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The first paragraph

The first paragraph of the lead normally serves to briefly summarise the key aspects of the article. The current first paragraph doesn't do a very good job at that. It says nothing about how his presidency is not viewed as a "normal" presidency; he wasn't just a boring businessman who was elected to some office, did nothing spectacular, and then left, like a lot of elected officials. You have to read endless details about his beauty pageants and golf courses and so on and so forth until you get to the truly important material in the last paragraph of the lead, his violent insurrection against US democracy, his two impeachments, the things that really made history, the unprecedented scandalous nature of his presidency.

Therefore, I propose that we add a short sentence at the end of the first paragraph that briefly summarises the extraordinary aspects of his presidency, including his two impeachments. I tentatively propose:

Throughout his presidency he has been widely accused of abuse of power and corruption, and he has been impeached twice.

--Tataral (talk) 22:28, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Tataral, what do you think about the second paragraph? ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:31, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Normally, a lead section is structured somewhat chronologically and/or thematically, with the exception of the first paragraph that serves as a mini summary of the article. The second para discusses his background and business career, and that's ok as long as the first para adequately summarises the lead and article. --Tataral (talk) 22:33, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Ah, I mixed up first, second and third paragraph. I didn't count the first paragraph as paragraph. I thought your proposal was to add something at the end of the second paragraph, immediately before the third paragraph, adding redundance. Never mind. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:36, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

• Strong support — his presidency will be perhaps best remembered for this. Thanoscar21^talk_{contributions} 00:03, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose for 70 years he was known as a buisnessman and an entertainer. How it is writen is a good summary of his life and not just the last four years of it Anon0098 (talk) 00:11, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia articles are written relative to the importance of the material. His pre-presidential career owning a couple of beauty pageants is dwarfed in importance by his presidency a million times over. I hadn't even heard of him until 2015. --Tataral (talk) 00:25, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
    • Just because you hadn't heard of him before doesn't mean no one else had. He was a relatively major social figure prior to his presidency, which is partly why it was so shocking that he was elected. Saying he was a buisnessman and entertainer as well as president is a suitable introduction before chronologically detailing his life. Nothing more in depth needs to be added to the lede. Anon0098 (talk) 19:00, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose: I agree with Anon0098 — we have to acknowledge his first 70 years. And this has recently been discussed. See above. An impeachment without a conviction — or two impeachments without a conviction, which looks like being the case — doesn't amount to much. It is the equivalent of being charged with a crime but being acquitted. I don't believe anything Trump has been involved in will be remembered as much as the Watergate scandal. Most people now do not remember why Bill Clinton was impeached — if they ever knew. Yes, Trump has had a turbulent term, but it's only four years of his life, and he hasn't been convicted of anything.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:01, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

  That is stunningly contrary to published sources, opinion polling, and the nature of this encyclopedia. His recent fame as a TV personality is one among thousands of these - they come and go. Tell us about Arthur Godfrey, Bill Cullen, and John Daly -- all more famous than Trump in their heydays. Your personal opinion about Trump vs. Nixon is not only irrelevant, but like the notability stuff it's also contrary to RS narratives. SPECIFICO talk 18:38, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

• Support adding "impeached twice", without comment on his political career. Yes, he had 70 long, divisive, years before politics. But, and I don't think this is really CRYSTALBALL, he will be primarily remembered for getting impeached twice. It would probably be wrong to mention he (is/was) president without that footnote, even. Kingsif (talk) 02:13, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support. The notability of T****'s presidency, corruption, and impeachments dwarf his ancient business career, so include it all in the first paragraph. -- Valjean (talk) 02:42, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Ancient??? How is it ancient???--Jack Upland (talk) 07:03, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

• Strong support: We do need to acknowledge that they were doing something, (real estate work?) before their presidential term, and early life/ background sections serve this purpose sufficiently. Their presidential term, public perception of it, and their creating history by accomplishing two impeachments in a single term are the most notable highlights that make this subject notable for a Wikipedia article, and I would expect to see them in the introductory paragraph in any article about them. _morelMW^illiam
• Comment: Today, a sentence describing Trump as the first American president of the United States to have no prior military or government career, and was at the time the oldest first-term U.S. president was added to the first paragraph of the lead that we are discussing here. This is not what I would prioritize in that paragraph, and the material about his age is almost trivial here. I would rather see a sentence that said something of substance about his presidency, as proposed above rather than pointing out his age or his background (which is discussed in detail in the very next paragraph). --Tataral (talk) 17:40, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose that claim made in the first paragraph falls afoul of WP:UNDUE weight, in addition to this being a WP:BLP. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 20:13, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose I don't see any reason why the first paragraph should change. It does its job fine and follows the past several presidential articles in being a simple, fact based overview of the person's life. The language suggested for the sentence would also make the article appear even more biased than it already does, by trying to realign the lead to focus even more on purely negative aspects about Trump. Basil the Bat Lord (talk) 05:34, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

  "fact based overview of the person's life": Except that it doesn't, it leaves out the most important aspects. Other well-developed articles on heads of state, especially those who weren't considered "normal" or "routine" officeholders, include something about what they are famous for. E.g. the first paragraph of Adolf Hitler (Note: not a general comparison of Trump and Hitler, just the structure of their articles), which doesn't just state when he was chancellor and his former profession, but the key aspects of his rule as well. The current paragraph was essentially written before Trump took office, before there was much to say about his presidency. It does no longer adequately summarise his life, after he has become known as the "most corrupt" and "worst" US president in history, the only one to be impeached twice, for inciting an insurrection and so on. --Tataral (talk) 16:06, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

• Support. Being the first president to be impeached twice is not merely noteworthy, it's historic. ~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 21:19, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support this is one of the main things that trump is known for. (t · c) buidhe 22:37, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose This is simply not the kind of thing that belongs in the first sentence/lead paragraph of a biography. That section defines, in the most concrete and neutral manner, who the person is or was, and what they have done. And that's all. The lead paragraph is absolutely not the place for throwing in a judgment call about how they performed during the last four years. If something like this is to be added, it should be at the END of the lead section, where we are talking about his presidency. -- MelanieN (talk) 16:23, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support "twice impeached" in the first paragraph somewhere, as it's (per sources) probably the single most significant thing that distinguishes him from other presidents, historically. Although it's really too soon to be making such an assessment, I think it significant enough for the lead paragraph. Oppose "widely accused of abuse of power and corruption" because that is true of every president, and really every politician. There are other, more-significant things about Trump than accusations of abuse of power and corruption (such as racism, divisiveness, profiteering [which is more specific than "corruption"]). Levivich ^harass/_hound 19:46, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose The sentence which summarises the aspects of his presidency belongs to the end of the lead, where we are talking about his presidency, not to the first paragraph. Felix558 (talk) 19:20, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
• Neutral I think it could be worded better to comply with NPOV. Trump's presidency is very broad. With that in mind if that is the consensus amongst the Scholarly sources, the US population sure. I am not sure there is enough consensus on this however. We really, really need to not use hyperbolic statements. I personally hate Trump but still, we can't write an article on how he is a complete demon. Des Vallee (talk) 22:31, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support "impeached twice" That is extremely historic and therefor should certainly first paragraph material. Des Vallee (talk) 22:33, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support. The wording will surely evolve, but it's clear that this is an historic headline of his biography. For comparison, Encyclopedia Britannica allocates 132 words - more than half of their first paragraph - addressing Trump's double impeachment and related election loss:

  Trump was the third president in U.S. history (after Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998) to be impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives and the only president to be impeached twice—once (in 2019) for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in connection with the Ukraine scandal (he was acquitted of those charges by the U.S. Senate in 2020) and once (in 2021) for “incitement of insurrection” in connection with the storming of the United States Capitol by a violent mob of Trump supporters as Congress met in joint session to ceremonially count electoral college votes from the 2020 presidential election. Trump lost that election to former vice president Joe Biden by 306 electoral votes to 232; he lost the popular vote by more than seven million votes.[1] Alsee (talk) 07:34, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose I may be confused, but you all are just trying to throw that biased, irrelevant sentence onto the end of the 1st paragraph that discusses his business career? This proposer is clearly politically motivated. This article is already bad enough, lets not make it worse. Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 01:33, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
• Strongly Oppose His impeachments should not be added to the first paragraph of his article. It should remain in the lead as it has historical significance and is consistent with the placement of the other two impeached presidents. While he was impeached twice, it is not as significant as him resigning; ie Nixon or being found guilty of the charges that were brought up for articles of impeachment. In time, if he were to be found guilty of inciting violence and was therefore not able to run for future political office, than I would say that is a historic and significant factor that should be in the main paragraph such as President Nixon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.172.63.185 (talk) 09:02, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Language copied from thread above

I propose the language proposed above by @Neutrality: be combined with the language under discussion above and be placed in the first or second paragraph of the lead. To wit, let's combine this

Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to Biden but refused to concede defeat. Trump attempted to overturn the results by making false claims of electoral fraud, pressuring government officials, mounting dozens of unsuccessful legal challenges, and stymieing the presidential transition. During Congress's counting of the electoral votes on January 6, 2021, Trump urged supporters to march on the Capitol, which they then stormed, forcing Congress to evacuate.

with this,

Throughout his presidency he has been widely accused of abuse of power and corruption, and he has been impeached twice.

SPECIFICO talk 18:46, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Still against the "has been" verb tense...unsure what "widely" means...

Throughout his presidency he was regularly accused of abuse of power and corruption, and he was twice impeached.

 ? Bdushaw (talk) 20:04, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Five deaths resulted => This resulted in five deaths

"Five deaths resulted", in the intro, isn't (as far as I know, as a native English speaker) correct, but I don't have the permissions to change it! --BobEret (talk) 03:36, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

@BobEret: I changed it to "five deaths occurred during the riot" but if you have anything better to suggest, especially if more concise, please do so. I didn't want to use the ambiguous "this" because the position in the sentence would refer to the storming, and the five deaths weren't all due to the storming but the general rioting that included the storming. ~Anachronist (talk) 04:37, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

• @Anachronist: - your version is factually inaccurate. The policeman died in hospital the next day, not during the riot. starship.paint (exalt) 08:17, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

You're right. I made another small change to make it more concise, as "during or as a result of" is sort of redundant. ~Anachronist (talk) 20:59, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Mention of the deaths was removed by @Onetwothreeip: in this edit, however I have restored it as there was no consensus to remove it. Vrrajkum (talk) 20:10, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

@Vrrajkum: We really do not need to say how many people died at a certain event on the lead of this article. It's far too much detail for a summary of what is supposed to be Donald Trump's entire life and presidency, and is also complicated to explain in this case. Onetwothreeip (talk) 20:19, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

@Onetwothreeip: Trump bears a high degree of responsibility for the deaths and they will likely be a central feature of his upcoming second impeachment trial; difficulties of explaining them aside, they merit inclusion in the lede for at least these reasons. Other editors are welcome to weigh in. Vrrajkum (talk) 20:33, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

It doesn't matter at all how much responsibility he has for it, or its involvement in the impeachment. This is simply something which does not matter nearly enough to be included in the lead of this article. And before anybody misrepresents what I am saying, this is purely about the number of deaths at the event, not the event itself. Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:40, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree. It is not suitable for the lead. We do not list the amount of deaths in the Iraq War in the lead of George W Bush's article. In this case, there is no strong connection to Trump. I think this should be reviewed after the outcome of the Senate trial.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:01, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't feel that the Iraq War is a valid analogy because war obviously implies that people will die. Deaths during an ostensibly "peaceful" protest, on the other hand, are more noteworthy. For the time being I have changed the exact number of "five" to read "several" instead, in line with the imprecise language "dozens of unsuccessful legal challenges" above it. Vrrajkum (talk) 15:20, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

What you think five deaths is more noteworthy than the thousands who died in the Iraq War? Are you serious??? People die in protests all the time. If there was a judicial finding that Trump was responsible for these deaths, then yes, that's worth noting in the lead. Otherwise, it's just a pretty pathetic attempt to bolster the case against Trump, which in all likelihood will fail in the Senate. Put down the megaphone, hang up the blowtorch, turn round the telescope, and realise this is just a speed bump in the Mad Max highway of American history. The splangled republic will survive! Live free and die young!--Jack Upland (talk) 09:46, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Public profile

Does this really need to exist? The content could be folded into other relevant sections, resulting in a significant size reduction. Most of it is in fact about the Presidency, and it is misleading to mix in stuff that isn't related to the Presidency. And some content definitely should be elsewhere, such as the Access Hollywood tape, which was an event in the 2016 campaign. MOS:BLPCHRONO says biographies should be presented in chronological order, so this is a major violation. A lot of the material here seems designed to prove a point and takes a sledgehammer approach. There is a lot of detail here which is really unnecessary and repeats information better presented elsewhere.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:57, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Trump's public profile didn't begin or end with his presidency/candidacy. Only the Approval ratings subsection deals exclusively with the presidency. The others deal with events before and during the presidency, with later events likely to follow. The Access Hollywood tape, for example, was aired during the campaign but it's about Trump the person, not Trump the candidate or Trump the president. And the 26 women who accused Trump of sexual misconduct came forward during his presidency, but the alleged incidents didn't occur during the presidency. MOS:BLPCHRONO also says except where there is good reason to do otherwise. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 17:54, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Are you agreeing with me or disagreeing?--Jack Upland (talk) 19:01, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I thought it was pretty clear that I was disagreeing but it seems that I was wrong. Can you give me an example of content you propose to fold into which section? Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 19:03, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Very fine people on both sides

@Iamreallygoodatcheckers: This edit of yours is not reliably sourced. One source is an uncommented transcript of the Trump press conference (good luck to anyone trying to parse that), the other one is an opinion by a right-wing opinion writer who thinks his pick of Trump quotes proves something different. The sentence about "very fine people on both sides" isn’t WP speaking, it’s citing RS. I could add more RS but that would be overciting. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 10:43, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Space4Time3Continuum2x, the edit was reliably sourced. One source was from USA Today and the other is Politifact, which are credible under WP:RSP. [2], the Politifact source yes does have the transcript, but that's not all it says, you missed a crucial part at the end when they rated the "very fine people on both sides" comment as "Full context is needed", which is the same as saying the comment is out of context. As for the USA Today source, yes the writer is right-wing, but WP:NPOV says that biased sources aren't inherently unreliable. Also, there are a crap ton of sources on this article that are written by liberals, so if we followed this no biased writers rule, we probably wouldn't have much of an article. Here's another source, [3], while not under WP:RSP, it does appear credible and is affiliated with the Annenberg Public Policy Center, that also says the comments were out of context. Overall, the comments have been taken out of context for political reasons, and for Wikipedia to pander to this lie is a text book example of NPOV being violated. I'm really not sure why this is a controversial thing. Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 23:52, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

@Iamreallygoodatcheckers: - (1) opinion articles are used for opinions, not for facts. No matter if that source is green on WP:RSP - USA Today opinion, New York Times opinion, Wall Street Journal opinion - all only for opinions. If you can't adhere to that, you should not be editing in this area. (2) We should not use the transcript, but we can use the Factcheck.org source. starship.paint (exalt) 10:06, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

@Starship.paint: That's a non sequitur. Farley is factchecking a Biden comment, he doesn't weigh in on Trump's widely critized "very fine people on both sides" remark. Trump has said his “very fine people” comment referred not to white supremacists and neo-Nazis but to “people that went because they felt very strongly about the monument to Robert E. Lee — a great general, whether you like it or not.” Some have argued that explanation doesn’t hold up, because Trump referred in that statement to a protest “the night before” when — it was widely reported — white nationalists burned tiki torches and chanted anti-Semitic and white nationalist slogans. We’ll leave it to readers to make up their minds on Trump’s remarks, but Biden’s comment that Trump has “yet once to condemn white supremacy” is not accurate. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 12:29, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

I don’t think that "Full context is needed" is a PolitiFact comment, it’s an ad for the Share the Facts widget (it’s now the FactStream app, I think), featuring a Trump quote from April 2019. Robbins's "more complete quote" is selectively edited, leaving out parts that didn’t fit into Robbins’s narrative. The Washington Post’s The Fix analyzed that very part of the press conference, including the parts Robbins left out and what Trump said next, i.e., the full context. The full context is that Trump neglected to mention that it was a march organized by neo-Nazis, white supremacists and white nationalists, many of them armed to the gills, carrying Nazi paraphernalia and Confederate flags, chanting "Jews will not replace us" and "white lives matter." Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 12:04, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Regardless of what he was referring to in his "very fine" comment, he still did condemn neo-Nazis and white nationalists. That is part of his racial views. That very quote has been reported by FactCheck above as mentioned by Iamreallygoodatcheckers, WaPo above as mentioned by Space4Time3Continuum2x, AP, CNN, USA Today, SBS. BBC. Snopes, Time, ABC News and NPR. starship.paint (exalt) 12:56, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

• WaPo as Space4Time3Continuum2x provided: It’s easy to isolate comments meant to insulate oneself — including last week ... but it’s also very possible to do so while sending plenty of other signals that point in a very different direction. I agree with this sentiment, so we should be reporting both parts of his speech - the part where he sent unsavory signals, and the part where he condemned neo-Nazis. starship.paint (exalt) 13:02, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

  No. Because RS coverage and later reporting of public understanding of his remarks tell us the message was condoning white supremacy and posing a false equivalence with peaceful protesters. SPECIFICO talk 14:37, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

  Starship, you did a little selective editing there yourself. It’s easy to isolate comments meant to insulate oneself — including last week ... but it’s also very possible to do so while sending plenty of other signals that point in a very different direction. And Trump’s history on this is anything but a matter of selective editing. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 18:58, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

• We should cover it as reliable sources have, which generally present it the way SPECIFICO described. The aspect or interpretation being presented here just doesn't receive the sort of focus these edits try to give it and plainly isn't what is notable about the quote; the moral equivalence is what makes the quote noteworthy. This is especially true given that that quote alone received WP:SUSTAINED coverage. --Aquillion (talk) 17:50, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
• Factcheck a credible source has labeled the media's claims misleading. It's fine to mention that the media has said that the comments created an equivalence with white nationalist. That would be half way achieving NPOV. It's important that we also mention that a reliable fact checker said the comments are out of context, if we don't its not a NPOV. Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 22:57, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 9 February 2021 (2)

replace the main image with this Official Portrait Trump End of term.jpg 2601:154:4080:1660:645B:DCBA:3D2C:D107 (talk) 20:48, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

This would need group consensus. I have no objection to the update. SPECIFICO talk 21:19, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit extended-protected}} template. That image is very fuzzy and low-quality for some reason, and needs to be cropped before it can be used. Other people may have other objections. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:24, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree, that image looks like a low quality version of original Official portrait, so it should not be used as main image. Felix558 (talk) 23:01, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

I also discovered that the name of image in queston (Official Portrait Trump End of term.jpg) is wrong/misleading. This image has nothing to do with the end of his term. On the contrary, the image was taken at the beginning of his term in January 2017, so it's older than the current image we have in the infobox. It seems it was used on www.whitehouse.gov from January until October 2017 as a placeholder, until the real official portrait (the one which is currently in the infobox) was made. Therefore this image should not be used (maybe it should be deleted since it has wrong/misleading name). Reference No. 1 and No. 2. Felix558 (talk) 02:05, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Citation and note in lead

I removed a citation and note in the lead here for being unnecessary, but was reverted. The removal should be restored. Further information should be contained in the body of the article, not the lead. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:40, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. There definitely shouldn't be a citation in the lead of such a high-profile article as this. Thanoscar21^talk_{contributions} 21:57, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

This was carefully considered before it was placed in the article. It certainly does not have to be in the lead, but removing it from the article rather than moving it was not a good move. SPECIFICO talk 00:16, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

We have enough sources already. Onetwothreeip (talk) 06:34, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

It was not only a reference that you deleted. Unresponsive tslk page replies, such as yours here, do not advance your view. SPECIFICO talk 15:16, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

To clarify, we have enough sources and prose in the body of the article. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:12, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Redirects for discussion

• A discussion is taking place to address the redirect 唐纳德·特朗普. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 February 6#唐纳德·特朗普 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. BDD (talk) 15:58, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
• A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Resignation of Donald Trump. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 February 6#Resignation of Donald Trump until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. BDD (talk) 16:08, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
• A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Pardon of Donald Trump. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 February 6#Pardon of Donald Trump until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. BDD (talk) 16:09, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Mention Trump being the oldest president at the time?

William Henry Harrison and Reagan have their headlines and articles mention they were the oldest president at the time. Trump was older than either. Just because it was broken one term later by Biden does not change the fact that at the time, Trump was the oldest president ever elected. I feel that it is important to bring it up in the article, to acknowledge a historical fact, even if it was out dated. I mean, let's not forget that we were only roughly 120K votes from four states away from having a second term with him, and therefore him remaining the oldest president ever (probably for several decades). So let's not pretend like him losing the record was a foreseen conclusion — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.41.187.160 (talk) 22:26, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

I believe it's mentioned somewhere. Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 00:18, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Can mark this as  Done. -MaximusEditor (talk) 21:49, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Health subsection in Presidency

Can someone explain to me why Trump’s “health” subsection is located under his Presidency in the article? Should it not be under his “Personal life”? — Politicsfan4 (talk) 14:21, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree. I don't know how or when it got put there. It used to be under the "personal" section, right under "Wealth". I'll move it back. -- MelanieN (talk) 21:07, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

"health" subsection should definitely be under personal life. Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 07:06, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

I put it under "Presidency" because it concerns his presidency. Please don't violate Wikipedia polcies because it suits your personal whims. This has already been discused.--Jack Upland (talk) 05:36, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

And I put it back under Personal, where it logically belongs, as per everyone else here. If you know of some WP policy that overrules putting it under Personal, please point to it. -- MelanieN (talk) 23:31, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

PLAGIRISM AND PARTISANSHIP

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.

---

"Despite a campaign promise to eliminate the national debt in eight years, Trump as president approved large increases in government spending, as well as the 2017 tax cut. As a result, the federal budget deficit increased by almost 50%, to nearly $1 trillion in 2019.[284] Under Trump, the U.S. national debt increased by 39%, reaching $27.75 trillion by the end of his term; the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio also hit a post-World War II high.[285]

Although the U.S. unemployment rate hit a 50-year low (3.5%) in February 2020, the unemployment rate hit a 90-year high (14.7%), matching Great Depression levels, just two months later, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[286] Trump left office with 3 million fewer jobs in the U.S. than when he took office, making Trump the only modern U.S. president to leave office with a smaller workforce.[269]"

This is outright plagiarism from Donald Trump's main wikipedia page. Look it up. My edit about the fact that by the fact that when Trump left office, the stock market was at a record high, and the unemployment rate went from the highest level since the Great Depression to 6.3%, which is just slightly higher than historical average, was deleted, as usual, partisan administrators took it down despite the fact that everything I wrote was properly sourced. They replaced it with plagiarism. NOT FAIR!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by JCITKOL (talk • contribs) 05:40, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Excuse me, sir, this is Donald Trump's main wikipedia page. If you're concerned about content at Economic policy of the Donald Trump administration, note that Copying within Wikipedia is allowed. power~enwiki (π, ν) 06:16, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

What im most worried by is the partisanship of the quoted piece, its portrays it as if Trump had a negative impact upon federal spending and unemployment, when i think we can all agree that it was caused by the COVID 19 recession and subsequent stimulus bills (that narrowly saved us from a second great depression), such political skewing is not something we should be doing here. I know we all have opinions and political beliefs, but we need to put them aside for wikipedia's sake, there are many inclusions in this page that are highly partisan, both in his favor and against it, this needs to be addressed. only state facts, state them in order, use FULL quotes, and provide full context of the situation, otherwise this page will devolve further into partisan madness. Now, could we all stop acting like children and fix this mess? DoubleAiden (talk) 06:47, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

And just a quick sidenote JCITKOL, thats not how federal budgets work, the president doesnt make them and has very little power over whats in them, if you want to learn about it you can do so here. DoubleAiden (talk) 07:04, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

DoubleAiden, what part of the quote above do you find unfactual? Those literally 'are' the facts. He did promise to eliminate the debt, he did sign legislation that did the opposite of that (even before COVID), and the unemployment did go up due to the pandemic. This did result in him leaving office with a smaller US workforce than when he came in - even if it was due to the pandemic, it still happened. So what part is "political skewing", given that the entire piece is purely factual? And just a quick sidenote DoubleAiden, that is how budgets work - he either signs the budget or has to have his veto overridden (which is virtually impossible). He doesn't like it, he doesn't have to sign it - and the government has been shut down many times simply because a president refused to "just sign it" like you're claiming is all they do. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 07:07, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

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

Mention SAG ban

Trump has been banned from rejoining the SAG-AFTRA due to "threatening or inciting harm" against other members (source). Is this notable enough to be mentioned in the article? -- Politicsfan4 (talk) 00:21, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

• It's already mentioned in the article. I have no opposition to it. Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 03:53, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
• IMO it is. I just added it to Donald_Trump#Film_and_television, also that the union specifically pointed to the attacks on journalists. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 12:51, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Trump's health habits

I just learned that the information that Trump does not drink or smoke was removed from the article's "Health" section at some point. I think that is important health information - also his sleep habits - and I propose to restore it, as follows:

Trump abstains from alcohol. He says he has never smoked tobacco or used drugs. He has said, and his doctor confirms, that he sleeps about four or five hours a night.

Sources

Is this OK with people? -- MelanieN (talk) 17:23, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

@Neutrality: Oops, I didn't see that you had already replied above. What would you say to this propose wording? -- MelanieN (talk) 17:26, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Pretty good, but I would go even shorter and would add the Economic Letters journal cite:

Trump is a teetotaler. He sleeps about four or five hours a night.

Sources

Neutrality^talk 17:35, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the improvements. But I would really prefer to include the information that he doesn't smoke; that is probably the single most important health habit there is. And it's only a few words; surely we can grant him that much of a positive, in an article where we are constantly accused of including only negative information. Say, "Trump is a teetotaler and he does not smoke," same references. (I forgot to say: my intention is to add this at the beginning of the section, making it a lead-in to the information about his exercise habits.) -- MelanieN (talk) 18:00, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm OK with including that. Neutrality^talk 18:13, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

• What makes alcohol different from tobacco or other drugs? According to the WaPo cite, the president is a proud teetotaler who says he has never had a drink, smoked cigarettes or consumed drugs. Trump says he never drank alcohol, smoked tobacco, or used drugs. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 18:16, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

I'd be OK with "Trump says he has never drunk alcohol, smoked tobacco, or used drugs." -- MelanieN (talk) 19:06, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

No fast food? He's often been photographed with piles of big macs, etc. He and Clinton had anomalous presidential diets. SPECIFICO talk 18:49, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

No fast food. True, he loves fast food, but I don't think it's been mentioned as part of his medical reports. When you have a health exam, they always ask you about drinking, smoking, and exercise; they never ask you if you like fast food. -- MelanieN (talk) 19:02, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Interestingly, the Bill Clinton biography mentions his affinity for "McDonald's and junk food" under the "public image" section. But given that space is at a premium in this article, I don't think we have the space for it. Neutrality^talk 19:17, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

We could make room by moving the last paragraph to the Presidency article. His checkups were of interest only during the presidency. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 19:37, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

What we really need, in this section and most of the article, is to replace our best estimates of what secondady-sourced details are noteworthy. We need to replace much of the content with tertiary summaries and evaluations of the details. Right now, critics of this article feel it's biased -- as if we are pointing fingers at verified facts and leading readers to draw adverse inferences. What we really need is sources that make informed and expert inferences about things like Korea, Iran, caged kids, etc. etc. There may well be such a summary on his health and diet, but I don't recall seeing it. I think you are correct, MelanieN that including the fast food without a source that relates it to Trump's obesity, cholesterol, pulmonary challenges, etc. would be finger-pointing best avoided. SPECIFICO talk 19:43, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

@MelanieN: - You should note the reason that Trump reportedly abstains from alcohol - "because he witnessed his brother Fred struggle with alcoholism and later die from it" - as explained here. -- Politicsfan4 (talk) 20:22, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

I believe we did include that some years ago, but it was removed as excessive detail. That's the reason he always gives, but there are others; he has also said he believes it gives him an edge in business and personal dealings to always be in perfect control. IMO what we need here is a dozen words on the subject, not a paragraph. -- MelanieN (talk) 21:23, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

I removed it in this edit —sure seems like it was years ago. The info was first added to the article in 2017. Trump used his brother in his campaign rhetoric and went from not drinking, smoking, or using drugs to never having had a drink or a smoke or used marijuana because of the admired older brother who implored him not to. He doesn’t seem to have mentioned that before the campaign, and, according to niece Mary Trump, rather than admiring his brother, he was "ridiculing him, ostracizing him and, ultimately, ignoring him. Donald did not attend Freddy’s wedding, and on the day Freddy was rushed to the hospital in the direst of conditions, his brother was too busy to stop by." There are also witnesses to Trump drinking light beer and champagne. He gave a different explanation in a Playboy interview in 1990 (transcript) and no explanation in a Piers Morgan interview in 2010. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 21:44, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

It's not relevant for someone to not use tobacco or other recreational drugs, as this is far too common. Abstaining from alcohol is relevant. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:01, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

The editors involved in this discussion so far are all agreeing to mention that he doesn't drink, smoke, or do drugs. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 22:21, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Yea I agree it should be mentioned. Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 02:15, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Support. This is all relevant information about Trump the man himself, which is this article. starship.paint (exalt) 03:30, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

• If we include this — and we shouldn't — it has to be time-specific. If we suggest that Trump sleeps only a few hours per night, then we should say if this is a recent thing, or it has been continuing all his life. Equally did his abstinence from booze commence at his bro's death or has it been lifelong? When did he start playing golf, and when did he stop playing the course? This is not an article about Trump in his 70s and I am sick of editors who continually assert that it is. Follow Wikipedia rules or migrate to Facebook. OK?--Jack Upland (talk) 07:29, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Trump has said, repeatedly, that he has never had a drink of alcohol, including when he was in college. [4] He wrote, back in 2004, that he sleeps about four hours a night.[5] He has been playing golf since his college years and "loves the game more than he loves money" according to Jack Nicklaus. There is no need for us to specify when he said these things or whether they are recent; they aren't. We are trying to convey information about key facets of his lifestyle without bloating the article. -- MelanieN (talk) 21:50, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

This has been a helpful discussion; thanks, all, for the input. I think we are reasonably close to agreement (recognizing that consensus does not have to be unanimous). I intend to add the following to the article, right in front of the sentence about exercise:

Trump says he has never drunk alcohol, smoked cigarettes, or used drugs. He sleeps about four or five hours a night.

Sources

Any final comments before I do? -- MelanieN (talk) 16:27, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

• Looks good to me Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 21:20, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

OK, done. -- MelanieN (talk) 18:26, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

url-access=limited

@Psypherium: According to your edit summary, you added "url-access=limited" to about 200 New York Times links. When adding one of them (that I know about), you inserted it between "htm" and "l" of the link, resulting in a dead link which was tagged here. I've since fixed the link. Why did you add the value, and why the NYT? Including your two following edits, you added more than 3,300 bytes to the article that do not serve any useful purpose. Please remove them. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 12:02, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

I thank you for making the fix. I added the value because it adds a notification informing the reader about NYT links: "Free access subject to limited trial, subscription normally required." I do believe that this serves a useful purpose. Although, I also believe that this article needs some code golf, which is usually what I do to wiki articles, this case was an exception. My suggestion is that some of the hidden text could be moved to the page notices? This would save a lot of page size. I understand that this could cause some problems though. It is difficult to keep a page with such a contentious topic at a reasonable byte size. I hope that your day will be good :) Psypherium^{talk page} 14:02, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Well, I don't think "aggressively optimizing for program size" is quite the right fit for Wikipedia. Which hidden text are you referring to? As for free access, I don't know where you got that information. If you don't have a subscription to the NYT, you don't have access to the non-digitized archives, some of the recipes, and the crossword requires a separate subscription, but you do have access to all of the online articles. The access is less comfortable because you have to keep clearing cache, cookies, and site data regularly—and you get to see all those lovely ads—but that's no different from other newspapers and magazines (they have to make money somehow), so most WP readers are aware of that practice. I've started to remove the notifications but that's going to take some time, so your help would be appreciated. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 18:38, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree those should be removed. They are not policy-based and serve no pupose. SPECIFICO talk 14:02, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree with the addition of the parameter. It's a standard citation template parameter, I'm kind of surprised anyone would object to it. The parameter serves a useful purpose: it tells readers that a link is behind a paywall. It also populates the metadata. That's the point of the parameter. That's why it's used all over Wikipedia. And it causes no harm to add (how many k doesn't matter and 3.3k is negligible.) Levivich ^harass/_hound 16:51, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

The links aren't behind a paywall. If you want to add the argument to the Wall Street Journal links - no objection. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 18:25, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Huh? Are you saying |url-access=limited is not the correct setting for NYT articles? Per the tooltip and template doc, "limited" means "free access subject to limited trial, subscription normally required", which seems to accurately describe NYT. I believe WSJ would be |url-access=subscription, since WSJ doesn't offer a free trial, and yes, it would be an improvement if someone were to add that parameter to WSJ cites (and all other cites as applicable). Levivich ^harass/_hound 20:26, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Standard? Not really. We would have to apply it to tens of millions of citations to non-public-domain books, to academic journal articles, and to many of our other best sources. In fact to just about all our references, except for video game reviews on youtube and the like. Then we'd have to monitor websites like the Wall St. Journal that formerly allowed quite a bit of free access but now are impenetrable without a subscription or trip to the local library or newsstand. SPECIFICO talk 20:41, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

If you have a problem with |url-access=, Template:Citation is that-a-way... I don't know how long we've had that parameter, but longer than I've been here. You're basically objecting to someone correctly filling out a citation template. Levivich ^harass/_hound 20:55, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

I take it you were unable to address the substance of my reply. At any rate, it would be easier to tag the tiny minority of free references as free. SPECIFICO talk 01:56, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

There is no way to tag a reference as free. Free is the default. The settings are registration, limited, and subscription. This is explained in the template doc I linked to. Specifico are you seriously saying you're not familiar with this citation template parameter? You've been here forever this can't be your first encounter with url-access. Levivich ^harass/_hound 01:59, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

I wasn't familiar with this either. I wouldn't expect an editor, no matter their experience, to know about this. Onetwothreeip (talk) 07:14, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

I don’t remember ever having come across this parameter in almost 5 years of editing on WP. According to the template documentation, all parameters are optional. I’ve looked at other articles and found a few instances of url-access=registration for book content and paywalled newspapers like the Financial Times. The parameter hasn't been used in this article, and I see no reason to start using it now. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 12:47, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

You mean you reverted someone adding this parameter and you don't even know what the parameter is? What a waste of your colleague's time. Next time if you're unfamiliar with a template parameter, read the documentation first and educate yourself, before reverting. It doesn't matter if you see a reason for using it or not. Citation template parameters aren't exactly a local consensus thing. Levivich ^harass/_hound 16:39, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the lecture, but that's not what happened. Saying that I hadn't come across url-access=limited before isn't the same as saying that I didn't know what it was when I saw it—I did know, it's self-explanatory. One more time: the parameters are optional, and on this page we have gotten along just fine without that one (and a few others that Mandruss has been removing diligently). Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 18:01, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

That was not responsive, Levivich. If it has a default that applies in a small minority of its uses, the default should be changed to the predominant value, which is not free. Most WP reference works are not free. SPECIFICO talk 14:17, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Why do you keep saying "that was not responsive"? I don't understand what you mean or what kind of response you're looking for. If you want to change the default setting of a template parameter, take it up at the template talk page. Until then stop wasting my time. Read the documentation before objecting to something you don't understand or know about. You're complaining on an article talk page about which way the citation templates are coded. A waste of our time here. Levivich ^harass/_hound 16:39, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

url-access=limited is a standard parameter. It helps the reader and notifies them of their access to a link. Who cares if editors here haven't heard of them: Wikipedia:Readers first. The opposition here is extremely counterproductive. Aza24 (talk) 23:10, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

trump security

It needs to be in the article that as all past presidents he will have security on him for the rest of his life..the cost and the details of protecting him are relevant 00:13, 3 February 2021 (UTC)107.217.84.95 (talk)

The cost of secret service is not relevant to this article, all presidents get protection past presidency, it's simply not notable for an already lengthy article. Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 00:20, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Why are you saying he's a past president?--Jack Upland (talk) 09:36, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Please tell me you are joking. -- MelanieN (talk) 18:33, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

It is relevant..I was referring more to the specifics of protecting him whether he is going to stay in Florida or go back to New York..trump`s post presidency will be the most controversial ever and the security issues could easily become a problem. 107.217.84.95 (talk) 00:34, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Not relevant. This is nothing special for Trump, it is routine for all past presidents. The only reason to mention it, and how much it was costing, would be to try to make him look bad. -- MelanieN (talk) 23:53, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

I disagree..other former presidents go home to their estates and we don`t hear much from them after that..trump is different..no one can predict the future but more than likely he will be living the rest of his life in a fish bowl..his situation is different. 107.217.84.95 (talk) 23:35, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

That's nice, but this is an encyclopedia, not a first-run source for All Things Donald. If there is significant coverage in the media regarding Trump and his SS detail at some point, then by all means bring it here for discussion. At this moment in time there is simply nothing to write about. ValarianB (talk) 18:53, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Donald Trump has a lot of enemies including ties to organized crime..he will need increased security 107.217.84.95 (talk) 01:02, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

One novel fact, perhaps worth mentioning, is that, on leaving office, Trump secured secret service protection for his entire family. That is unusual. WA Post. Bdushaw (talk) 14:04, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

bug maybe

So whenever i search www.mistake.com it leads me to this wiki page. Can ya fix it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 39.32.133.195 (talk) 08:02, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

NO we can't as we cannot alter the code on another site, you need to contact them.Slatersteven (talk) 10:08, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Protection

Just to note, I have semi-protected this page for 24 hours due to an upsurge in vandalism and BLP violations. -- MelanieN (talk) 21:21, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Considering the ongoing impeachment trial, you might want to extend that protection for a month. GoodDay (talk) 21:55, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

We usually try not to protect talk pages at all, so even 24 hours was a bit of a stretch. Of course, the main article is Extended Confirmed protected. -- MelanieN (talk) 22:08, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Minor Suggestions;

suggestions for minor additions/changes.

I suggest adding near the top of the page "DISCRETION This person is a controversial political figure; Information on this page may be partially incorrect or opinionated."

Since this is a controversial figure, i suggest that if you quote him, to put the full quote, instead of small snippets, to prevent opinionated skewing of his words from occurring.

Opinion based nature of certain topics

Certain topics on this page are inherently opinionated, such as the part about his response to COVID 19, there are many reasons to believe it was a good one, and many to believe it was a bad one, and its nearly impossible to objectively speak about it since all sources of information regarding it are opinionated as well. There needs to be a solution to this issue, I have thought of a few possible ones, feel free to suggest more, adding it to the list along with numbering for voting purposes (DoubleAiden (talk) 06:49, 13 February 2021 (UTC)); 1. We could address the opinionated nature of the topic(s) in the page, providing both sides' beliefs about the topic in question. 2. We can put a sub header warning about the opinionated nature of the topic above it.

"there are many reasons to believe it was a good one" No, there aren't. --Khajidha (talk) 13:49, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

He responded to the disease faster than most, even most politicians in america, he accelerated the production of a vaccine to insane speeds, he had regular public briefings on what best to do (what fauci told him is best to do), he closed travel to the most affected area in the first month, and he prioritized the discovery of proper treatments to reduce the likelihood of death, etc. etc. but im not here to make YOU believe me, im here to help with the opinionation of certain topics, its YOUR opinion he did poorly, its MY opinion he did well, there is NO objective truth we can put in here, since all sources are opinionated as well, therefore we have a problem, we cant put an opinion on here, and we cant put nothing, so we need to find a solution, this is what this is for. DoubleAiden (talk) 17:59, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Per WP guidelines on reliable sources and neutral point view, and specifically due weight, you'd need to provide reliable sources for your claims. Editors are not supposed to opine. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 19:24, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

"MAGA Patriot Party" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect MAGA Patriot Party. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 February 13#MAGA Patriot Party until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 20:46, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Trump’s criminal investigations section is incomplete.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/13/politics/trump-legal-problems-post-impeachment/index.html

Could a moderator please add this info and link to the Criminal Investigation section. It is locked.

Thanks film1234 (talk) 11:30, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Hi Peterb1234, thanks for your message. Normally I'd advise you to file a specific edit request, but substantial changes to the content of articles such as this one usually requires discussion. I'd advise you to gather as many sources from as many points of view that you can and lay out beneath your message exactly what you believe should be written verbatim in the section you mention. Once you've done that, feel free to ping me or leave a message on my talk page and I can come and add the relevant templates which can prod other users for their input to the resultant discussion. Many thanks, SITH (talk) 17:01, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Wikilinks in lede

I removed one and added two wikilinks, each of which I think is justified under the relevant guideline in this edit. Although it doesn't change the wording, I'm just leaving a message here should anyone wish to dispute it. It'll undoubtedly be re-worded in future but for now I think those links are the most useful ones to include to readers who will want to browse around the vast array of Trump-related articles. Thanks, SITH (talk) 16:56, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 17 February 2021

You should remove that he reacted slowly to the corona pandmic as that is a matter of perspective and leave it at what he did do to prevent it. This should not look like a personal attack column. You should also clarify that while telling people to march on the Capitol he said to do so "peacefully and patriotically." The current wording makes it sound as though you are accusing him of instigating violence even though he was recently acquitted during his second impeachment. I understand it can be hard to stay impartial when discussing a character such as Donald Trump but please do your best to remain impartial and stand for knowledge and truth. Thanks for all your hard work. 24.255.19.11 (talk) 09:36, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Current text is sourced and accurate. ValarianB (talk) 13:05, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

See Talk:Donald Trump/Response to claims of bias. Thanoscar21^talk_contribs 15:47, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

The problem isn’t that accusations are being hurled at Trump, but that they aren’t being hurled in the same way at Democratic figures. If we simply put “some people think” or “most people think” before these cases, this would be much less biased against Republicans. Because it is, unfortunately. Hermit7 (talk) 22:47, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

That's not our fault if it's biased. We simply reflect what WP:RS say. Thanoscar21^talk_contribs 22:53, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Then our reliable sources need to change. Media is regarded as reliable, but no matter which way you look at it, there is no neutral news when it comes to politics. Either it’s too Republican or too Democratic. And these sources are discriminated against if they are Republican; this I have experienced first hand. Hermit7 (talk) 23:04, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Long tag

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

There is no consensus on whether or not to include the {{long}} tag. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 17:25, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

---

There has been some back and forth on the article about whether this tag should be on the article. It seems clear to me that this article suffers from length issues and this should be brought to mind when editors seek to make changes to the article. Are there any objections? Onetwothreeip (talk) 02:09, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Prior consensus on the talk page states to leave the article alone, so I wouldn't add it. -- Politicsfan4 (talk) 07:04, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Are there any objections? – Beg pardon? You know very well there are objections. You have been a participant as this tag has been rejected again and again at this article, as I said in my edit summary,[6] and you don't get another bite at the apple every time a passerby drops in unaware of that fact.[7] I am not going to debate the merits yet again, and I'm asking you to drop this, preferably by self-closing this discussion as "withdrawn". ―Mandruss ☎ 10:12, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

I mean if there are any objections presently. If there aren't any objections at this present time, then the tag should go ahead. I'm aware in the past there has been more opposition than support for it, but I am gauging if that is still the case now. I apologise if that wasn't clear. Onetwothreeip (talk) 20:33, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Just gauge intermittently -- like every 6 months or so. SPECIFICO talk 20:53, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

I continue to oppose the tag with the same reasoning as all the previous times. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:11, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

@Mandruss: Should we add this to the Talk:Donald Trump/Current consensus#Current consensus? Something like:

050. Do not include the {{long}} tag at the beginning of the article. (link)

Politicsfan4 (talk) 03:54, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

There isn't a consensus on this talk page section, but there may be one. So far only I have indicated support of it, and only Mandruss has indicated opposition. Onetwothreeip (talk) 04:08, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Oppose. SPECIFICO talk 04:17, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Oppose. We all know it's too long, no need to state the obvious. Besides, having maintenance tags on articles gives them the appearance of being poor quality. Mgasparin (talk) 06:11, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

We clearly do not all know this, by the fact that the article is too long, otherwise it wouldn't be. Those who participate on the talk page may overwhelmingly know that the article is too long, but many editors of this article aren't checking the talk page, and most of the readers who are all potential editors don't check this talk page either. Onetwothreeip (talk) 09:37, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

I had the same thought, and it looks like that will be necessary. Since some editors in this thread are wisely refraining from engaging the debate yet again, the list item should probably link to one or two of the earlier discussions. I think this one is the most recent one. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:16, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

@Mandruss: Agreed. This is a controversial issue, so it should be included in the current consensus. Politicsfan4 (talk) 21:22, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Compromise/alternative idea - the editnotice for the page currently is itself too long and isn't going to be fully read by anyone probably. The "want to add new information" section is in smaller text than the other three sections of the editnotice, and is at the very bottom. Personally, I don't even know where the first red box comes from, but if nothing else we should put the "want to add new information" in larger text and at the very top so people who try to edit the article see that statement first. It also doesn't include all the other articles there are - that needs updating. Maybe that will prevent people from adding more while future discussion here can work on paring down what's already in? -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 02:55, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

• Support tag.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:18, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support tag. At 122 kB readable prose size there is a problem. Fix it and you'll get to remove the tag. Maintenance tags are not badges of shame. They alert editors about a specific issue and serve as a call to action to fix/discuss it. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 03:23, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support tag - It won't hurt to make it official. GoodDay (talk) 03:27, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

@Mandruss: Given your more recent comments about drastically reducing the size of the article, are you willing to reconsider your opposition to the maintenance tag? Onetwothreeip (talk) 07:33, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

I think we can tentatively place the tag into the article, as the default circumstance when a tag is applicable to the article, until or unless there is a consensus against doing so. Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:30, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

I think it should be placed on the article. The opponents say it will have no effect — which might be true — but that's not a strong reason not to have the tag. At worst, it might not do anything. But it just might encourage editors to stop inflating the article. It is inconsistent for editors to bemoan the size of the article and to remain silent or actively encourage an expansion of the article. I have not seen a strong argument against having a tag. If no one presents a strong argument that a tag would be bad, rather than just ineffectual, I will impose the tag and enforce it as far and as much as I can.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:28, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

@Jack Upland: I recommend you go ahead with it. The clear sentiment here is that there should be a tag. There has been plenty of opportunity for opposition. Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:10, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose. Jeepers - if at first you don't succeed, try again, and again, and again, and again ---? Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 15:25, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
• Comment The tag should be on the article, but I am now also looking into adding something in the edit notice. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:24, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose Certain articles require to be chunky. Des Vallee (talk) 07:02, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

This can still be a large article without being as ridiculously large as it is currently. 450,000 bytes puts it as large as the other negligently largest articles. Onetwothreeip (talk) 09:00, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

What is the basis of your assertion of negligence? The content and length of the article have been discussed here for at least four years, and much editor attention has been devoted to managing it. SPECIFICO talk 15:21, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Far too little editor attention has been devoted to reducing the size of the article, clearly. The negligence is that it was ever allowed to get to this size. Onetwothreeip (talk) 20:45, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

That is startlingly unresponsive. I just told you that dozens of editors have been concerned with the length and balancing that with other editorial objectives. Please review the talk archive discussions about length. NPOV and V are core policy. Reducing length at their expense is not improvement. SPECIFICO talk 22:21, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

That is not what is happening here. Especially since most of the trimming is stuff that is already in other articles. I promise, NPOV and V are still safe. PackMecEng (talk) 22:22, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

• Support tag It needs a good trim to remove trivia and move less important things into sub articles. Perhaps the tag will help dissuade efforts to pointlessly hamper the needed quality improvements to this article. PackMecEng (talk) 15:45, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose tag. Serves zero purpose here, and disruptive to our readers. We use maintenance tags to tag issues primarily for articles that may not be watched or on editors' radar; this biography, by contrast, is a highly watched article. Neutrality^talk 17:35, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

While that's an interesting hypothesis, it has now been thoroughly disproven. We have gone on without tag for a long time, and the issue has not fixed, in many cases getting worse. The purpose is to bring attention to the issue, which it clearly needs. Onetwothreeip (talk) 20:45, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

There is zero evidence that slapping a big, intrusive tag on the top of the article will "bring attention to the issue" (which clearly is already on editors' radar). If editors advocating for the tag redirected their energy to actually proposing consensus-based changes, then perhaps the page size could be reduced. Neutrality^talk 21:53, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree that we need more editors advocating consensus changes to reduce the article size, which is why we need the tag so much. You can't possibly argue that something so "intrusive" isn't at the same time catching attention! If tags don't give any attention to anything, then there would never be a point to any tag at all, which is clearly not the case. The only things that have zero evidence are that not having a tag would bring attention to the issue, and that there is sufficient attention on this issue. Onetwothreeip (talk) 22:00, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Of course it is possible for a tag to be both intrusive and ineffectual. See, e.g., alarm fatigue. Neutrality^talk 22:08, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

It would be easy to conduct an experiment - the article gets 50,000-5,000,000 visits a day, the statistics are good! So, monitor the article for a week for new editors shortening the article, then place the tag there for a week and monitor for new editors shortening the article. Make a simple table and keep track. In two weeks we would have a quantitative answer! At least this issue could be put to rest. Bdushaw (talk) 22:35, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

@Bdushaw: That's a good idea, but we've already had years of not placing the tag, so we can already do so. We would also surely need more than a week to measure. Once the tag is on the article, there probably wouldn't be consensus to remove it until the article was a much better size. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:27, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

It appears there's consensus to remove it now -- so much for that idea. It's not helpful to attract well-meaning editors hell-bent on cutting the article without the context and subject knowledge to do it in an NPOV manner. That's a big waste of editor time and attention. SPECIFICO talk 21:39, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

There is clearly no consensus against the tag. The weight of this discussion leans towards placing the tag. Making this article more in line with NPOV is another discussion entirely. Onetwothreeip (talk) 06:13, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

That is simply not what's going on. The status quo is NPOV and most of the cuts have unbalanced it and needed to be reverted. It's absurd to say cuts do not entail NPOV policy. SPECIFICO talk 15:45, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Whether or not this article is neutral is another matter entirely. Onetwothreeip (talk) 07:16, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support tag — the discussion on this article needs to move from whether to reduce the length, to how to reduce the length. The tag is useful for the reasons stated above. Levivich ^harass/_hound 22:42, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose tag, again. Its not useful since there are already many, many editors on this article and all of them already know the article is too long. It takes quite a long time for a new editor to an article like this to grasp its organization, main points, etc, so attracting fly-by-night editors is counter productive; an editor coming in and hacking away is not helpful. The article receives a few hundred thousand up to 5M visits a day; the tag is merely an annoyance to quite a lot of people. I suspect those promoting the tag have the aim of that annoyance. And since we've had to revisit this issue time and time again, I do have to question the good faith of those raising and promoting the issue again (as noted above); this is a distraction and a waste of time. Bdushaw (talk) 12:06, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

The article is currently averaging around 200,000 views per day. The high interest in this article only increases the urgency for this article to be reduced in size. If the price of getting the size down to a reasonable level is that some people will feel annoyed at a maintenance tag, which I have never heard to be the case on any other article, then so be it. I've also never seen disruptive editing occur as a result of this tag, and nobody has demonstrated any evidence of it. This article is currently restricted to editors who have made 500 edits over at least six months. There is clearly significant support for a tag, so it is fair that this matter be discussed. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:30, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

• Support I agree with Berchanhimez. In my opinion, this article has a bunch stupid crap in it, and we need to have serious discussion on shortening it and restoring it to a proper article. Oppose doesn't serve a purpose here, would only distract from content. Some articles justifiably have to be long, this is one of those exceptions.Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 01:37, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
• Support tag. This has gone on for months where any reductions are challenged and bludgeoned to the point nobody tries anymore. This article is too long, it is well over recommended length, and nobody cares to actually let anything be done about it. The tag should be there to convince people to actually get shit done, instead of ignoring the problem. Hiding the problem by not having a tag there doesn’t make it go away. Having the tag there may help people get the motivation to fix it. Thus, benefits outweigh any cons, and it should be placed until the problem is fixed. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 02:06, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose tag, this is a highly volatile and edited article, that tag may be irrelevant and obsolete by the minute since edits are nonstop for this controversial and BLP article. Serves no purpose in my opinion. PyroFloe (talk) 04:12, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

  To this, it will not be "irrelevant and obsolete by the minute" - this article is well over the size limit, takes approximately 1 second to load on even computers with more than sufficient internet speed/computing power, and is even worse on mobile. It's not going to disappear overnight. And if it happens to, then it's just as easy to remove it - and anyone removing it could hardly be challenged if the article size gets under control - or it could always be removed by consensus if/when the article is close but there's a consensus that the small amount of extra length is necessary. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 04:15, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support tag, this is English Wikipedia's longest non-list article. I wish hung up it.--Alcremie (talk) 11:03, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
• Quoting a comment from a previous discussion: You are assuming that the tag would have some effect other than to add ugly clutter to the top of the article. That is a faulty assumption in my opinion. But feel free to cite a case where long-standing resistance to article size reduction was overcome by addition of a tag. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 16:37, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

That comment assumes the tag is "ugly clutter", of which no evidence is shown. Onetwothreeip (talk) 06:49, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

• Maintenance tags are not disclaimers. The point of tags is to alert people to problems on articles usually with less talk page watchers to alert them to the issue. This page has lots of watchers, and lots of people are aware of the length issue, to the point that there's multiple talk page notices and even an editnotice about it. As such, such a tag has no editing purpose and serves solely as a disclaimer. And tags are not disclaimers. So oppose. The issue with this article isn't that people don't know the issue, it's that everyone has something they want to add in and attempts to remove content are met with bludgeoning and extensive discussion on talk. It's just not a pleasant editing experience. I suspect that's the reason why this article is in such poor shape. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:00, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Tags are stronger than edit notices and talk page notices. There absolutely needs to be more alertness of this issue. Onetwothreeip (talk) 02:17, 16 February 2021 (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.

Cancelling or changing consensus items

How do we keep maintaining the list now that Mandruss has left the building? Is there a standard for cancelling or changing consensus items, i.e., length of time the discussion was ongoing, number of editors involved, updating consensus before editing the article? We currently have two items, #17 and #40, under discussion (or maybe not, hard to tell).

• Consensus #17, lead paragraph wording. There was a discussion about linking "45th" to President of the United States or Presidency of Donald Trump. Politicsfan4 closed the discussion with "consensus to delink" and then declared consensus #17 obsolete. Looks improper to me because the discussion didn't touch the wording of the paragraph which has been changed while a number of discussions are/were ongoing. The editor who posted the current discussion announced that they are "done with this page", so maybe it's time to scrap "C>A>F" counts for A, because C is not getting enough support to be a finalist. "A,D,F,G in that order" counts for A, first choice. "Oppose A, C, F, G" counts for neither A nor F (nor C nor G, but those aren't getting much support anyway), it's a "neither" vote and start over.
• Consensus #40, exercise/battery. The sentences were removed from the article four days after the discussion had been initiated and without the discussion having been closed. It's still open, and more editors have responded. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 14:16, 10 February 2021 (UTC) Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 16:58, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

• At some point this year (but certainly not until after the impeachment trial) we may want to propose removing all the "consensus" items. A few types of changes (the infobox image) should certainly be discussed first, but I don't think we will need a list of dozens anymore. power~enwiki (π, ν) 22:09, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

  Unfortunately, I think it will be needed. New and relatively inexperienced editors need to recognize and understand the work that went into the longstanding text. SPECIFICO talk 22:18, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

• We should wait till a discussion is closed before we make the proposed changes, maybe some rare exceptions with an absolute hands down consensus could warrant change before an official closure, but that shouldn't be the usual. Consensus 40 shouldn't be changed until the discussion is closed, however, it is looking like it will be overturned at this point in time. I have no opposition to changing a consensus, that's how Wikipedia works. Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 03:45, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

@Space4Time3Continuum2x: I didn’t declare consensus #17 obsolete (it was already declared obsolete before I touched it). All I did was convert it to the “hidden” format, which is the standard for obsolete items. As you can see in the edit that I linked, the consensus already stated “Note that this item is obsolete given that Trump is no longer the current president”. Also, take a look at the discussion that I closed: there is clear consensus to delink the “45th”, although it really doesn’t matter anymore since item 17 is obsolete. — Politicsfan4 (talk) 19:26, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. I saw the delinking discussion and your subsequent edit of item 17 but overlooked starship.paint's edit—there were several discussions about the lead paragraph going on simultaneously. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 11:04, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 19 February 2021

It should say "acquitted by the narrowest vote by which a President has ever been acquitted in a Senate impeachment trial on February 13, 2021." 2389792hb (talk) 01:59, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

 Not done — Adding this would be adding false information. Andrew Johnson was 1 vote away from being removed. Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 02:14, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

• He was acquitted in the most bipartisan impeachment trial, not closest. Prins van Oranje 15:02, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Endnote [a] suggestion

Change "This situation has occurred five times since 1824." to "this situation has occurred four times in the modern two-party system, each time favoring the Republican." Important context, which Jackson's election isn't -- there wasn't a decisive electoral college vote in 1824, nor was there a national popular vote, the existence of both of which is implied by endnote [a] as-is. Gershonmk (talk) 00:48, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

It's not necessarily an important distinction. Adams was elected even though he did not recieve the plurarity of the popular vote. I don't see the need to specify. Anon0098 (talk) 01:57, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't think getting chosen by the House after getting a plurality in the EC is the "this situation" the endnote describes; plus, the total number of popular votes was less than 0.2% of the population and less than half the delegates were chosen that way. Gershonmk (talk) 02:10, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

To editor Gershonmk:  Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit extended-protected}} template. Thank you very much for your input! P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 04:23, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 27 December 2020

There's a typo -- "support in an Senate" should be "support in any Senate." Gershonmk (talk) 15:53, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

 Done Changed to "support in a Senate impeachment trial of a president." Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 16:02, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the fix, but I still think it should be "support in any Senate impeachment trial of a president." or "support ever in a Senate impeachment trial of a president" because this is pretty unclear re: what comparison is being made. Gershonmk (talk) 16:07, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

seven Republicans joined every Democrat in voting to convict, the most bipartisan support in a Senate impeachment trial of a president has the same meaning as the most bipartisan support in any Senate impeachment trial ever or the most bipartisan support ever in a Senate impeachment trial. Leaving it up to other editors to decide. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 16:45, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

The correction from "an" to "a" is good. No need for any other tweaks, I think it is clear enough. -- MelanieN (talk) 20:16, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Change "Hush money payments"

How unencylopedic is that phrase. I was confused if I was on Wikpedia or some tabloid magizine! Just change it to Stormy Daniels scandal, thats not as inflammatory. Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 05:30, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, I think "husb money" is a bit tabloid. The whole sordid saga was a bit of a storm in a teacup. It is not illegal to have an fling with a bombshell pornstar who looks like a horse. Under standard Christian doctrine, what Trump did was adultery — or was it fornication? But he's a flawed human being and all of us succumb to "sin". But it wasn't against the law of Minnesota at the time these "sins" were committed. Correct me if I'm wrong. A confidentiality clause is pretty standard these days in legal settlements across the world. So it's hard to see, from a broadsheet point of view, with a 10 year perspective, that this is any more than a storm in a teacup rather than the petticoat hurricane that certain tabloid scribblers devoutly wish for. But then again, I might be wrong.--Jack Upland (talk) 06:26, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Please spare us your preaching and judgmentalism ("looks like a horse", seriously? Your opinion of her looks has exactly what to do with this?). This is not about "sin". The issue, and the possible legal jeopardy, is not because he may have had sex with various women. The legal issue has to do with paying them for their silence in order to influence the election.[8] As for "hush money", that term is commonly used in sources, but it may be beneath us as an encyclopedia. I don't really care what we call it. Let's research what it is called by responsible (non-tabloid) sources. -- MelanieN (talk) 16:46, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Stormy Daniels responded with "Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present your president." Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 20:51, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

That language, Jack, is really distasteful and inappropriate here. Neutrality^talk 21:08, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

I propose "confidentiality payments", or something like that. We need not be salacious here, the content can speak for itself. Onetwothreeip (talk) 07:49, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Something like that would be an improvement, if we can find reliable sourcing to support it. Not "Stormy Daniels," because it's not just her; we probably should also say something about him reimbursing AMI for buying off Karen McDougal. -- MelanieN (talk) 17:17, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

"confidentiality payments" is good. Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 19:39, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

The alternative would be "alleged campaign finance violations" but that may be too narrow. I think hush money is increasingly correct usage rather than colloquial or ironic. SPECIFICO talk 17:45, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Reliable sources have all referred to the payments as hush money or hush-money. Here's the latest article in WaPo. I haven't found a single source for confidentiality payments or for calling the agreements with either woman confidentiality agreements, for that matter. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 20:43, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

It should just be the most common clear wording used in RS, which is "hush money". Regardless of what you call their contract, the payment is hush money. SPECIFICO talk 21:07, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

The choice of "hush money" or "confidentiality payment" or "non-disclosure payment" or similar is editorial discretion which is based on WP:NPOV and WP:V (the most accurate yet still neutral description of the events) - not necessarily based on use in RS (as would be for a title). Thus, I support moving away from the negative connotations of "hush money" and to a different descriptor - even if the only other one is long such as "payments to prevent discussion of information related to X" or similar - it's better to be slightly more wordy yet neutral, than to use a loaded non-neutral term to describe something under the false pretenses of "conciseness" over neutrality. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 03:56, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

How can it be "hush money", if the public is aware of it? It's like a tabloid heading "The secret he took to his grave..". How's it a secret, if everybody knows about it? GoodDay (talk) 20:53, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

It was reported later. Neutrality^talk 21:08, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

I oppose a change to this language. "Hush-money payments" is the phrase used in the Encyclopædia Britannica with respect to the investigations into payments made to Stephanie Clifford and Karen McDougal. Other sources use the same language: WaPo, USA Today, Associated Press. Even conservative sources use "hush money"; e.g., the National Review uses the phrase in its news section ([9]) and in commentary pieces [10]). There's no comparable usage of any other phrase: "confidentiality payments" is simply not supported by sources. I suppose "payoffs" would work (WSJ: "Donald Trump Played Central Role in Hush Payoffs to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal"). Neutrality^talk 21:08, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes, and the irony is that "hush money" is rather soft-peddling the criminal behavior involved in this transaction. Oh, just hush money. Hush child. Hushabye. It's just the term that RS used, so that's what we should be using here. SPECIFICO talk 21:11, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Another point of view is that some readers may not know exactly what "hush money" means - could be taken as jargon. An explicit statement such as "paid money to the pornography star so that she would not talk publicly about their affair" may be worthwhile. Bdushaw (talk) 09:48, 8 February 2021 (UTC) Comment I've looked over the subsection, and I see that (having now done my homework...) the complaint had to do with the title of the subsection. I agree with the above that "hush money" is used by the sources, hence it is appropriate for the subsection title. I mainly note that the subsection is confusing. As written now, it is mainly about possible campaign donation violations. The subsection should first cover the affairs and attempted cover ups (noting the WA Post definitively has Trump as lying), and then discuss how the payments were possible campaign spending violations. Two paragraphs. The subsection title would then be better off as something like "Hush money payments and alleged illegal campaign donations". Those above that attempt to argue that the issue is nothing and normal are...well, wrong. It is notable that (1) Trump had these affairs, (2) He tried to pay off his mistresses to keep them quiet, and (3) those payments may have been an illegal form of campaign contributions. The subsection should be clear about these points, not conflate them all. As I've said before...Trump requires a lot of explaining. Bdushaw (talk) 22:07, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Regardless if it's used by RSs, we need to avoid WP:NEWSSTYLE. Hush Money isn't exactly encyclopedic Anon0098 (talk) 01:22, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

As I point out above, the phrase is literally used by the Encyclopedia Britannica. Neutrality^talk 15:31, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

It's not our fault if they want to use an unencyclopedic term. It looks like consensus is supporting "confidentiality payments", with no significant arguments against it. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:59, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Ipse dixit, huh? I'm amused at the assertion that you know what's more "encyclopedic" than, you know, an actual encyclopedia. "No significant arguments against it" must be a joke, as the "arguments" are right in front of your face: there's ample sourcing to support the current language and little or no sourcing to support the language you like. Neutrality^talk 00:18, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Quite the contrary. There is no consensus here to change the longstanding "hush money". I see others joining me in that view. SPECIFICO talk 22:07, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

If the consensus is for different language, and there is no consensus, a more specific word to use would be "bribery": bribe: dishonestly persuade (someone) to act in one's favour by a gift of money or other inducement. In this case the dishonesty is to deceive the American public/voter as to Trump's affairs during an election. "confidentiality payments"??? Forsooth. Bdushaw (talk) 22:29, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Obviously doesn't meet the definition of bribery. The notability of the event has nothing to do with the American public, it is about the legality of the payments. Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:10, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose per Neutrality (usage by Encyclopedia Britannica). Also used in academic writing (1) Presidential Studies Quarterly, (2) Michigan Journal of Gender and Law, (3) SCOTUS 2020 book) and in top tier news sources (4) Associated Press, (5) Reuters, (6) Agence France Presse. RS is clear, regardless of editors' personal opinions. We are not obliged to avoid words with negative connotations. starship.paint (exalt) 06:51, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
• Comment From a press release from the Southern District of New York: "COHEN negotiated a $130,000 agreement with Attorney-1 to himself purchase Woman-2’s silence, and received a signed confidential settlement agreement".[11][12] So, a legal RS says he "purchased her silence". He gave her "money for silence"; he literally hushed her with money. Lexico.com says "hush money" is informal,[13] as does Cambridge dictionary,[14] and American Heritage Dictionary.[15] Common language is encyclopedic, correct? It's not slang. Kolya Butternut (talk) 07:36, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per Neutrality and everything I said the last time this matter was discussed four weeks ago. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 19:40, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Redundant grammar in lede

"After he told them to march to the Capitol, they then stormed it" should be "After he told them to march to the Capitol, they stormed it, resulting in the deaths of five people and forcing Congress to evacuate." After/then is redundant. Gershonmk (talk) 23:05, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

• This lede is a mess in general. It mostly discusses controversial topics, which I understand comes with this topic, but a lede should concisely summarizing the article itself. It should not add undo weight to particular aspects of a topic, such as the controversy. It would probably be better to rewrite the lede with purposeful topical breakdown of the article, and then finish with the controversial aspects at the end of the lede, as opposed to randomly sprinkling them into the lede. 2601:8C4:4380:6A30:FDD9:DF0E:3EE2:98CE (talk) 23:46, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree that "after...then" is awkward. I have reworded the sentence. -- MelanieN (talk) 00:43, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Gershonmk (talk) 00:54, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Remove or reimagine the "Lafayette Square protester removal and photo op" subsection

Firstly, this subsection is under "Domestic policy", and it's not a policy. Secondly, having an entire subsection dedicated to this one minor thing is undue weight. My thoughts are to remove it fully, or to turn it into a subsection that talks about his response/policy to the summer riots and protests. You know like how he dispatched federal police. We could briefly mention the Lafayette square photo-op there, with a sentence or 2 which would then be due weight. Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 06:02, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose This episode was an important step in Trump's march toward overt authoritarianism. It had major repercussions for Trump and his senior leadership. Historians for decades to come will be coming to this article for curated references to reliable sources that they can study, and anyone making a serious effort to understand the impact of Trump will benefit greatly from reading this content. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:12, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
• Support clearly it doesn't belong in that subheading and it seems like it was added via WP:RECENTISM. In the grand scheme of things, no one will remember Trump for this. I could maybe see the argument for a sentence inclusion in a response to the George Floyd protests. I'd also support full removal Anon0098 (talk) 07:28, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
• Support. This subsection should just be removed. The incident has its own article, so it's adequately covered by the encyclopedia. At the time, sundry editors were bleating that this was the equivalent of Kristallnacht. Trump was projected to become a dictator and start executing Jews. This prophecy has thus far proved false. If the Trump dictatorship does emerge, I agree that this crucial event should dominate the article in this universe and beyond. But until that time, it is just the sordid detritus of the juvenile fantasies of a few bored adolescents. This is an overlarge article, and this subsection belongs in the rubbish bin.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:50, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

  WTH? sundry editors were bleating that this was the equivalent of Kristallnacht. Trump was projected to become a dictator and start executing Jews. ... it is just the sordid detritus of the juvenile fantasies of a few bored adolescents. Also here: The article is biased and basically being stymied by cyborg SAPs who are obsessed with Russia. I'll bleat with Shaun the Sheep anytime, and you need to read up on Kristallnacht. Voicing your opinion—fair enough, I do that a lot—but you've crossed a few lines here. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 14:16, 4 February 2021 (UTC) Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 13:02, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

  • You are just confirming that your attitudes (which I understand) are adolescent. My analysis is amply borne out by your comments and the comments of your teenage comrades. In point of fact, Trump is more like Huey Long than Adolf Hitler - in my very, very, very humble opinion. But what do I know? I don't live in the US of A, I don't own a gun, and I'm not a porn star. However, the fact is that many editors have expressed the opinion that this incident was somehow the catalyst, the harbinger, or whatever way you want to word it, of a Trump dictatorship. This is arguably completely ludicrous and adolescent, and - furthermore - it is not borne out by subsequent developments. You and your whimsical colleagues seem to think that one bizarre incident in the Trump reign warrants a place in this article. They are not worthy to work on an encyclopedia, and secondly they are dimwits. I apologise if my comments cause any offense to sentient beings. I understand the tin foil hat brigade has various factions and faddiies, and I am sure deep in the morass of self-deception and hypocrisy there is a weed that blooms evergreen, and that weed is the idea that Trump is a florid exception to the grand arc of American politics, rather than the toxic new normal. In any case, good luck with your vapid theorising and I hope your children survive the cataclysm. Keep on truckin'.--Jack Upland (talk) 10:04, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose This was a watershed moment in Trump's pursuit of open totalitarian violence against the US. It was iconic in that he mustered senior officials and law enforcement to participate and that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Milley himself, and others later, renounced their actions. Its significance has only increased with subsequent events. SPECIFICO talk 13:58, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
• Support (with a caveat), it should not be wholly removed but reduced to one sentence and not in its own section. If it is to just be removed Oppose.Slatersteven (talk) 14:02, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. I took care of the "Domestic policy" issue by following the example of George W.Bush's page and moving the two non-policy subsections into the new "Other issues" section. The photo-op text has already been reduced to a bare minimum. Compare that to the Pardons and Commutations section, for example, which is about four times the size and lists around 20 people and the crimes they were convicted of. This "minor thing" led to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff apologizing for accompanying Trump on the walk and thereby "creat[ing] the perception of the military involved in domestic politics." According to numerous sources, it also led or contributed to the different federal preparations for and response to the January 6 demonstrations which ended with the sacking of the Capitol and the killing of a police officer. WaPo, 1/14/21, NYT, 1/6/21, Slate, 1/20/21, CNN, 1/7/21, US News, 1/12/21, ABC, 1/8/221, The Guardian, 1/6/21, AP, 1/14/21, Vanity Fair, 1/7/21, WaPo, 1/11/21. Quote from last WaPo source: The blowback the military received in June over the response to protests overshadowed officials' approach to last week’s protests, prompting them to place limits on the D.C. Guard for a highly tailored mission. While then-Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper pushed back behind the scenes against Trump's desire to call in active-duty troops, Esper came under widespread criticism for describing U.S. cities as a “battlespace” in a White House call with governors. Milley issued an unusual public apology for appearing alongside the president after personnel forcibly cleared protesters from Lafayette Square outside the White House. The repercussions of those events increased Pentagon leaders' skepticism of Trump, who since his first day in office has bucked norms for presidential interactions with the military. "The lesson they took away was: 'We got caught in the middle of a political firestorm and how do we keep ourselves out of that? The best thing to do is be on the low down, keep a low profile, let's not get in the mix and let the civilians handle it,'" said Risa Brooks, a professor of political science at Marquette University who studies the U.S. military. … The Pentagon’s impulse to shy away from missions injecting the military into a charged partisan debate backfired in the case of the Capitol riot, Brooks said, because the absence of the military became a political statement in itself for many Americans. "All they see is: where is the Guard? The Guard was out there with the Park forces out in Lafayette Square ready to come after us, and we weren’t out trying to breach the Capitol . . . that's what they see," Brooks said. "And one understands why they see it that way." Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 15:50, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose: this is definitely not a minor thing and people are still talking about it SRD625 (talk) 16:28, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose This incident was, and is, so important that it has its own article: Donald Trump photo op at St. John's Church. Of course it needs to be included here. It is only two short paragraphs, there is no reason to remove that brief summary. -- MelanieN (talk) 21:13, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose removal. This is historically significant and biographically significant (and even more so in light of subsequent events); the space devoted to it is appropriate weight. If you think it could be "reimaginated" or better integrated, please propose a version (ideally on the talk page first). Neutrality^talk 21:19, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

  Good point we could reimagerate it to better contextualize Trump's progression from 2016-7 in which he casually but vacuously encouraged violence, e.g. at rallies, through the pivotal Photo Op in which he exercised his official authority, to his actions post-election and on Jan 6 that fundamentally altered the mainstream view of him and his presidency. There have been good tertiary discussions of this, although the narrative will no doubt become clearer in a year or two as books are written and official investigations progress. SPECIFICO talk 21:44, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support, highly reduce if not remove. We don't make sections for what is considered "important steps" or things described by commentators at the time as important. Nobody is really talking about this event anymore. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:51, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

RE Nobody is really talking about this event anymore. The Hill, 1 week ago; USA Today, 1 month ago; Bloomberg, 1 month ago; Washington Post, 1 month ago; New York Times, 1 month ago. This event has not been forgotten. -- MelanieN (talk) 23:17, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Further, that is quite a meaningless standard, unless we envision robots one day taking over our editing efforts. "Nobody is really talking about" Marla Maples, Trump Airlines, or for that matter most of this article's content, on a day-to-day basis. SPECIFICO talk 00:11, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

It's also not the main reason I give for removal. It's one example of something that Trump did, like many other things he did. Trump Airlines is also irrelevant, at least for this article, whereas Marla Maples was one of only three people he has been married to. Onetwothreeip (talk) 06:49, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support total removal and perhaps replace with one sentence in Presidency article. So what...the President visited a church for 10 minutes after the city imposed curfew was in effect at 7pm. Yes, the scumbag that set fire to the church nursery and other scumbags that spray painted graffiti on the building posed a security threat. As did the scumbags that compelled the Secret Service to escort trump to the bunker...there was a definite security risk so they cleared that out so he could go visit the church.--MONGO (talk) 01:26, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
• Support this has been over-blown and over-included on this page for quite some time. The Trump orb was another notable photo-op and I don't think that's here at all. The relevant thing is the reaction to the George Floyd protests; neither Floyd nor the other protests are mentioned. power~enwiki (π, ν) 01:41, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per Cullen328, MelanieN, and Neutrality. starship.paint (exalt) 02:28, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
• Reduce but don't remove - significant enough to be mentioned but not its own section, and two paragraphs is too much. One sentence to one paragraph seems WP:DUE to me. Levivich ^harass/_hound 03:33, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
• I agree that it shouldn't be removed, per Cullen, Space4Time etc. But I'd prefer it be juxtaposed with the imagery of the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol (current title of that event), as many reliable sources have juxtaposed T****'s position and actions, as well as the presence of law enforcement in both events. ---Sluzzelin talk 22:23, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

  That's a constructive suggestion. Do you have some sources or sourced article text cou could propose? SPECIFICO talk 22:35, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

  For starters, here's a Washington Post article, "Lafayette Square, Capitol rallies met starkly different policing response by Rachel Chason and Samantha Schmidt, regarding law enforcement. I've read plenty in this direction (also regarding the ex-president's actions). Near bedtime, but I'll look for more. ---Sluzzelin talk 22:41, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

  Also Protests In White And Black, And The Different Response Of Law Enforcement by Brakkton Booker (NPR), How Police Responded to Capitol Mob and Protesters After George Floyd Killing by Shaila Dewan (New York Times).

  There are plenty more. All you’ve gotta do is google “Lafayette Square” + “Capitol”. It’s all out there. ---Sluzzelin talk 00:21, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support - Certainly undue for this article. Brief mention in presidency article might be a thing though. Historians for decades to come will be coming to this article HA! ah ha ha ha... The thought that historians will come to Wikipedia for anything let a lone this is embarrassing. PackMecEng (talk) 02:01, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

The sentence continues with for curated references to reliable sources. OK, I'll bite—what do you think you're doing on Wikipedia? Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 11:17, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Oh wow, not that. Not curating sources for future historians. (BTW, nobody thinks this article is a good curation of sources, do they?) I think I'm writing for 12-year-olds who are googling stuff, and occasionally for journalists who are googling stuff, neither of which will probably ever look at the sources. (The sources are still very important. But not to future historians, who will not be looking at Wikipedia unless they're writing about Wikipedia.) Levivich ^harass/_hound 21:21, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

The viewpoint that we're writing for historians does explain a lot though, esp. about recentism and quote farming. I'm having an epiphany. Levivich ^harass/_hound 21:24, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Do I detect a soupçon of condescension? Not an ideal attitude for a WP editor helping to create a world in which everyone can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Glad to have been of assistance, epiphany-wise. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 12:13, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

LOL, that is funny! Any "historian" that starts his research by going to wikipedia should not be taken seriously.--Rusf10 (talk) 07:23, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Where does the editor's comment claim that historians will start their research on Wikipedia? Will a historian starting her research on Wikipedia be taken seriously? Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 13:53, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Well, that was my interpretation of the comment, if he (my hypothetical historian is male, out of respect for female historians who hopefully aren't dumb enough to use wikipedia for research) is using wikipedia as more than just a starting point then that only makes matters worse.--Rusf10 (talk) 16:35, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, well, who are the dumb people WP editors (with the obvious exception of the trolls and vandals among us) are writing and doing their research for? Scoff all you want, the American Historical Association or—at any rate—William Cronon, their president in 2012, isn’t scoffing. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 19:07, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose. A starkly authoritarian action that has long-term encyclopedic value. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 21:20, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

We have nowhere near enough space to detail all of Trump's authoritarian actions in this article like we do with this. Onetwothreeip (talk) 01:30, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Time for Authoritarian actions of Donald Trump and when you done with that you can get a start on Satanic actions of Donald Trump--Rusf10 (talk) 18:43, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose per Cullen. Mgasparin (talk) 03:26, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 22 February 2021

Trump was the 50th president 67.143.208.254 (talk) 16:43, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

No. Do the math.Crboyer (talk) 16:46, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Was he? I think we need a list of who you think were presidents.Slatersteven (talk) 16:46, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

List of United States Presidents. Thanoscar21^talk_contribs 23:42, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

North Korea

Given the incredible size of the article, I trimmed the North Korea subsection (a subsection of foreign policy) of some extraneous detail, which are also found in other articles, in this edit. It was reverted and should be restored. Onetwothreeip (talk) 06:20, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

I support the trimming. I also don't think the last sentence of this sentence is necessary, as it doesn't tell us anything, and has no direct relationship with Trump.--Jack Upland (talk) 06:35, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Trump met Kim, wanting denuclearisation. It didn’t happen. That’s the relevance of the last sentence. starship.paint (exalt) 08:10, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm undecided on the last sentence, which is why I left it in the article. It should probably say something linked to Trump though, rather than leaving it as an implication. Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:32, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Japan Times Trump’s diplomatic endeavors did not result in an elimination of the North Korean nuclear arsenal — contrary to his initial assertions, Pyongyang has continued to develop its weapons program Source makes the connection. starship.paint (exalt) 09:07, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

The source might make the connection, but we don't. Saying that the talks broke down is sufficient. Clearly if North Korea did scrap its nukes, we would say that.--Jack Upland (talk) 21:01, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Actually I think the trimming is fine (assuming that WP:V has been followed because I haven’t checked). starship.paint (exalt) 08:25, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

The cuts removed longstanding consensus text that conveys the substance of the two leaders' engagement, including Trump's pleasure at Kim's love letters. The cut was not NPOV. Also, these cuts are not "trims" when they change the meaning of the narratives. SPECIFICO talk 16:06, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

However long the text has been in the article is not an argument for its retention. I also checked to see if there was a consensus on this, and found there was none. "Love letters" does not convey substance and the proposed text very adequately summarises the warm relationship between Trump and Kim. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:08, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Please review our Policies and Guidelines regarding consensus and longstanding content. Yes, it is consensus text and you'll need to convince us all that WEIGHT, sourcing, or other factors have changed. Trump used the "love letter" bit, which was discussed here on talk, I believe. SPECIFICO talk 21:33, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

You clearly haven't read the guidelines you are talking about. Just because something may have been discussed, does not mean there is consensus for it. And no, nobody needs to "convince us all" about anything, ever. There plainly isn't any consensus text about North Korea for this article. Onetwothreeip (talk) 03:23, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

I think the trimming improves the article. Trump uses hyperbolic language, which if quoted verbatim can seem confusing. The wording implies that there was a sexual or romantic aspect to the relationship, which per WP:REDFLAG would require authoritative sources. TFD (talk) 21:12, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

It doesn't convey a sexual relationship. It conveys the context and understanding Trump brought to this dire threat, identified by his predecessor as the top foreign policy challenge facing Trump. SPECIFICO talk 21:33, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't think Trump's own self-description of their correspondence implies a "sexual or romantic aspect." It does, however, importantly show that Trump sought to use "personal diplomacy" with Kim in one of his signature policy initiatives, which as it turned out was fruitless. Neutrality^talk 00:00, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

"Love" can imply a romantic interest, which is an issue particularly for readers who are not familiar with the article subject. Per WP:ASTONISH, The average reader should not be shocked, surprised, or confused by what they read. Do not use provocative language. Instead, offer information gently. Use consistent vocabulary in parts that are technical and difficult. To work out which parts of the sentence are going to be difficult for the reader, try to put yourself in the position of a reader hitherto uninformed on the subject. Trump's own words cannot be taken as accurately assessing anything. If we want to say he sought to use personal diplomacy, let's just say that instead of implying it. Onetwothreeip (talk) 03:23, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree with those comments about the letters. I also think that the previous text put too much emphasis on the letters. The summits received much more media attention and were considered to be the main front in Trump's diplomacy.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:36, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

The remaining text 27 letters in which the two men described a warm personal friendship covers it well enough (it still shows personal diplomacy... ultimately fruitless). "Love letters" is just another Trump hyperbole. starship.paint (exalt) 15:24, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

I think we have enough support to restore the trimming, but I don't want to do that myself this soon, so can someone else do so? The discussion can still continue. Onetwothreeip (talk) 07:15, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

No you don't have support to change longstanding consensus text. Trump is a masterful communicator and he chose to say love letter to characterize the relationship. We follow verified RS. ASTONISH has nothing to do with censoring verified content. Don't misappropriate guidelines. SPECIFICO talk 10:17, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

• You certainly do not have consensus to make this challenged edit. Neutrality^talk 17:10, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

It's only one person who is opposing the change, or two including Neutrality. By any definition, consensus favours the trimmed version over the previous version. It's not unanimous support, but that's not required. Onetwothreeip (talk) 20:05, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

• Trimmed version is sufficient, no need to wax lyrical on "love letters". A "personal diplomacy" characterization is more neutral, let's resist playing into Trump's love for hyperbole. — JFG ^talk 15:34, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

  Personal diplomacy is Kissinger and Reagan. This is not described as such in RS. Let's describe a zebra. It's a white horse. Those stripes are just an insignificant detail. SPECIFICO talk 18:20, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

This is quite a baffling analogy, as zebras are most definitely not horses. Onetwothreeip (talk) 20:05, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Bingo! Just as mainstream RS do not call Trump's Korean adventures diplomacy or foreign policy. His approach is described as reality TV or clowning and dereliction of duty in the face of a dangerous threat. SPECIFICO talk 20:25, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

SPECIFICO, you are confusing your own opinions with "mainstream RS". There are many sources which call Trump's activities diplomacy.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:39, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Ad hominems suggest you have no substantive rationale for expunging this key content. Are you familiar with RS coverage of this? With the statements of Mattis, Tillerson, Bolton, and countless other domain experts. For starters you can google Trump diplomacy and see what happens. SPECIFICO talk 20:51, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Okay we get it, you don't like Donald Trump. If you seriously think that is what the article should say, make a bold edit or propose it. Otherwise it's just more WP:POV WP:NOTHERE. Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:48, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Do you really need to be reminded not to make personal remarks? Again? There is longstanding consensus text, so it falls on your shoulders or other body parts to justify removal. SPECIFICO talk 20:51, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with what I've said. The claims you are making, which you are not saying should be in the article, are not currently in the article. Onetwothreeip (talk) 09:52, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support trim as an improvement over the previous. It could be improved further (the first thing that jumps out at me is that Time is a poor source for this, but there are others that could be used). I think I weakly support including the last sentence, at least for now. The point should be made, although I think a good objection is raised about the implied cause and effect. I think that's another area of future improvement. Levivich ^harass/_hound 17:27, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
• Support trim Using Trump's description "love letters" could be very confusing and misleading for those readers who don't know much about the two leaders' engagement. I also think characterizations like "personal diplomacy" or similar are much better here. The new version of the text after trimming is fine, it is shorter and clearer. Felix558 (talk) 00:20, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
• Support trim with no major concerns with it. I also think that SPECIFICO, among others, needs to take a step back and remember that this article is too long, and is not a bulletin board of every potentially negative thing that can be possibly said about Trump - it is an encyclopedia article - not the place for people to vent about how bad they think he is. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 02:08, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

  @Berchanhimez: Do I need to repeat to you? "Too long" must not be prioritized above NPOV and V. So the issue would be how to shorten. And also to repeat myself, the way to do that is to replace select news items with secondary and tertiary sources that summarize them to tell Trump's approach to the underlying issues and events. In the case of North Korea, the way to remove detail like the "love letters" bit - now that time has passed and perspective has widened - would be to cite sources such as the ones I linked above and others, that summarize his approach to diplomacy and to the threat of NK weapons. SPECIFICO talk 16:31, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

No adverse affects on neutrality or verifiability here. Onetwothreeip (talk) 01:26, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support trimming It is way past time to cull out the coatracking of trivial innuendos and non BLP compliant gibberish.--MONGO (talk) 05:03, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

An alternative trimming

I have made an alternative cut, which substantially reduces size but, I think, retains the meaningful information. What do others think? MelanieN, any views? Neutrality^talk 18:14, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

I applaud the effort and will review this. What did I trim that you think should be kept? Onetwothreeip (talk) 19:58, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Combining the first two sentences is certainly good. I tried to do that but was reverted.--Jack Upland (talk) 00:23, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Question

Why does trimming the North Korean section attract so much attention as opposed to the rest of the "Foreign policy" section???--Jack Upland (talk) 09:03, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

North Korea (Kim) is featured in the lede as one whole sentence, so obviously editors consider it important. starship.paint (exalt) 15:46, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Sure, but why does the trimming of this section attract so much attention?--Jack Upland (talk) 09:30, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Because the section is judged important, the trimming is less favoured. Anything else you want to suggest? starship.paint (exalt) 09:58, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

I think it's the complete opposite. People are targetting the North Korean section to be minimised, again and again and again. Why???--Jack Upland (talk) 09:56, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

@Jack Upland: - I'm befuddled by your comment, as you yourself support trimming of the North Korean section. Perhaps people agree with your reasons. starship.paint (exalt) 02:30, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Time to implement

It's clear that this has overwhelming consensus now. Could someone please implement? Thanks. Onetwothreeip (talk) 09:52, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

What are you talking about???--Jack Upland (talk) 09:56, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

I've added this subsection heading to distinguish it from the "Question" subsection. I am referring to the edit I brought to the talk page in this overall section, which is now clearly endorsed by a consensus of the talk page participants. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:59, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

@Neutrality: has already implemented an acceptable compromise trim. I think this has been resolved. If you wish to insist on your own wording, you could launch an RfC, but I think this would be pointless. SPECIFICO talk 00:03, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Don't be ridiculous. There is near unanimous consensus for 123's proposed trim. We do not need an RFC. I will implement the trim later if no one beats me to it. Levivich ^harass/_hound 00:46, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

I see consensus also. starship.paint (exalt) 02:32, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

I obviously disagree - the comments are clear that people like a trimmed version over what was previously in the article, but I see few or no people obviously expressing an opinion for 123's trimmed version over my trimmed version. Since my version was proposed after 123's version began to be discussed, a simple head-counting exercise is inapt. I am OK with an "A vs. B" RFC if others insist. Neutrality^talk 15:49, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

I give up. You and Specifico are too difficult to work with. Your tag team ownership is too frustrating and your obstruction takes up too much of my time. Nobody can sincerely claim there isn't consensus in this thread for 123's trim and not yours. Meanwhile you've already implemented yours. How nice. Goodbye. Levivich ^harass/_hound 16:49, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Not a single editor objected to my version, which accommodated everyone's desire for trimming while avoiding the controversial parts of the 123's edit. Had a single person objected, I would have happily reverted back to the status quo (pre-trimmed) version. I have consistently made consensus-based efforts to update, improve, and condense this article. It's truly unfortunate that you've chosen to focus on editors rather than content. Neutrality^talk 17:07, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Okay, then I object to your version. In reality, your proposal was simply ignored by the majority of people. There is clearly more support for the trimming that I did than what you did, so obviously what I did should be what is implemented, given that the vast majority of talk page participants here agreed with mine. It would be proper to start a discussion about your proposal after mine is implemented. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:20, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

More people objected to your proposal than to my proposal. (In fact, my proposal has been in the article for five days without any objection until yours just now.) In addition, while everyone agreed on trimming, there was certainly no consensus that your trimming was better than my trimming. And there was no consensus to exclude the key sentence: "North Korea continued to build up its arsenal of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles." Your version also randomly re-inserted a mention of Trump imposing additional sanctions against North Korea in 2017, while deleting references to Trump rescinding some sanctions against North Korea in 2019. Was this intentional? This disorganized process is not good. I am happy to work with you on a formal RFC with an "A vs. B" text that highlights the specific differences and narrows the range of text under dispute. Neutrality^talk 23:05, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

The only reason that nobody objected to your proposal is because nobody saw it. Likewise, nobody expressed support of your proposal either. This is compared with what I proposed, which many people have commented on, and the vast majority have expressed support explicitly for my proposal, and not only for the notion of trimming the subsection. Consensus does not require unanimity. Of course my edits were intentional. Onetwothreeip (talk) 03:47, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

@Awilley: what can be done here? There is clearly an overwhelming consensus here and the attempts to hinder its implementation are getting disruptive. Onetwothreeip (talk) 03:47, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

@Onetwothreeip: I read through the section above yesterday but didn't have time to reply then. I haven't looked at the relevant diffs, only the discussion here. My impression from that is that there's clearly a consensus to trim and specifically to remove the language about "love letters". I don't really see a consensus for a specific wording after the trim, and rather than hold a RfC with two competing wordings, I suggest the best path forward is to work from where the article currently is and make incremental improvements. Neutrality has expressed some objections to your trim (see "bottom line" sentence) and you clearly have some objections to Neutrality's trim. I suggest you get those objections out in the open. Once you understand N's objections and N understands yours, it will be easier to find a compromise. An easy way to start this is for you to edit the paragraph one sentence at a time, providing an edit summary explaining what problem you're fixing. Start with the uncontroversial stuff. Then if N objects to any edits, they can revert, and you can start discussing specifics. What not to do is simply revert to your preferred revision. That's just asking for an edit war. Good luck. ~Awilley (talk) 02:35, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your attention Awilley. I'm not referring to a dispute with Neutrality though, I am referring only to the version I proposed being implemented. Is it not clear that the consensus explicitly supports the trimming I proposed? I have followed the usual process by bringing the proposal to the talk page after it was reverted by one editor. Now that there is consensus for what I have proposed, when is the right time to implement it into the article? I would also like clarification on whether someone proposing something new can delay this procedure, even when the new proposal does not have consensus support. Could you also clarify when or how one or two editors can form a veto over consensus? If this is too broad, I am happy to take this to my user talk page. Onetwothreeip (talk) 07:30, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Let's review the bidding here:

1. You started an informal discussion, and most others—including me—supported trimming over the previous version.
2. During/after the discussion, given that there was a rough consensus that trimming was a good idea, I implemented a trimmed version. That was uncontroversial; nobody challenged it either by reversion or at the talk page. Everyone agrees that this is an improvement over the status quo ante.
3. The focus of the conversation was about trimming, and the trimming was done. Nobody ever expressed support for the notion that your version could replace all intervening edits.
4. The discussion above was not focused on the crucial "bottom line" last sentence ("North Korea continued to build up its arsenal of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles"). This sentence has been discussed before, and efforts to remove it were unsuccessful. And in the discussion above, by my rough count, of the three editors in the above discussion who mentioned this point, there was 2–1 in favor of retaining it. If you count me and you, it's 3–2 in favor of retention.
5. Despite the above, you imposed your version (which numerous editors have, at least in part, objected to) over the stable version that had been trimmed five days ago (which I don't think any editor, except for you, has objected to).
6. As part of your edit, you also randomly re-inserted a mention of Trump imposing additional sanctions against North Korea in 2017, while deleting references to Trump rescinding some sanctions against North Korea in 2019. This was not discussed at all above. You have not yet articulated any rationale for this.
7. I've offered to collaborate with you on a organized RfC with a clear A vs. B choice, but you've not accepted that offer.

Neutrality^talk 05:30, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Not only did the clear majority of participants supporting trimming the previous version, they explicitly supported how I trimmed the subsection. This is not about the sentence "North Korea continued to build up...", this is about purely my edit that I linked to at the start of this talk page section. Whether or not others agree that your proposal is better than the previous version is a completely separate matter, and also completely unsupported given the very minor attention it has received. The "numerous editors" objecting are only yourself and Specifico, against the views of many more talk page participants.

I have no issue with any RfC on any alternative proposal you wish to raise, but that can only happen after the version supported by the vast majority of participants in this talk page section is implemented. Otherwise, it would very blatantly be an attempt to delay the implementation of this consensus, which has already been needlessly delayed. Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:48, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

• So you implemented the version you informally proposed — then you concurrently proceeded to make other, new edits that you did not earlier propose (or that were previously rejected), and that were promptly reverted (by SPECIFICO)? That rather creates, rather than resolves, confusion. Your comment also still doesn't explain your change to the sanctions language.

I propose to put the issue to a clear, formal RFC: with Option A being the current, trimmed status quo version (without the "love letters" quote, since that passage seems to raise concerns) and Option B being whatever specific text you would like to propose. A clear outcome will result (as opposed to a muddle in which different proposals and different edits were made at different times to different parts of the text), and we can all move on from the North Korea section. Neutrality^talk 19:03, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

I see no reason to exclude the love letters. The only alternative, which would require a lot of work but may eventually be done, is to substitute more general tertiary-sourced material that captures the aspects of Trump's approach of which the "love letters" is an example and which conveys the substance of his approach. There's a reason the love letters remark has been so widely reported and discussed in secodnary and tertiary sources, and that establishes its DUE significance for this article. I'll just keep repeating every time it comes up, we should not force the narrative of Donald Trump into a cognitive template applicable to other presidents who were focused on policy and civic process. Trump's is not Jimmy Carter, Bush2, or other presidents whose policies failed. It's a different phenomonon and we need to be purely descriptive.

For additional love letter references, see Woodward/VOA, USA Today "As Kim wooed Trump with ‘love letters,’ he kept building his nuclear capability, intelligence shows" in WaPo video[16] Trump Administration NK movie trailer. SPECIFICO talk 19:33, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

To be clear, what I proposed at the very start of this section (which is what has overwhelming consensus) is what needs to be implemented now. I have since made other edits to the article, and if you want to revert those, that's fine. I'm not referring to all the edits I have made, only the single edit that this entire discussion was started with. Your and Specifico's disagreement is noted, but doesn't get to overturn or delay the consensus reached here. I have no issue with you wanting to start an RfC for your own proposal, after the consensus is implemented. No, there is no need to create an RfC comparing the new consensus version with yours before the former is implemented into the article. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:51, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

@Levivich: There is near unanimous consensus for 123's proposed trim. We do not need an RFC. I will implement the trim later if no one beats me to it. I would be grateful if you could do so. Onetwothreeip (talk) 07:54, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

No sorry I'm done spending any more of my time on this page. I applaud your efforts to improve it but for me, I'm just not volunteering any more time if it means having to fight with those two about every damn edit. They'd probably file at AE and accuse me of tag teaming anyway. Levivich ^harass/_hound 21:46, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Consensus check

There is possibly some confusion on what the consensus here is actually a consensus for. The following editors have seemingly expressed support for not only trimming the subsection generally, but for the way that I trimmed it as well. @Jack Upland, Starship.paint, The Four Deuces, JFG, Levivich, Felix558, and Berchanhimez: Sorry if you have already made your views clear, but if you do support the version I proposed (when I started this talk page section) as an improvement on the pre-existing North Korea paragraphs, could you please say so here? I feel that we need clarity to bring the issue to some kind of conclusion. Thanks. Onetwothreeip (talk) 07:54, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

What's needed, if you want to continue this, is not more canvassing but rather a more structured process. As you were told many days ago, your best bet would be a formal poll or RfC after the group decides on 2-3 alternatives. In general, the best way to update longstanding NPOV text is not to cut a few words here and there, but rather to do what Neutrality and MelanieN have each done recently -- to write a new summary version that takes account of the underlying content issues. SPECIFICO talk 09:28, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Complete nonsense. Only you and the other editor opposing the consensus have expressed that view. Onetwothreeip (talk) 20:44, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Did it ever occur to you that your colleagues here have devoted substantial thought and editing experience to their comments and that knee-jerk denial of others' work is very damaging to your own efforts? Dispute Resolution protocols are well-defined and at least more than half the time they are effective, if not speedy. To overturn longstanding consensus text, you'd need to demonstrate -- not merely assert -- new consensus. SPECIFICO talk

Your colleagues are clearly saying that my proposal should be implemented. To overturn longstanding consensus text, you'd need to demonstrate -- not merely assert -- new consensus. This has been extensively demonstrated in this talk page discussion. As far as I am aware, you do not hold any veto over the consensus process, and it is possible that a consensus may be found even if you don't personally agree with it. Onetwothreeip (talk) 22:11, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

There's only two editors opposing this edit. There is no need for a formal poll or RFC when the consensus is so obvious. The consensus version should be reinstated immediately. Mr Ernie (talk) 18:30, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

@Onetwothreeip: As far as I can see, the large majority of editors who participated in this discussion are supporting your trimmed version of the North Korea subsection, therefore I also think formal RFC and this "Consensus check" are not needed. I see a clear consensus to trim and implement your version. Felix558 (talk) 21:31, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

I've restored the trim, per the clear consensus. Mr Ernie (talk) 07:54, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Well that didn't last long. Consensus ignored again. Space4Time3Continuum2x please respect the results of the discussion above. Mr Ernie (talk) 12:54, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Ernie, first off, it is not helpful to call a disputed cut by the misleading word, "trim". If it were merely a trim, there would not have been this talk page discussion. Perhaps you could read and react to the sources and reasoned arguments cited here in this thread. Or not, it's up to you. SPECIFICO talk 14:00, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

The version you restored isn't 123ip's original trimmed version. That one did not delete the last sentence,i.e., North Korea continued to build up its arsenal of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. and that's the version several editors agreed to, if I'm not mistaken. At what point did the sentence go AWOL? My second edit deleted the "love letter" clause which several editors objected to, if I'm not mistaken. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 22:17, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

I support Neutrality's proposed trim. I oppose this trim[17], which leaves out pertinent content, the absence of which would mislead readers today (and in the future) into thinking Trump's negotiations with North Korea produced results when it was immediately clear per RS and experts that they didn't (as shown by North Korea bolstering its nuclear weapons program). Snooganssnoogans (talk) 12:49, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes, man!--Jack Upland (talk) 17:19, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Remove "dangerously" from False statements

Remove "dangerously" from paragraph involving COVID-19 on false statements subsection. The term is bombastic serves no purpose except to appeal to emotion, falls under WP:NEWSSTYLE. Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 04:55, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

 Done Kingofthedead (talk) 23:53, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Kingof... Are you aware that you just teamed up with OP to circumvent the 24-hour BRD restriction on this page? OP deleted that word less than 24 hours before your repeat removal. The "danger" is from the cited sources. It is not contrary to NEWSSTYLE, which is a supplement to a guideline. As such it does not negate NPOV and V. I suggest you reinstate it to avoid the appearance of a DS violation. An editor was recently sanctioned in a similar situation. SPECIFICO talk 00:58, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

@SPECIFICO: Oh sorry about that. Wasn't aware of that rule. Kingofthedead (talk) 06:25, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support Removal for reasons given above. PackMecEng (talk) 01:19, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
• Support I agree, that word should be removed because it falls under WP:NEWSSTYLE and removal does not change the meaning of the sentence in any way. Felix558 (talk) 01:27, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

  We reflect RS reporting. Please review that guideline-supplement. It does not endorse POV misrepresentation of sources. SPECIFICO talk 01:40, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

  Our job is to reflect reporting, not their biased wording. We are still conveying what the source said just leaving out the bombastic word. Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 03:25, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support removal. I fully agree with Iamreallygoodatcheckers. Wikipedia does not repeat "flowery" or "charged" language/descriptors without very good reason. In this instance, "dangerously" being removed doesn't change the meaning, and there's nowhere near a good NPOV reason to keep it in. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 03:30, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

  please note my warning about DS above. Please undo your proxy edit. SPECIFICO talk 03:32, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

  What proxy edit are you referring to specifically? I haven't edited this article directly since January 30th. If you would check the history, another editor made that edit. Please do the minor favor to myself and others of at least checking the history before making these sorts of accusations. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 03:35, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

  Not you sorry, I meant OP and @Kingofthedead: As we know, longtime star contributor O3000 was recently sanctioned in a matter involving a similar situation. The removal by Kingof... upon OP's imperative above was evasion of DS 24-hour BRD. SPECIFICO talk 04:29, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support removal The RS content can be added without the non-encyclopedic editorializing. Mr Ernie (talk) 12:28, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose Delayed response to the Covid pandemic is inherently dangerous. It's not editorialising.Pipsally (talk) 12:41, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
  • If it is inherently dangerous to respond slowly/delayed to a pandemic, it follows that it is redundant and unnecessary to include the word “dangerous” thus making it editorializing to do so. Nobody is arguing the word is incorrect, merely that it is unnecessary and not neutral to include, which you’ve just helped prove. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 14:21, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

"Not necessary" is not the same as "not neutral", and emphasis is not the same as editorialising. His behaviour and the delay it engendered materially increased the danger, and it's perfectly neutral to acknowledge that per the existing version.Pipsally (talk) 15:11, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

I never said it was the same thing - I said that it is a non neutral word that isn't strictly necessary for understanding, and thus should not be included. Of course it's dangerous to delay responding to a pandemic - that's a big fat duh moment. Anyone reading it sees it awkwardly because dangerous adds literally nothing more to the sentence that isn't already there/implied - the word can be removed without causing any harm to user comprehension/accuracy/precision of the sentence, and thus it should be. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 16:09, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

That sounds self-contradictory. SPECIFICO talk 16:32, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Please explain how - short statements like this do nothing to help discussion. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 16:34, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Come off it. If something needs implied understanding then it fundamentally is not written as clearly as it could be. You might be smart enough to get that implication, but that doesn't mean everyone is. Pipsally (talk) 17:30, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

I'd appreciate if you'd remain civil here, which comments like "come off it" aren't. There is no additional information added by the word "dangerously" in this sentence. If it is intended to convey additional information, it needs to be expanded as "dangerously" is not useful information (what was the danger, who was the danger to, etc). Bottom line, it does not serve the intended purpose of conveying information as it's redundant to the other parts of the sentence. It is editorializing to explicitly point out an inherent property of something - for example if I said "yellow school bus", you would wonder why I am pointing out that it is yellow. The choice of adding additional, redundant or unnecessary words is the very definition of editorializing - making an editorial decision that does not meaningfully change the information provided. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 18:32, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

The danger is expaneded upon elsewhere in the article. A one-word summary gives context for readers less well-informed than you. Please stop saying it's "adding" anything, when it is abundantly sourced. SPECIFICO talk 18:51, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

That is not at all what I am saying when I use the word "adding". I am not at all suggesting that it cannot be sourced. Wikipedia is not obligated to copy exactly the wording of sources, and in fact, it is suggested that we do not copy the exact wording in reliable sources and "de-bias-ify" it before including the information in articles. Just because sources say "dangerously" does not mean we must include it - that can easily be inferred from the rest of the sentence, and as such the inclusion of that word just makes the sentence unnecessarily longer. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 18:55, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

That is not what WP editors do. Please review WP:NPOV. SPECIFICO talk 20:25, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Sure: The tone of Wikipedia articles should be impartial, neither endorsing nor rejecting a particular point of view and Try not to quote directly from participants engaged in a heated dispute; instead, summarize and present the arguments in an impartial tone. As I said, we summarize - we do not quote exactly - and even when sources say it was "dangerous" we do not have to include that, because that is endorsing that point of view. So yes, it is what Wikipedia editors do - we do not parrot the wording of sources, we write an encyclopedia article based on information included but without (as much as possible) the inherent bias/point of view that the news articles/other RS take. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 20:34, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

No. That's not our policy. Anyway, show us your sources that say it was not dangerous. SPECIFICO talk 20:44, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

There are plenty of places in the world where school buses aren't yellow, and even where they are calling it yellow would only be including accurate and non editorial information. You also need to look at the the definition of editorialising, since those additional word would certainly change the meaning- that's the whole point. As for civility, come back when you stop throwing around phrases like "big fat duh moment". Goes both ways.Pipsally (talk) 03:07, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support per previous arguments Anon0098 (talk) 19:34, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
• The US had 400,000 virus deaths by about the time of the inauguration, a datum the article should note...Trump's (in)actions were dangerous. I don't understand complaints of editorializing or NEWSSTYLE. Bdushaw (talk) 20:18, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
• Support as non-neutral per Iamreallygoodatcheckers. Whether or not something is "dangerous" is a call for the reader to make. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 18:34, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Do you go around climbing into electricity substations. Pipsally (talk) 04:30, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support per WP:NEWSSTYLE. Levivich ^harass/_hound 19:36, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
• Support per reasons stated above. -- Politicsfan4 (talk) 23:01, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose removal for the reasons given in my comments above. SPECIFICO talk 23:24, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
• Support per several logical and coherent reasons above. Thanoscar21^talk_{contributions} 02:33, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
• I have made this change per what appears to be consensus here; not closing in case additional people want to comment. power~enwiki (π, ν) 17:52, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
• Support. It's unencyclopedic. Rreagan007 (talk) 00:07, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose - clarifies that the slow/low response was significant enough to be dangerous to U.S. residents, which is true. ɱ (talk) 23:10, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose it`s relevant..the virus is killing massive numbers of people..how can his response to it not be considered dangerous when Italy was able to knock it down in a month ? 2600:1702:2340:9470:3111:5746:3D8E:F6A5 (talk) 23:57, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose - The use of the term is supported by the reliable sources used to cite that section. Saying that something that is universally seen as dangerous is dangerous does not violate WP:NPOV in my view. Elsewhere in the article this text appears: "Trump suggested the dangerous idea of injecting a disinfectant to treat COVID-19". I doubt that there are too many editors who would support removing the word "dangerous" from that sentence, since it is not only proven without a doubt that putting disinfectant in your body is dangerous, but the danger of the procedure is crucial to the information presented. I don't really see any difference from its use in this case, where again we have consensus on the danger presented by the statements and the important of conveying that danger to the reader. PraiseVivec (talk) 13:06, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Wording

Hi everyone! I have seen people on this talk page repeatedly make allegations that this article is biased against Donald Trump. Many editors then proudly cite Wikipedia's policy of using verifiable sources - which have undoubtedly been anti-Trump (and for good reason, I might add!) - as well as a sub-article called "Talk:Donald_Trump/Response_to_claims_of_bias". But at the time of this writing, the last paragraph of the lead section states "The Senate voted 57–43 to convict, which was short of the required two-thirds majority and thereby acquitted Trump of the charge of inciting insurrection in the January 6, 2021 attack". Even as a European strongly anti-Trump person myself, it doesn't take a lot of brain to realize that writing "short of the required two-thirds majority" is a HUGE bias. Trump was acquitted - neutral and point-of-fact, even if I personally disagree strongly with the acquittal myself. Stating what would need to happen FOR conviction AFTER acquittal heads into blatantly point-of-view-territory and DOES give credence to anybody calling this article biased. In a court of law, a person is automatically assumed to be innocent, and evidence - as well as a jury - would cause a guilty verdict. This wording has the opposite effect; it seems as though Wikipedia has already deemed Trump guilty and is trying to describe how close to conviction the trial came. I have not checked who added that wording, but the most active editors here may point out that they didn't write that (or maybe they did, I haven't checked the log), Even so, you should all be made aware now that any future arguments on this talk page about bias against Trump on Wikipedia can use this exact type of circumstance to point out where many Wikipedia editors' loyalties on politics lie - not with point-of-fact or verifiable sources (which have very much described Trump's acquittal and the high chances of that happening even WAY before acquittal), but with whoever adds the information. If that's not supposed to be the case, then add even higher levels of protection for super-controversial subjects, to make only editors fluent in Wikipedia's policies add information and precisely to avoid this kind of biased incident. Thank you for hearing me out. 84.202.84.209 (talk) 18:30, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

IMO the last sentence is too much detail for the lead which simply read "was acquitted" before the last change, and now another sentence added even more. It'll get changed again before long. The wording in the body is correct, 'though. 57 senators voted for conviction, 10 shy of the 67 senators required to convict Trump. A Senate trial isn't a court of law, so due process doesn't apply, and Senators are both judge and jury and set their own rules, including—in this case—with some of them colluding with the defense attorneys. This article explains it. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 19:32, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

How about changing the language to something like: "Trump was aquitted with a 57–43 vote by the Senate to convict. (A two-thirds majority is required to convict.) Kolya Butternut (talk) 19:47, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

This is definitely WP:RECENT, it doesn't matter how many people voted to convict what matters is that he was acquitted. A sentence in the lead saying he was acquitted and a more in depth explanation in the body is all that is warranted Anon0098 (talk) 20:55, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

One strong indication that it is not WP:RECENT to list the vote count (I don't have specific wording in mind) is that the vote count in Johnson's impeachment is still quite famous. It appears, not that that's soooo relevant, in the first paragraph of Andrew Johnson. Gershonmk (talk) 16:00, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

I think this is a good point. Wikipedia isn't supposed to stray from the topic to describe some alternative topic. This is not the article on impeachment in the United States - this article should at most list the vote and that he was acquitted. If people really think this explanation is required, it should be in an {{efn}} - not in the lead itself. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 19:54, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

{{efn}} seems like a good compromise to me, because I do think the line is currently about the right length.Gershonmk (talk) 16:02, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

This is an important point that all talk page participants should read. There is no point in pretending that the writing of this article isn't biased against Donald Trump. It's very obvious when reading the article that it has been written with the motivation to criticise the subject, and not only to document events historically. This is not helped by persistent accusations of bias that come from people who are very clearly motivated by support of Donald Trump and cannot reconcile that there is extensive reliable content that reflects negatively on the subject. We need to focus purely on documenting events without implying that Trump's actions are bad, and should let them speak for themselves. Onetwothreeip (talk) 20:33, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree whole-heartedly 120%. This bias against Republicans is prevalent in other articles, too; my suggestion, for a start (although this wouldn’t fix the issue) would be to put “Critics believe” in front of statements like these. Hermit7 (talk) 22:50, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Inclusion of a demonstrably false opinion

In the section titled "COVID-19 pandemic", under the subsection entitled "World Health Organization", the sentence is included - "In May and April, Trump accused the WHO of "severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus" and alleged without evidence that the organization was under Chinese control and had enabled the Chinese government's concealment of the origins of the pandemic."

I believe that this sentence should be changed to simply say - "In May and April, Trump accused the WHO of "severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus" and claimed that the organization was under Chinese control and had enabled the Chinese government's concealment of the origins of the pandemic."

Saying that Trump "alleged without evidence" the supposed Chinese control over the WHO is intellectually dishonest, as it is discounting what may be perceived as legitimate evidence, and contradicts this article's requirement for neutrality on the topic. As Trump's statement is a matter of complex opinion that can be logically argued both for and against, the wording in this article should be more neutral and not try to prove either side correct, but simply state the facts about what Trump said, without the unnecessary addition of accusing Trump of making the allegation without evidence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:1C0:6000:AD80:B81F:9A00:D4C1:7F96 (talk) 20:29, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Reliable sources (some of which are cited in the article right now) overwhelmingly agree that there was no evidence for it that was anywhere near solid. The argument as to whether those sources are correct or not what Wikipedia concerns itself with. We write about what reliable sources say - not what "the truth" is. If you have reliable sources that state that there is evidence that "the organization was under Chinese control..." please provide them here for discussion. The article is not going to be changed just because you personally disagree with the reliable sources. Regards -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 20:33, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Only the BBC citation actually says this. Let's see if there are others? Gershonmk (talk) 20:35, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Found some sources, although they aren't all directly calling out the WHO, they show some of the influence the CCP has over it, despite contributing such little in money.Prins van Oranje (talk) 15:17, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

So, by your own statement, the sources you found don't say what Trump was saying? How are they useful, then? Heck, the first one is explicitly an opinion piece. --Khajidha (talk) 19:07, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

References

The references aren’t reliable; otherwise there are plenty of other cases in which references should be reliable but aren’t. If I linked an article accusing Trump, that’s fine, but if I link an article defending Trump, that’s false balance. This is the problem. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hermit7 (talk • contribs) 22:54, 17 February 2021 (UTC)