEIT".(Replacing a vandalized edit)Oldperson (talk) 00:49, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

While it is amazing that the President of the United States has personally been involved in porn videos, it is not at all amazing for Donald Trump. Leave it out per WP:UNDUE. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:26, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Scjesseu If that mention is WP:UNDUE then so is every other mention of his long public career, from awards rendered by the anti-union homophobic Freedom Foundation, to his role in WWE.Oldperson (talk) 18:04, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

The solution is to remove the other fluff, not to add more (no opinion on whether this one belongs) and please note it is Freedoms Foundation, not the other one. This one is a Philadelphia organization and Trump was building his good name among visitors to the Atlantic City resorts around that time. SPECIFICO talk 18:08, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

SPECIFICO I had a better researched response but lost it to a edit conflict.The gist is that the Freedoms Foundation did not award Trump anything. It was in fact the (Evergreen)Freedom Foundation.l I found the source of the confusion, from a trumpgiving website. The headline is Freedom Foundation and in small text below a mistype of Freedoms Foundation The Freedoms Foundation mentions the recipients of its awards, not one mention of Trump however.Oldperson (talk) 19:20, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. Removing the other UNDUE stuff is the way to go; however, it must be done carefully after first winning consensus to do so here. I have noticed a lot of edits to the article over the last few days that should probably have come to the talk page first. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:20, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Probably come to talk page. Yes, but now that this page is no longer under "consensus required", it's just as well to make the cuts and see whether they're challenged. Of course if they are it would really be good to consider all views on talk, but that too is no longer required. Fortunately the editors who lived with "consensus required" for a couple of years tend to act as if it's still on duty. Most of the new American Politics articles have been placed under that one rather than the 24-hour BRD thing. SPECIFICO talk 19:04, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Oldperson Nope, salacious rumored tidbits run counter to BLP, NOTSCANDAL, SENSATIONAL. Doesn’t seem DUEeither. The thinking it will divide him from religious support just seems like saying it’s got partisan political motivations as icing on top. Not reputable content. Markbassett (talk) 18:32, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Markbassett Rxcuse moi, but Trumps involvement in soft core porn is neither salacious, rumored or a tidbit but a documented fact.Oldperson (talk) 19:29, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Is this nonsense really worth discussing at this point. It makes no difference whether it's in, out, or what. SPECIFICO talk 19:04, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

I totally agree considering the real mess that DJT has made of the world, the abetting of ethnic cleansing by his friend Erdogan and what possibly lies ahead for all of us, soft core porn is trivial humanizing entertainment.Oldperson (talk) 19:29, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Disagree. The size problem is the aggregate result of hundreds of little things that are either UNDUE, #37 vios, or otherwise inappropriate in this article. I have proposed a thing or two that would address the size problem at a "macro" level, but they have been defeated, leaving us to address it one seemingly trivial skirmish at a time. That's what we're doing here, and that's what we're going to continue to do for the foreseeable future. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:33, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

As in life, economics, and WP editing, "Macro-level" only gets you so far. Better to just start removing the tidbits, news of the day, "honors", failed businesses, etc. and look back at the dozens of lines you've shortened the article. Make some cuts. Worst that happens is somebody disagrees, finds a better source, or thanks you. SPECIFICO talk 20:10, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Put it in..put it in the allegations of sexual misconduct section. 2600:1702:2340:9470:4090:80C6:F187:BB47 (talk) 19:42, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Um, no. But thanks. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:44, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

This cannot go into this article per UNDUE. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 21:57, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Wrong caption

The image used here has a wrong caption. Erdoğan was prime minister in 2012. He became president in 2014. It should be corrected.--BSRF (talk) 19:37, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

He may not have been the president at the time, but he is the president now and should be referred to as such. Mgasparin (talk) 19:44, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Mgasparin Which raises an issue that I have seen on other BLP pages, and even dead peoples biographies.It the only image available is from another time, do we caption it as the relevant time period or as the present. I mean I look very much different today that I do even 25 years ago. It is called ageing. Obama looks different (grey hair and all) when he left office 8 years after his firs official photo was made, which photo tobe used? Was the Erdoğan photo made when he was Prime Minister or when he was president" This probably an RfC issue.However in this case we are in agreement. I vote change it to Prime Minister. Oldperson (talk) 21:05, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Disagree with Mgasparin here. We shouldn't refer to Erdogan as President Erdogan in that caption, any more than we should refer to Trump in his 1964 yearbook photo as President Trump (even if MOS:SURNAME didn't say we should use only his surname there). You could say "then-prime-minister Erdogan", but I question whether it's worth it. Would that be "then-Turkish-prime-minister" or "Turkish then-prime-minister"? ―Mandruss ☎ 22:53, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Okay, I see your point. I have made the adjustment in wording. Mgasparin (talk) 23:57, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

@Mgasparin: Well, not really. Former Prime Minister is not the same as then-Prime Minister. We are now saying that he was the former prime minister at the time of the photo. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:59, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

My submission. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:11, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Don't they mean the same thing?? I'm confused. Mgasparin (talk) 00:20, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't think they do. "Then" puts it into present-day context with a back-reference. (An educated grammarian could use better terminology.) "Former" does not. As I said, I believe "former" says that he was former at the time of the photo. Here is my latest, which is not directly a result of this discussion. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:31, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

@Mandruss: Thanks for editing the caption. But with this edit, you removed Erdoğan's middle name. He is known as "Tayyip Erdoğan", rather than "Recep Erdoğan". For clarification, you can read the last sentence of the last paragraph of this section.--BSRF (talk) 08:30, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

@BSRF: I was afraid of something like that. Confirmed by Google search. I'll fix it. Thanks. ―Mandruss ☎ 08:37, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

It has been shown that he frequently makes untrue claims. Isn't that worth mentioning?

Without prejudice, I believe that all fair-minded people who know anything about it will acknowledge that Trump has made a large number of untrue assertions. This significantly distinguishes him from other presidents. Is that not worth a mention in the article?50.203.182.230 (talk) 20:06, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

See: [8]. O3000 (talk) 20:20, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

As well as two related sentences in the lead. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:44, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. I must be going blind to have missed it.50.203.182.230 (talk) 02:47, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Registration improves vision. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:52, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Additions of alleged abuses of power into Biden

I find parts of the lead to be conflicting and inaccurate:

"According to the testimony of multiple White House officials, this was part of a widespread ongoing campaign and cover-up to illegally advance Trump's personal and political interests by abusing the power of the presidency. On October 3, 2019, Trump then openly pressed China to begin a criminal investigation of Biden, after he previously told them that he has "tremendous power" and "lots of options" if they "don't do what we want.""

As the lead reads currently: " this was part of a widespread ongoing campaign and cover-up to illegally advance Trump's personal and political interests by abusing the power of the presidency. "

From the Trump–Ukraine controversy: "The whistleblower also alleged that the call was part of a wider campaign by Trump, his administration and Giuliani to pressure Ukraine into investigating the Bidens, which may have included Trump cancelling a scheduled trip to Ukraine by Vice President Mike Pence, and Trump withholding financial aid to Ukraine."

This is an allegation, yet on the lead, it reads off as if this is confirmed. This is inconsistent.

On China, this is how the lead currently reads: "On October 3, 2019, Trump then openly pressed China to begin a criminal investigation of Biden, after he previously told them that he has "tremendous power" and "lots of options" if they "don't do what we want.""

Trump did not "press" China into investigating Biden. "Likewise, China should start an investigation into the Bidens because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine." - Verbatim what Trump stated.[1][2][3] This is not a "push" for China to investigate Biden; moreso of a general comment. The ""tremendous power" and "lots of options" if they "don't do what we want."" is fine. As it stands, I find the lead to not be following WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE.

Sources

Any suggestions/comments to improve the lead? Aviartm (talk) 20:34, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Trump personally confirmed all the allegations in a rambling, unhinged rant to the media today. The article is accurate. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:52, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

@Aviartm: The Lead paragraph you're referencing has been changing pretty rapidly and the discussion here hasn't caught up yet. Currently the most active discussion about that is above at #Sentence_about_the_Ukraine/Biden_controversy. But while people in that section are talking about modest 1-2 sentence proposals, the paragraph in the Lead is currently at 4. Here are some sample edits from the last 3 days.

• going from 1 to 2 sentences
• going from 2 to 3 sentences
• going from 3 to 4 sentences

I'm not sure how to best address this, but I think it would be helpful to try and get people on the same page about what needs to be in the Lead. What's there right now is a bit rough, much of it added today without input from any other editors, but I hope things will get cleaned up quickly with the number regular editors we have here. ~Awilley (talk) 23:00, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Factoid: The lead of this first-level bio has grown by 36% in the past six days. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:08, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

The lede is expanding because significant stuff is happening... let’s exercise patience with editors on this, alright? I may try trimming it though later today. starship.paint (talk) 00:15, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

In September 2019, the U.S. House of Representatives initiated a formal impeachment inquiry against Trump regarding alleged abuses of power for personal political purposes, including if Trump conducted a pressure campaign on Ukraine to investigate fellow 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son. In October 2019, right after discussing that the U.S. has "tremendous power" in the trade war with China "if they don't do what we want", Trump publicly urged Ukraine and China to investigate the Bidens.

starship.paint (talk) 00:45, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't disagree with the desire to keep the introduction paragraphs short, but a complex scandal such as this makes it almost impossible to contextualize in a non-misleading and adequate manner. Initially I thought that your revised version was superior to the one already in the lead, but I realized that it reduces the fact that Trump repeatedly pressured/pressed China's and Ukraine's government into a mere allegation, even though both (at least Ukraine) have all been basically confirmed by the President himself at this point. (at the very least, "repeatedly pressured and/or pressed") It also seems to lead the viewer into implicitly assuming/believing that Trump's statement about having "tremendous power" was exclusively about the trade war, when the actual transcript/video has him seem to apply those words in a much more broad sense. (Or at least disputable/murky one) The current version removes any potential bias by simply reporting that Trump brought up the notion after uttering those words. (Admittedly, this is going to be hard to do in a way that keeps it short and everyone satisfied) With the new apparent revelation of further calls and an increasingly likely months long inquiry, (this time with China's Xi about Biden... and maybe Waren) I'd argue that it needs expanded... if anything. I'm open ears if you have any suggestions, but I fail to really see how the current lead violates the conditions of WP: NPOV. ZiplineWhy (talk) 02:33, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

For the lead of this first-level bio, the following would be non-misleading and adequate:

In September 2019, the U.S. House of Representatives initiated a formal impeachment inquiry against Trump regarding alleged abuses of power for personal political purposes.

More detail below the lead in this article, and in the lead of the Presidency article. Yet more detail below the lead of the Presidency article. Not to mention the multiple other sub-articles. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:48, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Ossia

In September 2019, the U.S. House of Representatives launched a formal impeachment inquiry against Trump after he revealed that he had abused his presidential power for personal political purposes.

That's even clearer. Agree about the details going in the body and the links. SPECIFICO talk 02:56, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

That's too strong in my opinion. Sure, he revealed many things, but whether that is abuse of power up to interpretation. starship.paint (talk) 05:33, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

The investigation is currently based on abuse of power and a cover-up. In my view, both of those allegations need to be included in the lead. Of course, once he is impeached, there may be other charges. - MrX 🖋 11:49, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

• Exclude tidbit-du-jour from lead Enough running amok with LEAD. The Chinese remark doesn't belong in the lead. It shouldn't even be going into the article. He's threw an odd remark to reporters that China should do something - that doesn't mean anything, hasn't had any impact and doesn't meet WP:LEAD of being much of the article. Just give it a 48 hour waiting period and see if anything actual comes of that or if any real WEIGHT develops, or at least someone out there figures out 'investigate him about WHAT'. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:06, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

A president asking China to interfere in an election by investigating a major presidential rival, while embroiled in an impeachment inquiry, is not what I would characterize as a tidbit. Your claim that it doesn't mean anything is contrary to what reliable sources report.[9][10][11] - MrX 🖋 11:55, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

@MarkBassett: "Threw an odd remark to reporters" is an astonishing way to describe an abuse of power. This "doubling down" on the abuse of power outlined by the whistleblower was the top story on every major network, including FOX. Clearly Trump's strategy is not to defend the abuse of power, but rather it is to make the abuse of power so blatant that it normalizes it. So instead of an "odd remark" it is a second abuse of power calculated to lessen the impact of the first. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:29, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

At this point, Mandruss's version (reminder: In September 2019, the U.S. House of Representatives initiated a formal impeachment inquiry against Trump regarding alleged abuses of power for personal political purposes.) is superior in every respect. The lead is meant to be a summary of the article. Consequently, all we need to say is that a formal impeachment inquiry has been started because Trump has abused his position. The detail of those abuses (including the "doubling down") should be left to the body of the article. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:23, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

You may have a point about keeping this short in the lead, but I'm struck by the inconsistency in that approach in similar articles Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. I also think that the amount of detail in the lead of should be roughly about the same for special counsel investigation and the impeachment. I think this version accomplishes that fairly gracefully. I'm not inclined to support a super-short version at this time.- MrX 🖋 18:20, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Read the conversations. The current lead, after additions, is much better. I agree with Markbassett on that the China comment should not really be on there. A simple remark of little notice/prominence should not be coupled with some that is, even if it is related. Thank you Awilley for notifying about where the conversation on this matter is headed. I knew my inquiry would be quickly regarded because it's the lead and much regarding all of this is still happening and new things are being known. Aviartm (talk) 23:05, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

As I said before, the utter nonsense that Trump's comments about China were "a simple remark of little notice/prominence" isn't going to fly here. It was the top story on every single news network in the USA, and prominently featured in news networks around the world. -- Scjessey (talk) 01:15, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

@Aviartm: - Trump privately asking a foreign leader to investigate an electoral opponent was deemed unprecedented. What do you think Trump publicly asking two countries is then? starship.paint (talk) 02:20, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Starship.paint I agree, it was bad timing really. However, the China comment is so weak in prominence compared to Ukraine's. And as thoroughly discussed before, "Likewise, China should start an investigation into the Bidens because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine." - this compared to the transcript of the phone call, there is no comparison. Nonetheless, we should abstain from applying conclusions harshly until there is more concrete verdicts from the inquiry. Scjessey We shouldn't conduct Wikipedia on the mere basis of Appeal to Popularity. As I have stated, the prominence of that comment to Ukraine remarks is incomparable. Of course it should be mentioned but nothing should be conclusive. The best route to go about mentioning China is Trump's exact words. Aviartm (talk) 03:31, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

@Aviartm: - the U.S. and China are engaged in a trade war with tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of goods. That is the key here. Something very significant is hanging in the balance. starship.paint (talk) 06:58, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Starship.paint I do not deny the possibility but it is not Wikipedia's job of speculating implications. Aviartm (talk) 02:29, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Aviartm - it is not our job, but what we are looking out for is whether the sources say it's significant. starship.paint (talk) 04:46, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Starship.paint Trump publicly speaking to reporters wishing China to investigate is just talking to reporters. Speculations exist that it was just to continue portraying such as normal. In any case, we should not put in LEAD the story du jour. There’s a new story du jour every single day. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:54, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

@Markbassett: - just to continue portraying such as normal implies that what Trump doing is abnormal, yet you also write that it is just talking to reporters, as if it was normal. That doesn't make sense, unless talking to reporters turn abnormal things into normal things. starship.paint (talk) 06:58, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

@MarkBassett: "Trump publicly speaking to reporters wishing China to investigate is just talking to reporters." What the hell does this even mean? The primary way an administration communicates with the world is through the White House press corps and anything said to reporters is an official statement. Trump threatened China with "tremendous power" and then suggested the Chinese should investigate the Bidens immediately afterward, implying the two things were related. It defies logic that you should think these China comments were trivial. These comments alone would bring down any other presidency. I can't even. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:30, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Scjessey EXCLUDE TIDBIT-DU-JOUR FROM LEAD. The “Just talking to reporters” means “talking to reporters and no more to the story at that time”. Stories should NOT be posted to lead instantly, with no content, and for this article the lead changes should also be TALKed before post. Look - the report was about him coming over to the press and giving this unofficial one-liner to reporters - just that and no more. Not about him talking to State department, not about a conversation with any actual representative of China, nothing delivered, no detailed accusation stated, no actual investigations, no events other than “just talking to reporters”. We’ve nothing much about a nothingburger with less than a day coverage and that folks are putting it in BLP LEAD is WP being ridiculous and casts a disreputable Tabloid odor on the article. If I had tuppence for every bit of blather a politician said, I’d have quite a pile of clink. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 02:00, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

@MarkBassett: If this is really your response, and you're not just "making game of me" as they used to say, I can no longer regard you as a serious contributor to this article. The comments to reporters themselves WERE the actual story, not anything that may or not have happened in connection with what he said. Have you not watched any political TV since he said it, on any channel? This will be my last response to this absurd attempt by you to downplay a textbook impeachable offense. We're just totally done here, my friend. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:52, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Scjessey we seem to be in violent agreement that the story is he made comments that day, and nothing more. Factually what it is seems a 3-day flap, second day description being medium reflection that Trump was ‘stirring the pot’ and then not much. This simply had not shown sufficient WEIGHT nor actual content per WP:LEAD on day 1 to deserve consideration for Lead. And now it seems unless some remote likelihood like the Chinese respond, we can see that it as finished out to be low WEIGHT, with no enduring impact. Media has moved on to further whistleblowers and side tidbits. Right wing has gotten past that Biden got paid to curry favor and (since no direct quid pro quo) moved on to remembering Obama era also did inquiries of Ukrainian and Australian or that Barr and Trump long ago said they’d take foreign info. Left wing has gotten past a phone call happened and moved on to second whistleblower or polling showing growth of impeachment sentiments in House & public. (Plus a lot of opinion pieces.) That Trump said some empty wish that China would investigate - just not a big deal in the competition according to how RS are voting with their front pages today. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 02:26, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

@Markbassett:The man is POTUS, the most powerful man, so they say, in the world.There is no such thing as "just talking to reporters", not when such "talk" can affect the stockmarket, the world economy, world piece, start wars, cause consternation by world leaders, and heads of government. etc.Oldperson (talk)

Stock market, world economy, and the politics are purely a matter of perspective. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:29, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Oldperson So are you proposing changing the article to credit him entirely with the last 2+ years in stock market plus economy then? Really, this seemed a lot of posturing about his importance that I don’t think is the experts views. Now as to WP policy and facts in hand. The walking over and making a wishful expression to reporters lacked WEIGHT and had little article content on the morning of so did not deserve LEAD. I saw no BLP significance in hand and no demonstrated enduring impact. Just a lot of speculatively proclaimed outrage... which also lacked novelty. It still lacks all those, and has shrunk in coverage rather than growing. In article there is a couple lines instead of a mention during trade talks. How can there be any doubt the wish to reporters does not deserve LEAD ? ??? Cheers Markbassett (talk) 02:50, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

{{ping}Markbassett|Atsme}}To quote your beloved hero "You talking to me?" I have no idea what you are talking about, apparently you are responding to the post immediately above by Atsme, by echoing his statement, claiming responsibility for the world economy,much less the Obama recovery. Fact is that Trump's ridiculous tweets have caused the stock market to bounce up and down. But the average American who works for a living is uninterested in the stock market, that is the gambling area/playground of the people who have benefited from Trumps tax cut, which is not us (my taxes went up because of Trump, I lost my interest deduction on my mortgage for one thing..just so he, his family, friends and financial base could save a few million dollars(as if they don't have enough already..greed has no limits). He makes much about the job numbers, but he and the so called "liberal" media totally ignore that the jobs being created are low paying service workers(15 an hour or less and $15 an hour is not enough to live on these days(rent, food, clothing,transportation,utilities). I fail to understand the mentality of people who vote for and bend over backwards to support and conman and grifter who does not have any interest at heart except his own.Oldperson (talk) 03:13, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

@Oldperson: Calling your fellow editor a sockpuppet for Trump is a personal attack. Please strike your statement and be more respectful in the future. — JFG ^talk 06:59, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Done. I was merely thinking WP:DUCK Oldperson (talk) 10:54, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Oldperson thanks for undoing ‘sock puppet’. Now back to article content discussion... re your 7 October post above - your prior post put forward, without evidence, that “just talking to reporters” of POTUS can have effects to stock market, economy, world piece, etcetera. For this event that’s a rather WP:EXCEPTIONAL claim, one contrary to WP generally not giving him the credit for the much longer large improvements in the stock market or unemployment (because experts generally do not give any POTUS such), and is voiced as a potential not as actual tied to this event. Look, there generally isn’t such importance assigned to the 3 Oct talk to reporters, it doesn’t have WEIGHT, it hasn’t had real BLP effect or enduring impact, and it doesn’t have lots of article content — it just doesn’t have anything in WP policy or guidelines to support LEAD prominence. I think it has now been resolved that way in article and removed from LEAD, so we can move on to something else. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 12:07, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Markbassett You seem to forget that this is a talk page, and unlike the article all mentions need not be referenced. As a matter of fact my statement is true. All one has to do is watch the evening news or read through the NYT and WaPo. As regards Trumps helicopter talks with threats of war and tariffs they certainly do have an effect onthe stock market. Problem is that only a handful of people, the wealthy, are invested in and watch the stock market. I don't and I live very well, however there are legions of references but since this is not the article page, it is hardly worth my time digging them up. Nobody I know cares about the stock market, but I know lots of folk whose income is not keeping up with prices, especially the elderly whose purchasing power is constantly slipping. Anyway I remind you that this is a talk page, not the article and everything does not need to be referenced, if so then you need to go back and do a lot of work and cough up citations for your statements. As regards alleging that you are a sock puppet, one can't help but come to the conclusion that those who bend over backwards, ignore facts, logic, reason are sock puppets for the RNC, Trump or simply blind loyalists. Especially when they come up with specious arguments, irrelevancies, what about isms and the like. One can't help but wonder. My error was in musing aloud.Oldperson (talk) 16:27, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Time to make a decision and not get sidetracked by all this noise and bullshit. Mandruss's version (In September 2019, the U.S. House of Representatives initiated a formal impeachment inquiry against Trump regarding alleged abuses of power for personal political purposes.) seems like the way to go. Let the body of the article get into specifics, but this is better than the version that is currently in the lead. Are we all agreed? -- Scjessey (talk) 12:55, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

I disagree. First, the impeachment inquiry is not "formal" as long as it has not been voted on. Second, we can't remain so vague about those serious accusations against Trump; we must explain briefly what he is alleged to have done that is considered an impeachable offense. The current version in the lead strikes the right balance. — JFG ^talk 13:22, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

No matter how much we say there, we will always leave something important unsaid, something requiring the reader to read beyond the lead if they seek understanding beyond headline level. For example, the lead currently says he was investigated for obstruction of justice. It offers not a hint about what he did that is alleged to be obstruction of justice. I'm not buying the assertion that we can omit that level of detail but the next higher level of detail is essential in the lead. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:20, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree with JFG. The two sentences in the lead are necessary and sufficient give the underlying complexity of the situation. I'm sorry Mandruss and Scjessey, but Mandruss' version is too short. Perhaps we should have a poll to decide between he two contending versions? - MrX 🖋 17:57, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

In September 2019, the U.S. House of Representatives launched an impeachment inquiry to investigate Trump's alleged abuses of power and obstruction of justice.

Detail should be in the body text. Who knows, maybe it will blow over? SPECIFICO talk 19:46, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

I could support that, too. Then, if there is an impeachment, the inquiry becomes unleadworthy and the sentence is replaced by a new one. Then, if there is a conviction (hah!), the impeachment becomes unleadworthy and the sentence is replaced by a new one (oh hell, I guess removal from office would merit two sentences). In all cases, "For more information, use the table of contents to jump to the section of interest to you" is implied and self-evident.

I oppose putting first the information needs of readers who read the lead and leave. They should not be our primary target audience. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:18, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I support SPECIFICO's proposal as well. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:59, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

No. Again, that's too vague. To Mandruss' point, I believe that readers of the lead section are an important target audience (yet obviously not the only audience), especially for long and complex articles such as this one. — JFG ^talk 08:50, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree with JFG. Also, the lead is very important. When asking Alexa a question, the response is typically read verbatim from the lead of a WP article. It is important that we present an accurate summary and not mislead or leave hanging by ommission. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 06:58, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles should not be written with Alexa in mind, but even if we did, SPECIFICO's proposal is perfectly fine. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:11, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Preferred description for the Mueller report

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.

---

What is everyone's preferred description of the Mueller report in the lead? I personally believe that choice one conveys in a much more accurate manner what the Mueller Report says. But a few editors have suggested that it would be too long to include within the lead, so I wanted to come here and establish consensus on the matter. I personally don't see how it could be labeled as such. Thoughts? ZiplineWhy (talk) 00:42, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Choice 1: (Suggested Version) A special counsel investigation did not find sufficient evidence to establish criminal charges of conspiracy or coordination with Russia, but found that the Trump campaign welcomed the foreign interference under the belief that it was politically advantageous.

Choice 2: (Current version) Trump and members of his 2016 campaign were suspected of being complicit in Russian election interference that favored him, but a special counsel investigation did not find sufficient evidence to establish conspiracy or coordination with Russia.

!Votes

• Choice 1 Aside from the wording, which might be improved, Choice 1 accurately conveys Mueller's finding. Mueller was acting in the role of a prosecutor, so when he says "not establish" it means he did not have admissible evidence to charge with a crime. But he also went to pains to explain that this was largely due to extensive evasion, obstruction, destruction of evidence, and failure to cooperate with the investigation. And Volume 2 documents numerous incidents of obstruction in detail. SPECIFICO talk

• 'Added Choice 3 option: "he also went to pains to explain that this was largely due to extensive evasion, obstruction, destruction of evidence, and failure to cooperate with the investigation. And Volume 2 documents numerous incidents of obstruction in detail." Incorporates both Choice 1 and Starships recommendation. Oldperson (talk) 01:12, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

It really is better if you just voice your preference for 1 or 2 and we will work out the details after consensus becomes clear. When editors start adding additional alternatives, the process never converges and the issue becomes less, not more clear. Almost always. Please see whether you can choose one and then add whatever comment you'd like. SPECIFICO talk 01:31, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

• EXCLUDE, WRONG ARTICLE FOR IT - As previously discussed and long-standing content consensus was nothing. I think per discussions in archive 96 on Mueller in lead that it’s a Presidency topic and not for his bio. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:35, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
• I don't care which. Just include one of them. This topic is WP:DUE for the lede and protects Trump's BLP by asserting that they were not charged on this particular count. starship.paint (talk) 04:08, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
• Choice 1 accurately characterizes the Mueller Report's findings, and avoids the weasel wordy "were suspected" language. May His Shadow Fall Upon You ● 📧 17:59, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
• Choice 1 for the reasons stated by "May His Shadow Fall Upon You". Mgasparin (talk) 05:51, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
• Choice 1 is an improvement over the current version (2). Of course we need to keep the sentence that follows: "Trump was also personally investigated for obstruction of justice, and was neither indicted nor exonerated.".- MrX 🖋 21:19, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
• Choice 2 --MONGO (talk) 21:35, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
• Choice 2 sums up the situation better.--Jack Upland (talk) 22:26, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
• Choice 1 more accurately summarizes the body prose, which is adequately sourced and is not currently contested. "...and was knowingly 'welcomed' by the Trump campaign under the belief that they would politically benefit from the foreign interference." This is a very significant point – not in my irrelevant judgment, but per the body of reliable sources. As always, I'm willing to consider sources that disagree, and, as almost always, nobody brings any let alone enough (I appreciate that, as it makes my job easier). ―Mandruss ☎ 00:37, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
• Choice 2: Starting the paragraph with "A special counsel investigation […]" would put the cart before the horse. Why was there an investigation? Because Russia interfered in the election, and Trump and his campaign were suspected of being complicit in Russia's efforts, so that's what we should state first. Also the proposed wording "the Trump campaign welcomed the foreign interference under the belief that it was politically advantageous" sounds like an incriminating statement, which contradicts the very conclusions of the Mueller Report, namely that no member of the Trump campaign, and indeed no U.S. citizen, willingly helped Russia. The worst "welcoming" that happened was that Trump Jr. took a meeting from a Russian lawyer in the belief that she would deliver politically damaging information on Hillary Clinton, and it turned out that didn't happen. — JFG ^talk 08:41, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

"which contradicts the very conclusions of the Mueller Report." No. It's a literal quote from the contents of the Mueller Report. "sounds like an incriminating statement,." Why does that prevent it from being included in the lead? Wikipedia isn't either a promotion or attack page. ZiplineWhy (talk) 23:23, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

The quote from the report in that article words choice 1 in the opposite order. Hrodvarsson (talk) 04:15, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

The current version (choice 2) is also lifted directly from Mueller's conclusions:

Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.

I'm not against mentioning potentially incriminating statements in general, but when the inquiry's conclusion is that the alleged crime was not committed, it would be unfair, and indeed non-neutral, to keep the incriminating statement in our summary of the whole affair. Let's keep it simple. — JFG ^talk 04:41, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

But we must reflect what the preponderance of reliable sources are saying, not what the Mueller Report says. It would be non-neutral to pretend Trump wasn't gleefully happy that Russia interfered on his behalf. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:12, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Indeed, indeed. Except for Trump, Barr, and a chorus of parrots, there's been no "conclusion" that a crime was not committed. That statement is either ignorant or dishonest. Editors who've read RS discussion of the Report know this, as do editors who have read the report itself. It's been established at considerable length in prior talk page discussion, and @Starship.paint: posted one of many portions of the report relating to that fact.

Mueller Report quotes

Volume 1 Page 2 says we applied the framework of conspiracy law, not the concept of “collusion.” Volume 1, Page 10 says The investigation did not always yield admissible information or testimony, or a complete picture of the activities undertaken by subjects of the investigation. Some individuals invoked their Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination ... Some of the information obtained via court process, moreover, was presumptively covered by legal privilege and was screened from investigators by a filter (or “taint”) team. Even when individuals testified or agreed to be interviewed, they sometimes provided information that was false or incomplete, leading to some of the false-statements charges described above. And the Office faced practical limits on its ability to access relevant evidence as well — numerous witnesses and subjects lived abroad, and documents were held outside the United States. Further, the Office learned that some of the individuals we interviewed or whose conduct we investigated — including some associated with the Trump Campaign — deleted relevant communications or communicated during the relevant period using applications that feature encryption or that do not provide for long-term retention of data or communications records. In such cases, the Office was not able to corroborate witness statements through comparison to contemporaneous communications or fully question witnesses about statements that appeared inconsistent with other known facts ... given these identified gaps, the Office cannot rule out the possibility that the unavailable information would shed additional light on (or cast in a new light) the events described in the report.

Option 1 gets us to NPOV with succinct accurate wording that reflects the weight of Reliable Sources.

SPECIFICO talk 13:34, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

• Choice 1 does a far better job of summarizing what happened per reliable sources. Choice 2 doesn't get to the crux of the matter at all. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:42, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
• Choice 1 is definitely the better version. -- BullRangifer (talk) 18:03, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
• Choice 2 - closer to factual and accurate. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 06:46, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
• Choice 1/Request Closure I believe that there is now an adequate consensus to close in favor of #1, so I'm requesting that this discussion be closed. Perhaps we can shortly create another discussion about how it should be optimally worded in a couple of days, as many of the people who chose #2/gave soft support to #1 also suggested revisions. ZiplineWhy (talk) 00:02, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

  It's only been a few days, and we are far from a WP:SNOW case. Please let the discussion unfold for a little longer. Many of the "regular" editors only check in weekly or less often. — JFG ^talk 16:34, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

  Actually, I think it is pretty clear where this is going from the two-to-one ratio in favor of choice 1. Certainly choice 1 has more than enough support to justify updating the article, and that doesn't preclude minor adjustments later. The version currently in the article is inadequate. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:27, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

• Choice 2 for the sake of brevity, as that is the main conclusion. Choice 1 worded in the opposite order, as it is in the link ZiplineWhy provided above, would be preferable to the current choice 1, though still lengthy. Hrodvarsson (talk) 04:15, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Would you support a version of #1 provided that the sentence is reordered? (e.g. "...investigation found that Trump and his campaign knowingly welcomed and encouraged Russian foreign interference under the belief that it would be a politically beneficial, but did not bring specific charges for conspiracy or collusion." I'm completely fine with the order of the sentence being rearranged. ZiplineWhy (talk) 22:55, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

• Choice 1 seems to be the most factual, accurate, BLP compliant, and NPOV. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 21:44, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
• Choice 1 is clearer and better reflects the nature of what took place. Ganesha811 (talk) 18:05, 18 October 2019 (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.

Added I added the revised version to the lead, although I corrected a minor typo within the original version I submitted. (Mueller said "Trump and his campaign" instead of "campaign", etc.) Feel free to include suggested revisions to mine below. ZiplineWhy (talk) 23:57, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

@ZiplineWhy: That is not a minor typo but a substantive change. The consensus version does not specifically name Trump in the "welcoming". Please edit the lead to conform with the consensus, or simply revert yourself and reopen this discussion. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:01, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

@ZiplineWhy: And that is not the only change you made. Consensus version:

A special counsel investigation did not find sufficient evidence to establish criminal charges of conspiracy or coordination with Russia, but found that the Trump campaign welcomed the foreign interference under the belief that it was politically advantageous.

What you put in the lead:

A special counsel investigation found that Trump and his campaign welcomed and encouraged Russian foreign interference under the belief that it was politically advantageous, but did not find sufficient evidence to establish specific criminal charges related to conspiracy or coordination with Russia.

Sheesh! You can't do that. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:25, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

BTW, regarding your edit summary, "established consensus" is never found on "SPECIFICO's user page". Or anybody else's user page. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:33, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

I take full credit for screwing up. It was how it was described by Mueller and similar to the wording in the body, so I believed that not fixing my misphrasing excluding Trump would be misleading in its own right. I might start a new thread in a few days. Again, it's my fault. Sorry. ZiplineWhy (talk) 02:47, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

@ZiplineWhy: If that was a significant error it was incumbent upon all discussion participants to catch it. Not solely your fault, if there is any fault. Thanks for fixing it. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:52, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

I realize that changes to the lead on articles such as this are hard to change for a good reason. No worries! ZiplineWhy (talk) 03:07, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

@JFG: This seems worthy of a consensus #41. Care to create it to make this a "bipartisan" effort? ZiplineWhy said they "might" follow with discussion about a possible revision to the revision, but I don't see much benefit in waiting to see how that plays out; i.e. #41 would be revisable as always. ―Mandruss ☎ 16:48, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Trump awards himself a government contract How is this to be handled?

Trumps Chief of Staff announces here that the next G-7 summit will be held at Doral golf course/resort. This is not only a clear violation of the emoluments clause, The emoluments clause, also called the foreign emoluments clause, is a provision of the U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 8) that generally prohibits federal officeholders from receiving any gift, payment, or other thing of value from a foreign state or its rulers, officers, or representatives.. Where and how do we handle this? Oldperson (talk) 00:36, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

We deal with it as it emerges. I don't think it warrants inclusion yet.--Jack Upland (talk) 04:36, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

While this is a clear and shocking example of self-dealing, and Doral was in the news just recently as the place where that doctored film footage showing Trump killing representatives of the media was shown, I've yet to see a lot of reliable sourcing talking about it besides a few opinion pieces. This may need a day or two in order to mature, but right now it doesn't seem like it is worth adding. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:38, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Give it a 48 hour waiting period for more facts and actual WEIGHT to show up. Probably nothing. That link only says Mulvaney thinks it will be there, not that Trump made the award. And accusations seem just confused there — there should at least be clarifying of whether allegation is domestic emoluments clause because self-dealing, or foreign emoluments clause some other nation dealing. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:12, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

It's a domestic violation (self-dealing), not a foreign emolument. By awarding himself the contract to host foreign dignitaries at Doral, he will be using the office of the presidency to personally benefit at the American taxpayer's expense. The host of the G7 summit covers all the costs, so there shouldn't be any foreign payments in this case. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:38, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Scjessey Thanks, Domestic Emoluments Clause makes more sense. Time will tell if this is matters much, but seems a high hurdle in the area where one sees historically Biden’s son getting $3 million to curry favor, the Iraq No-bid contract to Cheney’s company Halliburton KBR for a few billion, and CREW v. Trump dismissal. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 14:02, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Just to clarify, Hunter Biden did absolutely nothing illegal whatsoever and the comparison is utter bullshit. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:06, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Yah, giving the son sweetheart deals instead of to the VP is not illegal, it's just obviously fishy. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:18, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

It's not even fishy. It's absolutely normal and is a common occurrence with family members of prominent politicians all over the world. Compare, for example, Jared Kushner getting bazillions of dollars from the guy who order the death of Jamal Khashoggi because his father-in-law is POTUS. By fixating on Hunter Biden, you are absolutely losing yourself in the smokescreen Trump put up in order to distract people from his crimes and misdemeanors. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:19, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

It's not a violation of the emoluments clause. While you may think you know what the term means, or meant in 1789, when was the last time you used it in a conversation? Would you say for example that your employer emolulized you? TFD (talk) 04:28, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

• It's relatively easy to give this a brief mention without passing judgment on whether this violates the emoluments clause. The detail about the event probably also belongs in the articles about Trump Doral and G7 pbp 14:39, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

It seems that the golf course won't be used after all.--Jack Upland (talk) 04:30, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Inaccurate edit summary-Kurdish statements

ZiplineWhyPlease clarify why you removed so much RS material from this edit. Your edit summary is non descriptive and inaccurate.Oldperson (talk) 22:13, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

User:ZiplineWhy the above seems a dinged ping, meant for you. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 22:39, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Yep, kind of a keyboard dyslexia like typing their when I mean there or vice versa. I've got to get a hand on it.Thanks I was correcting when (ec)came up and you caught my miss steak :}Oldperson (talk) 22:43, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm confused. What reliable material was exactly removed by me? The edit you cited has no deletions in general. As for my summary, there's nothing inaccurate about it. ZiplineWhy (talk) 22:50, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Apolgies. I had trouble reading the diff page, looked like you removed a lot of content. However I am confused as to how edit summary of Kurdish statements if an accurate reflection of your edit.Oldperson (talk) 23:00, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

I meant it in the sense of "Trump's statements on Rojava and the Kurds." No problem. ZiplineWhy (talk) 23:01, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

@Oldperson: Here is a screenshot of the optional wikEdDiff feature, which can be turned on using a check box at Preferences->Gadgets (under the Editing heading of the Gadgets page). The screenshot shows how wikEdDiff presents that same edit. The feature can be used instead of or in combination with the standard diff facility. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:20, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Mandruss I checked it, now to learn how to use it. Hopefully it will stop me from 'effin up. It will take time to get up to speed though.Oldperson (talk) 00:37, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

weasel words in impeachment section

Please DO NOT comment in this section. This is a test of auto-archival. See this UTP thread for more information.

Left them in place pending discussion in case this is contentious. But: "downplaying his concern about Russian interference in US elections" ???? Makes it sound like he was concerned but chose to be tactful, whereas he in fact said he really did not care.

References

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Elinruby (talk • contribs) 22:22, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

• That one downplay a concern to the point where one says or pretends it's not a concern isn't a crazy thought. Drmies (talk) 00:08, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

  Nor is it a thought offered by the source, though. I'm no psychoanalyst, but whichever of this one story's three writers handled the lead seems to suggest Trump was unconcerned because this stuff normally had been easily brushed off. He may have reasonably assumed the press would have bigger things to cover, as it had since McCarthy's day. Funny how it looks foolish in hindsight, but at the time, I think most ordinary observers expected the lying, racism, isolationism, bloopers and sex abuse to be the top concerns, mixed in with non-presidential news. Anybody really see this much Russian hysteria coming back strong in 2017? InedibleHulk (talk) 08:05, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

I changed it to "expressed disconcern". Noted when it happened, to whom. Almost changed "interference" to "efforts to promote democracy and good governance", but resisted the urge for brevity's sake. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:47, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

@InedibleHulk: AFAICT "disconcern" is not a word in the English language, outside of urbandictionary.com. ―Mandruss ☎ 12:16, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Mandruss I looked it up, and you are right, disconcern is not a word, as seen here. Disconcert however, is a word, as in The businessman was disconcerted when his train arrived late. Mgasparin (talk) 01:09, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Right, I did the same, which is why I said AFAICT instead of AFAIK. :) ―Mandruss ☎ 01:13, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Fixed to "unconcern". "Disconcern" still looks and sounds better to me. But yeah, English Wikipedia deserves English words. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:31, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Keep your eyes peeled for stories actually relaying what he said. If they exist, they'd be more useful here than three writers summarizing the overall takeaway of three anons. Part of me highly doubts Trump calls the hubbub "Russian interference", especially directly to official guests from Moscow. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:42, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Removed the bit about "misuse" of data security systems to "hide" transcripts. It only seems crooked to the sort who want to leak such stuff anonymously, and reporters who depend on these loose-lipped shipsinkers. In any case, John Eisenberg made the call, not Trump, so if any bio deserves garbled scolding, it's that guy's. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:16, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Lawsuits against Trump

I think we should have an agreement not to include lawsuits against Trump unless and until they are successful.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:48, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

No. Most lawsuits are settled. SPECIFICO talk 12:08, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree with SPECIFICO. Obviously we should only include significant lawsuits.- MrX 🖋 14:39, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

I would say that a settlement is some measure of success. Given the size of the article, I think we need to exclude lawsuits that were dismissed or which are not concluded. I'm not proposing a rigid rule.--Jack Upland (talk) 19:24, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

I assume that's what we're doing now. Are there any in the article that should not be?- MrX 🖋 19:48, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Include if and only if DUE in the BLP context. If it’s a lawsuit (current or past) with sufficient coverage it might even rate it’s own article and still not be appropriate to get mentioned here. There’s probably thousands of lawsuits from the course of a typical real estate practice, when the scale is billions of dollars and 50 years. And when in doubt, leave it out... the article is too big, needs to keep in mind WP:NOTEVERYTHING Cheers Markbassett (talk) 21:42, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

I made the comment because I'd just removed two lawsuits. They can always be documented in Legal affairs of Donald Trump and List of lawsuits involving Donald Trump.--Jack Upland (talk) 03:23, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 27 October 2019

This line is OPINION and NOT fact!! It should be removed!! "Trump has made many false or misleading statements during his campaign and presidency. This next line SHOULD read as follows: "Many of his comments and actions have also been characterized as allegedly racially charged or racist." 72.95.147.133 (talk) 05:17, 27 October 2019 (UTC) 72.95.147.133 (talk) 05:17, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

 Not done - Please read and follow the instructions you received before entering your edit request, including: "Please provide reliable sources if appropriate. All information in Wikipedia articles should be verifiable from reliable sources which are independent of the subject." The existing content is supported by #Current consensus items 30 and 35. The edit request facility should not be used to request controversial changes that lack prior consensus. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:40, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Summary of policy actions in lead section

The lead section's third paragraph was written to summarize policy actions undertaken under Trump's presidency. It has been stable for a long time, and I'd like to open a conversation to discuss whether it needs any updates. Here is the current version:

During his presidency, 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. He enacted a tax-cut package for individuals and businesses, which also rescinded the individual health insurance mandate and allowed oil drilling in the Arctic Refuge. He appointed Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. In foreign policy, Trump has pursued an America First agenda, withdrawing the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations, the Paris Agreement on climate change, and the Iran nuclear deal. He recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, imposed import tariffs triggering a trade war with China, and started negotiations with North Korea towards their denuclearization.

Stats:

• domestic policy: 29 words on the travel ban, 26 on the tax package (including 8 on Obamacare and 8 on oil drilling), 11 on Supreme Court appointments;
• foreign policy: 7 words on isolationism, 20 on withdrawals from international agreements, 8 on Israel, 9 on tariffs and China, and 8 on North Korea.

Conspicuously absent topics: immigration policy, Trump wall, NATO stance, Middle-East policy beyond Israel support, deregulation efforts, trade deals (Canada/Mexico, Japan, China), what else? Comments and suggestions welcome. — JFG ^talk 06:07, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Oppose that level of detail about his presidency in the lead. There is simply not enough space to cover everything that's due at that level to date, let alone everything to come. I've been saying this for some time, and have been told that it would not be a problem. It's a problem, and it's going to get worse unless we change direction. I support a rewrite of that paragraph at a higher level and significantly shorter. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:25, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

We can't realistically put every policy initiative in the lead. Recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is one that could be removed in favor of something else. The failed North Korea negotiations might be another. We could add a couple of things to the lead like immigration policy resulting in family separation. The wall doesn't merit inclusion, and deregulation is far too complicated for the lead. - MrX 🖋 11:02, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Mandruss. It needs to be trimmed, with everything being a little more generic; however, JFG is right that his stupid wall needs to be in there because it his signature policy. His foreign policy can be generically described as "isolationist" (withdrawal from international agreements, withdrawal of troops, strengthened restrictive borders with wall and travel ban) and his domestic policy can be generically described as "conservative" (tax cuts for corporations and rich people, conservative justices, promoting fossil fuel industries, spending cuts). -- Scjessey (talk) 13:32, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

I strongly oppose including the wall, at least until all 1,954 miles are completed. Aspirations ≠ Achievements.- MrX 🖋 13:49, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Heck, if it was half of that, I would be fine. But right now it's really nothing much. starship.paint (talk) 14:18, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Syria withdrawal needs to go in, abandonment of American allies has caused actual bloodshed as a consequence. Trim Muslim ban, add family detentions and separations. No to the wall, it basically does not exist. Remove oil drilling. No to NATO, nothing much concrete? See if the new NAFTA can be put beside the old NAFTA. Don’t even know of trade deals with China and Japan. starship.paint (talk)

It needs to be way more generic than that. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:38, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree with removing oil drilling.- MrX 🖋 13:49, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

There seems to be a lot of editor OR as to what's most significant. We now have extensive tertiary sources -- summary articles in academic media, non-daily periodicals, and books -- that should be used for perspective. Those sources prioritize the deprecation of post WW2 world order (NATO, Free Trade, etc.), Deconstruction of the US Federal Government, Politicization of the US Judiciary, the southern border atrocities, and the focus on reality-TV style show communication to replace historical and conventional modes of US presidential speech. These are the items RS tell us are of lasting significance. So, just for one example: The "Wall" is an instance of the last, not per se a significant policy or event. SPECIFICO talk 14:00, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

@SPECIFICO and JFG: - how would you word anything on NATO since you both mentioned it? Come to think of it, He embraced Twitter as a communication tool is possible. starship.paint (talk) 14:40, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

He deprecated America's global alliances, including NATO, SEATO, and the partnerships underlying the TPP talks, the Iran Nuclear Deal, and..." For actual text, we'd have to search sources for summary descriptions and specifics. SPECIFICO talk 16:55, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

During his presidency, Trump's strict immigration policies resulted in migrant detentions, family separations, and a travel ban on citizens from several Muslim-majority countries. He enacted a tax-cut package for individuals and businesses, while rescinding the individual health insurance mandate. He appointed Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. In foreign policy, Trump has pursued an America First agenda, withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Agreement on climate change, the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations, and the Iran nuclear deal. He imposed import tariffs triggering a trade war with China, and withdrew U.S. troops in northern Syria to avoid Turkey's offensive on American-allied Kurds.

This is 104 words, a trim of 16 words from 120. starship.paint (talk) 14:10, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Trim more!

During his presidency, Trump's strict immigration policies included migrant detentions, family separations, and a travel ban. He enacted tax-cuts for individuals and businesses and rescinded the individual health insurance mandate. He appointed Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. In foreign policy, Trump's America First agenda included withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and the Iran nuclear deal. He triggered a trade war with China and Turkey's offensive on American-allied Kurds.

Maybe even more could go, quite honestly. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:45, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

The travel ban part can be improved. He enacted a harsh measure which was very famous and swiftly legally blocked, then eventually enacted softer measures. So which should be linked? You want to remove the Justices? I would have kept the tariffs though. starship.paint (talk) 14:48, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

This is the lead. Anything that needs expanding on is already happening in the body of the article, or at links to related articles. We need brevity. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:51, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

I get it, man. I didn't mean expanding upon it. I'm asking which should we include. The harsh blocked ban, or the softer ban that actually went through, because we aren't going to include both. starship.paint (talk) 14:58, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Starship.paint's version would work for me. The main issue I have with Scjessey's version is the the phrase "travel ban" is too ambiguous. If we could somehow include his myriad foreign policy fuck ups, that would be great too.- MrX 🖋 18:03, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

But do we really have WEIGHT to say the foreign policy is bumbling and not a deliberate pivot? Former administration officials are reported having said the latter. Similarly, is the travel ban an immigration policy or just redecorating? SPECIFICO talk 18:15, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm very encouraged with the discussion here. It looks like we are all on board the trimming train, but there's just a little bit of disagreement as to which track it should take. Let's see more examples of text, please. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:18, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

off-topic RE: Trump University trim SPECIFICO talk 16:57, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Meanwile there's been a very POV "trim" of the Trump U text that needs revert and discussion. SPECIFICO talk 18:22, 16 October 2019 (UTC) Yeah, I had a problem with that one. It's bad enough we can't include anything about in the lead. Also, the link to Business projects of Donald Trump in Russia was removed and is already hidden it the nav box. What's up with that?- MrX 🖋 19:37, 16 October 2019 (UTC) I gave it a try on the Trump U. It's a bit shorter and at least it's NPOV. Good catch on the Russia thing. Russia is getting the Unperson treatment. SPECIFICO talk 21:12, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

• Suggest: No change at this time. Take some time like a month or so to discuss — the existing content covers a lot of the topic and has been relatively unobjectionable. That said, I’d suggest shorten the travel ban and tax bits - the lead only needs to identify the bigger bits in a few words, going into the steps involved belongs elsewhere. After that, I would say just a couple words for ‘cancel DACA’, and a couple for ‘cancel NAFTA’. Keep it short. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 02:43, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

  No, this needs to be tightened up as much as any other part of the article, and we can't do that selectively in the way you suggest. What is needed is a more generic version of what currently exists. Less specificity! -- Scjessey (talk) 16:17, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Putting this in a green box for consideration. Lead should be summary not detail.

He deprecated America's global alliances, including NATO, other regional alliances, and the partnerships underlying the TPP talks and the Iran Nuclear Deal.

Short and sweet simple and descriptive, not narrative. SPECIFICO talk 16:54, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

So we have at least four concrete proposals including status quo. Any suggestions on how to move this forward? ―Mandruss ☎ 16:24, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

I suppose the easiest way to do it would be to create an RfC and present the four choices; however, I think a couple of those choices are still a bit wordy for what we are trying to achieve. The overall goal must be to reduce the amount of content by making better use of the summary style we have chosen to adopt. And certainly anything in the lead can be a super generic summary of what is in the body. The only thing I know for certain is that the existing content, while technically correct, is waaay too long. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:34, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

I think the problem of this articles length is that we are not writing in summary style. My brief one sentence summary is supported by article text and by wikilinks. We should take full advantage of wikilinks. In trimming a few sections recently I realized that there's a lot of text that is not about Trump but rather about topics that are linked to their own articles and don't need elaboration here. e.g. we do not need to describe Mar-a-Lago or the Commodore Hotel when there are articles linked. If we radically removed all such sidewise description we would have a much more focused Trump bio article. Does anyone think my one sentence version in this thread is too short? If so what could be added, keeping it in summary style? We'd need to add dismantling regulation, immigration, tax cuts, trade wars, and appointment to federal courts. SPECIFICO talk 16:42, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I do. You've deleted anything about the environment. Prior to this administration we were one of the world leaders in accepting the dangers of climate change and we were making a real start in efforts to turn the tide. But with this administration we are now one of the least environmentally responsible of all nations. Industry has been allowed to get everything they've been wanting for years and it's not going to be easy to undo the damage that's been done. This must have a mention in the lead. Gandydancer (talk) 21:15, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Good. SPECIFICO talk 21:47, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

He deprecated America's global alliances, including NATO, other regional alliances, and the partnerships underlying the Paris Climate Accords, TPP talks and the Iran Nuclear Deal. He appointed scores of Conservative and Originalist Federal judges, rolled back environmental and consumer protection regulations. and forged personal relationships with various autocratic leaders around the world.

SPECIFICO talk 21:54, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict--before reading your new proposal) I suppose it will end up with just the mention of the Paris Accords but it is not what I would wish for. I'd like to see something like, "Trump has made large budget cuts to programs that research renewable energy and has rolled back Obama-era policies directed at curbing climate change and limiting environmental pollution." He said right out that it was his goal to roll back everything Obama did and he's doing a pretty good job of just that. OK, reading your new proposal, that's an improvement. Gandydancer (talk) 22:05, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Meh. It reads more like a narrative and less like a concise list of facts. I still prefer the approach I outlined above, although I hybrid of the two would work. Incidentally, shouldn't "conservative", "originalist" and "federal" be uncapitalized? -- Scjessey (talk) 18:38, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

The two capitalized words are wikilinks. I suppose we could pipe from lower case. To me, if anything, this version is extremely like a list with no narration at all. But I think that's OK for the lead. SPECIFICO talk 19:41, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Signature

The signature image is quite out-of-date (from at least as far back as 2009); Donald Trump has changed the average look of his signature to look significantly different. Erik Humphrey (talk) 23:03, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't think so. If you look here you will see that his signature is still roughly the same as it is in the infobox. People don't sign exactly the same way each time as we are not computers and don't "copy/paste" our signature to documents each time we sign. If you have a signature that you are certain is new and is significantly different, maybe we could discuss changing it, but I don't think that will happen. Mgasparin (talk) 23:13, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

There have been a lot of discussions on the issue, but that one is far from the only currently in the infobox! That article only supports the point ;p Erik Humphrey (talk) 23:18, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

There have been significant advances in machine learning, image processing and reasons to fear identity theft since 2009. If anyone knows a computer program who can vouch for Trump's continued authenticity, I say it's time for a change. Maybe we could simulate the scenario in a superslick silicate sandbox ten times first, in case replacement has consequences humans can't fathom, but finding out the old-fashioned way seems about right right now. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:50, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

In other words, I'm in favour of updating the image if we know it's newer and his. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:18, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Taking a very quick look at the infobox version and the article listed above - I think they're significantly different and should be updated. And....there's been dozens of examples of trump's 'newish' signature since becoming president. i say update it to the the example! Clint.jenkins (talk) 20:24, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

RE: Current consensus #39: "Do not include any paragraph regarding Trump's mental health"

A Republican source inside the Trump-Pelosi meeting described attendees as "alarmed," "shaken" and "shell-shocked" by the President’s demeanor.

"He is not in control of himself. It is all yelling and screaming."

Q: "is it getting worse?"

A: "100 percent"

Q: "are you worried about his stability?"

A: "yes"

https://twitter.com/joshscampbell/status/1184953968364908545

soibangla (talk) 00:35, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

How long do we plan to keep re-raising this every 10 days? This is the same as this, with the same appropriate response. I'm not closing this one since one editor accused me of being too "aggressive" in closing the previous one, but I certainly support such a close by any other editor. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:53, 18 October 2019 (UTC) At least two editors claim that this is not in fact an attempt to modify consensus #39. ―Mandruss ☎ 08:30, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Mandruss Your point is valid. I just read consensus 39. However as I understand these consensus do not stand forever. Basically they serve their purpose to get the article off the ground, but after that the article takes on it's own development as events unfold. What we are seeing is a very serious threat to our nation and the world, not to mention thouands, maybe tens and hundreds like the Kurds. How long do we keep silent until we lose our relevancy. POTUS is melting down in public, increasingly aggressive and hostile, Threatening critics with death (yes he did, accusing them of being traitors and "what we use to do to traitors.bing, bing, bam, bam" Acknowledging that this is not a forum, I still have to ask how long do you think WP itself would last if this were not longer a democratic republic but an authoritarian dictatorship We live in an unusual era where it is possible that there will be no such thing as NPOV. We take a lot for granted.I bow out I had my say. Permission to revert,but please wait at least 12 hoursOldperson (talk) 01:22, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

I understand these consensus do not stand forever. You understand correctly. The relevant policy is at WP:CCC. Consensuses do not stand forever, but a consensus that required this much editor time investment usually stands for considerably longer than two months. That's 18,000 words, if you're keeping score. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:29, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

The media can't properly evaluate Trump's mental health, but they can objectively examine his demeanor[12][13][14][15]. That's fair game for this article.- MrX 🖋 01:04, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Then start the necessary RfC and brace yourself for the cries of "too soon". But anything else is a completely pointless waste of editor time. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:08, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

If you're claiming that #39 does not apply, you might want to change the heading of this section. It strongly impllies that you seek to change #39. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:08, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

In response to MrX's comment, the sources he provides describe Trump as "listless, tired, and bored even by his own standards", "yelling and screaming", "vain and vulgar, a thin-skinned narcissist", and "shaken". That is a range of emotions and psychological states. I think you could conclude that Trump shows his emotions more that is normal for someone in high office. If you found a source that said that, maybe it could be included. In any case, I don't think those articles "objectively examine his demeanor".--Jack Upland (talk) 08:09, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

We have a very firm consensus that discussions of Trump's mental health are essentially off the table, but I agree that this could be considered a separate issue that would need a corresponding change to the heading of this discussion. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:27, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

• I would oppose additions at this time, in part because this would trivialise issues of mental health. Here's a relevant discussion in The Guardian: "Donald Trump’s sanity is not the question. The real issue is how he got into office", 18 Oct 2019. --K.e.coffman (talk) 20:27, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Lighten up you editors. MrX's distinction makes sense and anyone should feel free to add well-sourced content that describes significant, unusual, or alarming behaviors. SPECIFICO talk 20:32, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

I can't agree to that. There's just not a lot of sourcing for us to draw from at the moment. Moreover, I think we should be cautious adding anything new to the article when we clearly need to get a handle on the length of what we have. There's so much going on with Trump and his presidency, we simply must be very discerning. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:56, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong, I am not accusing anyone. I donote that it takes an extra-ordinary amount of time for any change to the article page to load,thus a testament to its length, and sadly it will only grow longer, the longer he sits in office. There has to be a point where discernment isn't perceived as censorship. A difficult task, keeping the article within reasonable bounds, that it does not in itself become an encylopedia,and admitting the relevant (and exceedingly negative) information that daily appears.

Perhaps fork off these parts with prominent instructions or invitation to click on the fork.Oldperson (talk) 21:16, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Well, as usual, the burden is on the editor who offers new content. But as to article length, there is so much room for cutting present text that I am not very concerned about that. There's way too much detail on topics that link to their own WP articles. I'm going to cut a lot of the real estate stuff when I get a chance. He's not going to be remembered for real estate after his initial recognition 40 years back. SPECIFICO talk 21:23, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

there is so much room for cutting present text that I am not very concerned about that. Right, editors have been making that argument for around two years, and precious little cutting has occurred, this being the result. I'm far more impressed by results than words. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:37, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

I've been cutting for a couple of weeks now, without controversy or objection. If you're impressed, all the better. SPECIFICO talk 21:45, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Good for you. But we're not talking about you, we're talking about the big picture. Actually trimming is not what the article needs but rather an understanding of the "summary level" part of #Current consensus #37, and lots of rewriting at that level. We need to think "executive summary", not news-like chronology. If we're talking about specific events on specific dates, we're in most cases not at summary level. (And I should point out that #37 only applies to material related to his presidency, not to the rest of his life.) ―Mandruss ☎ 21:54, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Real estate can be trimmed like anything else, but I think it's worth bearing in mind that Trump's presidency is only going to be 3–8 years of his life. All of his life should be represented.--Jack Upland (talk) 06:45, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Apologies if I've given the impression that I disagree with that. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:41, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Mandruss Yes, political trivia is largely the problem - too many morning feeds from NYT just dumped in, too much step by step adds never redone, too many items pasted into multiple DT articles unchanged, not really appropriate for BLP. I’ve said wait 48 hours or inappropriate umpteen times or put it into Presidency instead but that only stopped a few. Unless there is general movement in TALK and edits incoming to be more selective and restrained in the political area or to cut to the chase in there, I don’t see how this #37 can get done or to say in place versus just being making way for recentism of today’s morning feed. Perhaps it would help to form some indicators or guideline principles to help like wait 48 hours, or hurdles like should be covered by at least BBC, etcetera. People could use some specifics on how to do #37 and what indicates candidates. Might be a separate thread re implementing methods ? Markbassett (talk) 11:29, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Actually I'm beginning to doubt my position on that. It could be argued that the kind of "overview" I'm thinking of would require sources at that level, lest we violate WP:SYNTH. And there aren't many sources like that until the historians etc. write their essays and books. Besides, not many Wikipedia editors (1) know how to write at that level and (2) have the necessary breadth and depth of knowledge about the subject matter.

Might have to abandon that idea and go with "only the most important details about the presidency" (in this article); i.e., not changing the level of the content but being more selective about what to include. Perhaps #37 should be revisited? ―Mandruss ☎ 11:55, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

• I would recommend against taking RFC over such a trivial item. We’ve had this topic a few times before, and the mass of other items and discussions seem unlikely to shift by this teeny tidbit. We’ve even seen a fork (that seemed a POV fork verging on ATTACK page) which later got RFD deleted. We had #21 which lasted 2 years, before a brief #36 that was replaced by #39 that’s more restrained than #21 was. I simply think the whole topic is tabloid and is more about the politically motivated and calculated PR of today than about actual concerns or events. Unless he appears on the South lawn wearing his underwear on his head or something like that, I think this topic is not worth reopening. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 14:42, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

• Former Trump White House officials and other Republicans close to the White House are increasingly worried about President Trump’s erratic behavior. Just sayin'. soibangla (talk) 01:40, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

There are press reports all over the place, and cable news is full of Trump melting down.Heck you can see it yourself in his "helicopter interviews" and the aftermath of his Whitehouse conferences. All are the equivalent of wearing his underwear on his head. Not to mention his erratic behavior and disjoined speeches in front of his emotional support rallies.Oldperson (talk) 02:00, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Instead of pointless talk page chat, somebody with an overview of the matter should add appropriate article text -- avoiding all the pseudo-psychiatric terms and conditions. SPECIFICO talk 02:27, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

We both know this is too controversial to survive as a BOLD. So it will be reverted and we'll be right back here. I favor skipping those two steps. But you're right as to pointless chat, people should be assembling more solid sources and making arguments based on their content, instead of engaging in WP:NOTFORUM violation. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:29, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

File size graph

Here is a graph of the article's file size over time, starting May 2014. It shows file size at the beginning of each month. This should be useful in any discussions of file size here. Horizontal grid lines are at intervals of 100,000 bytes.

Many thanks to User:Cobaltcigs for creating this graphing script in response to my WP:VPT inquiry asking whether such a script existed. And fast! ―Mandruss ☎ 22:23, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

This is very useful indeed, and serves to remind us all of how important it is to trim the article whenever we can. Two thumbs up! -- Scjessey (talk) 16:20, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Oh gawd. So I had no idea this is the article you meant. But yes, I'd agree that its size is way out of control. ―cobaltcigs 02:51, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

So I tried trimming but got massively reverted. This is short-sighted. The article will only get bigger, with a possible impeachment, possible election campaign, and possible second term — as well as life after politics, death, legacy etc.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:37, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

In my opinion you got massively reverted because you massively trimmed. There is no way the BRD process can handle that much change at one time. People could easily dispute 20 or 30 parts of those edits, requiring us to start 20 or 30 discussions at the same time, and none of them would get the attention they needed simply because there is not enough editor time. That justifiably makes editors nervous. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:08, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

So you want a massive change, but you don't want it to happen. There is no real reason why an editor couldn't revert the removal of particular text, as actually happened. Reverting uncontroversial edits just seems to be pointless and self-destructive. If you want to trim, but have an academic conference about every punctuation mark, I don't think you're going to achieve much. If you want to go down this path, I suggest you put particular sections up for discussion and trim accordingly.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:23, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

So you want a massive change, but you don't want it to happen. I want it to happen at a reasonable pace. This is a simple enough concept that I must assume you are deliberately not hearing me. Further, I have not suggested an academic conference about every punctuation mark. Hyperbolic language suggests hyperbolic thinking, and neither is helpful. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:28, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

I understand you, but I don't agree with you.--Jack Upland (talk) 03:57, 24 October 2019 (UTC)