Talk:Kamala Harris/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

→

Archive 5

Comment by Sarge Baldy

This article takes a pretty blatant POV ("legal talents", "working creatively to improve the quality of life in our communities", "instilled in Kamala a strong commitment towards justice and public service", being on a first name basis, etc etc). Reads like a political campaign ad. Sarge Baldy 09:38, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Meth Dog Prosecution

Is it worth including something on the case that propelled Harris to fame as a prosecutor, the infamous Noel/Knoller dog mauling fatality?

71.141.228.16 02:26, 4 April 2007 (UTC) Steve P.

No, because she had nothing to do with that case. The Noel/Knoller case took place under Hallinan, and was handled by Jim Hammer and Kimberly Guilfoyle.

Minor edits and deletions

I changed some of the descriptive language to tone down POV, updated some news including her upcoming re-election, and eliminated the link to Hindu politicians. Harris is a member of Third Baptist Church in San Francisco. Mike Ege 18:11, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 18:24, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Lack of continuity

In the second sentence, she's referred to as both African American and Indian American. This is understandable for a mixed race person, though kind of confusing (as well as offensive to some). However, more importantly, The second paragraph states her father is Jamaican American. This is a clear lack of continuity. Moreover, having seen Caribbean immigrants scoff at the "African American" title, I know this might be offensive to people. If you mean that their bloodline when from Africa through Jamaica to Oakland to justify calling her African American, then we might as well call EVERYONE in America "African American" as humankind began in Africa.

Curiously, she calls herself African American on her 2010 site. Which dovetails nicely with comments below about plagiarizing her press copy... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.181.43.160 (talk) 07:40, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Edit warring

This detail about the German tourist is of questionable notability. It seems to me by reading that article that at this point, the DA's office is doing due diligence. The entry is being written in a biased manner that isn't in keeping with the source. I also don't think this situation is notable in regards to Harris. Why should it be included at all? --Muboshgu (talk) 00:26, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the bit about the German tourist doesn't seem particularly notable in Harris' career. Perhaps once the event unfolds we'll see if the incident warrants inclusion in this article, but until then it should be excluded. Gobonobo ^{T C} 23:43, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Police Department Lab & Disclosure Failure

There needs to be some sort of compromise on this subject line. Prosecutorial Misconduct is simply not descriptive. I changed it to Disclosure Failure. Is that acceptable? Also, whoever else is editing this(99.136.100.62 and 71.139.26.170) keeps missing the final outcome and repeating the more salacious portions. Furthermore, the tone of the edits is biased, bringing in the author's opinion. --72.62.44.2 (talk) 22:35, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Just glancing at it the section seems quite long and probably receives undue weight.   Will Beback  talk  02:45, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Edit War

This article clearly needs some work. It looks like half of the text is from her website, and half from an attack ad. Neutrality is nowhere to be found. And over the past week or so, there appears to be an edit war brewing between several users without accounts. This article needs monitoring as the subject is running for public office. --LAbaseballFan (talk) 16:19, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

This is an absurdly overwritten article, with attention to details that can hardly be of interest to any general encyclopedia reader interested in the career of the SF AG and now Calif AG-elect. I removed some details of one of the murder cases, but the rest of this article is clogged with nonsense--and I am the child of a lawyer. But Harris is not a world-renowned figure, and even if she were to achieve that status, the details of cases are not relevant. I wish someone would hack away the underbrush. I cleaned up the gibberish that was present to account for the concession of Steve Cooley in the Cal AG race. And tried to reduce the number of times in which this person is referred to be her first name. Actio (talk) 02:29, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

DISPUTE - Claim of being first black female Atty Gen in U.S. is false

Last time I checked, Pamela Carter was a female African American attorney general for Indiana from 1993 - 1997 - beating Ms. Harris to the claim of "first" A/A or black female state Attorney General by 18 years. - Davodd (talk) 06:24, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I copy edited the last line of the 2010 election section to read thusly: "On January 1, 2011, Kamala Harris will become the second woman of African descent and the first person of Indian descent to serve as a state Attorney General in the United States." - Davodd (talk) 06:35, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

The claim sourced is that she'll be the first black AG of California, not the U.S. The other claim is not sourced, so I will remove it. Hekerui (talk) 09:45, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Kamala Harris' number of votes

An unsourced text was inserted that alleged that Kamala Harris won the most votes of any African American candidate in a statewide election with her 4+ million result. In 2008, Obama won 8+ million votes statewide in California. See United States presidential election in California, 2008 Hekerui (talk) 19:21, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

The editor probably meant "state" as opposed to "national". Regardless, wouldn't the percentage be more important than the total? California's population is growing, so it's not surprising that vote counts are higher now than they were 20 years ago. A more interesting comparison would be her percent of the vote vs. Tom Bradley's percent when he ran for governor. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 19:56, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

African American

Can someone explain why Harris is being described as African American in the news press? I removed mentions because I thought it was wrong, but the LA Times and San Jose Mercury Press say otherwise, so yeah. An Indian mother and a Jamaican father... hbdragon88 (talk) 23:48, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

It also seems odd that our article describes her as "black." Her complexion looks awfully light to me, even more so than Obama's. Such is life in a society where "white" is "normal," so just a touch of anything else makes you "the other." Tualha (Talk) 09:31, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Yeah I'm glad it's back to African American, because that's exactly the term that the newspapers use. But yeah does anyone know the answer? hbdragon88 (talk) 23:57, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

African American is a term that generally refers to black Americans who trace their origins to Africa.Actio (talk) 02:25, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

ALL black people trace their origins to Africa, even those from Caribbean, Britain, Brazil, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.124.16.224 (talk) 21:15, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

'Best-looking' AG

Please read WP:NOTNEWS. This is news in the current cycle, but it will not have any lasting impact. It was a dumb comment by Obama, an attempt at levity that was indeed sexist. It means nothing in the grand scheme of who Kamala Harris is. Simply being in the news does not mean it should be in Wikipedia. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:24, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Time, not Muboshgu, will determine the lasting impact. At this point, it is noteworthy, and it is what made the subject's name known to a far broader audience. Until the lasting impact is clear, this is material and should stay.--71.184.165.161 (talk) 17:41, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

No, you clearly don't understand Wiki policy. Until lasting impact is determined, this cannot stay here. It's a BLP violation failing WP:NOTNEWS and WP:UNDUE. To turn what you said back on you, if I can't determine lasting impact, why do you decide this is noteworthy? – Muboshgu (talk) 17:43, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

To turn what you said back on you, YOU clearly don't understand Wiki policy. The immediate impact is abundantly clear: this episode brought Harris's name to national prominence, not just prominence within California. Solely as a result of the comment and subsequent controversy, Harris's national profile rose significantly, and that is highly relevant and therefore worthy of inclusion. It also helps demonstrate that her achievements are all the greater because of the sexism that she has had to overcome.--72.93.166.240 (talk) 19:36, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

There's a lot of assumptions you've made there, such as raising her national profile. It's a temporary spike, a blip, and nothing more. Check out how the page views are starting to come down. Obama said something dumb, he apologized, she accepted, now it's over. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:16, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I've just deleted it. The news cycle has turned over, and this is no longer getting coverage. There have been no further developments that would suggest lasting impact. I don't even think Republicans tried to fundraise off of it. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:16, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Masonic Fraternal Police Department

Should content regarding this alleged organization be included in this article, or be a stand alone article? It has received significant coverage from multiple reliable sources (thus meeting WP:GNG), including Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, National Public Radio, among others.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:50, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Shielding of Ramos & The Murder of The Bologna Family

I don't want to get into an edit war here with 24.23.146.196 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), but this section is a problem. The news articles cited don't connect Harris to this at all, and the conclusion being drawn here is WP:OR. I think it should be removed. Agtx (talk) 03:22, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

This information is being removed to shield Harris from political criticism and is being removed based on pure political ideology and not objective objections. All sources back the contention that Harris shielded Ramos as district attorney of San Francisco under San Francisco's 'Sanctuary City' policy. The only reason Ramos was free was at the direction of Kamala Harris to shield illegal aliens from ICE. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.23.146.196 (talk) 00:24, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

As an initial matter, a couple of Wikipedia etiquette things. First, please remember to sign your talk posts with four tildes (~~~~). Second, remember that we always try to assume good faith here, and your statement that other editors are attempting to protect the target of the article does not really do that. I, for one, can assure you that I have no connection to Harris and don't even live in California.

For the substance of your comment, the articles that you cited do not mention Harris by name, nor do they mention her office. They do not connect Harris in any direct way to Ramos. I understand that you believe there to be a connection, but Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that reports on secondary sources, not original research. If there were reliable sources that directly supported your statements, then they might merit inclusion (although I think there would still be more to discuss). However, absent such sources, I don't think it can come in. Agtx (talk) 00:37, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Your edit removal is obviously not in 'good faith'. This is shown via the above text where you say " If there were reliable sources that directly supported your statements, then they might merit inclusion (although I think there would still be more to discuss).". You are clearly showing bias if you think that 3 people being murdered due to the actions of Kamala Harris does not warrant a section on the Wikipedia page.

The sources provided back my assertion. It has been fully sourced. As district attorney she facilitate the process of shielding illegal aliens from deportation with the Sheriff and the Mayor. This action directly lead to the death of a family. She had implicit involvement in allowing Ramos to go free and murder 3 people.

You explicit injection of politics into factual matters is disturbing in that it does not align with the goal of Wikipedia to be an unbiased source. 24.23.146.196 (talk) 01:25, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

This conversation is quickly becoming unproductive. I'm happy to discuss the merits of the section you'd like to add, but I would ask that you stop attacking me personally. As far as your sources go, one is that this one does not mention Harris at all. That means it doesn't support the conclusion you want to draw from it. The second problem is that what you're saying requires making inferences from the sources, which is original research. That's not what Wikipedia is for. Do you have a reliable source that directly supports the section you'd like to add? Agtx (talk) 02:29, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Bazelon story in NYT

Emily Bazelon, a legal reporter on the staff of the New York Times, wrote a long profile of Harris. A lot of it is fluff, but I think the most significant discussion is about Harris' response to prosecutorial misconduct.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/magazine/kamala-harris-a-top-cop-in-the-era-of-black-lives-matter.html

Kamala Harris, a ‘Top Cop’ in the Era of Black Lives Matter As she campaigns to become only the second black woman elected to the U.S. Senate, the California attorney general is trying to chart a middle course on the Democratic Party’s most contentious issue: criminal justice.

By EMILY BAZELON New York Times Magazine MAY 25, 2016

[...]

Harris’s critics also charge that she has failed to take on prosecutorial misconduct — a responsibility that is “core to the attorney general’s job,” Simon says. In 2015, judges called out her office for defending convictions obtained by local prosecutors who inserted a false confession into the transcript of a police interrogation, lied under oath and withheld crucial evidence from the defense. “Talk to the attorney general and make sure she understands the gravity of the situation,” federal appellate Judge Alex Kozinski instructed one of Harris’s deputies in court last year. Harris says that as a career prosecutor, she takes allegations of misconduct very seriously. “My office evaluates each case based on the facts and the evidence,” she told me.

Harris has also been criticized for her response to accusations of misconduct by prosecutors and sheriff’s deputies in Orange County. Two years ago, Scott Sanders, an assistant public defender in Orange County, discovered hidden records showing that sheriff’s deputies in the local jails were placing coveted informants in cells next to inmates who were awaiting trial — and for decades maintaining a secret database about them. The district attorney’s office also appears to have repeatedly failed to disclose evidence from its own files on some informants. Defendants were convicted based on the testimony of informants whose credibility, the secret records showed, prosecutors and the police questioned, unknown to the judge and jury. One informant labeled “unreliable” helped convict a man who was executed in 1998 for a murder he insisted he did not commit. Last March, following the revelations about the database, a judge described the performance of the Orange County district attorney’s office, in the murder case before him, as “sadly deficient” and instructed Harris and her office to take over the case.

Harris could have conducted a far-­reaching inquiry. Instead, she appealed the judge’s order on behalf of Tony Rackauckas, Orange County’s controversial district attorney, while promising a narrower criminal investigation into the case at hand. When I asked about it in January, Harris said, “We’re not walking away.” But John Van de Kamp and Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the law school at the University of California, Irvine, have effectively given up on Harris by asking for a federal investigation, in a letter to the Justice Department signed by roughly two dozen former prosecutors, law professors and advocates. “All the parts of the criminal-­justice system failed here, for a very long time,” Chemerinsky says. “As far as I know, she’s not doing anything about it.” In January, Rackauckas invited the Justice Department to investigate, saying there was no evidence of “sensational wrongdoing.”

--Nbauman (talk) 22:14, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

Issues Section

Should the Issues section be split up? Right now, the section includes general stances on political issues and specific incidents that came up during her political career. I think things like 'Daniel Larsen case' should be under her time as Attorney General where as her general stances should stay in the issues section or possibly in the section renamed political positions (the Kristen Gillibrand article uses the heading political positions). Any thoughts? Knope7 (talk) 17:37, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

@Knope7: I agree. There should be a separate "Political positions" section. There is information in the "Issues" section that should go under "Political career". Jay Coop · Talk · Contributions 22:03, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

I'll try to reorganize. It looks like some material under "elections" also pertains to things she did as AG. I will try to get to reorganizing content in the next week or two. I would also encourage any editors who previously expanded the article to keep an eye towards "Good Article" status. A lot of work has gone into this article already and it is already more developed than many articles for existing senators. It would be great to see this article reach "Good Article" status. Knope7 (talk) 23:13, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

OK, so I reorganized. First, I got rid of the "Political career" heading as while it was accurate for most of her career, it also included her early career as an ADA, which is not a political position. I added a subheading for her time as San Francisco AG and included applicable information from the former 'Issues' section. The 'Issues" section is now 'Political positions' and has been pared down as some material was moved to the San Francisco AG and California AG sections. I did not delete anything, however, there probably are multiple subsections that could be significantly reduced. Knope7 (talk) 01:48, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Mnuchin charges

Quite a few WP:RSs have reported this story, as you can tell with a Google search. Any reason why it shouldn't go into this entry?

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/312742-senate-democrat-defends-decision-not-to-charge-trump-treasury-pick-over
Dem defends decision not to charge Trump Treasury pick over foreclosures
By Sylvan Lane
01/04/17
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) is defending a decision she made as California’s attorney general not to charge President-elect Donald Trump’s Treasury secretary nominee with violating state foreclosure laws.
Steven Mnuchin, from 2009 to 2015, ran OneWest, a California-based bank, where he oversaw more than 36,000 foreclosures. Harris was California’s attorney general from 2011 to 2017, when she joined the Senate.
A 2013 internal memo from the California attorney general’s office, first published by The Intercept, alleged Mnuchin violated state foreclosure laws and recommended filing charges against him. The memo, the result of a yearlong investigation, claims Mnuchin violated notice and waiting period laws, manipulated legal documents and rigged foreclosure auctions, but Harris declined to charge him....

--Nbauman (talk) 18:34, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

I think the story is more about Mnchin and his conduct. I wouldn't be opposed to adding it to this article but it should probably be kept short to not give it undue weight, placed into context, include Harris' response, and it needs to be well sourced. Attorney General's make decisions not to prosecute all the time. That Harris has to answer for this particular reason may warrant it's inclusion, but that alone doesn't make it an important part of her career. Knope7 (talk) 19:27, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Early life

I am in the process of trying to expand the "Early life" section for the time period before Harris' 2003 election as San Francisco DA. There understandably does not appear to be a lot of discussion of her 8 year tenure in Alameda County. This LA Times article at least discusses a little of the types of cases she prosecuted early in her career, although it does not specify Alameda or San Francisco. I am trying to move through the article section by section with the goal in mind of making this a Good Article, which will obviously be a long process. Any help in this would be greatly appreciated. Knope7 (talk) 01:33, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Text is copied from Ms. Harris' website

When the article was originally created by Sevenam, the text was copied from Kamala Harris' website.

As you can easily see by visiting that site (http://www.kamalaharris.org/about/biography/), there's very little there that's different from what you see here.

Clearly Kamala Harris looks more African American than Asian Indian. Above individual seems disturbed about designating Ms Harris as African American. There is a reason, clearly, if I were to describe her, not knowing her, her African roots are more dominant. Looks are based not only on color But more importantly on facial characteristics and skeletal facial bone structure. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.251.137.167 (talk) 23:53, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Ridiculous. She doesn't look at all black, not in skin color or bone structure. She's at most 25% black (her Jamaican father was clearly biracial), but at least 50% South Asian. Depending on her father's other race, she's 75% South Asian and 25% black, or 50% South Asian, 25% black, and 25% white or Northeast Asian.2604:2000:9046:800:2567:E3DB:A603:D6A9 (talk) 05:25, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Is she confused about her race - Why has the African AMerican community not calling her a coward. Being African AMerican you are ethnically a mixed race where Black racial features is predominantly the outlook. SHE CLEARLY LOOKS AFRICAN AMERICAN SIDEWAYS, FULL FACE AND THE AURORA SHE HAS ABOUT HER. In India she would not be classified as an Asian Indian!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.151.152.194 (talk) 19:58, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 June 2017

change "CNN pundit Justin Miller" to "CNN pundit Jason Miller" 107.2.89.33 (talk) 04:00, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Done Stickee (talk) 05:47, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Pronunciation

How are her first and middle names pronounced? 67.164.156.42 (talk) 07:23, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Looks like by now (June 12 2017) somebody has put pronunciation keys for her name, but those in the "american" and IPA notations contradict each other! The IPA version should translate to the "american" as KAh-muh-luh, but instead the "american" key says KA-muh-luh, (KA in [kæ] in IPA). Can somebody who knows the correct pronunciation please fix this? Thanks... 104.53.222.39 (talk) 04:47, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Ooops, I did respell bc not everybody knows IPA, and people all say her name wrong, Ka-muh-LUH. You're right, first syllable should be KAH and not KA. I fixed it. (Jake Tapper says it correctly here, the same way I've heard her say it.) —Мандичка^YO 😜 01:53, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

First biracial woman/women

I've seen a few edits on this topic recently. NPR called Harris the first biracial woman. The article also talks about Duckworth and Cortez Masto making history, so I think it was intentional to refer to Harris as the first biracial woman and not an oversight. I think we should reach consensus here on how to deal with this issue. Knope7 (talk) 03:45, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

• What would you propose? Duckworth (Chinese/Thai mom and caucasian dad) is definitely biracial, but I don't know about Cortez Mastro. Mexico has a lot of people who consider themselves white, as children and grandchildren of Spaniards/Italians/French etc., so they would not consider marrying an Italian to be an interracial relationship. She's definitely the first Latina for Senate though, so it seems like author of NPR article was trying to focus on what was unique to each person for the hook. Anyway, what do you think is best here? —Мандичка^YO 😜 02:11, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm open to ideas. We could try to find other sources that supports that both Harris and Duckworth (and maybe Mastro) are all biracial. I think what I'm leaning towards is taking it out of the lead altogether and maybe adding something later in the article that can deal with the topic of how Harris' ethnicity and gender fit in to the historic makeup of the Senate. The lead doesn't really allow for as much nuance or explanation. Knope7 (talk) 02:24, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

The first what?

She was the first woman,[4] the first Jamaican American, the first Asian American, the first Indian American, and the first African American attorney general in California.

If the above was true, then she would be the first American-American? Maybe the first Mongrel-American? Oh I know, she's an typical American in her genetic makeup.

The above need to be deleted and if any is true, pick one. Only one can be true, if any. 73.181.225.112 (talk) 20:28, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

The text has been edited slightly: "She was the first woman, the first Jamaican American, the first Asian American, the first Indian American, and the first African American to serve as attorney general in California." All five claims in that sentence are true and fully sourced in the article. General Ization ^Talk 20:35, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

She's a Senator now. Being the first anything attorney general of California isn't relevant for the lede. I say delete the entire sentence. Power~enwiki (talk) 21:38, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

The fact that she now holds a different office does not change or diminish the significance of her having been the first member of several large demographic groups to serve as AG. I wouldn't insist on it remaining in the lede, but it is a defining and notable characteristic of the subject. General Ization ^Talk 21:44, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

To the IP editor's concern. Jamaica and India are countries. "Asian-American" and "African-American" are ethnicities. The rest of the details are moot, since the sentence is too wordy for the lede and has been removed. If you feel it isn't clear, please add additional explanatory text where it is discussed in the "Attorney General" section. Power~enwiki (talk) 21:52, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

I would recommend adding back that she was the first woman to elected Attorney General of California. To me, that is more significant than one of the first three biracial women to serve U.S. Senators, a distinction that I don't think is completely sourced. Knope7 (talk) 00:32, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

If she was the first woman to be an attorney general in any state, it would be notable enough for the lede. For her record, both those claims appear to be more puffery than merit. Power~enwiki (talk) 01:21, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

New Lede

I've re-written the lede, basically from scratch. There are certainly a few details that I've left out, but I feel like it's a much better starting point. Power~enwiki (talk) 02:54, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Referring to her as a potential presidential candidate in 2020 may be speculation/WP:CRYSTAL, but she is listed on every reliable source I can find that discusses potential candidates. Power~enwiki (talk) 02:54, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

NO Controversy Section

LOL Folks, this is why NO sane person takes Wikipedia seriously. This is not an encyclopedia article but a hagiography curated by her staff (or better, people that would LIKE to be on her staff.) They game the system to edit out any negative topic then accuse anyone who tries to print the truth about Crooked Kamala of 'not assuming good faith' or engaging in 'edit wars.' Does anybody think we all don't see this! haha Good luck running K.rooK.ed K.amala vs Pres Trump in 2020. You won't lose by...TOO much! 107.4.70.22 (talk) 22:52, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

And what controversies are you referring to that are so notable they warrant their own section? Misogynist pundits calling her "hysterical" for doing her job? —Мандичка^YO 😜 02:00, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

http://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-lying-prosecutors-20150201-story.html

https://theintercept.com/2017/01/05/kamala-harris-fails-to-explain-why-she-didnt-prosecute-steven-mnuchins-bank/

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/262570-spending-under-scrutiny

The current article is hardly Neutral POV. The talk of deleting opposing viewpoints in Talk:Kamala_Harris#Relevance is also concerning. There is not a single critical comment on the Wiki page. NorthropB2 (talk) 01:40, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Better source

Isn't there a better source for the claim that Kamala Harris was ranked one of California's top 100 lawyers than a news blog based in India? Isn't there a source from the newspaper than ranked her? (Googling this claim, I could only find numerous places using the same exact language as this Wikipedia article.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.95.24.246 (talk) 21:29, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Willie Brown relationship

The following is proposed to be removed in a pending change:

In 1994, she was appointed head of the California Medical Assistance Commission by then-Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, who was allegedly having an affair with her at the time .

References

I feel this change should be discussed on the talk page. Power~enwiki (talk) 03:52, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

I'm happy to discuss. As written, by placing the alleged affair next to the appointment it insinuates the affair was used to advance her career. That sort of insinuation needs more than the Daily Caller, which is a highly ideological source. At the very least, it would require the response of Harris or someone who supported her as this is a BLP issue. I do think that a more neutral source would also be helpful for this kind of contentious material. Knope7 (talk) 03:56, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

I personally agree with leaving discussion of it to the "Personal life" section. Power~enwiki (talk) 04:01, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Unless the allegation can be documented, I don't think it has any place here at all. JTRH (talk) 12:02, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

"NPOV" reverts to "political positions"

I had two contributions reverted in a single edit. One was a new section about civil forfeitures and one was the reversal & expansion of a subheading about prosecution of Steve Mnuchin's bank. Both were properly sourced & I thought pretty neutral in tone. I don't see how this violates NPOV. @Power~enwiki:, could you help improving these sections as I believe the topics are worthy of coverage on this article. Jonathan Williams (talk) 15:29, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

"Civil Forfeiture" is only a political position (akin to gun control and education) because somebody wants to make it an issue. I'm not entirely sure who, or whether they support or oppose Harris. It's WP:UNDUE to list it there in any case. As far as it relates to her actions as attorney general, it can be discussed there. Power~enwiki (talk) 17:25, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Saying Harris did not prosecute somebody generally isn't notable, and DocumentCloud is not a reasonable source here (though based on the document there is likely a report by The Intercept which is possibly a reasonable source). The attempt to tie her to Mnuchin is WP:SYNTH and clearly an attempt to bias Democrats against her. Power~enwiki (talk) 17:25, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

I've expanded and readded the section about OneWest, but have not reverted the civil forfeiture paragraph. What do you think about moving the deleted paragraph about civil forfeiture to a subsection of "as attorney general" until an article devoted to her tenure as attorney general is created? Is the National Review too ideological a source? Jonathan Williams (talk) 22:03, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

I don't object to National Review personally, but I'm not sure everyone will agree with me. As far as civil forfeiture; your suggestion sounds good. Power~enwiki (talk) 20:57, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Michelle-Lael Norsworthy case

@Power~enwiki Please help me understand your reversion of my addition on grounds of WP:UNDUE. Is your objection based on the length of my contribution? KalHolmann (talk) 20:30, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I'm starting to think moving some of the Attorney General section to a separate article is a better solution here. Power~enwiki (talk) 20:36, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I'll keep on the lookout for a new Kamala Harris Attorney General article and, once that materializes, resubmit my contribution there. KalHolmann (talk) 21:02, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

You're welcome to re-add it for now, but I will definitely remove it from the article again once a sub-page exists. Power~enwiki (talk) 20:58, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

POV manipulations

if kamala harris were walking down the street and I had to describe her, most certainly I would describe her as a Black Individual. Looking Black is not just skin color but facial features; it doesn't matter what percentage of black she has in her dna. To me she look African American. Northern India is NOT homogeneous Indian in DNA; the entire population is 50 to 60 percent of Middle Eastern background mixed with indigenous Dravidian group which is the southern Indian community. There are many faces to the indian sub continent NOT one as in the other Asian group. By the way,Afghanistan is part of the So Asian divide!! -- 20:46, 28 February 2006‎ CagedRage (talk | contribs)

How you would describe her racially is not really relevant to the article. Best, Cesaravi (talk) 22:00, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Backpage cases

Is there any particular reason that Back Page has been left off? Her repeated attempts to prosecute them certainly seem notable.

e.g. http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/kamala-harris-doubles-down-on-pimping-charges-against-the-backpage-three-despite-judges-dismissal-8933319 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bob drobbs (talk • contribs) 22:06, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Here's the relevant section from the backpage wiki page. Harris prosecuted the backpage leadership for multiple crimes, she was condemned by a bunch of groups, and the charges were eventually dismissed. If no one objects I'll start adding some of this info here. https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Backpage#Arrest_of_CEO_and_corporate_officers Bob drobbs (talk) 21:27, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Heads up! On 2 August 2017, I added 4,178 bytes under ‎Tenure as California Attorney General describing Harris's involvement with the Michelle-Lael Norsworthy case. Just two minutes later, Power~enwiki reverted my contribution in its entirety, citing WP:UNDUE. He then confirmed that his objection was based on disproportionate length, adding, "I'm starting to think moving some of the Attorney General section to a separate article is a better solution here."

I bring this to your attention because the "relevant" Backpage material you link to is quite lengthy, and I suggest you bear in mind that, as Power~enwiki informed me about the Norsworthy case, he will "definitely remove it from the article again once a sub-page exists." In an edit summary on 3 August 2017, he said, "I don't plan to edit the article for any reason in the next two weeks." Accordingly, I'd advise you to keep whatever you add relatively short to avoid extra work down the line. KalHolmann (talk) 21:54, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Her career as Attorney General was 6 years. She's only been a Senator for 6 months. And she's been a possible presidential candidate for only a couple of days. Looking forward putting emphasis on her terms as Attorney General will indeed be undue. But at this point, it seems very relevant in the main article. I'll add at least a short summation of the backpage cases when I have time to do a decent writeup of it. -- Bob drobbs (talk) 02:15, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Position on Second Amendment

The Gun Control section (https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Kamala_Harris#Gun_control) currently contains statements that are unsourced or rely on original research:

Unsourced: "Harris has been a vocal proponent for gun control her entire career"

Original research in the form of analysis of a primary source document: "Harris recruited other District Attorneys and filed an amicus brief in District of Columbia v. Heller, arguing that the Second Amendment does not protect an individual's right to own firearms." NotOccam (talk) 17:09, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Relevance

The section 'Police department laboratory and disclosure failures' does not appear to focus on Harris' involvement in these cases. It mention's Harris' office but not Harris' role in the incident. Moreover, even if relevant the section is too long given the tenuous connection to Harris. Knope7 (talk) 03:39, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

• @Knope7: I agree. Sorry nobody has responded to you in five months and that has been stuck here all this time. At the end of two paragraphs, it says Harris took responsibility but also pointed out it wasn't really her fault. It also is rather unclear how she is to blame for it - there's no evidence she knew what was going on. It seems more like she took responsibility bc it happened on her watch so ultimately it was her fault, but it's not like she's in the lab double checking all the results to make sure they're accurate. That's not her job. Maybe someone who knows better can explain how she actually screwed up. Otherwise, I would knock it down to two sentences. Should I be bold and do it? —Мандичка^YO 😜 01:59, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

I like the idea of cutting it back. I actually got rid of some of it a little while back but I didn't figure out a good way to summarize more succinctly. From reading the sources, it did look like something Harris had to deal with because her office prosecuted cases based on results from labs with issues and it came up as a knock on her in campaigns, but it's probably not a major part of her life or career. I would support any effort to scale it back further. Knope7 (talk) 02:28, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

I agree. It seems oddly out of place, and not relevant to the subject of the article. Cesaravi (talk) 21:52, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

This really doesn't seem relevant, I have removed it. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 19:41, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

I agree with the removal. Gandydancer (talk) 21:21, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

I also agree. JTRH (talk) 21:29, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Opposition to Trump...

... is not exactly controversial. And it's well sourced so it shouldn't be removed. With regard to ICE we have this. Similarly we have this for Bernie Sanders. At this point, neither info is WP:DUE enough to include in the relevant articles.Volunteer Marek (talk) 03:14, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree with you completely. The opposition to Trump is reliably sourced and is an important piece of information about Harris's time in the senate so far. Capriaf's edit-warring is inappropriate and unfortunate. —Granger (talk · contribs) 10:29, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

I also agree. JTRH (talk) 11:01, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Candidate for US President in 2020?

It is not clear whether KH is "running" but WP:RS report much speculation about her potential candidacy. Maybe the bio should include a section, based on reliable sources? It seems like a notable topic related to bio. Somebody recently added it to the lead. HouseOfChange (talk) 21:09, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

We can wait until she forms an exploratory committee to create a top-level section; I'd support "Presidential speculation" as a sub-heading of "U.S. Senate > Tenure" now. We also need to trim "Tenure as California Attorney General" significantly; I proposed a spin-off article last year but there wasn't enough support, nor an obvious title for such a spin-off article. Regarding the lead, I added similar content over a year ago; it's been in and out of the lead several times since then. It will be clear how to handle this in 6 months. power~enwiki (π, ν) 21:12, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, power~enwiki, for your perspective. I have co-edited articles with you before, and am impressed with your experience (greater than mine.) I added a citation to lead only because sentence was in there, with a "Citation needed" (but nowhere else in the article.) This is clearly, as my grandmother would say, doing it "bass-ackwards." Do you want to create the section you mention? Much of the buzz about KH showing up in my Twitter etc, is generated by people who do NOT want her as a candidate in 2020. But there will surely be some NPOV way to share this with our readers. HouseOfChange (talk) 21:25, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

I won't have time to deal with the inevitable disagreements until next week. I'll look at the article then, and will add a subsection (there is a paragraph in the section I mentioned already, though it may be recently added). power~enwiki (π, ν) 21:30, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Back, and adding a section now. power~enwiki (π, ν) 02:19, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Huh?

The second paragraph of the 2020 presidential bid speculation section ("Kamala Harris was named as part of the "Hell-No Caucus" by Politico in 2018...") lacks context to the point of being meaningless. What is this "caucus" supposed to refer to? What is being listed in it supposed to mean? Also, unless it is a reflection of some kind of measure of popular support/expectation that Harris will run, I don't see how this is notable. I can't be bothered reading the article and fixing this, but if anybody who wants to improve the article can, feel free. Thanks! 60.248.185.19 (talk) 08:00, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Article not impartial

Tell me again how to add an "Impartiality is Disputed" tag. Because this article seems to have been commandeered by an anti-Harris propagandist.Jamesdowallen (talk) 20:56, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

I think you mean that you believe there are WP:NPOV issues in the article. Start a new section headed "NPOV issues" and be specific about the changes you want, then add a pov tag to the page, see Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup. Doug Weller talk 09:55, 20 October 2018 (UTC) Ping @Jamesdowallen:. Doug Weller talk 09:56, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

The article seems better now. Wow, lots of changes over the month! I did notice that one clause -- totally irrelevant except as a minor attempt at deprecation -- has been removed.Jamesdowallen (talk) 10:06, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Hometown of Oakland, CA

Senator Harris has stated (via her presidential campaign) that her hometown is Oakland, California. This article states that she lived in Berkeley before moving to Montreal. Do we know if and when she lived in Oakland? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.114.147.135 (talk) 23:54, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Minor typo: "(mother" should be "(mother)"

In the info box source,

parents = [[Shyamala Gopalan]] (mother
Donald J. Harris (father) 

"(mother" should be "(mother)" Could someone authorized fix the page. Thanks --Javaweb2 (talk) 03:17, 25 January 2019 (UTC)Javaweb2

Semi-protected edit request on 29 January 2019

In section "Guns", replace

Believing that thoughts and prayers are inadequate answers to the shooting, she stated that "...we must also commit ourselves to action. Another moment of silence won't suffice."

with simply

She stated that "...we must also commit ourselves to action. Another moment of silence won't suffice."

The leading dependent clause contains editorial content not extant in the cited source. Convex climber (talk) 16:25, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

 Partly done: Changed to In response to the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, Harris supported the call for more gun control. Saying that she believed that thoughts and prayers are inadequate answers to the shooting, she stated that "...we must also commit ourselves to action. Another moment of silence won't suffice." The Facebook comment is now directly sourced.[1] General Ization ^Talk 16:33, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

Criticism Section

I am in the process of drafting a criticism section as the issues relating to Kamala Harris have not been highlighted. If someone could proofread this and make sure it is neutral that would be greatly appreciated. Any imput is welcome.

Harris has been met with opposition by some members of the African American community, including singer K. Michelle, on account of her criminal justice record. In particular, her actions concerning police brutality against minorities under her tenure as Attorney General of California are of concern. In 2015, Harris opposed a bill requiring the Attorney General's office to investigate officer-involved shootings. She then objected to enforcing California law regulating the use of body cameras by law enforcement. These moves were criticized by many left-leaning reformers, including Democratic state senators, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and a San Franciscan elected public defender. Civil rights activist Phelicia Jones went on to condemn Harris stating:

"How many more people need to die before she steps in?"

Harris also has a history of ostensible misconduct in alleged wrongful conviction cases. In 1999, George Gage, a former electrician with no prior criminal record, was convicted of sexually abusing his stepdaughter based on a testimony given by the stepdaughter. Later, the judge ruled that the prosecutor had unlawfully held back potentially exculpatory evidence, including medical reports indicating that the stepdaughter had repeatedly lied to law enforcement. She was even described as being a “pathological liar” who “lives her lies” by her mother. When the case reached the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco in 2015, Harris’s deputy prosecutors continued to support the conviction on account of Gage having not properly raised the legal issue in the lower court, as the law required. Gage is currently imprisoned serving a seventy year sentence. Harris also pushed to uphold the sentence of Daniel Larsen for possession of a concealed weapon, in spite of the presence of compelling evidence of his innocence and that his public defender was supposedly incompetent. Larsen’s conviction was unsuccessfully upheld on account of a technicality that Larsen had failed to raise the issues in a timely manner. Additionally, there was the case Kevin Cooper, an inmate on death row whose legal proceedings were alleged to have been influenced by racism and corruption. Cooper sought advanced DNA testing in his defense, which was denied by Harris until an exposé by The New York Times on the case caught national attention. Also, there was the case of Johnny Baca, who had been convicted of murder until judges ruled a prosecutor presented a false testimony at the trial. Despite the revelations with his conviction, Harris supported it initially, reversing her course after a video of an oral argument in the prosecutor’s office received national attention. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ed. Jishnu (talk • contribs)

Read WP:CRITS. Such sections attract excess. Your edit is a prime example. The article is not a WP:SOAPBOX for opinions, sourced or unsourced. Two editors have now objected to your edits. Don't create a separate section of criticism, and get consensus for your edits in this article. Also note that this article is under discretionary sanctions and is limited to one revert per every 24 hours. 75.182.115.183 (talk) 22:00, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Best practice is to weave any criticism among other biographical content. Keep in mind, a lot of excess detail has recently been trimmed from the article, and it seems that some of your proposed material is fairly detailed. The Gage material seems a bit much.- MrX 🖋 22:09, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

MrX is right: for US Senator pages (but not only), "criticism" does not have its own section (but is added among relevant biographical content). Ed. Jishnu, you can have a look at the List of members of the United States Senate. From there, you should be able to easily check the Wiki-pages of other US senators and see how such content is presented. Mcrt007 (talk) 07:37, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

References

Cegep?

The article notes that she graduated from Westmount High, and then went to University in the USA. However, as Quebec high schools end at Grade 11 (Secondary 5), one normally goes to CEGEP [college) for 2 years if attending university. Those leaving the province normally attend at least 1 year of CEGEP to have the equivalent of Grade 12. Presumably then, there's likely something missing in this article between high school and university? Nfitz (talk) 18:29, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Apparently she returned to the States after HS. Here's a profile of her in a Montreal newspaper, with interviews of her childhood friends. [2] -- 70.51.201.106 (talk) 14:22, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Something is still missing then I'd think - with Westmount High School ending at Grade 11, wouldn't she have had to do Grade 12 then somewhere else, if she left the province after Grade 11? Nfitz (talk) 03:11, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Not necessarily. Universities have their own admission standards that are not codified in law. If Howard decided to accept her immediately after Westmount, that's their choice. We can't assume there was another school unless someone can come up with that in a reliable source. 75.182.115.183 (talk) 15:50, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Of course not. I'm not suggesting adding even a comma. I'm just seeing a gap and pondering the implication, and perhaps where to look for further information. It's a long way from there to an edit! Yes - could have gone directly in theory, but having done PSBGM and Cegep in Montreal myself before leaving after about 1.5 years to do first year university outside the province, I know that's an unusual route. Both doing Grade 12 (and back then even 13) elsewhere, or not playing with a full DEC were more common. Or even getting a DEC and then entering first year university elsewhere. (aside - a DCS - I've never even heard that acronym before among Anglos). Nfitz (talk) 01:42, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

It's not frequent but not rare for American universities to admit students with less than 4 years of high school, especially if high school is outside of the country. I'm familiar with numerous cases just in the university where I once served on the admissions committee. Most sources really don't consider it notable where she finished high school for someone with a law degree, so I doubt you'll find any confirmation that she attended school anywhere between Westmount and Howard. In fact, it is unsourced in the article that she attended Westmount. Since the article is semi-protected I can't tag it. Someone should do so. If no one is willing to source it over the next few weeks I think it should be deleted. 75.182.115.183 (talk) 02:04, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

She did finish high school at Westmount as far as I understand. Quebec high school is five years (equivalent of Grades 7 through 11). Then one does 2 years of college if going on to university, or three years if doing a trade or technical degree (similar to what one would do in a community college after Grade 12 in most of the rest of the nation). Looks like someone has already added that easy-to-find reference. Nothing else to add at this time. Nfitz (talk) 04:03, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Couldn't find anything beyond her 1981 graduation from high school when she was 16. Added a second more recent reference confirming this, and tidied some text. Not sure defining Westmount as "suburb" really defines it well - particularly as the school is in lower Westmount near downtown (and surrounded on 3 sides by the city of Montreal); they literally tunnelled the subway under the high school between Atwater station and Lionel-Groulx station while she was a student - both of which are considered downtown Montreal stations. But hard to pinpoint better word. Nfitz (talk) 20:38, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Willie Brown

The article notes that Kamala Harris dated noted California politician Willie Brown in the 1990s. I added the fact that Brown was married at the time, which was almost immediately reverted by someone who claimed it to be "irrelevant". A glance at the WP articles of other politicians finds that this matter is not "irrelevant". One may choose not to care about such things. But "irrelevant" would be if we included the color shoes she was wearing when she announced her campaign for president. (And yet I dare say that if she wore green shoes that day, it would nonetheless have earned a mention.) <BLP redacted> Shall we go around scrubbing all mentions of such things in every WP article? Because such mentions are everywhere, and not just in the case of politicians. Vcuttolo (talk) 08:38, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

But "irrelevant" would be if we included the color shoes she was wearing when she announced her campaign for president.

You know, it's possible for multiple things that have nothing to do with each other to be irrelevant. Crazy, I know.

Now, did you have any other reason than "because I said so" to argue for relevancy -- or your BLP-violating characterization of said edit? Remember, BLP policy applies EVERYWHERE on Wikipedia. --Calton | Talk 09:03, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

I don't see a problem briefly mentioning that she dated Willie Brown while he was still married to his long-estranged wife in the mid-1990s. It's interesting biographical detail that has been reported in reliable sources.[3][4][5][6] - MrX 🖋 11:37, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

@MrX: The fact that Brown was still married is a biographical detail about Brown, not about Harris. I would concur with Calton that an argument could be made for it being a violation of WP:BLP. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:58, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

@Scjessey: It's is not remotely a violation of policy to include it, and it is about both Harris and Brown. That said, I'm not going to defend its inclusion, because it's not especially important unless it could be combined with material about her political rise.- MrX 🖋 13:08, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

The problem we need to watch out for is the subtext. I assume good faith and I am not going to guess the motives of individual editors. I do think we need to be aware that this will be a loaded topic because it is reminiscent of common digs at successful women. I would rather mention the relationship with Brown be in personal life, as who she dated was part of her personal life. I think a slightly fuller explanation of the situation, if done in a way that includes Harris' response to the relationship, could be acceptable. I also think expanding personal life in general could also help with balance and context. Knope7 (talk) 03:51, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Yes, if this is included, it should be properly contextualized.- MrX 🖋 14:00, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

It's is not remotely a violation of policy to include it...

Go back and use the edit history to read what I redacted from Vcuttolo, and then try to say that with a straight face. Because what Vcuttolo wrote explicitly is what you think is okay to include implicitly. --Calton | Talk 05:17, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Link? I don't see a redaction in the recent article edit history, so I have no idea what you're referring to.- MrX 🖋 13:58, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

'I redacted" should be a clue. If you can't find it, I can't help you. --Calton | Talk 15:12, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

I also think that we should not include this - it is not particularly relevant to Harris. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 09:19, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

I do think it is relevant that she dated Willie Brown; it wasn't a secret in any way, and Brown was a major influence on her political career. The characterization of him as "married" without any elaboration is the problem, and appears as (even if it isn't) an attempt to criticize or even smear Harris and/or Brown. How should we phrase it? He indeed was married; all reports are that he and his wife separated somewhere between 1976 and 1981, and that they've maintained an amicable relationship ever since, especially as they headed toward their 80s. So this was not a "cheating on his wife" scenario; this was a "married in name only" scenario. To refer to him simply as "married" is inappropriate. You could say "married, but separated for at least a decade". Or something like that. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 16:02, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Unlike other editors here who are tiptoeing around this issue, I think the "married" part, as it was originally written in the article, is an attempt to make a thinly veiled suggestion that she is a "loose woman". I don't say that from any political point of view. It would be true regardless of where she is on the political spectrum. The Brown relationship was nothing like the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky relationship, or Donald Trump-Stormy Daniels. Those could be considered seriously scandalous. Since Brown had been long estranged from his wife, I think it's best to leave out his marital status altogether. 75.182.115.183 (talk) 16:59, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Having twice reverted the Brown "while married" comment as irrelevant, I agree with Scjessey, Knope7, jpgordon, and IP 183 that including the statement is conspicuous misogyny and political sexism having the intent to portray Harris with early-life loose behavior; it does not succeed with people looking at Harris' personal life with non-partisan eyes. The original source by Brown himself here made no issue ("so what?"), and the Vox ref used presently here gives balance to the personal and political interactions of mid-1990s San Francisco politics between a mayor 10+ years estranged from his wife and a rising star attorney. --Zefr (talk) 18:11, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

The Vox source looks useful, particularly because it gives some quotes from Harris that can help with balance. I would support adding one of those quotes to the article. I think one option for the way to deal with the "married" debate is to put that in a footnote along with the explanation that he had been separated from his wife for 10 years before the relationship. The possible advantage to addressing the issue that he was married is this: if allows curious readers to get the information in a fair and accurate way without putting too much of a spotlight on it. I see some value in readers being able to find a fair version of what happened here, rather than only reading about it on fringe websites that are unconcerned with accuracy. Knope7 (talk) 18:37, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

...is an attempt to make a thinly veiled suggestion...

Go through the history of this page and find the bit I redacted: it wasn't "veiled", thinly or otherwise. --Calton | Talk 15:12, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

@Calton: It's you who should go through the history of the page and find the "married" edit, specifically this edit. It has nothing to do with what you redacted. 75.182.115.183 (talk) 17:26, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

You are incompetent or dishonest, neither of which is my requirement to fix for you. --Calton | Talk 17:54, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

@Calton: My response to your personal attack is on your talk page. If you have additional personal comments make them on my talk page. This is not the venue for such comments. 75.182.115.183 (talk) 18:05, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

Spare me the unctuous ass-covering. Your comment had fuck-all to do with anything I wrote, at all -- the word "redaction" should be a clue -- so either you were unable to do something as simple as read the edit history properly or you were attempting to obscure the issue. If you think this gives you some sort of moral high ground, you're sadly mistaken. No, did you have a comment on what I ACTUALLY wrote, or did you want to blow more smoke? --Calton | Talk 18:09, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

Chinese name

At least put a note stating why a Chinese name has to do with this person. -- Tofeiku^Chat 14:34, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

This does not belong in the lead.- MrX 🖋 15:06, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

I removed it. Unless there's some evidence that her name in Chinese is in some way significant, it's just random trivia. --Calton | Talk 15:07, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Y'all, see Talk:Kirsten Gillibrand also. Drmies (talk) 22:36, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

The portion of sources using this name is too small for it to be due in the lead. -sche (talk) 22:58, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Israel?

The article needs to include a discussion of her positions on Israel and the issues relating to the Israel - Palestinian conflict. ---Dagme (talk) 02:22, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

I agree, I think it is important to note that she is supportive of a two-state solution, supported the Iran nuclear deal, and co-sponsored a Senate resolution in early 2017 that essentially rebuked the Obama administration for allowing through a U.S. Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s settlement policies. Not sure where this would fit in the article at the moment. It could be an important issue during her presidential campaign. Bluewolverine123 (talk) 14:43, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Affluent suburb

I modified the statement that Harris graduated from Westmount High School in "the Westmount suburb" to add the adjective "affluent." Scjessey reverted my edited with the comment, "why is that biographically relevant?"[7] The type of neighbourhood one grows up in is of course relevant to their biography, just as is their parentage and education. If Harris had lived in Beverly Hills or the Hamptons, it might not be necessary to describe them. But why mention Westmount at all if it has no meaning to readers? TFD (talk) 17:58, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

The subject of the article is Harris, not the suburb of Westmount. If people want to know about the suburb, they can read about it at its own article. It was probably not your intention, but it could be seen as a roundabout way of saying Harris was privileged in some way, which we don't have a source for. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:33, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

Her mother was a prominent scientist who taught at university while her father was a university professor. Those are generally considered middle class occupations. And why mention Westmount at all? TFD (talk) 22:07, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

I really don't see how that is relevant. Perhaps we need a third opinion? -- Scjessey (talk) 13:38, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

Westmount is linked in the Harris article, as are several other locations where she spent time. I agree that this article is about Harris, not those locations. We don't need such additional descriptors here, whether for Westmount or other locations such as Howard University or the University of California. Interested readers can find them by clicking the links. 75.182.115.183 (talk) 18:27, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

Soeaking of Howard University, the source used says, "As an undergraduate, Harris attended Howard University, an historically black institution in the nation's capital." (Donna Owens, NBC, "Meet Kamala Harris, the Second Black Woman Elected to the U.S. Senate".) Reliable sources do typically provide brief descriptions of schools and neighborhoods that may be unfamiliar to readers. TFD (talk) 08:18, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

True, but since Wikipedia has a separate article on both the school and the neighborhood we don't need to do that, and it may give the wrong impression of the subject if we do. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:59, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

"Tenure as California Attorney General" redux

Now that Harris has declared for president, I feel it is the proper time to move this discussion.

The section on "Tenure as California Attorney General" is far too much detail for this article. I count about 2000 words (over 12KB of readable prose) in that section. If all of the material is notable, it should be spun-off to a different article. If the material is unimportant, it should simply be removed from this article. I expect some of these news stories are promoted by her political supporters, and others by her political opponents. power~enwiki (π, ν) 02:59, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

I agree, the section should be trimmed or spun-off. One suggestion for trimming is to remove the Supreme Court speculation and the U.S. Attorney General speculation. Neither appointment ever materialized. Maybe one sentence, at most, could cover that she was considered for appointments in the Obama administration but nothing came of it. Knope7 (talk) 03:27, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

I agree, it needs to be trimmed significantly.- MrX 🖋 13:27, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Knope7 that the Supreme Court and US AG speculation could be reduced to a single sentence, since neither materialized. -sche (talk) 18:48, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

I've boldly trimmed it. The sentence about how Obama nominated Lynch to replace Holder was particularly irrelevant to an article about Harris. -sche (talk) 18:58, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

I'm so glad to see so many editors weigh in. I'll add that I'm getting rid of the paragraph on the Daniel Larsen case (he convicted under the 3 strikes law, a judge later declared him innocent, but he remained in prison pending state's appeal). The final straw for me was that the paragraph said Harris ordered his release and the source cited didn't mention Harris at all. I'll leave a link Los Angeles Times editorial here as it does mention Harris.[8] At most, this case could be a sentence, but I don't think it warrants that. Knope7 (talk) 02:49, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Lead section

Just the opposite of the body, I feel the lead section deserves a sentence on Harris's tenure as California AG, perhaps briefly mentioning her most noteworthy accomplishments. Just a drive-by observation. R2 (bleep) 19:07, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 04:24, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

The disambiguation page links Daniel Larsen to this page but Larsen is not mentioned. I don't see a discussion about removing a reference to Larsen. EdEveridge (talk) 20:28, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

I explained why I removed the Daniel Larsen on this page. It's just a couple of paragraphs up. The case maybe significant and may merit mention somewhere on Wikipedia, but as written it was a stretch to include it in an article about Harris' life. Knope7 (talk) 00:04, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Knope7, it's been readded. I reverted the addition, and another account (that had been inactive for almost three years) reverted me. So that I don't violate 1RR, I can't take it back out. I do agree that it's just one case and doesn't merit inclusion here. – Muboshgu (talk) 03:12, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Thank's for pointing out it's been added again. In an abundance of caution, I am not removing it now at the moment. I think we need to open some sort of dispute resolution on this, although I'm not quite sure what method is most appropriate. Knope7 (talk) 03:32, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Knope7, WP:RFC? (Thanks to Drmies for removing it.) – Muboshgu (talk) 03:43, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

I find it bothersome when editors who haven't been here in years come by and without so much as a by your leave create problems in a 1R article. Very bothersome. And the previous revert was also by someone who hadn't been active in the area at all and couldn't be arsed to discuss on the talk page. Drmies (talk) 03:46, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Removal of Danial Larsen...

I recently heard about the controversy surrounding Daniel Larsen and Kamala Harris, as California attorney general, fighting in the appeals courts to keep him incarcerated.

I Googled to get more information about this, and one of the first results which came up was the Daniel Larsen disambiguation page, which, in turn, linked to a section of this article: Kamala Harris#Daniel Larsen case.

When I clicked that link though, I found that not only was that section no longer present, but the Daniel Larsen case wasn't even mentioned in the article at all!

Now I won't speculate as to what the intentions may have been of whatever person, or people, decided to remove this information, but, if nothing else, this certainly creates at least the impression of a coverup - i.e. that one or more editors here are biased and are therefore trying to sanitize Kamala's article to remove an embarrassing controversy.

...Again, I'm not saying this is necessarily the case, but that's certainly the impression one gets!

Furthermore, I would argue that this content should be included because it's already a controversy for her candidacy in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, and it's only likely to become even more of an issue as the primary campaign revs up.

Kamala has branded herself as a "progressive," and as an African American woman who's an ally of the Black Lives Matter movement and the cause of criminal justice reform, so the fact that she battled in the appeals courts to keep an innocent man locked up is certainly significant.

Now, to be clear, Wikipedia should absolutely cover this issue in as neutral and NPOV of a way as possible, and include any relevant statements from both Harris and her campaign and from her critics...In fact that's why I came looking here in the first place - to try to find a more objective and non-biased analysis of this case. I heard about it from an activist opposed to Kamala, and wanted to see both sides of the story and if any relevant info had been omitted from the activist's account.

I also understand the issue of "undue weight," and not wanting to see a giant section here at this article which get into all of the nuances of the case. So I'd be totally fine with it being spun off as a separate article about the case and the controversy surrounding it. But it should at least be mentioned on this page, with a link to that article then. -2003:CA:873C:91F6:A8F9:F2A5:3AFB:2CDF (talk) 17:45, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

• Don't people get tired of shouting "cover up! censorship!" every time they can't find something in the place in which they wished they'd find it? Personally, I think Wikipedia is censoring my beautiful collection of Pinewood Derby cars; it doesn't have a redirect. (To the IP: YES, I don't take this seriously, with the little narrative attached to it. You could have searched for "Larsen" on this very page, or in the archive.) Drmies (talk) 17:50, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

@Drmies - Your sarcasm aside, there's no good reason for it not to be mentioned on this page. As I mentioned, the disambig page links to a section of this article which is no longer there. I don't think the same can be said for your "derby cars." Again, this is a notable controversy for her candidacy, and you haven't articulated a good reason for its exclusion from the article. Like my original comment noted, I'm not wanting to speculate about any editor's motives, but this conspicuous absence certainly creates the impression of bias. -2003:CA:873C:91F6:A8F9:F2A5:3AFB:2CDF (talk) 17:59, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

I'll put the sarcasm aside if you put the act aside. Drmies (talk) 21:11, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

2003:CA:873C:91F6:A8F9:F2A5:3AFB:2CDF, a good reason not to mention it is WP:UNDUE. Articles I've read on Daniel Larsen's case (like this one or this one) mention Harris in passing rather than in any depth (notwithstanding the NYT opinion piece, which is an opinion piece). This was one case among the many that she served on and it doesn't merit an entire section on her bio page. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:01, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

@Muboshgu - If you read my original comment again, you'll see that I already addressed the "undue" issue. Like I said then, it's totally fine if somebody wants to spin off more nuanced information about that case to a separate article, but it should certainly be mentioned here. Also, I just did a search now, and found a good number of recent articles mentioning this controversy for Kamala as a presidential candidate, and they come from a variety of sources - conservative, progressive, and libertarian: https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/kamala-harris-bad-on-criminal-justice/ https://theintercept.com/2019/01/31/kamala-harris-and-the-myth-of-a-progressive-cop/ http://www.sonomastatestar.com/opinion/2019/1/29/kamala-harris-may-not-be-as-progressive-as-she-claims https://reason.com/blog/2018/01/12/kamala-harris-is-not-smart-on-crime http://www.sonomastatestar.com/opinion/2019/1/29/kamala-harris-may-not-be-as-progressive-as-she-claims https://www.foxnews.com/politics/criminal-justice-record-for-sen-kamala-harris-comes-under-scrutiny https://californiaglobe.com/local/san-francisco/kamala-is-in/ -2003:CA:873C:91F6:A8F9:F2A5:3AFB:2CDF (talk) 18:11, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

2003:CA:873C:91F6:A8F9:F2A5:3AFB:2CDF, a separate article would also be undue. It's not such a notable case that it meets criteria for its own article. Those "variety of sources" you presented all seem to be pushing their POVs, which we do our best to avoid. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:18, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

@Muboshgu - Again, it's a controversy for her campaign, so naturally people with various POVs will be giving their opinions about it. Wikipedia strives for NPOV, which means that it should report notable opinions and commentary about a candidate - from critics, supporters, the candidate and their campaign, etc. - but not assert a POV of its own. So again, that's my position. Include relevant info from older articles about the case itself, and also more recent notable commentary from major publications like NYT, The Intercept, Reason, and National Review, about this case as it relates directly to Kamala. It's clear to me though that you're determined to not see such info included, so I won't comment more at this time, but will wait for others to weigh in, maybe starting an RFC process in the coming days if someone else doesn't do that. -2003:CA:873C:91F6:A8F9:F2A5:3AFB:2CDF (talk) 18:30, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

2003:CA:873C:91F6:A8F9:F2A5:3AFB:2CDF, I don't see evidence that it's a "controversy", just that some on the left and some on the right are trying to make it into a controversy. We have WP:NODEADLINE here and can readd it if it does turn out to be a major campaign story down the road. You can start an RfC if you like. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:27, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

I'm in complete agreement with the argument that this would be a pretty clear violation of WP:UNDUE, and a spin off article would have issues with WP:GNG. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:23, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

If someone wants to propose more appropriate language for re-adding Larsen to this article, by all means, make a proposal here on the talk page. The previous language was a violation of WP:undue. It referred to Harris twice: one of those mentions was actually about her office (not clear she was actually involved in the office's decision) and the second said Harris ordered his release, which did not reflect the source material (the judge ordered release). What we had was a long paragraph explaining the case with no clear connection to Harris herself. I actually think the Larsen case might merit its own article, although I'm not sure. It would also have to make it clear who took what actions rather than assigning all actions by the state of California to Harris personally. Knope7 (talk) 18:29, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Campaign Finance

Kamala Harris has a complicated history with campaign finance, and it is one sided to only have "she rejects most corporate donations" but leave out Trump and Mnuchin donating to her campaign and that she met with prominent Democratic donors in the summer of 2017. I would like this included in an impartial way so readers do not think "She is a corrupt corporate pawn" or "she hates corporate America". Capriaf January 30, 2019 15:39 UTC

Corporate PAC money is not the only means that corporations use to donate to politicians. Kamala has only disavowed corporate PAC money, not all corporate money. She still has corporate donations. WarnerMedia is one of Kamala's top donors, so the notion she rejects most or all corporate donations is wrong. I would like it to be more than a vague one sentence remark, however, each time I edit it, it gets taken down. Capriaf February 18, 2019 21:07 UTC

The text that you are edit-warring into the article (despite notifications of the 1RR rule and DS)[9] is a sloppy piece of WP:SYNTH that attempts to show that Harris is lying about her pledge not to accept most corporate donations in her 2020 campaign or that there is something wrong about her past in terms of campaign finance: (1) "Prior to running for president, Harris had a complicated history with donations" is your WP:OR and it suggests wrong-doing. (2) The text misleadingly suggests that she's lying about corporate donations by (a) conflating what she did in 2017 with her declaration in 2018/2019 not to accept most corporate donations and (b) suggesting that meeting with Democratic Party donors is a violation or complication of her pledge. (3) An op-ed in the Washington Examiner is not a WP:RS. (4) That two of the Trumps donated to the 2014 Harris campaign is WP:UNDUE. Furthermore, there's nothing on Ivanaka donating. That's unsourced. (5) That HuffPo piece is a contributor op-ed (not a RS). (6) The sentence "Her biggest donor in 2018 was WarnerMedia" suggests that the company itself donated to Harris, which is not what the source shows. The source clearly states, "The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organizations' PACs, their individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families." Furthermore, editors should not be digging through primary sources such as OpenSecrets to add random donations of unclear relevance. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 01:20, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Snooganssnoogans the article specifically said she had a complicated history. I also wrote that it was prior to her run for President. It’s not misleading and it is objectively true. Dismissing her past comes off as favoritism for a candidate. I have see. Such comments on Hillary Clinton’s and Cory Booker’s Wikipedia article. It is disingenuous to completely dismiss her record. I am making a good faith effort and am getting frustrated that it’s getting deleted rather than revised to better comply. Stop. Being a jerk about it. It should include her record not a mere pledge she said. Primary sources are the best because it is more objective which is what Wikipedia wants to be. WarnerMedia owns CNN, which gave her a town hall but has not given other candidates such. It is genuine to put there. I also specifically included an edit that she rejects Super PACs. I am presenting the facts neutrally. If you have a problem, I encourage you to make edits to better comply rather than a mere deletion which omits her record. Capriaf

"Primary sources are the best because it is more objective which is what Wikipedia wants to be. WarnerMedia owns CNN, which gave her a town hall but has not given other candidates such. It is genuine to put there." This exemplifies the problem: you stitching together primary sources, op-eds and unrelated factoids to suggest various acts of wrong-doing, including what you now suggest is a conspiracy theory of CNN and Harris working in cahoots somehow. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 02:00, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Snooganssnoogans, I did not suggest acts of wrong doing. Stating her her record is objective and the people should know her whole record. Steve Mnuchin donating to her campaign is on his page. I did not suggest CNN and Harris are colliding together. At most it would suggest CNN has an interest in Harris. That’s it. Also, I cited her donors, which proves she has a MIXED record. It is mixed, not negative or positive. I mentioned her opposition and rejection of Super PACs which may be considered more negative than simple corporate PAC money. Her record is MIXED and you are only having a part of it, which can be seen as making it more biased, which Wikipedia opposes. So please cut the accusations. I’m trying to make it fair in good faith. If you have issues, it is preferable to make a revision rather than a deletion. Her record is mixed and we need to address that. It’s not bias, it’s called objectivity. Capriaf

<Rolls eyes>. Yeah, right. Even if we bought what you're selling, the whole "no original research" policy means you shouldn't be doing. --Calton | Talk 17:03, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Calton if you think what I’m doing is wrong, feel free to revise to better comply. I welcome that but deletion is frustrating. We should strive to better inform everyone. Leaving out her mixed record recklessly is not acceptable. When every other politicians have explanations of their mixed record, it stays up. For instance, Hillary Clinton, once opposed policies like DACA but campaigned to keep it. It is on her page. So why not have Kamala’s mixed record on campaign finance? Capriaf

I've removed the second paragraph entirely, as (despite careful wording) it implies some shadowy connection between certain donations and investigations. This is deeply troubling to me. This material should not be restored in any form unless/until a consensus is formed here for inclusion. Be mindful of the discretionary sanctions in operation on this article before attempting to restore it. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:37, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

I appreciate such critique. You kept the Hampton meeting which arguably more important. As that one sentence remained, I am happy to let further discussion occur. I do believe her past record on campaign finance should be I. There and further explained, but I’ll wait for the consensus to see how such proceedings shall occur. Capriaf

Descended from slave owners

Her father admitted her family was slave owners, "My roots go back, within my lifetime, to my paternal grandmother Miss Chrishy (née Christiana Brown, descendant of Hamilton Brown who is on record as plantation and slave owner and founder of Brown’s Town)". That seems like something that should be mentioned in the article, because she's made it an issue, as she believes in reparations for slavery, and claims to be descended from Africans. Since I don't know how to comply with all the rules of writing an entry, I wanted to put it here, for other editors to put it in the right tone/format, and so I could learn from that. https://www.jamaicaglobalonline.com/kamala-harris-jamaican-heritage/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.231.146.147 (talk) 02:25, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

It is not reliably sourced. Mr. Harris is not a genealogist. It also fails weight, since it has received no coverage in secondary sources. Note too that probably most African Americans are descended from slave owners. If the story gains traction, then I would reconsider. TFD (talk) 03:13, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Nope, do not include this. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 10:03, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 March 2019

"Since becoming a Senator, Harris has supported Medicare-for-all, legalization of recreational marijuana, sanctuary cities, passing a DREAM Act, and lowering taxes for the working and middle classes while raising taxes on corporations and the wealthiest top 1% of Americans."

By opening the paragraph with "Since becoming a Senator", readers are provided with a deceptive half-truth. No context is provided regarding her recent past actions/stances as a District Attorney. For example, she was against recreational marijuana (even laughed at a journalist when asked about her support in the past), and as District Attorney for San Francisco she supported hostile immigration policies which empowered ICE. Though these positions may be apart of her platform now as a Senator/Presidential candidate, her history suggests that her adoption of these positions are motivated by political convenience.

The paragraph should either be removed or rephrased to not be a half-truth, and at the very least should have citations/sources. These pages shouldn't act as marketing extensions for one's campaign/supporters, they should act as objective/neutral sources of information. Leave news outlets to provide their biases, not encyclopedias. Throwaway743 (talk) 01:11, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. DannyS712 (talk) 01:38, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Throwaway743, your comment about what "her history suggests" appears to be original research. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:39, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 March 2019

In the 2020 Election section, ADD that Kamala Harris told Jimmy Kimmel in March 2019: "I fully intend to win." Source: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/kamala-harris-talks-presidential-race-i-fully-intend-win-1195785 Truthfixer (talk) 02:07, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

 Not done: That is not at all worth including. What is she going to say? That she intends to lose? – Muboshgu (talk) 02:51, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 April 2019

Remove the reference to True Pundit. They are A) actually fake news; and B) the reference does not accurately state what was written in the article. 38.105.241.66 (talk) 14:30, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Removed. I don't see the slightest evidence that "True Pundit" is a reliable source. I can't even find an "About" page for them. --Calton | Talk 14:40, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Sanctuary City/Illegal Immigration - Edwin Ramos

Senator Harris has a controversy around her shielding of Edwin Ramos who was a known illegal alien and MS13 gang member who had been previously released after multiple arrests including weapons charges under Harris lead resulting in the murder of 3 people. It was a big controversy at the beginning of her career, relevant, and such controversies should be included in all political figures pages equitably. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 11a5f0041b8542aaac71fb3f45cc60 (talk • contribs) 05:21, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Is this a reference to her refusal to go for the death penalty because she opposes capital punishment and to ask for life without parole instead? That's not shielding. Doug Weller talk 12:13, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Its a reference to a family being murdered as a direct result of her support and enforcement of sanctuary city policies by shielding illegal aliens from DHS while District Attorney of San Francisco. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 11a5f0041b8542aaac71fb3f45cc60 (talk • contribs) 22:39, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Sanctuary city policies are designed to "improve immigration controls", not to prevent crime. The judge who threw out the Bologna's suit said so in 2010. Harris got him convicted and he's serving life in prison. There's no controversy here. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:11, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

C'mon Muboshgu, please stop feeding trolls. Look at their contributions.- MrX 🖋 23:15, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

MrX, I always strive to WP:AGF even in the likely case of a right-wing troll. I think it's best to try to shut it down with the facts once, but then yes, don't continue feeding after that. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:20, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

I know you do. I've seen way too much of this far right trolling in the past couple of weeks years.- MrX 🖋 23:33, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

It certainly seems to have increased since the Barr Letter. We'll see what the release of the Mueller Report changes, if it ever comes out. Facts are our best ally. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:47, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Who is trolling? It is a factual event that occurred which was a large part of her early career in San Francisco. Wikipedia is suppose to not be bias how public figures are presented. This article is clearly bias and being locked based on her and 'power users' politics.11a5f0041b8542aaac71fb3f45cc60 (talk) 01:53, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

FWIW, I don't think you're trolling. I think you spend so much time in the right wing bubble you lose sight of which way is up. Please present some mainstream sources that suggest this case is a major event in her career. It seems like one of many prosecutions to me. – Muboshgu (talk) 02:22, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

You need to provide a source that there is a controversy. I have not been able to find any, even in conspiracy theory webaites. Harris was the district attorney of San Francisco in 2004 when Ramos was sentenced to juvenile detention for a number of offenses. Following his release he committed homicide. The family of the murder victims unsuccessfully sued San Francisco on the basis that their policies prevented police from reporting Ramos to immigration authorities which would have led to his deportation and prevented him from committing murder in the U.S. There is no evidence that Harris was aware of the case in 2004 and even in non-sanctuary cities, it is the role of police and prisons to report immigration violations, not prosecutors. Of course in politics facts don't matter and her opponents may decide to use this against her at which time we can report the controversy. TFD (talk) 15:29, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Disambiguation with Kamala (Jim Harris)

Regarding this edit: https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Kamala_Harris&type=revision&diff=873518500&oldid=873344882

Either something is notable on Wikipedia or it isn't - Wikipedia has no concept of "notable enough." Jim "Kamala" Harris was a big enough star in his day for many people over about 30 to be put in mind of him whenever Ms HArris's name crops up.

I prefer to assume good faith but cannot help but suspect that one of Ms Harris' "people" removed the disambig as it was seen as bad for her image. As a lifelong wrestling fan, I find this irritating to say the least. Given that the current Administrator of the Small Business Administration infamously once participated in a professional wrestling angle where she watched in "drugged stupor" as her husband (Mr Jim Harris's real life former employer) frolicked with a far younger woman. I sincerely doubt much damage can come to Kamala Harris from the mental association with Kamala.62.190.148.115 (talk) 18:09, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Reversion of edit with repeated, totally unfounded claims of “tabloid” sourcing

Edit was made to provide context to the board appointments made in the early 1990s. Sourcing included respected local newspaper The San Francisco Chronicle reporting from 2003, a direct quote from Senator Harris and modern citing from other news sources discussing the context. 2 editors have unilaterally reversed the edit with no discussion, no recommendations for changes to wording and no talk other then a inflammatory accusation of “tabloid nonsense” despite none of the sources being tabloid news and the edit specifically tailored to only include facts from the time. DoesPolitics (talk) 21:15, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

DoesPolitics: WP:HTRIV and WP:NOTEVERYTHING. --Zefr (talk) 21:58, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 April 2019

Add to the Campaign Contributions section the sentences as such or similar:

She has received the most registered lobbyist donations of any Democratic presidential campaign that has said it would not take the cash. Companies who's lobbyists contributed include Google, Pfizer, Verizon, AT&T, Visa, Airbnb, IBM, Cigna, and HCA health care.

My suggestion is to place it like here:

Harris' 2020 campaign has disavowed most corporate donations, and has committed to rejecting money from corporate political action committees for her presidential campaign. Harris, along with candidates Cory Booker, Julian Castro, Tulsi Gabbard, Kirsten Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Marianne Williamson, has explicitly discouraged single-candidate super PACs from operating on her behalf, though she cannot prevent them from doing so. She has received the most registered lobbyist donations of any Democratic presidential campaign that has said it would not take the cash. Companies who's lobbyists contributed include Google, Pfizer, Verizon, AT&T, Visa, Airbnb, IBM, Cigna, and HCA health care. Hollywood celebrities, including J. J. Abrams, hosted a big fundraiser for Senator Harris. For Harris' 2020 campaign, she is relying on both small and large individual donors. Gravitative (talk) 07:24, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

References

 Partly done: I used the exact quotation from The Intercept and attributed it to them, as well as placing it in context of the FEC disclosure. I did not see a reason to comment on the specifics of the lobbying groups, which I would see as undue weight. Izno (talk) 00:59, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Typo: "presss" should be "press"

Book The Truths We Hold: An American Journey Penguin Presss, 2019 [204] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Macthelist (talk • contribs) 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Resolved

 – by MrX, thanks. –84.46.52.177 (talk) 12:00, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Ethnicity, race and religion

Based on what I have seen, she was clearly raised as a Black in Berkeley by her mother, however she acknowldges the Indian roots of her mother. Clearly multi-racial: African and European from her Jamaican father, and Indian ("Aryan" and "Dravidian") Tamil Brahmin Iyer from her mother, both scholars of some distinction. Raised mainly a Baptist, she did visit Hindu temples as a child, and is married to a Jewish person.Malaiya (talk) 02:33, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

What's your point in basically repeating what's in the article? Are you asking that the article should be changed? If so, what are your reliable sources? 75.182.115.183 (talk) 15:26, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

"CNN's April Ryan has suggested that due to the history of slavery in Jamaica, Harris may indeed be of partially African descent." Boy, April Ryan must really be a scholar of history! It would be extraordinary--particularly given the pictures of his grandmothers shown in the article referenced in footnote 11--if Harris's father is not primarily of African descent, but likely with some white "admixture" (i.e., rape). Can we delete Ms. Ryan's bold [that's sarcasm] speculation and allow the reader to work out the obvious?Curmudgeonly Pedant (talk) 16:40, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

At the moment the article explains Indian and Jamaican roots in #Early life and education, but offers Jamaican or Indian ancestry in the lede. Maybe it's not only me, and is clearer than or. While at it, WaPo is a non-free url-access=subscription source, I cannot check if the or was their idea. –84.46.52.177 (talk) 12:20, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

I think the lede is phrased that way because 1) California has never before had a Senator of Indian ancestry, and 2) California has never before had a Senator of Jamaican ancestry. Harris is therefore the first of each group[, one "or" the other. The first of "Jamaican and Indian" ancestry would mean the first of that particular combination, meaning there might have been a Jamaican before, there might have been an Indian before, but never someone of both. "Or" gives a greater sense of the historical nature of the achievement. Does that make sense? JTRH (talk) 12:47, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

ACK, I missed that point and read or as TBD. Something like "the first of Jamaican, and the first of Indian ancestry" would have worked for me. –84.46.52.177 (talk) 13:59, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 June 2019

{{subst:trim|1=

Hi, I'm disturbed by a right-wing propaganda effort to frame Kamala as the descendant of a slave owner without context explaining how that happened. The background on her ancestry is extremely important to detail because Kamala's ancestor was likely the slave of the slave owner, Hamilton Brown, not a slaveowner herself. Like many slaveowners, married or not (Hamilton was not), they held relationships with and raped their female slaves. To assume that Kamala's ancestor was involved in the slave trader's business ignores commonly known history. I did research and suggest the following additional content:

"According to Kamala Harris’ father (Donald J. Harris) the Democratic presidential hopeful’s great-grandmother (Christiana Brown) was a descendant of Hamilton Brown, a Jamaican slave plantation owner who founded the city of Brown’s Town, Jamaica. According to Donald J. Harris, Christiana was born in 1889, 46 years after Hamilton Brown died in 1843. Logically, Hamilton Brown is not Christiana's father. He is potentially Christiana's great grandfather, but it is unclear how she became his descendant given that Hamilton Brown has many black descendants in Brown's Town, St Ann, Jamaica. According to one elderly local in 2010; "A good amount of Brown live here, you know," he said. "People what name Brown pack up the place. It all coming from Hamilton Brown who the town name after. Yes man, dem teach it in school."" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kmbdigs (talk • contribs) 20:25, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

We can only report what reliable sources say.and so far I have not seen any that qualify her ancestry. If you have any other sources they would be helpful. TFD (talk) 04:58, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

References

Semi-protected edit request on 29 June 2019

As an elementary school student, she benefited from school integration. --61.192.2.217 (talk) 13:02, 29 June 2019 (UTC)According to Harris, hers was only the second year when children of Indian and Jamaican graduate students at University of California, Berkeley like herself were allowed to study along with white students.[16] After the divorce, when Harris was 12,[17]

The middle line really should be deleted / rewritten / moved to a different location. As the flow is like 61.192.2.217 (talk) 13:02, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

 Done —Granger (talk · contribs) 13:24, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Please correct

"hers was only the second year when children of Indian and Jamaican graduate students at University of California, Berkeley like herself were allowed to study along with white students." Prior to busing, Harris's elementary school had African-American students. It's incorrect to say they weren't "allowed" to study along with white students. It also makes no sense to say "children of Indian and Jamaican graduate students", as if that's a relevant class. The correct statement: "hers was the second year when African-American children made up a significant percentage of the elementary school's students."

(User talk:BrianC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.80.117.214 (talk) 16:35, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

New birtherism

I think we have to grimace and put a section here and in the campaign article about the "new birtherism." I just read a crap piece on some rightwing site, for example, claiming that she was an "anchor baby" and that because her parents were not citizens, she is not eligible to be POTUS. Total nonsense and bad law, but this was a conspiracist website. Like the original birtherism, this is picking and choosing for partisan and racist reasons. Any thoughts? --165.189.255.44 (talk) 21:11, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

We need to wait until reliable sources cover it, even if just to debunk it. We don't report what random crackpots say, even if gets retweeted a lot. EEng 21:20, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Early life section

I thought this was an interesting thing about her that I think we should add back:

In their last year of high school, Kagan recalled, Harris helped organize a large group of girls to go together to prom "in an attempt to prevent others from feeling left out."

"She wanted to make sure girls weren’t outcasts, and didn’t feel that pressure if they never got asked to go by a guy," Kagan said. The lorax (talk) 11:11, 1 July 2019 (UTC) And can we add back the bit about her protesting her Montreal building preventing children from playing in the courtyard? Her early life feels a little truncated otherwise.The lorax (talk) 11:23, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

References

• IMHO no and no. Girls went to the prom together so feelings didn't get hurt -- is that unusual? The source doesn't say. As for the no-playing protest, my edit summary explains clearly. EEng 02:49, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

@EEng: Is it not? Don't the vast majority of people just go to prom with their prom date and not care about the other people who didn't get invited? It stood out to me as a unique anecdote from her childhood that gave some light to what her personality was like as a young person. Regarding the story about her protest to allow kids to play in the courtyard, it was also mentioned in her memoir and there aren't many stories out there about what she was like as a child, except for that one. The lorax (talk) 14:35, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

• Don't the vast majority of people just go to prom with their prom date and not care about the other people who didn't get invited? – I don't know. Do you have a source answering this question in the context of what Harris did, and explaining why this shines light on her as a person?
• It stood out to me as a unique anecdote from her childhood that gave some light to what her personality was like as a young person – It needs to stand out to reliable, independent sources.
• it was also mentioned in her memoir and there aren't many stories out there about what she was like as a child, except for that one – Unfortunately, until there are such sources we're not going to be able to say much about what she was like as a child, because in the absence of such sources we're certainly not going to simply repeat nice things from her memoir.

I just want to say that I think the subject is an extraordinary person and I wish her success. But our desire to present a fuller background about her can't override our sourcing requirements. EEng 18:43, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Bear in mind too that this was in Montreal, so it may not have been the same as a prom in U.S. high schools. TFD (talk) 13:31, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

She's a cop

There doesn't seem to be any mention of it in the article. This seems to be a common criticism of her from progressives and I think it should be mentioned in the section about her run for president. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/1/23/18184192/kamala-harris-president-campaign-criminal-justice-record https://reason.com/2019/06/03/kamala-harris-is-a-cop-who-wants-to-be-president/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.149.188.51 (talk) 01:33, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

She is not literally a cop. TFD (talk) 02:50, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Complete baloney. "Cop" is slang for police officer. Harris has never been a police officer. A highly opinionated opinion piece in a highly partisan publication like Reason is not appropriate as a source for this blatant falsehood. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 02:56, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/19/kamala-harris-2020-election-top-cop-prosecutor https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/opinion/kamala-harris-criminal-justice.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/magazine/kamala-harris-a-top-cop-in-the-era-of-black-lives-matter.html So vox, the ny times and the gaurdian are not reliable sources. In this context cop doesn't mean a cop but a prosecutor who's tough on crime. This article has no mention of progresive criticism of in the election which i felt was needed — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.149.188.51 (talk) 12:40, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

So propose some progressive criticism to be added to the article. "She's a cop" is not going to be added to the article. Someguy1221 (talk) 07:45, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 July 2019

extra-marital affair with https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Willie_Brown_(politician): [...] Mayor Willie Brown took his Mistress Kamala Harris to his birthday party where his wife was present.

source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2019/01/27/willie-brown-kamala-harris-san-francisco-chronicle-letter/2695143002/ LivingOffgridInAZ (talk) 19:43, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

She dated Willie Brown, yes. But he and his wife were separated at the time. And your allegation that Brown "abused his position" to appoint someone as qualified as Harris is baseless. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:00, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

I removed a few things that were obvious lies, statements made in Brown's voice, perhaps, as if they were factual. Drmies (talk) 00:26, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request

Forgive me if I do something wrong, I'm a total newb to wikipedia edits.

The sentence "Harris was enrolled at a neighborhood school for native French speakers" should be removed, it's simply inacurate. The footnote (24)is a book I haven't read, so can't look up & explain where the mistake was made, but I know it's wrong. Westmount High is the local school for English speakers - not a school for French speakers.

I'm close to her age, lived 2 blocks away from Westmount High at the time, but because I speak French, had to take the subway 3 stops to Ecole Secondaire St-Luc, the neighbourhood school for French speakers.

A bunch of my friends went to Westmount High; they're all English. It's actually sort of difficult to get into, due to the language laws in Quebec; if you're even a bit bilingual, you get shoved into a French school, lest you become assimilated anglo.

But don't take my word for it; wikipedia's page on Westmount High clearly states it's part of the ENGLISH school board: https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Westmount_High_School

Looks like this has been taken care of, so I'm marking as answered. Highway 89 (talk) 03:38, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

"African-American"

IntelligentName has twice removed List of African-American United States Senators from the article, claiming BLP. Harris has been quoted as identifying as "black," but the African-American part is less clear. In any case, IntelligentName's notion that this is a BLP violation is a stretch. There has been a certain amount of debate concerning how her ethnicity fits in with what is normally regarded as African-American [10] [11], and her ethnicity is now becoming a partisan talking point [12]. I've restored the list for now. I leave it to other editors to parse the difference between "black" and "African-American." Acroterion (talk) 03:40, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

IntelligentName's notion that this is a BLP violation is a stretch

IntelligentName added this to Joe Biden, so I consider IntelligentName's assessment of what is or isn't a BLP violation to be suspect, to say the least. --Calton | Talk 03:56, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

And I've warned them for the second time that using BLP as a club isn't OK. Acroterion (talk) 03:59, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Kamala Harris is not African American

African American, per Oxford Dictionary:

a person from America who is a member of a race of people who have dark skin, originally from Africa

Kamala Harris is not from Africa. Her ancestors are not known to be from Africa. Her mother is Indian and her father is Jamaican. Therefore claiming "African American" heritage is factually incorrect. There are reliable sources which confirm these statements. Wikipedia should not label Kamala Harris as "African American". — Preceding unsigned comment added by IntelligentName (talk • contribs)

You might wish to carefully read our article on Jamaicans. Acroterion (talk) 04:10, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Also, editors don't research family trees or look at DNA results to determine what ethnicity people have but rely on the conclusions reported by reliable sources. TFD (talk) 04:45, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

I suspect this has a lot to do with Rush Limbaugh and Donald Trump, Jr. [13]. Acroterion (talk) 12:23, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Campaign finance section

@Ecelon: You have violated the edit restrictions on this article, specifically "If an edit you make is challenged by reversion you must discuss the issue on the article talk page and wait 24 hours (from the time of the original edit) before reinstating your edit." I'm assuming you somehow failed to notice the big warning when you were editing this article, so I haven't reported you, but you should self-revert immediately. —Granger (talk · contribs) 11:10, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Furthermore, the added content is not supported by the cited source. JTRH (talk) 11:12, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

You are incorrect, the added content is supported by that source. Ecelon (talk) 21:19, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

In response to the accusation I violated the rules for this article page I only reverted once so I did not violate the 1RR policy. As far as discussing on the talk page I have no problem with that (was busy yesterday so that's why I didn't reply until now). Fox News is not an unreliable source, according to https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources it is a reliable source, and nothing is said about not being able to use Fox News for a democrat BLP or CNN for a republican BLP. Ecelon (talk) 21:23, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for joining the discussion. The CNN analogy is a strange one—CNN is highly regarded as news sources go when it comes to accuracy, whereas Fox News is notorious for "spin" and outright falsehoods. In any case, reliability depends on context, and Fox News is more reliable for straightforward news reporting than for controversial partisan claims. Here's a recent discussion where related issues came up. The article you cited is far from straightforward news reporting, and is more of an attack on various Democratic presidential candidates. (The fact that they're Democrats is relevant because Fox News is well known as a conservative source; if we were talking about a Republican this might be a less severe issue.)

You also haven't addressed the other problem I raised, which is that the definition of "large donors" is unclear.

You're correct that you haven't violated 1RR, but you've violated the other portion of the edit restriction, which I quoted above. Please do not restore the disputed content without first gaining consensus. —Granger (talk · contribs) 00:28, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Granger I am genuinely confused. If I'm reading the rules correctly they state "If an edit you make is reverted you must discuss on the talk page and wait 24 hours before reinstating your edit". I'm not seeing any language that says "Please do not restore the disputed content without first gaining consensus". If I am wrong on this please point out where the rules say what you claim they say. As far as calling the article an "attack" I didn't read it that way at all. I read it more as a straight-forward article showing how many democrats are taking money from wealthy donors and large corporations/tech industry, etc. Get back to me, thanks Ecelon (talk) 04:26, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Leaving aside the bureaucratic stuff about 1RR, etc., my guess is that "large donors" refers to donors contributing above $200 — typically it's contrasted with small-dollar donors, defined as those giving less than $200. Here's a similar article from Reuters that defines it as such: [14]. By their numbers, 37% of Harris's $12 million haul was from small-dollar donors, which would mean 63% was from large ones, which is roughly what we'd expect from the Fox numbers (which are from 2015 on, not just her presidential campaign like the Reuters numbers, to be clear). I don't really see the issue with the Fox source, but perhaps we could cite the Reuters article as well or instead if others agree it's a problem. — cmonghost 👻 (talk) 14:36, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Including the information from the Reuters article is fine with me. —Granger (talk · contribs) 15:00, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) "Please do not restore the disputed content without first gaining consensus" is nothing to do with 1RR, but based on one of the guiding principles of how Wikipedia operates; see WP:Consensus.

As for the source, just look at the headline: "2020 Democratic candidates publicly blast the rich while privately taking their donations". The point of the piece is to make the candidates look like hypocrites who are funded by the ultra-wealthy. It is written in a manner that plays up the wealth of the donors and the candidates' schmoozing, and, importantly, doesn't indicate how it is defining "large donors".

I doubt either of us is going to convince the other on this. We currently have two editors who oppose adding the information and one (you) who supports it. Maybe someone else will weigh in too. —Granger (talk · contribs) 14:59, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Granger I'm counting one editor who opposes (you) and two (me and cmonghost) who support including. If you still think the FoxNews source isn't usable, do you think the Reuters article showing 63% from large donors is OK to use? I can't see any reason for keeping the data out since it is from a RS (reuters) and the info is just basic math and numbers. Ecelon (talk) 01:21, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

That comment was written before Cmonghost posted and took into account your, my, and User:JTRH's comments. As I said above, I'm fine with including information sourced from the Reuters article, which says "Senator Kamala Harris had the second-largest Democratic fundraising haul, with 37 percent of her $12 million coming from small-dollar donors." —Granger (talk · contribs) 01:31, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Added. —Granger (talk · contribs) 01:37, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Granger you left out the numbers from large donors but only added small donors, so I added that data from the Reuters article for balance. Ecelon (talk) 02:07, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

The Reuters article does not mention the number 63%, so I don't think that it makes sense for us to add it. Better to stick to the source. —Granger (talk · contribs) 02:20, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Granger the Reuters article actually does reference the 63% number (100 - 37 = 63) but I think your most recent edit is fine (as long as the 63% is included in the text for balance) so there is no reason to discuss this issue further unless you want to remove the reliably sourced 63% number and only selectively include the small donor number. Ecelon (talk) 02:34, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

The source does not present it as 63% but rather as 37%. We should follow suit, and the current sentence is unnecessarily wordy. But since this is a fairly minor problem I won't press the issue if no one else objects. —Granger (talk · contribs) 14:50, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Miscommunication about smoking pot to Snoop Dogg records

The editor Capriaf has repeatedly added content about some faux controversy where it's implied that Harris lied about smoking pot while listening to Snoop Dogg records (she did not claim that). This content obviously does not belong in the article. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 11:28, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Agreed, this seems WP:UNDUE. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 11:54, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

I agree. Leave it out.- MrX 🖋 12:17, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

It's not a fake controversy. It was non-stop in the news. I cited different sources and specifically added where both the interviewer and the campaign said it was miscommunication. Currently people make memes about that incident and by putting this in there, it is very much needed to clarify the situation. It in no way implies she is a liar. It says she was answering two different questions. People inferred it as if she was listening to Snoop and I purposely clarified that. When this stuff happened with Hillary Clinton and others, it was left up. Why not Kamala? --Capriaf

You've just violated 1RR. You should self-revert immediately. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 13:40, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't see it as that significant to the overall topic despite receiving mainstream media coverage for a week. Her overall presidential campaign is at present a relatively minor part of the article. And you should self-revert before someone reports you for 1RR. TFD (talk) 13:54, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

It's not a fake controversy. It was non-stop in the news. Non-sequitur there. Some "news" outlets pump fake controversy as a matter of course; it sells ads. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 19:39, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Snooganssnoogans, TFD, I only did one revert, not a violation. --jpgordon, yes news do sell stuff for ads, but the fact that it was covered on MSNBC, FOX, CNN and others, not just tabloids, it should be included. If wording is a problem, lets work that out. But it is noteworthy and should be in. My non-sequitur is actually a reference to Snooganssnoogans saying its fake. I am specifically trying to clarify what happened because people are under the impression she smoked and listened to Tupac, when reality is she was answering two questions.-Capriaf

But it's one of those things that gets less and less important every day. "Some people thought she told a trivial lie, but she actually didn't." --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 00:50, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

jpgordon, It's something that is still lingering, the memes are still being made, and the general public's consensus is she lied when I'm trying to show she did not. -Capriaf

Show us a source for "the general public's consensus is she lied". --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 14:46, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

I am basing it off interactions with people and what I see all over Facebook and Twitter, and also based on the coverage the news gave on the situation. Which is why I feel it is important to have something in here saying she was answering two different questions. Snoogs is suggesting I'm saying she lied when I have repeatedly said she did not and that I want to make it clear to the public as a whole that she was not lying. -Capriaf

What you find on facebook and twitter represents confirmation bias, You and your friends hold a certain view of the world, so you exchange things that you agree are important and social media tailors what it shows you based on that. TFD (talk) 16:10, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

TFD, it wasn't based on my friends posts, it was based on NYTimes, CBS, etc., where the top comments were about Kamala smoking pot to Tupac/Snoop Dogg. Those people I am no way affiliated with. Also, I included news coverage in my previous comment, which you purposely ignored. So it isn't the confirmation bias from my friends, rather it is specifically the people I do not know who have top comments on posts from well known news outlets. That's why we should have something here that specifically says she was answering two different questions and people are less likely to think she is lying when she was not. -Capriaf

I realize that. The story was in mainstream news for a week. But it probably registered more for you because of your interest in articles that make Democrats look bad. Sometimes slips like this have major consequences and sometimes they don't. The Dean Scream for example was seen as a defining moment of the Dean campaign, while similar or worse things are quickly forgotten. The Breakfast Television interview could become an issue in the campaign, in which case it might be right to put it back in.

I have a question for MrX and Snooganssnoogans though. In the Talk:Tulsi Gabbard you are arguing that a criticism that was published in a source that Wikipedia editors have no consensus was reliable has weight for inclusion, but a story about Kamala Harris that appeared across major media does not. Why should we have different rules for the two candidates?

TFD (talk) 00:41, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

@TFD: Russia taking exceptional interest in an American presidential candidate, who has publicly expressed views that are arguable favorable to Russia, is magnitudes more encyclopedic than a botched story about Harris smoking pot while listening to records. It's not different rules (we don't have hard rules anyway); it's simply editorial discretion. By the way, I don't personally favor Harris over Gabbard. I wanted to address that, since that's what's implied by your question.- MrX 🖋 02:03, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

I agree with MrX. This is a fleeting triviality based on solely on media confusion, laziness and bias. The "incident" received about a week of coverage in February and is no longer discussed by reliable sources. Including this in her biography would give the misunderstanding undue weight. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 02:21, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

In other words, you have made a subjective judgment, ignoring the degree of coverage in mainstream sources. The problem is that Capriaf may think the Harris story is very important because the honesty of a future president is magnitudes more important than whether the Kremlin prefers them. TFD (talk) 02:43, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

What you call "subjective judgment", The Four Deuces, I call sound editorial judgment informed by ten years of study of our most important content policies. This incident has absolutely nothing to do with the honesty of a future president since anyone who takes a close look at the facts of the matter knows with certainty that there was no dishonesty here. Red herrings, much? Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 02:50, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

I was replying to MrX not you and in fact agreed that it would be undue weight to include this. TFD (talk) 04:04, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

I am not interested in stuff that puts democrats in bad name. I have explicitly said over and over again, I want to make it clear she was NOT lying but was answering two questions, not saying she was smoking pot to Snoop and Tupac. So can you stop accusing me of such? I have not engaged in the Tulsi Gabbard's page concerning Russia, because I think the section is well done as it complies with WP:NPOV because it outlines the accusation and provided details as to the source of the accusation. Based on what I saw on RealClearPolitics, Kamala's polls started to fade a little after the incident. I do not know if it was because of that, or if that was when other candidates, notably Pete Buttigieg started to rise, but I still feel as if this should be included briefly in the article. It should be included in the Cannabis section because she does have a long record with Cannabis matters, so it would not be undue weight, especially when cannabis gets expanded on. I also have a feeling this may get brought up in a Democratic Debate, but that is speculative. --Capriaf

So here's a prosecutor who claims to be smoking marijuana at the same time she is sending people to prison for long periods of time for doing the same thing. And when asked what music she listened to in school she mentions groups that had not yet recorded. Her supporters then say she was referring to when she was a prosecutor, not when she was a student. I can understand why you or any reasonable person may find that interesting but the criterion for inclusion is weight. And while you may think it may become an issue in the debates, it only acquires weight if it does. I am guessing however that it does not. The only thing that does have weight is that Harris said she has smoked marijuana in the past, which seems to be important for every candidate. TFD (talk) 06:26, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Hahaha! Was this article written by her campaign staffers? My god, this site has the objectivity of a undergrad poli sci paper. You idiots are truly embarrassing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:1C2:4C01:4CBB:80F0:4E18:19E9:3B2B (talk) 20:46, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Instead of being uncivil to others here, why not edit the article and improve the content that you believe is injecting a point of view that isn't neutral and within policy... :-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 20:49, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Green New Deal

The huge cost of implementing the Green New Deal proposed by Harris is important and relevant information that should be included in the article. BattleshipGray (talk) 00:13, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

This article should and does link to Green New Deal, which extensively discusses various points of view about the proposal. Cherry-picking one analysis from a group with a contrary political orientation is obviously not WP:Due weight. —Granger (talk · contribs) 04:06, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

It is WP:OR to insert the information the way you did. If an article about Harris mentioned the cost, or if she commented on it, then it would appropriate to add here. petrarchan47คุก 04:49, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Kamala Harris proposed and supports the Green New Deal. She is never going to acknowledge the huge cost of implementing it. We have to rely on other groups to assess the costs. And with a program this massive, which she intends to put into place if elected President, mentioning the cost is important and relevant. But if there are more groups who have assessed the costs, I am OK with including mention of those analyses as well. BattleshipGray (talk) 11:45, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

The GND article is the place for such detail. There a more nuanced and balanced presentation is in order. This addition was more like a one-sided hit piece that ignores balancing information. The AAF is an extremely conservative group with a strong agenda. You may find this article from FactCheck interesting, as it shows the AAF's own modifying comments which you did you include. -- BullRangifer (talk) 18:48, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Medicare for Illegal Immigrants

Of course Kamala Harris supports Medicare for illegal immigrants. She has made this clear on several occasions, including during Democratic candidate debates. There is no reason that this factual statement, supported by reliable sources, should be excluded from this article. -BattleshipGray (talk) 09:56, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, none of the three sources you cited support the statement. The CNBC source mentions "health insurance" (which could mean many things), not Medicare specifically, and is focused on "immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally", not "all people in the United States". The NYT source is a more complex discussion which nevertheless doesn't even seem to mention "illegal immigrants" at all. The CBS source does touch on this topic, but it quotes Harris's response and she conspicuously doesn't state support for extending Medicare specifically to people "in this country illegally".

If you find reliable sources that do support the material you want to add, please bring them here and we can discuss them. —Granger (talk · contribs) 10:57, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

French info

Not sure why this is a controversial mention, it's interesting to note that she can conversationally speak French.The lorax (talk)

 Additional information needed: We can only "note" that in the article if we have a reliable source that supports it. Do you? General Ization ^Talk 21:55, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes, it's mentioned in this New Yorker profile.The lorax (talk) 22:00, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Uh, what I see there is "She speaks some French." That likely describes a significant segment of the US population, including many who speak some French badly and also like cooking and puns, and is a long way from "she can conversationally speak French." Want to try again? General Ization ^Talk 22:03, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree. A very small segment of the US population speaks French, according to the 2010 census, it's only 2.07 million Americans or approximately 0.6% of all Americans. I think it's a unique trait about her, which isn't mentioned that often, in addition to her time living in Canada. What if we re-add it to her Personal Life section saying, "From her time living in Quebec during her childhood, she knows how to speak some French."The lorax (talk) 23:32, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

First, we have no information that her knowledge of French stems from her time living in Quebec during her childhood (where, pray tell, did you come up with that?), and the Census does not ask whether a respondent speaks some French; it asks what language(s) they regularly use at home. Nearly every high school student in America has the opportunity to learn (some) French, though few will ever be conversational speakers of the language. This observation about Harris verges on trivia, and does not belong in the article based on that single source. The source clearly did not mention it to show that Harris is exceptional in that respect; in fact, quite the opposite: it was mentioned, in a paragraph which also said she enjoys cooking and likes puns, to humanize the subject.General Ization ^Talk 03:17, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

What do you mean "we have no information"? Easy enough to find “While my sister Maya and I made great friends and even learned some French, we were happy to return home to California,” she said through a spokesperson..[15] --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 03:31, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

I was referring to the information at the source provided above by the OP. This source also doesn't indicate that's where she first learned, or learned most of, whatever French she knows (only that she "learned some French" there); nor that she can conversationally speak the language, which was the initial assertion above. Lastly, even Harris seems to discount the significance of her experiences in Quebec, so it would be a stretch to use this statement to suggest that her knowledge of French is a unique characteristic that should be mentioned in her biography here. General Ization ^Talk 03:39, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

"She speaks some French" is too vague a comment to use. TFD (talk) 19:10, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes it is, because there are not reliable sources for it.Ndołkah (talk) 10:45, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Disability

May we add a section based on her newly established plans for people with disabilities?Ndołkah (talk) 10:46, 30 August 2019 (UTC) I mean I came up with it but here is the link so whatever.[16] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ndołkah (talk • contribs) 10:46, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Suggestions

I know there has been a lot of activity on this article with a lot of editors working to make improvements. I have two suggestions. One is to reduce the number of direct quotes in the section on Harris' 2003 campaign to make the section conform with the rest of the article. There are too many quotes that are set apart and change the flow of the article. Second, in the section on Harris' tenure in the Senate, I would suggest combining some of the one sentence paragraphs about how Harris questioned Zuckerberg and others into a single paragraph about Harris' role as a questioner during public hearings. Knope7 (talk) 03:39, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes, agree that the quotes add a level of emphasis on minute details (such as that she wore certain clothing brands) that give that section a particular negative slant. Agree with the suggestion to reduce the quotes and stick to the main, notable facts.--23.233.75.150 (talk) 00:56, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 December 2019

Change her status from 'is running' to 'was running' for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 Presidential Election. Verified by Business INsider and BBC reports. Santi726 (talk) 18:25, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

 Done. The text has been changed to past tense. A. Randomdude0000 (talk) 19:17, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Office turmoil

The office turmoil subsection has several problems and needs to be significantly cut down if not removed. It focuses on details that are too minute for the scope of this article and cites almost exclusively to one source. It introduces a POV problem. I am mentioning this hear before removing such a large chunk of content, but I think its clear the subsection violates multiple policies for a BLP. Knope7 (talk) 18:05, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

Knope7, I agree. Why are those two short quotes given the block quote prominence? – Muboshgu (talk) 18:29, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

And again

Found the text had been altered, apparently again since these notes show a history, to include references to Harris' crusade against "the epidemic of child prositution in the city" [fiction]. Also removed several phrases which, as others have pointed out, seemed to have come from a staffer or political campaign ad.

-- J. Cornelius 02:13, 26 July 2006 (PST)

Typo: "stidents" should be "students"

Under 'Early Life and Education':

'According to Harris, hers was only the second year when children of Indian and Jamaican graduate students at University of California, Berkeley like herself were allowed to study along with white stidents' — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rubyet (talk • contribs) 29 June 2019 (UTC)

FOR YOUR SITUATIONAL AWARENESS

This page is being edited to hide and mislead people about Kamala Harris's record and statements. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.82.100.48 (talk) 23:33, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Hide, yes. Mislead? Eh. If you're going to wikipedia for information on a Democrat (or Labour party, for that matter), you may as well just assume they walk on water and fed thousands on five loaves of bread and two fishes and not bother reading the article, it won't say anything different. Likewise, if you came here for information on a Republican (or Tory party), you may as well assume they barbeque babies on weekends and not bother reading the article, it won't say anything different. Wikipedia has always been like that, this is not anything new. 174.28.39.102 (talk) 01:19, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Capital punishment

I just read the sub-section on capital punishment, and have absolutely no idea what Harris' position is on the matter. Can that sub-section please be re-written in English, rather than legalese that's quite incomprehensible to a lay person? I suspect it could also be written in around 75% fewer words. HiLo48 (talk) 02:07, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Missing refs

I don't see any refs beyond #58. (Also, this is the longest bio I've ever seen and IMO you could easily cut half of it away and it would still be too long.) Gandydancer (talk) 21:16, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

That is strange, I also only see refs 1-58. The user Bnguyen1114 made a lot of edits expanding this page in April and May, and I don't know that anyone has vetted the changes. Maybe the page is too long now, like the problems on Trump's page. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:21, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I was going to ask. Why do I only see 1-58 references? I took the time to gather 400+ for all this. Where did they go? If it is because of length, I can start editing for length... Bnguyen1114 (talk) 21:23, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

@Gandydancer, Bnguyen1114, and Muboshgu: Those references aren't displaying because the post-expand include size of the page is too large. Basically, there are so many templates (including {{Cite web}}) on the page that it stops processing them after a certain point. ----Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 21:27, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

That's exactly the issue that's been brought up at Talk:Donald Trump, and what I suspected was going on here. Thank you Ahecht. Based on my estimation, there are about 480 templates on the page, over 400 of which are {{cite}} templates. So, what can we trim? – Muboshgu (talk) 21:31, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Let me know how I can help. Bnguyen1114 (talk) 21:32, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Bnguyen1114, one thing to do is to look for any cases of WP:OVERCITE. Like, for instance, in the early life section, I see this: She went on to Howard University in Washington, D.C. where she double-majored in political science and economics, interned as a mailroom clerk for California Senator Alan Cranston, chaired the economics society, was elected to the liberal-arts student council, led the debate team, organized mentor programs for local youth, demonstrated against apartheid, and joined Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.[31][32][31][8][33] Are all five four (just noticed that ref 31 is invoked twice there) sources required to verify that content? Any time two citations are used where one would do, we lose no content by cutting the extra source. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:49, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Thank, Muboshgu. I will identify those instances, verify their content, and remove accordingly. Good tip. Bnguyen1114 (talk) 21:53, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

And just like that, the sources are back! I will continue to edit the page to bring down its size, but one problem solved today. Thanks everyone. Bnguyen1114 (talk) 22:58, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Bnguyen, I see that you are fairly new and I'm sure that you tried very hard to improve this article. The problem is that in your effort to provide a great deal of information you overdid it. I know that when I tried to go through it I just couldn't take it no matter how hard I tried. And the thing is, by nature I'm one of those that usually reads every word in the articles I look up and I often look at some of the refs as well. So I'm thinking that for the most part people are just not going to read this article. They just want an overview. Hopefully others will give an opinion as well so we can be sure that I'm not alone in my suggestion. Gandydancer (talk) 00:22, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

The article is bloated and also pretty much too unstable to edit or review. One editor has made almost 500 edits to this article in barely six weeks. Gandydancer is entirely correct. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 00:53, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Not a problem....I can pare it down even more. I'll make another pass at it. Just want to note that when I started, there was granular details about her career. So I followed that format. But I can make it look like "general overview" no problem. Bnguyen1114 (talk) 21:41, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

And we are at about 180K. Let me know what you think; feedback is welcome. Bnguyen1114 (talk) 22:19, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

I still think that it is far too long. However, majority rules here and it seems that the other editors find it to be appropriate for a political bio. So I will step aside with my objections. Gandydancer (talk)

Four paragraphs on VP speculation is excessive

The current section on VP speculation is excessive. This definitely suffers from some recency bias. At most, speculation of this nature should warrant a paragraph. I am posting here to allow for discussion and to allow others to make further cuts or add material back. Overall, I think this article still suffers from some bloat although I commend recent efforts that have made significant progress on that front. Knope7 (talk) 23:06, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Don't think it's the exact same cuts I would have made, but totally Agree with the intent. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:14, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm cool with the edits, thanks Knope7Bnguyen1114 (talk) 18:15, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Harris's record on wrongful convictions

Last time I looked at Harris's article, it included a section on her controversial handling of cases as CA's Attorney General where there had been prosecutorial misconduct, including supporting the original DA's position rather than siding with the defendants.

I think these should be in the main article unless they were pure fiction, unsupport by WP:RS.

Indeed The Intercept has reported on this. I wouldn't be surprised if Democratic operatives are editing this page. Kamala is likely to be Biden's VP, and criticism on Wikipedia is a no-no. CompactSpacez (talk) 21:02, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Hello, I wrote all those sections. including the Mnuchin and Orange County prosecutors. I can add them back in if you like. But the editors asked me to trim it down. I'm not a Democratic operative, I do this for free because I'm sick of misinformation about Kamala Harris. Bnguyen1114 (talk) 21:23, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

"Sick" is an interesting choice of word. It indicates that you are personally invested in defending the reputation of this woman. Despite how you may feel, Wikipedia articles are expected to be written neutrally. This entails the inclusion of criticism, provided it is well-sourced. CompactSpacez (talk) 21:32, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Correct. Accordingly, I have added the information pertaining to the Mnuchin and Orange County prosecutors to the page. I think you will find they are satisfactorily factual. Let me know if you'd like me to add other criticism she received, such as the Deborah Madden crime lab issue. Bnguyen1114 (talk) 21:36, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 31 May 2020

No It was taken out that Kamala didn’t psss the bar the first time. It was added that she was brilliant. Her relationship with Willie was left out. You guys sure cleaned it up. 184.58.220.149 (talk) 14:17, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

 Not done. It's not clear what changes you want to make. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 15:13, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

This fact is cited repeatedly in public profiles. For example, this one: "After attending the historically black Howard University, Harris returned to California for law school at Hastings in San Francisco and went to work at the Alameda County district attorney’s office in Oakland. (She failed the bar exam the first time she took it. Harris says she recently consoled a young law graduate who also didn’t pass; “I told her, it’s not a measure of your capacity.”) " NYT 2016 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:4010:1800:0:0:0:0:15 (talk) 23:58, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Bnguyen114

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.

---

that is a huge conflict of interest and all of his edits should be reverted right nowFlynnwasframed (talk) 22:58, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm not gonna lie, I jumped in hot. I've since read everything else and will be taking all advice and suggestions found within. Poor first show, I know, but I won't make noise or a mess, I will conduct myself respectfully. Five12Man (talk) 22:59, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

You're free to contribute to the article and discuss possible changes to it here, but you're not free to engage in WP:DOXING and WP:INCIVILITY. PrimaPrime (talk) 23:03, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

The accusation of doxxing is baseless. This individual is not being doxed. Any personal information about him, he revealed himself on his own accord. As for "incivility", well, is it really "incivility" to criticize someone's obviously disruptive editing? The chief goal of editors here should be contributing in good faith to the encyclopedia. If this is not done, they should be criticized. CompactSpacez (talk) 23:12, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Sir, before I took on this quarantine project, this page was devoid of sourced content. Please do not cast aspersions about my motivations for editing the page - I am stuck at home, with a wealth of knowledge that I wanted to contribute to the page. Bnguyen1114 (talk) 00:22, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

No, as far as I can tell the user in question has not done so. I suggest you re-read the page I linked more closely, particularly this sentence: "The fact that an editor has posted personal information or edits under their own name, making them easily identifiable through online searches, is not an excuse to post the results of 'opposition research'." PrimaPrime (talk) 23:17, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Repeatedly erasing well-sourced content with the purpose of airbrushing a politician's image, against how he or she is portrayed in reliable sources, is disruptive editing and thoroughly unencyclopaedic in spirit. — Peleio Aquiles (talk) 23:22, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

The editors asked me to cut down the size of the page, sir. Bnguyen1114 (talk) 00:24, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

None of what you just said is an excuse for doxing. PrimaPrime (talk) 23:30, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

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

Semi-protected edit request on 3 July 2020

Add the following 3 sentences just before the last sentence end of the second-to-last paragraph for the 2003 Campaign for District Attorney section: "Harris continued her attacks on Hallinan by slamming him for refusing to prosecute anti-war protesters for property destruction. These quotes prompted some local public defenders, including Jeff Adachi, to express concern that Harris would be a hard-nosed prosecutor and favor punishment over rehabilitation. Harris responded by saying that those criticisms would be endorsements anywhere except San Francisco.

This can be cited from the SF Weekly article "Kamala's Karma" by Peter Byrne from 09/24/03 https://www.sfweekly.com/news/kamalas-karma/ Slammingsam456 (talk) 17:12, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

 Not done. You misrepresent what your cited source says, which is: Harris just laughs at this criticism, which would qualify as a wannabe DA's dream endorsement almost anywhere except San Francisco. That is a characterization by the story's author, Peter Byrne, not a quotation attributed to Harris. NedFausa (talk) 17:23, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Good Catch. Probably the right call. Do you want me to revise it or should I just get rid of it? -Slammingsam456

Personal Life

I am unable to edit the page, but it MUST include the fact that Kamala's husband worked for corporations fighting workers' wage theft complaints as well as fighting against consumers and employees that had their private information abused/stolen. This is important to who her family is and what financial interests her family has if she continues in politics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:681:527F:8DC0:B0ED:E861:102B:A1A7 (talk) 02:56, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

@2601:681:527F:8DC0:B0ED:E861:102B:A1A7: Can you provide sources for us to cite? MorganKevinJ^(talk) 14:56, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't have it in front of me right now but it was all on his LinkdIn profile about a year ago. His job is/was to prevent employees from receiving stolen wages from their employeers. And to attempt to avoid legal liability when private employee/consumer data was stolen from a corporation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:681:527F:8DC0:6CFA:4A6:9B24:C67F (talk) 15:28, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Her husband's LinkedIn page is not going to be a good source for the article. Better to check for secondary sources that discuss his work. If it's significant enough to be included in the article, it at least should have been written about by reputable secondary sources. Knope7 (talk) 16:09, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

It was a profile of his previous work. It is extremely important. People of color suffer from wage theft disproportionately and she is likely to end up VP. People deserve to know what money her family is beholden to, or what conflicts of interest she has due to her family's income streams. But, again, I can't edit the page.

Here is a secondary source saying what he does at his firm: https://www.kcra.com/article/attorney-general-kamala-harris-is-engaged/6412777

"The site says his experience is in commercial litigation, "primarily defending class action matters concerning claims of unfair business practices, the validity of advertising and marketing claims, cases challenging privacy statutes and wage and hour violations."

That is he DEFENDS the companies that stole wages from employees when they get sued.

ALL he does is represent corporations against employees and consumers: https://www.dlapiper.com/en/us/people/e/emhoff-douglas-c/?tab=experience

"REPRESENTATIVE MATTERS:

Defended a group of production companies in an insurance coverage dispute over a highly publicized aviation accident on a recent major motion picture.

Representing the rights holders of a famous animated character in copyright and trademark disputes across the globe.

Successfully prosecuted a trademark dispute for a renowned wine brand against a competing brand.

Advising on copyright action against production company over alleged misuse of content on worldwide superstars' tour and music video.

Lead counsel in a cutting-edge fair use trial in the viral content space.

Represented more than 50 commercial producers in an entertainment industry-wide wage and hour class-action lawsuit and various subsequent individual litigation matters.

Defending highly publicized wrongful death action brought against a production company that was producing promotional content for a major motion picture.

Defeated a plaintiff's antitrust claims against one of the nation's leading bar associations in a high-profile California federal court action regarding allegations of engaging in monopolistic practices by limiting the number of accredited law schools and by lobbying for restrictive rules which require corporations to be represented by licensed counsel.

Defended a studio executive in a lawsuit alleging breach of contract and fraud relating to a blockbuster film.

Represented a leading digital advertising agency in a trade secret and defamation action relating to a potential automotive campaign.

Representing a leading digital media licensing company in a copyright action involving the pervasive infringement of the company's videos.

Represented a former NFL athlete and sports and entertainment executive in connection with a contract dispute regarding a management company.

Defended a prominent former NFL and Olympic athlete in a civil action brought by the SEC.

Represented a municipal school board in an NEPA matter involving the location of the proposed west side subway extension in Los Angeles.

Defended a global retailer in a group of California class actions alleging Song-Beverly Credit Card Act violations concerning the collection of personal identification information.

Defended a leading media conglomerate in a putative class action challenging mobile ad serving technology under a variety of state and federal privacy statutes, in one of the first cases to challenge tracking of mobile Internet usage.

Defended an office product manufacturer in a California class action involving invasion of privacy claims and challenges to privacy statutes due to the defendant's alleged practice of monitoring and recording telephone communications between the defendant's sales force and the plaintiff and plaintiff's class.

Defended a national sports nutrition company against alleged consumer class action claims concerning certain products the defendant manufactured and marketed as dietary supplements for use as bodybuilding and weight loss supplements.

Represented a global manufacturer of workplace products against one of the company's competitors regarding allegations of trademark infringement, false advertising, bait-and-switch and violations of the Lanham Act regarding the competitor's practice of utilizing advertising techniques that led consumers to believe they were purchasing the plaintiff's products.

Represented a leading advertising agency in a securities derivative suit filed in the US District Court in the Central District of California Secured a favorable settlement for a direct marketing advertiser in a Song-Beverly class action alleging improper capture of personal information during credit card transactions at retail locations.

Defended a mobile content provider in a consumer class action alleging improper business practices.

Represented a credit counseling company in a California consumer class action regarding whether the company is a valid nonprofit and thus subject to the requirements of the CROA statute.

Represented the manufacturer of a national brand lotion in a California consumer class action alleging false advertising among other claims Represented a major security firm in a federal class action complaint alleging the company failed to protect its employees' personal, confidential information from theft.

Represented the liquidating trustee of a bankrupt computer manufacturer against an international investment bank in a fraudulent claim regarding supplemental agreements.

The Ninth Circuit affirmed a defense summary judgment Doug's team obtained for an advertising agency in a high-profile case arising for advertising for popular fast food chain."

The article is about Kamala Harris, not Doug Emhoff or your opinions on corporate lawyers. You would need to find reliable secondary sources which discuss Emhoff's work with respect to Harris, beyond a passing mention that they're married. PrimaPrime (talk) 21:13, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Sounds like an attempt to RIGHTGREATWRONGS. No thank you. -Indy beetle (talk) 05:06, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

the Intercept

Regarding this edit [17] by User:NedFausa - I think the point of the "better source needed" tag is that we need a better source than the Intercept, so "relying solely on the Intercept" doesn't solve the problem, only makes it worse. The tag is still needed. Volunteer Marek 01:03, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Volunteer Marek: You looked at the wrong diff. Here's the correct one. Administrator JzG removed this reference to a primary source and replaced it with a {better source} tag. I believe his tag related to the OneWest Package Memo not to The Intercept. Hopefully he'll drop by again and clarify. NedFausa (talk) 01:15, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

I think my diff is the correct one, but what the actual issue is here is indeed confusing. Volunteer Marek 05:15, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

NedFausa, no, the better source tag refers to The Intercept. I do not like single-sourcing to them, it's too small an outfit. Surely one of the heavyweights reported on this? WaPo? NYT? The Intercept does great work breaking stories, we can trust the accuracy, but not the significance. Guy (help!) 09:52, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

JzG Thank you for clarifying! I apologize for misunderstanding, and kudos to Volunteer Marek for bringing this to light. I have restored the {better source} tag following that disputed reference. Presently, there are no other references to The Intercept in Kamala Harris, but I will keep a close lookout for new additions and tag those accordingly, noting your caution about this dubious source. NedFausa (talk) 14:12, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

NedFausa, it's not dubious as such, and I wouldn't want to mislead there: it is reliable for facts, but The Intercept has a distinct POV so we must be mindful that it may be misleading by virtue of selectiveness. That is, they may choose to publish or not publish according to the biases of the staff. If it's mentioned in other reliable sources, which establish significance, then it is unproblematic and does not require attribution. If they say it's a fact, it generally is. Guy (help!) 17:11, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Here is a source that picked up The Intercept story. Thank you https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/04/trump-treasury-pick-steven-mnuchins-former-bank-accused-of-widespread-misconduct.html 2601:482:8000:C470:14B4:52C6:D599:89F4 (talk) 14:35, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Regrettably, I doubt the CNBC story will pass muster because it expressly relies upon The Intercept article that is here disputed. (See circular reporting.) We need an independent source. NedFausa (talk) 15:14, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

NedFausa, CNBC is a bit marginal but probably does establish the significance of the Intercept piece (see above). Guy (help!) 17:11, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

CNN stated that it obtained the memo. https://money.cnn.com/2017/01/04/news/mnuchin-onewest-california-memo/index.html 2601:482:8000:C470:14B4:52C6:D599:89F4 (talk) 16:16, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Excellent! That's just what we needed. I made the change here. Thanks for your help. NedFausa (talk) 16:40, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

One West statement addition, 7/4/20

I understand how sensitive the section on OneWest is. I added a sentence that includes the official statement of the Harris campaign as to why she didn’t pursue a prosecution. I believe that it’s appropriate to include her statement of reasoning in a section that questions a decision. As written, the section makes an insinuation...that the decision was made because she received donations. If that’s fair to include, then we should also include her official statement on her reasoning. I will now step,aside and let the internet lambast me for the change, ha. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Davey1107 (talk • contribs) 19:18, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Whoever is scrubbing this page for Kamala Harris is getting noticed

If this activity is not supported by Wikipedia then all edits made by this person should be reversed and the editor should be banned from editing her page.

https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Kamala-Harris-Biden-vice-president-Wikipedia-page-15386023.php Eegorr (talk) 14:40, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

That's already been discussed in the threads above. Regards, AzureCitizen (talk) 14:49, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

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

Inappropriate Material in Summary section. MS:LEADBIO and MS:BLPLEAD Suggestion

The lead section currently states in two relevant parts...

"Harris is the first woman of Jamaican or Indian ancestry to represent California in the United States Senate."(reformated to emphasize)

"Many sources consider her the favorite to be chosen by Joe Biden as his vice-presidential running mate in the election."

The section below in Speculation as Joe Biden's running mate states ...

"On June 12, The New York Times reported that Harris had emerged as the frontrunner to be Biden's running mate, as she is the only African-American woman with the political experience typical of vice presidents.[294] On June 26, CNN reported that Harris was among Biden's top four contenders, along with Keisha Lance Bottoms, Val Demings, and Elizabeth Warren.[295]"(reformated to emphasize)

The reference to "African-American woman" in the Times reference contradicts the lead.

MOS:BLP talks about the need for sourcing and to avoid sensationalism. Stating that Harris is the "frontrunner" is a remark about the quality of the Times' journalism, not Biden's decision. It's also a prediction of a future event which is another problem. I suggest two alternatives:

• Remove the speculative material from the lead. (or)
• Edit the language to more closely reflect the facts in the underlying referenced materials as follows:

"Harris is reported by the New York Times and CNN as one of several contenders to be Biden's running mate."

Cheers Risk Engineer (talk) 16:10, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

I think the second part, about being the favorite, should be removed. It may very well be, but as you say at this point it's WP:CRYSTALBALLing. For the first part, I think there are sources which mention that, maybe in the body of the article? Volunteer Marek 16:13, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

I revised wording in the concluding paragraph of our subsection Speculation as Joe Biden's running mate to conform to The New York Times and CNN sources. I also revised the lead accordingly and added references to those same cited sources. NedFausa (talk) 17:26, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

I also added a {citation needed} tag to the lead because no source in text appears to support her being the first woman of Jamaican or Indian ancestry to represent California in the U.S. Senate. Of course she is, but without a source, this violates WP:NOR. NedFausa (talk) 17:46, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

We had the same discussion on Barack Obama. Citizens of the United States with black ancestry are called African-Americans. Since it's a social construct, the determination for Wikipedia editors of whether someone is African American is whether that is how they are described in reliable sources. Per no synthesis we cannot second guess their judgment. TFD (talk) 18:06, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

I double-checked and we refer to Harris as African-American only twice in the article space—in both instances using the term verbatim from the respective cited WP:RS. NedFausa (talk) 18:35, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Harris' views on sex work

I think the fact that there's been signficant controversy around Harris views on the legal status of prostitution and history of conflict with sex worker rights activists needs to be mentioned. Right now, it's treated as a subset of "sex crimes", and her actions against Backpage are treated as uncontroversial crime fighting measures. Her backing of SESTA/FOSTA was particularly controversial, and though she's since come out for decriminalization of prostitution in a very vague way, there's been a good deal of speculation as to how she define's "decriminalization" and whether that is in fact a continuation of her earlier support for the "End Demand" or Nordic model approach to prostitution.

I have some familiarity with this issue, but I also know how contentious articles like this are, and particularly how revert-heavy they are, so that makes me frankly a bit wary of making such a contribution - putting hours into writing and sourcing (and being careful to balance POV) only to have it immediately reverted is not a good use of any contributor's time. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 21:56, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

@Iamcuriousblue: A really large section might be undue, but I agree that Harris's views on sex work should be included. Maybe start small? There's currently not even a mention of SESTA, which she co-sponsored and was criticized for making sex work more dangerous.[18] In her February 2019 interview with The Root she said that she supported the decriminalization of consensual sex work when no one is being harmed or exploited.[19] gobonobo ^{+ c} 07:13, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think there might be a section on that in her "Political Positions" page, which I separated as to cover her work in the Senate more comprehensively. I did less work on that section (I prepared the table and some foreign policy work mostly), but if it's not there, I encourage you to add it. Bnguyen1114 (talk) 14:14, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

There is no mention of SESTA or sex workers or Backpage on the Political positions of Kamala Harris article. gobonobo ^{+ c} 22:30, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

I did the Backpage article on the main one. Feel free to add the SESTA entry to her political positions page; be sure to include her history of protecting sex workers as DA (she was first to establish a safe house for former teenage sex workers with an anti-human trafficking advocates, declined to prosecute workers while aggressively going after johns, and very aggressively moved against human traffickers and sex traffickers as attorney general. I have some articles if you're interested. Bnguyen1114 (talk) 23:17, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Your entire framing here is *exremely* biased! The claim that not prosecuting sex workers while at the same time aggressively going after "johns" (POV language, by the way) "protects" sex workers is the basis for the "End Demand" or "Nordic model", which is an extremely controversial approach to prostitution law and does not have the level of support you seem to think it does. It's an approach that's supported by some European governments, and in the US by some feminists, prosecutors, and parts of the law enforcement community. It has near-universal opposition among sex workers themselves and is increasingly rejected by the human rights, civil liberties, and public health community - Amnesty International has takin a position opposing the "Nordic model" and supporting full decriminalization.

I am interested in the articles you have in mind, as I want this section to be properly sourced. However, I think it absolutely needs to be properly balanced and adhere to WP:NPOV, so support for her End Demand policies should be noted along with criticism of them. What is not is OK is to make a claim that Harris "protected" sex workers by aggressively going after "johns" and then present this full stop as evidence of her support for sex workers. That's POV pushing, in my estimation. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 05:03, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

The Root interview was very ambiguous and many sex worker rights activists have questioned what she meant by "decriminalizaation". (I can provide references.) I don't think her statement there is the last word on the topic. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 11:33, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 June 2020

It is false to say that Kamala Harris is African-American. She is actually Indian-Jamaican. African-American means the continent of Africa. Even CNN's Don Lemon agrees https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn2fH8XmuLM

The article itself says her mother is Indian and her father is Jamaican. It also says she identifies as Black. She may identify as Black but considering her parents she is not African American as the article states. 2601:880:8100:1F60:FC8E:AD43:624E:2ED5 (talk) 22:21, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. The article does not refer to Harris as African American. – Anne drew 22:30, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

@Anne drew Andrew and Drew: The proper response would have been the "please cite reliable sources" option, FWIW. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:33, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

The article does not state that she is African American. The request makes no sense regardless of sources. – Anne drew 22:43, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

@Anne drew Andrew and Drew: Oh, my bad then for just looking at the silly request and not taking a look at the article. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:51, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I think that West Indian American would be the most accurate description of her ethnicity. Black and Desi mixtures are quite common among West Indians. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 10:15, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Following the facts and evidence like any other case

On 3 July 2020, administrator JzG added two {better source} tags in the Fraud, waste, and abuse subsection. I removed the first after copy editing to rely on The Intercept. The second tag, however, has me stumped. It follows a reference supporting the sentence, In 2017, she said that her office's decision was based on following "the facts and the evidence...like any other case." Our cited source is The Hill, which Wikipedia says "is considered generally reliable for American politics. The publication's opinion pieces should be handled with the appropriate guideline. The publication's contributor pieces, labeled in their bylines, receive minimal editorial oversight and should be treated as equivalent to self-published sources." The story in question is about American politics. It is neither an opinion piece nor a contributor piece as labeled in its byline. The author is Sylvan Lane, who has covered American financial regulatory and economic policy for The Hill since 2015. The quotation he attributes to Kalama Harris comes from an interview he conducted with her as part of his professional duties. Frankly, I am at a loss. What could possibly be better than a contemporaneous publication by a generally reliable source reported by the staff writer who interviewed her? NedFausa (talk) 23:14, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

NedFausa, The Hill is a tabloid with a long history of publishing any old crap. Guy (help!) 23:25, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

JzG, thank you for your succinct explanation. I have removed the disputed content from the article space. We certainly don't want "any old crap" in there. NedFausa (talk) 23:33, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

I've never heard this opinion of The Hill before... Natureium (talk) 23:44, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

That's why it's so helpful to have an administrator's guidance. There's really no substitute for the blunt instrument an admin brings to bear. NedFausa (talk) 23:57, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Natureium, seriously? Have you not? There are two serious issues with it.

One is the fact that it hired John Solomon, and put hi in a position effectively isolated from editorial oversight. Solomon is the guy who mainstreamed the Kremlin's Ukraine conspiracy theory. Finkelstein, the owner, is putting his thumb on the scales in favour of Trump, and his wife is reportedly friendly with Melania. So there's that.

But the more serious problem is that The Hill contains two different kinds of story, and we don't distinguish between them. One kind is the regular business of DC sports reporting - ball by ball commentary on the circus in Congress. That tends to elevate the trivial and contribute to the culture of permanent outrage. The other kind of content is op-eds, which are largely uncensored. It fulfils a valuable role in publishing the views of numerous partisans, but that publication should not be interpreted as imbuing those views with any factual merit.

So you have to handle with care. It's a reliable source for "X said Y", but only when it's a staff writer or X themselves. It's not a source for significance of anything, and unless it's the editorial staff and not John Solomon or someone nobbled by Finkelstein is also can't be taken as a source of fact. Guy (help!) 10:00, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Much to my chagrin, following this discussion I found no fewer than seven remaining references to The Hill in Kamala Harris.

• Kamala Harris: 'Make no mistake — this is a Muslim ban'
• Kamala Harris grills Homeland Security secretary on separating parents from kids at border
• Harris wants Barr to testify on Mueller report as 2020 Dems call for its release
• Harris: I believe Barr 'intended to mislead' on Mueller's report
• Harris calls for judicial nominee freeze during impeachment trial
• Kamala Harris on 2020 presidential bid: 'I'm not ruling it out'
• Clyburn urges Biden to pick black woman as running mate: 'African American women need to be rewarded' for loyalty

Naturally, adhering to the example of administrator JzG, I affixed a {better source} tag at the end of each such reference. We must not be satisfied with "any old crap" in this BLP of a prominent American politician. NedFausa (talk) 00:30, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

I am questioning the labeling of The Hill as unreliable. Ad Fontes Media has a different take than many of you. The have it in the Most Reliable sources, barely skewed to the right of center.

• "The Media Bias Chart". Ad Fontes Media. 2020-06-19. Retrieved 2020-07-04. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)

Peaceray (talk) 00:44, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

I am making my way through the citations you have listed above. Please explain what you find to be unreliable in them. Peaceray (talk) 00:46, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

The first one is a blog, so fair game to remove. I see nothing that is not accurate in the other citations. Peaceray (talk) 00:51, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

With all due respect, I'm afraid you're missing the point. A particular story does not have to be unreliable. After all, the quotation above where Harris said her decision was based on following "the facts and the evidence...like any other case" is entirely accurate. What makes these sources unacceptable is the fact that, as we have been advised by administrator JzG, The Hill is a tabloid with a long history of publishing any old crap. (Emphasis added.) NedFausa (talk) 01:02, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

And I am challenging that. I do not know what the reputation the paper had, but the web site now has a different reputation. One administrator does not make policy. Please tell me what makes JzG's opinion better than Ad Fontes Media? @JzG:, please feel free to weigh in on sources that indicate that thehill.com is currently disreputable. They may have had some problems in the past, but I have been following them a lot when they are referenced out of Google News. I have found them balanced, & I tend to be leftist. Peaceray (talk) 03:44, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't know if this is the right manner or venue to be having this discussion, but FWIW while I've always thought of The Hill as being tabloid-esque and certainly not the best source, it's not unreliable for basic facts about what a politician said or similar. PrimaPrime (talk) 04:24, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

PrimaPrime, it is fine to establish what a politician said, but not to establish its significance - hence for any contentious BLP claim, I want another source that assesses the significance of the thing.

The Hill is, among other things, a blow-by-blow account of every spat in Washington. It is like toddler with no object permanence: things happen, and when they are shown to be trivial or misunderstood, The Hill has already moved on to the next drama. It can be entertaining and sometimes it can break real news but much more often it's just like the guy on Facebook telling you the latest thing the various warring factions said, with little or no analysis. Guy (help!) 09:50, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Administrators do not get to decide what passes and doesn't pass Wikipedia sourcing muster by executive fiat - not that JzG was trying to that. I've never thought of the Hill as patently unreliable, and if that argument is going to be made it should be had on the reliable sources noticeboard before we disregard it here. -Indy beetle (talk) 05:16, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Peaceray, The Hill is not unreliable as such, but a huge chunk of what it publishes is partisan op-eds, and it has a tendency to both-sidesism. It's basically a DC gossip sheet, and I want a better source for anything even remotely contentious. Guy (help!) 09:46, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

I object to the idea that Wikipedia should reject or downgrade a source simply because a single editor holds the opinion that it's unreliable or inadequate. The content of op-eds is not evidence of bias in news coverage. The Hill is well-regarded in the DC political community. JTRH (talk) 11:43, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

JTRH, so go with the fact that they hired John Solomon, gave him a p[latform for his conspiracist bullshit, and leant on the staff to skew stories in line wihtt he proprietor's preferences.

Or read what I actually wreote, and make a diostinction between staff pieces and contributor blogs. Guy (help!) 22:04, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

I did read what you wrote. I would ask you to provide evidence, but apparently someone has unilaterally decided to remove it as a source for this article, so there's no point in arguing it further. JTRH (talk) 12:00, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

 Done. All references to The Hill and all {better source needed} tags have been removed. NedFausa (talk) 05:24, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

I don’t see any consensus in this thread for overturning the previously established consensus that news articles from The Hill are a reliable source. Why do you insist on removing them Ned? Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 20:03, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

It's a WP:POINTY reaction to this. Leijurv (talk) 20:21, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

@Bzweebl: Do you see any consensus in this thread for disregarding administrator JzG's advisory that The Hill is a tabloid with a long history of publishing any old crap? I believe our BLP Kamala Harris has already endured enough public censure for massive editing that violated WP:NPOV. We should not add to our embarrassment by knowingly citing crap sources just to promote Senator Harris's VP prospects. NedFausa (talk) 20:39, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I believe this demonstrates that my assessment ^^ is accurate :) Leijurv (talk) 20:55, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your response Ned. The previously established consensus I am referring to is not in this thread but at WP:RSP. The opinion of a single administrator is not enough to overturn that. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 21:09, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

When a source is considered "generally reliable" at WP:RSP, as is The Hill, editors of any particular page have the option of forming local consensus as to whether or not to rely on that source. Such is the case here. An admin has cautioned us against this source, and we should follow his advice until local consensus overrides it. NedFausa (talk) 21:20, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes, but WP:RSP is the default, not the opinion of a single admin. We would need local consensus to override it, and until then we can treat it as a reliable source. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 21:41, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Article is coming off as merely a "Puff piece" than anything encyclopedic

Just read through the entire article and it is far too long with far too many recent edits added which appear to be by mostly one "editor". Wikipedia can do much better than this. Would it be too much to ask just to revert the article to what it was two years ago with a few exceptions for Senator Harris' run for the Democratic nomination, and then have some balanced and reasonable edits going forward by more than just one prolific editor? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:E000:1217:97D3:F5D1:25AC:1EB2:E932 (talk) 18:44, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Incredibly Biased

This article is hideously biased and requires an extensive rewrite. It reads like a campaign ad. There is zero criticism, just lauding. CompactSpacez (talk) 21:16, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Why do people keep using the words "heels up"?

It’s a reference to her sleeping with Willy Brown to get ahead. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:5FB1:620:21CE:F0BE:373A:E7CF (talk) 20:35, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

💯 – Alex43223 ^{T | C | E} 21:38, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 July 2020

change "(with whom Harris was in a relationship)" to (with whom Harris was in a relationship while he was still married)"

In "Early Career" Kamala was in a relationship with Willie Brown. It should be noted that Mr. Brown was married to Blanche Vitero at the time. He may have been separated from his wife but he was still married.

https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Willie_Brown_(politician) Dynamiteservice (talk) 23:51, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

 Not done - This has been discussed and rejected before. Please review the previous discussion and seek consensus for this change. - MrX 🖋 00:50, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Duplicative content added by User:Cpotisch

Cpotisch has, with a single stroke, added 10,201 bytes to Kamala Harris, apparently without even bothering to look at the page to see if that content was already present. This has resulted in duplicative coverage of, for instance, the National Mortgage Settlement, Brown v. Plata, the Mortgage Fraud Strike Force, Steve Mnuchin's bank OneWest, Michelle-Lael Norsworthy, and how many other topics I can't bear to count. I've already made one massive reversion today, so I can't undo this mess. But I urge another editor to consider it. NedFausa (talk) 02:30, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I'll fix it now. Cpotisch (talk) 02:31, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

You should also probably revert to a prior version while you're identifying the content that's already in the main body of the article, while respecting the removals in the edit history unless you bring them up here. Thank you for your effort. 2601:482:8000:C470:D1B7:5187:6B96:63E5 (talk) 02:36, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

This is exactly what happens when newly arrived editors rush to short-cuts. Oh, yeah, says ProcrastinatingReader, let's add 31,589 bytes. Oh, yeah, says Cpotisch, let's add 10,201‎ bytes. And off they go off to watch from the sidelines, leaving the rest of us to clean up after them. NedFausa (talk) 02:42, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

@NedFausa: "Newly arrived?" I think I've been editing WP for about four years. Anyway, I'm sorry for the mess I made, but I cleaned it all up just now. That said, the (non-duplicate) content I added had been removed without community consensus, so I think the article is now better for it. Cpotisch (talk) 02:56, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

I meant newly arrived to Kamala Harris. That undiscussed addition of 10,201 bytes was your first edit of this article. NedFausa (talk) 03:11, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Marijuana

As a spot check on the objectivity of this article, I checked the treatment of marijuana under Public safety. My reading is that the Wikipedia article gives a one-sided summary of a more balanced source.

It says, in total:

While Harris oversaw more than 1900 convictions for marijuana possession, lawyers working in her office stated that most defendants for low-level possession were never charged with a crime, consistent with the city and county's low enforcement priorities.

In other words, the Wikipedia summary quotes Harrison's own staff, saying that (by today's tolerant standards), they did a great job. There are defense lawyers, and pro-legalization activists, who disagree. But read it yourself and see.

(I also compared it to the 1 January 2020 version, which gives her changing position and I think is more objective.)

The current version references the Mercury News story Campaign fact check: Here’s how Kamala Harris really prosecuted marijuana cases.

Harris oversaw more than 1,900 marijuana convictions in San Francisco, previously unreported records from the DA’s office show. Her prosecutors appear to have convicted people on marijuana charges at a higher rate than under her predecessor, based on data about marijuana arrests in the city.

But former lawyers in Harris’ office and defense attorneys who worked on drug cases say most defendants arrested for low-level pot possession were never locked up. And only a few dozen people were sent to state prison for marijuana convictions under Harris’ tenure....

Still, advocates wonder why it took so long for the California senator to come out in support of marijuana legalization. She actively fought a ballot measure for recreational pot in 2010...

Harris publicly came out for legalizing marijuana only in May 2018, after she was widely considered a likely presidential contender....

When it came to the fight for legalization, “she was nowhere, zilch, nada, no help,” said Tom Ammiano, a former San Francisco supervisor and assemblyman who has endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders for president....

“Kamala Harris and I disagreed on a lot of criminal justice issues, but I have to admit, she was probably the most progressive prosecutor in the state at the time when it came to marijuana,” Solis said.

Not all defense attorneys agree. J. David Nick...

“Just because you didn’t rot your life away in prison doesn’t mean it wasn’t a big deal to get a conviction,” said Dale Sky Jones, a Bay Area marijuana activist. “Your ability to keep your job, get another job or get housing with that conviction on your record is all hurt by that.”

I think most of this Wikipedia article is like that. It's filled with press releases (or news stories that are essentially press releases), that go on at great length about unevaluated programs like "Back on Track LA." The issues of exculpatory evidence and wrongful convictions are also summarized to eliminate the toughest criticism from, for example, Lara Bazelon. There's too much to edit detail by detail. If I had to rewrite this, I would blank the whole page and start again from scratch (using the same sources). --Nbauman (talk) 06:15, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

The issues of exculpatory evidence are written in precise legal language that describes what happened in court proceedings. I know this because I reviewed all of them in detail. If accuracy is your concern, you should probably question why Professor Bazelon felt the need to embellish her criticisms with respect to the wrongful conviction cases, such as the 2014 Carney appeal or the Gage case. Bnguyen1114 (talk) 19:37, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, could you give your 2-3 best examples of this article's "news stories that are essentially press releases"? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:38, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

I changed "never charged with a crime" to "not sent to prison,"[20] since the source says "never locked up." Defendants are by definition people charged with crimes. Unfortunately the source is not clear whether that decision was made by Harris' staff or the courts. TFD (talk) 16:39, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

User:Bnguyen1114, I've written news and feature stories for several legal magazines, so I have an idea of what legal language is. I don't think the language here is particularly precise, or particularly following legal language. It reads, "For example, law professor Lara Bazelon contends Harris 'weaponized technicalities' to uphold lengthy sentences." When I studied legal writing, I learned that a lawyer is supposed to make a claim, and then support that claim with facts and examples. This article doesn't support that claim with facts or examples. In her NYT articles, Bazelon offers several examples. I think the worst is the case of George Gage, in which, Bazelon says, the prosecutor unlawfully withheld exculpatory evidence, "including medical reports indicating that the stepdaughter had been repeatedly untruthful with law enforcement." I think that withholding evidence is a serious violation of prosecutorial responsibility and of the rights of the defendant, and here it casts doubt on the credibility of their main witness. Bazelon is a law professor, and the NYT has editors reviewing her stories for accuracy, so she and the NYT are WP:RSs. If you're dismissing her arguments because you think she's "embellishing" them -- well, maybe that's the problem with your editing. (How is she "embellishing"?)

Because Bazelon is wrong, period. It doesn't matter what the LA DAs did in the 90s or what the stepdaughter did or did not lie about. Those details are fun to spar over, but ultimately inconsequential. For purposes of an article about Kamala Harris, what matters is what she did. And what she did was appeal a ruling from a federal district court to a three-judge panel on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal. That panel unanimously sided with her, in the case of Gage v. Chappell, in finding that Gage failed to abide by federal law when he brought his habeas petitions. It doesn't matter how you feel about the case, how you feel about the rights of the defendant, or the credibility of whoever. What matters for purposes of this article is that the 9th Circuit handed down a controlling legal precedent in Kamala's favor. Here is the link: http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2015/07/20/13-73438.pdf. Bnguyen1114 (talk) 00:49, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

I'd also note that "contends" is a word that violates Wikipedia's style sheet, in MOS:ALLEGED. That may be legal style, but it violates Wikipedia style.

I think the whole entry is full of selective editing like that -- the criticisms of Harris are abbreviated to mere assertions, and the defenses of Harris go on with elaborate, irrelevant details. --Nbauman (talk) 00:22, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

All due respect, NBauman, it is important to be precise and accurate in describing what happened in certain cases. What you deem irrelevant may not be factual. And I took exquisite pains to ensure everything I wrote was legally and factually accurate, every time. Bnguyen1114 (talk) 00:49, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Lots of people think that their work is legally and factually accurate, but since they often come to different conclusions, they can't all be right. Bazelon is a law professor and NYT contributor, and her work is reviewed by editors, which makes her a WP:RS. You are, like the rest of us, an anonymous Wikipedia contributor, which makes your efforts WP:OR. According to Wikipedia guidelines, we should take Bazelon's opinions over yours. Sorry.

And on the merits of it, I don't think your description of Harrison's critics is good legal writing, because you mention Bazelon but don't include her supporting arguments. --Nbauman (talk) 01:22, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

I just read the case. (BTW, in Wikipedia, you should add your comments to the end of a section, not the middle.)

You're right. It doesn't matter what you think or what I think. What matters is what Bazelon, a WP:RS thinks. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/opinion/kamala-harris-criminal-justice.html She wrote "that the prosecutor had unlawfully held back potentially exculpatory evidence," and that Gage couldn't bring it up again because, while acting as his own lawyer, he hadn't raised the issue in lower court. Bazelon is a defense attorney. She thinks that, whatever the court decided, it's an injustice to convict Gage when the prosecutor withheld evidence. That's what a WP:RS says in support of her position and I think it should have been included in the article. And I think it's bad legal writing not to include it. --Nbauman (talk) 01:22, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

The quality of opinion pieces published in the NYT is generally very good, but it is still Bazelon's opinion and not the only RS that matters. PrimaPrime (talk) 04:48, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

User:Gråbergs Gråa Sång Well, here's a press release https://bja.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh186/files/Publications/BackonTrackFS.pdf , here's a report that looks like a long press release (although I'd have to read it all to make a confident assessment) https://oag.ca.gov/sites/all/files/agweb/pdfs/tr/truancy_2013.pdf and here's a news story that might as well be a press release https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/New-D-A-promises-to-be-smart-on-crime-Harris-2831205.php But that's a side issue.

The basic problem with this entry is that it doesn't have a coherent story. It's an agglomeration of details, with editors warring with each other like a game of Go, trying to get more or less favorable coverage of Harris, according to their preference. --Nbauman (talk) 01:24, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Here's another press release. https://www.drugpolicy.org/press-release/2017/07/senator-cory-booker-introduces-marijuana-legalization-bill-focused-racial The problem with press releases is that they are inherently one-sided and flattering. Which is the problem with this entire Wikipedia article.--Nbauman (talk) 17:50, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Those are .gov/WP:PRIMARY sources and a fairly gushing article. Sources to be used with caution, but not necessarily useless, it depends on how they are used. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:35, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

User:PrimaPrime, Bazelon is a WP:RS, and her opinions are one of the viewpoints we should include under WP:NPOV. I would be happy to include Bazelon's opinion of Harris, along with another WP:RS legal scholar who disagrees. I don't want to see Bazelon's opinion truncated to the point where the reader doesn't know the meaningful point she was getting at. And I don't want to see a Wikipedia editor's WP:OR summary of a court case. --Nbauman (talk) 13:30, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

May we change the archive period to 15 days?

This page is over 100kB. May we change the archive period to 15 days? --Jax 0677 (talk) 16:59, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

@Jax 0677: It's been less than 12 hours since I added auto archiving. The bot hasn't gotten here yet. Please, let's wait and see what happens in the next 12 hours. NedFausa (talk) 17:05, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

It got noticed

The Intercept had an article on what's going on here. Arglebargle79 (talk) 21:25, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

That link is misentered, the Intercept story is There’s a War Going On Over Kamala Harris’s Wikipedia Page, with Unflattering Elements Vanishing in part it reads

At least one highly dedicated Wikipedia user has been scrubbing controversial aspects of Harris’s “tough-on-crime” record from her Wikipedia page, her decision not to prosecute Steve Mnuchin for mortgage fraud-related crimes, her strong support of prosecutors in Orange County who engaged in rampant misconduct, and other tidbits — such as her previous assertion that “it is not progressive to be soft on crime” — that could prove unflattering to Harris as the public first gets to know her on the national stage. The edits, according to the page history, have elicited strong pushback from Wikipedia’s volunteer editor brigade, and have drawn the page into controversy, though it’s a fight the pro-Harris editor is currently winning.

... the language was getting pulled directly from press releases and campaign literature. “You seem to have gone through a database of press releases from Harris’s office, cataloging every single one and adding it to the article,” one Wikipedia editor said.

Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:24, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

I noticed an admin, Drmies, posted a little while back on Bnguyen1114's talk page. I haven't been following this page, but it appears there's been at least some scrutiny and reversions. Drmies, can you help catch us up about what's been going on here? Is this a case of the media trying to pretend there's conflict when it's actually being handled fine, or is there some potential cleanup that needs to be done? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:32, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Collapsing discussion of conduct rather than content

Look y'all, I'm just a constituent of Kamala Harris who volunteers for Democratic candidates. I've met Jill Biden, Josh Harder, Julian Castro, and Kamala Harris. I'm on lockdown like everyone else and took on this page as a project. There's nothing sinister about me. If you have questions, feel free to ask, I'll be happy to answer. Bnguyen1114 (talk) 21:38, 2 July 2020 (UTC) You should probably recuse yourself from this topic, then. We can't have paid editors going around and changing articles on the subject that they are paid by. Jdcomix (talk) 21:50, 2 July 2020 (UTC) Do you have any proof Bnguyen1114 is being paid by Kamala Harris? PrimaPrime (talk) 22:07, 2 July 2020 (UTC) Oh, so you're admitting to being extensively politically involved in the constituency and party of this politician, and have also admitted to feeling "sick" at reading criticism of this politician, but we're to assume that this "project" you have undertaken in deleting said criticism is not sinister? You re-included the Mnuchin thing, but the way the Mnuchin thing is worded is terrible. It's highly one-sided and favourable to Harris, much more so than reliable sources have been.In general, you seem to lack an ability to write dispassionately. CompactSpacez (talk) 21:46, 2 July 2020 (UTC) This talk page should only be used for discussing changes to articles, not the conduct of other editors. If anyone has any concerns, they should discuss it at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard or file a report at ANI or ARBCOM. TFD (talk) 21:59, 2 July 2020 (UTC) Agreed. Neither Bnguyen1114's involvement in local politics nor their preference for editing specific pages are against Wikipedia policy, provided their contributions cite WP:RS and abide by WP:DUE with regard to factual criticism of Harris. I agree some of their initial editing was potentially disruptive, but the last time this was discussed in May, they agreed to reduce their activity on this page, and appear to have done so. I have no reason not to WP:AGF at this point; any issues at this point should be handled through the WP:BRD cycle, not by an Intercept writer looking for a controversy or the casting of vague WP:ASPERSIONS about paid campaign operatives. PrimaPrime (talk) 22:04, 2 July 2020 (UTC) Except this is clearly violating WP:DUE and WP:RS. Fair, properly-sourced criticism is being removed. This editing behaviour was so egregious that a reputable news organization reported on it. Moreover, it is also not enough for them to merely cease disruptively editing. Their disruptive edits must also be removed, and the criticisms re-instated. CompactSpacez (talk) 22:18, 2 July 2020 (UTC) Sir, I added both of the criticisms back to the page, as was previously requested. Bnguyen1114 (talk) 22:32, 2 July 2020 (UTC) You did so after the article came out. — Peleio Aquiles (talk) 23:10, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

I think it's fair to say The Intercept has a certain political lean -- we're not talking about the NYT here -- but setting that aside, you're free to edit the article if you have issues with its current state. Be the change you wish to see in the world. PrimaPrime (talk) 22:22, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

PrimaPrime The NYT also has a political leaning, but BOTH are considered by WP as reliable sources.TJD2 (talk) 22:27, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Unlike the NYT, the Intercept did not support the Iraq War or any other, similarly fraudulent international crime based on fake and biased information from politicians. — Peleio Aquiles (talk) 23:13, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

This page is for discussing potential improvements to the article, not your opinions on the Iraq War. PrimaPrime (talk) 23:32, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

The willful blindness required to still consider the NYT a reliable source makes me fearful for the future. Torriende (talk) 15:32, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Bnguyen1114 is, as far as I'm concerned, a problematic editor--but I will say that CompactSpacez, with their limited experience and doubtful contributions, has little right to jump on them, just as brand-new User talk:GLIZZY GLADIATOR is highly suspicious. Bnguyen seemed to be a COI editor who's prime interest was the flooding of these articles with every bit of information, whether relevant, reasonable, well-sourced or not--not overly promotional stuff, or I would have blocked them, but just too much stuff. It's the kind of editing that turns articles into swamps. User:Sdkb, I quit looking at these articles and the editor's work a while ago, at a time when it seemed things had settled down a bit. But I will say that I was less concerned with their supposed deletions than I was with their additions (I hate fluff); the article seems a bit overblown to me, and I'm sad they didn't give my username when they cited me, haha. You, Sdkb, seem like an editor with some experience and common sense. Shoot, I see now that the article has 160k, with half the content and over half of the text contributed by Bnguyen. Sometimes drastic times call for drastic measures, and if there are a few editors willing to do the work, then restore the earlier version of the article, go through those walls of text added by Bnguyen, and turn this into a decent article. Or go the slow route and start pruning. Either way--this article needs something. (TFD, article talk pages should allow for this kind of discussion too: the article itself is directly a subject of discussion.) Drmies (talk) 22:07, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

I agree with the motion to recuse - Bnguyen1114 needs to recuse himself from editing the Kamala Harris page, any further edits will have to be scrutinized for POV issues. TJD2 (talk) 22:09, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm cool with it. No need for a motion. I'll voluntarily recuse myself until some editors go through it. Bnguyen1114 (talk) 22:11, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

I created this account to ask the following. TJD2 and others have called for you to recuse yourself from editing this page, yet your reply here implies that you will only temporarily recuse yourself. Is it your intention to resume editing this page, after it has gone through review? Assuming you do return to editing, would you agree to your edits being scrutinized for POV issues? Thank you for your time. - A fellow Californian Democrat (Firepengu) —Preceding undated comment added 01:25, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

I will abide by the judgment of the group. I genuinely enjoy researching and writing about politicians I admire but if the editors think it inappropriate, I don't have an issue stepping aside. If I am permitted to continue contributing after the whole article has been reviewed for bias subject to further scrutiny for POV issues, I don't have a problem with it. Thanks for your question. Bnguyen1114 (talk) 01:53, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Drmies, Good practices for talk pages says, "Comment on content, not on the contributor: Keep the discussions focused on the topic of the talk page, rather than on the editors participating." Of course there can be exceptions, but I think we've already reached the point where the discussion should continue elsewhere if at all. TFD (talk) 22:18, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

You should not be lecturing a WP:Administrator on the rules of the website. I'm sure Drmies is well versed in this area.TJD2 (talk) 22:23, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

That's the argument from authority. Being an administrator does not necessarily mean that one is always right. Tell me, if yo disagree with an administrator on content policy, do you always adhere to their judgment? TFD (talk) 22:43, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, but TFD is also well versed--and while I agree, usually, with the sentiment, with COI editing it's a slightly different kettle of fish. We have two issues of concern here, and they're intimately connected: one is the possibly/likely COI editing (paid or not, that's irrelevant), second is the resulting article, which (the Interceptor suggests, albeit not very clearly) is allegedly partial, and is certainly a bloated bag of factoids. So while I'm interested in what editors think of Bnguyen, it's true that such discussions are frequently held at COIN or whatever--TFD, if you want to start this up at COIN, that's fine with me, but I am hoping we don't lose track of what IMO is really at stake here: the neutrality, readability, and quality of the article. It is my belief that Bnguyen withdrawing from the article will likely improve article quality, in case there was any doubt on where I stand. Thanks all, Drmies (talk) 22:38, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Going over this page is more of a heavy lift than I'm willing to take on currently, but I've tagged it for a {{POV check}} in light of the discussion here so far, and I'd suggest that, given its importance, it might be good to go to some more widely watched noticeboard to find experienced editors willing to do the check. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:42, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

• Any discussion that's about Bnguyen1114 should just be closed here. If someone thinks Bnguyen1114 has run afoul of Wikipedia policy, take it up on the appropriate noticeboard. And no, admitting to being a democrat or being a constituent does not run against any policy. It's not appropriate for the article talk page to focus on the user rather than the content. Receiving a bunch of "attention" off-wiki like this sucks, whether or not it's warranted. If there's an issue, the Intercept piece did its job in drawing attention to it. No need to get bogged down in ad hominem irrelevant to Wikipedia policy. Close this discussion, bring Bnguyen1114 to a noticeboard if necessary, and focus on content. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 22:40, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

• the discussion about Bnguyen1114 is highly relevant to staying in the talk page, as the talk page is the first place wiki readers like me go to when an article seems like not an article but an AstroTurf attempt. further, if we use rhododendrites logic, the talk page is not the place to tell people not to have nguyen114 discussion in the talk page Flynnwasframed (talk) 22:57, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

• I am deeply disgusted with the fact that much of this page has been scrubbed. There was more about her not prosecuting Steve Mnuchin and taking campaign donations from him. It was up here as of last month. Her history with the death penalty was also scrubbed, where she defended it before the 9th Circuit. She also opposed parole reform and that was scrubbed. Lastly, the marijuana position is disingenuous. She opposed legalizing marijuana until 2018, but the wording makes it seem her change in position is unknown as to when she changed. Capriaf (talk)
  • Capriaf, you've been a Wikipedia editor for a while; you should know that shooting from the hip about content in a section that's not about that at all is only going to water everything down. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drmies (talk • contribs) 01:17, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
    • Drmies, actually if you read the intercept article, you'd see what I said has to do with this topic, so don't make baseless attacks like that at me. I purposely based everything I said the Intercept article the sparked this section on the talk page. Capriaf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.0.106.121 (talk) 14:19, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

If you let these bogus edits stand, Wikipedia will have lost the little credibility is has. SawdustForBrains (talk) 00:04, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

• SawdustForBrains, thanks, but I think we can handle it. Drmies (talk) 01:13, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
• Note, that in my role as an uninvolved administrator, I have closed the conduct discussion below and collapsed a part of the discussion in this thread that had veered towards conduct. My intent was to leave content stuff alone which does mean that the discussion collapsing is a bit awkward which I acknowledge. Barkeep49 (talk) 01:56, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Barkeep49, I appreciate you. Drmies (talk) 02:11, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Indeed, I saw this article, too. I am concerned that Wikipedia not be turned into a campaign website for Kamala Harris. At the same time, I do think the content should be fair and meet WP:UNDUE, WP:NPOV, and WP:RS. I do ask that if anyone here is working for Kamala Harris's campaign, they should declare themselves, per WP:COI; as well, if anyone here is working for an opponent's campaign, I ask that they too declare themselves, per WP:COI.--Beneficii (talk) 17:11, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Look guys, you either specify what is suppose to be non-neutral in the article or the tag stays out. Onus for that is on those trying to add the tag. And trying to question other editors' motivations doesn't cut it. Volunteer Marek 00:48, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

And honestly, who cares what the Intercept writes about this article? Volunteer Marek 00:49, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

As it currently exists, this article is a propaganda piece written by a user with a vested interest in making Kamala Harris look as good as possible (a self-proclaimed Democratic activist who gets "sick" at misinformation about her should not be allowed to remove negative information from this article, full stop). Until every single edit from User:Bnguyen1114 is reverted, this article has zero basis for claiming to be even slightly encyclopedic. Allowing a "quarantine project" that is clearly an attempt to whitewash Kamala Harris to stand is utterly outrageous. This page is propaganda written by a Democratic party activist, nothing more. PDMagazineCoverUploading (talk) 12:23, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

• This is pretty bad. A lot of content has been removed, and I'm surprised it took this long to get noticed. Here's a net diff of all the changes made since the user in question started editing: Special:Diff/952562673/cur. Some are worth keeping, and other edits have been made, so it's not as easy as just reverting everything, but it may be easier to revert and add back in relevant changes. Across over 500 edits, it'd be a lot of work to vet each one individually vs just do it that way. There were numerous good edits, as well. The majority of edits by others were ultimately minor edits, so on balance, I think just reverting everything and readding the changes is a much faster option. Just to add, the user did make good edits, and a lot of the reorganisation is helpful, but since they made so many changes and removals it's hard to tell what's good and what isn't. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:19, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

  I've made the revert, for the reasons in this statement and in Drmies'. Over 30k characters were added back in as a result. The revert I've done was rather far back (to the diff I listed in my prev comment). I compared changes from that to the revert Drmies did not too long ago, and even in that range a lot of content was removed and small changes made to remove criticism, so I felt that wasn't enough. I will add clearly legitimate contributions back in, mainly from other editors, but I probably don't have the time to vet each single change by Bnguyen1114. I suspect many were good, but I saw too many which removed legitimate content or criticism, and we cannot, especially in this time, have such an important page which has been puffered up sitting around on the wiki. This is a very bold and not-ideal solution, but it's ultimately necessary and the fastest solution to get back to a stable page. I hope other editors can help vet those other changes, so we can add some of those back in as well. I must also note the associated pages which must be checked, Political positions of Kamala Harris, for example. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:37, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

You guys are really f*****g this all up. Shows Wikipedia for what it truly is, a Democratic Party mouthpiece. – Alex43223 ^{T | C | E} 21:43, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

It doesn't sound like you want to build an encylopedia. Kindly take your rage elsewhere. Cpotisch (talk) 02:25, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

I re-added the info critical of Harris removed by Bnguyen weeks ago, though the promotional language remains. Then I requested that the article be bumped to EC protection. These editors are clearly affiliated with Harris, and are literally destroying the article. Cpotisch (talk) 02:25, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Strangely, Jimbo Wales did not die and leave you in charge of Wikipedia.

These editors are clearly affiliated with Harris That's a strange new meaning of "clearly" I was previously unaware of. You DO have the slightest shred of evidence for this claim, correct? --Calton | Talk 02:34, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

• There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard regarding a possible conflict of interest incident. The thread is Bnguyen1114 and Kamala Harris. --Pudeo (talk) 23:57, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Extreme Bias, Orwell-esque excuses, source elitism

1. The Intercept is read by millions. It is a legitimate source who has uncovered some of the most SIGNIFICANT stories since their founding. Those that think commercial enterprises are more trustworthy or significant are forcing wikipedia to reproduce the party line of the very few majority shareholders interest to guide the content of its articles. This makes wikipedia worse.
2. The Hill is a somewhat rightwing news site. But, again, it is read by millions and thus is significant and while its news side pushes click-baity headlines, generally from a rightwing perspective, its news coverage, as opposed to opinion articles are generally considered trustworthy.
3. Kamala Harris' husband's job is absolutely relevant. He is by far the largest income in their household, thus finances much of the Harris' lifestyle, which has been reported widely as extravagant is absolutely relevant to whether Harris has conflicts of interests. To pretend otherwise because "this article is about Kamala," or "its not significant," is to live in the delusional world where politicians family's income streams don't influence them. The public cannot know if a conflict of interest is the reason for any given action that is why is absolutely NECESSARY that they have the information to make the judgement for themselves. If politicians don't like that then don't get involved in financial entanglements where it is not readily obvious to the public whether there is conflict or not.

I am a scientist and I actually used wikipedia a lot in university for chemistry calculations. Seeing how ridiculous the editors are stretching to cover up for Harris' obvious bad acts and questionable decisions here is a real eye opener on how the adage, "don't use wikipedia," is still true. Its sad. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:681:527F:8DC0:D9E5:74C4:C2DC:C1F6 (talk) 04:20, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

You seem pretty biased, and therefore probably shouldn’t be editing the page. If there is some sort of political issue with Harris’s husband’s job, income, or her spending, then that’s for journalists to Investigate and write about...it doesn’t belong in an encyclopedia article. Likewise, the page is for a synopsis, not to offer opinions on “questionable decisions.” Davey1107 (talk) 07:54, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

This article reads like a campaign site. It needs to honestly demonstrate both positives and negatives or has no value. For example, no Controversy section is listed, and now is even stripped from the talk section. Can you honestly say that as a former Prosecutor and AG, as well as former presidential candidate, she has no issues that are "controversies"? If that is the approach, then the bias in her favor is clear.Bobbysev (talk) 18:07, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

It's Wikipedia policy to avoid Controversy sections. See WP:CRITS. Knope7 (talk) 18:14, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Not policy, but it's generally a good idea. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:33, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

@Bobbysev: The controversy section that you say has been "stripped" from this talk page dates back three years and was routinely archived after it became stale. It may still be viewed with a single click here. NedFausa (talk) 19:30, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

As a scientist you should realize that when you write an overview of a topic for undergraduates, you summarize the information about the topic that is most typically found in reliable sources. You don't say that the journal of the University of Pig's Knuckle, Iowa is a reliable source therefore we need to add what what Professor X said about quasars. If and when cable news starts reporting on Harris' husband, we'll put it front and center. But we can't provide a different emphasis than they do. Readers come here to read a summary of what they would find if they searched articles about Harris in CNN. If they want the dirt they ignore, they can look elsewhere.

However, if you think this article is more positive about Harris than mainstream media, then explain how and we can try to change it.

TFD (talk) 02:40, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

NPOV Tag

I have added the NPOV tag because well-sourced negative information has been removed from this article by a Democratic activist (likely in order to whitewash Kamala Harris' image) and traces of said activists' edits remain through the lengthy, expository defenses of Harris' positions. Example: a one-sentence mention of her defending the death penalty in court in 2014, contrasted with extensive discussions of alternatives to the death penalty mentioned in her press relases. There is a clear agenda to make Kamala Harris look good in preparation for a potential running mate announcement, as evidenced by the editor saying "misinformation" about Harris made him "sick". The NPOV tag should be kept until the article is reverted to its pre-whitewash state.PDMagazineCoverUploading (talk) 14:07, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

I agree. I'm somewhat tempted to roll the article completely back to before one editor with very strong political ties to the subject started a massive series of changes. This would bring us back to April of this year. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 14:28, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Oppose rollback. @Jpgordon: I for one (and I'm by no means alone) have worked very hard to repair damage caused by the activist and to otherwise improve this BLP since he recused himself from active editing. Your proposed rollback would take a meat cleaver to a page that is undergoing reconstructive surgery. Please resist your temptation unless there is clear consensus endorsing your draconian approach. Thank you. NedFausa (talk) 15:30, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Not to worry; I've been editing here long enough to know that such an act without consensus would be a terrible thing to do. I'm just expressing frustration. This was a pretty good article before a loyalist supporter decided to turn it into a campaign biography. (For what it's worth, I'm a big supporter too, which is why I haven't done much on the article itself.) --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 15:40, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

The Intercept article made a lot of damaging insinuations unsupported by facts. Not everyone removing information from a politician's biography is conflicted or working on that politician's behalf. Political biographies tend to have a lot of excessive details added by editors who care strongly about political issues. This article has suffered from that problem for years (and you can find many past talk page discussions about that in the archives). The article does need to be trimmed down. That process will sometimes involve editors removing information that others find significant. When that happens, we should calmly discuss on the talk page rather than looking to conspiracy theories. It's bad enough that the Intercept misunderstood Wikipedia and didn't bother to get all the facts. We here on Wikipedia should know better.

If there are specific facts that should be added back to the article, we can discuss. This article is the product of the work of many editors, not just one. Knope7 (talk) 17:41, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

I appreciate the work that User:NedFausa has done, but when I review the article (I was just checking the Marijuana section), there is so much detail that would take so long to fact-check that I don't think an incremental approach is possible. The section misses the main point -- the debates over marijuana and which side Harris was on -- and instead is filled with trivia of efforts that sound good but really didn't get anywhere. The critical question is, when Harris could have made a difference in marijuana prosecutions, did she do it? (And is she a hypocrite for smoking marijuana herself while she prosecuted others?) he best way to edit it would be to blank the whole Marijuana section and start over, with just a few good sources.

I remember when I was working for a science publication, and I wrote a story. My editor read it, and said, "Rewrite it. Don't just touch it up. Rewrite it from scratch." And I did. That was good advice.

That's how I think this entry should be rewritten. Blank it and start again from scratch. And I think it would be easier than trying to copy edit it. But that's just what I would do. I'm not pushing for it. --Nbauman (talk) 18:15, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Those are absolutely the wrong questions for the subsection. It falls under political positions and so that is what that subsection needs to stick to: presenting Harris' political position on cannabis. Knope7 (talk)

In any case, remember that that the "Political positions" page also exists, following the standard procedure for politicians' pages that get too long. It was rewritten by the same user to move content from that section to Harris' biography when it seemed more relevant or redundant with information already there, but anyone suspecting bias in the main page should also look over the secondary pages as well. 2601:482:8000:C470:D1B7:5187:6B96:63E5 (talk) 19:18, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

(User talk:2601:482:8000:C470:D1B7:5187:6B96:63E5) You seem to be a single-purpose account with only 3 contributions, all to the Kamala Harris page. What gives? Are you a new editor, with only 3 contributions? If so, how do you know about "Political positions" pages? If not, are you also editing under another name? --Nbauman (talk) 04:32, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

The "it's POV complaint" seems to boil down to "this is the attack page I was looking for! Therefore it's POV!". I'm removing the tag as spurious. Volunteer Marek 06:50, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

I hate writing "me too" comments, but I agree with User:Volunteer Marek on this. Dare I say it? The page has become political, in a high profile way. I think there should be consensus before adding the POV tag in the future. Rklahn (talk) 07:16, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

I disagree with both of you, but I'm also not really willing to die on this hill. Honestly I just hope we can get this page back to where it was and wish everyone the best in improving it. PDMagazineCoverUploading (talk) 13:21, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Forbes.com/sites

In re: this revert, please see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#Forbes.com_contributors. RSNP distinguishes between Forbes.com editorial content and Forbes.com/sites contributor content. This can be seen in the two links: WP:FORBES (editorial) vs WP:FORBESCON (contributors). Forbes.com/sites is specifically called out in the latter. --K.e.coffman (talk) 23:41, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Ping @NedFausa:. --K.e.coffman (talk) 23:44, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

@K.e.coffman: Please see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#Forbes – Forbes and Forbes.com include articles written by their staff, which are written with editorial oversight, and are generally reliable. (Emphases added.) Jack Brewster, author of the reference you deleted, is a Forbes staff reporter, not an outside contributor. The disputed reference is acceptable and should not be removed on the basis you claim. Please await consensus before again deleting it. NedFausa (talk) 23:50, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification on the staff position. --K.e.coffman (talk) 23:56, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 July 2020

Change African American to Black. Me norris (talk) 21:29, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

 Not done Black redirects to African-American. Anyways, the terms are interchangeable -- it would not be necessary to do that. P,TO 19104 (talk) (contribs) 22:10, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

P,TO 19104, The terms are not interchangeable. Nelson Mandela is black, but not African-American. S Philbrick(Talk) 22:39, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

@Sphilbrick: Nelson Mandela did not live in the US, if he did then he would be an African-American and Black. Correction: the terms are interchangeable when you are referring to people of African descent (or "black" people) who are living in the United States. P,TO 19104 (talk) (contribs) 22:44, 13 July 2020 (UTC).

P,TO 19104, This is a world-wide encyclopedia, the fact that some people act as if it were an American encyclopedia is offensive. (And no, your correction is not correct.) S Philbrick(Talk) 23:04, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

"Offensive" is too strong a word, perhaps "inappropriate" would be better. S Philbrick(Talk) 23:06, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

@Sphilbrick: Ok, since there is disagreement on whether this COI edit request should be accepted, I have newly marked it as not answered. Thanks, P,TO 19104 (talk) (contribs) 23:10, 13 July 2020 (UTC).

P,TO 19104, FTR, I have expressed no opinion on the edit request. My narrow concern was the suggestion that the two terms are interchangeable. I'm old enough to remember when the term came into widespread use, and it is always struck me as a flawed decision. Personally, I hope to live long enough to see all such terms go away but I don't think that's likely. S Philbrick(Talk) 00:04, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

This template should be used for non-controversial edits or where consensus has been reached but the page is protected. It alerts administrators to make a change. If no consensus has been reached, the template should not be used, but you are free to discuss the issue. Once consensus has been achieved since the article is not protected, any editor can change it. TFD (talk) 23:31, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 July 2020

In the first paragraph, the sentence reading

"Harris is the first Asian-American woman and the first African Anerican"

should have the word "Anerican" corrected to "American". Additionally, the hyphenation should be consistent with "Asian-American". Krajcevski (talk) 06:35, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

 Done Larry Hockett (Talk) 06:39, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

References

Clarifcation. With this edit Larry Hockett fixed the spelling and rightly removed a hyphen. But as I read it, Krajcevski requested that African American be hyphenated. Per MOS:HYPHEN, we must never insert a hyphen into a proper name, not even when used as a compound modifier. Thus, the sentence is correct as Larry changed it, with neither Asian American nor African American hyphenated. NedFausa (talk) 16:04, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

There is an ongoing discussion in general about the appropriateness of apostrophes hyphens in terms such as these. Apparently, it can be a point of controversy. JTRH (talk) 16:09, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

@JTRH: This edit request did not mention apostrophes. NedFausa (talk) 16:18, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

I meant hyphens. Sorry for the confusion. JTRH (talk) 16:21, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

The convention that I've seen generally adopted in other Wikipedia articles, which also is consistent with my understanding of English grammar (which I'll explain below), is that, while one should not hyphenate "Asian American" when it is an adjective-noun combo as in "Harris is an Asian American," the term should be hyphenated when such combo modifies a noun (such as in "Harris is an Asian-American woman." This is consistent with proper hyphenation in other contexts.

When one writes the phrase "I read a short story," "short" is an adjective that modifies the noun "story," and hyphenation should not be used. However, when one writes "Edgar Allan Poe was a short-story writer," one must hyphenate "short-story" to make clear that "short" is an adjective that is modifying "story," not writer; leaving out the hyphen would imply that Poe was a short writer of stories instead of a writer of short stories.

It should be noted that such hyphenation is limited to two-word combinations in which the lead word is or could be adjectives, but that adverb-adjective combinations should not be hyphenated because an adverb could not possibly modify a noun (adverbs may only modify verbs, adjectives or other adverbs). Thus, "a poorly written essay" is not hyphenated, given that there could be no such thing as a "poorly essay" ("poorly" could never be an adjective and may only be an adverb).

Returning to "Asian American" and "African American," when the terms are used as an adjective-noun combo that creates a compound noun (such as in "Harris is an African American," where "African" modifies "American" to signify "an American who descends fully or partially from black Africans," it is like "short story" and no hyphenation is necessary nor should be used. By contrast, if one wrote "Harris is an African-American senator," the hyphen is needed to clarify that the adjective "African" is modifying "American" and not "senator." Harris is a senator who is African American, not an American senator who is African. Thus, the hyphen is necessary in "African-American prosecutor" and "Asian-American woman." AuH2ORepublican (talk) 13:23, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

AuH2ORepublican: Thanks for the lesson in English grammar. But unless I missed it in those four paragraphs, you neglected to mention MOS:HYPHEN, which as I quoted above, tells us to never insert a hyphen into a proper name, not even when used as a compound modifier. NedFausa (talk) 14:22, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

@User:NedFausa, thanks for pointing that out for me. I'm honestly surprised to learn that Wikipedia guidelines state that proper names should not be hyphenated when it modifies a noun, particularly since it's not generally followed by editors in other articles. I've probably run into ten editors who write "Cory Booker is an African-American" (which is both grammatically incorrect and against Wikipedia guidelines) for every one who writes "Cory Booker is an African American senator." AuH2ORepublican (talk) 01:49, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Moving forward with NPOV issues

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

We're not going to be rolling back, obviously. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 19:55, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

---

Re. It got noticed, I can only see two options going forward: vet all changes made, and modify the article from the state it was left in to address neutrality and content removal concerns; or revert to the pre-changes state and add in changes as appropriate. I'm starting this discussion to see which people would prefer. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:52, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

• Revert and re-add: I feel it's better to revert to Special:Diff/952562673/cur and re-add changes as necessary. The issue isn't just the blanking of complete sections. There's smaller changes, as well, which aid in puffery, remove critical statements, and even small critical words. I think there are serious NPOV issues here that are going to be an incredible amount of work to address in any other way. The issue extends to the Political positions of Kamala Harris article as well, where the political positions section of this article was selectively moved. I did boldly attempt to make this change, but in hindsight I agree with NedFausa for pointing out there should probably be a consensus on which option to go for before making such a large alteration. I appreciate that work has already been done on the vet and modify option, but I don't see how each change can be properly addressed with this, and ultimately I think it'd be a greater waste of everyone's time if following through with this option takes more time than the alternative. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:52, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

• Revert and re-add: I agree with the comment above. We need to maintain NPOV.—Beneficii (talk) 19:00, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

• Revert and re-add: for all the reasons stated above. This isn't a page or website meant to promote only the good and safe versions of people, especially politicians.TropicAces (talk) 19:09, 6 July 2020 (UTC)tropicAces

• OPPOSE Revert and re-add: ProcrastinatingReader presents us with a false dichotomy—either "vet all changes made and modify the article from the state it was left in" or destroy the countless good faith contributions by me and numerous other editors to mitigate damage done by a fanboy. A third option (and there are likely others as well) is to continue repairing this BLP as we have done since 2 July 2020, when The Intercept exposé dropped. That does not require vetting all changes made by the fanboy. Rather, it involves closely scrutinizing our article as it now stands and making changes as justified by WP policies/guidelines and with consensus by interested editors. As I wrote here earlier today, a draconian rollback would take a meat cleaver to a page that is undergoing reconstructive surgery. Please, let's not succumb to impatience in some mad rush to mollify The Intercept. NedFausa (talk) 19:16, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

  This isn't about The Intercept. Anyone looking at the revision history of this article could've seen this. They just happened to realise before one of us did, apparently. That third option is the second option, you're just stating that you're already in the process of doing said option hence we shouldn't revert. That's a fine statement, but there is no "false dichotomy" here. But, this article is 70k characters of readable prose in size, not including the text moved to Political positions of Kamala Harris. Including that, we're talking about 90k characters. It's an enormous article. GA/FA reviews of articles of this size take long enough, how are we going to vet each sentence across 90k characters for neutrality? How long will that take? Meanwhile, are readers going to see this scrubbed version? There are little edits made as well, removing things like "Harris was criticised for her view in ___" changed to "Harris was reported to be ___". The undertaking required to fix this article will be huge. I appreciate you've invested time in this already, but given that almost all of the content edits over the last few months were made by this one user, reverting it would've been more practical to do without excessive loss of content, and doing it now may be the overall greater time saver and result in a better outcome, even despite the time you've already invested in fixing this. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:22, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

@ProcrastinatingReader: Just as a point of curiosity, let me ask why it took four days following The Intercept exposé to bring your meat cleaver to Kamala Harris, which you had never before edited? You could have saved me and numerous other editors a great deal of effort simply by coming here in a timely manner. NedFausa (talk) 19:41, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

This isn't about any person's effort -- if it were, we'd simply honor the vast amount of work that has caused the problem. This is about the quality of the article; no reason to personalize the argument. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 20:21, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

• This is a thorny problem, but it is also important to note that POV on high-profile political figures typically comes from both pro- and anti- directions, so that a blanket reversion can end up reintroducing content that really does not belong in the article. Can we get a listing here on the talk page of the most significant specific points that have either been added or removed from the article, and which bear attention? BD2412 T 19:34, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
• Revert and re-add. Too much damage was done to incrementally remove it; it will be much easier to incrementally re-add it. We shouldn't have let it get this far, but I'm not sure there were clear policy-based reasons to get it to stop without the COI being raised externally. Sad thing is, these are good edits done in good faith, just with not enough understanding of what constitutes WP:NPOV and WP:COI. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 19:36, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
• Mount an investigation of prolific user / Revert and re-add: We know that there is a prolific user who has been editing this page. We know that this person almost definitely works for the Kamala Harris campaign. Action should be taken to revert and re-add but we should also call on Wikipedia moderators to mount an investigation into the user. As someone who edits a lot of politicians' pages myself, I know how critical it is that campaigns do not interfere in these matters. We need to send a message that this work by campaigns, the same done by Sarah Palin in 2008 and Tim Kaine in 2016, is unacceptable. Revert and re-add, and mount an investigation. PickleG13 (talk) 21:27, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

  I personally have no interest in a dramatic 'investigation' here, this is about moving forward with the content issues. The editor in question said they're a regular citizen who had some extra time in lockdown and wanted to spend time building this article, for a candidate they like. I'm happy to AGF unless there's more evidence that comes to light. I feel bad that I'm petitioning to scrap their work (I hope the good parts will be added back in), but it's just necessary at this point. This editor had no ill-intent as far as I can see, it's just an unfortunate series of events. We don't expect new users to read 30 policy pages of 50 paragraphs each, this is why we give talk page warnings, and we tend to give multiple before blocking. Yet, not a single talk page warning for COI/NPOV was given, no attempt to explain to him what he was doing wrong before he spent so much time on this. 300+ editors watchlist this page, almost 200 have viewed recent changes recently, and multiple experienced editors and admins have been involved over 3 months. He was flooding the history of this page, so it's not like it was discreet editing. That editor isn't alone to blame here. That nobody took the time to at least leave a template NPOV/COI warning I view as our collective failure. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:10, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

  I agree with you here but apparently to the opposite conclusion. Without a clear reason not to AGF and the fact that the edits were being made openly and generally without objection until The Intercept chose to make a story out of it, I feel that people suddenly jumping in with a desire to to take extreme action is inappropriate. PrimaPrime (talk) 22:18, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

  This isn't about whether they're 'officially connected', regardless of official connection we have in front of us scrubbing of controversial content and rewording of issues to make them appear less problematic. I'm sorry that we're at this stage, but the content of this article matters more than any other issue. We feasibly cannot fix this at "the current pace of change" or even many times the current pace. There's people here who wish to fix this version, but nobody is going to read every sentence of 90k char prose, compare to previous, alter for NPOV. Even if there were, it'd take weeks at least, and we cannot keep this version live that long, especially not at this critical time in US politics. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:26, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

  I don't think Wikipedia should pay heed to outside media speculation, not least because Harris isn't currently on a presidential ticket. And I think there is the potential for a large revert to simply produce the opposite problem of an article littered with overzealous NPOV/UNDUE criticism of Harris. PrimaPrime (talk) 22:35, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

  The article was relatively stable for a long period of time. No editors other than this one have made major changes since, so any NPOV concerns with that version were addressed solely by this editor, whose edits have NPOV issues of their own, so I don't think that concern is logical. Logically, this version has at least, likely far more, NPOV issues than the old revision. Obviously, we still vet the changes they made and re-add them. It's just much faster to do it this way, rather than try to fix the current version. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:37, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose this drastic and binary approach being presented after several days of editors working quietly to correct the NPOV issues with this article, and the recusal of the prolific editor in question. Without any proof they are officially connected to Harris, I see no reason not to continue with the current pace of change. PrimaPrime (talk) 22:15, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

By all means, let's throw the baby out with the bathwater. NedFausa (talk) 22:51, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

• OPPOSE Revert: A large portion of the argument to revert is based on speed. What is unstated, but could be reasonably inferred, is a concern about what state the article would be in when a potential upcoming political announcement is made. I think forgoing the standard revision process to present a particular set of facts at a particular time would be in itself a political move that Wikipedia should have no part in. -- Norvy (talk) 23:04, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
• Revert and Readd NPOV must be maintained.XavierGreen (talk) 00:13, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Since the fanboy's last edit, and as of 00:17, 7 July 2020‎, 44 unique editors have made a cumulative 162 good-faith contributions to Kamala Harris. (Both totals exclude the aptly named ProcrastinatingReader.) Option Two in effect gives each of us the middle-finger salute. NedFausa (talk) 00:26, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Not really; most of the work you have done will probably go right back into the article first thing; why shouldn't it? And please stop personalizing this; it doesn't matter where or why people are now more interested in this article; it also doesn't matter a bean whether your edits, the edits of the other guy, or anyone elses go into the article. It's not about you. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 02:37, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose- Edit (and discuss when necessary) details that were added or removed that contribute to NPOV allegations instead of taking a sledgehammer to the problem. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 00:45, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose- I don't see much of a defense of the article as it was in April just fear stoked by the Intercept. The article has long had a POV problem in that every criticism that could be lobbed at anyone connected with the California AG's office during Harris tenure would make its way into the article. Unless someone actually wants to investigate and find facts to support actual misconduct, I say let's focus on fixing this article rather than bringing back old problems. Knope7 (talk) 01:59, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose Dozens of editors have been working for days to improve this article and the editor who has been criticized in the press has stepped aside for now. Let the normal editing process continue, in accordance with our policies and guidelines. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 02:43, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose by my count we are 220 or so edits past Bnguyen's last batch of largest edits around June 12. Lots of good editors have had eyes on it since and continue to do so. Reverting does not make sense at this point; the ship is righted and on course.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 04:07, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
• Revert and re-add. I don't mind any of the edits I've made being undone. The corresponding original content was even more detailed with a better wording. I disagree with the principle that dates and visibility shouldn't matter when addressing large amounts of edits, because then every corporate PR person looking to push an image of a product on its release date or promotion at an expo will be secure in knowing the edits will be treated like any other edit, but that's a matter for Wikipedia policy. All that matters is in this case the content will be improved. Serpentinite (talk) 13:10, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - considerable effort has been made by several users to improve the article. Also it has never actually been successfully articulated how and why some of these supposed changes were in violation of policy (it seems they weren't, which is why some editors focused on attacking who made them). Even putting that aside, it makes no sense to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Volunteer Marek 06:56, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support Revert and Re-add - It's quite clear that this article was edited in a severely biased manner and that much material that belonged in the article was removed without good reason. I also support putting on an NPOV tag on the article until some semblance of a consensus version emerges. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 11:03, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
• Revert and re-add. - This article seems to have become a battlefield, with certain editors pushing strongly against any language that might show Harris in a bad light. This ranges from small edits like adding "while" and "only" to make criticisms of Harris sound less significant, to large things, like the structure of the article (just compare the table of contents between April and today, where the old table of contents reflects the controversy behind some of Harris's track record more accurately). The article has been tampered with beyond repair and the best way forward seems to revert to a state before these nefarious edits happened and then add the missing information with a NPOV in mind. Mirek2 (talk) 09:34, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

• ’’’Revert to April’’’, re-add any info modularly, in the sunshine.

—Manicjedi (talk) (contribs)  18:12, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Comment - While this discussion has been open for a while without much consensus developing, dozens of editors have been working productively to improve the article. I don't think it's fair to continue holding the spectre of a mass rollback over their contributions. PrimaPrime (talk) 09:16, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

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