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In what way does "but" change the meaning of this sentence?

Clear consensus for period/full stop: "He was impeached by the House on December 18, 2019, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. He was acquitted of both charges by the Senate on February 5." The question has received a healthy amount of participation and the margin is so wide that continued discussion would be highly unlikely to change the outcome. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:14, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
Consensus #42 has been added (by JFG) for the period/full stop, with specific text only as an illustrative example. Although the !voting was on specific text, the discussion was only about the best way to connect the two events, so any copy editing that preserves the period/full stop is not covered by the consensus. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:43, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

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

[[1]]

He was impeached by the House on December 18, 2019, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress; he was acquitted of both charges by the Senate on February 5.

versus

He was impeached by the House on December 18, 2019, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, but was acquitted of both charges by the Senate on February 5.

The second sentence flows better as it avoids a semi-colon. May His Shadow Fall Upon You ● 📧 15:57, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

"But" does the same sort of thing as "however" does. It's a subtle suggestion that he was somehow wrongly impeached. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:23, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
Scjessey, can you explain how "but" suggests that the impeachment was wrongful? All it does is contrast the fact that he was impeached versus the fact that he was ultimately acquitted. Maybe the suggestion is so subtle that I'm just not seeing it. May His Shadow Fall Upon You ● 📧 16:46, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
It's a subtle suggestion that he was somehow wrongly impeached. I'd disagree, I think it just says the Senate disagreed with the House. I like apples, but my wife hates them. That doesn't mean I'm wrong to like apples. #2 does flow better and I have no problem with it. ―Mandruss ☎ 16:57, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
A flawed comparison, Mandruss. You and your wife, it's a matter of personal taste. House and Senate is a matter of adjudication. Anyway MOS:OPED. It's for times like this that mankind invented the semicolon. Catenation without misrepresentation. SPECIFICO talk 17:14, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
Feel free to substitute any juxtaposition of two hypothetical opposing views and see if that changes anything. As for OPED, the part about but begins with: More subtly, editorializing can produce implications that are not supported by the sources. So, do sources use but when juxtaposing an impeachment and an acquittal? Why, yes they do. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:25, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
I thought we had consensus not to do the cherrypicking thing around here? SPECIFICO talk 17:51, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
Cherrypicking? If, after 7+ years and 20K+ edits, you honestly think that OPED requires a majority of reliable sources to use but when juxtaposing an impeachment and an acquittal, I suggest you take that up at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Words to watch. I think you know better. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:57, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
Now you're pivoting from fruits to personal remarks? That suggests you have no substantive basis to offer. Be glad to hear one if you offer it. SPECIFICO talk 18:00, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
How about this instead (no mention of you): Few experienced editors would say that OPED requires a majority of reliable sources to use but when juxtaposing an impeachment and an acquittal. Better? ―Mandruss ☎ 18:06, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
Perhaps an acceptable compromise would be to use the conjunction "and" instead of "but". ~Awilley (talk) 18:26, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
"But" better conveys the House–Senate disagreement and opposition to "but" is without merit. But "and" also has significant source support, so I could live with it. Prefer to wait a few days for more input, however. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:36, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
That's progress. I think you're conceding that "but" changed the meaning of the consensus version with the semicolon. If you share OP's aversion to the semicolon, a period would also do the trick. SPECIFICO talk 18:41, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
Sure, I'll "concede" that "but" subtly changed the meaning in a good way. I would prefer "and" to a sentence split because I feel it would flow better. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:46, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

"But" in this context feels like WP:WEASEL to me. It doesn't better convey[] the House–Senate disagreement, it conveys the opinion that the impeachment by the House was somehow nullified by the Senate. I seem to remember a lot of back-and-forth about it in edit summaries and on this very Talk page. I was considering the sentence split when I noticed this discussion, BUT I could also live with "and." Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 19:11, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Yes, there we have it in a nutshell (to return to the produce aisle). It's not like tastes in fruit or other subjective judgments where we expect variation without such variation implying inherent characteristics of the underlying object. Both chambers were performing the same analysis and the "but" clearly will imply to a significant fraction of our readers that the House's impeachment conclusions were mistaken. SPECIFICO talk 20:13, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
The strength of your argument is not increased by repetition. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:38, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

For those curious about the two existing precedents for this situation.

From Andrew Johnson permalink in case watchers run-off to make changes to support their case.

...culminating in his impeachment by the House of Representatives, but he was subsequently acquitted in the Senate by one vote.

And from Bill Clinton likewise permalinked.

In 1998, Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives,...(one and a half sentences of intervening material)...He was acquitted by the Senate and completed his term in office.

Participants in the discussion can make of that what they will. 74.73.230.72 (talk) 21:23, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

To me, the impeachment and subsequent acquittal are two completely separate things. They should be separate sentences or separate clauses at the very least, and I would not personally favor linking them with but/however/and/whatever. With that said, this is not a hill I have any intention of dying on. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:43, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
  • If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a merry Christmas. I prefer "but", though I would be okay with "and". Not a fan of semicolon. PackMecEng (talk) 22:46, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
  • But is best. It does not imply a relationship that doesn't exist. Impeachment and acquittal are not completely separate. He was charged with articles of impeachment by the House, but acquitted by the Senate. "Charged, but acquitted" is the normal way of putting things.--Jack Upland (talk) 23:08, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
    • Per @Scjessey: in this instance, the impeachment and the acquittal were two entirely separate matters. Jack, I don't thing arguing from what's "normal" -- which is at best original research -- is a fruitful approach to this question. Let me ask this, however, what is the problem with either a semicolon or a period between the impeachment and the acquittal. We've heard from several editors that "but" is a serious NPOV problem. If on the opposite side we have only editors's subjective reactions to various modes of punctuation -- even when the meaning is perfectly clear -- that objection doesn't seem very convincing. SPECIFICO talk 23:40, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
      • Sincere apologies if I'm reading your comment wrong, but it sounds like you are asserting your position as patently superior because you've cited NPOV. One purpose of this discussion is to decide whether but would in fact violate NPOV, and my position is that it would not. This debate will come down to numbers unless you want to wait for an uninvolved close. That you find other arguments unconvincing means nothing except that you are unconvinced. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:08, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
        • No apologies necessary, Mandruss, but yes I am saying that "but" is POV for the reasons I and others have explained above. It suggests the Senate invalidated the conclusions of the House investigation. Opinions will differ on that, but the simple catenation without MOS:OPED is neutral and allows that issue to be dealt with the requisite length and detail, elsewhere. There's no consensus, so numbers don't really enter into it. We had established text and a proposed POV change was rejected so the matter is really settled -- unless somebody launches an RfC over a semicolon. What's wrong with a semicolon anyway? I don't hear any answers to that, except that it's a less common usage than the incorrect "but". That would be a terrible basis for an editing decision. We'd end up writing in the most common words and sentence structures found in written the most widespread English documents like electronic device FAQ's and dishwasher instruction manuals. No semicolons to be found there. SPECIFICO talk 00:44, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
          • Semicolons are terrible. PackMecEng (talk) 00:48, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
          • On my laptop a semicolon differs from a comma by one pixel, one pixel being indistinguishable from a speck of dust, specks of dust being a regular occurrence for me. (Never mind the readers whose vision isn't good enough to see one pixel or a speck of dust, and per MOS:ACCESS we are supposed to consider them when we edit Wikipedia.) That potential "typographic ambiguity" is enough to make me avoid semicolons whenever I can, and there is almost always an acceptable alternative to a semicolon. But it's a relatively minor point and, if anybody here is resting their entire argument on opposition to the semicolon, I differ with them. And, no, the matter is not really settled simply because you have attached the letters "POV" to the change. That it's POV is your opinion, nothing more, even if others agree with you. Happy to take this to the community if you wish to press that point. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:55, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
@Mandruss:: I don't have said problems with distractions and mistaken clicks [pixels masquerading as specks of dust], so I guess we cancel each other out on that. I fall squarely into the slightly-vision-impaired category; without my glasses all I see on my screen are blurry lines. MOS:ACCESS mentions all sorts of things, including the large default font size used by the visually impaired, but I don't see anything about avoiding specific characters or punctuation marks. Seems to me that any problem distinguishing between punctuation marks it would involve the colon and the semicolon. I also think that most people who need glasses wear glasses (or contact lenses) and that you underestimate the average WP reader. (Ctrl)+(+) and (Ctrl)+(-) and stretching out and pinching two fingers are pretty basic. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 15:05, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
@Space4Time3Continuum2x: I indicated it's a minor point, and it's probably not worth this much server storage space. That said, it's still a minor point against semicolons. In the second paragraph at MOS:SMALLTEXT (part of the guideline about accessibility), we recommend against any text "below 85% of the page's default font size". That's any text smaller than this. Thus we're saying that features far larger than one pixel are too small for Wikipedia accessibility. I myself can barely see that pixel, and only when I look directly at it, and those who so blithely dismiss this point may sue me for failing to keep my glasses prescription updated like I should. I otherwise have no problems reading Wikipedia. Seems to me that any problem distinguishing between punctuation marks it would involve the colon and the semicolon. No, because the visual difference between comma and semicolon is less than that between colon and semicolon. The former is one pixel (for me, and it may be more in other fonts) and the latter is more like five pixels. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:38, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
@Space4Time3Continuum2x: (Ctrl)+(+) and (Ctrl)+(-) and stretching out and pinching two fingers are pretty basic. You're suggesting that, every time they see punctuation that looks like a comma to them, they should enlarge it to determine whether it's actually a semicolon? I would suggest that that is an unreasonable expectation. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:01, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
If your vision is impaired enough that you can't see normal punctuation, you should probably be using a screen reader. We can't start changing the way we write Wikipedia articles so as to avoid punctuation! -- Scjessey (talk) 12:26, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
There's "normal" punctuation, and then there's punctuation that differs from another punctuation character by one solitary pixel. And yes, the semicolon in this case is eminently avoidable, even for staunch "but" opponents. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:31, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
And what is your position on helium, Mamdruss? It's this/close to hydrogen. SPECIFICO talk 22:13, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Back to the matter at hand

Didn't you just mention the nuance, i.e., impeachment being possible without a trial? BTW, comparing this to you liking and your wife hating apples is apples and oranges, IMO. Seems I was wrong about wp:weasel, but "but" in this case may "possibly unduly call[] the validity of the first statement into question while giving undue weight to the credibility of the second." This is a fraught topic, so WP should be as bland as possible. "And" is a reasonable compromise, IMO. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 06:02, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
I'm still prepared to accept "and" as a suboptimal compromise (compromises are suboptimal by definition). I'm also still asking for a few more days for more input, as contrasted to declaring this really settled after about nine hours because a few editors have asserted NPOV. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:13, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
From this conversation, I think anything but "but" (or "however" etc) is POV and inaccurate. Impeachment and trial are not separate. If the purpose is to suggest that they are separate, then this pushing a very biased and false opinion. Wikipedia has to accept that Trump was acquitted, rightly or wrongly.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:39, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
A good compromise leaves everybody mad. (Calvin&Hobbes) More than willing to make do with my preferred choice for a few more days. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 14:59, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Jack Upland, Trump has been impeached for abuse of power (230/197) and obstruction (229/198) by the House of Representatives. That guilty verdict stands forever. The House of Representatives found him guilty, and what happened in the Senate does not "undo" that verdict. The Senate held a trial on the same charges and acquitted him, and that's their vote. That also stands, but it does not undo the House impeachment. He has joined the short list of impeached Presidents. The Senate acquittal has no effect on the House impeachment. -- BullRangifer (talk) 17:38, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
That is not how it works. The house charges and the senate holds the trial.[2] He was not convicted by the house, he was charged by the house. He is forever impeached but again that is not found guilty or rendering a verdict. PackMecEng (talk) 17:44, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
I agree, but I don't accept the "forever impeached" line. Everything that happens is part of history. The impeachment is part of history. While it will be remembered because it is a rare event, it is not ongoing.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:14, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
The semicolon is bad and the comma unnecessary. Other than that either “and” or “but” seem the same. I don’t understand what the concern is — Acquittal from the trial *is* declaring him innocent of the charges. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 08:36, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Scjessey, They aren't separate things, though. The impeachment was the charge, and the acquittal was the outcome of the charge. They are inextricably linked and there is no way to separate them. May His Shadow Fall Upon You ● 📧 13:11, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Shadow, you are stating a view that the weight of mainstream RS reporting rejects. And in raising this as a justification for what you initially claimed (unconvincingly) was merely a matter of punctuation, you are conceding that your edit changes the meaning. The consensus here appears to be that it changes the meaning from NPOV to tilt to "Trump exonerated" in phony hoax witchhunt Democrat impeachment. Let's move on and let the established semicolon text rest in peace. SPECIFICO talk 13:38, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
I agree. Trump was impeached, and he will forever be so, irrespective of the sham "trial" that followed it. These are the facts firmly established by reliable sources. Despite the link, these were separate events conducted in separate bodies, in much the same way as a presidential election is separate from a presidency. Having said that, I think the change of meaning brought about by a "but" is fairly subtle, so I'm not as dead set against it as SPECIFICO and others. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:06, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
SPECIFICO, I am not conceding that my edit changes the meaning at all. "But" is used to contrast the position of the House against the position of the Senate. In fact, this is the same way that it's used in the Andrew Johnson article without any objection there. Now, apparently you and Scjessey are contending that the impeachment has no connection to the trial despite the fact that the Constitution would disagree with you. I think I will need a source which says that these are wholly independent things. I understand that the whole "impeached forever" line is very popular in politics these days, which I assume is where you're getting at, but look at the text of Article II Section 4 of the Constitution: The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. Clearly, impeachment and the trial go hand-in-hand as far as the Constitution is concerned. Do you have any reliable sources which state otherwise? May His Shadow Fall Upon You ● 📧 14:13, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
"...apparently you and Scjessey are contending that the impeachment has no connection to the trial..."
I do not make that contention at all. They are obviously connected; however, they are also independent of one another. You can have an impeachment without a trial (something Mandruss mentioned earlier). "But" is a conjunction used to add a contrasting clause, which means in the example being discussed it is working in the same way as "however" would. It's a subtle way of suggesting the impeachment doesn't count because of the acquittal, but it absolutely does count. Trump is, and always will be, an impeached president. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:58, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Scjessey, It's a subtle way of suggesting the impeachment doesn't count because of the acquittal, but it absolutely does count. Trump is, and always will be, an impeached president. Can you unpack this for me a bit? I still can't see how contrasting the House's position with the Senate's position, in any way, suggests that the impeachment "doesn't count." May His Shadow Fall Upon You ● 📧 15:09, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
What Scjessey said. Reliable sources: How about the Congressional Research Service? It's the source for the first sentence of the Impeachment section. Quoting the second paragraph of the Introduction on page 1 (page 4 of the PDF): Although the term “impeachment” is commonly used to refer to the removal of a government official from office, the impeachment process, as described in the Constitution, entails two distinct proceedings carried out by the separate houses of Congress. ... Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 15:02, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Space4Time3Continuum2x, Of course it's two distinct proceedings, but can anyone say with a straight face that the trial is completely independent of the impeachment? May His Shadow Fall Upon You ● 📧 15:10, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Define completely independent. Also, if you were looking for precedent, why did you select Johnson's 1868 impeachment instead of Clinton's in 1998? That one covers impeachment and Senate acquittal in two sentences divided by a period. The wording has been stable for at least 2 years, but this edit on November 13, 2019, moved it from the third paragraph of the lead into the first one. That was the day of the first public hearing (Bill Taylor and George Kent) in the House. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 19:00, 12 February 2020 (UTC) Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 19:06, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Dear Shadow: So now you're pivoting to OTHERSTUFF and Original Research. Do you really have such a strong opinion on ordinary punctuation used throughout the Western languages. The semicolon has endured since Classical times; its standing is secure. SPECIFICO talk 15:06, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
SPECIFICO, I was a little taken aback by the responses I got here. I had no idea that the use of the semi-colon was, apparently, intended to suggest that the House impeachment and the Senate trial were unconnected. From the other comments I've seen on here, it appears that some editors are very keen on Nancy Pelosi's "impeached forever" slogan. This is still something hard for me to wrap my mind around, but I guess this is where the discussion has led us. Absolutely not where I thought it would go when I posted this section. Regardless, I had asked you for a source which states that the Senate trial is unconnected from the House impeachment. You still haven't provided one. May His Shadow Fall Upon You ● 📧 15:13, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Shadow: Oh so it is a matter of POV? Are you really choosing to die on this tweak? I'm seeing one flawed excuse after the other, but without any consensus for changing established article text. Time to move on. SPECIFICO talk 15:06, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
SPECIFICO, Time for an RFC I suppose. May His Shadow Fall Upon You ● 📧 19:23, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Lord help us, No. Drop the stick. SPECIFICO talk 19:46, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
SPECIFICO, There's nothing wrong with soliciting outside opinions. May His Shadow Fall Upon You ● 📧 20:11, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
That's completely out of line. WP:STICK applies when there is a minority of one. Please stop trying to shut down this discussion prematurely. And yes, an RfC may be called for because there is more at stake here than mere punctuation. A handful of editors are pushing a POV while accusing others of pushing a POV, and that may warrant community attention. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:21, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Not every analysis is a POV Mandruss. I'm seeing consistency logic and clarity from those who favour the established text and a smorgasbord from the but contingent. Anyway, the RfC can solicit community-wide help with the issue raised in OP's article edit summary, to wit:(colon) Agree or disagree that BUT flows better than ; SPECIFICO talk 20:33, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
SPECIFICO, Of course, that edit was made before all of this very "interesting" discussion on the implications of "but." May His Shadow Fall Upon You ● 📧 21:01, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Shadow, Pelosi is right. Trump has been impeached for abuse of power (230/197) and obstruction (229/198) by the House of Representatives. That guilty verdict stands forever. The House of Representatives found him guilty, and what happened in the Senate does not "undo" that verdict. The Senate held a trial on the same charges and acquitted him, and that's their vote. That also stands, but it does not undo the House impeachment. He has joined the short list of impeached Presidents. The Senate acquittal has no effect on the House impeachment. -- BullRangifer (talk) 17:44, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Not how it works, see my response above. PackMecEng (talk) 17:47, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
BullRangifer, This is really getting into "not a forum" territory, although I will note that the House did not issue a "verdict", nor did they "find him guilty." (And if you can produce a reliable source stating such, I will be very surprised.) May His Shadow Fall Upon You ● 📧 19:24, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Compromise Solution: Current text - "He was impeached by the House on December 18, 2019, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress; he was acquitted of both charges by the Senate on February 5, 2020." Proposed change: "He was impeached by the House on December 18, 2019, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress and was acquitted of both charges by the Senate on February 5, 2020." This uses and instead of but. I'm not interested in fighting a political war over a semi-colon. I'm taking a NPOV. All I want is the sentence to read well. May His Shadow Fall Upon You ● 📧 15:16, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Hillary Clinton "forever" won the Democratic primaries in 2016. This is completely distinct from the presidential elections.--Jack Upland (talk) 19:24, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
  • The current version (with the semicolon) is preferable. It is factual, neutrally presented, and reflects a concise, encyclopedic style. The "but" construct carries the tone of exoneration, which is not a faithful reflection of the reality. - MrX 🖋 19:46, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
    • Encylopedic and deadpan. For spin, the Americans have many cable TV stations and facebook and twitter. Encylopedic means listing facts, without insinuating dubious or subjective relationships. The circumstance is that, if we went looking for mainstream media POV, we'd find much more WEIGHT along the lines of "He was acquitted by the Senate, BUT the House witness testimony showed that Trump did XYZ and was guilty of QRSTUVW." Better not to put that in the biography. Better just to state the facts. SPECIFICO talk 21:46, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
  • I disagree with "but". It does imply that the not-guilty verdict somehow nullified or overrode the impeachment. Kind of like "oh, never mind, he was acquitted." They are separate actions, both constitutionally mandated. If people don't like the semicolon, make it two sentences. -- MelanieN (talk) 22:07, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

I agree that “but” should be excluded however, editors like SPECIFICO please be careful by just invoking the mainstream media POV and newspapers in general as we all know these sources hold personal animus toward the subject and are by no means objective. Academic analyses are the more reliable sources.Bsubprime7 (talk) 22:40, 12 February 2020 (UTC)Bsubprime7

  • As I have said elsewhere, I think editors have a tendency to try to undercut anything that seems favourable to Trump; for example, Trump won the election "although" he lost the popular vote. This is biased, and it also gives the articles a begrudging or sniping tone. Claiming that impeachment and the trial are separate is grasping at straws. It makes it sound that Wikipedians are bad losers, and at the moment pretty desperate. If you want to rage against Trump or put forward your novel interpretations of the constitution, go and write a blog.--Jack Upland (talk) 00:17, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Basically everything in this article is at some level biased and factually incorrect. It’s locked, so it cannot be corrected by someone who isn’t biased Travis leitzel (talk) 01:31, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Survey

It seems likely all significant arguments have been made at least once, and some of them several times by the same editors. It's time to take it to survey, and I suggest letting it run through the weekend to allow input from weekend-only editors. I shall start that below. Courtesy ping @May His Shadow Fall Upon You, Scjessey, SPECIFICO, Awilley, Space4Time3Continuum2x, PackMecEng, Jack Upland, BullRangifer, Markbassett, MrX, MelanieN, and Bsubprime7: ―Mandruss ☎ 22:44, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Survey: Semicolon

He was impeached by the House on December 18, 2019, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress; he was acquitted of both charges by the Senate on February 5.

  • Oppose per my earlier comment. Is that the top dot of a semicolon, or a speck of dust on my screen? Impossible to know without wiping my screen with a lens wipe, which should not be a requirement for reading Wikipedia articles. Semicolons were less ambiguous in the days of typewriters. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:44, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Support speck of dust semicolon as first choice, per my previous comments. (Passes Mandruss a ) - MrX 🖋 23:40, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
    I failed to reiterate the point about accessibility. Better pass each slightly-vision-impaired reader a good magnifying glass so they can distinguish between commas and semicolons. While they could enlarge their text to the point where it's no longer a problem, it's unlikely many of them (1) know how to do that and (2) would do it just for that purpose (I can't think of a single other situation where the ability to see one pixel makes such a difference in readability). ―Mandruss ☎ 00:04, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
Here's the response from one of the slightly-vision-impaired. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 15:23, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
Whenever I peer through my glasses at the Trump Wikipedia page, all I see is a need for a stiff drink. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:41, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
Two, one for each eye. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 15:51, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
Here are the responses to the response. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:57, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
. , : ; I must admit that I have no idea how to figure out the visual difference between commas, semicolons; colons: or bullet points· in pixels. Zooming out to a resolution that would make it difficult for me to distinguish between commas and semicolons I'm barely able to see them at all, and reading gets so strenuous (I'm nearsighted) that I automatically zoom in. I can only speak for myself, of course. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 18:34, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Survey: Period/full stop

He was impeached by the House on December 18, 2019, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. He was acquitted of both charges by the Senate on February 5.

If you were looking for precedent, why did you select Johnson's 1868 impeachment instead of Clinton's in 1998? That one covers impeachment and Senate acquittal in two sentences divided by a period. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 15:17, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
Space4Time3Continuum2x, My point is that people act as if "but" is a highly controversial POV statement (for reasons I still cannot discern) yet it has been used uncontroversially in this manner for a very long time. May His Shadow Fall Upon You ● 📧 15:59, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Support - my second choice. Addresses my concerns about proposed conjunctions. Harmlessly breaks the link between the two separate events, but perhaps is not as favorable as the subtle link a semicolon provides. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:07, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Support - what a bizarre and, if I can say so without offending anyone, rather WP:LAME looking discussion... is this really the level that Trump-related mediation has come to? But if this really is a thing then I think the full stop works best. Too many of our articles suffer from overlong sentences and most semicolons and a lot of conjunctions would be more readable by simply starting a new sentence. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 15:19, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
Amakuru: No offense taken. We Trump page regulars are a dedicated lot. Nothing short of "perfect" will do. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 20:38, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
@Space4Time3Continuum2x:  — Amakuru (talk) 22:25, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
JFG, just stop using semicolons period.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:23, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
Told you so! — JFG talk 07:29, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
JFG, Reagan survived a colonectomy; you can survive a semicolonectomy. Oh, I just used one myself: it must be the semicolonavirus.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:51, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
Why is a semicolon larger than a colon? And where do I go to complain about that? ―Mandruss ☎ 09:03, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
To your gastroenterologist? Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 17:21, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Survey: "But"

He was impeached by the House on December 18, 2019, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, but was acquitted of both charges by the Senate on February 5.

"Pretty but dumb" does not mean you're not pretty.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:57, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Support as first choice. This is the same wording we use on the Andrew Johnson article and that never upset anybody. "But" is used to contrast two positions. In this case, the Senate disagreed with the House. Regardless of your own personal opinions, surely we can all agree that the Senate disagreed with the House. Apart from that, I have no idea how "but" implies that the first part of the clause doesn't matter as some have suggested. Let's not rush too hard to spread the party line here that we start arguing for bizarre things. May His Shadow Fall Upon You ● 📧 14:01, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Falsely implies, albeit in a very subtle way, that the impeachment by the House has somehow been negated by the subsequent "acquittal" in the Senate. Niggly little things like this aren't blatantly non-neutral, but they are certainly at the top of a slippery slope. With that said, it really is a subtle change, so I am not in strident opposition. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:14, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose Impeachment is not negated or lessened by acquittal. ValarianB (talk) 16:22, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Implies that the impeachment is nullified by the acquittal. -- BullRangifer (talk) 16:46, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Support This single sentence does convey the impeachment as the whole process, as opposed to impeachment being only the House vote. And I do think Acquittal by definition is a determination of innocence. It doesn’t change that charges were made, but the official result is now the charges were dismissed. “But” suits it as it is a re-BUT-all. While I’d like to see a judicial decision report, the only way I can read it is a precedent seems now established either that this behaviour was OK, or that House behaviour was not. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 05:24, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose per the non-neutral connotation of "but". — JFG talk 06:56, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose. It's a word to watch (MOS:OPED). Since this is a matter of some contention the word might be construed as implying that the second clause somehow rebuts the first one. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 15:52, 15 February 2020 (UTC) Also vice versa - hadn't thought of that. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 16:15, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Survey: "And"

He was impeached by the House on December 18, 2019, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, and was acquitted of both charges by the Senate on February 5.

  • Support as second choice per my earlier comment. Acceptable suboptimal compromise. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:44, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Opposish - It's neutral, but a little less clear and less elegant than the semicolon. - MrX 🖋 23:47, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Support Third choice. Clear and neutral, but a little bit run-on. -- MelanieN (talk) 23:54, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose: I think this isn't clear. It doesn't express the reality that the opinion of the House differed from the Senate. This is likely to confuse young people.--Jack Upland (talk) 00:38, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
    The sentence plainly attributes what the House did and what the Senate did; how is that unclear? — JFG talk 06:59, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
    "I went to the beach and had a swim." "I went to the beach but didn't enter the water." "And" suggests the events flow on from each other. This construction, to a gormless youngster, could suggest that the two votes naturally followed from each other. If someone said, "I was charged and acquitted", I think most people would be bemused. Normally, you would say charged but acquitted, or charged and convicted. "And" suggests a continuous, uninterrupted process.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:45, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
    Maybe it's just me, but if I went on trial and got acquitted, I'd be pleased to state that I was indeed charged and acquitted. "Charged but acquitted" can be interpreted as giving undue legitimacy to the acquittal or even undue legitimacy to the charge. Only "and" sounds neutral to my semicolonavirus-infested mind. — JFG talk 07:58, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
    @JFG: He remains in office, so it's clear which of the two events the U.S. Constitution considers more important. What's non-neutral is pushing language that consciously and intentionally obscures that relationship – and, per a lot of the comments here, even seeks to make the impeachment seem more important than the acquittal based on evidence-free claims that that's what the preponderance of reliable sources are saying. ―Mandruss ☎ 08:33, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
    I agree. The acquittal does overrule the charge. And Trump is still in power. I am very concerned about the lack of neutrality in these claims.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:37, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
    POV pushing aside, other "but" opponents are seeking a false balance. The two events are not equal in importance and it's the opposite of neutral to present them as such. ―Mandruss ☎ 08:56, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose This has all the flaws of "but" with the additional problem that it will mislead readers into thinking the separate impeachment and acquittal proceedings were actually a single event. I agree with Jack on this one. SPECIFICO talk 00:51, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Support The impeachment happened. Then the trial happened. Two events connected by "and", which is exactly what "and" is supposed to do. May His Shadow Fall Upon You ● 📧 14:02, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Neutral - effectively my third choice. Slightly strengthens the link provided by a semicolon, but does not do the harm that a "but" or "however" could introduce. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:09, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Third choice ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 17:36, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Support - “and” or “but” seem pretty much the same to me. Either one portrays the Impeachment as both House vote and Senate trial, and either one portrays the Senate Acquittal. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 05:28, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Support, first choice – Clearly distinguishes the House and Senate processes, while linking them as one necessarily follows the other. "And" is neutral while "but" isn't. — JFG talk 06:58, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose. As I understand it, the semicolon indicates a closer connection between independent sentences than the serial comma followed by "and," but the Iowa caucus system of establishing consensus makes my head hurt. Sticking to my first and second choices. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 16:08, 15 February 2020 (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.

They won’t change protections bc they don’t want anyone editing their biased article Travis leitzel (talk) 01:44, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Further Reading section

The further reading page just has one book, by Larry Light. From what I can see, it probably has only a bit of info on Donald Trump. The other further reading books were removed on July 28, 2019 by User:Finnertop, because they were also footnoted. I understand Finnertop’s point , but just having Larry Lights book is probably unintentionally misleading. Can a compromise be made to put in some of the footnoted books into the further reading section?Rich (talk) 05:23, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

They have to remain where they are because they are cited in the text, often numerous times. The citation in the text and in the reference list is an abbreviation for the referenced book. Saves time and bits not having to repeat the entire "Cite book" every time. For example, when you click the citation for the sentence At age 13, he was enrolled in the New York Military Academy, a private boarding school in the first paragraph of the "Early life and education" section, you'll see the referenced book and page. In the example, it's Kranish & Fisher 2017, p. 38. The blue color of the page number indicates that you can read the page online by clicking the number. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 20:07, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
Why does the "Works cited" say that This section is ONLY for books that are cited in footnotes of this Wikipedia article.? Are the references considered to be footnotes? Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 20:07, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
Yes. Some say reference, some say footnote, depending on their background. It is Wikipedia tradition to have several names for the same thing, so nobody has to adapt their terminology to Wikipedia. The resulting confusion and increased learning curve don't matter. In this case, just to add to the confusion factor and problems with clear communication, we even have at least two things with the same name, footnote. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:29, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

I removed this section, I don't think I "broke" anything but if the book is that notable or that important for citations, it can be added as a reference it seems. --Malerooster (talk) 01:52, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 27 February 2020

A targeted U.S. airstrike, on January 3, 2020 Megha Parmarr (talk) 09:07, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

 Not done Not clear of what you are trying to say and you need to specify reliable sources. Abishe (talk) 09:19, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 25 February 2020

Hello. I would like to say, can you mention he moved to Florida in the article? It is partially due to taxes and partially due to party alignment-Florida is WAY more Republican than New York Gale5050 (talk) 22:21, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

 Not done Please propose a specific change you want to make, along with suitable sourcing (see WP:Biographies of living persons and WP:Reliable sources). Also, consider making the change to one of the many other articles about various aspects of Mr. Trump's life. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 22:41, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Just remember, we go by RS here. It is also very important to remember, NPOV means we go by the POV of what RS say. PackMecEng (talk) 04:13, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

It's already in the article, here. -- MelanieN (talk) 22:42, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Consensus #42

Chief Magistrate Mandruss 😎 has amended the close of the semicolon trial; no copyedits have been authorized. I think the Consensus #42 should adopt Space4x' sensible copyedit. If anyone offers a reasonable objection, we can discuss, but I think that the alternative proposed by Mandruss is just asking for trouble down the road. Does anybody object to adopting the current wording: He was impeached by the House on December 18, 2019, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. On February 5, 2020, Trump was acquitted of both charges by the Senate.? Please speak now or hold your peace. SPECIFICO talk

I'm confused. Please lay out the two options as an A or B situation. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:31, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
Hi sorry I got the wrong diff. Here is the change: It avoids repeating "He" at the beginning of consecutive sentences; a touch of class to the end of the lead, IMO — Preceding unsigned comment added by SPECIFICO (talk • contribs) 18:08, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
Actually, I would alter the sentence before and do it like this:

Trump was impeached by the House on December 18, 2019, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. He was acquitted of both charges by the Senate on February 5, 2020.

or this:

Trump was impeached by the House on December 18, 2019, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. On February 5, 2020, he was acquitted of both charges by the Senate.

-- Scjessey (talk) 18:33, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
FTR, the "flexible" nature of #42 was something JFG and I settled on at User talk:JFG##42. I feel the need to emphasize that comments such as Chief Magistrate Mandruss, even if tongue-in-cheek, may be misleading to some and run the risk of creating unnecessary conflict. I may be one of the main facilitators at this article, along with JFG, Mgasparin, and others, but I am certainly nothing resembling a "chief magistrate". I think we should consider the tenuous nature of the relative peace at this article and be more careful what we joke about.
As closer, I have no objection to a inflexible consensus if that's what the group prefers, and that's what we've done in the past. Hey Mgasparin, let's hold off archiving #In what way does "but" change the meaning of this sentence? per the "challenged closure" clause of #13. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:17, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
Well, the suggestion that you and JFG would go off for an ex parte confab and come up with anything is kind of ridiculous, given how much rigid process we have on this page. I initially commented there and then moved my comment here exactly to avoid duplicating some side chat. A flexible closure will only ensure more waste of time process in the future. No, I don't think the change from semicolon to period (though OK) is a big enough improvement to justify the time and attention spent on it. Thanks for asking. I'm not aware of any seething conflict here. The POV editing has generally evaporated as the POV narratives have become untenable and rejected by all but the conspiracy theorists and political operatives. SPECIFICO talk 21:55, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
I'm not aware of any seething conflict here. You've apparently missed my point about the humor, so never mind. But now I'm thoroughly confused. I thought you were seeking a modification of the #42 text, to Space4x' sensible copyedit, and the removal of its flexibility. Of No, I don't think the change from semicolon to period (though OK) is a big enough improvement to justify the time and attention spent on it. Thanks for asking. I can make no sense at all, as I haven't asked about that. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:05, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
Mandruss Will do, thanks for communicating that with me. Mgasparin (talk) 22:10, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
Real simple, Mandruss: There was a bad edit. Several editors pointed out it was an invalid POV tilt. It should simply have been reverted end of story on to more important uses of editor time. Instead, with your guidance, we had one of the longest length-to-benefit-ratio wastes of time, including a formal poll, that basically confirmed that the initial edit was a bad move. The improvement from semicolon to period was a separate matter; it could easily have been a routine edit after the initial POV misstep was undone. Does that clarify what I failed to communicate above? As to "flexible consensus" it's only going to result in a replay of the same pointless scenario. Somebody will make a one word change and we'll go through another 32 inches of discussion and polls. If there is to be a "Consensus List" let it be operationally robust and state a bright line wording. I don't hear anyone objecting to Space4x's improved wording, so that can just go into the list. Only if somebody challenges it do we need to go through another mock trial. BTW, I haven't been around here much recently. Surprised to see you giving instructions to Mgasparin; whatever. Cheers. I have no more to say on this one. SPECIFICO talk 01:36, 17 February 2020 (UTC) SPECIFICO talk 01:48, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
I don't think this was a waste of time because it has exposed a huge difference of opinion about what Trump's acquittal means.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:55, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
I think it just exposed various casual opinions about punctuation. The POV part we could have predicted, but it did not dominate the discussion. SPECIFICO talk 02:13, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
What a load of ridiculous WP:BATTLEGROUND BS. I am not going to spend the time to count the editors who felt that discussion was worthy of their participation. Of all those editors, one other commented that it was a "rather lame" discussion,[8] and yet participated anyway. And somehow it's all my fault, as if I forced all of them, and you, to participate. Clearly enough, this is part of your one-man Mandruss derangement syndrome. I agree, having no more to say on this one is a good call on your part. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:00, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
SPECIFICO, Could you please WP:AGF with my edit and quit casting POV aspersions about it? May His Shadow Fall Upon You ● 📧 14:37, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
Shadow, I don't see any AGF issue with my comment. I did not say, and do not think, that you intentionally tried to slip a POV edit past us. So no aspersions. You claimed that you were not aware of the POV tilt until it was discussed on talk. I don't question that. On the other hand, you chose not to self-revert -- so there's that. In an article that's been heavily edited and its sources and narratives vetted over the past 3-4 years, we are fortunate no longer to have overt POV problems, as we did with folks denying "Russian interference" etc. in the early days of Trump's presidency. Most of the recent problems have come from little tweaks of language that change the meaning of sentences or narratives. I think we're now developing an acute awareness of such issues, and this was just the most recent example. Cheers. SPECIFICO talk 14:52, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
SPECIFICO, You claimed that you were not aware of the POV tilt until it was discussed on talk. You're implying that I now agree there's a POV problem, which I do not. I didn't even comprehend that some people would consider this to be a POV problem until it was brought to talk, and frankly, I still do not understand the objection and I think it amounts to chasing POV ghosts. That being said, I supported every single alternative aside from the semi-colon, which means that you and I agreed on various alternatives. So continually calling my edit "POV" is needlessly antagonistic at this point since we've reached a resolution, and there was nothing POV about it. May His Shadow Fall Upon You ● 📧 15:15, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
This seems to be very important to you. Once again, I didn't see anyone call you POV, but but was POV in the eyes of nearly a dozen editors and most of them explained their reasoning for that conclusion. Be that as it may, I accept your statement that you do not understand the objection. Cheers. SPECIFICO talk 15:59, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
SPECIFICO, Well I'm glad you accept my statement. Not sure I was going to get to sleep until that happened. May His Shadow Fall Upon You ● 📧 20:07, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Everyone needs to calm down and watch YouTube videos of baby goats, or something (example), then come back and have a think about the wording that was being discussed at the top of the thread. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:15, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

My last edit changed the wording to The House impeached Trump on December 18, 2019, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. On February 5, 2020, the Senate acquitted him of both charges., using one of your suggestions and switching to active voice as suggested by another editor during the general discussion. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 15:07, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Mandruss, JFG: The survey wasn't just about semicolon versus period. With the current wording, seems to me that a construction like ... obstruction of Congress. However, on February 5, 2020, ... would not violate the wording of consensus #42. IMO that does not reflect the results of the survey with 3 editors supporting ", but" as first choice and 9 opposing it. That's a pretty clear statement against buts, howevers, etc. in any context. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 15:07, 17 February 2020 (UTC) Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 15:10, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Point taken about the inadequacy of the current close language, but I don't think it would be worthwhile to pursue a different "soft" close. We could debate for a month about how best to word that, in a cascade of self-feeding bureaucracy. I suggest one of the following:
  • Install the consensus text in the article, whereupon the consensus will be changed to inflexible like virtually all the others. Start on any amendment proposals.
  • Or I could remove my close, back away, and let others close it differently and deal with the consequences. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:51, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
Gratified to see Mandruss agree with me about the perils of the soft close. SPECIFICO talk 18:56, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, maybe I've failed to be clear on that. I went along because the article was already diverging from the consensus text, and I didn't want to end up being referred to as "Chief Magistrate" or something. My preference has always been for "hard" consensuses, even if they require amendment discussions for the most innocuous of copy edits. How innocuous a change is is very often a matter of opinion. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:03, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

I've stated what I would prefer here (my bullet 1 above), but I hesitate to do it unilaterally. If this thread dies for lack of further interest, status quo will prevail and that will not be optimal. The subject discussion will be auto-archived on Sunday unless something happens to prevent that. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:20, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm happy with the wording as it is currently in the article. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:24, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
@Scjessey: At this point the main question is what to do with the close and the consensus item. ―Mandruss ☎ 12:36, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
I suggest adding five words to consensus item 42 to reflect the strong opposition to the conjuction: House and Senate outcomes of the impeachment process are separated by a full stop and do not include "but." But I can also live with the current version and keep a watch for words to watch. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 16:06, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

This page is bumping up against Wikipedia's technical limits

At least twice recently this article has entered and been removed from Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded‎‎. This is bad. See the discussion at the top of that category page for more details.

The easiest fix is to split the article. However, a split should be done after a discussion.

In the meantime, if there are templates that can be removed, even temporarily, that might buy time.

Here are some example revisions. For those listed as "added," you will see that some of the templates at the bottom of the page do not load properly. If you load the "source" for these pages and search for "Post‐expand include size" you will see a number close to or at 2097152.

davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 17:57, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

The problem is editors don't want to shorten the article.--Jack Upland (talk) 18:20, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
The problem is Wikipedia has technical limits. No wait, the problem is that Wikipedia has to have technical limits to prevent its servers from being over-taxed. Unfortunately, the only solutions in the short term involve either changing the article or rewriting some of the templates. Rewriting templates used by other pages may be controversial in its own right. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 18:24, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
I wonder if the powers that be would be willing to increase the limit by a little. Sorry if that sounds silly, I don't know a lot about how servers work. Mgasparin (talk) 18:46, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Question: Are the technical limits based on total bytes or only text? -- BullRangifer (talk) 18:54, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

They are based on the number of templates used. This article uses the {{cite}} template over 800 times, for example. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:21, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
Good let's remove all the references! I took away 2 photos that don't show anything sinificant. But seriously, I don't see many unnecessary cites in this article. SPECIFICO talk 19:29, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
The ONLY way forward is to make more use of the summary style approach and shunt as much content off into subpages as possible, leaving only the briefest of summaries for each subpage in the main article. The article lead becomes a "summary of summaries" and the article body becomes summaries of subpages. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:33, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
Not sure that helps much if the problem is citations. This is intractable. We need Mandruss on the scene. SPECIFICO talk
If you use "summary style" some information will be removed from this article. The references that back up the removed information can be removed if they are not otherwise needed. Also, once the server hardware issues are resolved (ETA Feb. 26?), we can run Reflinks or reFill which will merge duplicate references. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 19:44, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
The 2MB template limit is the total number of bytes output by templates during processing. It includes output from one template to another. The navboxes currently use 0.5MB (25% of the limit). This number is increased by using the code {{Navboxes|list1 = {{US Presidents}} ...}}. The output of {{US Presidents}} and many other navboxes is counted twice because it's first passed to {{Navboxes}}. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:06, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
Whatever happens, all necessary references should be kept, as they are the basis for all content. For BLP-sensitive claims, the content should have at least 2-3 refs, sometimes more.
Shunting content to SPINOFF sub-articles is a good way to reduce content.
Question: Are the technical limits related to regular PC download time, to cellphone download time, and/or other factors? -- BullRangifer (talk) 20:37, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

@BullRangifer: Read Wikipedia:Template limits then ask any questions you have on the associated talk page. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 20:43, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Generally agree with Scjessey, since (1) we should be doing that even without this technical issue per #Current consensus #37, and (2) we may very well have another five years to go and the current approach is clearly unsustainable for that length of time. You could call that my first preference. But it's proven to be a hard sell, and getting there would involve a lot of work including a lot of discussion. SPECIFICO, removing images did nothing to alleviate the technical issue since images don't use templates (unless a template is invoked in the caption or something). If any of the "bottom material" (navboxes etc) can be eliminated, we should do that. I haven't a clue how much of that is really needed – all I know is that, as a reader, I have personally never used any of that at this article or any other. What's unacceptable to me is having this technical issue rear its ugly head on a monthly basis, and the last time was on 18 January, here. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:05, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
Mandruss: I've also never used the "bottom material" (navboxes etc.) or the stuff in the "This is part of a series on" infobox. "Series" infobox, navbars, and categories also seem to be linking to the same pages. Couldn't they all be replaced by one link to a page "Donald Trump series" or something similar? Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 08:40, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
@Space4Time3Continuum2x: If you're looking for a technical answer, it's "yes". That doesn't mean something like that would be accepted. It's remarkable how much we do merely because that's how it's usually been done elsewhere. "If it's common, it must be Good." I'm an opponent of that kind of thinking, but I think I'm usually in a small minority. Also there are many editors who make claims about what readers need or want, and I've yet to learn how they know that. And finally, many editors feel that articles of a similar type should be consistent in a lot of ways like that, despite the fact that that rarely has any basis in Wikipedia PAGs. All one can do is float proposal(s) and see what happens. There are no bad ideas, only failed proposals. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:14, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
davidwr, you obviously know more about this than I do. I noticed the recommendation to use <references /> rather than {{reflist}} per Wikipedia:Template limits#Working within the limits. How much difference does that make? Should we deprecate {{reflist}}? -- BullRangifer (talk) 21:15, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
Replacing {{reflist}} with <references /> saved less than 1,000 bytes, sorry. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 21:32, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
Removing accessdate from the cites would save about 13,000 bytes. Wouldn't last long. O3000 (talk) 21:50, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
Accessdate is important meta-data. Ideally, all references would also include |archiveurl= and |archivedate= too. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 22:04, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
Clearly we need to sacrifice some "ideals" at this article. We already have a consensus to omit the archive params except for deadlinks, seen at #Current consensus #25. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:08, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
Thankfully! Some editors add archiveURL for every single link, and I've seen an article grow by over 100,000 bytes in a single edit. It makes articles harder to edit. No, use them only for real dead links. -- BullRangifer (talk) 22:55, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
Listing rather than expanding the flag-heavy templates in the "Leadership Roles" navigation template at the end got the post-expand include size down to 1901806, saving over 100,000 bytes. Here is the self-revert of that edit if anyone wants to compare.[9] davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 22:03, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
Being ignorant as I said, I'm fine with that. If he loses the election, it might even be a long-term solution. I encourage everyone to vote Democratic for the sake of this article. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:13, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
As an added plus, we won't have to keep dealing with the weekly complaint that this article is biased. What a blessing that would be! Mgasparin (talk) 02:36, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
@Mgasparin: Thanks for giving me a place to say something I wished I had said in the edit request before it was closed. To wit: Awhile back I suggested we develop a complete but concise, specific to this article response to the bias claims and save it somewhere. For those aware of it, it would then be a simple matter to provide the best possible response every time. My suggestion got little traction. It could be a subpage of this page, and then the first responder could simply link to it. "Please read Talk:Donald Trump/Response to claims of anti-Trump article bias." ―Mandruss ☎ 02:56, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
You said that just after urging everyone to vote Democrat.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:14, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
Umh - joke? Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 08:23, 22 February 2020 (UTC) The paragraph indentations seem to have been "rearranged" after I posted, so I'm moving my comment back behind the one it was responding to. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 15:58, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
User:Jack Upland Only in the context of ‘for the sake of our template limits’. But then the response to bias claims would seem to be either ‘yes it is’ or ‘shut up and vote Democratic’? Think as responses about bias *that* is just not worth capturing. I doubt it’s really a good idea to do a canned response anyway - it would be offensive, and institutionalized denials making it easier to ignore bias posts would be a barrier to dealing with actual issues. It might just be ‘proof’ that WP of how biased and deaf WP is. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 13:46, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
I think you have that backwards. We never have the time to give the best, most complete answer, so we usually give something far short of one, and that often comes across as dismissive; i.e. "proof" of how biased and deaf WP is. (Sometimes, it actually is dismissive.) Sometimes, it's just flat wrong, highly misleading, or unclear. The two main goals are quality responses and low editor-time cost, and a "canned" response is the only way to meet both goals. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:05, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
Perhaps it is time to take this article to AFD? PackMecEng (talk) 22:04, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
"Delete - too notable for Wikipedia" LOL. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 22:05, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
Either that or per WP:TNT! PackMecEng (talk) 22:19, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Joking aside, there is a presidential election ahead, there may be more scandals and investigations before that, and Trump has a fair chance of winning the election and serving four more years, and after that he might have a post-political career, and he will die, and he will have a legacy of some kind to document. It's better to make a major change now that to revisit this issue next month or next year.--Jack Upland (talk) 02:32, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Do we have "common consent" to "not show" the "leadership role" templates as an emergency fix for Wikipedia technicial limits

See also: § This page is bumping up against Wikipedia's technical limits

We can reduce the "Post-expand include size" by about 100,000 bytes by making the "Leadership roles" navigation template at the bottom contain links to other navigation templates rather than the expanded templates. with change, without change, with/without diff. Click on "show" on the right side to un-collapse the "Leadership roles" template.

If nobody objects within 24 hours, and the article is still bumping up against the limit, I or another editor should make the change. This will buy editors a few weeks so they can trim the article or make other changes to make room for the rest of Trump's Presidency and post-Presidential life. If anyone objects, I won't do it. If the article is not bumping up against the limits by this time tomorrow I won't do it.

If I or another editor removes it, it should be restored as soon as the article has been trimmed down enough that it can be put back without causing it to approach the limit. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 22:35, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

  • Support the change, with the repeated caveat that I know nothing about the real need for those navboxes. Any other bridges can be crossed when we come to them, no need to make those decisions now. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:45, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Support. Mostly irrelevant anyway. -- BullRangifer (talk) 22:48, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Support as a basic maintenance need. - MrX 🖋 22:57, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Soft objection as we should be reducing the article's content instead, but I'm willing to hear the merits of this proposal. Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:53, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Support: they seem like junk anyway.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:29, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Support per comments above; however, we simply must take advantage of summary style to shed some content. It's the only sustainable path forward. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:47, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Soft objection also - I think it’s unavoidable to do this short-term, and agree these seem expendable. But also agree we should be at least discussing how to be reducing content. I have added a section below to try to do that, asking about a couple ways to trim cites. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 15:21, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
    @Markbassett: This is not a proposal not to discuss how to be reducing content. It is not a binary choice. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:51, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
    My objection is because it seems like a binary choice. I don't see any serious discussion of reducing content. Onetwothreeip (talk) 20:59, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
    @Onetwothreeip: Define "serious". We regularly have those discussions and they sometimes result in some reduction. But lasting improvement requires fairly dramatic change, and that's hard to pass. For an example see #Media career. If you are thinking that rejecting this proposal will force those things to be discussed and passed, it may be because you haven't hung out at this page a lot for the past two or three years. (Mark doesn't have that excuse.) ―Mandruss ☎ 21:11, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
    I mean discussions that meaningfully and consistently result in reduction. There have definitely been some positive outcomes here and there, but overall I have not seen discussion over needed dramatic change. I don't think rejecting this proposal will force anything else to happen, it is more about what we focus our attention on, which should be the excessive content and formatting. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:17, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
    @Onetwothreeip: Again, you haven't seen that because you weren't here much. See Talk:Donald Trump/Archive 101#Transclude Presidency?: Failed. See #Current consensus #37: Passed, but only because the proposer (me) mistakenly assumed that most editors understand the definition of "summary level". Editors didn't know what they were supporting. I could give you another ten examples if I wanted to comb the archives for them; these are just a few that are easy to put my finger on. The bottom line is that editors don't like dramatic change – and/or they don't like big differences between this article and other U.S. presidents' BLPs. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:52, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
    Why are you making this personal? I respect what you are saying, except for this ungraceful reflection on me. I remember the proposal to transclude, and I think I opposed it at the time. You're acting like I said there haven't been proposals to reduce content on the talk page. Raising examples of proposals being opposed is the point I'm making, that the issue hasn't been taken seriously. Then you're essentially agreeing with me by saying that editors don't like dramatic change, again exactly what I am getting at, and what should change. Onetwothreeip (talk) 22:25, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
    You said I don't see any serious discussion of reducing content. I took that to mean that you haven't seen any serious discussion of reducing content, and I responded accordingly. Now I see that you meant you haven't seen any passage of dramatic measures. Ok, thanks. I haven't either. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:35, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
    What is this? I meant I don't see any serious discussion of reducing content. Onetwothreeip (talk) 23:07, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
    User:Mandruss You did pose this as instead of other serious discussion of reduction. And no, the 30 years in Media is NOT THE PROBLEM. We can all see the vast bulk of BLP here is spent on a horde of non-BLP political often trivia tidbits, that could fit in existing articles like Presidency, often having a cite or several on every sentence. Halving the Media 1 screen and 20-some cites just isn’t significant compared to even a 5% cut in the 40ish? screens and 800+ cites of political stuff. The political area can grow more in one week than the whole Media section - and there are still a lot of weeks and another election campaign incoming. So no, I didn’t see serious discussion of addressing the problem. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 17:48, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Support. Content takes precedence over links to other articles or series of articles, often linking to the same ones three or four times. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 16:13, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
  •  On hold - We will need to revisit this daily. I think there IS "common consent" to impliment the change in an emergency basis if needed, it's just that we don't need to do it today. Postponing decision 24 hours, due to 1) qualified objectins above, 2) the "Post‐expand include size" is at 2069328 of 2097152 bytes, which is approximately what it was a day ago if not slightly lower, and most importantly, 3) serious discussion below on how to fix the problem long-term. As things stand, as soon as we need to add significant content or more than a handful of references, we will need to "do something" to avoid hitting the limit, such as making the change I propose here. This means if the page is expanded and it gets very close to or passes the limit 5 minutes after I make this post, the next editor should make the change I'm discussing here or make some other change that is likely to be accepted by all editors. But this "emergency fix" doesn't have to be done right now. It can be looked at again tomorrow. If things look the same tomorrow, it can be postponed another 24 hours, and so on. My hope is that the discussions below will bear fruit within the next week or two, and that either we will not have to make this change at all, or if we do, that it will be a short-lived change. Due to the postponement, if any editor wants to "veto" this step forward, preferably with another solution that can be impimented quickly and without controversy if needed, and which can be un-done once the emergency passes. Other comments, "qualified support/soft objections" are also welcome, especialy if they raise issues not yet raised. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 23:28, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
  •  On hold Made slight progress in the last 24 hours but still needs watching every day. As before, if there is an emergency need to do this change, do it. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 01:13, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

To add some more in terms of possible trimming:

What is the general feeling for how many multiple cites on a line is too many? I see many lines with 3, 4, or more cites to them. That seems a doable trimming.

And what is the general feel for cases where content is xeroxed pasted to multiple articles? There has been repeated mention of offloading bits and hence their cites, but I have seen it going the other way. The cases seem very likely contentious, but if a common answer is not wrong they seem a contradiction. So should those be particularly looked at as candidates ?

Cheers Markbassett (talk) 15:15, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

It is not possible to say that 3, 4, or 8 cites is always too many. It depends on the content. Yes, we should trim any unneeded cites, whether that's a reduction from three to two or from one to zero. My only rule of thumb is that, after trimming, I favor bundling more than three consecutive cites for purely cosmetic reasons. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:03, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
We really do not need multiple citations for the same facts. Sometimes I hear that something that is controversial needs many citations, based on this idea that if there aren't many citations then bad faith editors will contest the content. That's an irrational idea, quite honestly.
Overall a lot of the content is only relevant in that given week, not years from now. The article suffers from WP:RECENTISM. I've seen things like the House of Representatives vote on proposed rules for the impeachment inquiry in this article. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:04, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
this idea that if there aren't many citations then bad faith editors will contest the content - Can't speak for others, but that's secondary for me. More important is that readers may question the content. Level of controversy is one of the factors affecting number of cites. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:07, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
This is what I have observed, and I have seen this other argument also. Multiple citations isn't a good way of making the content seem more likely to be correct though. Bundling the citations makes any affect of multiple citations redundant as to how it reads, anyway. Onetwothreeip (talk) 23:10, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
Multiple citations isn't a good way of making the content seem more likely to be correct though. I think most experienced editors would say that verifiability increases with number of cites, and that verifiability should increase with level of controversy. I could be wrong about what most experienced editors would say, but that's certainly what this one would say. Bundling the citations makes any affect of multiple citations redundant as to how it reads, anyway. Only if you think verifiability is about those little superscripted citation numbers, rather than about the content of the sources they provide easy access to. If it's about the latter, the reader seeking verification will look at the bundle and see that there are x sources there, bulleted for easy visual separation, and will understand that it's the equivalent of that many unbundled cites. Readers who can't handle that don't understand/care about verifiability and are not its targets. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:25, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
Verifiability tends to increase with more citations but not always, and we should only increase verifiability to a necessary level. The second quote does not relate to verifiability. Onetwothreeip (talk) 23:58, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
Multiple cites seem suspicious, a ‘methinks the lady doth protest oermuch’ indicator of V problem(s). Why someone would put the same cite for each of three successive sentences is only unclear. But why someone would put 3+ cites or a bundle on something seems possible SYNTH, or trying too hard to claim WEIGHT that is dubious by way of googling to find some n places it is mentioned, or maybe trying to get the most Opinionated n headlines included. Doesn’t seem necessary for anything of a factual nature or of clear WEIGHT. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 18:10, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
Agree with you as to recentism, and welcome to my minority. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:10, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
@Markbassett: For material that is not likely to be questioned, a single "wiki-reliable" (meets WP:RS) source, stable or not, paywalled or not, should be enough. For controversial matter that a future reader may question, a single highly respected source that is likely to be accessible to everyone for the next few years (meaning, not likely to become paywalled or change URLs) is enough. If that is not possible, multiple sources may be needed to prevent a future editor from challenging the content when one source becomes "inaccessible" to most readers. One way to get around the "accessibility" problem is to make sure the content IS archived someplace like archive.org, create the citation using |archiveurl= or something similar, then go back with a subsequent edit and remove the archive URL but put a note in the edit summary saying you are removing the archive-url of http://example.com/articleithinkwillbepaywalledsoon.html per a prior discussion on the talk page. Doing this will help tools like Wikipedia:WikiBlame that find when you inserted the reference also find the archive URL. You can use the same "trick" by inserting several citations then removing all but the strongest or most stable one. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 23:41, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
Completely agree. If one source is not enough, our next step should be to find a better source, not more sources. We really only need more than one source if there is a credible challenge on the talk page, not to preempt one and not as a response to any challenge. Onetwothreeip (talk) 23:58, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
User:davidwr How many is too many for that? I see many spots with three cites, and flipping thru saw instances of 4, 7 (which seemed reasonable in context), and 14 (which seemed about 10 too many and yet also lacking some for the line). Cheers Markbassett (talk) 18:31, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
In articles where we aren't trying to artificially reduce the number of templates used, I would say "it varies, depending on context" but any time there are more than 2 citiations, the editor who puts them in needs to know why there needs to be 2. That said, if a long paragraph had citations at the end, I could see 10 or more in rare circumstances. In this article we are also reducing citations artificially to keep the number below Wikipedia's technical limitations, so we might need to be more aggressive. My recommendation: Treat citation-reductions that are not "obvious, no brainer" sitations on a case-by-case, citation-by-citation basis, and don't have hard and fast limits. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 00:38, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
hum. Well, if it’s not feasible to trim cites per line, then I guess that increases favor to instead cut content. (Then all the cites can go.). Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:21, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
No. Cheers. SPECIFICO talk 03:47, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
This type of trimming makes me nervous. I do think we can trim excessive sources (more than 2 or 3), but if it's done, we have to be absolutely certain that the remaining sources fully support the article content per WP:BLP and that they are indisputably the best of the cited sources per WP:BLPSOURCES. In the past, this has been done recklessly. One option might be to propose such removals one paragraph at a time on the talk page so that other editors can review them. For example: "First paragraph of §The apprentice. Remove [10]. It duplicates the NYT cite."
Also, if someone removes sources, they have to be responsible for fixing the red citation errors at that time. - MrX 🖋 13:09, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Why is it on 30/500 protection?

So can you make protection either higher or lower? Most of what I am asking is in the title. 01:33, 18 February 2020 (UTC) 47.16.99.72 (talk) 01:33, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

This is not an edit request, so I'm removing the template. And your "title" (heading) is way too long - Why is it on 30/500 protection? Can it be either full or semi? Like, what is the reason? All the other presidents are semi, but he was once on full! and I'm shortening it. I have no answer for your questions. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:46, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Maybe. I’m no expert on this, and I trust our administrators’ judgement, generally. And in this case, I’d (personally) defer to them. The fact is, this subject is one of the biggest magnets for vandalism, POV pushing, and SPAs on Wikipedia. And given that it’s a BLP, and some changes might not just be controversial, but non-factual and potentially problematic... I don’t doubt that it’s probably justified. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 01:54, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Mandruss, thank you for shortening the title. I had to do so initially to leave an edit summary, as well. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 01:54, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
  • To find an answer, you can look at the protection log. Not speaking for the editors who changed the protection levels, I'd say it's perfectly reasonable to have this page on extended-confirmed protection: it's so heavily scrutinized that I doubt there are changes that it needs that are both (a) uncontroversial or uncomplicated enough for a learning editor to implement and (b) urgent enough that an edit request would be insufficient. Sdkb (talk) 08:32, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Media career

Per summary style, I would like to propose creating Media career of Donald Trump and then dumping all the content from the corresponding section of this article into it, perhaps leaving behind a one-paragraph summary. Thoughts? -- Scjessey (talk) 13:57, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

  • OPPOSE - As 30+ years of his life and fame from WWE and Apprentice, it deserves BLP inclusion. And the change would not be a significant shrinking as it’s only 1 screen of ~21 lines and 29 cites. (The problem seems at the 25 screens of political stuff that belongs in Presidency or other articles and isn’t BLP.). The citing seems excessive and maybe half of that could go. But not the whole section. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 15:44, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
  • @Markbassett: Perhaps you have not understood the point of this suggestion. This would be just the first of such moves designed to gradually reduce the unwieldiness of the article. I chose this section to start with because it is the easiest, but we will almost certainly need to do it with several other sections. True, it doesn't represent a significant amount of content, or much in the way of references, but every little bit helps. Besides, 28 references is still over 3% of the total, which is not to be sniffed at. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:00, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
  • User:Scjessey I objected to moving at all this major BLP material out of the BLP. I would suggest instead start by simpler edits of shifting that needs no new article nor insertion of new text here. Try something like moving the Conflicts of interest section to the Presidency article. That would be a simple copy-paste and greater size than this, and this article really isn’t the place for it anyway. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 18:42, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Mark, as Scjessey has said, we would not be getting rid of ALL of the section. 1 paragraph would still be there. A lot can be said in one paragraph if we choose our words well and keep it concise.Mgasparin (talk) 21:35, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
  • User:Mgasparin Books, WWE, Apprentice, his films, and talk shows were *already* largely offloaded to other articles, the remaining ~20 lines are summary and links. There doesn’t seem an actual wording proposed here, and I think proposing shrinking the BLP content in BLP article is symptomatic Avoidance of discussing the issues of the non-BLP intrusions bulk of material here. (Red herring anyone?). Cheers Markbassett (talk) 18:57, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose. That's the only endeavor in his life that he hasn't managed to completely run into the ground, and–despite spanning more than 30 years– it doesn't take up a lot of room. Remember the separate "Health" article? Didn't last long, and in the end it ended up merged into this one with more stuff than before that had to be removed. We can probably weed out some of the references but that's no different from other sections with multiple references. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 17:29, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Support but maybe leaving behind two paragraphs. We need to do the same for his business career as well. To reply to Markbassett, he did not spend thirty years with WWE or The Apprentice, individually or collectively. Even if he did, these are not going to be what Trump is remembered for in ten years. At least for The Apprentice, it is warranted to briefly mention this television program as something he spent some years on and built a profile with. The reasoning from Space4Time3Continuum2x seems like an attempt at humour rather than a serious argument, but also inappropriately WP:POV. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:25, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
  • But he did spend a 30+ year period. Art of the Deal 1984-1987, 18 other books, WWE productions, 27 cameos in tv shows and films, and talk shows up to Apprentice 2004-2017. That’s a 33 year stretch, major elements of his BLP and celebrity. And yes people will remember the Apprentice or WWE in 10 years, certainly better than non-BLP trivia with space here like say John McEntee - they already do. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:58, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
If it had been an attempt at humor it would have been the gallows kind, considering his current "business." As for being inappropriate or not, you may want to take another look at WP:POV which is about encyclopedic content, not about opinions editors voice on the Talk page. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 10:00, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Support, for the reasons stated by Scjessey. It's time to fix the problems we have with the technical limits. Mgasparin (talk) 21:35, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose - This section has been thoroughly trimmed over time, and I can't see it needing much more. I think we need to set our eyes on trimming some of the other content, such as 'Foreign policy', by about 2/3; '2012 presidential speculation' by 1/2; '2016 campaign' by about 1/3; 'Investigations' by about 1/2; and 'Impeachment' by about 1/3. - MrX 🖋 22:09, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment Isn't it better to cover Trump's career in the WWE and the Apprentice in those articles or spin offs of them? TFD (talk) 22:13, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Support. Summary style is the proper way to "trim", which should not violate WP:Preserve. We should create and preserve as much content as possible, including refs, but all that should be in the spinoff sub-article. The sub-article should go into as much detail as RS provide and allow, and then we leave a summary here. Often using the lead of the sub-article as the summary works fine, as the lead should be the best summary. -- BullRangifer (talk) 22:22, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Alma Mater

Shouldn't the listed Alma mater on the blurb be University of Pennsylvania (BS)? The Warton School is a college at the University of Pennsylvania. For example compare this to the blurb for Barack Obama and George W. Bush, or Warren Buffet who went to the same school. --128.119.202.168 (talk) 10:16, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Adequately discussed and settled. See #Current consensus #18. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:40, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

More on technical space limits

Arent there other articles on Wikipedia that are bumping up against space limits? If so, could we join forces with the editors for those articles for brainstorming and/or just asking higherups for technical help or anything that might work really?..I mean DJT seems to be affecting so much in usa and world that the article will grow “superexponentially” no matter what. It seems we need either some more powerful computer hardware or a radically nontraditional format for the article to keep all of the content(to me almost all of content here is very very important.), and the verifiability(citations) are vital too. Maybe somethig like numbered each snd every line in text and then putting absolutely all of the citations on another page, keyed to the lines? Jack Upland said something akin to that. But im not sure if i understand correctly in thinking that it is the citations that are overwhelming things. You can tell I don’t know much about this but it seems just too big a job for any of us without help.Rich (talk) 06:21, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

There are other articles, but most are either list articles or articles that use {{flag icon}} hundreds of times on a page. Some of the tracking categories listed in Special:TrackingCategories are there specifically to identify pages that are "over the limit." If you want to help reduce the numbers of these, consider watchlisting categories like Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded‎, Category:Pages with too many expensive parser function calls‎, and the other categories that are based on exceeding Wikipedia's technical limits. Be sure to set your watchlist to either explicitly include "Category changes" or not check any of the 5 check-boxes under "Type of change." This way you will be notified when a page enters or leaves this category.
Most list articles have a straightforward solution: Split the list. Some of the heavy-flag-icon articles are also lists and can be split. Others are over-using flags and a solution is to remove unneeded ones. There is also an effort underway to re-do how flag icons are displayed so this is much less of a problem. Pages like Donald Trump are different, they don't easily lend themselves to being split, and the only heavily-used template is by nature complex and by nature necessary to use heavily in this article (well, we could go to a different citation format, but that would introduce a lot of other problems).
As far as creating a central place to discuss these limits, that's a great question to raise at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 20:16, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Text references rather than citation templates

Since several discussions above are about "size", and citation templates seem to be a big factor, shouldn't we propose dropping them, but keeping the same format? Here's an example:

  • Template: <ref name="Harding_11/15/2017">{{cite web |last=Harding |first=Luke |title=How Trump walked into Putin's web |website=[[The Guardian]] |date=November 15, 2017 |url=http://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/15/how-trump-walked-into-putins-web-luke |access-date=December 24, 2017}}</ref>
  • Result: [1] (see below)
  • Just text: [2] (see below)

The appearance and content are the same. -- BullRangifer (talk) 21:19, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Good idea, go ahead and do some template reduction. It all helps. I think we have managed to stave off the people who want to archive every single reference, haven't we? Because that can add a hundred thousand bytes to an article this size. -- MelanieN (talk) 21:31, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
I'll oppose that. It would make it harder to maintain consistency in presentation. I believe it would result in loss of all citation metadata, since the citation fields are no longer individually identified. Perhaps User:Trappist the monk would comment on that point. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:45, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
I'm with Mandruss in opposing this and I can't imagine that it would reduce the article size enough to justify losing the benefits of templated citations, or the effort. FWIW, I wouldn't even know how to properly format a freeform reference. - MrX 🖋 21:56, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Yes, rewriting all of the citations as plain-text will result in: loss of citation consistency (with a concomitant increase in citation maintenance overhead); loss of metadata. As to whether or not the citations should be rewritten, that is, of course, the prerogative of editors here to take that decision.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:21, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
You'll oppose what? Reducing templated references to just text? I thought that's what you were suggesting. -- MelanieN (talk) 21:59, 25 February 2020 (UTC) Sorry, my mistake. -- MelanieN (talk) 23:45, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Who are you speaking to? BR made the proposal, I opposed it. Your indent level suggests you are speaking to BR. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:08, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
By the way, the difference in size between these two citation formats, in the case above, is 31 bytes.[11] Assuming that's about an average, we would save 813*31=25,203 bytes. That would save a little more than 6% off the current article size. - MrX 🖋 22:35, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
I think the rationale is mostly related to the limit on post-expand include size – the contribution to that total drops to zero if you eliminate the template – not file size, which has no hard limit (or at least none that we would ever come close to exceeding). ―Mandruss ☎ 22:52, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Editor MrX's test is flawed. Yes, there is a 31-byte source difference but substantially more post-rendering. This is the output of the {{cite web}} example above:
'"`UNIQ--templatestyles-0000003F-QINU`"'<cite id="CITEREFHarding2017" class="citation web cs1">Harding, Luke (November 15, 2017). [http://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/15/how-trump-walked-into-putins-web-luke "How Trump walked into Putin's web"]. ''[[The Guardian]]''<span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved <span class="nowrap">December 24,</span> 2017</span>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=unknown&rft.jtitle=The+Guardian&rft.atitle=How+Trump+walked+into+Putin%27s+web&rft.date=2017-11-15&rft.aulast=Harding&rft.aufirst=Luke&rft_id=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fnews%2F2017%2Fnov%2F15%2Fhow-trump-walked-into-putins-web-luke&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3ATalk%3ADonald+Trump%2FArchive+112" class="Z3988"></span>
(206 characters for the plain-text version).
Rewriting the citations as plain text will allow this article to draw back from the brink as it is approaching it post-expand include size limit (2,053,099/2,097,152 bytes)
—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:21, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
I understand the distinction now, and did see the difference in the rendered page source. So maybe we should just change the local MW setting to allow larger page sizes: Manual:$wgMaxArticleSize. - MrX 🖋 23:25, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
That's "local" to en-wiki; i.e. site-wide. Same reply as above.[12] And it's post-expand include size, not page size. The variable name $wgMaxArticleSize is misleading, if the comments at that link are correct. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:47, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

My suggestion would only work if it was (1) adopted site wide, and (2) automated. Since it is templates (and we use lots of citation templates) that causes problems, not just size in raw bytes, I thought the idea might be worth consideration. -- BullRangifer (talk) 00:41, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

@BullRangifer: Now you've lost me. Even if it were a good idea, why would it be necessary to do it site-wide to stay within the technical limit at this article? In any case, (1) it should be obvious that the chances of dropping cite templates site-wide are exactly zero point zero, and (2) this is not the venue for proposals for site-wide changes. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:52, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
I largely agree. I was just musing out loud. Does the idea make any sense? I'm not tech savy, so I was wondering. If it sounds viable, I'll go to the Village Pump. -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:13, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
No, it is not viable site-wide, and a VP proposal would be a SNOW close within 24 hours. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:02, 26 February 2020 (UTC)


Sources

  1. ^ Harding, Luke (November 15, 2017). "How Trump walked into Putin's web". The Guardian. Retrieved December 24, 2017.
  2. ^ Harding, Luke (November 15, 2017). "How Trump walked into Putin's web". The Guardian. Retrieved December 24, 2017.

Should the weekly veracity graph be removed

See closing at Talk:Donald Trump/Archive 111#Veracity graphs. I'm opening this discussion to determine if there is consensus for removing the weekly veracity graph. - MrX 🖋 01:59, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

  • No. It is a more valuable indicator than almost anything else. Guy (help!) 02:13, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes, there should be no such graphs in the article. Lying is a qualitative issue, not quantitative. It matters far more what he lies about than the number of lies he makes in a given time frame. Attempting to graph this would be completely undue and blatantly from a point of view. Onetwothreeip (talk) 02:18, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
    We're not relitigating the previous RfC. I just asked about the weekly chart. - MrX 🖋 02:28, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
  • No - The finer granularity of the weekly chart will allow readers to better compare the frequency of lies to Trump's controversy of the week (only half kidding). Also, it comes from different sources than the monthly graph, yet shows a useful correlation between the two. - MrX 🖋 02:28, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment. Per my blunder, it would be helpful to refer busy editors specifically to the last bullet point of the close, which enabled this discussion. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:45, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes. Same argument as I made in opposition to both graphs. If we can't omit both graphs in this article, I'll settle for omitting one of them. As a minor point still worth mentioning, this would eliminate the remaining encroachment into the "Racial views" section. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:40, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
Composite graph of same data. Sourcing and detailed explanation are in Wikimedia Commons file description page (and in tiny text at bottom of image). —RCraig09 (talk) 06:16, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes.--Jack Upland (talk) 10:04, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
  • YES - as I !voted there. It’s details already at the other article, and week-by-week comparisons of two counters has had no BLP impact, so I see no need to Xerox it here. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 19:23, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
  • No (keep both) but I have a third alternative: I (creator, uploader) favor keeping both charts for a variety of reasons (example: the significant correlation of independent fact-checking confirms the credibility of each; the difference between "false" and "false-and-misleading" distinguishes the two fact checks). —RCraig09 (talk) 21:21, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
> As an alternative: I plan to upload a graphic that combines the two existing graphs into one. It's a non-trivial project, both conceptually and graphically, so don't close this discussion until you see it here. Stay tuned. —RCraig09 (talk) 21:21, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
> Composite graph is at right. I can make further graphical changes if needed. There may still be some discussion whether to use the original two-panel image or this composite graph since the conversion from weeks to months (through May 2019) involved interpolation/extrapolation (?) when a week was split between two months (shown by error bars). 06:16, 24 February 2020 Initially, I'm thinking the composite graph should be in this high-level article, with the dual graph (not having interpolation/extrapolation) kept in the Veracity sub-article. —RCraig09 (talk) 07:27, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
  • The composite graph is an improvement - for this article. This graph should exist in this article, refer to Consensus #35 - there was consensus to have text that Trump's many false or misleading statements are widely described … as unprecedented. In line with that, we show a graph about his false or misleading statements. starship.paint (talk) 10:41, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment. I have issues with the verifiability of the composite. The average reader should be able to fairly easily check our work. It seems to me that verifying the composite would require an above-average reader – they would have to study and understand the methodology before they could even begin to verify – verification could easily take an hour or two, an unreasonable expectation. I don't think improvements to the image's file description page would be adequate, since I don't think it would occur to the average reader to look there for information essential to verifiability. The "tiny text" is significantly below the minimum size for accessability specified at MOS:SMALLTEXT, and it doesn't provide links to the sources anyway. The whole point of verifiability is that we don't ask readers to "Just trust us, we're Wikipedia" – especially on such a controversial topic. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:53, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
    WP:SOURCEACCESS covers ease of access, and it's the opposite of "fairly easily check our work". The thumbnail is meant to be clicked on, at which point the text on the graphic is perfectly readable. - MrX 🖋 01:02, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
    I've been known to make the "thumbnails are meant to be clicked on" argument in response to those who insist on oversizing thumbnails. It usually fails because most editors don't want to make readers click through. In any case, the first click gives me the 800x505 version of the image and its tiny text is still below the minimum. I then have to access one of the larger versions and then force it to display at its full size, requiring two additional clicks (and the technical knowledge of how to do that). Anyway, you've responded to only part of my comment: even after one finds the sources, it requires the ability to decipher the methodology and too much time. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:22, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
    I see your point, but what if the source is a book that only exists in hard copy? It's still verifiable.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:31, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
    That's the same SOURCEACCESS argument that MrX made; I get it. It's one thing to say that a reader seeking verification of one sentence of prose has to go to a library and find the support for it in the book. Quite another to require them to reverse-engineer RCraig09's thought process and repeat their work process for verification. This is considerably less opaque with the original two graphs. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:39, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
    (1) The Washington Post and (2) CNN's contribution to the graph require no "reverse-engineering" whatsoever; the data or a graph thereof is provided in the sources cited in the textual caption. To the Wikimedia Commons file page—which can be reached in two clicks—I've just added an "Interpolation example" description of the junior high school algebra that is required for converting (3) the Toronto Star's weekly data into monthly data forming the violet barsthru May 2019 in this composite chart. Further, the exact data from my Excel spreadsheet has been listed in the Commons pages of the two images! Especially with explicit sourcing and these detailed explanations, both images are readily verifiable and do not demand anything warranting the term "reverse engineering". I've boldly substituted the composite chart. —RCraig09 (talk) 05:26, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
    If the tiny text at the bottom of the graphic is seriously a problem, I can remove it. More detailed sourcing is provided in the textual caption's cites. —RCraig09 (talk) 05:42, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
    Like MrX, you've ignored an essential part of my comment: I don't think improvements to the image's file description page would be adequate, since I don't think it would occur to the average reader to look there for information essential to verifiability.
    This is partly a WP:CALC issue, part of WP:No original research. "Routine calculations do not count as original research, provided there is consensus among editors that the result of the calculation is obvious, correct, and a meaningful reflection of the sources. Basic arithmetic, such as adding numbers, converting units, or calculating a person's age are some examples of routine calculations." I submit that your junior high school algebra is hardly a "routine calculation" equivalent to adding numbers, converting units, or calculating a person's age. I further submit that the average reader wouldn't know what to make of Thus, that week's attribution to January is simply 36*(5/7)=25.7, and the attribution to February is 36*(2/7)=10.3. – even if they found it. I remember nothing of my high school algebra, beyond what little of it I used in my work. (Actually that may not be algebra, which IIRC involved solving equations containing variables, but that's neither here nor there. It's math above elementary school level.)
    For verifiability, I don't think it's enough to assume that a few readers will have the knowledge, the time, and the inclination to do the verification, to assume that the graph wouldn't continue to exist if it weren't correct. In any realistic sense, we would be asking readers to trust editor RCraig09 because s/he obviously knew what s/he was doing, was meticulous about accuracy, and, being a person of the highest integrity, would never misrepresent the data. ―Mandruss ☎ 07:25, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
    You may be right that some readers will find the task of verification more difficult, but that is largely due to the complexity and mass of the underlying information. That is not a good reason not to present information in a graphical format, which I would argue, makes the information more accessible, not less. - MrX 🖋 16:25, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
    (Esp. to Mandruss) (1) Even a cursory comparison of this image with graphs in the three cited sources instantly proves a close correlation, with exact numbers not being necessary to communicate content. (2) Separately: "a*(b/c)" is junior high school algebra, and explains small estimations needed in only about 20-25% of the weeks' data—from only one of three cited sources—variations that wouldn't noticeably change the shape of the Toronto Star portion of the graph (it's just a matter of whether a given false statement would be nudged to an adjoining month). (3) Also, if clicking on an image and then on "more details", and understanding basic algebra, are beyond the convenience or ability of someone serious enough to want to verify reliability, then our species is lost. —RCraig09 (talk) 17:31, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
    then our species is lost. - Don't get me started. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:33, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
    (Esp. to MrX) Even for the general public, there is no "complexity" to the data, even if there might be a substantial "mass" of data—and the graphs simply group the data by time period. —RCraig09 (talk) 17:31, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Donald Trump is not 6'3"

Various photographs of Donald Trump, with Trump standing next to people who are in fact 6'3" (or even 6'2" if not shorter), demonstrate that Donald Trump is not even close to being 6'3. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JPJPJP90 (talk • contribs) 04:21, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

This might be an issue if the article mentioned his height, but I can't see it. HiLo48 (talk) 04:26, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Everything about him is HUGE, even his Wikipedia page.--Jack Upland (talk) 04:37, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Can we get a show of hands for that? PackMecEng (talk) 04:39, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Big hands or little hands.... -- BullRangifer (talk) 06:56, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
I think he's at least 20 hands.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:38, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Sir, the correct term is YUGE. [FBDB] Mgasparin (talk) 23:36, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Unencyclopedic trivia. ―Mandruss ☎ 08:20, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
6'3 is his official height. This doesn't mean that it's his actual height... Kinda like how basketball players are sometimes smaller then how they are listed.... Infinity2323236 (talk) 11:18, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Basketball players have alternative facts, too? Who knew. ―Mandruss ☎ 11:28, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
The only people you can trust in these stormy times are pornstars.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:44, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 5 March 2020

Trump has made many false or misleading statements during his campaign and presidency. The statements have been documented by fact-checkers, and the media have widely described the phenomenon as unprecedented in American politics. Many of his comments and actions have also been characterized as racially charged or racist.

    • This information is false and whoever edited this was clearly biased against President Trump**

A special counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller found that Trump and his campaign welcomed and encouraged Russian foreign interference in the 2016 presidential election under the belief that it would be politically advantageous, but did not find sufficient evidence to press charges of criminal conspiracy or coordination with Russia. Mueller also investigated Trump for obstruction of justice, and his report neither indicted nor exonerated Trump on that count. A 2019 House impeachment inquiry found that Trump solicited foreign interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election from Ukraine to help his re-election bid and then obstructed the inquiry itself.

    • This information is also false because President Trump was acquitted on both charges due to the fact that he was innocent and also there was no collusion with Russia or any other country to interfere with the election but whoever edited this page knew that and is biased against him** 69.127.17.88 (talk) 22:12, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
 Not done - This template must be followed by a complete and specific description of the request, that is, specify what text should be removed and a verbatim copy of the text that should replace it. "Please change X" is not acceptable and will be rejected; the request must be of the form "please change X to Y". Also, you are mistaken about the content, which currently reflects material written in reliable sources. - MrX 🖋 22:18, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Comparative review: potential missing aspects of presidency in lead

I did a comparative review of how the intro to this article covers Trump's presidency versus how Presidency of Donald Trump does so. Here are my takeaways, reflecting mostly topics that get more WP:WEIGHT in one than the other (and incorporating a bit of my own knowledge of how both compare to the amount of media coverage the topics receive). I'm frankly too burnt out at this point to go through the inevitable battles that would have to be waged to implement any of the changes suggested here, but I hope some of these points may serve as inspiration for proposals for those of you with remaining energy.

  1. Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel gets the same phrasing in both articles' leads, which translates to proportionally much less here (given that this article devotes only one paragraph to his presidency, rather than the entire five-paragraph intro at the presidency article). It's also received much less media attention than some other listed aspects, so overall, it may be a candidate for removal.
  2. This article pretty much does not mention Trump's deregulation and hollowing out of the administrative state in the intro, whereas the presidency article has a few sentences on it and includes it as the first specific aspect listed.
  3. In foreign policy, one area mentioned in the presidency intro but not here is the withdrawal of troops from Northern Syria. My intuition is that this issue has received at least as much media attention as the Jerusalem item.
  4. The presidency intro devotes significant attention to immigration issues, including the shutdown caused by Trump's demand for federal funding of the border wall and the family separation policy, whereas this intro covers only the Muslim ban and nothing else. Given the massive media coverage of Trump's wall and other immigration issues, I could see some of the language from there being brought over here.
  5. The Mueller Investigation and Impeachment Inquiry receive roughly proportional coverage, with both getting significant attention in their own paragraph (here) or paragraphs (in the presidency intro).

Cheers, Sdkb (talk) 08:19, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

During his presidency, Trump's strict immigration policies resulted in migrant detentions, family separations, and multiple versions of a travel ban on citizens from several Muslim-majority countries. [middle part untouched] 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.

I don't understand the obsession with removing North Korea. It takes up a small part of the article. No other sitting president has met the North Korean leader; Trump has met Kim three times. Trump's policy is a dramatic departure from previous presidents, and he has made it personal.--Jack Upland (talk) 22:58, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
Frankly, it isn't biographically significant. Trump has achieved absolutely nothing of worth with North Korea. In fact, the only thing Trump achieved is to elevate the status of his adversary by meeting him as an equal. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:19, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
Isn't elevating and empowering Kim rather significant? Obama told Trump Kim was his biggest concern. SPECIFICO talk 01:22, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Exactly. This is not a list of Trump's successes. We've had this argument several times. I don't understand the underlying logic. We don't say the impeachment process achieved nothing, so it should be cut. Trimming the article should not mean a complete obliteration of aspects of his life.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:38, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
@Jack Upland:, this discussion is about the lede of the article. It is not about the body of the article. Did you misunderstand that? There is no proposal in this section to remove anything from the body. starship.paint (talk) 14:09, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
No, I understand that; I just don't understand the motivation.--Jack Upland (talk) 19:18, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • The articles are different topics, different content, so different LEAD. This is BLP article, plus has different editors in play, so it logically would and *should* have differences in LEAD content. It should *not* be a subset of Presidency article nor should the Presidency article be an expansion of his bio. It should be a LEAD of this article and ignore what the Presidency article did. That said, I am generally favoring shortening the lead by just name the topics and leave details for the body
- If you wanted to shorten the too-detailed and outdated bit on ‘Muslim ban’ with ‘immigration issues’ that simply names ‘travel bans’ and skips court history sure. Can also name ‘border wall’, ‘ended DACA’ and ‘family separation’ with no detail in LEAD.
- Leave Korea and Jerusalem in as they are major points - the Democratic debate in South Carolina is even asking about them today.
- Deregulation as described here is featured so little in Presidency article that it shouldn’t be in either LEAD. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:03, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
I'm reluctant to add the border wall, with all the deception, and lack of progress, that has gone into it. A fence of bollards, rather than a wall, and the progress as of this month: WaPo Nearly all of the new fencing the Trump administration has built so far is considered “replacement” fencing, swapping out smaller, older vehicle barriers for a more elaborate — and costly — “border wall system.” starship.paint (talk) 03:41, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

identifying and removing political appointees and career officials

is not POV at all and I included three refs to show it's DUE because of extensive coverage of this major development in which the president seeks to surround himself with loyalists in the aftermath of his impeachment because he and many of his supporters assert he has been betrayed. The stated reasons for this reversion are thoroughly specious constituting a continuing pattern by the reverting editor. soibangla (talk) 04:38, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Donald_Trump&diff=942183268&oldid=942178891

The tone of the writing clearly had a negative view of Trump's actions, as does the term "loyalists". Just because something can be cited with three sources, does not automatically make the content due in that particular section and in this particular article. The granular detail of Trump removing certain officials is not a top-level event due in a biography article. The extent of officials being dismissed and forced to resign can certainly be mentioned in the article as a general theme, but this proposal is far too specific to minor recent events to be included in this article and that section. Onetwothreeip (talk) 07:24, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
The tone of the writing clearly had a negative view of Trump's actions I honestly don't know how else to respond other than: BWAHAHA! soibangla (talk) 00:10, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
This material seems entirely appropriate to me, and the term "loyalist" is nowhere in the text. It's about as close to bare facts as I can imagine, and it's well sourced. - MrX 🖋 16:50, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
This has received wide and detailed coverage in every mainstream RS I can think of. The narrative of the events and the context has been extensive and detailed, and there has been widespread analysis and commentary. I can't see any basis to question due weight for this brief mention. SPECIFICO talk 17:35, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Delete. ‘Unnecessary addition better for sub articles but also POV and overciting’ seems about right. Fix POV by word choices of other sources such as BBC or Fox, and fix overciting by no more than two cites. Don’t WP:SOAPBOX. And I suggest it’s not BLP significant, so yes try it in a more appropriate article and don’t Xerox it all over. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 19:46, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

The sentence should be restored.

President Donald Trump is tightening his grip on the intelligence community as part of a post-acquittal purge of career officials and political appointees deemed insufficiently loyal, and the abrupt firing of his last intel chief is only the tip of the iceberg, current and former intelligence officials say.


"It’s not a secret that we want people in positions that work with this president, not against him, and too often we have people in this government—I mean the federal government is massive, with millions of people—and there are a lot people out there taking action against this president and when we find them we will take appropriate action," Hogan Gidley said.

Trump's "Deep State" hit list soibangla (talk) 19:45, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Of course. Done. -- BullRangifer (talk) 20:25, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
We absolutely should not be reporting what "current and former intelligence officials" say as if this was fact. At most we could report what they say in that context, but this still would not be notable enough for this biography, and still dubiously relevant. Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:45, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

Preparing to spinoff the Political career section

Per this edit, you can see that I have already created a spinoff sub-article for that content at Donald Trump's political career.

All that's left to do is to delete the content from here and leave a short summary. The lead there can be improved, and some other work with references needs to be done. There are some redlinks.

Please say Yes or No below. If Yes, then we proceed. -- BullRangifer (talk) 07:35, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't see how the presidency doesn't fit into the political career...?--Jack Upland (talk) 09:24, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
You're right, strictly speaking. Not sure it's necessary and useful to speak that strictly at this juncture, as the issues are already pretty complex. That could be deferred to a future merge proposal. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:30, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Yes, that's how the summary should be written. The lead of the sub-article should be written first and then copied here. The presidency section here should be represented by a section in the sub-article, as that is obviously part of his political career. -- BullRangifer (talk) 15:23, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
@BullRangifer: Not copied here, but transcluded here, so this article will automatically pick up future updates to that lead. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:58, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Sort of - it's fine to have a child article if there is a lot of extra detail to add that doesn't fit here, but I oppose removing anything from this article. His political career is an important and defining part of his biography, and what's there now is proportionate and of the level required here. Also strongly oppose transcluding the lead of the child article as the equivalent section here. Leads, which are typically restricted to 3-4 paragraphs, are nowhere near the level of detail required in a dedicated body section of a parent article, which would typically have maybe 8-10 paragraphs.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:32, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
    This is not the only article comprising Donald Trump's biography; it's only the top-level one. And we shouldn't be too concerned about what's typical, as Trump is anything but a typical U.S. president. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:38, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
    Sure, but this is the principal biography article, and it must stand on its own and a reader should be able to read it from start to finish to understand the topic. If an article requires clicking through to child articles in order to find out vital information about the subject, then the parent article is poorly written. See Barack Obama for a reasonable example (and a featured article too) - there are lots of sub-articles, on his senate career and so on, but all the vitals are there. I've struck my suggestion not to reduce at all, because actually the section in this article could be reduced, but certainly not down to just 4 paragraphs. And no transclusions from other articles. Urggh. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 09:47, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
    Disagree that it must stand on its own. Many of those sub-articles are sub-articles only for technical reasons involving size. If it weren't for those technical issues, Presidency of Donald Trump et al would be part of this article. Splitting them off for technical reasons didn't change their essential nature or purpose, and we should view a "Main article" link as we do an entry in the TOC – a link for jumping to the area of interest. If a reader wishes to be satisfied with the short summary here, that's their prerogative; there is no cogent reason to assume that won't be enough for them, or to say that some x amount of information is essential in this article. And again, Trump is not an Obama, or a Nixon, or a Hoover, so those comparisons are not going to be relevant. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:01, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
    If "for technical reasons" it has become necessary to split the article due to size, then whichever way you cook it that means the article itself has become too long, not just technically, but for readers too. An article should generally take 30-40 minutes to read in its entirety. And yes, splitting sections that have too much detail into their own sub-articles is absolutely how to do that. But per the WP:Summary style guideline, the purpose of this operation is not to just maintain the too-long article in a fragmented state that readers are expected to click back and forth between to read the whole thing, but to provide extra info on aspects of one of the sections for readers who want to delve a bit deeper. And with all due respect, saying "Trump is not an Obama" is neither here not there. It doesn't alter the fundamental guidelines on how articles are structured. The question is, were this article to be brought up before WP:FAC (which, stability aside, there's no reason why it shouldn't be) would reviewers be able to read it through and see a complete topic in this article? A split which left only a rump section on Trump's political career would not achieve that. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 10:52, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
    Aye, and what defines a complete topic? Even your level of detail would leave a ton unsaid, and your reasoning is that a ton is acceptable, even optimal, but 1.2 tons is too much. That's purely arbitrary. ―Mandruss ☎ 11:05, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes, and I concur with 3-4 paras with absolutely minimal citations (if any). More than 4 paras would defeat the object of the exercise. I sort of agree that the article must "stand on its own" in that it needs to be a cohesive whole, but only in the same way as an abstract can "stand on its own" as a summary of a thesis. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:42, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
I'd like to add that I think the 3-4 paragraphs suggested should be the introduction of Political career of Donald Trump that is then transcluded here, as Mandruss has suggested. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:10, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Exactly. It has long been my practice to create a good lead and then use it as the summary. A properly written lead is the best summary, so it also makes a good summary in the mother article. I describe it here: How to create and manage a good lead section. -- BullRangifer (talk) 15:35, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • No I agree with Amakuru. This article needs to give an overview of the entirety of Trump. Further, I'll note that, since the talk pf converting this to an index or table of contents directory, I and others have managed to trim a substantial amount of trivia, OR, repetition and other inessentials, while still keeping the integrity of a standalone article. Our readers don't care about an arbitrary software constraint. There are numerous other solutions. Move the citations, have Trump part one/Trump part two, and many others. Readers are not going to navigate back and forth to dozens of wikilinks. Even experienced editors aren't doing that, as evidenced by inconsistencies between this article and the sub-topics, etc. SPECIFICO talk 14:13, 25 February 2020 (UTC) @Amakuru:
  • Let's see the short summary first - I'm sorry, but given some of the excisions in the past, I no longer write blank checks. - MrX 🖋 14:18, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Writing an overly condensed summary is going to be even harder than writing the longer content proposed for the move. I agree with MrX any such reversal of the past several years work will need consensus here if it's ever to be implemented. And in my opinion, such a move would end up weakening both articles. Context matters. It's impossible to understand his political career apart from lifelong themes and life choices in his biography. SPECIFICO talk 14:40, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Nothing will be lost, but we cannot keep trying to shoehorn everything into one article. It's unsustainable madness. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:50, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Context will be lost. Readers who don't navigate a dozen links will lose information. Much will be lost. SPECIFICO talk 14:56, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
We're just going to have to agree to disagree. This is a biography, not an exposé. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:07, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Exposé? Please explain the connection? SPECIFICO talk 15:13, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Let me do you the courtesy of being blunt, if you and my fellow editors will indulge me. It is my opinion that some editors, on "both sides" (whatever that means), are keen to make sure certain facts are in this top level article, even if many would regard said fact to be excessive detail. Because of the necessary "horse trading" that takes place, each new fact often requires a "counter fact" (if that is a thing) to maintain the balance. This is not always true, of course, but it is human nature to seek that balance. The result is that the article grows quickly. This wasn't a problem early on, but now we have reached a level where the Wikipedia technical limits are a factor and adding new things necessitates removing things - a painful experience for all concerned. I favor making full use of sub articles to make sure each thing is given its proper due, but that doesn't sit well with the editors keen to see everything in the top-level article. I used the term "exposé" because sometimes it feels as if people are trying to weave the kind of narrative you might see in an investigative journalism piece. But that is not what this article is for. We are only supposed to be summarizing the work of journalists, not emulating them. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:57, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
While you and others have been pulling your hair about a temporary software constraint, you surely have noticed that I and a few others have trimmed a large amount of insignificant detail that somehow eluded normal editing process. As to the straw man, "see everything in the top-level article" -- it's not helpful because it's not specific enough to lead to operational editing decisions. More importantly it disappoints me to see you characterize the motivations or sit-welling of other editors, especially where we have made objective arguments against converting this page to an index to the Trump sub-articles. Finally, thanks for explaining the "exposé" thing. I don't see much of that, but I'm not all that active here. We are going to have to reach consensus on this, and I don't think abstract and personalized discussion is going to advance the process. Maybe you could go back to 10 seconds before your exposé post and respond to the concerns I actually raised in my No? Thanks. SPECIFICO talk 16:17, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Hey, you asked for an explanation. Sorry if you don't like it, but it is what it is. I remain firmly of the belief we need to embrace WP:SS and not pay it lip service. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:28, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I mostly agree with SPECIFICO in this instance. Of course something will be lost from this article if it's removed. Some of that may be fine, but some of it may not. I don't think its unreasonable to ask to see the summary before a substantial amount of content is actually removed. - MrX 🖋 16:18, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Mr. Jessey, I didn't say that I did not like it, your reply. I said that it was unresponsive and unintelligible. I'll now say the same about your follow-up. I doubt I'm the only one who will disregard your comment unless it is significantly more clear and to the point. SPECIFICO talk 17:40, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Absolutely oppose This has been proposed many times before, under "space" rationale, and has been shouted down every time. This article NEEDS to have a lot of information about his presidency, as all other articles about presidents do. If you are worried about size, trim something less important like Business career or Family. -- MelanieN (talk) 16:14, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • @MelanieN: I would argue we can keep "political career" and "presidency" separate, so that shouldn't be an issue. "Business career" and "Media career" have both got proposals above, and they are attracting opposition too. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:23, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • So it separates out just the "political career" stuff (leaving a few paragraphs as an absolutely necessary summary) while leaving the "presidency" stuff in? That seems like a weird way to handle a biography, and we absolutely haven't hacked any other president's biography to pieces like this. I really don't understand all the "we must split this article into 50 subarticles" hysteria here. Just trim out the excess detail and the excess references. -- MelanieN (talk) 20:38, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • I would support later separating out the presidency stuff as well. This mother article needs to be reduced to a collection of summaries. The worst thing to do is to actually lose any content or references through deletion. We should follow summary style, which is a method for dealing with either too much content or undue weight issues. It just doesn't have to all be in the same article. We should "move" content, rather than "delete" it. We should follow WP:Preserve and keep as much content as possible at Wikipedia. That honors RS and the good faith hard work of editors. -- BullRangifer (talk) 21:10, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • What you are hearing from several of us is that we are opposed to that approach. This is not a "mother article" (🤔 or is it?) and it's not an index to other articles. It is a biography that should stand on its own. I don't care if it's 50MB in length if that's what it takes to cover the subject. Let WMF use the $100mm they're sitting on to fix this silly size limit problem. - MrX 🖋 21:33, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • @MrX: While in principle I would like to be able to edit without arbitrary technical limits, I don't see these limits changing this year, and the one affecting this article probably won't more than double in the next 5. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 22:00, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • A proposal to increase the limit would undoubtedly meet with a lot of pushback saying that no article needs to be that large. Until that passes and is implemented, let's work within the current reality. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:30, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • It is a biography that should stand on its own and it can stand on its own with less detail. As I've said elsewhere, there is nothing inherently correct about the current level of detail, and that's an illusory concept. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:40, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
I totally agree with MrX. This is not a “mother article,” or an index with most of the content being scattered among sub-articles. That approach is a non-starter. This is a biography and it needs to stand on its own. Even when we make sub-articles on a particular area, enough of that area needs to be retained here to make a coherent narrative and biography. -- MelanieN (talk) 15:47, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
  • No - Let's see the short summary first. No to transclusion, and frankly the notion that suitable bio content of 5+ pages can be done in 300 words seems a pipe dream. I don’t see how the first parts can be trimmed much, nor how the rest of article narrative can hold up if one cuts out the 2016 election material. And the problem here as elsewhere *is* those 4 of the 5+ pages going overly long in the BLP about non-BLP politics. I can imagine the 2016 campaign being a spin-off article and here being only one screen instead of 4...because other Presidents articles could... . except it’s already SIX spinoffs and still people making it 4 pages of similar content here. I just don’t see cutting these 4 pages to 150 words as likely to find acceptance, but will be happy to see it tried. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:34, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
  • @Markbassett: Why are you opposed to using transclusions? Transcluding the introductory paragraphs of a sub article to create a summary in the main article is surely a perfect solution, is it not? Why reinvent the wheel by having two different summaries? Is there some technical objection I am not aware of? -- Scjessey (talk) 14:05, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Count me as strongly opposed to transcluding prose. It creates a maintenance issue because changes to the transclusion source articles will not appear on a watchlist for this article. This has been tried in the past on this article and rejected. - MrX 🖋 15:06, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
The watchlist argument fails on the basis that it is trivial to add the sub articles to your watchlist. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:08, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
Trivial to add perhaps, but exhausting to monitor. - MrX 🖋 16:34, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
I agree that transclusion is a bad idea - because then changes will happen to this article that don't alert watchers of this article. It's not reasonable to expect us all to watch 40 or 50 articles just to keep up with this one subject. Just as it's not reasonable to assume that readers will accept this page as a sort of outline or index to all the sub-pages, which they then have to go somewhere else to read. This article can and should have detail reduced, but it has to be a full biography. -- MelanieN (talk) 19:47, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Just to summarize the current state of this discussion - before anyone starts implementing the various suggestions here. My tally:

  • Should we spin off “Political career” to the new article, deleting the content here and leaving a short summary? Three people say yes, three people say no, and two say they want to see the “short summary” first before making a decision.
  • Should the short summary consist of, or include, a transclusion of the lead from the spinoff article? Two people say yes, three say no.
  • Should this be basically a “mother article,” i.e., a collection of summaries with links to daughter articles? Or should this article stand on its own as a biography? Two people say mother article; five (or possibly six) say it should stand on its own. -- MelanieN (talk) 20:02, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
    Editorially, I would prefer that it stand on its own. Unfortunately, there is so much to Donald Trump that I'm not sure it can unless we adopt a completely different reference style that doesn't keep us bumping up against Wikipedia's technical limits. Given the choice between changing reference styles with a stand-alone biography and using the existing reference style but making this a "mother article," I will "hold my nose" and recommend keeping the existing reference style and making it a "mother article." Why? Because it will be easier to maintain. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 22:21, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
    There's so much to Trump? I doubt it. He's not Leonardo da Vinci. We don't need fanboy World Wrestling details and stuff, but our readers come to a bio page to read a succinct narrative of the subject's life. That shouldn't be a problem, and we've already made progress cutting the file size. Do you happen to have an update on the file size vs. its largest before the recent cuts? SPECIFICO talk 22:58, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
    It's not the "file size" per se, but the "Post‐expand include size" which is currently 2037691 out of the maximum 2097152 bytes. It was around 2060000 bytes a few days ago. You can check this size by viewing the page source and searching for "Post‐expand include size". davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 03:46, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
    PEIS exceeded the limit of 2,097,152 not long before 21 Feb 17:57 UTC, since that's what triggered this thread. PEIS as of this edit is 2,037,691, or ~97.2% of the limit. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:16, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
    I think this is the wrong way to frame the issue, and I'll wear some of the blame for that. It could stand on its own at a higher level of summary; I think that would be fine for a majority of readers, even preferable for many. It's not like the status quo article tells "the whole story"; it doesn't even come close, never has, and never could given the space constraint. So the question is where to draw the line between this article and the sub-articles, and it presents a false dichotomy to speak of "standing on its own" and "not standing on its own". ―Mandruss ☎ 00:15, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose. His on-again, off-again presidential "aspirations," often/usually coinciding with the release of another book or the start of another Apprentice season, are as much part of his bio as the three wives or whether he's a billionaire. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 14:15, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

Proposal on trimming

It's obvious we can't agree on what's important. There are so many reliable sources with so many facts about Trump, from his bone spurs to his orange mane. So why not select 5-10 highly reliable sources which give a brief biography of Trump? Cross-reference them to the article. If the article contains information not in these sources, delete that information.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:49, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

That's thinking outside the box. Not allowed at this article. Others will be along to explain to you how it violates one or more inviolable Wikipedia principles. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:10, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Which ones???--Jack Upland (talk) 19:30, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Brief biographical sources are useful, but Wikipedia biographies have little in common with what is normally thought of by "biography". We are supposed to use all available RS, including what was written today and yesterday, thus our biographies contain all tangentially related content about Trump that fulfills our assigned goal of documenting the "sum total of human knowledge" about Trump. All of that is eligible for his biography.
Due to our ability to spinoff excess content that creates an undue weight situation here, we can move the bulk of such content and then go into extremely deep detail on every aspect of his life in those spinoff articles.
So forget about normal biographies and let what RS say dictate what we include. That is one explanation for why articles on the same types of subjects differ so much and should not be compared and forced into the same "ideal format" template for an article. They should be allowed to grow according to how RS cover the subject. -- BullRangifer (talk) 20:18, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
See WP:ONUS.--Jack Upland (talk) 22:35, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Directionally, it's a fair idea, but I don't think it is practical. Someday, there will probably be a few good biographies written about Trump, but for now the best we can do is document his life as it unfolds. - MrX 🖋 20:12, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
I mean something like this.--Jack Upland (talk) 22:32, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Our article is better. For all we know they cribbed from us. SPECIFICO talk 22:40, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Or at least as good. Also, I don't see any evidence that the Britannica article is based on 5-10 highly reliable sources, or any sources for that matter. - MrX 🖋 15:00, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
How would that work? An encyclopedia cribbing from another encyclopedia? Maybe we should reduce our Donald Trump article to two sentences: "We give up. See Encyclopedia Britannica." Kidding aside, I can just imagine the discussions on whether the 5–10 reliable sources are, in fact, more reliable than the information WP editors gleaned from RS. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 14:39, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
I think we should include every single detail about Trump in this article, starting at the Big Bang and ending at the heat death of the universe, because he is the embodiment of entropy. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:54, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
We'll have to wait for the people who run Wikipedia to raise the limits affecting this article to infinity and beyond first. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 20:13, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
Jack Upland is right per Tertiary sources: "Policy: Reliable tertiary sources can be helpful in providing broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources, and may be helpful in evaluating due weight...." TFD (talk) 04:56, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

After false statements

Hatting to stop incessant bickering and edit warring. EvergreenFir (talk) 18:39, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

After "Trump has made many false or misleading statements..." tone of most of the intro section turns extremely partisan left, (rant, rant rant... until it became impossible not to cite acquital. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.103.223.213 (talk) 01:13, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your opinion. Please make substantive suggestions for article improvement, rather than just randomly claiming partisan editing. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:31, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Here comes our weekly complaint that the article is biased. What else is new? Mgasparin (talk) 20:39, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Perhaps instead of nonchalantly noting that people persistently point out obvious bias, and summarily dismissing their concerns, we should work together to remove the bias and make the article neutral. Just a thought. Architeuthidæ (talk) 17:48, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
The article is fine. It reflects the preponderance of what has been written about the subject in reliable sources. There is no "obvious bias". - MrX 🖋 18:15, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
Case and point. If editors keep pointing out the same bias about the article, it's time for us to do some self-reflection and ensure that our own biases are not blinding us from identifying anti-Trump bias within the article. I noticed that you attacked Trump in your below remark, claiming (without evidence) that "race" is somehow a part of Trump's brand. You are entitled to your opinions of course, but here on Wikipedia we need to make sure we're not letting our personal opinions get in the way of objective encyclopedia articles. Architeuthidæ (talk) 18:21, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
Architeuthidæ, here's a bit about "bias". There is a difference between article content and biased statements by editors on talk pages. Unlike talk pages, editorial bias must not appear in, or affect, article content. We must faithfully reproduce the spirit and bias of the sources we use. Article content and sources do not have to be neutral and/or unbiased. On the contrary, NPOV is about editorial bias, and editors must not allow their biases to cause them to censor content or neutralize the bias found in RS. We are required to document that bias and include it in the article. Content bias is okay. The "neutral" in NPOV does not mean "no bias", and NPOV does not mean "no point of view". Most RS have a bias, and that's okay.
One should be careful about attacking other editors for revealing their anti-Trump bias as that can come back to bite one if one is pro-Trump. Both can be seen as personal attacks, per WP:NPA: "Using someone's political affiliations as an ad hominem means of dismissing or discrediting their views, such as accusing them of being left-wing or right-wing, is also forbidden. Editors are allowed to have personal political POV, as long as it does not negatively affect their editing and discussions."
We have a bit of leeway here to express our political views as long as it doesn't get off on tangents that are unrelated to the improvement of article content or off-topic for the discussion. Sometimes it is necessary to explain the realities described by RS for some editors who seem ignorant of them. That's okay. -- BullRangifer (talk) 01:07, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
Time to shut down this pointless argument about who has accused who of what. Discuss the content of the article, not other editors. -- MelanieN (talk) 01:29, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I agree with you about article bias and talk page bias. The article bias manifests itself here by using almost exclusively left-leaning sources, which all despise Trump and profit primarily from trying to hurt Trump, rather than from reporting the news. The talk page bias exists in allowing people to trash Trump and attack him as a racist, as two editors just did above - with no repercussions. Re: "NPA," I asked two anti-Trump editors for evidence that "race" is a central part of Trump's "brand," and received no reply. I think it's a fair question. If we're going to attack living persons, even on talk pages, we should provide reliable sources that support those attacks upon request. I have been attacked as "ignorant" twice, and am currently being harassed and threatened with legal action by another editor on my talk page. It comes with the territory, and remember: most people who are "anti-Trump" or "pro-Trump" wear the label with pride.
I absolutely agree with you about the "leeway" given to anti-Trump diatribes. Editors who defer to the scripture of Jeff Bezos, Jeff Zucker, Noah Oppenheim, Carlos Slim, etc. (often referred to as "RS" on Wikipedia) undoubtedly believe that their teachings are "reality," whereas facts that contradict these teachings are dismissed as merely part of the "vast right-wing conspiracy" and "misinformation." These editors who stare intently at the shadows on the cave wall every night should be respected and heard, and never accused of being deranged or fanatical. This consideration and respect is also extended to editors who have discovered the sun, and do not necessarily take what they read in the newspaper and see on television at face-value. As long as we keep this in mind, we'll be able to continue productive discussion and editing. Architeuthidæ (talk) 16:14, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
As an admin has told you, you are not being threatened with legal action. Retract this falsehood. And what does Jeff Bezos have to do with this? O3000 (talk) 16:24, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
That is that admin's opinion. I think it's pretty clear what you were implying when you twice accused me of defamation. As a peace offering, if you retract your defamation accusations, I'll remove my note about your legal threats. Re: Jeff Bezos - he owns and controls The Washington Post, one of the primary sources of "information" in this article, and is involved in an ongoing feud with President Trump. Architeuthidæ (talk) 16:31, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
I do not make legal threats. Retract these false accusations in the several places you have made them. And Jeff Bezos does NOT control The Washington Post articles. O3000 (talk) 16:34, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
I believe you if you say that's not what you intended with your accusations. Let's move past this, and agree to be more careful in our language when addressing other editors. I also respect your perception of Jeff Bezos' involvement in his companies, although I do not agree. Architeuthidæ (talk) 16:40, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
"The article bias manifests itself here by using almost exclusively left-leaning sources..." "Left-leaning" is a term almost exclusively used by right-leaning people. The mainstream media must surely represent the center of politics, otherwise it couldn't be "mainstream", could it? "Left-leaning" should be used to describe actual left-leaning media (The Nation, for example), not mainstream media like WaPo, NYT, WSJ, CNN, et al. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:10, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
The mainstream is central in the sense that it's middle-of-the-road, advertiser-friendly, routine and formulaic. You know you can open, click or flip to your usual outlet and find the same vibe every day, not intellectually challenging or provocative (relative to "fringe" or "niche" content). But politically, most popular outlets in the States pull for the left (Democrat). There is no centre in this two-party context (neutral media simply avoid discussing politics). InedibleHulk (talk) 01:04, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
You can call me whatever you want - I choose to call ducks ducks, personally, and I won't pretend the sources you named are non-partisan when they clearly are not. This kind of debate just leads to pointless back and forth, so we should probably leave it to the bloggers and pundits. I'll just say that "mainstream" and "partisan" are by no stretch of the imagination mutually exclusive descriptors. Architeuthidæ (talk) 17:17, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
If you have a problem with sources, take it to WP:RSN. And retract the false accusations of legal threats you made on four pages. O3000 (talk) 17:22, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
Hi Objective3000 - I already addressed your attacks in my above reply (timestamp is 16:34). Please drop this issue and be more mindful in the future - thank you. Architeuthidæ (talk) 17:28, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
I made no attacks. Stop making false accusations on page after page. O3000 (talk) 18:12, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
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