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Description as only "populist, protectionist, and nationalist"

The lead includes the following straw man:

His positions have been described by scholars and commentators as populist, protectionist, and nationalist.

Of course that misrepresents what "scholars and commentators" have actually said. The most common words "scholars and commentators" have used to describe his political views are "racist"/"xenophobic," "misogynist"/"sexist" and so on. Since "scholars" have been invoked, see for example

  • Lindsay Pérez Huber, "Make America Great again: Donald Trump, Racist Nativism and the Virulent Adherence to White Supremecy Amid U.S. Demographic Change," Charleston L. Rev. 215 (2016)

And regarding his voter base:

For quite some time, there has been a very serious debate over whether and to which extent Trump can be called a fascist:[1]

An unresolved debate on that query has taken place since Trump launched his candidacy last summer. Writers like Adam Gopnik in The New Yorker and Robert Kagan in The Washington Post have answered “yes,” citing as evidence Trump’s ethnic demagoguery, his scorn for and ignorance of the existing democratic system, his indulgence in conspiracy thinking, and his open admiration of autocrats like Vladimir Putin. Other analysts, perhaps most compellingly Dylan Matthews in Vox, counter by noting that Trump’s movement differs from historical fascism in key ways

The description should be changed to reflect what most scholars and commentators have actually said instead of misrepresenting it by using deliberately milder and less common terms that come across as straw men. --Tataral (talk) 00:28, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

We're not going to call him a Fascist, and much more of that kind of talk will get removed as violating BLP. As for the xenophobia and such among his followers, that is well covered at Donald Trump presidential campaign, 2016. (And by the way, this is not an example of a "straw man" situation. Not even close.) --MelanieN (talk) 00:36, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
Um, says who? If enough reliable, high quality sources discuss whether his political views can be called fascist, then we're going to include it. Wikipedia is based on reliable sources, not on whether individual editors like what they read. Also, please refrain from misrepresenting what other editors write ("call him fascist", as opposed to the actual proposal, namely to address in a nuanced and neutral way the different views over whether his political views can be described as such, as discussed in the article in The New Republic and other sources) --Tataral (talk) 00:41, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
There is absolutely nothing stopping us from including a well-researched and cited section on Trump and fascism. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 21:58, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
No doubt some scholars will have a more negative view of Trump than the majority. Actual fascism scholars were asked about Trump and the vast majority said he was not fascist.[2] Robert Kagan? He thought Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. And of course racists voted for Trump, just as the always vote Republican or for other right-wing parties in other countries. TFD (talk) 00:49, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
The article only underlines that this is a significant debate among what this article calls "scholars and commentators." Others have argued that his political platform does indeed fulfill the necessary criteria for being described as such. We should cover this controversy. --Tataral (talk) 00:54, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
@Tataral: While it is true scholarly sources exist that use stronger words to describe some of Trump's unpleasant proclivities, in such controversial circumstances Wikipedia's policy requires us to eschew individual sources and rely on a preponderance of reliable sources. The press "herd" dials back the language a bit, and our article reflects that. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:46, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
Well quite a "herdW does call him fascist. I don't have time now to research it properly, but just do a web-search and you will find 50+ articles from reliable sources. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 22:00, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
I've "herd" him called a lot of things. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:51, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
"50+" in 131 million news articles is not really that many. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 23:56, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
It is my impression that the question of whether Trump's policies/views can be called fascist, or have similarities with fascism, is one of the most frequently discussed questions in sources that discuss Trump's political ideology. It is a debate that has been carried out in a serious manner in many, many sources for quite some time[3] I'm not an advocate of a definite answer to that question, that is, I don't think we should "call him fascist", but that we should address how scholars and commentators have debated this issue (obviously this would have to be in the Donald Trump#Political positions section, possibly in a sub section on his position in the ideological landscape). Also note that this section was not simply a proposal to "call him fascist" but more about how to describe his political views generally, not limited to the fascism debate. --Tataral (talk) 00:37, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
It's fine mentioning some of that stuff in a sub-article, but we must maintain WP:BLP and WP:NPOV. MB298 (talk) 00:55, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
If the not-straw man statement in the lead has been whitewashed for BLP then it would be better removed. zzz (talk) 02:10, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
@MB298: Wait a second. If stuff is "fine" for a sub-article, it cannot be in violation of WP:BLP. Ergo, it can be considered for inclusion in the main article. If you are suggesting negative stuff gets pushed off to sub-articles, that's the very definition of POV forking. If a preponderance of reliable sources do start using more loaded terms like "facist", we must consider them for this article. At this point, however, most respectable news sources have held back on such terminology, or only used such tangentially. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:40, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Carl Fredrik, you were way out of line to add "and fascist" to the lede, when you know it is under discussion here and there is no consensus to add it; in fact there are more people against it here than there are for it. I have removed it, and I want to reaffirm my own position that this does NOT belong in the article. A label this inflammatory needs VERY solid RS sourcing, not a few academics or commentators here and there offering this as their opinion. --MelanieN (talk) 16:14, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

And now you have restored it, in violation of the Discretionary Sanctions that are clearly posted at the top of this page. "You must not make more than one revert per 24 hours to this article, must not reinstate any challenged (via reversion) edits without obtaining consensus on the talk page of this article, and are subject to discretionary sanctions while editing this page." I don't think you have been given the DS warning on your talk page; I will do so now, so that you are officially aware of the DS and will not commit this kind of violation again. Meanwhile, "and fascism" is back in the article and I can't remove it, because of the DS restrictions which apply to me too. Maybe one of the people who opposed it here - say Scjessey or TFD - could remove it? --MelanieN (talk) 16:22, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
Never mind, it is gone. --MelanieN (talk) 17:56, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
@MelanieN: Just a point of order here, and I mean no disrespect or anything, but I think asking other editors to perform a reversion because you don't want to violate 1RR isn't really appropriate. I get that it's frustrating, but I'm not a fan of "tag team" editing of this nature; however, since WP:BLPVIO overrides 1RR (and I think it's clear that calling Trump a "facist" is a BLP violation), I would argue you would've been quite within your rights to revert anyway and give CFCF a talk page warning for the BLPVIO. I am sure many regular editors, including myself, would've fully supported such an action on your part. Anyway, it's no big deal. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:06, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
No, including a sourced statement that his political views have been called fascist by scholars/commentators is not at all a BLP violation, not any more that the statements that he has been called nationalist and so on. At most, it is a question of whether it is WP:DUE (I believe it is, but this matter is still under discussion here, so I wouldn't personally add this to the lead right away). --Tataral (talk) 05:04, 29 January 2017 (UTC)
Disagree that it's inappropriate and it's done all the time as the only way to mitigate the serious limitations of 1RR (and 3RR). That's why there is no policy prohibiting it. Other editors are free to decline the suggestion, and that actually happened on this page recently. No big deal, maybe, but if we're going to nitpick let's nitpick correctly. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:39, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
(ec) Thanks for your thoughts, Scjssey. I have never seen anything wrong with saying "I can't make this edit, somebody else please do it," but I shouldn't target such requests to specific editors and I apologize for that. I do feel that as an admin I need to "set a good example" by respecting the DS myself. --MelanieN (talk) 18:42, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
Asking other editors to revert articles you cannot revert yourself is totally inappropriate. --Tataral (talk) 05:04, 29 January 2017 (UTC)
MelanieN — Right, I forgot about the sanctions on this article and was a little rash and overstepped. However I don't think it's a big deal, and the way in which you defended your revert of the phrase seems biased. I'm going to give a few examples and prepare a short text soon that we can hopefully agree upon (with a references of course.) Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 22:34, 29 January 2017 (UTC)
I found that you HAVE been warned about the Discretionary Sanctions, and you are in jeopardy for violating them unless you self-revert your restoration of the phrase before some admin notices it. --MelanieN (talk) 16:39, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
This is in blatant violation of WP:NPOV - it would also give WP:UNDUE weight to a probable minority opinion - Yes, Trump is on the right of the political spectrum, but calling him a "fascist" is not verifiable, and is not supported by evidence. 69.165.196.103 (talk) 18:12, 28 January 2017 (UTC) - see WP:UNDUE "If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small minority, it does not belong on Wikipedia, regardless of whether it is true or you can prove it, except perhaps in some ancillary article." edited 69.165.196.103 (talk) 18:13, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
You have apparently misunderstood how Wikipedia works. The opinion that his political views have similarities with fascism is certainly not "held by an extremely small minority"; in fact it appears to be a quite common and widely discussed view among scholars and commentators. We are talking about a far-right politician who is in favour of banning Muslims from his country here. --Tataral (talk) 05:04, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

How scholars and commentators view Trump

Noticing the recent edits where fascism was added and removed from the lead a couple of times, I believe the way to go about this is to first work on the Donald Trump#Political positions section, which needs more work anyway, and only then look into how we summarize it in the lead. The first part of the section discusses how his views are interpreted by scholars and commentators (e.g. "populist" and so on). This first part which addresses his ideology could possibly have its own sub heading, like the bulk of the material in this section. I don't think there is any question, given the large number of sources that discuss whether his political platform is e.g. xenophobic, that the word xenophobic needs to be mentioned. Similarly, given the large number of high quality sources that discuss the relation between his political views and fascism, where different views have been voiced (ranging from interpreting his views as fascist, to pointing out some similarities while also noting the differences, to a stance that his views differ significantly from fascism as a scholarly term), I don't think there is any question that the section needs to address this, in a nuanced way obviously. Editors who are not familiar with scholarship on fascism should note that fascism is a scholarly term used by political scientists that has taken on a broader meaning than just Italian fascism; it is not used as an invective or anything like that in this debate that we ought to address, but as a scholarly description by scholars and commentators. And this debate is, after all, about how scholars and commentators view him. --Tataral (talk) 06:23, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

See my comments in the section below. --MelanieN (talk) 01:00, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Fascism

I've dug for less than 15 minutes and taken the top articles from google-news (without being logged in or filtered) and created the following list of articles that touch upon Trump and fascism:

Calling him a fascist:

Discussing the issue, no conclusions (most concede he’s being called a fascist):

Dissenting views:

Some of the sources are less than ideal or overtly political, but most are middle-of-the-road American newspapers — and even some big names have called Trump a fascist, including Paul Krugman. The fact that this isn't mentioned in our article is abyssmal and frightening. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 22:55, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

I suggest the following three passages be added to the article:

#1 — A general section on fascism:

Throughout Trump's campaign and presidency media sources and scholars along both American party-lines have questioned whether Donald Trump is fascist or shows fascist tendencies.
Conclusions differ, with some stating that his rhetoric and proposals are fascist, while others do not equate Trump with any such label. Comparisons to known fascist dictators have by some sources been called apt and others dismissing the notion of similarity disregarding any comparisson as invoking Godwin's Law.

#2 — The following notable case:

In a criticized move on the 28th of February 2016 Donald Trump quoted the former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in a tweet with:

"@ilduce2016: “It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.” – @realDonaldTrump #MakeAmericaGreatAgain"

This drew criticism from a range of sources, with some defending Trump on the grounds that the quote was innocuous and that it was not clear that Trump knew it was by Mussolini.

#3 — Addition to the lede of "fascism", changing:

His positions have been described by scholars and commentators as populist, protectionist, and nationalist.

to

His positions have been described by scholars and commentators as populist, protectionist, nationalist, and fascist.

Note: Boldface and underscore are used to signify the change.
Best, Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 23:05, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Tataral is right that this would have to be well documented in the article text before it could go in the lede. Carl Fredrik, you've done a lot of work to try to support this inclusion, so let's see what you've got. Half a dozen of your links are not from Reliable Sources, so we'll skip those. Most of the rest are opinion pieces published in mainstream papers. That's not straight reporting, but the core of your argument is that a lot of people hold this opinion. So I took a look at the first two on your list, both from the Washington Post.

IMO these two end the argument right there. One of them says, and the other implies, that he really isn't one; at most he shares some attitudes with them. And as I said above, and as both columnists indicated, "Fascist" is not a word that can be lightly applied to someone. Contrary to what Tataral said, it is not a neutral, scholarly term for a political philosophy, except possibly in the most ivory-tower halls of academe. In general usage it is an extraordinary word, a fighting word, an outrageous word. To call someone a Fascist (the capitalized Italian word was Mussolini's word for his movement) is to literally put the person in the same category as Hitler and Mussolini - leaders whose actions defined evil, in a way that is almost unique in modern history. To say someone is "like Hitler and Mussolini, except without the killing" would be a ridiculous position. You can't say "Fascism" without implying mass murders; there is no "Fascism lite". Academics may use the word in a harmless philosophical sense, but that is not how most people understand it. To use a word like this, even hedged around with "some people think this", would require much wider mainstream acceptance of the idea. To use it in the absence of such mainstream acceptance would be a violation of BLP.

For comparison: Mainstream sources have accepted the description of him as a liar. That's a fighting word too, but we are using it, because it is being so universally applied to him. That is not the case with "Fascist", even if there are some opinion columns and academic analyses saying he might be, or might be kinda-sorta-in-some-ways like a Fascist. After reading these I am even more convinced that the "F" word must not appear in this article in any form or in any place. --MelanieN (talk) 00:59, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Lets just start off with your first point MelanieN — Which links are not reliable sources? Of the ones I linked 1 falls out, lets see if it is the same for both of us... Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 06:23, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
MelanieN, what you are saying about how the term fascism is used in scholarly contexts is not correct. Fascism does not refer only to Mussolini or Hitler, and you don't have to be Hitler, or anything close to Hitler, to be a fascist. Fascism is about ideology and has taken on a broad meaning based on a "minimum" definition, as discussed in our article Definitions of fascism. The definition by Roger Griffin is one of the most, if not the most, recognised definition of generic fascism today:

[F]ascism is best defined as a revolutionary form of nationalism, one that sets out to be a political, social and ethical revolution, welding the ‘people’ into a dynamic national community under new elites infused with heroic values. The core myth that inspires this project is that only a populist, trans-class movement of purifying, cathartic national rebirth (palingenesis) can stem the tide of decadence

As the article notes, a broad scholarly consensus developed in English-speaking social sciences during the 1990s around a definition of generic fascism largely similar to/based on Griffin's definition, where

the core mobilizing myth of fascism which conditions its ideology, propaganda, style of politics and actions is the vision of the nation's imminent rebirth from decadence.

It is quite easy to see why many scholars argue that fascism (in the scholarly and generic sense) is a relevant descriptor when discussing Trump's ideology.
Also note that we are discussing, specifically, a sentence that describes how "scholars" view Trump. In this context, there is nothing problematic about having a nuanced discussion on whether, or to which extent, Trump is considered to meet scholarly definitions of generic fascism as discussed in the article Definitions of fascism, and it does not at all imply that he is "like Hitler." Even if it's true that some people are unfamiliar with how the term is used in scholarly contexts (although the term fascism in a generic sense has become very established and quite well-known even among non-experts), that's not really relevant. --Tataral (talk) 06:48, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Carl Fredrik has provided a good starting point for discussion. I will get back to this later. --Tataral (talk) 06:48, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

"fascism or Fascism : a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized, autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition". (Merriam-Webster Unabridged.) --Dervorguilla (talk) 07:42, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

That definition seems a little simplistic and outdated, and doesn't take account more recent scholarship. Definitions of fascism (including Definitions of fascism#Roger Griffin) is a good starting point for understanding how the term is usually understood in academic debates today. --Tataral (talk) 08:23, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
What definition you personally use or whether you choose to conflate fascism with mass-murder like MelanieN does is irrelevant. The fact remains that a number of reliable sources support the statement, and they do so by invoking a number of different criteria and definitions. Including any definition that is used to claim Trump is a fasist does not seem WP:DUE, even if I happen to find Umberto Eco's 14 criteria to be the most salient. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 22:04, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not a scholarly journal, and it is not written for a scholarly audience. It's all very well for academics to use a term like this among themselves, where they all understand what it means and can discuss it dispassionately and in a theoretical sense. But that's not how it would be understood here. As one of your sources said, the word fascism is "beyond all respectability". Merriam-Webster, defining it as general usage defines it and as we should define it, says fascism is a regime that features "centralized, autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition". There is no way that could describe the Trump administration or the current state of things in the United States. Want a broader sampling of what the word means to the lay public? How about this: "a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control."[4] Or Merriam-Webster's simplified definition for students and English learners: "a way of organizing a society in which a government ruled by a dictator controls the lives of the people and in which people are not allowed to disagree with the government". Don't like Merriam-Webster? Ok, let's try the Oxford dictionaries: "An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization." or in general use "extreme right-wing, authoritarian, or intolerant views or practices".[5] Maybe you prefer Cambridge? "a political system based on a very powerful leader, state control of social and economic life, and extreme pride in country and race, with no expression of political disagreement allowed".[6] These definitions are how the general public, including the educated public, understands the word "fascism". Scholarly redefinitions have not registered, and the word remains unacceptable except when applied to regimes that are ACTUALLY brutal and dictatorial.
As for my contention that the word is mostly used as an attack word, "fighting words" rather than a scholarly definition of a political philosophy - something that seems so obvious it shouldn't need pointing out - I quote Wikipedia's article on Fascism: "Since the end of World War II in 1945, few parties have openly described themselves as fascist, and the term is instead now usually used pejoratively by political opponents." That's the word you think is so innocent and uncontroversial that we can put it into a biographical article. --MelanieN (talk) 22:43, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
Melanie, as pointed out by CFCF, your own understanding of the term is not really relevant to the discussion, because that is a form of WP:SYNTH and WP:OR. What is relevant for us is the fact that many reliable sources discuss how fascism is related to Trump's ideology, and many of them simply call Trump's political views a form of fascism. The sentence is specifically about how scholars view Trump, and while Wikipedia isn't written just for academics, a good Wikipedia article will explain how a topic is viewed by the experts in the field. Also, Trump is frequently described as a fascist in non-academic contexts too; for example in the media, or by politicians. In a debate in the House of Commons, Trump was just called a fascist by a member of parliament[7] and there is now a great debate in the United Kingdom over whether he is a fascist and many across the political spectrum seem to share that opinion. --Tataral (talk) 02:57, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
While your argument is invalid MelanieN and relies on a wide array of flawed assumptions (that only academics are calling Trump a fascist, or that terminology used by academics should not be presented on Wikipedia) — every last straw of it can still be refuted. For each and every one of the definitions you list you can find high-quality reliable sources that state Trump fulfills those criteria. However this just isn't relevant because what matters is not which criteria you can list, but the fact that it is undeniable that a wide range of reliable sources have called Trump a fascist. If no reasonable objection can be made I will make the suggested edits soon, and if you revert you will be violating consensus. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 21:04, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

My citations above are not "my own understanding of the term". They are not OR or SYNTH. These are definitions from authoritative sources like Merriam-Webster, Oxford, and Cambridge. We also have Wikipedia's word for it that the term is mainly used "pejoratively by political opponents". But above all, you do not have consensus. Even though only three of us have gotten down into the weeds here, with most people probably repelled by this wordy and repetitious thread, two other people above - TFD and Scjessey - opposed the use of the word. Maybe they could chime in here on whether they find your proposed wording to be acceptable. --MelanieN (talk) 21:19, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

And by the way - I haven't gotten into the details of your wording because it seemed so obvious that we could not add this BLP violation to the article. (And if you do add it, don't be surprised if it is immediately yanked by multiple people who haven't been following this discussion, and who quickly overrule and outnumber your "consensus" of two.) But since you are seriously considering adding it, you need to figure out some way to reword your proposed sentence for the lede: "His positions have been described by scholars and commentators as populist, protectionist, nationalist, and fascist." You can't say "have been described by scholars and commentators" as if they were in agreement, because while S&C have generally agreed on "populist, protectionist, and nationalist", there is no such general agreement for "fascist". Only SOME scholars and commentators have been willing to use that word, and some have argued strongly against it. --MelanieN (talk) 21:30, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
Your interpretation of whether Trump fulfills those criteria or abides by those definitions is text-book WP:Original research — and it scares me that you are unable to see this. For the three concrete suggestions I made above see Talk:Donald Trump#Fascism. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 21:52, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
Easily fixed by replacing "and" with "and/or", optionally inserting "variously" before "described". If you want more accuracy than that, two sentences are needed, the second addressing the fascism bit. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:37, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
See the three suggestions I make, that addition is the least important one, but I agree that such a wording may be better. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 21:54, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
CFCF: I have no position on this, but you are not close to a consensus for inclusion of something this controversial. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:21, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
There has however been no coherent dissent — and in lieu of that I can not find the proposition to be controversial. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 21:52, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
I can't recall the last time my opponents' arguments seemed very coherent to me. Even if you're somehow different in that respect, surely you can see the problem that arises if any of us is allowed to declare that our opponents arguments are not coherent and therefore don't count. Would you care to be on the receiving end of that? I suspect not. And the fact that MelanieN has 10 years editing experience should earn at least her that much respect. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:24, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
I find that most of the time Wikipedia arguments hold a fairly high level, with editors relying on sources for their arguments. However in this case the opposition (so far only MelanieN) ingores the sources and relyies entirely on personal opinion and WP:ORIGINAL RESEARCH to state that certain dictionary criteria are not met. His/her interpretation is entirely irrelevant and thus entirely incoherent. This is in my experience seldom the case on Wikipedia — and as such it is rare enough that I felt obliged to call it out in violation of policy. This does not discount new better arguments being asserted, but so far nothing substantial has been said in opposition of the suggested edits. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 12:03, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
Strong Oppose – No matter which way you slice it, calling somebody a fascist is defamation, except for members of historical fascist movements and some contemporary fringe characters who identify as fascist themselves. Please see WP:LIBEL and drop this thread. — JFG talk 00:47, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
Which of the three proposals do you oppose? Even if your interpretation is correct, is it not notable that he is being subject to this criticism (if maybe not in the lede)? As stated above there are debates in the British House of Parliament concerning alleged fascism in the current American administration. WP:LIBEL is not applicable here as there are a vast array or reliable sources stating Trump is a fascist or holds fascist positions. The suggested edits do not use WP:WIKIPEDIAS VOICE. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 12:03, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
I said "no matter which way you slice it", which makes it clear that I oppose any attempt to plug the F word into this BLP, be it as a direct accusation or as an attributed report of some people making comparisons. You have made your case clearly and this thread is going nowhere; if you feel so strongly that fascism must be included, please open an RfC. — JFG talk 13:54, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
That may very well be the end-result, but your personal opinion for full ommision is not backed by policy. I do think we're having a constructive dialogue here, and it would be helpful to actually stick to the sources and discuss why or why not they support inclusion of the term. The suggested text below is absolutely not controversial in its form — what is up for discussion is whether it is due to include it. And on that base you can't discount the myriad of sources which have discussed the proposition, and the suggested edit is actually supported by sources that deny that Trump is a fascist. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 15:02, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
An article originally published in the History News Network says the "vast majority [of 19 historians of Fascism consulted by the author] did not consider Trump a fascist."[8] They included Stanley Payne, the foremost theorist on fascist ideology. Roger Eatwell, the expert on fascism and the far right also said Trump was not a fascist.[9] Similarly with Robert Paxton.[10] These three writers are probably the foremost experts on fascism today. Trump's style is in the populist tradition which has some similarities to fascism, but then populism is a recurring theme in U.S. politics, even among mainstream politicians. While his opponents say that he wants to tear up the constitution, Hitler and Jean-Marie Le Pen literally wanted to repeal their countries' constitutions. And while Trump said he would appoint a special (i.e., independent) prosecutor to investigate his main political opponent (he hasn't), Hitler had the premier he defeated shot without trial (and his wife too) as well as his major competitor in the Nazi Party. When Trump puts millions of Americans into FEMA concentration camps, censors the press and starts World War III, and thousands of refugees flee over the wall into Mexico , we can revisit it. TFD (talk) 02:11, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
Then you have one additional dissenting source, but that doesn't discount the sources that claim he is a fascist (30+ WP:RS-sources listed on this page alone, and that list is not exhaustive). Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 12:03, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
It does. Because if reliable sources say that most fascism scholars do not consider Trump fascist and all the leading experts say he is not fascist, then that takes priority over no matter how many examples you can find of alternative views. Your position is the same as climate change deniers and creationists. They ignore sources that say there is a consensus against them, then provide evidence that there are hundreds of experts who support their position. Incidentally, I am not hearing mainstream news media routinely referring to Trump as a fascist in the same way they would refer to Bush as a conservative. TFD (talk) 13:02, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
Take a look at the above list of sources again, there are fascism scholars there who state he is fascist or where the proposition is given serious regard. This does not take priority, it makes a strong argument that we not state he is a fascist in WIKIVOICE, but says nothing about the inclusion of other quality sources stating he is a fascist. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 13:06, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
For sources that extend beyond the above list see The New Yorker — A Scholar of Fascism Sees a Lot That’s Familiar with Trump. While this specific source does not call directly state he is a fascist, the comparisson is made, which is relevant. I can list more if you wish, and in fact you source also suggests it is relevant to this article — even if the mention of fascism would be us negating that Trump is a fascist. It may be acceptable to conclude that most sources (if we find any reliable source to back this up) do not agree that Trump is a fascist, but the total omission of the word is both against WP:NOTCENSORED and WP:DUE. Neither are WP:LIBEL or WP:BLP relevant if we have strong sources to back up any such statement.
[Edit:] Also take a look at [11] written by Robert Kagan, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution or One Expert Says, Yes, Donald Trump is a Fascist. And It’s Not Just Trump. (Tikkun (magazine)). There is no shortage of scholars who have debated and even accepted the proposition that Trump is a fascist. Mentioning the debate (of course without drawing our own conclusions) is absolutely due. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 13:25, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
This is exactly the sort of issue the WP:NPOV policy was designed to address. The guidelines are clear, and people should edit accordingly. -- The Anome (talk) 13:10, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Arbitrary break in fascism discussion

If you look at the suggested main edit (minor grammatical changed from suggestion above):

Throughout Trump's campaign and presidency media sources and scholars along both American party-lines have questioned whether Donald Trump is fascist or shows fascist tendencies.
Conclusions differ, with some stating that his rhetoric and proposals are fascist, while others do not equate Trump with any such label. Comparisons to known dictators have been made, while some dismiss the notion of similarity disregarding any comparisson as invoking Godwin's Law.

It becomes quite clear that this is entirely in line with WP:NPOV. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 13:15, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

I feel the need to repeat what I said before, but expand on it at the request of MelanieN. While it is certainly true that some sources have used the words "fascist" and "fascism" when describing Trump and his administration, it is not a preponderance of reliable sources doing this. Therefore, it can be considered a minority viewpoint and so WP:WEIGHT comes into play. Now I personally think this is really close to being a significant enough viewpoint to warrant conclusion; however, I subscribe to the philosophies of "if in doubt, leave it out" and "consensus before contentious" when it comes to inclusions. Since this is the main article, I think mention of fascism should be excluded until (a) it can be shown conclusively that it is popular in reliable sources, and (b) a consensus forms on this talk page for inclusion (which is definitely not the case at this time). That said, I think we should monitor the situation closely, because it does seem like these loaded terms are gaining some traction in reliable sources. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:19, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
Minority viewpoints are not irrelevant — especially so when they are articulated by a vast array of credible sources. Rarely is something mentioned in the New Yorker, the NY-Times, Washington Post, the Guardian, etc... while remaining an insignificant viewpoint. The sheer volume of sources which discuss this should be enough to merit a mention in this article. If necessary it will be possible to list hundreds of sources from the most reliable of newspapers discussing Trump and fascism — so this is likely not a viable argument for omission. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 15:07, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
I did not say minority viewpoints were irrelevant. In fact, I said I think the viewpoint is "really close" to being significant enough. It is not necessary for you to list a ton of sources since we all have the ability to find and evaluate sources for ourselves. At this time, there appears to be an apparent consensus for exclusion. Please respect that. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:14, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
I'm not seeing any such consensus, and I am challenging the pretense that such a consensus exists — partly because any consensus must be based off our policies and pillars. Individual interpretation of definitions is irrelevant. I'm happy to let more voices be heard, but we must first admit two fundamental points in order to have a constructive dialogue:
  1. The phenomenon is subject to wide-spread discussion in reliable sources
  2. Our personal opinions of the term or whether we believe various criteria are fulfilled does not matter for inclusion in the article
Thanks, Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 15:22, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
Then start the RfC. We've had RfCs on less important things. I assume you know how to present an RfC correctly. If you and others can't convince the RfC's closer, you lose, full stop. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:32, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
I still find it premature, and would like more coherent arguments for or against before I take the time to draft an RfC. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 15:36, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
There's only one other editor suggesting the sort of addition you are proposing, whereas several editors have articulated reasons why it is not a good idea at this time. And suggesting those articulated reasons are not "coherent arguments" is a little unfair. Mandruss is correct. If you really feel this is the hill you want to die on, start an RfC, because right now you are proposing changes that you have no consensus for. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:40, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
With only 5-6 editors taking part and discussion lasting less then 48 hours I still find it premature to start an RfC now as it is unlikely to be constructed in a way that will provide actionable consensus — and as such I would like more input before drafting anything. Better arguments have arrisen since my comment on the incoherence of listing defintions and personal interpretation of whether they are fulfilled. If we could drop that minor and frankly irrelvant point and get back to a discussion of why mentioning fascism should or shouldn't be done (relying on policies and reliable sources) that would be great. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 15:57, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
The word simply carries too much baggage to apply to a person that has not openly espoused fascism or taken overtly fascist actions. Objective3000 (talk) 16:19, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
I agree Objective3000. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 16:24, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Carl Fredrik is entirely correct that consensus is not judged by counting editors who support or oppose something, but by judging the strengths of their arguments based on Wikipedia policies. There doesn't appear to be significant policy-based opposition to this proposal. On the other hand, I don't think we need to rush this issue, and we can wait for some time for a clearer consensus on an exact wording. Another factor is that the case for including fascism grows stronger every day because the term is becoming even more accepted than it was before, a fact that has been pointed out even by American right-wingers[12] --Tataral (talk) 18:18, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Carl Fredrik, you need to read your sources. "One Expert Says, Yes, Donald Trump is a Fascist" says, "Stanley Payne, long given to a meticulous, phenomenological definition of fascism, argued that in no way could Trump be considered one. British scholars like Roger Griffin have weighed in on this question as well, coming to similar conclusions. Arguably the leading American scholar of fascism, Columbia University’s Robert Paxton, similarly denied that Trump is a fascist...." They are probably the world's four leading fascism scholars. The one "expert," Robert Kagan is not a fascism expert. If you remember, he was one of the guys telling us that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He's not a WMD expert either. TFD (talk) 18:46, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
Right, you invalidated the entire position by questioning some ambiguity in one of over 30+ sources. The point is not that a specific source or scholar has called him a fascist, but that a multitude have asked the question and a considerable minority assert that yes he is a fascist (or at least exhibits fascist tendencies). Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 12:23, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
There are 5.6 million PhDs in the U.S., millions more in other countries, and you are likely to find more than thirty who say Trump is a fascist, global warming is a hoax, the Earth is 6,000 years old or even that the moon-landing was faked. Unless you poll them all, the best way to determine the weight of expert opinion is to rely on reliably sourced articles that say what the weight of opinion is. And they say, just as they do about climate change, evolution and the moon-landing, what the consensus is and they quote the major scholars' opinions. You are working backwards. Like fringe theorists, you start with a conclusion, then search for evidence to back it up. TFD (talk) 10:01, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Trump does not self-identify (AFAIK) as a fascist, and that fact raises the bar for inclusion, to some extent. My own personal view is that it kind of trivializes the infamous fascists of WWII to suggest that they were merely Trumplike as opposed to being a lot worse. In any event, I think that labels should be kept to a minimum in this article, and it's much more useful for readers to let them know what Trump thinks and does, as opposed to how he is categorized by some scholars, especially if the categorization is highly disputed.Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:53, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
    • No, this article is not a mouthpiece for Trump ("what Trump thinks and does, as opposed to how he is categorized by some scholars"), that's not how Wikipedia works at all; Wikipedia is based on reliable sources, and very few if any of them report on Trump from the "what Trump thinks" perspective, and they frequently treat Trump's claims as WP:FRINGE theories (e.g. his claims about his inauguration attendence, which were widely described as falsehoods and lies in reliable sources). Similarly, it doesn't matter whether Trump says he is a fascist, what matters is whether reliable sources support such a description (indeed, very few of the politicians we describe as centre-left in their Wikipedia biographies go around saying "I'm centre-left"). --Tataral (talk) 08:29, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
      • Indeed. The point here is not whether Trump is or isn't a fascist, it is that the issue of whether or not he is one is a major topic of serious discussion by commentators in WP:RS worldwide, something that is unprecedented in modern times for a politician in high office in a Western democracy, and most definitely passes the notability threshold. Not to report on this would be a breach of WP:NPOV. -- The Anome (talk) 10:13, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
      • Obviously, it is extremely rare for elected American politicians to self-identify as fascists. So, if Trump were to do that, it would undoubtedly be extremely notable and worthy of inclusion in this BLP. But he hasn't, so the issue is more doubtful. Mainly, it's an epithet used by political opponents. If it becomes a common scholarly descriptor, then perhaps it would be worth including together with opposing views.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:31, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Opinionated democratic commentators and Clinton supporters full of hate for Trump don't get to label him a fascist here, at least not without weight and clear wp:attribution and the opposing view being given equal WP:WEIGHT. There are also similar opinionated reporters referring to him as a Nazi - wikipedia and its WP:Policies and guidelines is hopefully better than that - read also WP:BLP and consider cautious and careful editing regarding living people. Govindaharihari (talk) 05:21, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Agree with Govindaharihari. This is coming from Democrats. And do read WP:BLP before editing pages about living people. These rules also apply to talk pages. SW3 5DL (talk) 15:50, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WP:FALSEBALANCE. The tespondents in the relevant Pew survey believe the "most reliable" news sources to be (in order) BBC, NPR, PBS, Wall Street Journal, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, CNN and USA Today. Of which none (0) have been cited above. --Dervorguilla (talk) 08:58, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment: None of the three previous comments are based on anything resembling Wikipedia policy, but merely express the editors' personal views, and will therefore need to be disregarded in this discussion. Also note that they present many wrong claims, such as the claim that the discussion of whether Trump's political platform can be described as fascist is "coming from Democrats", a laughable US-centric claim (many of the relevant sources and experts are from Europe), in addition to being completely irrelevant (the fact that a source is not far-right and merely centrist or centre-right like the Democratic Party does not make it less valid). --Tataral (talk) 11:28, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Also, the claim that the BBC and those other sources haven't reported on the discussion over whether Trump's views can be called fascist is blatantly wrong. I find tons of articles on the BBC website alone mentioning Trump in connection with fascism. The reaction to his election was World media shock and dismay at Trump win, which notes that Trump has been called a neo-fascist. This is again pointed out by Mark Mardell in his article Fascism, the 1930s and the 21st Century, which notes that "Trump has been called a fascist." And this article summing up how the world views Trump: 'Racist', 'fascist', 'utterly repellent': What the world said about Donald Trump. Several BBC articles have addressed comparisons between Trump and Hitler.[13][14] I could go on endlessly based on BBC sources alone. --Tataral (talk) 11:32, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
    • And Obama has been called a Muslim, global warming has been called a hoax, Islam has been called evil. Read WP:WEIGHT. The fact an opinion has been expressed is no reason to give it undue weight. What matters is the degree of acceptance in reliable sources which appears to be zero. Your first source for example says, "A front-page opinion piece on Argentina's Clarin calls Donald Trump "an emerging neo-fascist"." No other examples are provided. Clarin is a right-wing tabloid known for highly partisan and unfair attacks against its opponents. And before you accuse me of cherry-picking your sources, you have presented a wall of text and I picked your first one. You are using the same tactics as the Right and it does not become more acceptable because you are on the other side sort of. TFD (talk) 16:22, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
      • Obama has not been called a Muslim by serious reliable sources. And this section has cited 35+ sources on the Trump/fascism debate, and these are merely just examples, and tons of other sources are easily available. It has been firmly established here that the Trump/fascism debate is one of the great debates (in reliable sources) in relation to Trump and his political program/platform/views. If you have anything to add to this discussion that is actually based on Wikipedia policy and that is actually a response to what I and other editors have said, give me a ring. --Tataral (talk) 18:32, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 7 February 2017

Please change the following sentence, Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American businessman, television personality, politician, and the 45th President of the United States.

Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is the 45th President of the United States, an American businessman, television personality, and a politician.

This should be done because his current position is President of the United States. He no longer has interest in his business and has resigned from the said businesses and television programs. Thank you Hatlady5 159.118.156.60 (talk) 04:33, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

[citation needed] Twitbookspacetube (talk) 04:36, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
 Not done (See #Current consensuses) Olidog (talk) 07:53, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 6 February 2017

Klynjol (talk) 15:59, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. DRAGON BOOSTER ★ 16:04, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
I think it is clear from the fact we have so many malformed edit requests that we have people seeking permission to edit, rather than asking for specific edits to be made. Somehow Wikipedia needs to make it clearer how this process works. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:06, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
We can't force people to read the clear advice they are given when they click "View source", which must be the path they are taking to the edit request process:
"If you have noticed an error or have a suggestion for a simple change, you can submit an edit request, by clicking the button below and following instructions. An administrator or extended confirmed user may then make the change on your behalf. Please check the talk page first in case the issue is already being discussed."
After clicking the "Submit an edit request" button, they see more detailed advice, including:
"Follow the instructions below to submit an edit request - a request to have someone edit the article for you."
Failure to RTFM is a widespread problem, much wider than Wikipedia editing. ―Mandruss ☎ 16:15, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
Yep. Very common at AfD's when people protest the deletion notice on the page they've created instead of coming up with the policy for keeping the page. SW3 5DL (talk) 19:41, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

reduce protection after trumps first 100 days

i propose after Donald trumps first 100 days in office i propose downgrading protection from extended confirm to semi protection as i believe everyones emotions are going haywire right now but after 100 days everyone will probably be calmed down by them most likely and people will get away from panic mode--Jonnymoon96 (talk) 04:06, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

We'll wait and see. But don't get your hopes up that they'll calm down, it's been this way since he announced his run for presidency, and it will probably remain as such after his eventual impeachment. Twitbookspacetube (talk) 04:15, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Well, we should really see if this actually happens after 100 days. We can't predict the future, and so we can't really be sure if everyone comes out "from panic mode" after 100 days. We can revisit this discussion towards the end of the 100 days or whenever "panic mode" dies down, if "panic mode" dies down, unless downgrading protection is a viable option as of right now (which it isn't). SkyWarrior 04:18, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
Don't get your hopes up he'll be impeached. It could be 8 years of "panic mode".--Jack Upland (talk) 11:21, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
Expect Trump to dominate the news cycle every single day for the next 8 years, should he last that long. He is deliberately provocative and the media and his opponents take the bait. The big worry is that the article becomes a catalog the thousands of incidents we may look forward to. Protection is helpful. Otherwise every day some person will read the news, think "No president has ever said/done that before!" and add it to the article. TFD (talk) 15:44, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
I don't really see what the problem is anyway. If these first-time contributors are carried here by breaking news or a surge of passion, isn't it a good idea to have a cooling off period?--Jack Upland (talk) 23:12, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

I do not believe it will be a BLP issue to insert critical verbiage of Mr. Trump's inability/unwillingness to ask his own legal counsel for advice. His unilateralism should be admonished in the article as well. Do you agree? --Worldwide edit account (talk) 16:16, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Source, please? --MelanieN (talk) 16:18, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
User:Worldwide edit account - it's WP:OFFTOPIC for this article, his biography, unless it is shown to involve a significant impact on his life. And no admonishing either, WP is to just report neutrally what outside sources say in due WP:WEIGHT of prominence. Markbassett (talk) 02:58, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
As per other editors, while it would be fine to report that others had admonished him (if sourced), WP editors can't admonish people in articles. DarjeelingTea (talk) 19:34, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

vox is not a RS

vox is a source in the section called Affiliations with Russia. Vox is a liberal progressive propaganda organization. It is not a RS.

207.245.44.6 (talk) 18:04, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Disagree. Vox has a good track record with excellent talent. (eg Ezra Klein)Casprings (talk) 18:07, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Also, if you don't like the sources, here are some more we could look at:

  1. Tom Hamburger, Rosalind S. Helderman and Michael Birnbaum (June 17, 2016), "Inside Trump's financial ties to Russia and his unusual flattery of Vladimir Putin", The Washington Post, retrieved December 14, 2016
  2. Nesbit, Jeff (August 15, 2016), "Donald Trump's Many, Many, Many, Many Ties to Russia", Time, retrieved December 14, 2016
  3. Michael Stott and Catherine Belton (October 16, 2016), "Trump's Russian connections", Financial Times, retrieved December 14, 2016
  4. Miller, James (November 7, 2016), "Trump and Russia", The Daily Beast, retrieved December 14, 2016
  5. Kirchick, James (April 27, 2016), "Donald Trump's Russia connections", Politico, retrieved December 14, 2016
  6. "Obama hits Trump over intel briefings, alleged Russia connections", Fox News, December 13, 2016, retrieved December 14, 2016
  7. Farkas, Evelyn (December 12, 2016), "Here's What America Needs to Know About Trump and Russia", Politico, retrieved December 14, 2016
  8. "Trump advisers with Russian ties", MSNBC, December 11, 2016, retrieved December 14, 2016
  9. Reich, Robert (December 13, 2016), "Robert Reich: Donald Trump's Treacherous Ties to Russia", Newsweek, retrieved December 14, 2016
  10. Rozsa, Matthew (November 4, 2016), "Presidential candidate Donald Trump's Russian ties are scaring NATO allies", Salon, retrieved December 14, 2016
  11. Wasserman, Harvey (December 12, 2016), "Electoral College Must Not Vote Until Possible Trump Ties to Russian Hacking are Fully Investigated", The Huffington Post, retrieved December 14, 2016
  12. Smith, Geoffrey (November 2, 2016), "Meet the Russian Bank with Ties to Donald Trump", Fortune, retrieved December 14, 2016
  13. Foer, Franklin (October 31, 2015), "Was a Trump Server Communicating With Russia?", Slate, retrieved December 14, 2016
  14. Rozsa, Matthew (November 1, 2016), "Donald Trump company's server was connected to Russian bank", Salon, retrieved December 14, 2016
  15. Scott Bixby and Ben Jacobs (November 1, 2016), "Trump campaign denies report of Trump Organization tie to Russian bank", The Guardian, retrieved December 14, 2016
  16. Mastroianni, Brian (November 1, 2016), "Was a Trump computer server connected to Russia?", CBS News, retrieved December 14, 2016
  17. Montini, EJ (November 10, 2016), "Russians admit Trump connection. Will Trump?", The Arizona Republic, retrieved December 14, 2016
  18. "Are there any Trump links to Putin?", BBC News, BBC, July 27, 2016, retrieved December 14, 2016
  19. Grimes, Roger A. (November 1, 2016), "Is it real? The Trump-Russia server connection", InfoWorld, retrieved December 14, 2016
  20. Benen, Steve (November 1, 2016), "Trump's Russia ties become the subject of multiple controversies", The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, retrieved December 14, 2016
  21. Kim, Lucian (December 14, 2016), "Trump's Men In Moscow: Trump Disciples Suddenly Showing Up In Russia", National Public Radio, retrieved December 14, 2016
  22. Chance, Matthew (December 15, 2016), "Why are Trump loyalists showing up in Moscow?", CNN, retrieved December 15, 2016

Casprings (talk) 19:11, 17 February 2017 (UTC))

Media About Trump Bias/Overrepresented View Points

Reading the media section about Mr. Trump one can see how it is very bias. Especially after the video of him using very vulgar language and discriminating woman, which should be included when talking about our current president in the media section under his name. It is very important to include both sides in an article to fully inform readersCesar Pulido (talk) 22:06, 7 February 2017 (UTC)Cesar Pulido

This articles viewpoints are very overrepresented because the whole article is bias. Throughout the whole article all that is shared is the good accomplishments made by Donald Trump. When it shares nothing about racists remarks, discrimination towards woman, and lack of respect towards some people.Cesar Pulido (talk) 22:06, 7 February 2017 (UTC)Cesar Pulido

Cesar Pulido - ? If you mean the tape, that is kind of WP:OFFTOPIC for his bio. That was pretty much a 7-day wonder 'October surprise' in the Donald Trump presidential campaign, 2016 and has it's own Donald Trump and Billy Bush recording but this is supposed to be his biography of significant parts of his life and so here just has a mention pointing to the article. Markbassett (talk) 03:11, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Indeed, I believe some contributors may be biased as Mr. Trump is...not a great president. LyricsThatSing (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 09:59, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Bad revert

I strongly object to the revert of this edit of mine. It is nuts to refer in the lead to Trump's ascension to the presidency in the future tense.Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:16, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Fixed it. El_C 20:19, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
You shouldn't have done that. The paragraph is under discussion in a previous section, and no edits should be made to it until there is an agreement. Anythingyouwant has sneakily done this in a new section, which is highly inappropriate. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:39, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
It was 100% appropriate for El_C to fix it. We would look like fools if we refer in the lead to Trump's ascension to the presidency in future tense. As for me being sneaky, no way. The RFC is over and we needed to move on. I already said above in the RFC section: " I am glad to consider proposed changes to the lead as it stands now, but maybe start a new section?Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:48, 9 February 2017 (UTC)". Please see WP:NPA.Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:03, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
Let's not be petty here. It's clearly past tense now. It's simply absurd to refer to him as becoming when that clearly has already happened. My change of it into became is WP:SENSE of the first order. El_C 19:48, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Edits made without consensus that were reverted

  • Confused looking at what we started with at the top, Scjessey wrote the current version is:

Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016, in a surprise victory against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. At age 70, he became the oldest and wealthiest person to assume the presidency, the first without prior military or governmental service, and the fifth elected with less than a plurality of the national popular vote.

However, recently, while this discussion has been going on, it has been changed to:

Trump won the presidential election on November 8, 2016, against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, and assumed office on January 20, 2017. Elected at age 70, he is the oldest and wealthiest person to assume the presidency, the first without prior military or governmental service, and the fifth elected with less than a plurality of the national popular vote.

As far as I can tell, this is not the version under discussion - and was unilaterally changed by someone [15]. This is not appropriate - and this version is not under discussion. So, please change it back. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 04:19, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

I restored what appeared to be the earlier, stable edit that had been changed, without consensus by editor Bodhi Peace. I copied it and pasted it in place of the changes Bodhi Peace made. That's the only edit I made. I did not change anything else. If you have a problem with that, go to ANI. Only Bodhi made 'unilateral' edits. [User:SW3 5DL|SW3 5DL]] (talk) 04:31, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Edits by Bodhi Peace without consensus. [16][17][18][19][20]

Bodhi reverted [21]

SW3 restores in good faith what appeared to be original edit [22] @Steve Quinn:, always look at all the edits before you make accusations. SW3 5DL (talk) 04:54, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Bodhi makes more 'unilateral' changes and gets blocked by admin: [23]. SW3 5DL (talk) 04:59, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

First, I apologize for saying "unilateral" if that is not the case, and I will AGF that you believe that is the correct version. However, according to the edit history - Bodhi Peace was not reverted by you. Rather, you reverted Twitbookspacetube - see here [24]. It was that editor who reverted User:Bodhi Peace, and not you - see here: [25]. Twitbookspacetub had restored to the version that began this discussion. Then it was changed to another version by you [26]. Not the version under discussion.
Then Coffee reverted Bodhi Peace [27] - because this person was being disruptive. All Coffee had to go on was the version in place just before Bodhi Peace's edit. And this happens to be the version not under discussion, placed there by you. Please don't accuse me of making accusations - or saying "take it to ANI". I was trying to go by what is in the edit history and if I came across too strong I apologize. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 05:25, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

No, I saw that Bodhi had made multiple edits and tried to revert him. However, there were apparently intervening edits and I could not. I went looking for the intact, original edit and thought I had found it. I then went back and saw what appeared to be two edits reverted. I simply changed it out thinking it would get all of Bodhi's edits. There was never any need for you to make that accusation. You failed to look at all the edits and then you had the nerve to single me out as if I'd done something wrong. If you were so outraged and put out that, what?, one sentence was different from the edit on this page, then why didn't YOU fix it? SW3 5DL (talk) 05:36, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

I could have reverted it - and I thought of doing so. But, I didn't want to get involved in a situation, if that should arise. You are correct, I was angry about that. And that is another reason I did not revert. Maybe, trying to revert when I am angry is not the best way to edit - and it probably is not. But now I am glad we talked about it, so I could see what was happening from your point of view. Steve Quinn (talk) 05:45, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
Just restore the original https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Donald_Trump&oldid=764805326 it's not that hard. --Bod (talk) 05:46, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
That's a good idea, Bodhi. You go ahead and do that. SW3 5DL (talk) 05:47, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
You know I'm not that stupid. I'm not falling for that. You have to do it and I know you're capable. --Bod (talk) 05:49, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
Wishing to chime in here - SW3 5DL I apologize for the misunderstanding on my part. Bodhi Peace I doubt either one of us is going to change what is there. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 05:51, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
It should be "government service" by the way. --Bod (talk) 05:56, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
Yes it should. SW3 5DL (talk) 06:02, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I did not write the "current" version or anything like it. I proposed a version that Anythingyouwant felt the need to attack repeatedly, but the only actual edit I made reverted a non-consensus edit by Anythingyouwant. And I totally predicted this edit warring and arguing, by the way. It was why I insisted no edits take place without establishing a consensus in the first place. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:33, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

@Scjessey:, I don't think he ascribed the paragraph to you. I think he was complaining that the edit I restored did not match the one you had posted in your edit suggestion. I didn't think you'd written it. I had the impression you had simply taken what was already there and made a new suggestion. I simply attempted to restore what I thought was there before the non-consensus changes. As far as predicting the 'edit war' maybe Bodhi didn't notice your post in his haste to edit. SW3 5DL (talk) 17:40, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Lede issues

There are a number of minor issues with the lede.

  • Expand acronyms.
  • Agree tense in the last paragraph.
  • Use "candidate" not "contender" for unbiased language.
  • Superscript the __th.
  • Mention "Jamaica, Queens" in the lede as it features prominently in the bio and categorization and some people may not have heard of it.

-- Bod (talk) 05:25, 11 February 2017 (UTC)


@Bodhi Peace:

  • No, don't expand acronyms. They have links that explain them.
  • Yes, tense needs to be consistent.
  • Yes, 'candidate' is better than 'contender.' It wasn't a boxing match.
  • Yes, superscript the_th
  • Yes, Jamaica, Queens features prominently in Trump's life, which is why it's all over the article.

SW3 5DL (talk) 17:54, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

I was about to add -- The "lede grafs" strike me as overly wordy, stuffed out of shape with info that properly belongs within the article, not in an abstract.
Weeb Dingle (talk) 20:52, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Third paragraph

I propose we change the third paragraph from this:

Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016, in a surprise victory against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. At age 70, he became the oldest and wealthiest person to assume the presidency, the first without prior military or governmental service, and the fifth elected with less than a plurality of the national popular vote.

to this:

Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016 in a surprise victory over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, despite receiving fewer votes. Assuming the office on January 20, 2017, Trump became the wealthiest and oldest to have done so, and the first without prior military or governmental service.

By using the word "despite", we can get around the complicated issue of whether or not it has been the fourth of fifth time a president doesn't have the plurality of the vote (there's been something of an edit war over this). The specifics of plurality/majority are best covered in the body of the article. By changing the sentence structure to remove the age, we can also get around the problem of it sounding like being the wealthiest president is dependent on his age - there's no need to actually mention the age anyway, since this is covered by the blue link. -- Scjessey (talk)

  • Oppose. We just got through a long RFC resulting in no consensus, so trying again so soon to overhaul this whole thing seems like a definite non-starter. I oppose it, strongly. Also, the word "despite" is inapt here, as if we were saying Trump was not prevented from becoming president by his loss of the popular vote. There's no reason to hint that he should have been prevented. And there is only one national popular vote, not millions. Regarding "fourth" or "fifth", I suggest "one of several presidents", which would take care of that matter.Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:41, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
The existing language is crappy, so of course we should look at revising it as soon as possible. It is your right to oppose it, even if your reasons are out of whack. It is unusual for the loser of the popular vote to win the election, so "despite" is totally appropriate and in no way suggests anything untoward - that's just in your imagination. Your reference to "millions" of national popular votes is really just a problem you seem to have with reading comprehension; nevertheless, I have simplified it for you. I'm suggesting this version in the hopes it will spark debate in a new direction that will allow us to move forward. You've had your opinion twice now (you commented on a similar proposal in the earlier thread) and so I would prefer to hear from other editors. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:07, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, and I would prefer if you would not be unresponsive. As I said in my last comment, regarding "fourth" or "fifth", I suggest "one of several presidents", which would take care of that matter. I strongly object to opening up in the lead the possibility that he's the first president who ever got fewer votes. Regarding the word "despite", it's obviously not in my imagination that it means "without being prevented."[28]Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:14, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
"Several" suggests it is more common than this rare event is. I would think that was fairly obvious. And that is also why "despite" works. I don't know where you get the idea it means he's the first president to get fewer votes. There's no way to draw that conclusion from my proposed text. Anyway, I'd like input from other editors. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:31, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
I see, you think five is less than several. I disagree with you about that. The word "several" is defined as "more than two but not many." You're obviously mistaken, or being deliberately wrong. And removing from the lead that other presidents have been in the same pickle obviously will leave readers of the lead with the impression that he may be the only one who's ever been in this pickle. I don't think there's any point trying to reason with you, and you certainly don't seem receptive to anything I say. Cheers.Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:36, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

I oppose the word "despite", which seems to detract from the fact that he won the presidency. Such a change would feed into the Trump supporters' objection that calling attention to the popular vote differential is an attempt to delegitimize his victory. If we are to be neutral and consensual I think we need to keep that information totally factual and neutral, with no attempt to judge or characterize it in any way. I do like saying the "fifth" such president, and "fifth" did have consensus last time I looked (there is really no reason for people to omit the 1824 election). Basically I would like to leave this paragraph as it is - already the product of some very long and involved discussions. --MelanieN (talk) 19:09, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Although Sjessey presents some good points, I am going to agree with MelanieN on this one, in that we should keep the lead as it is, because previous discussions have already established this is the agreed upon lead, and it is too soon to change it. I recommend revisiting this in nine months to a year, if it is still an issue. Also, I don't have a problem with the word "despite" if we were to change the lead at this time. But let's not get into changing the lead at this time. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 19:25, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
I would also limit any immediate changes to fixing the tense in the paragraph. Prior to the RfC we spent a lot of collective energy trying to reach a consensus, then one of the participants decided to put this to a wider polling, and the local-consensus version(s) were not approved. Now the RfC outcome should be upheld, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with it. — JFG talk 20:10, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
@JFG: Are you suggesting that we should convert the RfC no-consensus to a consensus for the status quo based on agreement between a majority of a few editors in this thread? Adding an entry to the consensuses list? ―Mandruss ☎ 20:42, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
@Mandruss: I was pondering this very question. Given the inability of the community to reach a consensus for rephrasing after months of debate and wide participation, I would tend to say that current version does represent a consensus by default. There are no lingering strong objections to this wording, whereas all suggestions to rephrase have been met with some kind of strong objection, and efforts at synthesis have been rejected as well. Just for the sake of avoiding circular debates again, I believe this state of affairs should be mentioned in the consensus list. However I'm not sure how to express it clearly to a newcomer… — JFG talk 21:16, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
I guess you would say something like, "This is a consensus by default, see following link", said link pointing to this thread. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:08, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
 Done, with some explanation. — JFG talk 08:01, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

What about the problem with the "At age 70, he became the oldest and wealthiest" construct? It makes it sound like his wealth has something to do with his age. And for the record, "despite" is supported by many reliable sources, and has nothing to do with "delegitimizing" anyone. example, example, example. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:49, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Well, "what about" the fact that "plurality" is not a widely-understood word? And "what about" the problematic grammar, strictly speaking, of the second sentence, which is effectively "At age 70, he became the oldest and wealthiest person to assume the presidency, the first [person] without prior military or governmental service, and the fifth [person] elected with less than a plurality of the national popular vote."? Clearly, the second part of that list is nonsensical when read closely.
I think the point is that everybody will continue to have their pet "what abouts", with no resolution in sight. I'm willing to let mine go for the time being, and say that we did the best that we could and that the status quo is not unacceptable. Are you? ―Mandruss ☎ 22:02, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
I am.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:09, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
@Mandruss: That's an absurd position. You and I have identified glaring problems with the current text (in fact, we seem to agree on everything on this issue). It makes no sense at all to let them go and just let it remain crappy and confusing. So no, as it stands I will continue to work on this paragraph to improve it. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:17, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
@Scjessey: I see where you're coming from but I agree with other colleagues that it's time to let it go. I have my pet peeves on the current text too, and the fact is we have not achieved to find an elegant wording addressing every editor's objections despite (hah!) months of good-faith debate. The only wise option is to drop it and perhaps revisit the issue after six to nine months. — JFG talk 22:35, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Even the start of the section is rubbish biased reporting, as in ... - in a surprise victory against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. - ... many of my friends and contacts and independent reporting outlets were of the opinion the Clinton was a very weak candidate and had run a very weak campaign and had no chance. Propaganda outlets in democratic support propounded she was winning when she was losing, it is not difficult to understand and report the actual truth when you filter out the biased verifiable reliable sources as wikipedia is sadly focused on without any editorial understanding or investigation, as in, report the fake news it's in fake news links. Govindaharihari (talk) 22:14, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
    OMG "propaganda outlets" for goodness sake. Let's keep this civil and neutral, shall we? Of course it was a "surprise victory". Clinton had a big lead in the polls, and Trump only won because of a handful of votes in key states. It's fully supported by reliable sources and... well... events that actually happened! -- Scjessey (talk) 22:22, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
Reporting the bias in outlets like wikipedia here was an additional reason for Trumps victory - you should try to report and consider WP:NPOV and use higher quality sources that report neutrally not sources that report the wikipedia liberal bias. In your own way here the biased reporting aided Trumps victory.Govindaharihari (talk) 22:25, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I feel that both of you are right: yes Hillary Clinton was a weak candidate, and yet Trump's victory was a surprise. The balance of coverage leading to and until the very last hours of Election Day makes these assertions abundantly clear. The text is fine, shouldn't delve into much detail: this is Trump's bio, not the election page. — JFG talk 22:35, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
Saying that Harry Truman had a surprise victory over Dewey is a compliment to Truman, and helps make him legendary. It's no insult. People love underdogs who win, just look at the New England patriots. Journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann and former candidate advisor Mark McKinnon have released the new Showtime documentary Trumped: Inside The Greatest Political Upset of All Time which they executive produced and premiered at Sundance. They're right.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:30, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
Not saying Trumps victory wasn't a surprise for many, just that if you actually reported neutral sources it was clear that Clinton was a weak candidate and had run a very weak campaign - basically she and her financial backers had believed the fake news. ... and you are still reporting the bias here in this article and this section you are discussing, tch Govindaharihari (talk) 22:35, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
Regardless of what you and your friends thought, the overwhelming prediction (based on virtually all national polling) was that Hillary would win. The morning after the election, most news outlets used a word like "stunning" to describe Trump's victory. That's why we have "surprise" in the lede. And that is not an insult; it is a compliment. Everybody loves a come-from-behind winner. --MelanieN (talk) 02:03, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
MelanieN thanks for you comment. Please be aware, I am not a Trump supporter, I am a WP:NPOV and WP:BLP supporter. Having "surprise" in the lede is neither a insult or a compliment to me. I am interested in the actual facts, to quote you, the overwhelming prediction (based on virtually all national polling) - is just a reflection of the democratic failure, worthless liberal bias propaganda that totally failed - I am a neutral that read neutral reports and it was clear to me from interpretation of those reports that Hillary was struggling - the suprise was from Democrats that were reading democrat funded press reports - Govindaharihari (talk) 14:00, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Donald Trump did not win 'despite receiving fewer votes." Donald Trump won the electoral college. Hillary did not. America is a representative republic. He won the votes that counted. Hillary won a plurality of the votes and that is the language that is used in America. This is an article about an American. Edit #2 from the RfC, which was rigged with fake votes for #3, is the choice that belongs in the article. You cannot pretend Hillary did not win a plurality of the vote. RS supports this. SW3 5DL (talk) 22:49, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
@SW3 5DL: I wish you would quit your unfounded and unproductive accusations of vote-rigging in the recently-closed RfC. I see zero evidence of such behaviour, and I'm just as sad as you that no consensus was reached for any of the proposed versions (although I kind of anticipated this would happen). On substance, let's remember that we are on Trump's bio, not the election page where more subtleties of the voting process are warranted. — JFG talk 23:14, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
JFG, The RfC failed because of your behavior, your ridiculous #3 edit which is not even literate. You did everything you could to sink that RfC including arguing with every editor who chose #2. Yes, you did that. As far as off wiki communications to get editors here to chose #3 when it was obvious, they didn't even support it, I didn't say that was you. But it was somebody here with an motive to do that. SW3 5DL (talk) 23:19, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
The uninvolved closer stated: "I also examined the edit history of each participant in the discussion and, though there were some cases of SPAs !voting, assigning a lower weight to their !votes or dismissing them entirely would also have not materially impacted the ability to divine a consensus." It's past time to drop this line of discussion. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:27, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
The fake votes would not have been there in the first place and the disruptive behavior of editors attacking every editor who voted for #2 were intended, and likely did, cause a chill on the RfC for editors who arrived there legitimately. .SW3 5DL (talk) 00:17, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
If you have a behavior grievance, take it to WP:ANI, otherwise knock it off. Such grievances cannot be resolved on article talk pages and harping on them repeatedly in article talk is disruptive. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:25, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose. .. and to agree with and quote SW3 5DL - Donald Trump did not win despite receiving fewer votes - Donald Trump won the electoral college. Hillary did not. America is a representative republic. He won the votes that counted. yes, that is the simple truth there. Govindaharihari (talk) 23:01, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
See, this is what I was talking about above - when I said the word "despite" would "would feed into the Trump supporters' objection that calling attention to the popular vote differential is an attempt to delegitimize his victory." And here they are, right on cue. I say again: do point out the electoral vote outcome, but don't say "despite". It is an invitation to constant battles, and we are supposed to be looking for consensus here. --MelanieN (talk) 02:09, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Support It is significant that the election was close which is what the popular vote shows. The "without prior military or governmental service" is however really awkward, because the other presidents who had not held elected office had held very high public positions. It's not like they had been private soldiers or city bus drivers. TFD (talk) 23:54, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
When you say "support," that sounds like you are supporting the change from paragraph one to paragraph two - because that is the way this question was posed. Is that really what you meant? Actually both versions point out out the popular vote so that isn't really a differentiator. As for the "without prior military or government service", that phrase was carefully chosen to include all the previous presidents who had not held elective office: two had held cabinet positions and three had been high-ranking military offices. --MelanieN (talk) 02:17, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

N.B. Who says this is the only choice we have? We are being asked to vote on another failed paragraph. What's there now works best. It says everything the reader needs to know. SW3 5DL (talk) 23:59, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

The phrasing does not say "without prior high ranking military or governmental service." Suppose Trump had spent one day of his life as an election official, which is government service. Would we not still want to differentiate his experience from those of other presidents? And I prefer the change because I think we should point out that his opponent received more votes. That's not because I question his legitimacy but because it is significant. I think it would be helpful if editors would put aside partisan concerns and just present the story the way it is presented in reliable sources. In this case, I think Trump supporters are wrong, but Clinton supporters have supported a lot of innuendo, such as the fascism slur. TFD (talk) 02:59, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
Which is why it should say Hillary won a plurality of votes, despite some editors believing this is the Simple Wikipedia and the reader won't understand a big word, even if we link the word for these unread masses. Donald Trump won the Electoral College. That is the vote that matters; not the popular vote, because America is not a banana republic where they stuff the ballot box. It's a representative republic, that uses big words like plurality. SW3 5DL (talk) 03:17, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Alternative suggestion

Change from this:

1.

Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016, in a surprise victory against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. At age 70, he became the oldest and wealthiest person to assume the presidency, the first without prior military or governmental service, and the fifth elected with less than a plurality of the national popular vote.

To this:

2.

Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016, in a surprise victory against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton At age 70, he became the oldest and wealthiest person to assume the presidency, the first without prior military or government service, and the fifth elected without winning the popular vote.

This eliminates the dreaded 'plurality,' and keeps everything else, except "governmental.'. SW3 5DL (talk) 05:14, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

  • Your intention is good, but it is not maybe true about the "majority" because many presidents didn't have a majority.
I just fixed that. SW3 5DL (talk) 07:21, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

3.

On November 8, 2016, Trump won a surprise victory in the general election against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. At age 70, he became the oldest and wealthiest man to assume the presidency, the first without military or government service, and the fifth elected without winning the popular vote.

\\ Bod (talk) 06:17, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes, but it reads better to not start off with "On November 8. . ." SW3 5DL (talk) 07:18, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Back to process

Ladies and gentlemen, the edit-warring on this paragraph must stop. We had months of consensus-building discussion on this topic, followed by a recent widely-advertised RfC which failed to reach consensus. Accordingly, the status quo ante formulation must stay in place until another discussion allows consensual changes to be applied. I have restored the prior wording according to RfC close, with minor adjustment to past tense and count of non-plurality presidents; no new changes should be applied without debate. — JFG talk 07:52, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

@JFG:, there was no 'edit warring.' One editor, Bodhi Peace, decided to take it upon himself to change the edit and disrupt the page after his edits were reverted. He was blocked for his efforts. That's not edit warring. That's one editor disrupting the article. As for the 'months of consensus building,' if we'd had that, the article would say something different right now. As for 'back to process,' there are edits above that might work. So instead of walling them off with your new section, they should be considered. SW3 5DL (talk) 14:33, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
I see no problem at all suggesting new changes, however the baseline should be the pre-RfC version, that's all I enforced here. Now go ahead and argue changes from that baseline, and if you find consensus, they will go in. — JFG talk 20:13, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
Thank you. "Baseline" was the word I needed at #Follow-up to close: What now?, but I couldn't quite pull it out. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:08, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

FYI, User:JFG moved the wikilinks here without changing the text. Then, I adjusted the wikilinks a bit more, again without changing the text, to assuage concerns about the vocabulary of readers.Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:32, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

ISIS or ISIL

The last paragraph of the lead section originally mentioned Trump's intent to move aggressively against ISIS. Some editors have replaced this with Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and I reverted per WP:NOTBROKEN, however it was changed again and I left it alone for a while. Today I switched it back to ISIS but I was reverted by Donottroll (talk · contribs). Abiding by WP:DS and WP:1RR, I'm taking this to the talk page in order to obtain consensus on the wording to use for this terrorist group. I contend that we should spell is the way Trump has always described it ever since he started his electoral campagin, i.e. as ISIS. There are literally thousands of sources corroborating this variant. Some may argue this is not the official name of the organization, however they are known for using many names, various governments and press agencies call them IS, ISIL, ISIS or Daesh, and WP:OFFICIAL says that what they call themselves does not automatically determine what we call them. And if we're going the official route, note that even the recent presidential memorandum is called Plan to Defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, not Plan to Defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. As Trump calls them ISIS and we are on Trump's bio, we must call them ISIS here. — JFG talk 07:51, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

I reverted per WP:NOTBROKEN - Side note: NOTBROKEN advises against [[Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant|ISIS]], saying that bypassing the redirect is unnecessary and often undesirable, so we should use [[ISIS]] instead of that piped link. NOTBROKEN applies only to piped links where the left part is the article title and the right part matches a redirect to the article. Thus a change from [[ISIS]] to [[Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant]] does not violate NOTBROKEN, and a revert of that change cannot be per NOTBROKEN. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:02, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
In my opinion Trump does not dictate the vocabulary in this article, and we should use the acronym that a majority of our sources use, after using the full name on first reference. Not that that's an easy question or anything. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:15, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
The United States Department of State formally refers to the organization as "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant", with related organizations ISIL Sinai Province, ISIL-Khorasan (ISIL-K), and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's Branch in Libya (ISIL-Libya). With that in mind, I am of the opinion we should use "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)" in the first instance and "ISIL" thereafter, except when we are quoting Trump's actual words. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:03, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
I agree with this proposal as a general rule although I could see possible exceptions which would need to be made on a case-by-case basis. ResultingConstant (talk) 19:53, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
It's ISIS. Only Obama called it ISIL. This isn't Obama's article. SW3 5DL (talk) 02:33, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
@SW3 5DL: "Only Obama called it ISIL" is total bullshit. "ISIS" is only really used in the United States, and only by the press and politicians. The CIA, the FBI, the NSA, the Department of State and virtually everyone outside of the USA say "ISIL". We may end up using "ISIS" because US reliable sources are lazy and get it wrong, but it has nothing to do with Obama. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:23, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

@JFG: Google search returns 235,000,000 for ISIS. 17,000,000 for ISIL. Trump has said repeatedly we will defeat ISIS. He never calls it anything else. SW3 5DL (talk) 02:37, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Trump's policy on his website calls it ISIS: [29]. Use of the term ISIL, adding in the Levant, is a slap in the face to Israel because it lumps Israel in with the area of Palestine and implies Israel is not a sovereign nation. That is why Obama called it ISIL. But even the media calls it ISIS. SW3 5DL (talk) 02:55, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Background note from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant#Current name: — JFG talk 08:07, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

In April 2013, having expanded into Syria, the group adopted the name ad-Dawlah al-Islāmiyah fī 'l-ʿIrāq wa-sh-Shām (الدولة الإسلامية في العراق والشام). As al-Shām is a region often compared with the Levant or Greater Syria, the group's name has been variously translated as "Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham",[1] "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria"[2] (both abbreviated as ISIS), or "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (abbreviated as ISIL).[3]

References

  1. ^ Irshaid, Faisal (2 December 2015). "Isis, Isil, IS or Daesh? One group, many names". BBC. Retrieved 2 December 2015.
  2. ^ "AlQaeda in Iraq confirms Syria's Nusra Front is part of its network". Al Arabiya English. 9 April 2013. Retrieved 15 June 2014.
  3. ^ Tharoor, Ishaan (18 June 2014). "ISIS or ISIL? The debate over what to call Iraq's terror group". The Washington Post. Retrieved 21 June 2014.

Personally, I would say that considering most of the article uses "ISIS" as it is now, we should keep it that way, per WP:NOTBROKEN. It's a valid name for the group and consistency should be maintained as much as possible throughout this article. HelgaStick (talk) 14:17, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

The lede should just say ISIS. There was never any reason to change it. SW3 5DL (talk) 14:43, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
@HelgaStick: NOTBROKEN has nothing to do with the visible text, see small side note above (or just read NOTBROKEN). ―Mandruss ☎ 16:10, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
"ISIL" is the standard reference accepted across Wikipedia. The U.S. is the only place where the group is regularly referred to as "ISIS". Note that wikilinking ISIS redirects to an article entitled "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant". Vrrajkum (talk) 13:41, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
I support putting both in the lead. One or both can be put in parentheses. Readers who are unfamiliar with only one of these acronyms will be assisted by seeing the other. We're only talking about a few extra letters.Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:28, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
I am not aware of a rule imposing consistency about the naming of this entity across Wikipedia. The fact they are named differently in different places and by different people enjoins us to consider the context to make an appropriate decision. In the context of this article, Donald Trump has always called them ISIS, all the journalistic sources we quote call them ISIS, and official documents emanating from the new US administration also call them ISIS. I see no reason to use ISIL at all. Readers who need to be educated will follow the link. — JFG talk 19:41, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
My position: none, except to say that this is going to need a clear consensus fit for The List, even if that means RfC. We can expect a steady stream of editors wishing to change this to their preference, at least as long as Trump is in office. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:49, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Vice President in infobox

Shouldn't the Vice President parameter in the infobox link to Vice President of the United States to keep consistency with previous president articles? NoMoreHeroes (talk) 17:55, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Maybe, although I generally don't see a need for inter-article consistency that (1) lacks community consensus and (2) is noticed by no one but some Wikipedia editors. I'm quite certain that readers don't survey presidents' infoboxes checking them for formatting consistency (with the possible exception of a few who should be on OCD meds), and no reader is going to be thrown for a loop because some of them link "Vice President" and others do not. I might well cite WP:OVERLINK and prefer the cleaner look of an infobox that links only the label "alma mater", a Latin term that is not widely recognized.
Anyway, I can't figure out why this use of {{Infobox president}} does not link that while others do. Unless there is some way to control that in our wikicode, which doesn't jump out at me, it's a question for Template talk:Infobox officeholder. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:36, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
 Fixed. The issue was that we had mixed "45th" and "President" in a single |office= parameter, whereas the correct practice is to place "45th" in |order=. — JFG talk 19:54, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 17 February 2017

Under "Affiliations with Russia", there should be a period at the end of the last sentence. 192.154.116.202 (talk) 20:06, 17 February 2017 (UTC)  Done and  Done und  Done. Bod (talk) 20:18, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 17 February 2017

Hello, my name is Semeyer01 and I am quite new to the world of Wikipedia. I noticed that the Donald Trump page did not include a section about his his political views in the past. I was wondering if I could add to that section. The second thing I noticed was that in the Electoral History section is lackluster of information. The United States 2016 presidential election table does not include voting statistics for the green, libertarian, and independent runners of the election. Please allow me to edit so I can make these changes. Semeyer01 (talk) 01:39, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Your best option is to post the exact piece you wish to be inserted into the main article so it can be reviewed. The block exists due to the persistant vandalism. For further information check out WP:BLUELOCK
Cheers,IVORK Discuss 03:08, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. — JJMC89 (T·C) 05:49, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

RfC: Election summary in the lede

The RfC has been open for a month and there has been no substantive comment in two days. A request has been registered for a non-admin close.


Policy arguments: There were no objective policy arguments advanced in the discussion other than general opinion statements as to which option better encapsulated WP policies like NPOV, etc. Ultimately, no policy argument was better advanced by one side than by any other.
Polling: By breadth of support, 14 editors supported option #3, 7 editors supported the status quo as it existed when the RfC was opened, 6 supported option #2, 3 supported option #1, and 2 advanced some other opinion.
Polling, revisited: In attempting to divine a consensus, I considered that none of those who indicated support for option #1 necessarily opposed the status quo version and the two are extremely similar. This still didn't establish a clear consensus, however. I also examined the edit history of each participant in the discussion and, though there were some cases of SPAs !voting, assigning a lower weight to their !votes or dismissing them entirely would also have not materially impacted the ability to divine a consensus.
The Situation: As it stands, at present, there is no demonstrable superiority of argumentation, nor is there a consensus of support (or, in fact, even a simple majority of support) for any single option and - except for option "status quo" and #1 - the three options presented are very different.
Final thoughts: Unfortunately, this RfC is closed with no consensus. However, closure with no consensus seems to preference that the status quo - as it existed when the RfC was opened - should probably be maintained pending a more decisive outcome in a future discussion. That wording was as follows:
Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016, in a surprise victory against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. At age 70, he will become the oldest and wealthiest person to assume the presidency, the first without prior military or governmental service, and the fourth elected with less than a plurality of the national popular vote.
Whether or not that is, indeed, what occurs, can be separately decided by the community.


DarjeelingTea (talk) 07:03, 9 February 2017 (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.

Close requested 8 February. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:59, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Please read both versions of this edit, intended for the lede, and indicate in the survey which of the two you believe best conveys the outcome of the election. SW3 5DL (talk) 23:46, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

1.

Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016, in a surprise victory against Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton in which neither candidate received a majority of the national popular vote. At age 70, he will become the oldest and wealthiest person to assume the presidency, the first president without prior military or governmental service, and the fifth president who received less of the national popular vote than his opponent.

2.

In the November 8, 2016, general election, Trump won a surprise victory against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Trump won a majority of Electoral College votes, while Clinton won a plurality of the nationwide vote. At age 70, he will become the oldest and wealthiest person to assume the presidency, the first U.S. president without prior military or governmental service, and the fifth elected with fewer votes nationwide.

3.

Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016, in a surprise victory against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Neither candidate earned a majority of the popular vote, and Trump garnered fewer ballots than Clinton nationwide. At age 70, he will become the oldest and wealthiest person to assume the presidency, and the first U.S. president without prior military or governmental service.

Adding a third option which strives to take into account all objections in the "Rephrasing" discussion above. — JFG talk 02:37, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Survey: Election summary in the lede

  • Support #1 or #3 but would advise changing in #1 the last instance of "of the national popular vote" to "popular support" "the fifth president who received less of the national popular vote than his opponent" to "the fifth president elected with less popular support than his opponent". Option #2 has several problems, including that the terms "nationwide vote" and "votes nationwide" confusingly describe both the electoral and popular votes, so I oppose option #2.Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:58, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
    • Changing to Support #3 only, in the interest of achieving consensus sooner rather than later. Version 3 will suffice, even though it omits the info about how many times (five) this has happened before.Anythingyouwant (talk) 11:27, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Support #1 and disagree with the suggestion above; I think the existing wording "of the national popular vote" is better than the vague weasel term "popular support" (which could mean anything, even polling results). I do think it is good to mention both the lack of a majority of the popular vote for either candidate, and the fact that she got more/he got less (whichever way it is put), and #1 does both. I Oppose #2 for two reasons: it uses the word "plurality," which most people opposed, and the wording " the fifth elected with fewer votes nationwide" is unclear/confusing. --MelanieN (talk) 01:05, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
Addendum: I still prefer #1, but #3 is also OK. I prefer to say "the fifth president who", The "fifth president" is in the text of the article, so I am OK with omitting it from the lede if that is consensus. I don't much like the phrase "fewer ballots" although I recognize it as an attempt to avoid saying "popular vote" twice. --MelanieN (talk) 02:57, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Changing to Support #3 in the interest of achieving consensus. --MelanieN (talk) 00:30, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Support #2. Hillary did win a plurality of the popular vote. The problem with #1 is that it states, "neither candidate won the majority of votes." This seems misleading, and could be misinterpreted as not winning more popular votes. Using the term 'Plurality" solves the problem. True, she didn't win a big majority, but she won more than Trump, and reliable sources take note of that. In addition, #2 does mention Trump won the Electoral College . This coupled with Hillary's plurality seems to perfectly describe the outcome of the election. More people voted for Hillary while Trump won more states. This is an important distinction as Trump is only the 5th person to win the presidency with fewer popular votes. Added: Also, calling Hillary an opponent diminishes the fact that she won her presidential candidacy. Candidate Clinton; not Opponent Clinton. SW3 5DL (talk) 01:35, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Support #3 as the best effort towards accommodating the remarks of all participants so far. No footnotes, no parentheses, no repeats, doesn't minimize Trump's victory, gives an honest account of the lack of plurality without using that technical word, and the prose is short and fluid. The "fifth president" factoid is well-covered in the linked article, doesn't add much value here. — JFG talk 02:37, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Support current version – After a few weeks of pause, re-reading every version and every comment, I reckon the current version in the lead is the most neutral, while being grammatically clear and concise enough. — JFG talk 10:33, 29 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Support current version - I think the current version [30] is best. -- Somedifferentstuff (talk) 10:27, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Support #1 - #2's "plurality" kills it for me; it wastes words stating the obvious (Trump won a majority of Electoral College votes); and other significant problems.
    #3 fails to provide historical context (fifth) for the popular vote outcome; I concur with MelanieN's comments re "ballots"; and I think "U.S." can be reasonably inferred by the reader.
    Strongly oppose substituting "popular support" for "popular vote", per MelanieN. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:25, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Support #2, the only option that does not attempt to obfuscate the most important facts about the election: Trump lost the plurality of the vote and only won as a result of the USA’s antiquated and anti-democratic Electoral College created to sustain the USA's former anti-democratic and racist slavery system. Gouncbeatduke (talk) 03:28, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
    You win the prize for the most blatantly POV argument to date in this RfC. He who does not recognize his own bias sees bias in neutrality. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:50, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
    The most significant indicator of neutrality on Wikipedia is to receive personal attacks from POV-pusher Mandruss, nothing drives him crazy like hearing the truth told from a neutral point of view. Gouncbeatduke (talk) 15:28, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
    Wrong accusation, Gouncbeatduke, please quit the aspersions. In my experience, Mandruss edits in a very balanced way and is always courteous. Your rant about the electoral college voting system being somehow linked to slavery is totally irrelevant. — JFG talk 23:41, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
    Like Grayson Allen, you be trip'n. Gouncbeatduke (talk) 21:11, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
Umm, what information is falsified in #3? --MelanieN (talk) 15:33, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
What info do you feel to be falsified in #3?I would not mind a bit of explanation!Light❯❯❯ Saber 08:47, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Support #3. Suggest: revise "Trump garnered fewer ballots than Clinton" to "Trump got fewer votes than Clinton" for simpler wording.CuriousMind01 (talk) 14:05, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Support #3. Also support simplifying "garnered fewer ballots" per CuriousMind01 above. 'Ballots' is ambiguous meaning either an entire voting session (we'll hold a ballot) or (I presume meaning here) individual votes. Pincrete (talk) 16:33, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Support #2 Seems to be the most comprehensive explanation; #3 would leave readers without a detailed knowledge of the electoral system wondering how Trump won. Number 57 17:14, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose all options that mention a nonexistent "national popular vote". There was no national popular vote; only 50 state popular votes. You can't simply add up the state popular votes to find out what a national popular vote would have been if that were the system used, because in that case voter turnout would probably have been lower in swing states and higher in other states. That's because in the current system, voters have less incentive to vote in "safe states" and more incentive to vote in "battleground" states, and this affects turnout. Campaign strategy also would have been significantly affected. We cannot deduce or reasonably estimate what the result of a "national popular vote" would have been, based purely on the state popular votes. jej1997 (talk) 19:46, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose all options. The status quo is acceptable. GoodDay (talk) 21:03, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Support #3 Seems the most clear and neutral. PackMecEng (talk) 23:05, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
Clear and neutral? How is that even possible with incoherent sentences like Neither candidate earned a majority of the popular vote, and Trump garnered fewer ballots nationwide? Seriously? It does not convey any of the facts with any understanding. It muddies the water. It's the absolute worst possible choice. It reads like someone filling up their blue book with BS hoping the excess word count will "garner them points" with the professor. SW3 5DL (talk) 00:25, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
This "lopsided vote" appears to be the result of off-wiki canvassing. How many of these editors have a bot notice on their talk page? How many have a history of editing here? I find it highly unusual that an edit like this is drawing so much attention. They vote and then mention that the sentence, which is illiterate, must be changed. This is fake. We are not putting this idiot sentence into this article. SW3 5DL (talk) 18:06, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
@SW3 5DL: Don't get paranoid: many people watch this talk page, and all RfCs tend to attract a lot of participants, without any canvassing involved. You decided to open this particular RfC, so why not just let it run its course now? — JFG talk 19:00, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
@JFG: It is not paranoia to state the obvious. You had multiple opportunities to present a well-crafted sentence that included the key facts but you did not because you refused to allow any mention of Hillary Clinton in the same sentence..SW3 5DL (talk) 19:56, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
Now I have no idea what you are talking about: there is nothing "obvious" about canvassing here. Hillary Clinton is mentioned and I did my best to incorporate as many suggestions from as many people as I could, yours included. This process culminated in the "C5" variant which I then placed into the RfC as option 3. The rest is being decided by !voters. — JFG talk 20:07, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
It's being decided by canvassing. SW3 5DL (talk) 00:31, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
Bot notices are not the only way to become aware of an RfC like this. As JFG said, many editors watch this page; it currently has 1,634 watchers. And the RfC is listed in three categories, also high visibility. Your canvassing reasoning is highly flawed, and it never adds strength to an argument to repeat it over and over. Please refrain from making accusations like that without far stronger evidence. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:31, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

It is obvious. It's an idiotic sentence that even it's supporters are saying needs to be changed. They were canvassed. Plain and simple and this RfC will not close properly because it's littered with canvassing. And you're right bot notices are not the only way. Email apparently works better. SW3 5DL (talk) 14:15, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

  • Support #3 Provides WP:NPOV. However, we should also consider adding one sentence concerning possible Russian interference in the election as this is historically significant.Casprings (talk) 20:11, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
We could mention all that, but then we'd need to mention Hillary's and the DNC's emails as the source of the interference, and the FBI debacle. SW3 5DL (talk) 00:31, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment. If #2 then change "a plurality of the nationwide vote" to "more votes nationwide". Plurality probably isn't a well known term. If #3 then change "garnered fewer ballots" to "received fewer votes". Garnering ballots is unnecessary linguistic flourish. Aside from those tweaks, the three versions are similar and similarly acceptable. Alsee (talk) 18:20, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose - status quo option preferred. These all seem pretty close, so not really seeing much of a choice or mention of whats up -- it just seems to presume it's down to A/B ? Cheers Markbassett (talk) 01:31, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Support #3 as most NPOV and best written — Iadmc♫talk  18:31, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose all The phrasing in the current lead is perfect. These other options are either too verbose about Clinton's popular vote win or have very confusing wording. "Neither candidate received a majority of the national popular vote"? This doesn't make sense - this could only happen if they received an identical number of votes. I understand some people don't understand how the Electoral College works, but we don't have to explain it in uber detail for that very small minority.--Ilovetopaint (talk) 19:29, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
"Neither candidate received a majority" makes perfect sense. Neither candidate got a "majority", i.e. over 50% of the votes, because there were third-party candidates in the race who also got a share of the popular vote. --MelanieN (talk) 04:23, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose all options, current text is better. I also disagree with the "surprise" bit for reasons already stated by other users in the discussion below.Saturnalia0 (talk) 09:25, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Support #3 This is the most concise and gives the reader the most important information. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 13:33, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Support #2 or Oppose First off, it wasn't surprising. Remember, the US is divided into TIME ZONES. All the swing states are in the Eastern Time Zone (UTC-5), so they finish voting first. Byt the time all the in-queue voters have finished, it is 7pm Central, and all those polls are closing. So by 9CDT, everyone knew that Trump would win, as the West coast going to Ms. Hillary was a given, and Mountain Time doesn't have the population to make up the divide in the Electoral College. Second, #2 is the best because 1 and 3's assertion "Neither candidate earned a majority of the popular vote" is patently absurd. Hillary won the popular by a few million. Everybody I know knew it would be close in the popular vote. It is the first 2 sentences that are off to me, and that is why i cast #2 or Oppose. L3X1 Complaints Desk 13:42, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
    @L3X1: That's not patently absurd, it's patently true. Neither candidate took 50% of the popular vote plus 1, which is the definition of "majority". ―Mandruss ☎ 17:42, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
    Mandruss Whoops! I was thinking "majority" along the lines of, "having more than the other fellow." Still an awkward wording. L3X1 Complaints Desk 17:50, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose all options - leave the lead as is considering it is neutrally stated and properly weighted. The details belong in the body but if it is decided more must be added, we shouldn't omit facts that maintain NPOV & weight. Suggestion: In the November 8, 2016, general election, Donald Trump won more Electoral College votes than Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. The Electoral College mismatch was the result of Clinton winning more of the popular vote in the highly populated metropolitan areas of California, Illinois and New York, whereas Trump campaigned specifically for Electoral College votes and won several larger states, such as Florida, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. At age 70, he is the oldest and wealthiest person to assume the presidency, the first U.S. president without prior military or governmental service, and the fifth elected with fewer popular votes. per Pew Research Atsme📞📧 15:29, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Support 2 as the most neutral version, stating the difference between popular and electoral votes. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:39, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Support 1 since it is the most neutral. Anyone wishing to dwell on the fact that Hillary won the popular vote can read the main body of the article. Phoenix and Winslow (talk) 04:41, 6 February 2017 (UTC)


Discussion: Election summary in the lede

Opening an RfC at this stage in the consensus-building process underway above does not look helpful, as it throws us into 30 days of further discussion and reduces editor choice to two variants. I believe this should be shut down by the nominator. — JFG talk 23:55, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree that an RfC in the middle of discussion is not helpful and should be shut down - preferably withdrawn by the proposer. I also think the two choices offered are not representative of the actual discussion. That is likely to wind up with a proliferation of other suggestions and the RfC will dissolve in chaos. --MelanieN (talk) 00:58, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
It's not in the middle of a discussion. It's going nowhere. On something like this, fresh eyes by other editors can only help. This is currently being discussed by only a small number of editors who can't seem to reach consensus. Hence, an RfC. SW3 5DL (talk) 01:16, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
Actually I think we were on the verge of achieving consensus for your version #1, which is the product of input by multiple people. We may find out by the responses to this RfC. --MelanieN (talk) 01:32, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Just be be extra-clear, I support #1 even if the last instance of "of the national popular vote" is not changed to "popular support". Melanie prefers not to change it, whereas JFG disliked saying "national popular vote" twice in this paragraph even though it's legally irrelevant and sounds kind of redundant.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:21, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

And I support #1 even if the wording change proposed by Anything is chosen. --MelanieN (talk) 01:32, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
I've tweaked my suggestion so it would change "the fifth president who received less of the national popular vote than his opponent" to "the fifth president elected with less popular support than his opponent". Hopefully, that will attract popular and/or electoral support from both User:JFG and User:MelanieN?Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:08, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
I don't really think this "fifth" (or "fourth") factoid needs to be included: the relevant historical details are in the linked article. — JFG talk 02:13, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
User:JFG, your C2 and C3 already mention that he got less of the popular vote, so your only objection seems to be the words "the fifth president who". I don't care one way or the other, and don't think that's a big issue is it?Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:20, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
Correct, we were very close to consensus indeed. Taking into account your latest remarks, I have now offered version C5 as option #3 in this RfC. Here's hoping we can converge on that one. — JFG talk 02:42, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
Not holding my breath. 😁 If this RFC gets no consensus, then the current version remains, which seems okay except for some people's dislike of the word "plurality".Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:56, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
  • WP:MOS note: In all three of these proposals, if they go into the article, "Donald Trump" should be changed to "Trump" and "Hillary Clinton" should be changed to "Clinton". --MelanieN (talk) 03:05, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
    As of now, the Clinton reference would be the first in the article, so I think "Hillary" stays. But "Donald" does need to go per WP:SURNAME. I think it should simply be changed in place here without ugly strikethrough; the changes are unlikely to affect existing !votes or discussion. I'll boldly make those changes. Also adding commas after two 2016s, same rationale. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:04, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment re #3. It has some issues. If this is the option getting consensus, well, it needs editing. (Issues: "victory" seems redundant to "won" ["Trump won ... in a ... surprise victory" seems redundant, but maybe not!?]; "earned" is ambiguous ["Neither earned" ~= "Neither deserved"]; "garnered" [Pretentious. Never knew Trump gardened. :O ]; "U.S. president" [Trying too hard to vary expressions introduces ambiguity. The first was "votes" varied with "ballots". {Ballots are votes. Varying the language once is moderate & OK.} The second is "the oldest and wealthiest person to assume the presidency, and the first U.S. president" {Hm? is "U.S. president" somehow different from "person assuming the presidency"? No. But varying back-to-back is too much. Negative return on investment.}]) p.s. I know neither time nor appetite to resolve these before implementation. Fine. But neither do I want to be accused of violating consensus if/when I attempt to copyedit these issues out of the implemented result. Ok, IHTS (talk) 10:46, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Final (?) tweaks

The discussion has been open for 5 days. I do think we should keep it open for at least a week, as kind of a minimum opportunity for all interested parties to contribute. But in the meantime, #3 is strongly in the lead (10 !votes for #3, 3 for #2, 1 for #1, 1 for "current version). Several people have suggested tweaks in the wording of #3. Can we work those out here, so that #3 is ready to go into the article when this is closed? This should involve only tweaks to the wording of proposal #3, not additions or removals or anything that changes the meaning. If you want substantive changes, do not propose them here. I'll copy #3 here. If you have a specific proposal, please put it below, as "change AAAA to BBBB". JFG, you have been really good at incorporating discussion into actual versions; do you want to give it one more go?

Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016, in a surprise victory against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Neither candidate earned a majority of the popular vote, and Trump garnered fewer ballots than Clinton nationwide. At age 70, he will become the oldest and wealthiest person to assume the presidency, and the first U.S. president without prior military or governmental service.

--MelanieN (talk) 20:10, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
It needs to stay open longer. The bot only delivered the notice to talk pages yesterday, Jan 12. There's always a delay with the bot and the whole point of the RfC is to get comment from the wider community. And #3 seems to have curiously similar comments. SW3 5DL (talk) 05:39, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
I didn't know that. There certainly does need to be time for people to respond. --MelanieN (talk) 16:46, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
For me, the "in a surprise victory" part shouldn't be included per WP:NPOV. The rest is fine. Linguist Moi? Moi. 20:16, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
That's a substantive change, not a wording tweak. Actually all three versions proposed in this RfC say "surprise"; I think that was as a result of earlier discussion. --MelanieN (talk) 20:43, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
My only tweak is that I don't care for "garnered fewer ballots". Can we re-word this? --MelanieN (talk) 20:44, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
Some people may have been surprised, others may not have been. It's a clear-cut POV. Linguist Moi? Moi. 20:47, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
Clinton was the clear overall favorite. IIRC, NYT's complex mathematical model gave her an 83% chance on the morning of Election Day. Whether individuals were surprised is not the point, and that is not what the phrase conveys here. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:25, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
Can't it be RS'd that most (people & pundits) were surprised!? IHTS (talk) 08:57, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
Yes, but I'd argue that a more common wording in the sources is that Trump's victory was an upset, using the sports metaphor. Most political races are handicapped (in the Vegas sense although betting on potus-outcome is only legal in foreign countries), just like championship sporting events, and when the person expected (by pundits) to be the underdog, ends up winning the most points (or electoral college votes), then the situation is called an upset, or redundantly, a surprise upset. The metaphor is appropriate, because none of the pundits predicted 100% probability of Clinton victory, but many of them predicted between 3:1 and 50:1 chances of a Clinton victory, which are pretty long odds from a betting standpoint. I would say we could nix the 'surprise' verbiage and rewrite to say 'upset' instead, with a wikilink thereto. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 12:42, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
Yes, I see it now ("surprise upset" = redundant; 😋). Good eye. --IHTS (talk) 14:03, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
"Upset" is good, and the wikilink is helpful because it describes exactly this situation. "Surprise" or "upset" is not POV; it is what virtually all sources said the next day (many added something like "stunning" for even more emphasis). This was because the pre-election polling had been so strongly in favor of Clinton. --MelanieN (talk) 16:54, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
My ce suggestions:
  • "victory against" → "upset over". (To elim possible redundancy "Trump won [...] in a victory".)
  • "earned" → "received". (Because both were largely disliked, "earned" could be misinterpreted.)
  • "and Trump garnered fewer ballots" → "with Trump receiving fewer votes". (The point is to contrast the candidates' various vote totals, which is highlighted better if the language stays consistent, rather than intentionally varying for "style".)
  • "U.S. president" → "president". ("U.S." is implied by "the presidency" which occurs earlier.) Or "U.S. president" could possibly even be omitted. ("U.S. president" is possibly implied by "person to assume the presidency" which occurs earlier.)
IHTS (talk) 08:57, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
These are all excellent suggestions, support. Though I would possibly prefer 'upset victory' rather than 'upset over' depending on if we can eliminate the later use of victory? 47.222.203.135 (talk) 12:42, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
Do you mean "Trump won [...] in an upset victory against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton."? (But isn't "won [...] in a [...] victory" still somewhat redundant?) --IHTS (talk) 14:23, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
These are all good suggestions and I support them. We might consider inserting "total" for greater clarity: "and Trump received fewer total votes than Clinton nationwide" or "with Trump receiving fewer total votes than Clinton nationwide." However I don't insist on this and it may not be necessary. --MelanieN (talk) 17:05, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
But aren't "total" and "nationwide" somewhat redundant? (What is diff between "fewer total votes nationwide" and "fewer votes nationwide"?) --IHTS (talk) 04:21, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
Agree. Seems superfluous. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:29, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
^^^^"Nationwide" is a bit misleading. If you eliminate California's votes, HRC did not win the popular vote, much less national. [31] Atsme📞📧 18:09, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
Falsity implies anything (Principle of explosion). You cannot eliminate California. Therefore, the statement is meaningless. Objective3000 (talk) 18:27, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
Yes, there is trending support for #3 but the process needs to run its course. Perhaps not the full 30 days if consensus is clear, but at least a week. And yes, there are some reasonable change suggestions floating around, but it would be bad form to incorporate them before the RfC is closed. Given the extreme sensitivity of editors on any minute detail, any further change should be discussed after one of the three versions on the table is adopted. — JFG talk 08:59, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
I don't know why there is 'trending support' for #3. It is not clear and concise. It does not effectively convey information at all. It muddies the water. These are the indisputable facts: Donald Trump won a surprise victory. He won the Electoral College vote. Hillary won the popular vote. Trump is only the 5th president elected who did not win the popular vote. He did not have prior military or governmental service before his win. Words like "garnered more votes," sounds like marbles in the mouth. SW3 5DL (talk) 16:07, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
Well, I don't know why either; it just happened to be the most favoured option among those presented, at the time MelanieN and I commented. Might take a while to get consensus, and further discussion may still be required. — JFG talk 21:46, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
You "don't know why" because you prefer a different choice. (In fact, you prefer the choice you wrote.) Consensus rules here. Consensus doesn't have to be unanimous and virtually never is. We don't have consensus yet, because this hasn't been open long enough. But we do have a trend. At this point the trend is: one !vote for #1; four for #2; fourteen for #3; one for "none of the above: and two for "current version" (meaning what is in the article now). --MelanieN (talk) 00:26, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
It's actually not my choice. I crafted that with bits from others. I would never say "nationwide vote,", etc. And I don't like 'plurality' but it's in the RS. But JFG's choice is incoherent. All the facts should be listed especially as to who won what. Otherwise, we are going to have reverts from every random driving by. It needs to be a solid edit. If everybody would get off their sacred opinion and work towards a consensus, we would not have needed an RfC. SW3 5DL (talk) 01:07, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
And I don't like 'plurality' but it's in the RS. - We have to conform to sources as to facts, not vocabulary. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:36, 28 January 2017 (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.

Follow-up to close: What now?

Thanks to DarjeelingTea for this close. I find no fault with it although it didn't go my way. But it found no consensus, ending with: "...closure with no consensus seems to preference that the status quo - as it existed when the RfC was opened - should probably be maintained pending a more decisive outcome in a future discussion...Whether or not that is, indeed, what occurs, can be separately decided by the community." Barring another RfC, it appears "the community" means the participants on this talk page. Before this can be put to bed, we must now choose between the status quo ante and the status quo.

As I see it, this should be a purely procedural matter at this point. If we made it about our content preferences, another RfC would be required, no? So I for one am not even going to read the content choices before !voting, although I am copying them below.

1- status quo ante, the content as it existed when the RfC started:

Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016, in a surprise victory against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. At age 70, he will become the oldest and wealthiest person to assume the presidency, the first without prior military or governmental service, and the fourth elected with less than a plurality of the national popular vote.

2- status quo, the content as it stands today:

Trump won the presidential election on November 8, 2016, against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, and assumed office on January 20, 2017. Elected at age 70, he is the oldest and wealthiest person to assume the presidency, the first without prior military or governmental service, and the fifth elected with less than a plurality of the national popular vote.

  • 1 - In my view, the content should have been frozen while the RfC was in progress. If that had happened the no-consensus would mean that the status quo ante would remain in place. Therefore I support a revert to that content, although "fourth" should be changed to "fifth" if the latter is factually correct. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:07, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
User:Mandruss, the issue there is Tilden v. Hayes. Hayes won with less of the popular vote than Tilden, and Tilden received a majority rather than a plurality.Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:28, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
I might be mistaken but wouldn't receiving "less than a plurality" ipso facto mean you had also received "less than a majority"? DarjeelingTea (talk) 19:07, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
I don't think it would be correct to say that Hayes won less than a plurality, because that would imply someone else did receive a plurality. In reality no one during that election received a plurality of the popular vote, right?Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:16, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Strike this paragraph altogether pending fresh discussion 2 modified with "since 1824" in some way to note uncertainty of some vote totals - "he is the oldest" is preferable to "he will become the oldest" (though I'm not certain the RfC closure necessarily 'commands' a reversion, particularly to the point of disallowing minor edits in tense of this type; hopefully my closure was only taken as a suggestion). Also, for reasons of inter-article consistency, I would support appending #2 with the phrase "since 1824" (or some variation thereof) as our own article United States presidential elections in which the winner lost the popular vote makes clear there was not a popular vote to calculate during the first eight elections. DarjeelingTea (talk) 19:04, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
According to United States presidential elections in which the winner lost the popular vote, the pre-1825 elections are not the only further elections where the popular vote winner may have lost: "political journalists John Fund and Sean Trende have argued that Nixon actually won the popular vote" in 1960. So, instead of mentioning 1824, it might be better to just use the word "known".Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:13, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
Instead of appending it at all in the body, maybe we could add a note that said something like "Popular votes were not calculated prior to the 1824 election and some have questioned whether John Kennedy, in fact, won the popular vote in the 1960 election as generally believed".? DarjeelingTea (talk) 19:20, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
This lead currently has no notes or footnotes, which is fine. But once we start, there will be pressure to keep inserting more. Generally, leads are either fully annotated or not annotated at all.Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:31, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Ugh. Both versions are now undesirable for several reasons. The first version dates itself with "will become" and both versions have an odd sentence structure which makes it seem his wealth is dependent upon his age. It's ludicrous for us to even discuss using versions that are now obviously outdated or confusing. I suggest a new version:

Despite not receiving a plurality of the national popular vote, Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016 in a surprise victory over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Assuming the office on January 20, 2017, Trump became the wealthiest and oldest to have done so, and the first without prior military or governmental service.

I don't think the fourth versus fifth thing is all that important, and the use of "despite" implies the situation is fairly rare. Nor do I think it is necessary to explicitly state Trump's age, when "wealthiest" is sufficient to make the point. And we don't want "is the oldest" either, because articles are meant to be written in the past tense from the historical perspective. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:22, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

For the reasons noted by Scjessey, that neither version is really ideal, I now support striking this entire paragraph altogether as a stop-gap. The content is preserved in the body, it's trivia that is not absolutely critical in the short-term, and striking the paragraph entirely would allow a fresh-start that allowed better constructed options to be presented considering there has now been a tense change (the last RfC unfortunately overlapped the inauguration and a new discussion would not face this issue). DarjeelingTea (talk) 19:29, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
There wasn't any support during the RFC for striking the whole thing, and I wouldn't support that. I'm going to do what your RFC close said, and then do a few quick tweaks that should be unobjectionable.Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:34, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. DarjeelingTea (talk) 19:38, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
So nobody has an opinion on the text I offered up? Surely it fixes all the problems, does it not? -- Scjessey (talk) 19:43, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
I went ahead and followed the instructions in the RFC close, and then did a couple minor tweaks. I am glad to consider proposed changes to the lead as it stands now, but maybe start a new section?Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:48, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
Your changes don't address the other problems I laid out above. And "at least" is just awful, because it makes us seem incompetent. Frankly, I think it was wrong for you to make any changes without first discussing those proposed changes with others, and without commenting on my own proposal above. There's even a comment in the article saying not to change anything without consensus, which you did not have. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:51, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
I think you're mistaken. I said here at the talk page that I would edit per the RFC close. I was told "sounds good". Then I edited precisely according to the RFC close. If you want to disagree with my subsequent edits, then fine. Additionally, I don't like the way your proposed version opens up the possibility that Trump was the first ever to become president with less of the popular vote than his opponent, and your insertion of the word "despite" seems unnecessary to me. As to the words "at least", political scientists (like all other kinds of scientists) use them all the time without sounding incompetent.Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:57, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
I disagree with your subsequent edits. They are inadequate and lack consensus. My proposed version does not upon up the possibility of Trump being the "first ever" president without a plurality, unless perhaps you misread it. The word "despite" removes the need for all this fourth/fifth/at least crap and implies it is unusual, which it is. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:03, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
I made three edits. You reverted the last two. Your revert of my second edit is very difficult for me to describe without causing offense. You actually believe there is no consensus to refer to his ascension to the presidency in the past tense? My, my.Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:08, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
I did not revert the first edit because it concerned the wrapping up of the RfC. The other two edits, whether or not they were right or wrong, did not have any prior discussion on this talk page and were thus in violation of the unwritten agreement we have concerning this contentious paragraph. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:36, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
Just to clarify, I meant "sounds good" only as a non-objecting acknowledgment of your statement, not as a grant of authorization (that I don't have the authority to give anyway). The RfC was closed as no consensus and I suggested the status quo ante might be preferable until a final decision could be made, but being there is no consensus, that is not the close decision (which is, as stated, no consensus). In absence of a consensus, I imagine anyone can edit it anyway they want, in either recognition or rejection of my suggestion, subject only to the normal 1RR restrictions on this page. In any case, I wish you all the best of luck. This page isn't on my watch list and I may not check it again so please ping me if anyone needs anything further from me. DarjeelingTea (talk) 20:06, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
And to clarify my intent in opening this subsection, it was to put the RfC to bed, not to establish anything like a final version of the content. From a procedural standpoint it makes a lot of sense to close out one issue before starting another, and a consensus for 1 (or 2) would not by any means have precluded improvements on it. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:21, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Looks like we reached the predicted lack of outcome (see #Discussion: Election summary in the lede). Oh well, at least we all had fun discussing! — JFG talk 20:14, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

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