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75.172.212.65 ( talk) 00:58, 18 August 2019 (UTC) As is precedent with all other presidents and public figures, please include Donald Trump full post-secondary education in the infobox. Education field should read "Fordham University (transferred) < break > University of Pennsylvania (B.S.)". Wharton is a constituent school of University of Pennsylvania. The degree is not conferred by Wharton, it is conferred by the University of Pennsylvania i.e. he literally received his degree from the University of Pennsylvania. 75.172.212.65 ( talk) 00:58, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

 Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{ edit extended-protected}} template. Consensus is the "current consensus" list at point 18. Emir of Wikipedia ( talk) 12:17, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Back in 2017 a consensus developed on the article talk page that even though there was a great deal being said about his mental health in sources, we should not say anything on the subject in the article. In 2018 an article Health of Donald Trump was written which was primarily about his mental health. In June 2019 that article was AfD’ed, with the result to merge it to the Donald Trump article. Since the article being merged was primarily about mental health, a paragraph on the subject was developed at the Trump talk page and added to the article; it is now the final paragraph in the “Health and lifestyle” section. Some people have deleted it or objected to it, so we are seeking a definitive answer to the question: should we have a paragraph about his mental health? The question here is whether we should have something or nothing. Exact wording can be debated later, if the conclusion here is that, yes, we should say something on the subject. In the meantime the paragraph at issue should remain in the article.-- MelanieN ( talk) 01:05, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Background

• Since 2017 the Donald Trump article has had a talk-page consensus to “Omit any opinions about Trump's psychology held by mental health academics or professionals who have not examined him.” Previous discussions: link 1, July 2017; link 2, July-August 2017

• In July 2018 an article Health of Donald Trump was created. Originally it was entirely about his mental health. [4] Later some material about his physical health was added, primarily copied from the Donald Trump article, but the bulk of the article was still about mental health. [5] On June 6, 2019 the article was nominated for deletion. On June 13 the AfD was closed as “merge to Donald Trump;” the closure included a detailed analysis of the discussion and options, and a later addendum caveat that “the editors who carry out the merger should probably consider a very selective merge that only includes the good material supported by top-notch sources.”

• June 13 - 24: Upon the close of the AfD there was a discussion here at Talk:Donald Trump] [6] about how to do the merge, resulting in the final paragraph currently in the “Health and lifestyle” section.

• June 28 - July 14, a discussion [7] about whether and how to reword the earlier consensus, which had been not to say anything about mental health; result was to replace it with “Include one paragraph merged from Health of Donald Trump describing views about Trump's psychology expressed by public figures, media sources, and mental health professionals who have not examined him.”

• July 10 - 11, another discussion [8] because some people were deleting the mental health paragraph from the article. Since none of the previous discussions had been formal RfCs it was suggested that we should have one. This is it. MelanieN ( talk) 00:52, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Pings

Participants in the “link 1” discussion, July 2017:   User:Carbon Caryatid, User:SPECIFICO, User:Objective3000, User:Mandruss, User:Markbassett, User:Power~enwiki, User:Snow_Rise, User:JFG -- MelanieN ( talk) 01:05, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Additional participants in the “link 2” discussion, July-August 2017: User:BullRangifer, User:Hidden_Tempo, User:PackMecEng, User:Zbrnajsem, User:MelanieN, User:Tataral, User:The_Wordsmith -- MelanieN ( talk) 01:05, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Participants in the June 2019 discussions: @ BD2412, BobRoberts14, Atsme, Onetwothreeip, TParis, Jo-Jo Eumerus, Tataral, MrX, Scjessey, Markbassett, JFG, MONGO, Starship.paint, Mandruss, GreenMeansGo, and Ahrtoodeetoo: -- MelanieN ( talk) 01:05, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Participants in the July 2019 discussion: same as above plus User:The Four Deuces, User:Cosmic Sans, User:Emir of Wikipedia, User:Amakuru -- MelanieN ( talk) 01:05, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Support including something on the subject of mental health

• Support because of the decision to merge the other article into this one. Also because there are much more solid sources now than there were in 2017. -- MelanieN ( talk) 01:00, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

  You (and several others voting support) actually argued on Talk:Hillary Clinton/Archive 41#Obama's former personal physician questions Clinton's health that commentary by physicians about Hillary Clinton’s health should not be included because they have not personally examined her and because it is against medical ethics. I think this raises questions.-- Literaturegeek |  T@1k? 00:54, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

• Support. Trump himself has addressed his mental health, publicly describing himself as a "stable genius" on multiple occasions. That did not occur in a vacuum. Wikipedia is not the APA's enforcer, so it is not our job to bar sources reporting on evaluations of the subject by third-party observers. Of course, it is very common to include such evaluations of important figures, with our own articles containing evaluations of the mental health of Abraham Lincoln and of Adolf Hitler, and we even have an article on the mental health of Jesus. All of these are sourced to people who had not made first-hand examinations of the patient. bd2412 T 01:28, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

  WP:BLP does not apply to Abraham Lincoln and Adolf Hitler. On Talk:Hillary Clinton/Archive 41#Obama's former personal physician questions Clinton's health you argued that neither Trump’s nor Hillary Clinton’s health should be discussed/included in an encyclopedia when arguing against negative health claims being added to Clinton’s biography. Now you say the opposite on Trump’s biography page...-- Literaturegeek |  T@1k? 00:59, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

• Support. Firstly, as noted above, there was already an article written and active, until it was merged here. By not including any mention, in effect it would be an underhanded way of deleting an existing article. Secondly, it is too big of an issue, and has been mentioned as a serious topic pertaining to Donald Trump for at least 35 years. Stevenmitchell ( talk) 20:16, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

• Highly conditional support. Now, clearly anything added to the article which touches upon this subject needs to be scrupulously vetted for appropriate WP:WEIGHT and needs to fully attributed. Indeed, I would even go as far as to say that the burden for inclusion for statements along these lines should be a particularly high standard of consensus--if for no other reason than the stability of any such content. All of that said, this is clearly the only one of the two options that is policy consistent. We do not omit major topics concerning an article subject which are discussed in huge numbers of sources on the matter simply because the topic is politically or socially charged. Rather, we instead provide the span of perspectives on the topic, in proportion to their weight in WP:RS.

Likewise, anyone asserting we cannot mention any expert observation because of the Goldwater Rule has wandered into one hell of a non-sequitor argument: Wikipedia is not bound in any shape, manner or form by the APA's policies and professional guidelines. We have our own policies to determine whether content is included and those are the ones representing this the broader consensus of this community by which we must abide. The fact of the matter is, many experts have provided perspectives on the topic of Trump's mental health, and these have frequently come in the form of reliable sources. What that means for their professional standing and ethics is an issue for them to resolve among themselves, the bodies that license them and the professional associations to which they belong. And FYI, as someone who is familiar with APA standards and how they play out with regard to published statements, I think it needs to be said that the Goldwater Rule is not as inviolable as some here seem to think it is: it does happen more than occasionally that a mental health expert violates it, and there has long been debate as to whether it is an appropriate. Furthermore, not all psychological nor mental health experts are members of the APA to begin with. Some here seem to think that it is the licensing authority for psychiatrists in the U.S., but that is not the case: the state in which they practice licenses psychiatrists. The APA merely advances the interests of the profession as a whole, but there is absolutely no professional obligation to belong to the APA, and even if a scholar or practitioner who belonged to the APA was to choose to leave the organization because of a disagreement over Goldwater Rule or any other difference of opinion over ethics, they would remain a completely licensed and credible expert in their field. Being a member of the APA is more about professional networking and advocacy, but not every board certified practitioner or researcher chooses to join and we can safely presume that some of those who have commented on Trump's mental state are in fact not members. The same is true of the AMA (the other professional association to embrace the Goldwater Rule): only 25% of American doctors are currently a member of the AMA.

None of the last paragraph should even matter to our analysis here, of course--this should all be decided by WP:WEIGHT and not some idiosyncratic reading of the APA's stance on appropriate diagnosis. And this would be true even if the APA was a licensing authority. But I've seen so many comments here that clearly evidence deep confusion over what the APA is and what its relationship is to experts in the psychological and psychiatric sciences, so clearly all of this needs to be pointed out. Also, not every person who has commented about Trump's mental health is a psychiatrists, and among those who are, not all of them are Americans, so, really, let's please jettison this whole WP:Original research line of reasoning that Goldwater Rule prevents us from discussing topics of WP:DUE importance. It really, really has no substantive relation to how our policies require us to evaluate this issue.

That lengthy caveat and clarification done, I want to end by returning to my original point, which bears reiterating: while there is no policy reason prohibiting discussion of Trumps mental health and plenty of WP:WEIGHT argument for doing so under our policies, this should all still be approached slowly and cautiously with regard to what is added. This is largely the standard on this article already, I believe, but I believe all content as to this subject should be vetted here before being added, and subject to an !vote that should have a substantial majority for anything added. Where available, counter-arguments to those who have sought to judge Trump's mental state from a afar should be given, and the critical mpressions themselves need to be scrupulously attributed, with lots of detail as to the degree of direct contact, or absence thereof, of any expert opining on the subject to the man's psychiatric health and psychological (and particularly biopsychological) qualities. Snow ^{let's rap} 05:08, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

• Support. It's WP:DUE with significant coverage in reliable sources, and because of WP:PUBLICFIGURE, deserves mention even if it is negative. starship .paint ( talk) 10:07, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support. Just too much serious coverage to completely ignore, and the two step process provides the ability to carefully word an addition without the distraction of keeping no addition as an option. And as stated, this sets no precedent as different articles are different articles and no article is carved in stone. O3000 ( talk) 12:30, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

• Support - It seems weird to me that one of the most discussed aspects of the Trump presidency isn't mentioned on Wikipedia. I understand that some people are squeamish about this, because many anti-Trump sources have taken the topic and blown it out of proportions, but I'm sure a consensus can be reached on a paragraph that describes the media allegations, the medical testing Trump has undertaken and the rebuttal of the claims. As long as WP:NPOV is maintained, reliable sources are used, and the added text has the appropriate length and position in the article (not a whole section, not in the lead etc) this should be fine. PraiseVivec ( talk) 12:54, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

• Support. Not only that was widely discussed in sources/media, but this is the most important question about the "Leader of the Free World". My very best wishes ( talk) 15:23, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

• Strong Support his mental health has been questioned...he is president and has his finger on the button. 2600:1702:2340:9470:D495:B1E0:9991:40F0 ( talk) 15:38, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

• Reluctantly support - As long as it's well-sourced to reliable, neutral outlets and the section doesn't get conspiratorial, then I'll support it. If we start talking about fringe ideas like Trump having dementia, then I oppose. Jdcomix ( talk) 16:09, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support as long as it remains appropriately weighted and NPOV. I don't want to see another coatrack.--v/r - T P 23:01, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
• Strong Support based on the clear weakness of the arguments presented against it and the overwhelming, clear-cut coverage requiring inclusion. Coverage is extensive and enduring, and that's all that matters. Concerns below about the Goldwater Rule are silly - we're not a newspaper ourselves. We can and should report about that rule, but extensive long-term coverage about someone's mental health in high-quality mainstream reliable sources obviously belongs in their article. We have to be careful to use the sources appropriately and reflect what they actually say, but that's always the case. The attempts to argue that the mere discussion of this is WP:FRINGE likewise seem bizarre - the sources covering it from a credible perspective are extensive and well within the mainstream; there's no reasonable way to characterize the mere discussion of Trump's mental health as WP:FRINGE. EDIT: Support upgraded to strong based on the sheer, flat weakness of the arguments being presented against this. EDIT: Note the reply to this, which unambiguously asks for this material to be omitted for non-policy-based reasons. -- Aquillion ( talk) 23:16, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

• Support - Any argument for inclusion rests on WP:WEIGHT, and significant media coverage settles that argument conclusively. What form that inclusion takes is going to be a much harder discussion, although I could've sworn we'd already had it! -- Scjessey ( talk) 12:31, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support - All things considered, I've long thought inclusion of mental health issues are important in Trump's bio and none of the comments that suggest otherwise have changed my mind. Gandydancer ( talk) 13:54, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support - This RfC is set up as either nothing or something more than nothing. As such, obviously support. There are piles of reliable sources for this. If Wikipedia were itself a member of the APA, then there would be a point to discussing the Goldwater Rule. However, we aren't governed by the policies of a particular association, we're governed by Wikipedia policies like WP:NPOV/ WP:RS. And by those, there's clearly sufficient coverage to justify something. That doesn't mean anything (let's not get conspiratorial or start making big claims in Wikipedia's voice, certainly), but this RfC isn't a choice between nothing and going nuts (so to speak); it's about nothing vs. !nothing. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:05, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support. First sentence of the nutshell at WP:NPOV: "Articles must not take sides, but should explain the sides, fairly and without editorial bias." Opposing !votes effectively say this article should not do that. Second sentence in the nutshell at WP:NPOV: "This applies to both what you say and how you say it." That will be the subject of follow-on discussion if this RfC passes. That discussion will be more complex and nuanced, but this one is an easy call. ― Mandruss  ☎ 05:57, 20 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support - This must be properly sourced and be given due weight.-- Darryl Kerrigan ( talk) 00:50, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support. This was already decided following extensive discussion just weeks ago, and a text has been agreed upon. I frankly don't see the need for a rehash of the debate now. None of the supposed "arguments" against the inclusion of this material are based on, or have anything to do with, Wikipedia policy. (Personally I would prefer not to frame it as a discussion of his "mental health", but rather of his "personality" which is a broader topic than any mental illnesses, and which doesn't even have to mean that he has any mental illness.) -- Tataral ( talk) 09:46, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support, per MelanieN, Aquillion, Tataral and others. Maybe move "Mental health" to "Public profile" for now? We’re not proposing to make "armchair" medical and/or psychiatric diagnoses, we’re stating what RS are reporting. Trump is a public figure, so—in Wikipedia’s words— BLPs should simply document what these sources say. If an allegation or incident is noteworthy, relevant, and well documented, it belongs in the article—even if it is negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it., i.e., it’s also WP:DUE. RS are not bound by the APA’s opinion that physician members of the APA [should] refrain from publicly issuing professional medical opinions about individuals that they have not personally evaluated in a professional setting or context, and neither are we. When someone is an entertainer or a random person yelling at a street sign, who cares how mentally unhinged he talks or sounds; when someone in a powerful position does it and it is widely reported on RS, it’s noteworthy and WP:DUE.

Must be 5 o’clock somewhere, so it’s not too early for me to look at the Jim Beam. It’s American, and the word is "confused". ( Jack Upland, wanna change your vote?) Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 13:47, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

• Strong Support This issue is relevant and needs to be in the article. 2600:1702:2340:9470:ECEE:136B:4E62:62DB ( talk) 18:34, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

• Support ( Summoned by bot) Yes, obviously. Relevant and Wikipedia is WP:NOTCENSORED. We are not doctors. We reflect what is in reliable sources. Lastly, the decision in the AfD was to merge, not delete. So merge away. Coretheapple ( talk) 17:11, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

• Support per WP:DUE. If reliable sources are reporting his mental health, in a non trivial manner, it would violate WP:NPOV to not include this. ~~ OxonAlex - talk 18:56, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support for the reasons stated by Snow Rise. Mgasparin ( talk) 21:20, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support Include/being the mentioned paragraph (Mental Health) in this article can be more helpful and appropriate, since there can be found many diverse sources which have covered/discussed about this subject --concerning uncertainty of his mental health-- as a result, include the mentioned paragraph would be more positive/related. Meanwhile, I presume, apart from having sufficient relevant sources, this matter of his mental health seems to become as a common and famous speech/discussion in common societies/media; plus, I assume his specific behavior (at some of times) might increase the need of such section or paragraph, as well. Ali Ahwazi ( talk) 19:41, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Oppose including anything on the subject of mental health

• Split to Lifestyle of Donald Trump, along with other sections. Onetwothreeip ( talk) 01:10, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

• I would agree with a split, but health issues are not really "lifestyle" matters; I would prefer Personal life of Donald Trump. bd2412 T 01:32, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

• I don't see how health can't be considered a matter of lifestyle, but I'm not particularly concerned about the name of the article. Onetwothreeip ( talk) 01:44, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

• The problem with that is WP:WEIGHT; if we do decide to include this or that detail about the subject of Trump's mental health, then the issues is surely most relevant to articles focused on his public duties rather than his personal life, the former being the context which in which virtual all sources discuss the man's mental well being. If we decide to discuss this topic at all, it will most certainly me at its maximum level of germane in the articles concerned with his life as a public figure and head of state, not the impacts that it has on his private life, a subject upon which sources addressing the topic are much more quiet. Snow ^{let's rap} 00:36, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose As these are armchair opinions rendered from afar which is widely disapproved of by the APA. I can elaborate in discussion below later.-- MONGO ( talk) 01:14, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose - ^{Adding the following underlined comment 15:18, 20 July 2019 (UTC)} BLPN discussion determined the armchair diagnoses to be Coatrack. If this RfC favors support, we should limit inclusion to a summary of only those doctors who actually examined him, and avoid policy noncompliance per WP:EXCEPTIONAL I'm of the mind that we should be consistent regarding armchair diagnoses - see Hillary Clinton - despite what some in MSM were publishing (speculating), it was not included, and should not be. The same applies here. If we do include it here, that leaves other BLPs open to inclusion of similar speculation; i.e., sets a precedent. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 01:21, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

I have never seen anything remotely like this in RS related to Hillary Clinton. In any case, this is WP:OTHERCONTENT O3000 ( talk) 01:26, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Mental and armchair diagnoses, similar not other. Lots of coverage and concerns over abnormalities - limited mention. WaPo, CNN, NYT, JE. Guess it depends on how one frames the search. If you're looking for it, you'll find it. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 02:18, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Adding AfD amendment and prior consensus:

Amendment to close: A small amendment per a request on my talk page: Given that many of the concerns here are about the reliability of medical information and whether "armchair diagnoses" by people who have not personally examined Trump are actually reliable, as well as more general gossip/unencyclopedicity concerns, the editors who carry out the merger should probably consider a very selective merge that only includes the good material supported by top-notch sources. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 3:35 am, 14 June 2019 (UTC−5) (reply)

Policy based reason to exclude armchair diagnoses ^{added Atsme _Talk 📧 20:45, 20 July 2019 (UTC)} WP:EXCEPTIONAL - claims that are contradicted by the prevailing view within the relevant community, or that would significantly alter mainstream assumptions, especially in science, medicine, history, politics, and biographies of living people. This is especially true when proponents say there is a conspiracy to silence them. The prevailing view within the relevant community involves the doctor(s) who actually examined Trump, and the WH doctor said Trump “has absolutely no cognitive or mental issues”. The doctors who provided armchair diagnoses violated their own doctors' code of ethics. Footnote 9: "A conflict of interest involves the abuse – actual, apparent, or potential – of the trust that people have in professionals. The simplest working definition states: A conflict of interest is a situation in which financial or other personal considerations have the potential to compromise or bias professional judgment and objectivity. An apparent conflict of interest is one in which a reasonable person would think that the professional's judgment is likely to be compromised. A potential conflict of interest involves a situation that may develop into an actual conflict of interest. It is important to note that a conflict of interest exists whether or not decisions are affected by a personal interest; a conflict of interest implies only the potential for bias, not a likelihood.

• Oppose as unspecific This is asking for carte blanche 'a paragraph' without any specific on content or guidance to retrain things and that's just not a CONSENSUS on anything. We already have four other new paras from an AfD which largely happened because the page was viewed by as POV verging on ATTACK so caution is warranted -- and the AfD arbiter specifically cautioned about 'armchair diagnosis'. This just is not the WP:MAINSTREAM positions, it is a number of individual items that got some press time. So while it might be possible to mention events it would need to be handled as not authoritative and avoid doing OR SYNTH to portray it as an overall picture. In particular it should not state things as 'medical professionals', as it is false to portray a fringe group doing something typically regarded as unethical as the only such as if they were the WP:MEDRS community authority. So Consensus #21 should be in place as a control should a para be included. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 02:24, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose The Goldwater rule prevents mental health professionals commenting on potential diagnoses of politicians and other people whom they have not personally examined, specifically the American Psychiatric Association, in the DSM V, describes such behaviour as unethical. So this clearly places this article into territory that quite substantially violates WP:LIBEL, WP:BLP, WP:NOTSPECULATION and WP:UNDUEWEIGHT.-- Literaturegeek |  T@1k? 02:39, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

There is no evidence base for armchair psychiatry, it is WP:FRINGE pseudoscience and obvious quackery and deserves no weight whatsoever per WP:NPOV, specifically per WP:PSCI, especially in a WP:BLP. In fact, ‘armchair psychiatry’ is considered to be professional malpractice. Armchair psychiatry advocacy is very similar to advocacy arguments in favour of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth who similarly did not examine the raw evidence in person. Without a psychiatrist interviewing D. Trump himself, and perhaps also family members and friends of his, it is not possible to determine whether Trump’s behaviour (always being very positive and upbeat about himself and his allies and the very opposite with his critics) is calculated and learnt through his success in the business, legal and now political world or whether it is a personality trait or disorder. Ben Carson has said that D. Trump is a completely different person in private than he is in public.-- Literaturegeek |  T@1k? 10:29, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

considered to be professional malpractice -> obviously, this isn't a universal consideration, surely everyone who spoke out against Trump didn't think it was. Also, if you're bringing in Ben Carson, let's see what others say. Trump biographer, Michael D'Antonio, at the start of the presidency. I've always seen him as a man who defines himself by the number of norms he can violate ... he uses gamesmanship instead of performance to reach his goal Look at how that turned out. If you think Trump is some kind of stable genius in private, read Mueller Report#President's efforts to curtail the Special Counsel investigation, look at what Lewandowski transcribed. Publicly attacking the investigation, privately attacking the investigation, in quite a silly manner. starship .paint ( talk) 13:44, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

He is an obnoxious alpha male for sure in his approach to achieving his goals, but he is a living person and per BLP we cannot have armchair pseudo-diagnoses given to him. Maybe when he is deceased and BLP no longer applies we could relax sourcing standards to comment. There is also the risk these armchair psychiatrists are abusing their credentials because they oppose D. Trump politically, after all most of them signed a statement that they think he should be removed from office, which further weakens their position and sources.-- Literaturegeek |  T@1k? 14:54, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose: A psychiatrist's diagnosis of an individual they've never personally examined is sometimes colloquially called an "armchair diagnosis." The APA, which is the largest and most authoritative group of psychiatrists in the world, considers such diagnoses to be unethical and unreliable. [ [12]]. While it true that not all psychiatrists are members of the APA, it is nevertheless the preeminent organization for psychiatrists -- and, perhaps most importantly, there is NO association of psychologists or psychiatrists that have put their stamp of approval on armchair diagnoses. Therefore, idea that such diagnoses are valid constitutes a fringe theory that has no place in Wikipedia as per WP:DUE. It does not matter if Trump "opened the door", so to speak, by calling himself a "stable genius." (If a Wikipedia article says that the world is round, does that "open the door" to a thorough discussion of Flat Earth theory? Absolutely not.) On top of that, there are serious BLP concerns associated with using such a pseudoscience in an article about a living person. There's really no reason why this should be included at all. Even if you could muster some RS reporting on it, and even if there are a group of individuals who claim it, the policies WP:DUE and WP:BLP are not overriden. Cosmic Sans ( talk) 13:39, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose - For a veriety of reasons mentioned above. WP:BLP being the core but in that umbrella WP:BLPGOSSIP particularly. In a lot of these cases it is largely being presented as true even though it is impossible for them to say for sure that it is. That is because NONE of the people opining about his mental health have actually examined him. This goes back to the goldwater rule. I note above people are trying to refute that it applies here. That is technically true, but in practice horribly horribly wrong. The core of the argument of the goldwater rule is that it is unethical to diagnose someone without examining them. Why would we rely on the opinion of people not acting ethically? PackMecEng ( talk) 14:57, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose per User:Cosmic Sans Adoring nanny ( talk) 12:21, 19 July 2019 (UTC).
• Oppose. I'm against including such a paragraph. I just think it's unworthy and unencyclopedic. That said, I hesitated to post here, in the same section as Markbassett's IMO quite unreasonable argument that "This is asking for carte blanche" to write just anything about Trump's mental health. No, it clearly is not, but I'm still against it. Bishonen | talk 17:29, 19 July 2019 (UTC).
• Ugh. Yay, let's have more Trump. If our article states he claims of himself he's a "stable genius", I think that's all we need to say. Drmies ( talk) 23:17, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose I don't think anything concerning his "mental health" should be included in the article. The "professional opinions" are just his political opponents speculating about a patient they have never spoken to. That is not a real psychological evaluation at all. I was a clinical psychiatrist for years before retiring, and although I oppose Donald Trump, it is completely irrational to "evaluate" someone without examining them in person. Unless there are sources based on psychologists who interviewed him, nothing should be put in the article. 98.164.149.85 ( talk) 20:23, 20 July 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose — any opinions will just be speculation. Given the often expressed concern about article length, it's clear that this shouldn't be in the article.-- Jack Upland ( talk) 00:18, 21 July 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose: Per User:Cosmic Sans -- since armchair psychiatry is pseudoscience, adding any instances of such would violate WP:PSCI. If Trump's doctor diagnoses him with a mental health disorder, that would be acceptable, but an analysis by someone who has never personally met or examined Trump is not. -- 1990'sguy ( talk) 20:59, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose – I have been sitting on the fence for a long time on this question. Certainly the subject matter of Trump's mental health has been abundantly covered by RS, but on the other hand it's hard to de-associate such coverage from partisan politics of one side or the other. Let's face it: both claims of Trump being a "raving lunatic" or a "very stable genius" are ridiculous hyperbole, and Wikipedia is not a tabloid. Hence my opposition on BLP, NPOV and DUE WEIGHT concerns. The pseudoscience argument by 1990'sguy is also convincing. — JFG ^talk 12:05, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose – per comments from User:Markbassett, User:Cosmic Sans, User:1990'sguy and User:JFG. Mental health -and health diagnoses in general- might merit inclusion only when properly diagnosed by qualified experts, following proper examination, consultations and medical investigations. Armchair opinions, speculations or self-serving boasting (ie: "stable genius") do not qualify as diagnosis. -- ColumbiaXY ( talk) 05:43, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. A person's mental state can be devilishly difficult to define and reliable sources are unlikely to have anything unbiased to say on this subject. Bus stop ( talk) 14:43, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose, as there are no reliable sources to use that I am aware of. The only reliable sources on Trump's mental health would necessarily be a mental health professional that has actually examined and professionally diagnosed any of Trump's potential mental health conditions in accordance with the standards and practices of the mental health profession. Rreagan007 ( talk) 00:27, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per Cosmic Sans. Hrodvarsson ( talk) 04:26, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. No allusions or references to mental health problems unless properly diagnosed or there are documents released. Snooganssnoogans ( talk) 20:29, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

RfC Discussion

• I’ve always argued against this. But, how long can you ignore an elephant when there exist so many specialists in large, herbivorous mammals raising their hands? I’ve switched to leaning toward inclusion for now and await arguments. O3000 ( talk) 01:10, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
• @ MelanieN: I don't think this was intentional but obviously the formulation of the RfC is misleading. The issue is not simply whether there should be any mention of his mental health, but the extent to which it is discussed. The concern is with the particular paragraph that is currently there. It would be quite awful if we resolved that mental health should be mentioned, and that result was used to justify opposing any significant change. Onetwothreeip ( talk) 01:19, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

123, I purposely made this RfC be just about whether to say anything on the subject, not about the wording- with the understanding that actual text should and will be discussed only if the decision is to include anything at all on the subject. There appears to be significant disagreement about that, and there's no point in arguing about content if there isn't going to be any content. IMO if this RfC was about not just whether to say something, but also what to say, it would go in six or seven different directions and be impossible to come to any conclusion. In this format, someone can say "I support including something, but not the paragraph which is currently there" or "I support this only if it says such-and-such and doesn't say so-and-so." If it turns out that consensus is not to include anything at all, we will have saved ourselves a lot of arguing about the exact content - and if the result is to include, there can and should be discussion about the actual wording. Possibly even a second RfC about the wording, if we can't reach consensus on our own. -- MelanieN ( talk) 01:44, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

User:MelanieN What *is* the subject already came up -- e.g. 'stupidity' is not mental health. If it's just a para about mental health then ... we can say he passed the cognition test, and mention the conflicting diagnosis offered in The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, but other items are not included. Markbassett ( talk) 03:02, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

• • It should also be noted that a decision made today can not be binding on future events, for example, if future determinations are made about the subject's mental health. bd2412 T 01:34, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
• My objection was the way the mental health claims were presented. Trump certainly has narcissistic tendencies but most experts would not support the claim that he has NPD. TFD ( talk) 01:54, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

No? Check out the defining characteristics. Sound familiar? -- MelanieN ( talk) 22:14, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Now that was sure interesting. Thanks Mel. It's sorta creepy to see it all laid out like that... Gandydancer ( talk) 16:31, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

I have read the criteria before and yes some of it sounds like Donald, but..... My problem is how does anyone distinguish between what is his core personality and what is strategic behaviour that he learnt in the business world, legal/litigation arena and now the political sphere — to always talk yourself and business proposals up, not admit to failure, whilst highlighting and belittling your opponents. I mean he did amazing as a business man and won the USA presidency so of course he is going to continue his winning behaviours of: alpha male, always be very positive about yourself and allies and very negative towards those that attack you. Ben Carson and others have stated Donald Trump is a very different person when you meet him in private and described a personality opposite to narcissism. And the point of this is why armchair diagnoses are a bad idea because a psychiatrist often needs to interview family members about how they behave in private. Armchair diagnoses of politicians are also especially bad as psychiatrists are prone to personal political bias as well.-- Literaturegeek |  T@1k? 01:35, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

• User:MelanieN I don't think an empty consensus really can help anything or even be much of a real consensus. It would have been better to do RFC with something about the nature of what the para is to be or some guiding limits -- some of the actual topics up in dispute before.
  • Limit/Not limit it to generic summary of existence on such concerns being stated
  • Include/exclude naming specific conditions and/or name the behaviour but do not make a diagnosis to specific mental disease
  • Include/exclude opinions of mental health professionals who have not examined him, e.g. by name and/or quote
  • Include/exclude opinions of non-medical individuals, e.g. prominent instances with name and/or quote
  • Include/exclude specific mention of book(s) The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump and/or caveats the book states or opponents state
  • Include/exclude specific mention of online petition(s), e.g. by source and/or quotes
  • Include/exclude general responses by Trump, e.g. with/without quote
  • Include/exclude any specific review/criticism of opinions by third parties
  • Any other specific actions or guidance

  Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 02:30, 18 July 2019 (UTC)*

  There is nothing wrong with a simple include paragraph/omit paragraph !vote. If the result is omit paragraph we needn't discuss specifics, so doing so at this juncture might be said to put a cart before its horse. ― Mandruss  ☎ 02:49, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

  No, the unspecific nature is an issue. Without saying otherwise what 'mental health' is --- this consensus would then only refer to a paragraph of statements by medical professionals. Anything else - such as intelligence or memory -- have already been up as just not 'mental health'. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 02:55, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

  You are completely misreading and misrepresenting the situation of this RfC. See my reply in the preceding section. ― Mandruss  ☎ 03:18, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

  @ Mandruss: Markbassett has done that here and here. It's getting disruptive. They are insisting that anything that doesn't consider each of the above points isn't valid consensus.--v/r - T P 01:22, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

  User:Mandruss and User:TParis - Yes, my concern before was the unspecific carte Blanche of just ‘a paragraph’, and I started a thread looking for specifics. Now, upon request for comment of MelanieN I gave it, and to Mandruss asking I confirmed that I still have it as a strong concern. Now please AGF and accept that no wording or guidance content is a voiced concern. Settling any of the unresolved topics listed from prior debates would do, or something new that is specific. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 03:04, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

  Except you're still demonstrating "I didn't hear that" behavior. An exact paragraph was proposed and !voted on. We came to a consensus on its content. You could answer your questions above simply by reading the paragraph and noting which content was included and which wasn't. I believe the exact wording was proposed by MelanieN. You still harping on this issue, despite everyone else ignoring you or telling you to drop it, is disruptive. AGF isn't a shield that you can be disruptive and keep hiding behind.--v/r - T P 13:42, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

• My main objection, as stated in my vote, is that "armchair diagnoses" are generally agreed to be unethical and unreliable and are therefore a fringe theory that should be excluded as per WP:DUE. The BLP concerns only amplify those issues. Cosmic Sans ( talk) 13:53, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

• Trump is an onerous person, but it is inappropriate to turn speculations into statements regarding his mental health. On the other hand, it is an objective fact that Trump critics have frequently alleged mental health issues in highly circulated publications. (For example, since they don't have a staff psychiatrist who has treated Trump, the New York Times is not a reliable source on Trump's mental health but a high profile publication containing allegations.) So any paragraph (by which I mean no more than two sentences) regarding the mental health allegations surrounding Trump should be framed in the context of "critics of Trump have speculated about his having mental health issues" with a couple citations (not five to twenty).

Regarding the existing paragraph, it should be dramatically pruned. Only the first and third sentences (regarding the petition) should be kept, but change the source of first sentence to include the other sources citing experts. All other sentences are loaded with UNDUE weight, including the Trump's claims about his own great mental health. Two sentences are more than enough to point out the questions raised and how they have influenced the political arena.-- Saranoon ( talk) 14:59, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

I live in a town where homeless people walk down the street talking to themselves..it doesn`t take a psychiatrist to know they are mentally ill..I understand that those who oppose inclusion are not going to let it in without citation..that doesn`t make it less relevant..needs to be researched expanded and included ( talk) 15:56, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

• I think the focus on the "Goldwater Rule" is missing the mark somewhat. The Goldwater Rule is a rule about publication. While it binds members of the APA, it does not bind Wikipedia. What does bind Wikipedia, though, is the fact that these armchair diagnoses are generally considered to be medically and scientifically unreliable. That is to say, the objection is not "the Goldwater Rule says you shouldn't do it" but rather that "it is not scientifically valid." The Goldwater Rule came about because these armchair diagnoses are scientifically questionable. It's not that they're scientifically questionable because the Goldwater Rule came about. It may seem like a minor distinction, but it's relevant to us because WP:DUE/WP:FRINGE instructs us not to allocate a significant deal of space to a fringe theory. Which is exactly what this is. The idea that an individual can be reliably diagnosed by someone who has never examined them is not a mainstream idea. There may be an internal debate within some organizations as to whether people should be allowed to express those opinions, but that's not the same debate as whether these opinions carry scientific validity to them. As of yet, nobody has produced a source claiming that these kind of diagnoses have scientific authority. Cosmic Sans ( talk) 17:22, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Over 40,000 mental health professionals had, by April 2017, signed a petition stating that:

"My professional judgement is that Donald Trump manifests a serious mental illness that renders him psychologically incapable of competently discharging the duties of President of the United States. And I respectfully request him be removed from office, according to article 3 of the 25th Amendment."

It would, therefore, be a disservice to history for an encyclopedia to entirely overlook the issue, though I believe, like all things WP, that such inclusion should be stated in a concise and strictly factual way, supporting a WP:NPOV, with good sources included. Psychology Today published a fairly balanced discussion on it in March ( https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/5-types-people-who-can-ruin-your-life/201903/malignant-narcissism-does-the-president-really), and scores of scholarly books are published on the subject (as a simple Google search of "Trump + Narcissism + PhD", and other variations, easily reveals), including such as Rocket Man: Nuclear Madness and the Mind of Donald Trump (2018), by veteran Johns Hopkins University Medical School psychology professor John Gartner, author of the 2017 petition. I'd say that scientific authorities are speaking loud and clear on the topic. Lindenfall ( talk) 19:30, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

The "40,000 signatures" were from an online petition. There appears to be no verification that any of the people who signed the petition are actually mental health professionals. Otherwise, a handful of sensationalist books is not enough to counteract the clear scientific consensus that armchair diagnoses are not accurate. Cosmic Sans ( talk) 20:12, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Cosmic Sans Firstly, the bottom line here has nothing to do with armchair diagnoses, which are inarguably unfit for WP, but addresses the fact of the U.S. president's apparant mental health being widely discussed and studied by professionals, based upon his actions and utterances — specific diagnosis is not the the true topic, and is not germane to the inclusion. Secondly, You are implying that Dr. Gartner, a widely respected psychotherapist and mental health authority, may have misled Chuck Schumer regarding the credentials of the petition's signees, who were each required to include their degree credentials upon signing, when he submitted it to the New York Senator, in 2017. (Psychology Today appears not to discount the petition's signees. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-time-cure/201702/the-elephant-in-the-room?page=2). Thirdly, you undermine your own position in referencing, not a mere "handful", but a small, yet potent, library of contemporary works by noted MD's and PhD's as "sensationalist"... whereas that is the scientific community weighing in. Obviously, a diagnosis of any kind cannot be asserted as fact. Equally obvious is that the issue is major and notable, and so should be referenced — no mention is a whitewash of history. The mere existence of a book such as The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President on the New York Times bestsellers list speaks volumes on the topic's notability. Lindenfall ( talk) 20:59, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Lindenfall(1) Well, it does though. If someone says that Trump has dementia, paranoia, etc that is a diagnosis. (2) I'm not implying anything about Dr. Gartner. I'm pointing out the very real fact that this online petition has no verification. Anyone could have signed it. (3) It is, nevertheless, a fringe opinion. I'm not saying that nobody could advocate for it. I'm saying that it is not a mainstream idea that anyone can be reliably diagnosed without meeting them. Cosmic Sans ( talk) 10:16, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

User:Lindenfall There are professional organizations that would constitute the ‘scientific consensus’ here, and they’re not saying things like this, they’ve been inclined to Goldwater rule. The online petition was signed by over 70,000 eventually, with however much bots and trolls in the mix - but if it was anywhere near that many actual professionals, it would have been stated in the professional organization. And it wasn’t. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 12:01, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Cosmic Sans (and Markbassett): (1) Actually, anyone can say anything, but a diagnosis is a clinical term and an opinion is not a diagnosis. (2) I had deliberately used the numbers on the petition from before Gartner sent it to Schumer (because, after that, who knows), and as supported by Psychology Today. (3) I was never advocating for the petition's inclusion, but was making a point, for the sake of the existing argument, a point akin to my follow-up statement ("The mere existence of a book such as The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President on the New York Times bestsellers list speaks volumes on the topic's notability", above). You respond as if I had suggested adding it to the page. overlooking the point of its existence, and its prestigious author. Above all, please read me precisely in stating that a diagnosis is a moot point and is not at all germane to whether the topic should be included. Lindenfall ( talk) 19:45, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Lindenfall, (1) your distinction between "diagnosis" and "opinion" seems artificial and is not found in reliable sources. The APA appears to make no such distinction. (2) An online petition that does not verify who signs it cannot be used as proof that consensus has been reached in the scientific community. (3) Okay, but nevertheless, no mainstream organization has endorsed this. I'm sure you can scrape up 37 flat earthers or anti-vaxxers if you tried. Cosmic Sans ( talk) 21:42, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Cosmic Sans (1) Incorrect, since we are discussing medical diagnosis "with the medical context being implicit", as it always is in medical matters. However, why, I don't know, because, again, a diagnosis is neither attained nor the issue: including reference to widespread controversy over the mental health of the president is. (2) You miss the point, again. No one is suggesting that the petition be on the page; it's existence, central statement and esteemed author are, nonetheless, notable. (3) Not okay are gratuitous comments made in bad faith. Argument for the sake of argument is not productive. This discussion thread merely mocks the process here, and is so pointless, I'm done with it. Lindenfall ( talk) 21:41, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

User:Lindenfall I was the one who edited in the 40,000 sent to Schumer, sorry if that inclusion is contrary to your preference but was just trying to fix what seemed a miscopy from Health of Donald Trump. We don’t need to resolve here if the book is contrary to medical consensus on ethical practices and thus a fringe item where WP:FRINGE would apply ... the RFC topic doesn’t actually have that explicitly, it seems wanting to hold off that discussion. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 03:32, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Markbassett I literally do not know what you are talking about here: "I was the one who edited in the 40,000 sent to Schumer, sorry if that inclusion is contrary to your preference..." Edited in where? And, no, we don't need to resolve anything about the book, as no one is requesting its inclusion. The point was as written, that the existence of it, like the petition, due to its subject and authorship (and their defiance of custom to produce it), is, in fact, remarkable. Lindenfall ( talk) 21:41, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Just meant that I changed it from the earlier 20 thousand into the 40 thousand from the Health article it came from. The presence of a book critical of whoever is or was in office seems normal to me. For example, Obama has ‘Worst President in History’ or ‘Treason’, Bill Clinton has ‘Sellout’, or ‘The secret life of Bill Clinton’, etcetera. That would be OTHERSTUFF though. Markbassett ( talk) 23:43, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

• In summary, it seems broad response with a large lot of discussions here and below, and about evenly divided Support and Oppose. (Which is a big change from the overwhelming ‘no’ in prior RFCs here.) A bit over a quarter of the Support side are Support only if it’s tightly controlled or limited, and a lot of the Oppose seem tied to it being disreputable as expressed by the Goldwater rule. The concerns of most seem to me in those two broad areas. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 06:58, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Discussion about the Goldwater Rule and "armchair diagnosis"

• I see a lot of people arguing that "we can't use armchair diagnosis, only someone who has actually examined the patient". That is the Goldwater Rule. What that leaves out is that someone who HAS examined the person would not be able to say anything either, because of the HIPAA privacy rule. By this logic, you can't say anything if you haven't examined him, and you can't say anything if you HAVE examined him, and basically all professionals are banned from ever saying anything, no matter their expertise or the source of their information. That makes no sense. The truth is that multiple in-depth interviews with a person are no longer considered the only way to evaluate their mental health. Their behavior and what they say can and does reveal a great deal to a trained professional. As for the argument that "memory" doesn't count as mental health - of course it does. Memory, or memory loss, is a prime symptom of Alzheimer's or other dementia. -- MelanieN ( talk) 21:46, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

• • Actually MelanieN, you just presented an excellent argument for why we should oppose inclusion. There is a reason for HIPAA and the Goldwater Rule, and we, as editors of an encyclopedia, should not be judging or offering our own diagnoses in support of unethical ones simply because we agree with them. We should be using editorial discretion with a measure of human decency. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 00:02, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

• ( edit conflict) That is kind of the thing. It was brought up above I hope that you will be consistent and nominate articles like Mental health of Jesus for deletion, must have been very unethical of all these scholars to examine Jesus. which is of course a silly argument. But that is a similar argument you are using. There is a difference if the subject is alive or not when making credible diagnoses and even then they are taken with a grain of salt since they are not reliable. You mention basically all professionals are banned from ever saying anything, no matter their expertise or the source of their information an answer to that is "yeah so what?". Better care should be taken about BLPs in general and this is a prime example of why. PackMecEng ( talk) 00:05, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

• Note that neither of the two arguments presented above have any grounding in policy whatsoever, and that both implicitly acknowledge that the sources otherwise support inclusion. Wikipedia is WP:NOTCENSORED, and attacking clearly-reliable sources as unethical or trying to tug the heartstrings with an argument that inclusion would be a dreadful crime against human decency is bafflingly silly. If you have serious policy-based arguments to make, make them; but don't waste our time with this frippery. Read the sources. Weigh the sources. Decide if they justify inclusion or not. That's all we have to do. Both of you know this; you're experienced editors, so this sudden dive into irrelevant and unconvincing emotional appeals for something that is ultimately extremely straightforward is silly. You are asking us to ignore WP:WEIGHT, WP:RS, and WP:DUE based on an APA guideline that doesn't even apply to all medical professionals, let alone to Wikipedia. That's not policy-based, so if you have a better argument than the absurd "the NYT isn't a WP:RS because they violated the Goldwater Rule!", you'll have to present it. (If you honestly think that that makes the NYT not a WP:RS, WP:RSN is thataway. But you're wasting your time and you know it.) -- Aquillion ( talk) 07:42, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

• The arguments we presented are of course policy based and we have explained why they are. You know this so I do not know why you would make these statements. PackMecEng ( talk) 15:07, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

• This is getting into WP:IDHT territory. If you have a policy-based argument, cite the policy. "But the Goldwater Rule!" isn't policy. "editorial discretion with a measure of human decency" isn't policy (in fact, in this context it directly violates WP:NOTCENSORED, since you're specifically asking that we censor otherwise- WP:DUE material based on a "think of the children!" argument.) "If it violates the Goldwater Rule, it's not reliable!" isn't anywhere in WP:RS that I can see - you don't get to disqualify otherwise-reliable sources simply because you don't like their coverage. If you have an actual policy-based argument, lay it out in detail; but no matter how strongly you feel about the Goldwater Rule, it's not part of our policies. If you feel that strongly about it, write angry letters to the numerous eminently reliable, high-quality WP:RSes that have covered this topic asking them to issue retractions; but it's a weak argument here, since it has no grounding in policy, and therefore should and will be rightfully ignored by whoever closes this RFC. -- Aquillion ( talk) 19:34, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

• The question regarding the Goldwater rule is not that it is policy, no one is claiming it is obviously. It comes down to, do fringe views have due weight to make these kind of claims. I call them fringe in this instance because without examination it is guessing which is not enough for medical diagnosis. Heck they would fail our own WP:MEDRS standards. The second part of that is their speculation is rather unethical. While noted below not everyone belongs to the AMA it is still the standard by and large for the industry. In the end we also do have editorial discretion on what we put into our articles. There is coverage of the topic but in the grand scheme of things it is not that much given how much other coverage this man has. I hope that clears up the arguments for you. PackMecEng ( talk) 15:25, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

• The Goldwater rule is completely irrelevant. We follow WP:RS and WP:NPOV. There are numerous cases when experts evaluated mental health of politicians and historical figures based on their words, behavior and facts. If that was reliably published in multiple RS and the person was significant, that belongs to encyclopedia. My very best wishes ( talk) 00:17, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

(Further to MelanieN's last comment) One also can't call the president a racist, no matter his verbiage, in Congress; there's a rule against it, we all recently learned, along with Nancy Pelosi. ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/07/17/nancy-pelosi-was-rebuked-calling-trumps-tweets-racist-she-can-thank-thomas-jefferson-brits/?utm_term=.e891b2c9c838) Nonetheless, any publication can report the full story of how that came to be, or how it came to be in the news of the day. It only stands to reason that Wikipedia can, and should, include any widespread controversy, including the one over his mental health, diagnoses notwithstanding.

Diagnoses is beside the point of inclusion. Despite not requiring a diagnosis to include the controversy, might I also draw attention to this List of mentally ill monarchs, which has garnered no opponents for its many armchair diagnoses? Perhaps because they (too), are based on the opinions of scholars regarding the history of each individual's words and deeds. Lindenfall ( talk) 00:23, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

• Whatever rules might exist in US Congress, they are irrelevant to our content policies, just as the Goldwater rule. We say what reliable sources say on the subject. Yes, if many scholars say something regarding an individual, we just say the same. This is reference work. My very best wishes ( talk) 00:34, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

• Still has bad implications allowing, what is at best educated guesses about a BLP. As you know BLP issues and NPOV is not just welp sources talk about it so it must go in. PackMecEng ( talk) 01:11, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

I am just saying that something might be included about it, maybe to another page. There are sources [17], [18], [19], [20]. Unfortunately, this is very real possibility. My very best wishes ( talk) 02:42, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

This might be off topic, but do you honestly believe he will end life on the planet as we know it? PackMecEng ( talk) 15:09, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Thinking as a researcher, yes, I am sure Doomsday Clock shows the time correctly, and there are no doubts USA will play a role. Does it mean "ending life on the planet as we know it"? Not necessarily. In particular, the effects of nuclear winter are overstated. Read Nuclear War Survival Skills and buy dosimeter. This is my advice. On the other hand, "ending life on the planet as we know it" is inevitable, even without the nuclear war. Thinking in terms of the higher power, I am sure the humanity will survive. My very best wishes ( talk) 15:31, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Belief is subjective..nobody is sure of anything..this is relevant..it should be in article 2600:1702:2340:9470:F8DE:D64D:3F1F:3537 ( talk) 18:15, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

• The Goldwater Rule is unambiguously not a policy-based argument to exclude something, and I ask the closing admin to disregard any opinions in the RFC that rely on it exclusively. We base inclusion on WP:DUE weight among reliable sources; if they consider a topic to be relevant, then we do as well. Likewise, the argument of "if a professional is ignoring the Goldwater Rule, are they really a reliable source?" is similarly frivolous to the point of absurdity - first, the Goldwater Rule doesn't apply to all professionals (there are many from different countries, or different organizations, or who have expertise in other ways.) Second, we don't, for the most part, cite professionals directly, but the reliable sources that cover them. It is inappropriate and, again, not based in policy to second-guess those secondary sources by saying "well, should they have really covered it?" That's not our call to make, and arguments grounded in trying to second-guess the sources like that should likewise be disregarded as not grounded in policy. We reflect the sources, which have unambiguously covered this topic at length. I strongly urge anyone who has relied on it in their opinions above to reconsider; they weaken their own arguments by relying on criticizing the sources in this way. (Especially since an implicit part of shifting that argument is, inevitably, an acknowledgement that the sources do support inclusion unless some argument can be made to discredit them.) -- Aquillion ( talk) 07:32, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

  The sources such as Bandy's Lee's book and related material have all the appearances of hyper-partisan hatchet pieces. Since such hyper-partisan opinions are unlikely to be presented by reputable neutral psychiatrists, those that would do such a thing are doing so only from an unscientific manner of diagnostic care, and they lack the thorough vetting and support of the primary accrediting entity of that profession. The fact that that entity says "we do not do this" is the exact reason Lee spends a fair amount of time in her opening dialogue of her book discrediting the very entity that sets Hippocratic standards for her profession, a standard she overtly abrogates to present a less than likely scenario that Trump is a "national emergency" a "threat to the United States and global security", etc. Such hyperbolic sensationalism is definitively fringe. The Foreward in Lee's book is written by Jeffrey Sachs, who opens with telling us Trump is dangerous (though he himself is NOT a psychiatrist, he's a Keynesian economist) and then he too says that the APA's guidelines on presenting armchair diagnostics should be ignored and also discredits this primary accrediting entity, as grounds and justification to ignore their credo cause, trump is "dangerous".-- MONGO ( talk) 14:45, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

  The RFC probably should have included a list of sources at the top, because there are a lot of them and many of them are plainly not "partisan hatchet pieces." Just as an example, here's a few: NYT, Again, Vanity Fair, Again, Independent, WaPo, New Yorker, IBT, US News and World Report. These aren't sources that can reasonably be disregarded. Your objections to eg. Lee would make sense if we were relying on citing them directly, but once they're covered by secondary sources that decision is mostly out of our hands - second-guessing a source by saying "they shouldn't cover this" (or, worse, "covering this axiomatically makes this a partisan hit piece") is going outside of WP:RS. Worse, the latter argument basically says that the topic must be excluded, always and forever, no matter what the sources say, because you'll axiomatically categorize any source covering it as a partisan hit piece; the argument amounts to saying "I know what the sources should be saying here, so any source that says otherwise is unreliable!" It should be obvious why that argument is frivolous. It's also WP:FALSEBALANCE - our rules aren't about ensuring that the coverage subjects get from reliable sources is "fair and balanced" in that sense, they're about ensuring that we cover what the sources actually say, evaluating that coverage in a neutral way. Suggesting that we should ignore it because "the sources are wrong to cover these people" is a WP:NPOV violation in that you're effectively arguing we should replace the coverage of reliable sources with your own personal preferences and outlook on the situation. -- Aquillion ( talk) 19:28, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

• The Goldwater rule puts ‘armchair diagnosis’ as unethical and unprofessional... The professional organizations commonly form the scientific consensus here, and thus such armchair diagnosis is WP:FRINGE, not WP:MAINSTREAM. Whether we mention such or not, WP Policy says we should not portray such as more notable or accepted than it is, in particular portraying it as mental health professionals, and WP:ONEWAY would possibly say to not mention it at all. Frankly, mentioning it would seem to require including a lot more saying the response and clarifying it as a fringe group or sensational tabloidy book and just another poor use of this BLP space for yet another snipe included. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 12:17, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
• The Goldwater rule has no relevance. Mental health professionals must decide whether reporting their opinions on Trump violates the rule and news media and other reliable sources must determine whether it should affect their reporting of these findings. All that Wikipedia editors should consider is what has been reported in reliable sources. It is original research to evaluate the truth and ethics of the statements. TFD ( talk) 16:25, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

  The argument that if its covered in RS's it is fair game for inclusion is a valid one within policy. However, we are the editors here and not beholden to parrot every storyline about what some fear mongering anti-Trumpians "think", regardless of their credentials. Should this nonsense be placed in the article, proper rebuttal of this sort of armchair hyper-partisan fear mongering that the President is a "danger to the Untied States and global security" needs to be properly counterbalanced. "Why experts are split over Trump’s mental health" [21], "Before diagnosing Trump as mentally ill, let’s ask what that actually means" [22], and an opinion piece by another well credentialed member of the APA, but all we have is opinions as well from the fear mongerers like Bandy Lee here "An Eminent Psychiatrist Demurs on Trump’s Mental State" [23] where it is stated, "Most amateur diagnosticians have mislabeled President Trump with the diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder. I wrote the criteria that define this disorder, and Mr. Trump doesn’t meet them. He may be a world-class narcissist, but this doesn’t make him mentally ill, because he does not suffer from the distress and impairment required to diagnose mental disorder."-- MONGO ( talk) 16:57, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

  The question is not whether reliable sources report on this but rather whether it should be accorded substantial weight in the article. You can find many references to fringe theories like Flat Earth or Anti-Vaxx in reliable sources. But they represent a fringe theory and should not be accorded much weight at all. Similarly, the idea that an armchair diagnosis has validity is a fringe theory that is not endorsed by any major psychological/psychiatric organization. These WP:DUE/ WP:FRINGE concerns are only amplified by WP:BLP problems. Should a fringe theory be advanced in an biography of a living person? Absolutely not. Cosmic Sans ( talk) 21:38, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

• • • The only fringe theory I see is the fringe theory advanced by you here that the mainstream, extensive reporting on Trump's personality in high-quality reliable sources, based on extensive commentary by reputable experts, is a "fringe theory". -- Tataral ( talk) 22:37, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Clarification regarding Goldwater rule

It's come to my attention that some editors have been making the claim that Wikipedia isn't bound by the guidelines of the American Psychiatric Association. While that is obviously true, it is not the point of the Goldwater rule. The aim is to delegitimise such diagnosis. We should make sure that we are reporting a consensus view, and not a fringe or unsupported view, similar to views on climate change. ADDED: This rule may be important in how we address the mental health claims, but is by no means an objection to either publishing or assessing certain claims. Onetwothreeip ( talk) 23:05, 19 July 2019 (UTC) Onetwothreeip ( talk) 23:49, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

What does climate change have to do with this? 2600:1702:2340:9470:D0BE:E5E0:F5FB:22FF ( talk) 02:50, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

The GW does not "delegitimise" people's comments at all, or make them "fringe". Not all of the many people who have commented on his mental status are bound by the Goldwater Rule, and some of those that are members of organizations that do have that guideline said they felt the " Duty to warn" (another ethical and legal rule for such professionals) took precedence. As for "consensus", many thousands of professionals have expressed alarm about his mental status. I am not aware of any comparably large movement among mental health professionals to balance that, by stating that in their opinion Trump has no serious mental health issues. Are you? -- MelanieN ( talk) 03:18, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Duty to warn of course refers to clients who are under the care of a clinician and the patient then discloses they are or otherwise present as a risk to themselves or others. It does not, to my knowledge, cover armchair diagnoses of people not under the care of a clinician making the claim.-- Literaturegeek |  T@1k? 03:57, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

As reported by RS, a significant number of MH professionals interpret duty to warn differently than you do, and I daresay they are more qualified than you or I to interpret it. In any case such arguments are outside our purview as Wikipedia editors, as has been articulated multiple times in this RfC. ― Mandruss  ☎ 05:02, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Please provide a single WP:MEDRS reliable source of a professional body or legal text which defines duty to warn that way. And actually, duty to warn is a legal thing so it is lawyers and courts that define it, so individual mental health experts are not the best people to “reinterpret” what the legal profession working with professional mental health bodies have defined for civil negligence cases and professional care of patients, etc.-- Literaturegeek |  T@1k? 05:14, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Sort of. It depends on the nature of the action: in many cases of professional negligence brought under common law principles (and this applies to all contemporary U.S. jurisdictions), the standard of care is expressly linked to a professional standard adopted by the majority of similarly situated professionals. But a duty to warn case is likely to be brought under a general, rather than professional, negligence claim, in which the plaintiff will have the burden of establishing that a duty existed and that it was breached (two elements of the prima facie case under traditional negligence law). Some states have statutory standards as well, and those are likely to be created with consultation between the legislative committee that first promulgated them and a professional advisory body of one sort or another. Anyway, this is irrelevant. There's exactly zero professional liability for psychologists failing to warn of such a generalized perceived dangers. When such experts speak about their "duty to warn", they are speaking in terms of their own moral compass, not legal liability. Snow ^{let's rap} 05:40, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree, but all of this just underscores how much of a fruitless and ill-advised it is to undertake an effort to put ourselves in the place as some sort of self-appointed ethical watchdog over the psychiatric profession. I can't imagine anything more WP:OR or irrelevant to a content determination under our polices. And anyway Onetwothreeip's original point is a complete misapprehension of how the Goldwater Rule operates. It does not "delegitimize" any conclusions reached that were made in breach of the rule--that's complete fiction that has no basis in the wording of the rule or the professional complications that arise out of it. The rule arose as a means to try to keep the image of the profession, not because anyone really believed that it was completely impossible to diagnose someone short of an in-person interview. I very much assure you that if you show me five videos of individuals engaging in conversation, and one of them is suffering from cognitive impairment as the result of recent transient ischemia, I can almost certainly tell you which person it is, even if there is no motor/speech production impairment involved. The analysis is even more one-sided when assessing psychological conditions not arising out of neurological impairment (that is, more "purely" psychological issues): there is way more material out there to examine with regard to Trump than the average psychiatrist gets with regard to their average patient--it amounts far more than appropriate corpus from which to derive a diagnosis that is at least as reliable as one based on one (or even a handful) of in-person interviews.

So, again, the Goldwater Rule didn't arise because psychiatrists believed long-distance diagnosis was impossible or even particularly more difficult: it arose because soem psychiatrists believed it was unethical to engage in the practice of medical diagnosis without the consent of the person being diagnozed, and because the Goldwater case caused a lot of political blow back and bad PR for the profession. It was a pragmatic decision made for the welfare and status of the profession, not out of a belief that remote diagnosis was impossible. But absolutely none of that should matter, or need to be said here, because this entire line of discussion is just us engaging in WP:OR about what the members of the profession are capable of an how they assess their evidence and professional liabilities. While I have nothign but confidence in everything I have explained above, this is no more appropriate here than if we were comparing the statements of an RS news article about crime statistics against our own personal experience: it is clearly, manifestly, directly against how we are meant to be judging the appropriateness of content on the basis of WP:WEIGHT.

Anyway MelanieN's other points are more relevant: only a small fraction of experts who might comment on Trump's mental health are members of the APA and bound by the Goldwater Rule. Look, let's break this down:

1) Only a portion of the many types of experts who might have expertise to comment on someone's mental health are going to be psychiatrists. Let's be incredibly generous here and say that figure is 50% (it's actually not even nearly that large, but let's just start there). So we're at 50%

2) Only a small fraction of psychiatrists in the world are licensed in the U.S.--let's say 10% (again, it's much smaller than that, but let's be generous). 10% of 50% is 5%.

3) Among licensed American psychiatrists, less than 44% are members of the APA. (Yeah, that's right, less than half). 44% of 5% is 2.2%. In other words, of all the possible experts in the world who might qualified to speak as to someone's mental health in some professional or researcher capacity, well less than 2.2% are bound by the Goldwater Rule (and in reality its significantly less than even that). Violating it has zero impact on the reliability of the conclusion the expert arrives at, for purposes of our policies.

So...yeah, it's really beyond time to drop this line of reasoning: Aquillion already put it succinctly above--anyone pushing this as a editorially significant factor is merely torpedoing any credability in the rest of their argument. It doesn't hold up on any level, either as a factual matter or with regard to how our policies dictate we should evaluate sources. Snow ^{let's rap} 05:23, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

• There's a difference between psychiatry and psychology. Here's an article written by psychologists at Emory U, U of Georgia, and Purdue U (also available as PDF): Although the Goldwater Rule prohibits psychiatrists from offering diagnostic opinions on individuals they have never examined, no comparable rule exists for psychologists. ...there are select cases in which psychological scientists with suitable expertise may harbor a “duty to inform,” allowing them to offer informed opinions concerning public figures’ mental health with appropriate caveats. ... First, we propose that although psychologists should typically refrain from offering diagnoses of public figures, they should be able to do so when these individuals hold positions of substantial power over others, as is the case for most high-profile politicians. Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 05:32, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, and they put the duty to inform in speech marks to emphasise that such experts are expanding or changing or otherwise going beyond the accepted legal and professional meaning of duty to inform. Basically the author is describing the psyche and motives of many psychologists for publicly giving opinion on Trump.-- Literaturegeek |  T@1k? 05:39, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

None of which matters, because those experts are under no duty to obey the Goldwater Rule regardless of whether they also have a competing duty to warn. They can ignore the Goldwater Rule just because they think it nonsense and it has zero per se impact on their authority as experts. It just doesn't apply to them. And for the record, I agree with you that this "duty to warn" discussion is a red herring. But it's a half ounce red herring being swallowed up by the two-ton Red Herring that is the suggestion that the Goldwater Rule prevents us from using the sources here. There are many reasonable arguments for why we might not want to go down the avenue of discussing Trump's mental health. The Goldwater Rule isn't one of them--not in this universe, anyway. Snow ^{let's rap} 05:50, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Something I've pointed out repeatedly when the "Goldwater fallacy" has been brought up is that, in addition to the fact that it isn't even relevant to all US-based experts who may have something to say about the issue, it's not relevant to anyone outside the US at all, as an American association cannot force their views upon the rest of the world. Many experts from outside the US have commented on Trump's personality and mental health too, and some have even commented on why it is appropriate and ethical to make such assessments. -- Tataral ( talk) 17:15, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

MelanieN and others, I am not saying that any particular mental health assessment of Donald Trump is fringe, but we can't accept a single person's assessment and present it as factual or reliable. That would be comparable to accepting fringe views based on one scientist's view of climate change or the September 11 attacks. Onetwothreeip ( talk) 07:10, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

We do have armchair Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth and petitions with armchair professionals signing them, which is very similar to what is being proposed for this article except since D. Trump has not been formally assessed armchair fringe opinion is being proposed to be given undue weight because it cannot be opposed by a proper assessment.-- Literaturegeek |  T@1k? 08:44, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Please stop the strawmanning. This RfC proposes exactly nothing specific for this article. That petition is far from the only thing that will be on the table in follow-on discussion if this RfC passes, and I for one have opposed mention of it precisely because of the absence of controls on it. ― Mandruss  ☎ 08:54, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Citing the Goldwater rule as an objection is classic synthesis. It requires us to assess opinions of experts in reliable sources based on standards of a professional body. Not only that, but we have to interpret those standards and assess whether there are exceptions based on another standard. There is no basis in policy or guidelines to do this. The justification for using it is that it shows that the opinion Trump has NCD is fringe and lacks weight. But we don't need the Goldwater rule to make that determination. We determine that in every article without having to assess the methodology used by writers of reliable sources. We do that by assessing the degree of their acceptance in the body of literature. TFD ( talk) 17:17, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

The attempt to marginalise the APA is misguided. The number of psychiatrists who are members of the association are not the same as the people influenced by it. The APA's DSM-5 is used worldwide, including in Australia. The Royal College of Psychiatrists in the UK follow a similar rule to the Goldwater Rule.-- Jack Upland ( talk) 03:29, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Literaturegeek, replying to your comment of 22:58, 21 July. By "experts" I wasn't referring to a handful of experts who hold an opinion different from most experts. No one would say, according to experts, 9/11 was a false flag operation. TFD ( talk) 01:02, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

Evaluating a patient

You all seem to not know much about psychology. I was in practice for years, and here are some things you need to know; it takes hours to evaluate an adult patient for serious mental illness, and sometimes even more then one visit. That said, they have to actually visit for you to even do an evaluation. I've seen many patients who acted out in public, showing signs of certain illnesses, yet when their parents or friends brought them in, they were completely fine. They had just acted foolish in public, but there was nothing to worry about, other than their immaturity. What you see on the outside does not necessarily concur with what is on the inside. Although Trump may act like he has certain problems, it is foolish to try and pin them to certain illnesses without actually examining him in person. 98.164.149.85 ( talk) 20:29, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Please don't lump us together as "you all", since many fellow editors are here seeking to have the controversy over Trump's mental health included as exactly that, being not in the least inclined to include any diagnoses, being as none are fully informed by treating Trump. Us all sticking to the point of there being widespread controversy, and whether mention should be included, would preclude a lot of haranguing.

"I've seen many patients who acted out in public, showing signs of certain illnesses, yet when their parents or friends brought them in, they were completely fine. They had just acted foolish in public, but there was nothing to worry about, other than their immaturity" presents quite a kettle of fish, and is highly subjective, but, being immaterial to this discussion, I'll not address it, and cross me weary fingers in the hope that this discussion does not further devolve with it. Lindenfall ( talk) 22:01, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

No offence but we have no idea whether or not you are a psychiatrist...how on earth can you prove the person isn`t acting out in the office by attempting to appear normal ? 2600:1702:2340:9470:DD11:33A3:B552:F2E ( talk) 22:11, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

He or she never said he or she was a psychiatrist.-- Jack Upland ( talk) 00:15, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

He implied it..he claims to have seen many patients...what else can that imply ? 2600:1702:2340:9470:1D6F:5AAA:65B:C781 ( talk) 02:25, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Well there is such a thing as a practicing psychologist. Unlike psychiatrists, they are not medical doctors and thus cannot provide anything that constitutes medical treatment, but some states allow them to register to provide limited forms of personal therapy--these professionals may at times refer to their clientele as patients. However our IP actually does now claim to be a psychiatrist in the !votes above now. Considering this IP starts out saying "You people do not know how psychology works!" and then immediately starts to describe the work of a therapist, and now identifies as a psychiatrist above, combined with their fairly lay-speech peppered description of the work, I'm feeling the chances of them genuinely being a psychiatrist are extremely low. But again, it doesn't matter: what they are peddling here is WP:Original research whether they are Robert Spitzer or Joe Internet. Snow ^{let's rap} 04:07, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

I have serious doubts about the IP's claims, but that's not the real issue with the comment: this is completely irrelevant WP:original research that has absolutely no bearing on how we evaluate a source or establish WP:WEIGHT from among multiple sources. This entire subthread should probably be deleted or at least hatted: it has no bearing on any policy or particular piece of content. Not that this is surprising: the IP (legitimately a practicing psychologist or not) may not know better than that our WP:Talk pagess are WP:NOTAFORUM to discuss these issues at length, and what else are they supposed to think but that such OR is appropriate here, after a platform has already been erected on any even larger piece of WP:original research; namely the argument that because a tiny portion of psychological experts are members of an organization that has the Goldwater Rule, we are bound to omit any mention of any statement that we (in our idiosyncratic impression as editors on Wikipedia) decide violates it--even if the given expert isn't one of the (very small number of) experts who are members of the APA! When that argument, clearly a non-starter under our policies (and well beyond our legitimate remit as editors on this project), is being seriously advanced to try to block any mention of this topic (which I personally think is fertile ground for debate, but just not on -this- rationale), its no wonder we have IPs dropping in claiming to be expertss. Of course they think such blatant original research is meaningful here, given the indications they have seen in the discussion above... Snow ^{let's rap} 01:13, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

I think that most editors are aware that diagnostics requires an evaluation by a professional who has examined the patient. The same is true for physical illnesses, which is why people visit doctors and Wikipedia acknowledges this by having the Identifying reliable sources (medicine) guideline. The problem is that we cannot second guess reliable sources per Synthesis of published material. We can't say that a book including contributions from medical experts and published by Yale University is wrong because it used the wrong methodology. That discussion is supposed to take place among experts and we are supposed to ensure that this article provides the same weight to the issue that news media does and explain the degree of acceptance or rejection of the diagnosis among the professional community of mental health experts. I think they have provided little credence to it for the reasons you mentioned, and therefore it deserves little or no mention. At present I have not seen sufficient coverage for inclusion. But as a psychologist, you could help in telling us what the community says about this specific case, and provide sources. TFD ( talk) 00:56, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

This process seems to take the decision-making away from experts and give it to the ignorant.-- Jack Upland ( talk) 02:35, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

I disagree. Let's reframe the issue to match how our policies define the matter: it's not our place to WP:synthesize conclusions about what we think the experts will think about their fellow experts, based on what we know (or with regard to many !votes here, what people think they know) about the profession. The experts can speak for themselves, through publication, interview or public statement, and we utilize those statements (or not) in accordance with our WP:RS, WP:V, and WP:NPOV/ WP:WEIGHT policies. If other experts feel inclined to distance themselves from those statements, or to vet, analyze, comment upon, or reject them, or to question the methodology (or the ethics) of the original expert, they can do so as well--individually or as professional bodies--and we can report those statements (as long as they too meet RS standards) as well--or factor them into the weight analysis in other respects.

What we cannot do, under our policies, is take a professional standard, put ourselves in the shoes of a professional body as if we are similarly positioned expert members of those bodies who formulate and apply that standard, and decide on their behalf that we know what they would think of the statement, based on our own plain reading of a standard. That is clearly, unambiguously, manifestly, beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt, textbook WP:SYNTH and WP:OR. THAT would be the uninformed trying to step into the role of experts, as you put it. Or more to the point for our purposes on this project, into the role of reliable sources. Beyond that, as has been repeated ad nauseum, only a small fraction of psychological experts work as professionals subject to this rule--and only where they elect to be members of the APA, which represents less than 44% of practitioners in the U.S. (which, it apparently it needs to be repeated here, is just one of many nations with experts in the psychological, psychiatric, and cognitive sciences...). Snow ^{let's rap} 03:14, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

@ Jack Upland:, quite the opposite. We allow experts to determine how to interpret their own rules and procedures and report their conclusions instead of editors' conclusions. Some editors have mentioned the Goldwater rule and others about warning about imminent dangers and suggest we read through psychology texts to determine which one applies, and ignore what experts say about it. TFD ( talk) 04:50, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

You do realise that your argument is the same one used by supporters of these armchair experts: Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth. These experts commenting on Trump have no way of knowing how D. Trump is outside the political, legal and business world as they have not asked him pertinent questions, interviewed family members etc. Much like the Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth who never examine the raw evidence, interviewed relevant witnesses etc. The narcissistic behaviour could be his personality or it could be a winning tactic he has learnt through his life experiences, he needs a proper assessment for that. Ben Carson says he is a completely different person off camera.-- Literaturegeek |  T@1k? 22:58, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

It's clear that the prestigious APA and the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the UK and common knowledge say that psychiatrists and psychologists need to examine the patient before making a diagnosis. So why, why, why rely on the opinions of practitioners who have never examined Trump??? This might be interesting but it is not encyclopedic. To say that the few practitioners who have broke ranks and commented on Trump are the "experts" is supremely illogical. The Goldwater rule is respected by the majority worldwide. A small minority doesn't become a majority because it is noisy.-- Jack Upland ( talk) 09:43, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

The argument you are advancing there is textbook, unambiguous WP:original research. What your argument boils down to is this: "I have a large number of experts advancing an opinion in WP:Reliable sources that I personally find dubious, but rather than treat those as a product of WP:WEIGHT and try to keep these opinions within perspective with a careful approach to the content, I am going to try to block their entry into the article entirely, by taking a professional standard I am in no remote way trained or qualified to understand the operation or nuances of and I will apply that rule myself (however I wish, as an uninformed layperson filtering this rule through my own idiosyncratic lens) to arrive at a conclusion that the source is very bad--even though I am operating here as Wikipedia editor (not a disagreeing expert or member of professional body) and not only does Wikipedia policy not validate this kind of 'put myself in the place of the expert' reasoning, but in fact expressly forbids it as one of the fundamental principles of neutral editing based on reliable sources and not the personal conjecture of our editors."

And I'm sorry, but we are just not allowed to do that on this project, no matter how passionately we feel about an expert's opinion or how they arrived at it. Even those of us who actually do have a formal background in medicine or the cognitive and psychological sciences are not allowed to do that when we are operating as editors here. If another expert or other reliable source criticizes the original expert's opinion, by all means, we can use that in the WP:WEIGHT analysis. But what cannot do is advance our personal perspectives/judgments on the expert opinion (or their methodology) as if our own opinion themselves have weight, because our personal opinions as editors have this much weight precisely in a content determination: 0.00000%. The approach pushed for here is not just borderline original research, is paradigmatic original research. Indeed, in all my years on the project I have scarcely ever seen such a sustained, inappropriate push for such a blatantly OR argument. I don't think everyone supporting it is doing so just out of bias (I think legitimate concerns do underpin some of this), but anyone advancing this argument has well lost track of their appropriate role as editors here, which is not to place themselves in the roles of the RS/experts.

I very seriously hope that (for the sake of the point being explicit) the closer of this discussion not only finds for a consensus to some discussion of the topic here, per WP:WEIGHT, but also makes express mention of WP:PNSD and points out that they had to disregard a large number of !votes here that just could not be resolved to broader community consensus as established in our basic editorial policies, because so many opposes chose to embrace this (clearly unsupportable) notion that there is community consensus for the editors on this project applying outside professional tests in the place of our WP:V and WP:RS policies. The most troubling consequence of all of this is that there are many very legitimate policy reasons for being concerned about opening the door on this topic. But rather than discussing how we will keep the content policy consistent and representing limited WP:DUE weight, the goal posts have instead been changed to this hail mary/all-or-nothing tactic, that (having no basis in policy/community consensus) will not hold for long and will only lead to more polarized discussion once it crumbles away and the work on the actual content has to begin. I fear the ultimate content will suffer as a consequence--and probably in a way that the present "oppose" !votes will least want.

Also, as regards "The Goldwater rule is respected by the majority worldwide. A small minority doesn't become a majority because it is noisy." That is simply factually incorrect--and is, if I am to put it bluntly, one of the reasons I know you are dilettante speculating/making grand statements about professional standards you aren't truly familiar with. Even if we confine ourselves to American practitioners and limit our inquiry to physicians and psychiatrists (which represent only a subset of experts who may have an opinion as to subject matter), then we can easily determine how many of them are subject to the Goldwater Rule and just how bound they are by it. First, nobody is professionally bound to it: it is not a rule which you will lose your license. Rather, it is merely a rule adopted by two at will professional organizations that psychiatrists may join, if they wish: the APA and the AMA. And the may part is important, because only 25% of currently practicing physicians are members of the AMA and 43% of all practicing psychiatrists join the APA. You may recognize those figures as much smaller than the "majority worldwide" that you (falsely) assert, because the figures of psychiatrists bound to the standard outside the U.S. are even smaller--and, as has been stated at length here previously, psychiatrists represent just one of several types of expert who may be qualified to speak as to a person's cognitive abilities or mental health, many of whom are in no way bound to the standard of the Goldwater Rule to begin with.

Of course, none of the last paragraph should even need to be raised into the discussion, because even if it were the case that 100% of psychiatrists worldwide were members of the APA, it would still be WP:original research for editors on this project to apply the standard on their behalf. But the blatant misinformation about the exact proportions of professionals operating under the rule that has been advanced here deserves correction, regardless. Snow ^{let's rap} 03:00, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

I think that misses the point. The question isn't how many psychiatrists are members of the APA or are bound by the Goldwater Rule. The point is that prestigious bodies like the APA and the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the UK believe that psychiatric diagnosis without examining the patient is worthless. So should we put worthless speculation in the article?-- Jack Upland ( talk) 00:21, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

@ Jack Upland: - the link you provided aptly demonstrated "damned if I do, damned if I don't". So public 'diagnoses' are according to Simon Wessely, head of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the UK, usually also facile and stating the obvious, unless it’s based on real, serious, inside information; in which case you should and will be struck off before nightfall. And deserve to be." Wessley goes on to argue When someone is dead, I think it’s different ... historians are still better at it, though. So Wessley is acknowledging historians have more knowledge about mental health issues than psychiatrists like whether JFK’s steroid intake influenced his judgment in the Bay of Pigs. starship .paint ( talk) 03:20, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

So let's wait for the historians.-- Jack Upland ( talk) 05:31, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. We shall just have to wait about 5-10 years after Trump leaves office (either in Jan. 2021 or 2025) to even begin to make real, truly unbiased statements. (i.e. That's how long I think we will have to wait until the dust surrounding Trump finally settles). Mgasparin ( talk) 02:56, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

It's not our place to play expert on this project and decide what is "worthless speculation" among the sources. Again, even those of us who have credentials in a relevant field are not allowed to do that here. All a source has to do is meet our WP:RS standards; it does not have to pass through a gauntlet of satisfying the idiosyncratic judgment of every editor with a personal opinion on the their methodology. Seriously, this is Wikipedia 101--there's not even a remote question about whether our policies, as a codification of community consensus, allow for us to block content just because we have qualms about how the expert came to their conclusions, or because we have seen other experts approach the issue differently: our most fundamental and basic policies on the topic plainly, expressly, and beyond a shadow of a doubt prohibit us from adopting the approach you suggest. Snow ^{let's rap} 05:51, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

The million dollar question is whether any large organization, on par with the APA, thinks that "armchair diagnoses" are valid and reliable? The closest I've ever seen is something to the effect of "we won't censor our members" but that's far from an endorsement. The reality is, the consensus among the major associations seems to be that you shouldn't do this. There are, as far as I know, no major association that's sticking up for it. That's all you should need to know to call this a fringe theory. Cosmic Sans ( talk) 18:07, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, but that's still WP:original research and still not allowed here. What you are proposing is that we do our own independent survey of what experts think about this methodology (either as individuals or as associations), reach our own conclusions about that methodology from that survey and then apply it on our own to a WP:reliable source to decide whether we think said source conforms to how we would approach the situation. It just doesn't get more blatantly or paradigmatically OR than that, and that's just not allowed under this project's policies. Snow ^{let's rap} 05:51, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Oh, and just for a small, small sampling of possible contexts in which different experts can quite legitimately discuss the mental conditions of others without having examined them: any number of empiricists working in scholarship ranging from a bevy of scientific and legal fields when they write technical works discussing not just numerous branches of clinical psychology, but nuerophysiology, medicine, criminal pathology, legal theory, and far too many subtopics within those fields to accommodate here. How about a true crime author who happens to have a background in criminology who provides his own subjective on a serial killer that he helped profile and track? You know, even psychologists are sometimes not just permitted but requested to provide an opinion on the behaviour of someone who has refused to participate in psychological interviews beyond what is required of them by law--and not just in the popular media: courtrooms are another example where this can happen.

But yes, in the news media too, and it's not our job to embrace WP:SYNTH and step in as filters, if enough of them do so: we need to at least cover the controversy once we hit a certain threshold of coverage--anyone who doesn't recognize why that's a requirement needs to reacquaint (or perhaps just acquaint) themselves with our WP:NPOV policy, particularly WP:WEIGHT. And of course WP:OR, as discussed extensively above. But weight is where I would put the focus: the discussion we should be having here, under Wikipedia's policies, is whether, in the sea of sources on Trump, we have enough here to justify mentioning this strain of commentary about the most powerful man on planet Earth; I think the answer may be yes, but we should definitely be having that conversation right now. And even if we decide that its worth including, we need to at least hammer out a version that is brief, neutral, and expressly WP:ATTRIBUTEd.

But we can't have those necessary discussions about why this maybe needs to stay out for now, or how we dramatically limit its expression and deny it any semblance of being in Wikipedia's voice if it does come in--not while this much energy is being wasted containing the mother of all WP:Original research decisions above that is the proposal that we judge the methodology of otherwise WP:Reliable sources (primary and secondary) and do specifically by applying our own amateur understanding of what is legitimate practice. The editors on this page are largely not qualified to do that and even if they were, our policies on this page would prevent them from doing so and advancing that argument for editorial purposes here. The WP:OR analysis doesn't just fade like mist if one believes they, having examined the situation, are really, really certain they understand the field and have gotten things right with their personal analysis of the facts. In fact, the policy exists specifically to emphasize that this is the antithesis of how our WP:V and WP:WEIGHT policies are meant to operate. To put it in terms of a favourite idiom from my present-day abode: that dog won't hunt. So let's shift attention to those that will, under policy. I share the concerns about whether this content is necessary and appropriate at this time, but the "concerned" !vote is only being split by the argument advanced above, since many of us who share your concerns in the broader sense cannot follow you down that path that so clearly runs against the most basic and longstanding of policies and community consensus. Snow ^{let's rap} 07:35, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Well, that appears to be a snow job. It's told us absolutely nothing, except that you're living in an interesting place.-- Jack Upland ( talk) 10:00, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Or it's a breakdown of the numerous major policies (representing some of our most basic editorial principles) which expressly and directly prohibit the course of action you are advocating for above. We do not insert ourselves into the roll of RS. If you want to oppose the article discussing the topic, predicate it in the WP:WEIGHT of actual sources or another established editorial argument consistent with community consensus, not wandering WP:OR by way of WP:SYNTHESIS based on amateur understanding of professional standards which do not, in any event, hold relevance in how we are meant to be deciding this editorial matter under this project's policies... Snow ^{let's rap} 20:12, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

User:Jack Upland You could simply cite RS in the field as this is frowned on, or RS reviewers of the book. It’s not hard to find those who sniff at their mentions of Hitler, or that critique claims how much need there is of a ‘duty to warn’ about public acts which NY Times covers many days and that warnings are private not done in book form for big $$$. Alan Stone in Lawfare, or Allen Frances in wsj.com for example. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 00:19, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Markbassett, I'm not clear what you're responding to.-- Jack Upland ( talk) 09:31, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

User:Jack Upland I’m suggesting that to this long Snow bit about OR you could simply find and cite the views of RS third party experts. I think ‘Dangerous Case’ was not well regarded by the APA or similar, nor book reviews, and that pointing to their remarks instead of your own is an option. It seems a clever bundling of prior Opinion pieces into a book form that made it a best seller, in a pro/anti Trump genre that seems ridiculously profitable. But not professionally well-respected by the field or book reviewers. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 21:52, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Footnote

Markbassett: Since the RfC is still ongoing, should you be adding comment in footnotes? Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 06:19, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

@ Space4Time3Continuum2x: That was a self-revert of his removal of the footnote, which has been in the paragraph for a couple of weeks. I don't think the RfC has much to do with it, since it isn't about specific content, but the footnote is the result of at least some discussion and shouldn't be removed as a bold edit. Anyway we're back to status quo ante on that and we're good in my opinion. ― Mandruss  ☎ 07:38, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

User:Space4Time3Continuum2x - Yes I touched a late-arriving footnote, wound up no change in the end. And yes, I think editing could go on in the mental health para during the current RFC and a bit has. Although any work there is obviously at some risk of being wasted if the rfc then affects the work. It would seem treading on the rfc to hold it all fixed or to delete it all while the question is under discussion, but tweaks in the section seem fine so if you want to edit something small I’d say go ahead. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 02:32, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

p.s. I got back and made a tweak there, for what it’s worth. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 23:48, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

I see some back-and-forthing on the article page between User:JFG and User:SPECIFICO regarding this paragraph in the “Social issues” subsection of the “Domestic policy” section of “Presidency”. In his second removal, JFG said "Please engage in the relevant talk page discussion before editing;" however, there does not appear to be any such talk page discussion. So I am starting one. -- MelanieN ( talk) 17:28, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

My mistake, I didn't realize that the section above titled "This reverted edit is not an "Undue anecdote of an isolated political incident" is about this subject. I am going to retitle that section to a more informative title, and move my comment and Muboshgu's there. -- MelanieN ( talk) 17:43, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

MelanieN, easy mistake to make. That was not an informative section heading. –  Muboshgu ( talk) 17:54, 25 August 2019 (UTC)