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The decision to keep this statement in the lead section (regardless of whether the statement is true, or even provable) is biased:
Trump promoted conspiracy theories and made many false and misleading statements during his campaigns and presidency, to a degree unprecedented in American politics
I know this topic will be closed with no action, but I'd like to offer a caution to the editors in power - the purpose of Wikipedia is to document human knowledge, not to convince people what to think. The line between those two is thinner than most people realize.
Before you close this topic, think about the reasons that statement (even if it is true) was deemed significant enough to be included in the lead section. Then try to play your own devil's advocate. 2600:1700:7F:9250:ADF:8F55:4CF5:679C ( talk) 21:46, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
Seeing as the IP hasn't pursued removing the sentence, they've complained about. I reckon we might as well shut down (i.e. hat) his complaint. GoodDay ( talk) 03:27, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
Should this content be included?
During his 2016 campaign, legal scholars across the political spectrum said Trump's rhetoric showed contempt for the First Amendment, the separation of powers and the rule of law. After his many failed attempts to overturn the 2020 election he had lost, in December 2022 Trump called for "the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution" so he could be reinstated as president.
sources: [1] [2] [3] [4] soibangla ( talk) 17:36, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
Should this article mention Trump's call for terminating the constitution?). We should avoid "locking-in" things that may fail the WP:10YT, due to the inherent difficulty in overturning previous RFCs. RFCs are better reserved to what goes in the lead, or to agree on specific wording when there's already consensus to include. DFlhb ( talk)
he has made numerous absurd comments about …errr well, pretty much everything, but particularly about the 'stolen' election and
he never stated that the Constitution should be terminated, but that he believed the Constitution was allowed to be terminated. Unfortunately we would only be 'playing his game' by getting 'hot under the collar' about every incendiary remark. Perhaps rephrased it belongs on a more specific page, (Truth Social? ) but is simply another dose of - the daily - fireworks relative to this biog. AKA the remark fails WP:WEIGHT. Pincrete ( talk) 10:23, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
@ Soibangla: in light of the comments, would you consider adding an alternate wording that avoids the uncomfortable juxtaposition? SPECIFICO talk 15:45, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
I wasn't aware that this was under discussion, so I added information, taken from the Truth Social page, about Trump's claims that alleged fraud allows for the termination of the Constitution. I think someone removed the since I don't see them now. I think we could include info, but we should (1) quote the full post and (2) word his claim as being that alleged fraud "allows" for rather than "calls" for the termination of the Constituion. Most likely, they mean the same thing, and many sources interpret his post as "calling" for the Constitution's claim. However, Trump subsequently denied he called for the termination of the Constitution and shared a link to an article claiming that by "allows for," Trump meant that those engaging in voter fraud were effectively terminating the Constitution, not that Trump was calling for the Constitution's termination. Again, I'm not saying this is right, but since Wikipedia articles are suppposed to be neutral, "allows" for is the most objective term to use since that's what he said. — The Sackinator ( talk) 14:44, 12 December 2022 (UTC)
Less links is best The links do not need to appear immediately in the lead section. The lead should provide a relatively quick, concise summary without - as has been said - distracting the reader or leading them to click off into other pages before getting the full contextualized summary of what we have determined are the principal significant points. SPECIFICO talk 16:14, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
Hello,
Since we seem incapable of deciding this as a collective issue, I'm seeking individual consensus for adding each of the following links to the lead. The justification is the same in each case: these are specific, meaningful, and notable things that a typical reader may want to learn more about, not generic terms like "protectionist" or "nationalist".
Please discuss these individually, and not collectively, since consensus may be different from link to link. My position is that we are here to be helpful to readers, and these links are helpful. There are no Easter egg links here, nor would they lead to a sea of blue. —Ganesha811 ( talk) 22:17, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
In foreign policy, Trump initiated a trade war with China and withdrew the U.S. from the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, the Paris Agreement on climate change, and the Iran nuclear deal.We could say that "Trump initiated a trade war with China and withdrew the U.S. from international trade, climate, and disarmament agreements" or something along those lines (disarmament). That would or should induce the reader who wants to know more about Trump's trade etc. policies to look at the body / presidency / foreign policy. Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 16:26, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
Adding a subsection for discussion and a few more Wikilinks currently linked in the lead. Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 16:16, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
The 2017–2019 special counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller established that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to favor the election of Trump.We should consider changing the sentence to "Several investigations" or simply "Investigations"
established that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to favor the election of Trump.The hamstrung Mueller special counsel investigation seemed much more important in 2019 than now. There were also the FBI investigation FBI Crossfire Hurricane investigation that was terminated with the false announcement that Mueller would continue it; the joint conclusion of CIA, FBI, and DNI that Russia interfered; and the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the interference. The last one’s not mentioned in the body - does anyone remember whether it was discussed and not added or removed for some reason? Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 10:45, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
To avoid disrupting Wikipedia itself to make a point, I've created a sandbox article ( link here) that shows what a similar culling of links from the Barack Obama lead would look like. Take a look and read it from the perspective of someone who, for instance, may be a non-American child learning about Obama for the first time. Is the lack of links helpful? If the editors here feel the less-linked equivalent on Donald Trump is genuinely better than the more-linked version, then so be it, but I still struggle greatly to understand your perspective. —Ganesha811 ( talk) 20:45, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
Most paragraphs on the policy changes put in place by US presidents have lots of hyperlinks to other Wikipedia articles on those specific legislation.
However, this paragraph ("Trump ordered a travel ban on citizens from several Muslim-majority countries, diverted military funding towards building a wall on the U.S.–Mexico border, and implemented a policy of family separations for apprehended migrants. He rolled back more than 100 environmental policies and regulations in an aggressive attempt to weaken environmental protections. Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 which cut taxes for individuals and businesses and rescinded the individual health insurance mandate penalty of the Affordable Care Act. He appointed 54 federal appellate judges and three United States Supreme Court justices. In foreign policy, Trump initiated a trade war with China and withdrew the U.S. from the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, the Paris Agreement on climate change, and the Iran nuclear deal. Trump met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un three times, but made no progress on denuclearization. He reacted slowly to the COVID-19 pandemic, ignored or contradicted many recommendations from health officials in his messaging, and promoted misinformation about unproven treatments and the need for testing.") has almost no links whatsoever. This should be changed, I think? 2405:201:E00B:6E35:A429:8F69:3C87:EAE ( talk) 12:14, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
Don't add any links, we've got the Trump administration page to handle those events. GoodDay ( talk) 01:07, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
To be clear, at the time of writing this, the lead has a less-than-average amount of links and citations, and, if this change is implemented, it will still have a less-than-average amount of links and citations, when compared to the pages of other US presidents, at the very least.
Yet:
User:ValarianB: We do the reader a disservice by providing link after link after link, where they feel they have to endlessly branch off elsewhere to find what they're looking for. Let the the readers actually read and not click.
What? No one, let me repeat this, no one reads Wikipedia. (Okay, I do, but I'm an outlier, as are a lot of Wikipedia editors, likely.) They scan an article to find the infomation they want and dip. As such, we should be branching readers off to more detailed article elsewhere. If someone comes here and something catches their eye and they leave, what is wrong with that? Explain to me what a reader gains from staying on this page, or loses from leaving it?
User:Space4Time3Continuum2x: Leads seem to be written with linking to other pages in mind. Why? Because we're uncertain about the information contained in this article?
No, because we are certain that the information contained in other articles is more detailed and will provide the reader with a better understanding of the topic. Simple.
Then there are a scattering of statements such as Articles become unreadable when every other word takes you to a different topic
or Don't clutter it with a million links
and the like. Okayyy... but what does that have to do with this article? If the claim is being made that these ten or so additions will turn the lead into a blue soup, I respectfully disagree. Nearly every single major Trump page has more links in the lead than this one. To say that these links will add "clutter" is a matter of personal preference and does not fit the de facto standard set by the more than two decades of editing preceding this simple change. (Really, we need to make
MOS:CONTEXTLINK and
MOS:LEADCITE more specific, it's killing me how much they suggest without actually stating anything.)
This is the second-biggest Trump page (after Presidency of Donald Trump) and in the top-100 biggest pages by filesize. Adding ten links to this massive article is no going to add much in the way of blue, but it is going to add a lot in terms of navigability. It also complies with the way other articles are written. The current way the lead is written complies with guidelines (in the fact that the guidelines do not address a standard amount of links and only suggest what should be linked), but does not match other articles. The local consensus here is that links in the lead should be used sparingly, which is fine. I just disagree. And, in my opinion, though de facto standard and local consensus are normally on an even playing field, de facto standard is strong enough to overpower local consensus in a style sense, as we all want Wikipedia to look the same stylistically (in most cases).
Give me a single reason why a reader will benefit from the current state of the lead as opposed to the proposed one. Give me a single reason why a reader will not benefit from the proposed state of the lead as opposed to the current one. No more 'it's cluttered' or 'they can read down and find it'. Actually explain why the current version is better than the proposed one. That's all I ask. Cessaune ( talk) 11:27, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
They scan an article to find the infomation they want and dip.Someone's tracking my eye movements while I allegedly scan and dip?
what does that have to do with this article?Everything since this is the article we're discussing. This article has 3,743 watchers plus at least one watcher (me) who's not signed up to watch. Ten people contributed to this discussion, so the vast majority appears not to care one way or another. The regular editors of this page have managed to handle the occasional complaint of "not supported by ..." (they have tapered off considerably) by pointing out the supporting material and cites in the body. Have you read every article you want to wikilink from the lead to make sure it supports what we're saying in the lead? Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 16:31, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
They scan an article to find the infomation they want and dipis based on my super informal survey of friends who all agreed that there is no way the would actually fully read an article this long, which makes sense. Before I was an editor, the only long article I had ever read completely through was the Orgasm article (I would recommend it, it's actually pretty interesting) and my main use for Wikipedia was either to easily find reliable cites or to play the Wikipedia game. I thought the idea that no one (referring to the vast majority) actually reads Wikipedia was common sense. I would bet a lot of money that the vast majority of people who read this article at all are not going to read the whole article, or half, or a fourth. That's a reasonable assumption. This is one of the biggest articles on the English Wikipedia, after all.
What does that have to do with this article?—I was suggesting that it's unreasonable to think that ten cites will make the lead cluttered or be too many when compared to the de facto standard present on most pages this long. And I struggle to understand that perspective. From a purely style standpoint, the lead as it is right now is fine, but this isn't a purely style question. In fact, it shouldn't be a style question at all, as there are zero policies or guidelines governing the number of links in a lead. It should be a question of which provides the biggest benefit to the readers. No one except us editors care if every third word was blue. People just want information.
To all those who participated in this discussion, please note that an RfC has been started below (RfC on links in the lead) to help us formally resolve this question and your participation there is welcome. —Ganesha811 ( talk) 02:59, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
The last paragraph of Donald trump#Special counsel investigation contains a bunch of facts about people that aren't Trump. I propose we delete the whole paragraph and leave the first sentence. Cessaune ( talk) 01:50, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
Stone "was prosecuted for covering up for the president". We'll eventually have to take another look at the entire section and the many cited sources. A less-redacted version of the report was released in June 2020, and
the Justice Department [] released portions of a previously unseen alternative version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on ties between former President Donald Trump and Russiain 2022, also heavily redacted
on grounds of ongoing investigations, privacy and protecting internal deliberations.Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 14:30, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
While in of itself it would mean roughly the same, I feel that using wording such as "Trump made unsubstantiated allegations of widespread electoral fraud" would come over as more neutral and nuanced than "Trump falsely claimed widespread electoral fraud". Synotia ( talk) 10:20, 29 December 2022 (UTC)
Trump's unsubstantiated allegations of widespread voting fraud...Cessaune ( talk) 01:36, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
an attempt to hide Trump's lies. It was an attempt to cut down on perceived bias in the article. It was a reasonable attempt, at that.
...an attempt to hide Trump's liescomes off as uncivil IMO. Cessaune ( talk) 21:51, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
@ SPECIFICO: et al, do we have any evidence to suggest that this is a particularly unusual distinction for a large company or prominent business figure? Onetwothreeip ( talk) 23:48, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
[t]he sheer volume of lawsuits is unprecedented for a presidential nominee. No candidate of a major party has had anything approaching the number of Trump’s courtroom entanglements, and he was involved in more lawsuits than five top real-estate business executives combined:
Edward DeBartolo, shopping-center developer and former San Francisco 49ers owner; Donald Bren, Irvine Company chairman and owner; Stephen Ross, Time Warner Center developer; Sam Zell, Chicago real-estate magnate; and Larry Silverstein, a New York developer famous for his involvement in the World Trade Center properties.Due to the size of this article, I haven't added this USA Today article, used in the main article Legal affairs of Donald Trump, to the USA Today lawsuit tally we do use. Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 12:23, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
"Similar business executives" -- Such as who on earth?Executive officers of comparable businesses.
The article text and source citations do not verify your vision of his business activities.I have not expressed anything about any vision I have about Donald Trump's business activities, and any vision that any editor has on this is thoroughly irrelevant. Onetwothreeip ( talk) 02:16, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
This
edit request to
Donald Trump has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
You are begging for money and in you repeated requests for money you stated Wikipedia is a neutral information site. Please read your page on Donald Trump and then tell me you are a neutral information site. 47.180.169.216 ( talk) 20:28, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
not adopting bias that may exist within reliable sources123, please read WP:NPOV. SPECIFICO talk 02:14, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
Trump continued to claim that a vaccine was less than a year away, although HHS and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials had repeatedly told him that vaccine development would take 12–18 months.Trump claimed, yet the CDC and HHS knew based on the wording? How could they have known how long it would take to develop the vaccine? Obviously, it was an educated guess, but a guess nonetheless. The wording treats it like Trump was guessing while the CDC and HHS were stating the facts, which isn't true, as they were both guessing. Cessaune ( talk) 00:10, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
Vaccine development would take 12–18 monthsimplies that they knew that it would take a year or more. They didn't know that, and they could not have known that. Yes, they are the experts, yes, Trump went against the experts. That doesn't change the fact that they didn't and couldn't know how long it would take, and the implication that the experts knew the facts is incorrect. In reality, Trump was just being confident and the experts were just being realistic in their estimates, a common theme between politicians and experts. Delete the whole sentence. Cessaune ( talk) 04:58, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
which implies that they didn't actually know how long it was going to take. That is the typical all-or-nothing reasoning people use when they want to present a well-supported statement as dubious. Fact is, Trump, as usual, said exactly the opposite of what experts had told him. "Claim" is the right term for his claim, "told him" is the right term for what experts told him, and treating his uneducated guess the same as the forecast is WP:FALSEBALANCE. Wikipedia should continue to clearly separate well-founded statements of experts from the delusions of incompetent, fantasy-prone, notoriously dishonest laypeople. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 15:17, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
incompetent, fantasy-prone,and
notoriously dishonest(apparently) has nothing to do with that. All presidents are confident. Your WP:FALSEBALANCE arguent is well-received, but it is a fact throughout all modern history that politicians are more confident than scientists. This is not a Trump thing. Cessaune ( talk) 15:22, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
I went to reexamine the sentence under discussion (see my message of 02:53, 31 December) and the source [9] does not appear to say that Trump claimed a vaccine was less than a year away. This is looking like a mess. Bob K31416 ( talk) 18:03, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
Regarding Trump and his administration's efforts to expedite a vaccine, here's an article from CNN, Trump scores a long-awaited coronavirus win with vaccines on the way. Bob K31416 ( talk) 03:31, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
In addition to not being neutral by leaving out positive aspects of Trump's presidency like the covid vaccine expediting, the article goes into excessive detail on negative aspects. As an example of the latter, an editor recently tried to reduce some of the excessive detail with this edit [10] and was reverted [11]. Bob K31416 ( talk) 15:56, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
Despite the poor tone of the IP, there is some substance in their observation that the article is biased indeed. Much as I personally think Trump should be in prison and despise the man, some editorial choices here are rather surprising and, well, biased. The Abraham Accords are never even mentioned. A US President helping to establish peace deals between Israel and several Arab states is highly important, yet not even included here while many marginal aspects get plenty of space. Sorry to say, but the impression is that several users have come to believe that including anything positive about Trump is to endorse him. Trump is a horrible man who was a horrible President and occasionally did a few good things as well. Jeppiz ( talk) 00:27, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
...likely the best route to takegoes against this. Cessaune ( talk) 05:30, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
Seeing as @ 47.180.169.216: & @ Jeppiz: have left this overall discussion, which was begun by the IP? Perhaps it's time to hat it. Side note: I wish IPs would stop making complaints on this BLP's talkpage & then disappearing, never to be heard from again. GoodDay ( talk) 22:37, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
My recent edit was reverted by Space4Time3Continuum2x on the following grounds: "If it's not in the body, it doesn't go into the lead. Unreliable source."
Would the content be suitable to reinstate if an appropriate paragraph was present in the Foreign Policy section? I believe it is noteworthy as it is one of the few positive policies that Trump has in his legacy.
It was also said that the source I cited was an unreliable source, while I don't believe that to be the case, there are many other publications which verify the claim including USA Today, Newsweek, and Reuters. - GA Melbourne ( talk) 00:06, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
FALSE. Newsweek: Donald Trump Is First President Since Jimmy Carter Not to Enter U.S. Troops Into New Conflict. Newsweek points out that, like Carter, Trump was only in office for four years and, unlike Carter, did order air strikes in Syria in 2017 and 2018; they don’t mention the killing of Iranian general Soleimani at Baghdad Airport in 2020. Reuters: Which U.S. presidents led the nation into new wars? Reuters verdict is
false, saying that "[w]hile defining military interventions can be difficult, Trump is not the only president not to start a new war during his administration. … If we also consider other military interventions, Carter and Ford join Trump in not starting or escalating existing foreign conflicts with U.S. military involvement." IMO, using these sources to support
was the first president since Jimmy Carter not to involve the U.S. in a conflictis SYNTH. It’s also trivial and luck of the draw - during his term, the U.N. didn't ask for intervention, and there was no attack on a NATO country, for example, that might have forced the U.S. to come to the defense of the NATO member. Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 11:53, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
But Trump has used military force in other foreign countries under the broad authorization to use force granted after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. His administration has ordered airstrikes and drone attacks, supplemented allied militaries with U.S. troops, deployed special operations forces in the Middle East and beyond, and ordered the killing of Iran’s Gen. Qassem Soleimani, which critics claim nearly triggered an armed conflict. "With that authorization in place, I am not sure it is possible to start a new war these days," said DeThomas. "They all fit under the legal umbrella of the old one." ... Trump did not seek authorization from Congress for use of military force, or a formal declaration of war against any other country. He did not engage the U.S. in any new protracted conflicts during his four years in office. But Trump did order and oversee new military operations under existing authorizations, including counterterrorism raids that have spread to several countries in the Middle East and Africa.From this source. Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 12:50, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
Is Trump the first former US president, to be nominated (and gotten a vote) for Speaker of the US House or Representatives? If so, should it be added to this BLP? or is it too trivial. GoodDay ( talk) 03:39, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
A few days ago I added a BBC characterization of Trump's diplomatic style, but it's been reverted. It's reliably sourced and explains his approach in a clear and understandable way. I think it should included because it's specific to Trump himself and how he behaved in regards to foreign policy. What do you all think? Iamreallygoodatcheckers t@lk 03:02, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
I would not include this. It is old (2018) and if we are attempting to summarize Trump’s actions abroad, especially when making generalizations, we should attempt to use the best, most comprehensive, and most recent sources. This random snippet is neither the most comprehensive nor the most recent. It is bloat. Leave it out. Neutrality talk 05:20, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
Hello. I want to preface this by saying I do not, in any way, endorse his views or his actions. Indeed, I am a foreigner and am not too terribly invested in this (barring the couple of things that do affect me).
However, I get the impression this article is not, like, terribly neutral. The entire preface seems designed to evoke negative feelings in the reader.
What do you think?
Also, I am sorry for my low English proficiency. ~~ Nowy Prywaciarz ( talk) 19:11, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
Please read WP:FALSEBALANCE. Slatersteven ( talk) 11:42, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
Should we add more links to the lead?
Thanks, Cessaune ( talk) 00:32, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
3 Adding more and more links really does get excessive. Some on that list -- affordable care act, e.g. have little to do with Trump's core bio. The clutter is confusing and excessive, particularly for readers on a mobile device. Any link to any WP page is "informative" but that does not mean they are key to understanding the lead summary. SPECIFICO talk 23:44, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
I believe that we should link our Environmental policy of the Donald Trump administration article. Trump rolled back more than 125 environmental safeguards. From a Washington Post article:]
His entire cabinet were either oil or coal men or lobbyists who worked for them. Not one of them believed in man-made climate change. Many climate/environmental scientists agree that four more years of Trump would have pushed us beyond the point of no return. Please do read our article and I believe that you will agree that it should be linked. Sectionworker ( talk) 22:29, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
By way of providing some statistics, by my count:
For comparison:
The highly rated articles about modern presidents average almost exactly three times as many links in the lead, and one link for every 10.5 words.
If we want this article just to come barely up to the average number of links found in a high-quality article, we need to triple the number of links in the lead. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 05:30, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
Comment on the value of statistics. One 5-second glance at Barack Obama, and I found a MOS:SEAOFBLUE and a MOS:EGG. The statistics can also be read to prove that those leads are overlinked. BTW, Ronald Reagan was a featured article in 2008, has a number of justified tags (it reads as though it was written by his publicist), and is currently being overhauled. He's also been out of office and dead for decades, not likely to engage in current affairs. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 14:42, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
's
in the middle, but I personally think it is suboptimal), but the FAs are in full compliance at the time of their promotion, and the GAs generally do quite well on that point.prove that those leads are overlinked? You can't, just as you can't prove that this lead is underlinked. However, you can look back at what was accepted by the community in the past as the standard for excellence, and draw conclusions based off of those. This isn't a style issue, this is a functionality issue, so personal preference is overriden by general community consensus, and the unofficial consensus between featured articles of a similar length to this one is one of inclusion. Cessaune [talk] 23:31, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
It would be great if this page would be edited with the knowledge of today. We know so much more today 93.95.147.202 ( talk) 14:42, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
I recently finished reading through the leads of each U.S. president, which in almost all cases provide clear information that is easy to read. Though I understand that many of those articles are not BLP, and I also understand the difficult task of editors for this page (who have done an excellent job in many respects) I still found this article's lead to suffer from a few fixable problems.
First, it is poorly written. I believe that the controversial subject matter forced editors into using short, repetitive sentences. Just because editors need to be precise with a topic does not mean that it cannot be written in a way that reads naturally.
Second, it is not arranged in a compelling manner. Most articles on U.S. presidents follow a chronological pattern that presents information in a straightforward way, then offers a sampling of critique/analysis in the final paragraph. This article does not follow a chronological pattern and inserts critique/analysis throughout, which led to accusations of bias.
Third, this lead fails to take advantage of the various articles in the Donald Trump series. These are in-depth analyses of various aspects of him and his presidency, yet the lead links to very few of them.
In good faith, while trying to uphold BOLD, I rewrote the lead while trying to incorporate these changes.
PROPOSED REWRITE: User:DynaGuy00/Rewrite of Donald Trump Lede
This rewrite is almost solely a reworking of the existing information, and it conforms to all current consensus points. So see this more as a cleanup attempt than a portrayal of new information. It is certainly a rough draft, however, as evidenced by a lack of sources.
The only purpose of this is to provide a helpful starting point for improving the lead. Hopefully this does that to some extent. DynaGuy00 ( talk) 17:59, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
promoted conspiracy theories and made many false and misleading statements during his campaigns and presidency, and the racially charged comments, in the paragraph about his 2016 campaign, when the text itself makes clear that these were part of a wider trend that continued during his presidency.
@ DynaGuy00: What we need is a diff between your proposal and the pre-existing article text for the lead. So take your sandbox page and do a dummy edit that reverts your entire proposal and inserts the current article lead in its place. Then UNDO that removal and the resulting diff will show everyone the changes that you are proposing here. From a quick look, I am a bit uncertain about whether you have been altering your proposal after editors have !voted here, in which case they may not have been referring to the current version in your sandbox. For example, it appears that you went back and removed the 4000 bankruptcies, which is text we recently discussed here without consensus to remove it. That's why an explicit diff will be helpful and then you can ping everyone who's participated here to chime in. Thanks. SPECIFICO talk 16:49, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
DynaGuy00, you added material and you moved content around, so it's pretty difficult to compare the before and after.
Trump ran as an outsider candidate in the 2016 United States presidential election under the campaign slogan "Make America Great Again."We don't mention this in the body, so it does not go into the lead. Do we need this in the body? Is it as important as the dog-whistle racism and mysogyny?
His election and policies sparked numerous protests as well as the 2017–2019 special counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller.The Mueller investigation was "sparked" by Barr and Rosenstein in their endeavor to end the FBI investigation into the Trump Campaign's Russian involvement (alleged, for the "this article is biased" folks).
He was then impeached by the House of Representatives on January 13, 2021, one week before the inauguration of Joe Biden: it's been two years. Why are the exact date and the factoid that it was a week before Biden's inauguration lead-worthy? Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 19:36, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
falsely claiming widespread electoral fraud ..., mounting scores of unsuccessful legal challengesto
claiming widespread electoral fraud ..., and mounting legal challenges. Why? "Falsely", "scores", and "unsuccessful" add important info.
You also removed the hidden references to the current consensus. Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 20:03, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
negative connotation: you're misinterpreting WP:NPOV. The lead is based on the body, the body is based on RS, and they say that he lost in dozens of courts. That's "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic."
nuance: what would be a better characterization of Trump's actions, based on which RS? Our RS in the 2020 campaign and the post-presidency section don't say that there’s nuance to Trump’s
(obviously) false[] claims. Why are we still discussing this? The proposer appears to have left, after telling us to "talk amongst yourselves. I’ll give you a topic. Discuss.". Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 15:26, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
His elections and policies sparked numerous protestsand
The 2017–2019 special counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller established that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to favor the election of Trump.
Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden but refused to concede defeat, falsely claiming widespread electoral fraud and attempting to overturn the results by pressuring government officials, mounting many unsuccessful legal challenges, and obstructing the presidential transition.(I really hate that word scores, I don't know why.)
It's been a full week now, since this proposal was made. Recommend closure, via hatting. GoodDay ( talk) 16:41, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
Pinging @ DynaGuy00, SPECIFICO, GoodDay, Dimadick, Objective3000, DFlhb, Bob K31416, AryKun, Teammm, ONUnicorn, ValarianB, Ganesha811, and Space4Time3Continuum2x:
I went through and readded the hidden references to previous consensus and took out most links that aren't currently in the actual lead of the article. It can now fit into the article as is without disrupting any prior consensus, I think.
User:DynaGuy00/Rewrite of Donald Trump Lede
Please take a new look and recast your vote. Cessaune [talk] 03:21, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
No, we don't vote on a bundle of changes. This discussion is not constructive. SPECIFICO talk 03:29, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
Perhaps we should wait until the "links in the lead RFC" has been closed. One item at a time. GoodDay ( talk) 03:37, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
Why are the terms not wikilinked in the lead? Imagine trying to look up "populist", "misogynistic", "appellate", or "Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement" every time, when had the links are available, you can just hover on the links and read the definition. This is antithetical to Wikipedia's ethos of building the web and I cannot think of any valid reason for unlinking such as vast amount of text that would satisfy ignore all rules policy. CactiStaccingCrane ( talk) 15:11, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
The average Wikipedia visit is a few minutes long. [1] The lead is the first thing most people will read upon arriving at an article, and may be the only portion of the article that they read. [2] It gives the basics in a nutshell and cultivates interest in reading on—though not by teasing the reader or hinting at what follows.
References
@ Space4Time3Continuum2x: there needs to be some distinction in the header of the investigation into his handling of documents so people know which investigation the section is addressing; as you know, this isn't Trump's only investigation. The current header is not providing that necessary distinction. Iamreallygoodatcheckers t@lk 15:34, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Tonald Drump and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 February 5 § Tonald Drump until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. — Ingenuity ( talk • contribs) 02:47, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
A biography of Trump that doesn't contain the words "dysfunction", "institutional", or "norms" is hard to take seriously. And How Democracies Die, "the most important book of the Trump era" according to The Economist, wasn't used anywhere in the article.
I've added a "Democratic decay" subsection to cover the last two terms, and the book.
As for dysfunction, that concept should be the main thrust of an entirely-rewritten Personnel subsection; personnel shuffles are just one symptom among many of his administration's well-documented dysfunction, and as I've argued before, we should focus less on matter-of-fact WP:PROSELINE and more on synthesis and scholarly analysis. The Personnel section should cover the ways in which he had to be "managed" by his Chief of Staff, the fact that he could side against his advisers if someone slipped a Breitbart printout on his desk or if he received a phone call from a fringe figure, and it should cover his overall policy-making process (which, for him, relies far less on personnel than for other presidents). DFlhb ( talk) 09:41, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
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. |
Archive 145 | ← | Archive 150 | Archive 151 | Archive 152 | Archive 153 | Archive 154 | Archive 155 |
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The decision to keep this statement in the lead section (regardless of whether the statement is true, or even provable) is biased:
Trump promoted conspiracy theories and made many false and misleading statements during his campaigns and presidency, to a degree unprecedented in American politics
I know this topic will be closed with no action, but I'd like to offer a caution to the editors in power - the purpose of Wikipedia is to document human knowledge, not to convince people what to think. The line between those two is thinner than most people realize.
Before you close this topic, think about the reasons that statement (even if it is true) was deemed significant enough to be included in the lead section. Then try to play your own devil's advocate. 2600:1700:7F:9250:ADF:8F55:4CF5:679C ( talk) 21:46, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
Seeing as the IP hasn't pursued removing the sentence, they've complained about. I reckon we might as well shut down (i.e. hat) his complaint. GoodDay ( talk) 03:27, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
Should this content be included?
During his 2016 campaign, legal scholars across the political spectrum said Trump's rhetoric showed contempt for the First Amendment, the separation of powers and the rule of law. After his many failed attempts to overturn the 2020 election he had lost, in December 2022 Trump called for "the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution" so he could be reinstated as president.
sources: [1] [2] [3] [4] soibangla ( talk) 17:36, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
Should this article mention Trump's call for terminating the constitution?). We should avoid "locking-in" things that may fail the WP:10YT, due to the inherent difficulty in overturning previous RFCs. RFCs are better reserved to what goes in the lead, or to agree on specific wording when there's already consensus to include. DFlhb ( talk)
he has made numerous absurd comments about …errr well, pretty much everything, but particularly about the 'stolen' election and
he never stated that the Constitution should be terminated, but that he believed the Constitution was allowed to be terminated. Unfortunately we would only be 'playing his game' by getting 'hot under the collar' about every incendiary remark. Perhaps rephrased it belongs on a more specific page, (Truth Social? ) but is simply another dose of - the daily - fireworks relative to this biog. AKA the remark fails WP:WEIGHT. Pincrete ( talk) 10:23, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
@ Soibangla: in light of the comments, would you consider adding an alternate wording that avoids the uncomfortable juxtaposition? SPECIFICO talk 15:45, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
I wasn't aware that this was under discussion, so I added information, taken from the Truth Social page, about Trump's claims that alleged fraud allows for the termination of the Constitution. I think someone removed the since I don't see them now. I think we could include info, but we should (1) quote the full post and (2) word his claim as being that alleged fraud "allows" for rather than "calls" for the termination of the Constituion. Most likely, they mean the same thing, and many sources interpret his post as "calling" for the Constitution's claim. However, Trump subsequently denied he called for the termination of the Constitution and shared a link to an article claiming that by "allows for," Trump meant that those engaging in voter fraud were effectively terminating the Constitution, not that Trump was calling for the Constitution's termination. Again, I'm not saying this is right, but since Wikipedia articles are suppposed to be neutral, "allows" for is the most objective term to use since that's what he said. — The Sackinator ( talk) 14:44, 12 December 2022 (UTC)
Less links is best The links do not need to appear immediately in the lead section. The lead should provide a relatively quick, concise summary without - as has been said - distracting the reader or leading them to click off into other pages before getting the full contextualized summary of what we have determined are the principal significant points. SPECIFICO talk 16:14, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
Hello,
Since we seem incapable of deciding this as a collective issue, I'm seeking individual consensus for adding each of the following links to the lead. The justification is the same in each case: these are specific, meaningful, and notable things that a typical reader may want to learn more about, not generic terms like "protectionist" or "nationalist".
Please discuss these individually, and not collectively, since consensus may be different from link to link. My position is that we are here to be helpful to readers, and these links are helpful. There are no Easter egg links here, nor would they lead to a sea of blue. —Ganesha811 ( talk) 22:17, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
In foreign policy, Trump initiated a trade war with China and withdrew the U.S. from the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, the Paris Agreement on climate change, and the Iran nuclear deal.We could say that "Trump initiated a trade war with China and withdrew the U.S. from international trade, climate, and disarmament agreements" or something along those lines (disarmament). That would or should induce the reader who wants to know more about Trump's trade etc. policies to look at the body / presidency / foreign policy. Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 16:26, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
Adding a subsection for discussion and a few more Wikilinks currently linked in the lead. Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 16:16, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
The 2017–2019 special counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller established that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to favor the election of Trump.We should consider changing the sentence to "Several investigations" or simply "Investigations"
established that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to favor the election of Trump.The hamstrung Mueller special counsel investigation seemed much more important in 2019 than now. There were also the FBI investigation FBI Crossfire Hurricane investigation that was terminated with the false announcement that Mueller would continue it; the joint conclusion of CIA, FBI, and DNI that Russia interfered; and the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the interference. The last one’s not mentioned in the body - does anyone remember whether it was discussed and not added or removed for some reason? Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 10:45, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
To avoid disrupting Wikipedia itself to make a point, I've created a sandbox article ( link here) that shows what a similar culling of links from the Barack Obama lead would look like. Take a look and read it from the perspective of someone who, for instance, may be a non-American child learning about Obama for the first time. Is the lack of links helpful? If the editors here feel the less-linked equivalent on Donald Trump is genuinely better than the more-linked version, then so be it, but I still struggle greatly to understand your perspective. —Ganesha811 ( talk) 20:45, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
Most paragraphs on the policy changes put in place by US presidents have lots of hyperlinks to other Wikipedia articles on those specific legislation.
However, this paragraph ("Trump ordered a travel ban on citizens from several Muslim-majority countries, diverted military funding towards building a wall on the U.S.–Mexico border, and implemented a policy of family separations for apprehended migrants. He rolled back more than 100 environmental policies and regulations in an aggressive attempt to weaken environmental protections. Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 which cut taxes for individuals and businesses and rescinded the individual health insurance mandate penalty of the Affordable Care Act. He appointed 54 federal appellate judges and three United States Supreme Court justices. In foreign policy, Trump initiated a trade war with China and withdrew the U.S. from the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, the Paris Agreement on climate change, and the Iran nuclear deal. Trump met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un three times, but made no progress on denuclearization. He reacted slowly to the COVID-19 pandemic, ignored or contradicted many recommendations from health officials in his messaging, and promoted misinformation about unproven treatments and the need for testing.") has almost no links whatsoever. This should be changed, I think? 2405:201:E00B:6E35:A429:8F69:3C87:EAE ( talk) 12:14, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
Don't add any links, we've got the Trump administration page to handle those events. GoodDay ( talk) 01:07, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
To be clear, at the time of writing this, the lead has a less-than-average amount of links and citations, and, if this change is implemented, it will still have a less-than-average amount of links and citations, when compared to the pages of other US presidents, at the very least.
Yet:
User:ValarianB: We do the reader a disservice by providing link after link after link, where they feel they have to endlessly branch off elsewhere to find what they're looking for. Let the the readers actually read and not click.
What? No one, let me repeat this, no one reads Wikipedia. (Okay, I do, but I'm an outlier, as are a lot of Wikipedia editors, likely.) They scan an article to find the infomation they want and dip. As such, we should be branching readers off to more detailed article elsewhere. If someone comes here and something catches their eye and they leave, what is wrong with that? Explain to me what a reader gains from staying on this page, or loses from leaving it?
User:Space4Time3Continuum2x: Leads seem to be written with linking to other pages in mind. Why? Because we're uncertain about the information contained in this article?
No, because we are certain that the information contained in other articles is more detailed and will provide the reader with a better understanding of the topic. Simple.
Then there are a scattering of statements such as Articles become unreadable when every other word takes you to a different topic
or Don't clutter it with a million links
and the like. Okayyy... but what does that have to do with this article? If the claim is being made that these ten or so additions will turn the lead into a blue soup, I respectfully disagree. Nearly every single major Trump page has more links in the lead than this one. To say that these links will add "clutter" is a matter of personal preference and does not fit the de facto standard set by the more than two decades of editing preceding this simple change. (Really, we need to make
MOS:CONTEXTLINK and
MOS:LEADCITE more specific, it's killing me how much they suggest without actually stating anything.)
This is the second-biggest Trump page (after Presidency of Donald Trump) and in the top-100 biggest pages by filesize. Adding ten links to this massive article is no going to add much in the way of blue, but it is going to add a lot in terms of navigability. It also complies with the way other articles are written. The current way the lead is written complies with guidelines (in the fact that the guidelines do not address a standard amount of links and only suggest what should be linked), but does not match other articles. The local consensus here is that links in the lead should be used sparingly, which is fine. I just disagree. And, in my opinion, though de facto standard and local consensus are normally on an even playing field, de facto standard is strong enough to overpower local consensus in a style sense, as we all want Wikipedia to look the same stylistically (in most cases).
Give me a single reason why a reader will benefit from the current state of the lead as opposed to the proposed one. Give me a single reason why a reader will not benefit from the proposed state of the lead as opposed to the current one. No more 'it's cluttered' or 'they can read down and find it'. Actually explain why the current version is better than the proposed one. That's all I ask. Cessaune ( talk) 11:27, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
They scan an article to find the infomation they want and dip.Someone's tracking my eye movements while I allegedly scan and dip?
what does that have to do with this article?Everything since this is the article we're discussing. This article has 3,743 watchers plus at least one watcher (me) who's not signed up to watch. Ten people contributed to this discussion, so the vast majority appears not to care one way or another. The regular editors of this page have managed to handle the occasional complaint of "not supported by ..." (they have tapered off considerably) by pointing out the supporting material and cites in the body. Have you read every article you want to wikilink from the lead to make sure it supports what we're saying in the lead? Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 16:31, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
They scan an article to find the infomation they want and dipis based on my super informal survey of friends who all agreed that there is no way the would actually fully read an article this long, which makes sense. Before I was an editor, the only long article I had ever read completely through was the Orgasm article (I would recommend it, it's actually pretty interesting) and my main use for Wikipedia was either to easily find reliable cites or to play the Wikipedia game. I thought the idea that no one (referring to the vast majority) actually reads Wikipedia was common sense. I would bet a lot of money that the vast majority of people who read this article at all are not going to read the whole article, or half, or a fourth. That's a reasonable assumption. This is one of the biggest articles on the English Wikipedia, after all.
What does that have to do with this article?—I was suggesting that it's unreasonable to think that ten cites will make the lead cluttered or be too many when compared to the de facto standard present on most pages this long. And I struggle to understand that perspective. From a purely style standpoint, the lead as it is right now is fine, but this isn't a purely style question. In fact, it shouldn't be a style question at all, as there are zero policies or guidelines governing the number of links in a lead. It should be a question of which provides the biggest benefit to the readers. No one except us editors care if every third word was blue. People just want information.
To all those who participated in this discussion, please note that an RfC has been started below (RfC on links in the lead) to help us formally resolve this question and your participation there is welcome. —Ganesha811 ( talk) 02:59, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
The last paragraph of Donald trump#Special counsel investigation contains a bunch of facts about people that aren't Trump. I propose we delete the whole paragraph and leave the first sentence. Cessaune ( talk) 01:50, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
Stone "was prosecuted for covering up for the president". We'll eventually have to take another look at the entire section and the many cited sources. A less-redacted version of the report was released in June 2020, and
the Justice Department [] released portions of a previously unseen alternative version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on ties between former President Donald Trump and Russiain 2022, also heavily redacted
on grounds of ongoing investigations, privacy and protecting internal deliberations.Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 14:30, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
While in of itself it would mean roughly the same, I feel that using wording such as "Trump made unsubstantiated allegations of widespread electoral fraud" would come over as more neutral and nuanced than "Trump falsely claimed widespread electoral fraud". Synotia ( talk) 10:20, 29 December 2022 (UTC)
Trump's unsubstantiated allegations of widespread voting fraud...Cessaune ( talk) 01:36, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
an attempt to hide Trump's lies. It was an attempt to cut down on perceived bias in the article. It was a reasonable attempt, at that.
...an attempt to hide Trump's liescomes off as uncivil IMO. Cessaune ( talk) 21:51, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
@ SPECIFICO: et al, do we have any evidence to suggest that this is a particularly unusual distinction for a large company or prominent business figure? Onetwothreeip ( talk) 23:48, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
[t]he sheer volume of lawsuits is unprecedented for a presidential nominee. No candidate of a major party has had anything approaching the number of Trump’s courtroom entanglements, and he was involved in more lawsuits than five top real-estate business executives combined:
Edward DeBartolo, shopping-center developer and former San Francisco 49ers owner; Donald Bren, Irvine Company chairman and owner; Stephen Ross, Time Warner Center developer; Sam Zell, Chicago real-estate magnate; and Larry Silverstein, a New York developer famous for his involvement in the World Trade Center properties.Due to the size of this article, I haven't added this USA Today article, used in the main article Legal affairs of Donald Trump, to the USA Today lawsuit tally we do use. Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 12:23, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
"Similar business executives" -- Such as who on earth?Executive officers of comparable businesses.
The article text and source citations do not verify your vision of his business activities.I have not expressed anything about any vision I have about Donald Trump's business activities, and any vision that any editor has on this is thoroughly irrelevant. Onetwothreeip ( talk) 02:16, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
This
edit request to
Donald Trump has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
You are begging for money and in you repeated requests for money you stated Wikipedia is a neutral information site. Please read your page on Donald Trump and then tell me you are a neutral information site. 47.180.169.216 ( talk) 20:28, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
not adopting bias that may exist within reliable sources123, please read WP:NPOV. SPECIFICO talk 02:14, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
Trump continued to claim that a vaccine was less than a year away, although HHS and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials had repeatedly told him that vaccine development would take 12–18 months.Trump claimed, yet the CDC and HHS knew based on the wording? How could they have known how long it would take to develop the vaccine? Obviously, it was an educated guess, but a guess nonetheless. The wording treats it like Trump was guessing while the CDC and HHS were stating the facts, which isn't true, as they were both guessing. Cessaune ( talk) 00:10, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
Vaccine development would take 12–18 monthsimplies that they knew that it would take a year or more. They didn't know that, and they could not have known that. Yes, they are the experts, yes, Trump went against the experts. That doesn't change the fact that they didn't and couldn't know how long it would take, and the implication that the experts knew the facts is incorrect. In reality, Trump was just being confident and the experts were just being realistic in their estimates, a common theme between politicians and experts. Delete the whole sentence. Cessaune ( talk) 04:58, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
which implies that they didn't actually know how long it was going to take. That is the typical all-or-nothing reasoning people use when they want to present a well-supported statement as dubious. Fact is, Trump, as usual, said exactly the opposite of what experts had told him. "Claim" is the right term for his claim, "told him" is the right term for what experts told him, and treating his uneducated guess the same as the forecast is WP:FALSEBALANCE. Wikipedia should continue to clearly separate well-founded statements of experts from the delusions of incompetent, fantasy-prone, notoriously dishonest laypeople. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 15:17, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
incompetent, fantasy-prone,and
notoriously dishonest(apparently) has nothing to do with that. All presidents are confident. Your WP:FALSEBALANCE arguent is well-received, but it is a fact throughout all modern history that politicians are more confident than scientists. This is not a Trump thing. Cessaune ( talk) 15:22, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
I went to reexamine the sentence under discussion (see my message of 02:53, 31 December) and the source [9] does not appear to say that Trump claimed a vaccine was less than a year away. This is looking like a mess. Bob K31416 ( talk) 18:03, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
Regarding Trump and his administration's efforts to expedite a vaccine, here's an article from CNN, Trump scores a long-awaited coronavirus win with vaccines on the way. Bob K31416 ( talk) 03:31, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
In addition to not being neutral by leaving out positive aspects of Trump's presidency like the covid vaccine expediting, the article goes into excessive detail on negative aspects. As an example of the latter, an editor recently tried to reduce some of the excessive detail with this edit [10] and was reverted [11]. Bob K31416 ( talk) 15:56, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
Despite the poor tone of the IP, there is some substance in their observation that the article is biased indeed. Much as I personally think Trump should be in prison and despise the man, some editorial choices here are rather surprising and, well, biased. The Abraham Accords are never even mentioned. A US President helping to establish peace deals between Israel and several Arab states is highly important, yet not even included here while many marginal aspects get plenty of space. Sorry to say, but the impression is that several users have come to believe that including anything positive about Trump is to endorse him. Trump is a horrible man who was a horrible President and occasionally did a few good things as well. Jeppiz ( talk) 00:27, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
...likely the best route to takegoes against this. Cessaune ( talk) 05:30, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
Seeing as @ 47.180.169.216: & @ Jeppiz: have left this overall discussion, which was begun by the IP? Perhaps it's time to hat it. Side note: I wish IPs would stop making complaints on this BLP's talkpage & then disappearing, never to be heard from again. GoodDay ( talk) 22:37, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
My recent edit was reverted by Space4Time3Continuum2x on the following grounds: "If it's not in the body, it doesn't go into the lead. Unreliable source."
Would the content be suitable to reinstate if an appropriate paragraph was present in the Foreign Policy section? I believe it is noteworthy as it is one of the few positive policies that Trump has in his legacy.
It was also said that the source I cited was an unreliable source, while I don't believe that to be the case, there are many other publications which verify the claim including USA Today, Newsweek, and Reuters. - GA Melbourne ( talk) 00:06, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
FALSE. Newsweek: Donald Trump Is First President Since Jimmy Carter Not to Enter U.S. Troops Into New Conflict. Newsweek points out that, like Carter, Trump was only in office for four years and, unlike Carter, did order air strikes in Syria in 2017 and 2018; they don’t mention the killing of Iranian general Soleimani at Baghdad Airport in 2020. Reuters: Which U.S. presidents led the nation into new wars? Reuters verdict is
false, saying that "[w]hile defining military interventions can be difficult, Trump is not the only president not to start a new war during his administration. … If we also consider other military interventions, Carter and Ford join Trump in not starting or escalating existing foreign conflicts with U.S. military involvement." IMO, using these sources to support
was the first president since Jimmy Carter not to involve the U.S. in a conflictis SYNTH. It’s also trivial and luck of the draw - during his term, the U.N. didn't ask for intervention, and there was no attack on a NATO country, for example, that might have forced the U.S. to come to the defense of the NATO member. Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 11:53, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
But Trump has used military force in other foreign countries under the broad authorization to use force granted after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. His administration has ordered airstrikes and drone attacks, supplemented allied militaries with U.S. troops, deployed special operations forces in the Middle East and beyond, and ordered the killing of Iran’s Gen. Qassem Soleimani, which critics claim nearly triggered an armed conflict. "With that authorization in place, I am not sure it is possible to start a new war these days," said DeThomas. "They all fit under the legal umbrella of the old one." ... Trump did not seek authorization from Congress for use of military force, or a formal declaration of war against any other country. He did not engage the U.S. in any new protracted conflicts during his four years in office. But Trump did order and oversee new military operations under existing authorizations, including counterterrorism raids that have spread to several countries in the Middle East and Africa.From this source. Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 12:50, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
Is Trump the first former US president, to be nominated (and gotten a vote) for Speaker of the US House or Representatives? If so, should it be added to this BLP? or is it too trivial. GoodDay ( talk) 03:39, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
A few days ago I added a BBC characterization of Trump's diplomatic style, but it's been reverted. It's reliably sourced and explains his approach in a clear and understandable way. I think it should included because it's specific to Trump himself and how he behaved in regards to foreign policy. What do you all think? Iamreallygoodatcheckers t@lk 03:02, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
I would not include this. It is old (2018) and if we are attempting to summarize Trump’s actions abroad, especially when making generalizations, we should attempt to use the best, most comprehensive, and most recent sources. This random snippet is neither the most comprehensive nor the most recent. It is bloat. Leave it out. Neutrality talk 05:20, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
Hello. I want to preface this by saying I do not, in any way, endorse his views or his actions. Indeed, I am a foreigner and am not too terribly invested in this (barring the couple of things that do affect me).
However, I get the impression this article is not, like, terribly neutral. The entire preface seems designed to evoke negative feelings in the reader.
What do you think?
Also, I am sorry for my low English proficiency. ~~ Nowy Prywaciarz ( talk) 19:11, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
Please read WP:FALSEBALANCE. Slatersteven ( talk) 11:42, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
Should we add more links to the lead?
Thanks, Cessaune ( talk) 00:32, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
3 Adding more and more links really does get excessive. Some on that list -- affordable care act, e.g. have little to do with Trump's core bio. The clutter is confusing and excessive, particularly for readers on a mobile device. Any link to any WP page is "informative" but that does not mean they are key to understanding the lead summary. SPECIFICO talk 23:44, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
I believe that we should link our Environmental policy of the Donald Trump administration article. Trump rolled back more than 125 environmental safeguards. From a Washington Post article:]
His entire cabinet were either oil or coal men or lobbyists who worked for them. Not one of them believed in man-made climate change. Many climate/environmental scientists agree that four more years of Trump would have pushed us beyond the point of no return. Please do read our article and I believe that you will agree that it should be linked. Sectionworker ( talk) 22:29, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
By way of providing some statistics, by my count:
For comparison:
The highly rated articles about modern presidents average almost exactly three times as many links in the lead, and one link for every 10.5 words.
If we want this article just to come barely up to the average number of links found in a high-quality article, we need to triple the number of links in the lead. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 05:30, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
Comment on the value of statistics. One 5-second glance at Barack Obama, and I found a MOS:SEAOFBLUE and a MOS:EGG. The statistics can also be read to prove that those leads are overlinked. BTW, Ronald Reagan was a featured article in 2008, has a number of justified tags (it reads as though it was written by his publicist), and is currently being overhauled. He's also been out of office and dead for decades, not likely to engage in current affairs. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 14:42, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
's
in the middle, but I personally think it is suboptimal), but the FAs are in full compliance at the time of their promotion, and the GAs generally do quite well on that point.prove that those leads are overlinked? You can't, just as you can't prove that this lead is underlinked. However, you can look back at what was accepted by the community in the past as the standard for excellence, and draw conclusions based off of those. This isn't a style issue, this is a functionality issue, so personal preference is overriden by general community consensus, and the unofficial consensus between featured articles of a similar length to this one is one of inclusion. Cessaune [talk] 23:31, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
It would be great if this page would be edited with the knowledge of today. We know so much more today 93.95.147.202 ( talk) 14:42, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
I recently finished reading through the leads of each U.S. president, which in almost all cases provide clear information that is easy to read. Though I understand that many of those articles are not BLP, and I also understand the difficult task of editors for this page (who have done an excellent job in many respects) I still found this article's lead to suffer from a few fixable problems.
First, it is poorly written. I believe that the controversial subject matter forced editors into using short, repetitive sentences. Just because editors need to be precise with a topic does not mean that it cannot be written in a way that reads naturally.
Second, it is not arranged in a compelling manner. Most articles on U.S. presidents follow a chronological pattern that presents information in a straightforward way, then offers a sampling of critique/analysis in the final paragraph. This article does not follow a chronological pattern and inserts critique/analysis throughout, which led to accusations of bias.
Third, this lead fails to take advantage of the various articles in the Donald Trump series. These are in-depth analyses of various aspects of him and his presidency, yet the lead links to very few of them.
In good faith, while trying to uphold BOLD, I rewrote the lead while trying to incorporate these changes.
PROPOSED REWRITE: User:DynaGuy00/Rewrite of Donald Trump Lede
This rewrite is almost solely a reworking of the existing information, and it conforms to all current consensus points. So see this more as a cleanup attempt than a portrayal of new information. It is certainly a rough draft, however, as evidenced by a lack of sources.
The only purpose of this is to provide a helpful starting point for improving the lead. Hopefully this does that to some extent. DynaGuy00 ( talk) 17:59, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
promoted conspiracy theories and made many false and misleading statements during his campaigns and presidency, and the racially charged comments, in the paragraph about his 2016 campaign, when the text itself makes clear that these were part of a wider trend that continued during his presidency.
@ DynaGuy00: What we need is a diff between your proposal and the pre-existing article text for the lead. So take your sandbox page and do a dummy edit that reverts your entire proposal and inserts the current article lead in its place. Then UNDO that removal and the resulting diff will show everyone the changes that you are proposing here. From a quick look, I am a bit uncertain about whether you have been altering your proposal after editors have !voted here, in which case they may not have been referring to the current version in your sandbox. For example, it appears that you went back and removed the 4000 bankruptcies, which is text we recently discussed here without consensus to remove it. That's why an explicit diff will be helpful and then you can ping everyone who's participated here to chime in. Thanks. SPECIFICO talk 16:49, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
DynaGuy00, you added material and you moved content around, so it's pretty difficult to compare the before and after.
Trump ran as an outsider candidate in the 2016 United States presidential election under the campaign slogan "Make America Great Again."We don't mention this in the body, so it does not go into the lead. Do we need this in the body? Is it as important as the dog-whistle racism and mysogyny?
His election and policies sparked numerous protests as well as the 2017–2019 special counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller.The Mueller investigation was "sparked" by Barr and Rosenstein in their endeavor to end the FBI investigation into the Trump Campaign's Russian involvement (alleged, for the "this article is biased" folks).
He was then impeached by the House of Representatives on January 13, 2021, one week before the inauguration of Joe Biden: it's been two years. Why are the exact date and the factoid that it was a week before Biden's inauguration lead-worthy? Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 19:36, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
falsely claiming widespread electoral fraud ..., mounting scores of unsuccessful legal challengesto
claiming widespread electoral fraud ..., and mounting legal challenges. Why? "Falsely", "scores", and "unsuccessful" add important info.
You also removed the hidden references to the current consensus. Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 20:03, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
negative connotation: you're misinterpreting WP:NPOV. The lead is based on the body, the body is based on RS, and they say that he lost in dozens of courts. That's "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic."
nuance: what would be a better characterization of Trump's actions, based on which RS? Our RS in the 2020 campaign and the post-presidency section don't say that there’s nuance to Trump’s
(obviously) false[] claims. Why are we still discussing this? The proposer appears to have left, after telling us to "talk amongst yourselves. I’ll give you a topic. Discuss.". Space4Time3Continuum2x ( talk) 15:26, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
His elections and policies sparked numerous protestsand
The 2017–2019 special counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller established that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to favor the election of Trump.
Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden but refused to concede defeat, falsely claiming widespread electoral fraud and attempting to overturn the results by pressuring government officials, mounting many unsuccessful legal challenges, and obstructing the presidential transition.(I really hate that word scores, I don't know why.)
It's been a full week now, since this proposal was made. Recommend closure, via hatting. GoodDay ( talk) 16:41, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
Pinging @ DynaGuy00, SPECIFICO, GoodDay, Dimadick, Objective3000, DFlhb, Bob K31416, AryKun, Teammm, ONUnicorn, ValarianB, Ganesha811, and Space4Time3Continuum2x:
I went through and readded the hidden references to previous consensus and took out most links that aren't currently in the actual lead of the article. It can now fit into the article as is without disrupting any prior consensus, I think.
User:DynaGuy00/Rewrite of Donald Trump Lede
Please take a new look and recast your vote. Cessaune [talk] 03:21, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
No, we don't vote on a bundle of changes. This discussion is not constructive. SPECIFICO talk 03:29, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
Perhaps we should wait until the "links in the lead RFC" has been closed. One item at a time. GoodDay ( talk) 03:37, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
Why are the terms not wikilinked in the lead? Imagine trying to look up "populist", "misogynistic", "appellate", or "Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement" every time, when had the links are available, you can just hover on the links and read the definition. This is antithetical to Wikipedia's ethos of building the web and I cannot think of any valid reason for unlinking such as vast amount of text that would satisfy ignore all rules policy. CactiStaccingCrane ( talk) 15:11, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
The average Wikipedia visit is a few minutes long. [1] The lead is the first thing most people will read upon arriving at an article, and may be the only portion of the article that they read. [2] It gives the basics in a nutshell and cultivates interest in reading on—though not by teasing the reader or hinting at what follows.
References
@ Space4Time3Continuum2x: there needs to be some distinction in the header of the investigation into his handling of documents so people know which investigation the section is addressing; as you know, this isn't Trump's only investigation. The current header is not providing that necessary distinction. Iamreallygoodatcheckers t@lk 15:34, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Tonald Drump and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 February 5 § Tonald Drump until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. — Ingenuity ( talk • contribs) 02:47, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
A biography of Trump that doesn't contain the words "dysfunction", "institutional", or "norms" is hard to take seriously. And How Democracies Die, "the most important book of the Trump era" according to The Economist, wasn't used anywhere in the article.
I've added a "Democratic decay" subsection to cover the last two terms, and the book.
As for dysfunction, that concept should be the main thrust of an entirely-rewritten Personnel subsection; personnel shuffles are just one symptom among many of his administration's well-documented dysfunction, and as I've argued before, we should focus less on matter-of-fact WP:PROSELINE and more on synthesis and scholarly analysis. The Personnel section should cover the ways in which he had to be "managed" by his Chief of Staff, the fact that he could side against his advisers if someone slipped a Breitbart printout on his desk or if he received a phone call from a fringe figure, and it should cover his overall policy-making process (which, for him, relies far less on personnel than for other presidents). DFlhb ( talk) 09:41, 15 January 2023 (UTC)