This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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I would like to be able to make changes to the page of President Donald Trump. MrMR143 ( talk) 14:48, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

 Not done: this is not the right page to request additional user rights. You may reopen this request with the specific changes to be made and someone will add them for you. aboideau ^talk 15:02, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

I have reverted two edits by SPECIFICO from 19–20 October that had escaped scrutiny until today. [4] [5] The modified wording implied that the Trump Organization diversified into branding as a reaction to bankruptcies suffered in the 1980s and 1990s. First, I don't know whether there's an established connection, as Trump was keen on slapping his name on other people's businesses long before his casino ventures failed: two of the sources mention an example of that branding fever, with the gold-plated "Trump Cadillac" marketed in 1988. ^{[1] [2]} Second, edit summaries said "per sources", and after reading all cited sources, I do not see that they make any link between the bankruptcies and the branded ventures. For reference, I have listed below all the sources cited in the " Branding and licensing" paragraph, ^{[3] [1] [2] [4] [5] [6]} and SPECIFICO did not add any new source with those edits. Therefore, the assertion injected into the article and its lead section looks like WP:Synthesis and cannot stand. — JFG ^talk 10:00, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

The very first source, early on, says The ventures enable him to hang the Trump logo on towers from India to Panama without chipping in a dime. etc. etc. I think your concern is overstated. The time sequence is known. Yes he branded much of his work whenever possible, but the strategy of branding with only carried interest and no capital required or invested is documented to have developed at the time referenced in both versions. Moreover, the juxtaposition of "expanded beyond NY and "branding & licensing" in the version you restored is SYNTH also untrue. He branded and licensed in New York, e.g. in Riverside South after he gave up most of his ownership in the largest share developed in the 1990's. If there is a source that links branding with "outside NY", I don't see it. SPECIFICO talk 23:52, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

User:JFG thanks - Would want to not edit long-standing lead bit just for stability and from an absence of a strong need or change, plus those edits are longer in a too-long lead and they did not TALK a proposal before editing. Really no need to go into narrative detail and motive in Lead, just stick to the facts of naming the major items seems all the lead should try. The chronology and logic there also seems wrong - you can’t have a 1988 reaction for the 1992 real estate bust and his bankruptcy, and the time of diversifying into Trump car / Trump shuttle / Trump casinos is in his boom times long after the 1982 real estate bust. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 05:42, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Markbassett, those are not licensing deals. Those were capital investments. Please stay on topic. SPECIFICO talk 06:53, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

User:SPECIFICO Main point is still do not need a lead change or longer lead, there has been no change or new event there, but re the topic is proposal that Other ventures are a refocus due to 1980s and 1990s, said “branding, management, and licensing”, and then pointed to the Other ventures section which includes Trump shuttle. Really the logic of a 1990s bust causing the 1980s items listed or the 2010+ items listed doesn’t ring solid. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 12:16, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

I recently removed some unnecessary sources from this section in particular. However, these changes were reverted by another edit so I'm putting this matter to the talk page to discuss which citations can be removed. Onetwothreeip ( talk) 05:46, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

My rule of thumb is no more than three consecutive cites. Within that rule of thumb, I don't think you can have too many cites for a controversial topic area (and more than three is occasionally justifiable). That section currently has no more than two consecutive cites. ― Mandruss  ☎ 06:07, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

The issue is that there are consecutive citations very often, not simply that there are a few times of many citations. The main concern is that these are often simply unnecessary and exacerbate the size of the article needlessly. Onetwothreeip ( talk) 06:19, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

For easy reference, here is a list of the sentences that have more than one cite:

1. Trump has repeatedly denied he is a racist. ^{[1] [2]}
2. Many of his supporters say the way he speaks reflects his general rejection of political correctness, while others accept it simply because they share such beliefs. ^{[3] [4]}
3. Several studies and surveys have found that racist attitudes fueled Trump's political ascendance and have been more important than economic factors in determining the allegiance of Trump voters. ^{[4] [5]}
4. In April 2011, Trump claimed credit for pushing the White House to publish the "long-form" birth certificate, which he considered fraudulent, and later stated that his stance had made him "very popular". ^{[6] [7]}
5. In particular, his campaign launch speech drew widespread criticism for saying Mexican immigrants were "bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists". ^{[8] [9]}
6. His remarks were condemned as racist worldwide, as well as by many members of Congress. ^{[10] [11]}

None of those really jump out at me and say, "Not controversial enough for two cites! Reduce!". If there are consecutive citations very often, perhaps that's because there are controversial sentences very often.

Cutting this stuff is a bad way to reduce file size. Instead, try summary style in a lot of the other sections related to the presidency – that would reduce both citations and the associated prose. ― Mandruss  ☎ 06:37, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

I suppose #1 could be reduced to one cite. It almost goes without saying that Trump denies being a racist. Not many people admit to being a racist, and none of them have been presidents of the U.S. That sentence exists only because NPOV requires us to include his denial. ― Mandruss  ☎ 07:11, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

First of all you are omitting the content characterising Trump as racist, which has more references than those you have listed here. For everything you have listed however, it only takes one reliable source to support the content. None of these are particularly controversial. Onetwothreeip ( talk) 07:28, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Here are my initial comments. First, Onetwothreeip, could you include the citations in your list above so we can examine them, and also let us know which specific sources you think should be removed?

I think a good principle to follow is that any sentence or closely related group of sentences that are controversial (most of this article, unfortunately) should be supported by 2-3 strong sources. This benefits readers by showing that the information is widely reported. It also indicates that the material satisfies WP:DUEWEIGHT. The size of the article due to the number of sources should not be a significant concern. Trimming 10 sources from an article with 813 sources will barely move the needle. If we do trim sources, we have to make absolutely sure that the remaining sources fully verify the article content. I have seen many case where users remove sources that are required per WP:V. Later, another editor will come along and remove or alter the content because it's not properly sourced. - Mr X 🖋 12:57, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

include the citations in your list It's actually my list (though I can share), so I've added the citations. ― Mandruss  ☎ 13:45, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, I still had sleep in my eyes.- Mr X 🖋 14:11, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for adding the cites Mandruss. There are no more than two cites per sentence. That is far from excessive.- Mr X 🖋 14:21, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

There are 31 instances of citations in the section though. It is not only that some content has two citations instead of two, it is how often there are multiple citations, in addition to how often the citations are used. Overall this is simply excessive, particularly keeping in mind that the statements taken individually are not actually controversial. Onetwothreeip ( talk) 09:06, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Obviously I don't agree that it's excessive. I'm still waiting to learn what harm comes from have a few additional cites for corroboration.- Mr X 🖋 13:06, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

It's not necessarily controversy in the real world or controversy among the public or notable experts. The multiple cites relate to controversies that arose over the course of editing the page. They help prevent us from rehashing the same issues after consensus. Consensus can change, but it should not be rehashed and ultimately resolved the same way after we go back and restore the same citations because they may appear to be excessive or redundant. And that's what tends to happen when they're pared to a minimum on text that's been controversial among WP editors. SPECIFICO talk 14:14, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you SPECIFICO, which statements have been controversial over the course of editing where multiple sources have been necessary? Onetwothreeip ( talk) 09:06, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

@ Onetwothreeip: - probably Trump has made numerous comments and taken certain actions that have been characterized as racially charged or racist, both by those within the U.S. and by those abroad, and in False statements The statements have been documented by fact-checkers; academics and the media have widely described the phenomenon as unprecedented in American politics starship .paint ( talk) 14:58, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

@ Starship.paint: I'm referring to this particular section. Of course I'm not saying that there has never been a disagreement on this article. There doesn't appear to be any statements in this section that require multiple sources. Onetwothreeip ( talk) 05:29, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Controversy between Wikipedia editors is less important than public controversy when it comes to the number of citations. It's likely that a healthy majority of the 62,984,828 U.S. citizens who voted for him would disagree with most of those six sentences – hence, public controversy, even if they disagree silently for the most part – and "Readers must be able to check that any of the information within Wikipedia articles is not just made up."

If you want to trim cites, do it for things like "In 1977, Trump married Czech model Ivana Zelníčková", not for things like this. There is plenty of trimming opportunity in those areas, and one could probably eliminate 20 or so cites without being reverted. ― Mandruss  ☎ 09:52, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

@ Mandruss: There's no need to consider that WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. We can trim citations in more than one place, as I have done before. Onetwothreeip ( talk) 05:29, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

And even if a reader does not dispute the truth of a statement, they may question its significance, and in that case we are establishing WP:WEIGHT. While two sources aren't much compared to the total number of sources, they are 100% more than one. ― Mandruss  ☎ 10:10, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Onetwothreeip, In theory, one really solid source that reviews the subject and itself cites multiple data points, should be sufficient. I practice what happens is that people who dispute a fact or an interpretation will quibble until more sources are added, or will remove sources with the eventual goal of removing the content altogether. Exactly per Mandruss, I'd say anything more than three sources for a statement is usually overkill, but three or fewer is rarely a problem demanding urgent resolution. There are bigger issues, such as use of third and fourth rate sources in political articles (notably The Hill, sundry tabloids such as Washington Examiner, Fox News and MSNBC).

Getting everything to a state where it is sourced to something at least as good as the WSJ or WaPo would seem to me to be a better focus. Guy ( help!) 12:11, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

I agree with the first part of what JzG said. We have had history of needing more sources to justify inclusion of controversial content as WP:DUE. Also sometimes, multiple sources are needed to source a given tidbit. I know Onetwothreeip tends to trim sources due to overciting - I do not know if (1) people will eventually argue that the content fails WP:DUE with less sources, or (2) if the content fails WP:V when crucial sources are removed. starship .paint ( talk) 14:56, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

@ JzG: Can you tell me where I have said that any of these issues demand urgent resolution? I have no recollection of doing so. I do agree with you that we should generally remove substandard sources such as those you describe. Onetwothreeip ( talk) 05:29, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Starship.paint, it's a knotty problem, you have to actually read each source and check that what supports the actual text, with a view to choosing those which cover most content and with most overlap. Guy ( help!) 15:13, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Lying in politics is as old as politics itself. There's even a joke about - "How can you tell a politician is lying? His lips are moving." So yes, this statement is correct, but this could honestly be said about almost any politician. Some examples: "Read my lips - no new taxes." "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." "I open every letter and read them all." "The bottom end of the economic ladder receives the biggest percentage [tax] cuts." And a top 10 by the liberal WaPo itself on a man I voted for twice: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/01/19/obamas-biggest-whoppers/

This statement is dis-genuine and does not properly portray the entire landscape. Grossmisconduct ( talk) 01:47, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

As has been pointed out by the reliable sources, Trump lies way, way, way more than any other politician. He's in a class by himself. A few examples of other politicians lying doesn't change that. –  Muboshgu ( talk) 01:50, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

User:Muboshgu No, “many false or misleading” is the consensus. As I recall... “Lies” wasn’t what the preponderance of RS use, explaining that requires internal knowledge. Also “more than any other politician” as a comparison would be avoided, and stating an absolute was an extreme claim which would require extreme proof. There just are a lot of candidates, and we digressed into if “biggest liar” was phrasing for who had told the largest whopper rather than the most items or most frequently said one. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 01:19, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Markbassett, Donald Trump lies. ^{[1] [2] [3]} Whether that's what the "preponderance of RS" say or not, Donald Trump lies. –  Muboshgu ( talk) 03:30, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

User:Muboshgu again, past discussions concluded otherwise — it’s in the archives. Yes, some such sites exist, as do others criticizing those or alternatively saying he is truthful or that media lies.. But for WP, it is “many false or misleading” Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 03:54, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Markbassett, I'm not proposing changing the language. The thread starter said "lying" so I'm using that word too. It's true and not a BLP violation. –  Muboshgu ( talk) 04:03, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Muboshgu, hyperbole is Trump's primary language. He obviously believes what he says at the time he says it - his fact-checking sucks. When the media publishes inaccuracies, do we call it a lie? I think the RfC got it right with "false and misleading". ^Atsme _Talk 📧 22:59, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

We keep losing sight of the only relevant question: What is supported by RS? While the answer doesn't jump right out at us, there is an RS-based case for the word "lie", particularly if used without wiki voice. "False and misleading" was a compromise that was necessary to reach a consensus, and stopping short of the word "lie" helps debunk the pro-Trump-biased claims of anti-Trump bias. Thus I'm happy with it. ― Mandruss  ☎ 23:24, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Mandruss, it also avoids the difficult question of whether he knows (or cares) that what he is saying is false. Guy ( help!) 19:13, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

There's where we differ. I don't think policy allows us to apply that kind of reasoning, which doesn't prevent us from applying it all the time anyway. ― Mandruss  ☎ 19:18, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

The statement is the product of massive amounts of discussion on multiple occasions, available for your perusal in this page's archives, which have established the consensus that it fairly reflects the body of reliable sources on the subject. If you can find that weight of sources for Obama's falsehoods, please present some of it at Talk:Barack Obama. Ten "biggest whoppers" listed by one reliable source doesn't even begin to suffice. The same goes for any other politician, including two Clintons and one Nixon. ― Mandruss  ☎ 13:02, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Grossmisconduct, most politicians manage to give a convincing impression of at least caring about the objective truth of what they say. Trump is unusual in not bothering. Guy ( help!) 13:56, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

James Comey had frequent discussions with Trump, and in his first major interview after his firing he described Trump as a serial liar who tells "baffling, unnecessary" falsehoods: ^[4]

"Sometimes he's lying in ways that are obvious, sometimes he's saying things that we may not know are true or false and then there's a spectrum in between....he is someone who is — for whom the truth is not a high value." ^[4]

• "Let's just assume Trump's always lying and fact check him backward." ^[5]
• Time to stop counting Trump's lies. We've hit the total for 'compulsive liar.' ^[6]
• "[W]hat we have never had is a president of the United States who uses lying and untruth as a basic method to promote his policies, his beliefs and his way of approaching the American people and engaging in the world.... Uniquely, we have a president who does not believe in truth." -- Carl Bernstein ^[7]

See also Category:Conspiracy theories promoted by Donald Trump -- BullRangifer ( talk) 04:18, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

There are admins on both sides of the political divide. Your problem is really simple: every single reality-based source has noted, repeatedly, that Trump does not appear to know or care whether what he says is objectively true. Guy ( help!) 22:07, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Not surprisingly, my addition about nicknames was deleted. I used that source on purpose. Do others here feel that we need to mention his 6th grade playground use of terms such as "liddle...", "lying...", and so on? (It seems to be included in our other Trump articles but not here.) Gandydancer ( talk) 21:23, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

For convenience, my revert is here and the cited source is here. I failed to note in my editsum that, apart from WP:DUE issues, the source doesn't even support the specific content. I will withhold opinion about whether it should be included with better sourcing at least until I see the better sourcing.

"Other Trump articles" include tons of content omitted here; that's the whole point; so I'm not sure what you're trying to say there. ― Mandruss  ☎ 21:29, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

OK, it was my mistake to add that info with that source to the article to make a point. I'm sorry I did it. But my point is this: IMO we need to mention how play-ground-juvenile his tweets have been. No past president has done such a thing (using, of course, other methods) and no other world leader is doing such an (idiotic, IMO) thing. It should be mentioned in the article. Gandydancer ( talk) 22:49, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

His use of twitter is discussed extensively at Donald Trump on social media. There is even a whole article dedicated to the nicknames he gives his opponents, linked here. This article to be written in summary style and to only include events that will have a lasting impact on his presidency or personal life. His excessive use of Twitter has already been mentioned/discussed here. No need to go any deeper here than that. Mgasparin ( talk) 23:04, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

I think these are more insults than Nicknames, but the List of nicknames used by Donald Trump is another place such details might fit. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 02:49, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Mgasparin, IMO his use of disparaging names for those that oppose him will go down in history as a trait that set him apart from any other world leader. For example, can you imagine Angela Merkel calling the other politicians that she associates with Slimeball, Dumbo, and so on? If any leader on earth would have been doing this before Trump came along every other world leader would have been quite stunned and in agreement that that sort of speech degrades not only the speaker but degrades the reputation of the country as well. IMO the section that we have about his use of Twitter is excellent except for this lacking and it could be fixed with the addition of only a sentence or two. Gandydancer ( talk) 16:08, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Gandydancer All right then, if you want to add something, can you please propose a sentence or two for addition? Mgasparin ( talk) 22:32, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

And several strong sources to establish WP:V and WP:DUE, please. Emphasis on strong. ― Mandruss  ☎ 21:39, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Actually I was just going to use this [6]. Sorry but I just don't get it - he's said "Crooked Hillary" about a million times and I need "several strong sources" to back it up? I think that I will just move on. Gandydancer ( talk) 01:39, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

MandrussI've been staying off this article to reduce my blood pressure, but chanced upon your comment. AFIK you do not own this article, nor are you a controller of this article,nor are you an admin with oversight responsbilities for this article,thus you are not a position to demand "STRONG" sources, Emphasis on "strong". I do believe that Gandydancer or even a middle schooler can come up with a gadzillion reliable sources as to DJT's use of degrading insults, and in the case of Ambassador Yankovitch insulting innuendo's and statements. In fact one need look no further than @realDonaldTrump twitter feeds for examples.Well maybe twitter is not a RS, however in the case of real Donald Trump it is words out of his own mouth (or fingers as it were). And Mandruss, your emphasis "on strong" was misplaced and in error. Oldperson ( talk) 02:27, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

@ Oldperson: I'm afraid you're wrong. All experienced editors know that every comment is nothing more than one editor's opinion, and there is nothing remotely binding or enforceable in that opinion. This is implied and understood, so it's not necessary to start every comment with "In my opinion". I stated what would be required for addition of that content to receive my support, nothing more. Take care of that blood pressure. ― Mandruss  ☎ 02:33, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

MandrussActually my BP is doing fine, I just whipped stage 4 lung cancer, just trying to take care of myself and ease the self inflicted aggravation that hanging around WP seems to do (to others as well as myself). If I translate your above comment correctly ."You were simply offering your opinion to Gandydancer.Is that correct? If so then it came across as quite authoritarian, apparently that was not your intention. I see from Gandydancers user page that they are not a noob thus they are well acquainted with WP PaG.Which causes me to ask. Why would anyone tell an editor with 10 years experience that they needed "strong" RS? Apologies for going on but had to clear the air or at least my head. Oldperson ( talk) 02:46, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Oldperson, and well-said. I guess we all need to put up with behavior that is not very pleasant from time to time and it's so welcome to have another editor step in and give support. BTW, you are right that I'm not a noob and actually I am the major editor of two of our Trump articles as well. Gandydancer ( talk) 02:56, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

I think the problem is that the OP used a newspaper "letter to the editor" as a source. Which is obviously not good. May His Shadow Fall Upon You ● 📧 14:14, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

I was hoping for discussion. None followed and that tells me that there is no agreement to add to what we'we now got in the article. I am satisfied that consensus has been correctly reached. Gandydancer ( talk) 00:59, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Is this going to get mentioned in the biography somewhere? - 332dash ( talk) 04:36, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Hopefully not. -- Malerooster ( talk) 04:38, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Not yet. If this turns out to be something important, it'll become evident later. If it's not, it's not. –  Muboshgu ( talk) 04:45, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

What they said. Not yet a story and not yet clear what, if anything, it means. -- MelanieN ( talk) 04:50, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

A prime example of something absolutely unencyclopedic and trivial. May His Shadow Fall Upon You ● 📧 14:11, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

no. Snooganssnoogans ( talk) 14:15, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

@ May His Shadow Fall Upon You: Nonsense. Trump, an overweight septuagenarian with a penchant for fast food, secretly makes an unscheduled trip to Walter Reed for "phase one" of some unspecified treatment. While it certainly isn't worthy of inclusion now (largely because we don't know anything), you cannot possibly argue it is "unencyclopedic and trivial" until the facts are revealed. -- Scjessey ( talk) 14:19, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

@ Scjessey: - It's hardly nonsense. It could, perhaps, one day, possibly, be something encyclopedic - but then again that could be said for any trivial piece of information. May His Shadow Fall Upon You ● 📧 23:42, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

This may be a first, but I strongly agree with both Snooganssnoogans and Muboshgu on this issue. This is unquestionably something unencyclopaedic and trivial, and this type of inclusion is not merited for any Wikipedia article. If anything comes of this hospital visit that is important enough to include in this article, we will find out soon enough anyway. GlassBones ( talk) 16:36, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

Why would this be included so soon? Last I checked Wikipedia is not a newspaper. Thinker78 ( talk) 00:48, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

User:BullRangifer -I just removed your addition of cite to lead giving definition of “coordination”. It just didn’t fit well as LEAD. The lead here isn’t doing cites, plus the cite was adding content of low details not in the Body of the section. It’s just not good practices to go into details in Lead, nor in this case to further expand this lead. I’m not sure this definition deserves Body space, but maybe try that. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 07:25, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

This article has a longstanding convention of omitting cites from the lead. To my eye, the visual improvement is dramatic, so I'm reluctant to depart from the convention. MOS:LEADCITE, which was cited in this revert, gives us the freedom to make that choice. I say we continue to make it. ― Mandruss  ☎ 07:35, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

I sympathize with all the objections. The word was long-standing content in the lead, but was removed, so I restored it with the source.

The proper solution is to add it to the body, with the source. Then the unsourced word can be restored to the lead. I'm not in a position to do that right now, so feel free to do it. -- BullRangifer ( talk) 07:56, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

On the other hand, the lede already has three non-citation footnotes (which are visually very similar) to explain complicated or nuanced statements in more detail. If we can now assume that the inclusion of the word "coordination" in the lede is not contested per se (i.e. doesn't need a citation in the same place), we may want to convert this citation into the fourth explanatory footnote. The definitions of collusion/coordination as used by Mueller are certainly nuanced and important enough to warrant this. Regards, HaeB ( talk) 08:33, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

HaeB, that's a great idea. Done. -- BullRangifer ( talk) 16:35, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

In the section, /info/en/?search=Donald_Trump#Political_activities_up_to_2015, it says,

"In 2005, Trump said he had voted for George W. Bush."

It gives a citation to this 2005 Bill O'Reilly interview: https://www.foxnews.com/story/donald-trump-in-the-no-spin-zone

Maybe I missed it, but I don't see where Trump says that in the transcript.

Karl Rove (not that he would know for sure of course) quite confidently said in 2016 that Trump had voted for Kerry, and in an interview with Wolf Blitzer in 2007 or 08, discussing the Democratic candidates (specifically Edwards here), Trump expressed lack of confidence in Edwards due to having been on a ticket that should have beaten Bush.

2601:140:8B80:3EF0:74A0:A323:8AD3:F21E ( talk) 04:31, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Yes, you are right. No where in that transcript does Trump say that he voted for Bush in '04. In fact, here it appears that he may have not voted for Bush in 2004 at all despite claiming so in 2005. If we can't find RS that definitively say that he voted for Bush in '04, we will just have to remove it. Thanks for bringing that to our attention. Mgasparin ( talk) 18:46, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

(Edit to the previous post)...I have changed the wording of the sentence and added a new reference to show that Trump changed his answer about his vote in a 2009 interview. I hope this clears up any confusion. Mgasparin ( talk) 18:55, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

[User:Mgasparin]] Delete instead ? Thanks for the effort but actually, I'd say the sparseness of mentions and RS indicates it should just be deleted. Not really very important to his life or the world who he voted for in 2004 I'd think. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 03:48, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

It does establish that Trump has had a history of changing his story long before he entered politics, though you may be right. I have gone ahead and removed the sentence and the corresponding ref. Mgasparin ( talk) 07:19, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

This edit request to Donald Trump has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Under section Presidency>Foreign Policy>Cuba change “county” to “country”. Szakyl ( talk) 19:21, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

 Done – Jonesey95 ( talk) 19:44, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

• Note: For clarity, Mark’s last comment was added after the closure. I’m also honestly not sure how there was an “edit conflict” when the preceding edit was made four hours before, and the following edit was two and a half hours later... Symmachus Auxiliarus ( talk) 16:29, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

I deleted a recently-added paragraph about the Crowdstrike story, on the grounds that it is not part of the Trump administration's foreign policy. Let's not give a platform to junk tweets. Courtesy ping User:ZiplineWhy who added that. — JFG ^talk 19:40, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

What are you referencing with "junk tweets"? Trump has promoted the Crowdstrike story to the press and to Zelensky himself according to the phonecall document. Also, this is not the Trump Presidency/Administration article. I think it's reasonable to include some mention of his personal foreign agenda in his personal Donald Trump bio article. SPECIFICO talk 22:47, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

How can a public pronouncement (i.e. a Tweet) from POTUS be classified as junk? His tweets effect the stock market, foreign policy, the reaction of nations, the reaction of the nation, the media. There is no such thing as a "junk tweet" when it comes to POTUS. I guess one could ask the question: "For what purpose does he tweet? Change the conversation? Misdirection? Irrational Venting? Paranoia? Influence national or internatoional action or reaction? Or all of the above? Whatever, his tweets are anything but junk. Oldperson ( talk) 23:25, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

I agree with removing it. Sure, he talks about it in tweets and at rallies. He even brought it up in connection with the Ukraine stuff, mentioned it to Zelensky in the phone call. It could be mentioned in that connection, in no more than a sentence. No details. It's already described sufficiently (maybe too much) in other articles, and linked to them. Don't pollute this biography with it. -- MelanieN ( talk) 23:31, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

The too long tag was again added and removed and I’ve put it up for the discussion.

The most recent removal note said “instead of just placing tags, how about you propose ways to shorten the article?” So ... let’s do that.

Obviously consensus#37 alone is not enough ... while a couple folks have been trimming, it seems others add in about as fast. So what approaches would get below #toolong ? (Addendum: WP:TOOLONG)

I’ll offer a couple proposals, others please add more. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 23:51, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Possibilities

• Hard limit non-biographical material to N subsections. The volume is at the Political and Recentism, so focus the trim there, and move that out to the Presidency article or some other of the circa 1,000 Trump articles if appropriate. Markbassett ( talk) 23:47, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

No. The vast majority of sources about the subject are because of his political activities of the past several years, which happens to be recent. If you want to write about the Pyramids, you probably won't have a problem with recentism there.- Mr X 🖋 03:05, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

• Markbassett, This seems like the best course of action. Thanks to recentism, plenty of material has been crammed into this page that really is better suited for other pages. May His Shadow Fall Upon You ● 📧 19:21, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

• Subsection reduction: reduce each of the sections by lowest weight subsection, eliminating 1 subsection or down to a maximum of 5 subsections, whichever is the most subsections. Markbassett ( talk) 23:47, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

What? - Mr X 🖋 03:05, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

All the sections would lose one subsection (of least WEIGHT), except Section 6 ‘public profile’ would get cut from 9 subsections to 5. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 22:18, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

I think that would be arbitrary and capricious. - Mr X 🖋 23:01, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

• Put on the “badge of shame” until TOOLONG is fixed. More a reminder and motivator than a full solution, but any help would be good. (per talk with Moxy) Markbassett ( talk) 01:01, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

What is the impact of this article supposedly being "too long"? Are readers falling asleep in the middle of reading it? Are WMF's servers melting down? Where is the evidence showing this to be an actual issue? The article should be as long as it needs to be to adequately cover the subject. - Mr X 🖋 03:05, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. I have put some possibilities for trimming below if we go ahead with this. They should not indicate that I support trimming though. Mgasparin ( talk) 05:37, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

• Trim subsections (lengthy ‘racial views’; or trim ISIS, Iran, Israel, travel ban and WWE and cut Venezuela). (per Mgasparin and MrX comments). Markbassett ( talk) 22:24, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

• Delete old info like family or business. (MelanieN).

(My alt. Spinoff the Trump bio article (pre-2015) caveat literally that, without recentism revisionist history.). Markbassett ( talk) 04:50, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Other discussion

I do agree the article is long-winded making some lose interest quickly thus could use a big trim. HOWEVER it does not need a tag as the purpose of the tag is to make editors (not readers) aware a discussion is needed....in this cases we have hundreds of watchers who will see any post to the talk page and respond as seen above.-- Moxy 🍁 00:23, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

User:Moxy the discussion about utility of a tag ... isn’t a means of trimming. Whether the badge of shame tag would help people any, but seems like the reminder could only help so... hmm maybe this does help, I will add it to the list. Though I think the advisory stage of talking diet has failed so far and was thinking needs are more something on the scale of surgical interventions (wiring jaw shut, stomach banding, liposuction...) Markbassett ( talk) 00:53, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

@ Markbassett and MrX: I noticed that "Racial Views" is currently the longest section here. What do you think of trimming some of that section? Mgasparin ( talk) 02:34, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

I would be opposed to that. However, 'ISIS and war', 'Iran', 'Israel', 'Travel ban', and 'WWE' could be cut some. 'Venezuela' could be eliminated.- Mr X 🖋 02:50, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

MrX I would support the trimming of some of the information about his life before his presidency as well as some of the smaller foreign policy issues. ISIS is a more prominent incident, particularly with the death of its leader. The travel ban has been one of the most divisive incidents to date, so I would be cautious trimming there. Israel and WWE are probably the best places to start trimming. I agree that Venezuela could possibly be eliminated altogether as it was a pretty small incident (compared to some of the other ones). Iran could be trimmed some too. Mgasparin ( talk) 05:23, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

As an informal member and unrecognized champion of Wikiproject Professional Wrestling, I am bound to try and stop you from further violating my people's time-honoured traditions and near-universal norms regarding managers and WrestleMania. To read of Mr. Fuji or Bobby Heenan cornering someone at any PPV without mentioning who it was or which side won would be unthinkable, much less if Jimmy Hart or Lou Albano were the star attraction at the highest-grossing show yet, as Trump was.

I highly suggest normalizing his single sentence about supporting Bobby Lashley in defeating Umaga by inserting those brief particulars. I also move we cut and paste the bit about the CNN logo to the section about the "real" feud with the press. CNN has never been affiliated with WWE, quite the opposite, even after Ted Turner and WCW surrendered their respective dogs in the fight (Nancy Grace is unforgivable). WWE is VERY interested in Twitter, but did not sponsor, retweet or like the objectionable content, that was a fair use derivative work by an independent promoter.

Two wrestlers and a result for irrelevant chunk sound like a fair deal? InedibleHulk (talk) 00:47, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

I don't see this as an emergency. I've done some trimming and there's more to be done, per the above suggestions. But its unlikely that newcomers to the article will be sufficiently familiar with the content, the sources, and the sub-articles to do a great job at trimming. So we can all take the timming pledge and get the template off the article. It's just clutter at this point. The article is well-indexed and full of handy links. SPECIFICO talk 23:06, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

I second that suggestion. Eliminate the template, which just results in newcomers showing up here with unacceptable suggestions like "let's take out all the political material." What we can do: we can all, when we have an hour or two to spare, pick one section or subsection to read through - not a section about current material as suggested above, which gets argued over, but something old and bloated and no longer very relevant, like the family or business sections. Remove outdated or trivial information, tidy up the language, don't take out anything controversial. If you did a BIG trim, mention here that you did it. Make sense to you all? -- MelanieN ( talk) 23:24, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

But political and recent *is* where the problem lies, and often has a spin-off article that may even already have a duplicate of the same material. (Sometimes xeroxing the same bit in multiple articles.). The old and family stuff is supposed to be here in his bio article, and doesn’t exist in another article... Hmmm, ok adding ‘spinoff Biographical content’. Markbassett ( talk) 04:43, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

I think the general attitude has to change if any trimming is going to be effective. I did a big trim last month and it was immediately reverted. Small trims with long-winded discussions cannot stop the article growing. Editors need to accept that significant trimming will involve the loss of material that they think is important. Unless editors are willing to accept this, there is no point in talking about trimming. It's like someone who continually resolves to go on a diet, but never lasts a week. It's painful to watch.-- Jack Upland ( talk) 23:55, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Do smaller bites. I've done several that were not reversed. I think yours was too much at once, if I recall. Some was good, other parts seemed excessive. SPECIFICO talk 23:57, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

I think it could be mathematically proved that smaller bites cannot shorten the article.-- Jack Upland ( talk) 00:56, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

The tag is unnecessary and obstructive. It's debatable that the article is even too long. - Mr X 🖋 23:59, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

It's smaller than Hillary Clinton, and she's not even president! - Mr X 🖋 00:04, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

User:MrX please move this to the discussion area, and factually Hillary is smaller at 311 Kb in 50 pages vs Trump 409 KB in 62 pages ... plus hundreds more sub articles and Presidency articles. Markbassett ( talk) 00:47, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Trump: Prose size (text only): 100 kB (16039 words) "readable prose size"

Clinton: Prose size (text only): 103 kB (16615 words) "readable prose size"

- Mr X 🖋 02:42, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

This "length" argument, when it stands alone, is tiresome and worthless. Not that this is the longest article, but it's the nature of the beast that some article has to be the longest, and some other article has to be the second-longest, etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseum. It can't be any other way, and their status as long articles is not a negative. It's just a statement of fact.

Only arguments related to the unnecessary inclusion of irrelevant information are worth discussing, and even then not in the context of article length.

When one considers the nature of Trump's self-promotional invasion into literally every subject known to man, this article literally MUST become the longest. So far we have used WP:SPINOFF as an effective means of limiting its size and avoiding undue weight issues. Let's focus on that. -- BullRangifer ( talk) 19:02, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

This edit request to Donald Trump has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Paragraph section, "welcomed and encouraged Russian foreign interference in the 2016 presidential election under the belief that it would be politically advantageous, but", should be removed, as it is not supported by any actual substantiated evidence, nor was it referenced within the Mueller Report. It appears to be an opinion lead in for the next portion of the paragraph which is accurately stated.

What is written in the Mueller Report was that Trump "showed interest in WikiLeaks's releases of documents and welcomed their potential to damage candidate Clinton"; which is substantially different as WikiLeak's is not Russia. The Mueller Report did mention "that the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities"; which should probably be added to the paragraph for accuracy. EWGeary ( talk) 08:11, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

 Not done - Improper use of the edit request facility. Please review WP:Edit requests, in particular the last part of the second sentence: consensus should be obtained before requesting changes that are likely to be controversial. ― Mandruss  ☎ 08:31, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

In this diff, @ JFG: has reinstated substantially the same language that he advocated in this long talkpage discussion last month. JFG's proposed version was rejected in favor of a consensus version among many talk page editors (including @ MelanieN, Bullrangifer, Scjessey, and Starship.paint:). @ MrX: implemented the now-removed consensus in several diffs: [8] [9].

JFG's version repeats the insinuation of the Bidens that was explicitly rejected in the talk page discussion. Also, the link to Foreign interference in the 2020 United States elections (words stated by the whistleblower) was explicitly agreed -- again after much discussion. I'm at a loss to understand why this consensus would be reverted to the version similar to a version of JFG's that was rejected during that long discussion.

Then the following diff removed the consensus wording about Trump's withholding of US aid. JFG's edit summary cites false Republican talking points that 1. The aid was just briefly delayed, and 2. Zelensky didn't even know about it. The first point was explicitly rejected in the consensus talk thread linked. The second has been known to be false for over a month, see here

JFG, unless you would like to share what's changed that warrants vacating the recent talk page consensus, please undo your two reversions. Thanks. SPECIFICO talk 21:11, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that was BOLD. This is the version that I believe most of us settled on after lengthy discussion:

The House of Representatives launched an impeachment inquiry following a September 2019 report that Trump had abused his presidential power by pressuring the president of Ukraine to undertake actions which would have the effect of helping Trump's 2020 re-election campaign. Among other inducements, Trump ordered congressionally-mandated military aid for Ukraine to be withheld. Witnesses subsequently testified that Trump and his surrogates had been carrying out that pressure campaign for months.

- Mr X 🖋 21:31, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

I have restored that consensus version. JFG, I am going to assume good faith, that you just forgot this had been discussed before so you inserted edits you thought were improvements. IMO we should all keep in mind that every word of the lead section has been discussed and parsed and scrutinized extensively, so that ANY change to the lead section should probably be discussed here first. -- MelanieN ( talk) 22:59, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

• The language seems wrong in a couple spots - I’ll fix the misnomer about “report”, and I’m OK with revisiting the wording on other points. Wording changes over time, especially for something that was ongoing and somewhat still active should be expected by now. Or at least that the article (including long-past bits) has been widely getting revisits and re-revisits and re-re-revisits should be self-evident. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 05:00, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

The language is fine, as determined in the lengthy consensus discussion .You made it less fine when you changed "September" to "August", and "report" to "whistleblower complaint". The impeachment inquiry began after the report of the whistleblower complaint was released to congress after being withheld by the administration for more than a month. - Mr X 🖋 12:49, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Nope, the discussion is wrong to posture as a “long” discussion or big consensus or that active events aren’t frequently rediscussed here. It canvassed a few editors and went 2-10 November, and just got some factually and policy wrong confusing stuff, particularly the discussion fell dormant at the inquiry having the wrong month of whistleblower complaint. Since that edit is less than a couple weeks old, it’s not “long-standing” and I’m inclined to fix errors and otherwise say that it seems open and still in flux, both edits and ongoing events so I’m OK with discussing other edits such as JFG is doing. If you want a strong edit, it should go for a formal rfc or be about some topic point - mere wording choice or a week-ish edit of several editors just isn’t much of a much. But note that nothing is all that stable here — even numbered consensus have seen multiple revisits. I’ll be willing to fix the individual “September report” error to “August whistleblower complaint” or TALK about September “IC IG letter”, it’s just not proper terminology or commonly a “report”. Mueller did a report, Barr did a letter, whistleblower did a complaint. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 14:51, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Then feel free to write your own version here and seek consensus for it. Again, the impeachment inquiry was the result of Congress finally receiving the report after asking for it for weeks. It was not the result of the whistleblower complaint being filed. - Mr X 🖋 15:39, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Maybe it should be added to the consensus list to implement that Discuss-on-talk. I'm curious why we often see edits called "improve text" and others called "restore consensus" with the only common characteristic being an omission or misrepresentation of current RS fact narratives. SPECIFICO talk 16:02, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

User:MrX A whole thread for *one* typo ?!? Why ? I don’t see prior discussion of that word so again it is not a matter of consensus and I am addressing it as a simple mistype. There is “report” from Mueller or Schiff, in the context of sparking the inquiry there is only a “whistleblower complaint” and an “IC IG letter”. In multiple prior offerings of that thread it was “whistleblower complaint”, and I simply put it back to that. What on earth do you feel it has for it that we’d be discussing ??? The word “report” and date “September” caused an immediate question of it in the discussion that was the bottom post, not responded to. If you have a reason for “report” then explain why and please change the wording so it’s not confusing what is this report. Otherwise, I’m going to try again replacing with the clearly understood “whistleblower complaint”. The larger User:JFG edits I am OK with discussing further but for just one misnomer just a sidenote here seems enough discussion, a whole thread for an unexplained word that had no stated reason seems overkill over an “oops”. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 03:22, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

I have to agree with MrX here. The impeachment inquiry was not launched in August, it was launched in September - after they finally heard about the August whistleblower complaint. But maybe we can find a compromise. How about something like "The House of Representatives launched an impeachment inquiry in September 2019 after learning about an August whistleblower complaint saying that Trump had abused his presidential power ..." ? If not this, then I would stay with "September report". -- MelanieN ( talk) 03:33, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

I prefer the text as originally agreed. I'm not keen on the idea of mentioning the whistleblower complaint, because it plays into the false narrative being pushed by Trump's defenders that the whole impeachment situation is predicated upon it. -- Scjessey ( talk) 07:16, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

I agree. The month that the whistleblower report was filed is a trivial point and tends to distract from the relevant facts. - Mr X 🖋 12:56, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Again, what are you talking about with just a bare “report” is unclear. The impeachment inquiry follows an “IC IG letter” in September which is about a “whistleblower complaint” in August. There is no “report” of note involved since Meuller until Schiff produces one. And how on earth is the complaint as triggering event a “false” narrative??? That *is* what initiated the inquiry, the further supporting evidence is the result so the wording of inquiry “following” has to mean the line is about something prior to the inquiry. The only candidates seem the CIA person’s contact to Schiff, the actual whistleblower complaint, and then the IC IG letter about it when it did not get forwarded to Schiff in the expected timeframe. Do we really need a whole thread just for one word “report” v.s. “whistleblower complaint” or is my fix OK to go ? Cheers ? Markbassett ( talk) 17:52, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

That's a pretty pedantic argument. Everyone else seems to understand what 'report' mean in this context, including a multitude of reliable sources that use the same term. [10] [11] [12] [13] - Mr X 🖋 18:24, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Also, the author of the report uses the word "report" to describe the document. "Complaint" is a loaded term that will be widely misinterpreted as referring to an adverserial document. "Complaint" is used to describe a plaintiff's allegations in a legal proceeding. The whistleblower report is an informational not adverserial document. SPECIFICO talk 18:43, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

User:MrX ??? the first cite is the Washington Post “The Whistleblower Complaint...” that starts “The whistleblower complaint”... second is TheHill Trump May fire official who reported “whistleblower complaint”, third is about firing IG starting line finding the whistleblowers complaint”, fourth is talking impeachment whistleblower “name of the whistleblower who prompted an impeachment inquiry” ... These seem good supports for the pre-eminence of “whistleblower complaint”, not an unnamed source “report”.  ? Markbassett ( talk) 02:11, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

... the report centered on several conversations involving President Trump and Ukraine..." [14] - Mr X 🖋 03:02, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

OK we have the wording was “whistleblower complaint”, up until the last proposal which said “report” which drew immediate confusion question about what was meant and that thread fell idle with no reply. Apparently more than one editor dislikes the phrase “whistleblower complaint” so it does need to go to a thread on just the one word. Roger, will do. (p.s. signature Markbassett ( talk) 01:59, 30 November 2019 (UTC)) 01:33, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia Roger! - Mr X 🖋 01:43, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

JzG: RE your revert: It was long-standing content removed by editor InedibleHulk with a cryptic edit summary (who's Oliver Darcy?). It's a prime example of Trump attacking the media–there's method to the "batshit" madness–and it occurred fairly early in his presidency. There was plenty of coverage, in the NYT, WaPo, Forbes, Business Insider, to name just the first few that popped up at the top of the search results. Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 17:46, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

It was also some time ago, and the constant torrent of outrageous things Trump does rather forces us to prune them every now and again. Guy ( help!) 17:54, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Lots of pruning. Important material is being hidden amongst all the unencyclopedic rhetoric and trivia, none of which has lasting value. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 19:08, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Similar editorial decisions come up over and over. In my opinion the solution is to find tertiary sources that discuss whatever underlying issues have arisen. In this case, apparently it is POTUS' relations with or statements about journalists and cable TV coverage. It's not the best solution for WP editors to decide among ourselves which examples are most significant. But there should be credible comments from notable observers or respected commentators that can be cited in proportion to their weight. SPECIFICO talk 19:27, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

@ Atsme and SPECIFICO:There is nothing unencylopedic or trivial about behaviors, utterances in front of a helicopter or tweets that emanates from POTUS. His every utterance has effects nationally, internationally, and on the stock market. I agree that documenting everything on this article makes it unwield(ier), but the subject deserves it' s own fork, his inanities, misbehavior, and yes treasonous behavior deserves it's own page, just for purposes of documentation. Oldperson ( talk) 20:33, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

The problem is that it should not be WP editors evaluating what's due weight solely on our own. That gets into Original Research and it gets into irreconcilable differences on the talk pages. Whenever possible, we need to rely on the noteworthy evaluations of tertiary sources. SPECIFICO talk 21:53, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

SPECIFICOGood point, never thought of it that way. I agree. Oldperson ( talk) 22:00, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Oldperson, either that or we have to have an article on shit my President says. Guy ( help!) 17:10, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Uh–you mean a tertiary source like Wikipedia to attempt to summarize, collect, and consolidate the source materials into an overview? Call me Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 16:31, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Oliver Darcy is the CNN media reporter who said Trump incited violence against reporters by sharing this...thing. This was explained in the last sentence for three hours on November 30, before clarity was wiped out in a minor good faith edit ostensibly intended to demean fictional characters for their portrayers' refusal to actually incapacitate their costars. The mehness of it all didn't make me delete it, just the uninvolvement of WWE. If Trump had shared the Mortal Kombat or NBA or whatever versions of the "meme", we wouldn't make a section about those base media to include it. Same deal here, except the WWE section already existed. No objection to its restoration in the press relations section. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:24, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Per that Forbes link in the OP, this was Trump's most-retweeted tweet yet. Maybe broken since. If not, it should go somewhere, because this article already acknowledges Twitter as an important media empire. InedibleHulk (talk) 10:27, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

• Per InedibleHulk: Any objections to moving the paragraph into the press relations section? Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 16:31, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

• Trivia, it is more that section chronologically and by theme, but not really meat for this article anyway. Besides, it seems just an outrage du jour that died out in a couple days and nothing much of lasting note. It did pop up a few days after that when CNN tracked down the redditor - one of the CNN controversies. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 04:32, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Per the discussion here, the succession boxes were removed in 2018 without any discussion. As far as I can tell, this is the only president's article that doesn't have succession boxes. I see no reason to break from precedent, and propose adding them back. Ergo Sum 03:10, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

First, you claim they were removed "without any discussion" in the same sentence as you linked to the discussion supporting their removal. What is that? And your heading says "without consensus" but 1–4 seems like a solid consensus to me (we don't need high participation for something like this). For responses to the precedent argument, see the discussion you linked to. In short, you are re-raising a settled issue with no new argument.

The article is currently only 33 kB away from the limit on post-expand include size, and adding this back would reduce that by 6 kB. When that limit is exceeded, it starts breaking templates at the end of the article. I see more than one reason to break from precedent, and I oppose adding them back. ― Mandruss  ☎ 03:45, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

First off, yes, Trump's time in wrestling is overshadowed by his time in government. Even by his reign as reality TV king. And yes, pro wrestling is fixed. But his time pretending to hate another famous lying billionaire enough to put his notable hair on the line did draw a legitimately large crowd, both supporters and opposers. The result was a foregone conclusion, but those people were seriously invested in finding out who "won", despite most feeling confident in their prediction of how the conspirators had arranged the finish. It was the highest-grossing one-night fundraiser Linda had ever held, and held that record for a spell. "The Battle of the Billionaires" wasn't the "main event" in a strict booking sense, but it was the "headliner" in mainstream advertising dollars.

For this reason, the McMahons enshrined him in the Hall of Fame ahead of thousands of "more deserving" workers and gave him $6 million to take the arguably more respectable title from fictional African Muslim nemesis, once again only getting cheers because the heel was a plainly greater evil to the sort of people who only bother to vote when lowbrow action megapowers run. In this sense of lasting impact, Trump is both the American President and a more noteworthy professional wrestling manager than Harvey Wippleman or Johnny Polo, both of whom have their WrestleMania results noted, shortly and simply because wrestling fans care who wins predetermined exhibitions of pomp and circumstance.

Regardless of how you feel about wrestling and/or politics, I implore you to look within the logical part of your hearts before telling Lashley he's too fake to appear briefly alongside Trump now that Trump is getting booed at baseball games he barely helped promote. Why should every lesser "sports entertainer" on Wikipedia have key plot developments summarized, but the most electrifying one shouldn't? Because he "won" an election later? Or because he's "racist" and Lashley is "African" and the idea of Trump supporting a black person (either fake morally or real economically) is "undesirable"? Ventura won an election later, Hogan "was racist" later, DiBiase moved on from owning a black man and beating him for escaping to become a damn real Christian minister later; all of their articles relay what went down at SummerSlam, simply because they were involved. Kamala, JYD, Butch Reed...hell, even Virgil. All get reciprocity in the white business partner's relevant career sections. If Lashley's article can mention a guy who stood around ringside and shouted, Trump's should be able to handle revealing how he beat Vince McMahon, including through whom (not just "proxy").

Politically powerful wrestlers have never been exempt from disclosing their PPV records, and I believe we'll need a good reason to continue starting here now. That's all I'm arguing on this. You guys can decide what constitutes a good reason to exclude this very important (to WWE readers) and very short (to all readers) fact about his widely reported hair match. I trust in democracy to do the right thing, and apologize for how long this got. Have a good Monday night! InedibleHulk (talk) 14:25, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

InedibleHulk, important to WWE is monumentally unimportant to anything else. Guy ( help!) 14:44, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. I'm talking about six extra words in the WWE section. Nowhere else. InedibleHulk (talk) 14:55, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

The words are "(which Trump and Bobby Lashley won)". They were removed as "fake" earlier. Can't just war them in, thought I'd explain. InedibleHulk (talk) 15:10, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Six words are fine. God forbid anyone think Trump lost his hair in a hair match. starship .paint ( talk) 23:46, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

@ InedibleHulk: TL;DR. My edit summary more than sufficiently provides any conceivable response. -- Scjessey ( talk) 17:15, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

How dare you call wrestling fake! You charlatan! ^FBDB PackMecEng ( talk) 17:47, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

That summary raised far more questions than answers. In short, do you believe Trump's fake win was exceptional to everyone else's WrestleMania wins? Unless it was faker, you need a better reason to ignore Wikipedia's wrestling standards or I'm taking your non-response as a forfeit. Sound OK? InedibleHulk (talk) 19:24, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Like (I hope) most people, I don't give a shit about Wrestlemania, or whether Trump "won", or wrestling in general. Whether or not Trump (and that other guy) "won" a competition is of no value to the reader, and certainly isn't notable enough for inclusion, otherwise it would be mentioned in multiple reliable sources. -- Scjessey ( talk) 22:29, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

@ Scjessey:, so, if it were mentioned in multiple reliable sources.... starship .paint ( talk) 09:49, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

1. Book: Trump Revealed: An American Journey of Ambition, Ego, Money, and Power by Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher, published by Simon and Schuster, 2016
2. Book : Audience of One: Donald Trump, Television, and the Fracturing of America by James Poniewozik, published by Liveright Publishing, 2019
3. News Smackdown! Trump’s insult act comes from pro wrestling hype by Associated Press, 2007
4. News Trump’s obsession with WrestleMania and fake drama by Politico, 2017
5. News: For each scene of his presidency, Trump casts a villain (or two, or three …) by The Washington Post, 2017
6. News: WWE Fan Donald Trump Has Never Tapped Out of Pro Wrestling by NBC News, 2016
7. News: Trump honed his skills as a carnival spruiker in pro wrestling's ring by The Sydney Morning Herald, 2018
8. News: That time Donald Trump headlined WWE’s WrestleMania 23 with Bobby Lashley by The Denver Post, 2015
9. News: How Donald Trump Used Hollywood to Create ‘Donald Trump’ by The New York Times, 2016
10. News: Trump Greeted With Boos—and Cheers—at UFC Event - Wall Street Journal, 2019
11. News: Donald Trump's Presidential Training Ground? The WWE. by Yahoo News, 2016
12. News: Remember when Donald Trump took down WWE's Vince McMahon in 2007? by AOL, 2016

I'm still not convinced of its value. The article is about Trump, not wrestling. The outcome is of zero importance to his biography. -- Scjessey ( talk) 19:06, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

@ Scjessey: - you don't care about WrestleMania, so I assume you don't know much about pro wrestling. Luckily, you have me with 2 featured articles and 6 good articles on pro wrestling. Headlining WrestleMania (as seen from File:WrestleMania 23 event poster.jpg) is a big deal, winning at WrestleMania is an even bigger deal. Beating Vince McMahon, a top storyline villain, is a big deal. Shaving Vince McMahon's head (due to the win), is an even bigger deal that nobody, even Vince's #1 storyline enemy Stone Cold Steve Austin (one of the top American pro wrestlers ever) could achieve. Simply put, with that one match win, Donald Trump has achieved substantial success in the pro wrestling industry, even if it was scripted. That is why it is important to his biography - it's still an achievement in a field. That came in 2007, and you see, as I provided above, sources from 2016 to 2019 still cover it. That's not recentism, that's significance. starship .paint ( talk) 03:41, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, Starship.paint, but it's really hard for me to take any of that seriously. I mean, you're talking about pretend wrestling. If Trump had won something in a proper competition, like the Olympics or something, that would be worth talking about. But this is like saying the Sylvester Stallone article should credit him with Rocky's win over Ivan Drago. It's fake. -- Scjessey ( talk) 08:42, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Scjessey, of course I know it is pretend wrestling. I know it's fake (scripted). Please look at it in another light - we are not crediting Trump with a real win. Instead, we are acknowledging that he was put in a position of high privilege and prominence within the field that few people have been put in (doesn't that sound familiar?) Hell, all of the above reliable source know wrestling is fake, and yet they re-covered this event years later. Doesn't that say something other than derisively dismissing the whole thing as fake? starship .paint ( talk) 12:02, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

If you are so concerned about Trump getting credit, how about (which Trump and Bobby Lashley were scripted to win)? Anyway, I thought of an analogy - hope you're familiar with Star Wars. Donald Trump is dropped into the Star Wars universe, playing himself. He doesn't appear in some random book or random animated TV episode. He instead appears in the major Star Wars film Episode VI – Return of the Jedi. Now, before this film, our heroes have often thwarted Emperor Palpatine's schemes, but never fully defeated him. In fact, some heroes like Han Solo or Leia Skywalker are no match for the Emperor at all. Trump is dropped into Episode VI, where he not only defeats, but kills the Emperor, ending the galactic conflict. Obviously, this 'win' is scripted, and Trump did not kill any evil Sith Lord by his own merit. However, Trump being scripted to be put into this leading role is the significant thing itself. It's more than 'Trump appears in Episode VI'. starship .paint ( talk) 14:04, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Saying someone was scripted to win a scripted feud is redundant; if adding, delete the first clarification. Anyway, Trump (like Darth Vader) would look weird bald, and weak tied down and shaved by an establishment figure and savage immigrant. His political rivals could have used those real images against him ten years later, and probably won. But because of this booking, that couldn't happen, only the opposite. Outcomes aren't fake, just set up through fake combat. InedibleHulk (talk) 15:00, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Actually, this is more like when Ed Sheeran popped up in Game of Thrones. -- Scjessey ( talk) 13:41, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

In pasty mainstream geek terms, it's a bit more like Drew Carey putting over big red future Knox County Mayor Kane at the Royal Rumble or Andy Kaufman having his neck broken by the King of Memphis. Do people still remember Andy? What about Steve-O, who once (legitimately) laughed off Umaga's "offense" instead of selling it? I think Wikipedia remembers. It damn sure remembers Mr. T's mother, brother! InedibleHulk (talk) 20:06, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

User:InedibleHulk - ‘just follow the sources’ - I think your wording is Ok, sources say win and lose (with scripting understood). Though I’d prefer not to add more length to the article, it is a moment. The alternative phrasing is to say McMahon lost, just saying sources convey the result that way too. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 04:09, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Since Trump is this article's subject, his side of the result is more appropriate than McMahon's. But the other way isn't terrible. The section is already shorter than it was, and still will be with either wording. InedibleHulk (talk) 14:38, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

• Trump has been associated with the WWF/WWE for over 30 years (far longer than any of his business endeavors or his marriages lasted), and that's an important part of his biography but the storylines they used (hair match, fake sale) are as irrelevant for this article as the winners on Apprentice or the various beauty contests. Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 18:12, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

I want to believe this, but I'm not following the logic. McMahon has also been associated with WWE for (slightly) longer than with Linda, and Linda slightly shorter. The federation is an important part of their bios, too. But their articles do mention stipulations, opponents and results. Are those editors doing it wrong, or is Trump simply exceptional to every other pro wrestling character for a reason you forgot to mention? Do you at least concede that Trump wasn't even a pretend contender in the beauty contest and reality show? It's different when it's one's own mottled scalp on the line. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:04, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

I don't mean to slight pro wrestlers (I've watched a few Royal Rumbles, and I still haven't made up my mind about the Montreal screwjob). They're athletes and performers (OK, a lot of the acting is–intentionally and unintentionally–ham), and their matches are a big part of their bios. McMahon's only business is pro wrestling, as owner and permanent heel. For Trump it's just been one of many endeavors, for lots of money and–bonus–media attention. Lashley's teaming up with someone who later became president of the country - that's something I'd want in my article if I were a wrestler. On the president's page who's just betrayed US allies in Syria and thrown them to the wolves, who's held Ukraine hostage for personal gain - seems pretty trivial. Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 08:55, 8 December 2019 (UTC) Ewww is right - just pictured Trump in the bathing suit contest. EWWW¡ Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 09:12, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Not exactly persuaded, but I see what you mean. I guess I just don't try to imagine everything about a person's history as a single overarching characteristic. In the context of WrestleMania 23, America was years away from giving a shit about recruiting Kurdish militants, and Ukraine was just known on Western TV for its blonde beauties. The biggest thing in the Trump newsfeed for months prior had been his feud with Vinnie Mac. So in that paragraph, even the Mexican Wall and Swamp Drain angles were completely irrelevant for not yet existing. But yeah, if you want to see Donnie Jay's total package wrapped up in a finely-wrinkled nutshell instead of spread wide apart, I see how talking of grunting oily dudes in spandex (even implicitly) might seem disgustingly juxtaposed. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:33, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

(Not for nothing, Vince did run a concert venue in Cape Cod, a football league in 2001 and a starvation relief effort in Somalia. Not as successfully as his film and music labels, but better than his bodybuilding show and supplement lines. He also sang once a long time ago.) InedibleHulk (talk) 21:09, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

I went back to the 2007 Fourth of July revision, and this article didn't mention the recent WrestleMania at all, just two generically. But even more shocking, it did specifically recall the 1991 World Bodybuilding Federation Championship. Crazy times, very few citations, talk about a Trump Ice Cream Parlor, no word on how Syria was doing (probably just fine). InedibleHulk (talk) 00:19, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Back on topic, completely erasing 23 and just leaving IV, V and 29 ("Trivial details", 18:10, December 7) is flat wrong and unacceptable. It'd be like Schwarzenegger's article omitting The Terminator. Detailed or not, no Trump WWE section can be remotely serviceable without at least a Wikilink to the obviously biggest part. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:28, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

No mention of donation of presidential salary to charity. Why not? Article is heavily biased on all levels. 99.42.89.21 ( talk) 09:14, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

JFK and Herbert Hoover also donated their salaries to charity, and their Wikipedia articles don't mention it either. Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 13:50, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

The White House always makes an announcement but the media rarely bother to report it. And IIRC his donations are not to charities; they are to a department of the government. [19] In fact that was his pledge: to donate it to government agencies. [20] -- MelanieN ( talk) 20:48, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Still worth mentioning with a brief sentence. — JFG ^talk 01:34, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Donating $200,000 out of several million times that much in US Federal expenditure? And nobody reports or discusses it? Might as well report what he ate for lunch. It's certainly not "biased". What's the bias? SPECIFICO talk 01:42, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

I have no objection to briefly mentioning that "Trump donated his second- and third-quarter salary to U.S. government agencies." If there are sources that verify he has consistently donated his salary throughout his term, then that would work as well.- Mr X 🖋 16:16, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

I see no reason to doubt that he's continued to do it. What's $100,000 to him? It's at least one "promise kept". If we're going to mention it at all, I would simply say "Trump donates his salary to U.S. government agencies." or at most "Trump donates his quarterly salary as president to U.S. government agencies." [21] -- MelanieN ( talk) 16:35, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

I'd support your suggestion. Perhaps more precise thus: "Ever since he took office, Trump has donated his presidential salary to various U.S. government agencies." (with your citation) — JFG ^talk 20:54, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

MelanieN, actually this is an interesting point. Trump's history of financial dealings around his campaign shows him to be incredibly reluctant to hand over money if he doesn't have to. Do we have concrete evidence from independent sources that this has happened? Guy ( help!) 00:35, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

It is announced by White House press release or a "White House official". I think if the named agency DIDN'T get the promised money, somebody would say so, at least by anonymous leak. I feel pretty sure that this actually happens. The press [22] doesn't seem to have any doubts, and PolitiFact rates it as true [23]. If there was cheating going on, some enterprising reporter would have found it out by now. -- MelanieN ( talk) 03:06, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Well, except that as discussed above, the whole thing is small potatoes and meaningless one way or the other. Even the Washington press might have higher value news targets to pursue. SPECIFICO talk 03:12, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

We would need to establish that there's anything noteworthy about this. Nobody has addressed that test. The amount of money is insignificant to the US Gov't, and insignificant to Trump, There's a wide variation in the amount the US Gov't spends, net of salary, travel, etc. from president to president. There's no source I have seen that explains why this is consequential or significant. If anyone can present a case for its noteworthiness, we can get into some detailed discussion. SPECIFICO talk 22:09, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

I think the fact that we don't mention this for previous presidents who did it is significant. That suggests we leave it out of this biography too. WEIGHT also suggests leaving it out. -- MelanieN ( talk) 22:25, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

If we do mention it, it needs to be in context. While it is true Trump has donated his $400K salary to charity, the taxpayer is (thus far) on the hook for $114 million in golf outings, which is over 270 years worth of that salary. These are rough numbers, but you can see some of the analysis for them here. -- Scjessey ( talk) 22:25, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

doth protest too much, methinks. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 04:05, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

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Change "Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is the 45th and current president of the United States. Before entering politics, he was a businessman and television personality." to "Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is the 45th impeached and current president of the United States. Before entering politics, he was a businessman and television personality." Thenew wiki Editor 2019 ( talk) 01:35, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

•  Not done That kind of makes it sound like he's the 45th president to be impeached, doesn't it? Let's not introduce odd ambiguity into the lead sentence. Red Phoenix ^talk 01:47, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

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Please edit as the subject got impeached a while ago. 2601:6C4:4000:E2D0:754E:C0C0:546D:5A37 ( talk) 02:17, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Pointless edit request. This article gets plenty of editor attention and will be updated in due course. ― Mandruss  ☎ 02:28, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

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Consider changing "third U.S President in American history" to "third President in American history to be impeached ...". MayorCarter ( talk) 02:19, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Mooted by this edit. ― Mandruss  ☎ 02:32, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

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Change incumbent to former/ex, recently impeached President

change Trump's status to former President 
129.205.114.35 (
talk) 05:06, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

 Not done: He is still president EvergreenFir (talk) 05:13, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Please participate:

• Talk:Trump–Russia dossier#Requested move 13 December 2019

BullRangifer ( talk) 20:29, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Hello all! Regarding consensus item #6 concerning the lead section — “Do not include allegations of sexual misconduct” — I’ve read through the two linked discussions for/against inclusion: from my reading, it seems the decision tilted against inclusion owing to Wikipedia precedent of including allegations of misconduct only if they’ve impacted significantly on the subject’s career. The argument against inclusion seems to be Donald Trump became the 45th president of the USA despite the allegations, hence… no impact, because the intended outcome of his pursuit was not derailed?

Inarguably though, didn’t the allegations of sexual impropriety considerably impact the conduct of the Trump campaign? Two items regarding these allegations — the National Enquirer’s “Catch-and-Kill” strategy, and Trump’s employment of a lawyer to pay one adult film actor and one other woman for silence — are central to the historically extraordinary way the Trump campaign was conducted. If the allegations required extraordinary and extra-legal countermeasures from Trump’s supporters, from Trump’s campaign staff, and from Donald Trump himself to secure his victory — subsequently leading both to court cases and to convictions (see: Michael Cohen handling the payments to two women) and to the president’s being accused in court documents (as “individual 1” who “was elected president”) of directing and coordinating the commission of said federal campaign finance crimes — isn’t that a central impact on the most notable event of a career?

If impact means “affect,” the allegations had a centrally profound impact on the Trump campaign’s conduct i.e. on the conduct of the briefest but perhaps most noteworthy arc of his career. If “impact” is only narrowly defined to mean “wholly derailed the final outcome,” there may be cause to delete major facts from a substantial many articles’ lead sections: Pres. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s confinement to a wheelchair was hidden from the public, it “impacted” the conduct of his political career… yet it didn’t keep him from becoming the USA’s 32nd president, i.e. it didn’t wholly derail the outcome of his pursuits… so is his childhood illness significant enough to warrant a lead section mention? Or Pres. John F. Kennedy’s many ailments and affairs? They’ve impacted the historical narrative, but did not prevent his presidency. What about his assassination? From the day it occurred it held historical impact, and obviously ended his presidency… but it did not prevent it, so does it warrant lead section mention?

Just a few thoughts, but it seems world-historical details are being excluded from this article’s lead section based on a narrow reading of “impact.” Despite Wikipedia’s “Be bold!” solicitation, I’m disinclined to make the change without first reopening discussion. We should renew dialogue around including charges of Trump’s sexual misconduct, and the presidency-defining events surrounding or following those, with a clearer understanding of what “career-impacting” means.

- 66.167.64.114 ( talk) 06:55, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Your argument seems to be making a good case for lead-level prominence in Donald Trump 2016 presidential campaign, rather than this article. -- Scjessey ( talk) 13:09, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Hello IP. Yes, I would agree that such material better belongs in the 2016 campaign article. You do make a very good argument for inclusion though, so kudos to you. Mgasparin ( talk) 22:32, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

No IP, the prior reasons still apply. It was viewed that these allegations just haven’t been a big issue in his life or impacted him and his biography (this article) in a significant way. That hasn’t changed. His life and this bio was already so full of larger items that these allegations were not on a par with those getting lede position. They didn’t have an impact such as lead to him going to jail or losing the election, and they haven’t grown in importance or size. If anything, they’re even less likely for lede after a couple years of his eventful presidency and their fading prominence. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 07:29, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Thank you kindly for your replies! The case I’m making is for reopening discussion to include the allegations in this article’s lead section (although then also fully fleshing them out in the campaign article would be good). Rather than restate my case, I would refer anyone new to this dialogue to my first post, above.

As to why it merits prominent mention in this article’s lead section: the presidency is by far the briefest arc in this character’s life so far… but it’s the most important, therefore warranting lead section mention. The manner of this character’s campaign’s conduct, and its headline-garnering aftermath — a maelstrom of investigations into potentially criminal activity, complete with litigation resulting in convictions — is similarly important: it spills into this person’s presidency, and colors his conduct of it. It’s certainly world-historic for a US president to be listed in court documents as having directed and conspired in the commission of crimes by funneling hush money to two women accusing him of sexual impropriety.

Put another way: the Watergate scandal certainly has its own article, and the scandal doesn’t comprise the bulk of what became Pres. Nixon’s (nearly) two-term presidency… but the scandal is certainly linked to from the Richard Nixon article’s lead section — twice — where the scandal is also described plainly as having caused that president’s resignation. The Watergate scandal isn’t siloed to its own article: it is also mentioned in and linked to from the Richard Nixon article’s lead section twice, alongside a brief description of its effect on Nixon’s presidency.

- 66.167.64.114 ( talk) 08:16, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Over the next few days I’ll come up with some phrases for us to mull over. I’m thinking for this article’s lead section probably a single sentence will do it, and as of now something would fit well at or near the end of paragraph 3. I’ll also look at the ancillary article that was suggested for fleshing out. Thanks for your input so far, everyone!

- 66.167.64.114 ( talk) 14:08, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

66.167.64.114, you make some good arguments. A failure to mention the subject in the lead here means that other articles on the subject are clear examples of policy-violating POV forks by "siloing" them off and hiding them. Like you say, the "Watergate scandal isn’t siloed to its own article." It still gets mentioned in the lead of the mother article, and that's how it should be.

Even though the Watergate scandal does have its own proper spin-off sub-article, the full weight of that sub-article is properly represented in the main Nixon article by mentioning it in the lead. So it should be here.

The subject of Trump's very public sexual problems is covered in TWO sub-articles: Donald Trump sexual misconduct allegations and Donald Trump Access Hollywood tape. The first certainly has more weight than the second, but the lead here doesn't have to go into detail. It should just state that "Trump's sexual relationships with women have been controversial and received much negative coverage." We don't have to go into what impact they have had on his life or political career.

The proper way to determine what has enough weight for mention in a lead is to include the weight of all existing sub-article spinoffs, every single one. We forget their weight because they only leave a short section behind in the mother article, so we tend to forget them.

Instead, imagine taking the main article, and then placing each full sub-article in the small paragraph spot it is now allotted. Only then can one see that each of those sub-article topics must be mentioned in the lead of the mother article. They often carry far more weight than another main article section which is not about a sub-article, the reason being it's not important enough to deserve a sub-article and therefore may not even deserve mention in the lead. Rather, the sub-articles carry weight and deserve mention.

See this section in my essay: The due weight of sub-articles in the lead of a mother article

BTW, I still think that "impact on his life" argument is NPOV-violating BS. It is the impact on reality and public perception, as revealed by RS-coverage, that counts more. RS-coverage, not subjective editorial POV, weighs more. NPOV is inviolable, and a local consensus must not override it. Editorial POV used to trump RS is a violation of NPOV, and, in this case, the use of those subjective opinions to trump RS-coverage has the effect of protecting Trump. How fitting. (NOT!) Just because he seems to be made of teflon doesn't mean Wikipedia should acquiesce and censor our coverage. -- BullRangifer ( talk) 16:19, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

• This is his named article, a WP:BLP where the topic is his life. Again, this was judged before - repeatedly - as not a major part of that. It wasn’t a large percentage of his life, it hasn’t had life-altering impact on him, and it’s not a typical bio data item such as date of birth and marriages. None of the points from before have gone away - if anything the allegations did. So I suggest it’s not worth a rfc to recheck - but that’s up to you. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 19:58, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Put it in..keep it in..it`s relevant..how do you figure him running his mouth about his sex life is somehow more relevant than the multiple allegations of sexual assault against him ? 2600:1702:2340:9470:555C:1F:ACFE:795B ( talk) 21:55, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

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it states that Donald J Trump has been impeached when in fact this is inaccurate. Bylaw until the speaker of the house refers the matter to the senate and a judge signs off on the matter the party is not yet impeached. 108.52.23.162 ( talk) 05:12, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

All reliable sources say that he has been impeached. Yes, he is not "truly" impeached until the articles are transmitted to the Senate, but that won't happen until the House has decided on the impeachment managers and how the trial is going to run, etc. For all intents and purposes, yes he is impeached, and will remain that way unless the Senate acquits him. This topic has already been discussed above in this section, why don't you read that instead? Mgasparin ( talk) 07:19, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

 Not done: This was discussed at #Has Trump been impeached? (click the [show] link there) and the discussion has been deferred for now. See Wikipedia:Edit requests for information about the purpose and usage of the edit request facility. It is not for general comments like this. ― Mandruss  ☎ 07:23, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

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Donald Trump is currently not impeached until the articles are delivered to the Senate. Until then,the house Democrats only Voted for it and passed it. AmericanPride2020 ( talk) 06:21, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{ edit extended-protected}} template. Also no specific request made and no reliable sources provided. Also, please see WP:TRUTH. EvergreenFir (talk) 06:24, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Also a previously closed discussion demonstrated that the vast majority of reliable sources don’t support they interpretation of events.-- 69.157.252.96 ( talk) 05:10, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

The impeachment inquiry report has been released by the House Intelligence Committee. So, this is where I think we are now, based on this report:

A 2019 House impeachment inquiry found that in the Trump–Ukraine scandal, Trump solicited foreign interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election to help his re-election bid, and then obstructed the inquiry itself. The inquiry reported that Trump withheld military aid and a White House invitation in order to influence Ukraine to announce investigations into Trump's political rivals. The inquiry reported Trump conditioning military aid and a head of state meeting on Ukraine's announcements of investigations into Trump's political rivals. (edited per MelanieN's suggestions)

... and looking at the bigger picture, this is where I think we'll eventually end up next year:

In [year], Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives for [charges X, Y, Z]. A 2019 House impeachment inquiry found that in the Trump–Ukraine scandal, Trump solicited foreign interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election to help his re-election bid, and then obstructed the inquiry itself. Trump was acquitted by the Senate in [year] and completed his term in office.

For the sake of brevity, at the end of this, it would be too much detail to mention investigations, military aid and a White House visit. starship .paint ( talk) 01:14, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

I think your proposed entry to the lead for the current situation is OK, except that "The inquiry reported Trump conditioning military aid" is a very unclear phrasing, particularly the somewhat obscure use of "condition" as a transitive verb, or worse yet, a transitive gerund. How about "The inquiry reported that Trump made military aid and a White House meeting conditional on Ukraine announcing investigations into one of Trump's political rivals." Even more clear, particularly to non-native English speakers, "The inquiry reported that Trump withheld military aid and a White House invitation to get (or force?) Ukraine to announce investigations into one of Trump's political rivals." No comment on your crystal ball readout. -- MelanieN ( talk) 02:56, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

@ MelanieN: - edited, though not just one of Trump's political rivals - don't forget the DNC (server). starship .paint ( talk) 14:02, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. Just one more nit pick. (Sorry, I once worked as a copy editor so I can't help picking nits. And in this case I am fixing a problem with the wording I myself suggested.) The phrase "a White House invitation to influence Ukraine" sounds like it he was inviting Zelensky to influence Ukraine. How about "a White House invitation in order to influence Ukraine"? ("Influence" is much better word, BTW - thanks.) -- MelanieN ( talk) 16:25, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

• User:Starship.paint Suggest working on body or working on this as the body and holding off on lead wording for now. It is premature to begin things with Lead wording - it’s just demonstrating brainstorming creative writing expressing OR and subjective editor views in absence of some body and cites. Also, it would then be prejudicial to the body content in the natural urge to force body to support a desired lead, rather than being unattached and objective in capturing facts for the body and then figuring out summary if any for lead mention. When there is notable body content, also please note lead discussion will be incomplete without considering edits to the existing lead content on this topic. Suggest that you work on the body content first and let lead evolve later per WP:Lead guideline. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 03:40, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

I agree that it’s a bit too early to be be expressing treatment of the second point (though it’s not necessarily unhelpful either), but how is the comment generally falling under the umbrella OR, as you assert? Reliable sources have already weighed in heavily on these matters, and Starship isn’t incorrect on any major point, so far as I can see. Symmachus Auxiliarus ( talk) 05:06, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

The discussion of what to put in the summary area for the article is running on “here’s what I think” and then wordsmithing from there... There’s no identified RS being drawn from here, content is not oriented on DUE or NPOV or any WP pillar... It’s simply portraying itself as a creative writing collaboration. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 01:57, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Wordsmithing is part of the process. This is the lede; the reliable sources are in the body, and I think it would be rather ridiculous to assert that this rather neutrally-worded contribution doesn’t reflect the factual information in more reliable sources than we can shake a proverbial stick at. That means, essentially by default, it’s both due and reflecting NPOV. If you’re going to make such assertions, either demonstrate that this is the case, or ask the proposing editor to make their case further. Otherwise this is just “alphabet soup”. I genuinely don’t see how this violates, or runs afoul, of a single policy that you cited. Symmachus Auxiliarus ( talk) 01:10, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Um, Nope, no the sources were NOT at the body content, because there wasn’t any. That was my point — the body content needs to be worked on first. This was just jumping to writing a Lead, a supposed summary of the article but in this case a ‘summary’ of something not there and done with no visible sources. The lead is not for news bulletins independent of the article. Word smithing to better capture V or to improve NPOV is fine. But those come from explicitly given cites and this was just working on making grammar better from an OR stated basis “this is where I think”. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 04:50, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

When he has been formally impeached, I would like to see that mentioned somewhat more prominently, preferably in the first paragraph, rather than only buried deep down in the fifth paragraph. The latter may have been appropriate as long as we were only dealing with calls for impeachment or preliminary proceedings, but being an impeached president is fundamentally different from simply being president; it means that his legitimacy as president is legally called into question until his trial has concluded. The impeachment is too important for its current obscure, difficult to find place in the lead section. Keep in mind that it is far more common to be president of the United States than to be an impeached president. For instance we could change the first paragraph to "Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is the 45th and current president of the United States, and was impeached on [date]. Before entering politics, he was a businessman and television personality". (Certainly the impeachment is of far greater significance than his business or TV career, and ought to be mentioned before that). -- Tataral ( talk) 18:05, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

User:Tataral mmm, premature. For now that’s advocating a fairly explicit break with NPOV. Generally we at least mostly lean on WEIGHT. Plus guidelines such as WP:LEAD for structure with MOS:FIRST for the first line. And somewhat we use precedent which would seem to mean less than the current amount gets put to the end of para 1, after a summary of his accomplishments in office. Pushing a negative to the top unduly just looks like bias. At any rate, while eventually there may be enough WEIGHT about an impeachment to deserve prominence (and maybe there won’t be), it is not going to be there this week. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 01:42, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

The first word of my comment was when. The topic of this discussion is "a look ahead for the lede." The discussion is about changes that will be necessary in the lead in the coming weeks, following a formal impeachment, not about changes we need to make today. Clearly the impeachment has increased tremendously in significance (and RS coverage) since it first became an issue and since it was first added to the article. This is why the original location of the material in the lead, the end of the fifth paragraph, originally chosen for material that dealt with mere discussion of possible impeachment, will no longer be sufficient when he has been formally impeached. Most discussion of Trump in RS are about impeachment and related matters, because by then it will give the impression of inappropriately burying the most definiting feature of his presidency, the consistently most widely covered issue in RS (impeachment and related matters/investigations). It's clearly far more important than his TV career years ago or his business career (he's his country's 275th wealthiest person according to Forbes, so he was never Bill Gates or anything like that; most people haven't even heard of the guy who occupies the 274th place). -- Tataral ( talk) 03:24, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

'When he has been formally impeached', i.e. the day of vote, is premature. Come back a week or month AFTER a vote of impeachment and there will be actual WEIGHT and actual body content from actual cites in existence so one can *ask* what it justifies in larger prominence and what language. The promotion of speculative edits by proposing a line 1 position is jumping the question; that makes a break with NPOV, LEAD, and precedent; and creates an appearance of article bias. For now, this all seems just based on personal wishes ("I would like to see that") and OR statements said as conclusions instead of as relevant questions ("means that his legitimacy as president is legally called into question"; "the impeachment is of far greater significance than his business or TV career"; etcetera). I'm thinking the question will come up in less than a week with at least something to work with beyond speculation and personal wishes. It's premature until after that. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 04:45, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

If you are not interested in taking part in a constructive discussion on "a look ahead for the lede", you don't need to participate in, and certainly not derail, the discussion specifically on "a look ahead for the lede". It's perfectly normal and appropriate on article talk pages to discuss the need for updates in the near future, and how to best approach them when the time comes. -- Tataral ( talk) 09:30, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

User:Tataral ummm, perhaps you have difficulty noting that I am participating? First at the Starship part about the existing report to say work on body, and hold off on speculating further. My constructive participation in your sub-subthread has been pointing out that it is more so premature and now treading on NPOV (WEIGHT), LEAD, and precedent. The “how to best approach” I think I’ve laid out — simply first have events and cites develop (which is NOTNEWS not the first day), then make edits to content (as DUE), and then make any lead edits (per LEAD) with some consideration for precedent. What other examples are you thinking where your subthread is “normal”? I can only recall a case about Inquiry asking if the scope will include Impeachment, and you didn’t seem to be asking question about scope. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 04:59, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

It`s spelled LEAD 2600:1702:2340:9470:1D7C:7EA1:A60F:FFC8 ( talk) 19:59, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

At any rate he has now been impeached and of course it is of absolutely massive momentous historical significance. PunxtawneyPickle ( talk) 04:48, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Just a note: I am reverting out good-faith edits recently done to the bottom of lead per the local convention - for this article, get consensus on lead edits in TALK before any changes

I think just three edits ...

• User:Daviddwd - edits on | 6 December adding the 3 December House Intelligence Committee report.
• User:IagoQnsi - edits on | 10 December replacing that with the 10 Democrat announcement seeking two articles of impeachment.
• User:Popcornduff - copyedits later on 10 December Copyedit.

Folks can weigh in whether they're in favor of doing event-by-event edits, but meanwhile I'm reverting back for the general principle, and also note it seems likely Thursday will be the vote for act of impeachment so these edits seem obsolete soon anyway.

Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 04:13, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

There is no such local convention or general principle, as I said at your UTP before I saw this. ― Mandruss  ☎ 05:02, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

User:Mandruss - Well, you're kind of behind events on this BRD discussion. It's a sidenote, but of course a local convention exists -- history shows that getting consensus of lead edits on TALK has been done many times before. This is an fairly unusual thing, a local convention. It's not the only way edits get done to lead here, or even the most common way, but it is one way and often done for anything above a copyedit to the lead. I think it's from this being such a contentious page that there is an expectation that almost anything in lead gets reverted/altered and strongly favors longer-standing material, so best start BRD with the D part of things instead of edit warring. In any case, note the title of this section says "please" and that this section is fully pinging the editors of the line (who were silently running each over) for some WP:BRD discussion of the line. Feel free to discuss the content yourself if you wish. But again, it's a bit late -- someone else undid my remove before even your first post to my UTP let alone your second post or this so ... well, it's all fairly chaotic flux about breaking news and academic by now let alone next week, but if they show up here we maybe discuss things and edit the line again. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 06:11, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Uhh, so... in that case can I make my edits please? I just removed a few redundant words. Popcornduff ( talk) 15:33, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Popcornduff, you do not need permission to edit this article (as you have been doing) in accordance with policy and guidelines. SPECIFICO talk 15:47, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Well, Mandruss Markbassett has reverted me, so I'd like to get consensus for the edit rather than edit war. Popcornduff ( talk) 15:49, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

@ Popcornduff: Actually, it was Markbassett ( talk · contribs) who WRONGLY reverted you, and I think your perfectly acceptable changes have already been restored. Markbassett keeps on trying to come up with these strange rules about how and when people can edit this article, together with rambling and largely incomprehensible justifications for them, most of which I just ignore. -- Scjessey ( talk) 18:24, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

All right. Thanks for catching my error. Sorry for the confusion, Mandruss. Corrected. Popcornduff ( talk) 23:10, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

User:Popcornduff Thanks for the desire to follow WP:BRD. But as mentioned to Mandruss above, my remove was undone within 10 minutes, and tomorrow seems likely to alter all that anyway. I’d generally say your edits were minor and good, doing a bit of trimming. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 04:20, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

@ Markbassett: Did you even bother to review the single edit Popcornduff performed? What is this nonsense about how you would "generally say your edits were minor and good," as if there are several edits to review? The reality of the situation is that you ham-fistedly reverted edits from more than one editor, using an edit summary that was inappropriate at best. And don't pretend this is a case of BRD. -- Scjessey ( talk) 13:25, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

User:Scjessey (replying to ping) Obviously I already linked Popcorn edits and typified them at the start, and remarked on them again here. It’s not nonsense that they were minor and good, but reverting para 5 to what the version of 6 December involved them. In principle this is WP:BRD, though in practice it is BoldBoldBold Revert Derevert Discuss. I think it would need another revert to get a clean start of actually talking about that section’s content, but will wait & see as my expectation is the whole thing is moot tomorrow. You should regard this thread as done. Over and out Markbassett ( talk) 01:03, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Again, you are talking about Popcornduff's "edits" in the plural. There was a single, perfectly acceptable edit. You reverted a series of edits by different editors and then tried to discuss them in a single thread. This is a terrible, confusing approach. Do not do this again. -- Scjessey ( talk) 13:12, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

@ Markbassett: Adding to what others have said: given that the article already has a WP:BLUELOCK, there is really no need to put up any additional barriers to editing (such as a rule that all lead edits require consensus). You already have to know the ropes a bit to even touch this page. – IagoQnsi ( talk) 23:22, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Thanks for the ping. Others seem to have run off putting forth a view that I said “rule” or “requirement”, when careful reading shows I did not. I reverted edits and started discussion with a section titled as a request statement guiding you to what I feel is commonly done. (In the context of it being the current event of the often contentious lead and your perhaps being unfamiliar to this article edit tumult.) But In this case we started beyond that, at ordinary WP:BRD. I think this might be going to wind up as a separate revert again to cleanly restart talking about that line’s content...but will wait & see as I expect the whole thing is made moot by tomorrow. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 01:38, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Markbassett, your edit summary in the revert was a command: "for this article, get consensus on lead edits in TALK before any changes" -- if you didn't intend it that way, maybe word things a little differently next time and provide an actual reason for the revert? SPECIFICO talk 01:48, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Yes, the “Please” got into this title but not there. Thanks for the suggestions, cheers Markbassett ( talk) 01:10, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

User:IagoQnsi - Thanks for the ping. In this case we obviously started beyond the pre-discussion often done here, and are at WP:BRD. I think this might go to a separate revert again to cleanly restart talking about that line’s content, but will wait & see as I expect tomorrow events make that line toast anyway. Cheers Markbassett ( talk) 02:00, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

I believe we should all remember that nobody owns this article, and "per local convention" is not policy - it's baloney! PunxtawneyPickle ( talk) 04:49, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Proposing we incorporate this conclusion by judge: [24] PunxtawneyPickle ( talk) 04:51, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

PunxtawneyPickle Can you please propose a specific wording and where you would like it to go in the article? Mgasparin ( talk) 08:03, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

This page should probably be updated since this guy has been Impeached. Themesmusic ( talk) 15:31, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, I think it should also be updated because he was impeached. --Sir Bond 007 (James The Bond 007) ( talk) 15:35, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

• Please add an external link. https://www.promiseskept.com/ This is a website that tells about President Trump's accomplishments. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dswitz10734 ( talk • contribs)

 Not done This is a campaign ad. O3000 ( talk) 18:07, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Per Current Consensus #37, I suggest that the section Donald Trump#Dismissal of James Comey be removed. In the scope of Trump's presidency, it isn't likely to have a lasting impact on his life and/or long-term presidential legacy. Thoughts? -- DannyS712 ( talk) 20:34, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

@ Soibangla: cc ping, since you just removed the section -- DannyS712 ( talk) 03:53, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

I agree, it really doesn't belong in such a packed article for which we need to make choices of what's relevant. It has it's own article. soibangla ( talk) 03:58, 20 December 2019 (UTC)