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restart section about whether Trump identifies as a conservative

References

  1. ^ http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/donald-trump-im-a-conservative-jeb-bush-121554

Does this look okay? Mainspace previously said "Trump identifies as a conservative" but it was removed as being unsourced. See existing Talk:Donald_Trump#.22Trump_identifies_as_a_conservative.2C_and....22 for previous discussion with Tataral and SPECIFICO (courtesy ping in case they want to add anything). 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 00:15, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

It is more correct that he said it during a debate. You would need a reliable secondary source that explains how he self-identifies. TFD ( talk) 01:13, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
As a general principle, a primary source may well suffice for self identification. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 05:57, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
Disagree. There is no policy-based reason to do so and it fails "Self-published or questionable sources as sources on themselves" as it is unduly self-serving or questionable. Note we do not say that Bernie Sanders is a "democratic socialist," but that he describes himself as such. And there are a huge number of secondary sources that say he describes himself that way. We do not call Hillary Clinton a "progressive," although she has claimed to be one. (The claim is dubious.) The article on Tony Blair mentions that he calls himself a "democratic socialist," but does not say he is. There are plenty of sources that question whether Trump is a conservative and no guarantee that he would claim to be one if there were no advantage in doing so. TFD ( talk) 15:00, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
Not really seeing the unduly self-serving or questionable; particularly w.r.t. inclusion as an (self-)attributed statement. I make no suggestion that a primary source is sufficient for us to include definitive categorisation of a person in line with their identification of themselves; it's clearly not. I do suggest that a primary source of Person X saying "I am a Y" is sufficient for us to say Person X self-identifies as a Y or Person X has described themselves as a Y. Outside our political articles, this type of sourcing is more than sufficient for an (self-)attributed statement. Both Sanders & Blair include attributed statements of self-identification. I would have no issue if these were sourced to statements made by Sanders & Blair, respectively. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 21:54, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
TFD, according to Politico, which is a reliable source for what Trump said in terms of accurately reporting the content methinks, Trump called himself "somewhat conservative" and then went on to say how Reagan was "pretty conservative". It is pretty much the definition of WP:ABOUTSELF that we need to use a direct quote from the subject, to say what they self-identify as. How else could we conceivably get such information? It can be a book they wrote, an interview they gave, or whatever. Saying it in a debate counts, perhaps more than writing it in a diary published post-humously, because Trump was saying it to define himself (aka self-identify) to the wider audience. It is like being a member of the Republican party -- it is a statement about his value-system. Whether it is true aka a reflection of reality, hardly matters. Sanders is not in any realistic sense a socialist independent: he caucuses with the member of the Democratic party, he tends to vote with the members of the Democratic party, and he ran as a candidate for the Democratic party nomination to the presidency. None of which impacts his *self-identification* obviously. Trump has plenty of sourced characterizations of his actual stances: populist/nationalist/protectionist. That is what he is. But he definitely does self-identify as somewhat conservative, and that too is part of what he is; whether it speaks to his aspirations, or whether he is pandering to the crowd, or whether he is completely unaware of what he really truly is deep down, or whether he truly *is* in fact 'somewhat conservative' and the pundits that say he is populist/nationalist/protectionist will turn out to be wrong a few years from now... none of that matters. If you still disagree that politico is a 'reliable source' to verify the facts about what Trump said he identified as, please explain what you *would* actually consider a reliable source? I agree that it would be self-serving to use the Politico source to say "Trump is conservative just like Reagan" because clearly THAT would be self-serving... but I don't see any problem with saying "Trump self-identifies as quote somewhat conservative unquote and has been identified as populist/nationalist/protectionist/semiIsolationist/antiEstablishment/etc. This is the language from Political positions of Hillary Clinton: "Clinton has stated that she prefers the term 'progressive'...Clinton said: 'I consider myself a modern progressive'... 'I'm a progressive who likes to get things done'..." Whether she was saying that because she really believes she meets the definition, or whether she was saying that to appeal to a key voting-bloc, is not really the question. Actual progressives, self-identified and otherwise, generally voted for Clinton in 2016, and actual conservatives voted for Trump, so there is a larger point being made here; their self-identification helps explain their winning the nominations of their respective parties (i.e. was reciprocated to a greater or lesser degree). Nobody would argue that Clinton was the *most* progressive candidate in 2016, but we do utilized a ref which says she 'aligned' herself with that faction, or that Trump was the *most* conservative candidate in 2016. But I see self-identification as important, not trivia. (Contrast with the discussions about favorite ice cream further down this page :-) See also the 'moderate conservative' label which OnTheIssues gave Trump recently, plus variations going back to 2003 which have been some subgroup of 'conservative' since 2011, and some subgroup of 'populist' in earlier years. 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 22:51, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
An off the cuff statement in one speech does not count. People say different things at different times to different groups of people depending on how they are feeling at the moment. If Trump self-identifies as a conservative, then you should find a source that says that. Presumably the author will be familiar with the various things that Trump has said and be able to decide whether his statement is consistent with whatever else he has said. And if no one has made this observation then according to weight it is insignificant. My opinion is that since Trump only said it once, it was self-serving, and Trump is inconsistent in his statements, that journalists decided this isolated statement was insufficient to say Trump self-identifies as a conservative. That is my original research as an amateur Trumpologist, but it is as valid as your original research. TFD ( talk) 23:28, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
Ah, I understand what you are saying now. You would prefer that we have some analysis work by a secondary source, which in addition to just reporting what Trump said at time t, has also looked over his other statements, and his actions, and come to some broader conclusions than just Trump-said-this-once. So in other words, you want something the equivalent of a literature review, before this phrase is put into the lead-paragraphs of Donald Trump? Which may exist, I don't know, we'll see if I can turn something up. But in the meantime, is it correct to assume that you have no objections to adding the 'somewhat-conservative' quote per politico, to supplement the existing paragraphs over at Political_positions_of_Donald_Trump#In_his_own_words? Thanks 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 13:58, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
You are making it too complex. "Primary, secondary and tertiary sources" says, "All analyses and interpretive or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, and must not be an original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors." The reasoning is that reporters are familiar with the subject and can apply judgement. We "rely" on them to use judgment in what they report, and for their newspapers to either fact check or publish retractions of errors, hence what they write are "reliable sources." Wikipedia editors are supposed to rely on reliable sources rather than apply their own judgments to primary sources. Furthermore we are supposed to report, per "Balancing aspects", information in proportion to its reporting in reliable sources. If secondary sources ignore a fact, then so should we. We "rely" on the writers of reliable sources to determine what is important and what is not. It could be that you are an expert Trumpologist and know he self-identifies as a conservative and know that fact is important. But the test is what reliable sources report, not what we think. TFD ( talk) 21:25, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
Okay, I see from looking at your original reply up above, part of what you are objecting to is the specific phrasing... which I didn't catch because I really do not consider 'Trump self-identifies as quote somewhat conservative unquote' to be any sort of analytical claim, it is just shorthand for what Politico reported he said. But you would rather we say something like this: 'During the [specify context here] debate on mm/dd/yyyy Trump said quote [longer soundbite with fuller context] unquote' or similar, for correctness/accuracy/context. Which is fine by me, as something that might fit into the paragraphs over at the In_own_words subsection of the political stances article, but too wordy for the lead-paragraphs here obviously. That said, now that you have pointed it out, though, I do agree with you that not many sources cover Trump's self-identification, at present, which strongly suggests it should not yet be in the lead-paragraph of this biographical article. I'm still digging through refs for the other article, but I will try and remember to ping you when I get around to messing with that one. 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 05:17, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Two minor tweaks I still suggest:

Suggest junking the 'scholars and commentators' stuff as WP:PUFFERY, if they weren't reliable sources we would not be using wikivoice. Also, wikilink 'positions' to the article on Trump's positions. 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 05:22, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Trump was not considered as a running mate for in 1992

Now in the section for Involvement in Politics, 1988-2015, it originally said Trump was considered for the 1988 Presidential election as Bush Sr's running mate, but that contradicts the source which mentions it was the 1992 race. But right after that it brings up Trump as a potential running mate for the 1988 presidential race. Now I looked this up and the source already here by The Hill is the only one that mentions the 1992 race being associated with Trump.

Not only that, but Bush Sr's apparent quote mentioning it "strange and unbelievable", which according to The Hill was in his diary, is not found anywhere but that one source. Which I sincerely doubt would be the case if it was real. I recommend deleting this part, of course he was considered in 1988 since multiple sources back that up, but it is highly doubtful he was considered in 1992 and Bush Sr mentioning him. I suggest deletion. Archer Rafferty ( talk) 11:23, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

I think you are right and it should be deleted. The sourcing is weak and contradictory. One source, a biographical book, says Trump proposed himself to Lee Atwater and Bush thought it was a terrible idea. The other source, Trump himself, claims Atwater approached him about it. Nobody else has picked up on the story. I am going to delete the whole section - 1988 and 1992 - subject to further discussion at this talk page. -- MelanieN ( talk) 21:34, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
Agree. Delete. SW3 5DL ( talk) 22:46, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Neither candidate won a majority of the national popular vote

The lead was recently edited as follows:

The edit summary said: "There is consensus NOT to add numbers here; that includes percentages. Discuss on talk page if you think this should be included." I do think it should be included, or we could say in words that neither candidate received a majority of the national popular vote, but the numbers are much more informative and concise.

The main text of the Wikipedia article says this:

References

  1. ^ Price, Greg. "Popular Vote Update: Why Hillary Clinton Didn't Win A Majority Of The Electorate", International Business Times (November 17, 2016).
  2. ^ Leip, David (December 20, 2016). "2016 Presidential General Election Results". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Newton, Massachusetts. Retrieved December 20, 2016.

So, there's no question that the percentages (48% to 46%) were accurate, and that they show neither candidate reached a majority. I think this is important and concise info to have in the lead, for several reasons: e.g. it shows that Clinton's popular vote win was not enough to put her over 50%, and it also shows that third party candidates may very well have determined who the next president is. Rarely does a lead get such a big bang from such a small number of characters added, though we could instead say that she "received a plurality rather than a majority of the national popular vote" if we prefer verbosity. (Notice that insertion of the percentages did not revert anything, but rather was an addition to the sentence, and so I don't know whether removing the percentages would be exempt from 1RR, per the pertinent talk page section above.)

As mentioned, the edit summary removing this info claimed a consensus against including it. I disagree. A talk page section above also claims there is consensus for, "Lead phrasing of Trump gaining a majority of the U.S. Electoral College and receiving a smaller share of the popular vote nationwide, without quoting numbers. ( link, link 2)" (emphasis added). Let's look at those last two links.

At the first link, User:Markbassett said, "going into Clinton or numbers of votes should be in the election article not the Trump article". I have not suggested putting numbers of votes into any part of this BLP. Percentages are different, more concise, and more informative than raw numbers of votes. At the second link, that talk page proposal did not even involve any percentages, just raw numbers of votes. I oppose drawing inferences about one thing from a survey about another thing, especially without support from any closing summary.

As far as I can tell, the only editor during those two cited discussions who arguably opposed including any percentages was User:JFG who said: "Imagine the text: Trump won a whopping 50% more states than his opponent, a much wider margin than Barack Obama's two terms." But the sentence in question already includes numbers ("November 8, 2016"), so let's consider each proposal for numbers on its own merits. Neither of the two cited "consensuses" included any consensus to omit "48%" or "46%" or even mentioned any percentage of the national popular vote. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 19:21, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

@ Anythingyouwant: Thanks for the ping. All such details about the election are worth including in the election page, not in the lead of Trump's bio. My argument, which you quoted in part, was that adding any number would invite adding other numbers and people would start edit-warring over which numbers are more significant: electoral college, popular vote, states won, counties won, absolute numbers or percentages of the above, historical comparisons, the possibilities are endless and can delve into partisanship quite fast… People who want details are just one click away from them. And to your side argument, the election date is not a "number" representing the level of support of either candidate, thus it's harmless and could very well be in another sentence depending on general copyediting of the lead section. — JFG talk 21:02, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
Any number about support levels could instead be expressed in words, and vice versa, so I don't see why we should prefer words over numbers. That said, I would be okay with writing the sentence in question like this: "Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016, gaining a majority of electoral college votes, while receiving a smaller share of the popular vote nationwide than Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, whose share was less than a majority." Anythingyouwant ( talk) 22:16, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
1. That's too long a sentence in my opinion. To add that would require a second sentence, as "Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016, gaining a majority of electoral college votes, while receiving a smaller share of the popular vote nationwide than Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. Neither candidate received a majority of the popular vote." 2. But, just to complicate the discussion, I think the appropriate content for the lead of this bio article is: "Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016." 3. I disagree with JFG's slippery-slope argument, as we would be able to stop any such slide at any point we deemed appropriate. ― Mandruss  ☎ 23:17, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
If we say in the lead that Clinton got more of the national popular vote, then I strongly support also saying that she didn't get a majority (which implies it wasn't a blowout and the third party candidates were very influential). But I would also support merely saying "Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016." Either way is okay, in my opinion. It might be best to start the first way, and after a few months (as the election recedes) switch to the second way. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 00:00, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
We've been through this twice already. We agreed not to say that she "won" the popular vote, although many reliable sources do, and that we would not say that she got a "majority " of the popular vote because she didn't. The percentages and numbers are quite properly included in the text of the article. Not in the lede, as you knew, and I am surprised you would suddenly add percentages in the face of all the previous discussion. My opinion is this has no place in the lede. A "smaller share" is accurate and concise and was agreed to in TWO previous discussions. The difference between the electoral college vote and the popular vote is enormous and historic, but we don't put the size of the difference in the lede. We don't point out in the lede that this was only the fifth time this has happened. Just the historically important fact that they were different. The rest of the stuff goes in the text. MelanieN alt ( talk) 03:37, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
I wasn't involved in any discussions about that. Anyway, the lead of the Hillary Clinton article says that she received a " plurality" of the national popular vote. That fact belongs in this lead too, if the lead refers to her share of the popular vote. The word "plurality" is not a number. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 05:32, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
@ MelanieN:, you shouldn't add to your comment after someone has replied to it. SW3 5DL ( talk) 04:05, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

He won 31 states. He won the majority of the country, he brought out more voters among whites, blacks and latinos than any other Republican candidate in recent history, he won the electoral college, and both houses of Congress. He beat her like a drum. She won coastal states, prominent among them California and New York which allow illegals to have driver's licenses and allow them to register to vote at the DMV. But I agree it does not belong in the lede. SW3 5DL ( talk) 03:47, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Reliable sources routinely note that Clinton received more votes. They do not routinely mention the percentages or the fact the Clinton did not receive a majority of votes. The lead should not go beyond what sources routinely note. It seems to me that we are getting distracted by what makes one candidate look better rather than just following what sources say. TFD ( talk) 05:45, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
I think it is worth saying that Clinton got more votes.-- Jack Upland ( talk) 06:41, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
Reliable sources routinely say that Clinton got 48%, but we have adopted an artificial rule against using numbers in the lead notwithstanding what reliable sources say. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 06:47, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
She did receive 48% of ballots nationwide, and Trump received 46%, there is no questioning these facts. However, mentioning this particular fact would be giving undue weight to a yardstick which is not relevant to the US presidential election system. I'm not against adding any number because it happens to be a number, I'm against emphasizing one number against another, and as we have dozens of potentially interesting numbers to add, I maintain that adding none is the wisest way to go. This is a biography, not an election page. — JFG talk 08:36, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
It's not relevant to the US presidential election system that Clinton got more of the popular vote. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 08:43, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
Agree with TFD, JFD, et al. Also, if you want to make Clinton appear that she won something, you would need to mention that Trump broke the "blue wall." He won states that in the past have always gone to Democrats. Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan. He also took Ohio and Florida. He won the majority of the states. The majority of the country. She was the biggest loser, not the biggest winner. His victory is historic in many ways, including he's a non-politician, never held office, contributed to his campaign, and won traditionally Democrat states. As he would say, he won huge. SW3 5DL ( talk) 15:00, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
...but got less votes.-- Jack Upland ( talk) 16:50, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
LOL, but got more of the votes that count. SW3 5DL ( talk) 17:26, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
Was it a "yuge" or "bigly" win? Did his opponent get "shellaced" or "schlonged"? Quick, an RfC! — JFG talk 00:04, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Historic win:

His win was historic, but it wasn't huge. He won by 80,000 votes in 3 states. No, I don't think that should be in the lede. As electoral college victories go, his was 46th out of 58; [1] it was not a landslide. No, I'm not suggesting that go in the lede either. But the simple fact that he got fewer electoral popular votes than someone else is dramatic and rare enough (fifth time in history) that it needs to be in the lede. -- MelanieN ( talk) 21:08, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
Not huge by numbers. Huge by in historic terms. Historic was my point, and I earlier stated I don't think any of it should be in the lede unless there is mention of the circumstances. Just saying fifth time in history that popular vote higher, means very little. America is a representative republic, not a democracy.. SW3 5DL ( talk) 22:51, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
I think that should definitely go in the lead: Trump was not democratically elected.-- Jack Upland ( talk) 00:08, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
@ Jack Upland: I beg your pardon? Are you seriously contending that the US democratic process is dysfunctional or wasn't followed properly? — JFG talk 11:09, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
Sounds like the new fringe narrative. An attempt to Birther Trump maybe? SW3 5DL ( talk) 16:50, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
Democracy is a much broader term than people generally think. Objective3000 ( talk) 16:58, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
Folks, can we keep this discussion to what should be in the article - and not get into political philosophy? Thanks. -- MelanieN ( talk) 18:47, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

What Does Trump Own?

The article contains repeated claims that Trump "owns" this, that, and the other piece of property. What evidence exists for any of these claims?

David Lloyd-Jones ( talk) 15:50, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

You will find references in the article. For an overview, see [2]. Objective3000 ( talk) 16:06, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Any way to condense Trump's new infobox?

I was wondering if there's a way to condense Trump's new infobox. Right now it's a big block of text when you try to edit it. CatcherStorm talk 16:16, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

It appears to be a politician info-box/businessman. This is the first time a non-politician has been elected President of the United States. The info box as it stands now, does help explain who he is. What would you condense? SW3 5DL ( talk) 16:32, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
There was a change from using Template:infobox_officeholder to use instead WP:OUTBOX which is an old-school way of building a custom infobox. Visually it looks similar to the readership. However, there is a different editing syntax, and the main downside (which I believe CatcherStorm is talking about when they say "big block of text") is that the OUTBOX syntax is basically just a WP:TABLE rather than a template. Every row needs *two* lines of text for the OUTBOX syntax, rather than one. I'm working on figuring out a combo-syntax based on either {{#invoke:Infobox}} as suggested by JFG, or based on a combination of an outer table-syntax for the custom fields plus embedded templates as used at certain complex naval-vessel articles. I think those will condense the editing-portion of the upgraded infobox, once they are implemented. (Or if those cannot be made to work then Template:infobox_office_holder_with_career might become a bluelink.) 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 05:12, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
Sounds great. Be sure it will still list him as a businessman. SW3 5DL ( talk) 16:37, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Russia

Why does the article not mention anything about Trump wanting to improve relations with Russia? I'm sure this is more important than his feud with the pope for example. Burklemore1 ( talk) 03:39, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I suppose we could add something about him wanting to improve relations with Russia by greatly strengthening and expanding U.S. nuclear capability.- Mr X 03:50, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
In the Foreign Policy section it mentions several ways in which he suggested cooperating with Russia. -- MelanieN ( talk) 08:36, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
OK, thanks. I think it should be direct that he wishes to improve relations though, rather than stating he will consider recognising Crimea as a Russian territory and lift sanctions. Statements regarding nuclear capabilities should be added too. If I'm correct also, Trump has made comments about wanting to improve relations with Russia during the Republican presidential primaries. I think it would make a nice addition. Burklemore1 ( talk) 16:54, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
Lifting sanctions so he and others can make more money and pollute the Arctic is not what one normally thinks of when discussing "improved relations" in the political sense. This is one of his conflicts of interest, where he wishes to use his political power to improve his business opportunities. -- BullRangifer ( talk) 00:57, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
BullRangifer, please limit your comments here to what you think we should have in the article - not what you think about Trump. Thanks. -- MelanieN ( talk) 04:43, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
BullRangifer, are we suppose to consider your opinion on how the article should reflect its content simply because you have a negative opinion about him? Favouring one side of the political spectrum is not a way of maintaining neutrality. Burklemore1 ( talk) 07:25, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
Our personal political opinions (and we all have them) don't go into the article, but the opinions expressed in RS do make up our content. You asked about "improved relations" and I mentioned the type he has proposed, but which you, for some odd reason don't want to mention ("recognising Crimea as a Russian territory and lift sanctions"). Those are exactly the types of things to mention because they are what RS mention. "Nuclear capabilities" is another suggestion you made above above, although expanding them does not "improve" relations. It increases the risk of war.
A vague mention of the words "improve relations" is meaningless political fluff and puff posturing. We should mention what he has actually said he would do to improve relations. He has already picked ExxonMobil's CEO Rex Tillerson to be Secretary of State, a concrete move which will improve relations because Tillerson is very good friends with Putin, owns huge oil concessions in the arctic, and removing the sanctions which prevent drilling will "improve relations". There are plenty of RS which discuss why this is happening.
So recognising Crimea as a Russian territory and lifting sanctions preventing oil drilling are two things to mention. If RS mention this is done because Trump, Tillerson and Putin will make a lot more money, then that too should be mentioned. We don't add or delete/whitewash content because of our political opinions. We add what RS say. -- BullRangifer ( talk) 15:11, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
Please tell me where I have said I did not want to mention recognise Crimea as a territory and lift sanctions. Whether or not nuclear capabilities improve relations or not, it should still have a place in the article. However, I will agree with you on that, so it could become a separate subject. "We should mention what he has actually said he would do to improve relations" This is what I'm saying. Give examples on how he would improve relations. This is what I asked for, not opinions attacking Trump. If we are to add such statements about Trump, Tillerson and Putin making a lot more money, it should only be added whenever it is actually happening. I don't think speculation from RS should be added as this may induce instability within the article. Burklemore1 ( talk) 03:57, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
Please clarify in any available edit that it is Russia who wants the Russian to improve relations with what is now basically Russia. 50.254.148.9 ( talk) 18:57, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

RfC: Should "Chairman of The Trump Organization" be listed as office in infobox?

Withdrawn by nominator following emergent consensus: Trump's business position(s) should not be included alongside his political position in {{ Infobox officeholder}}. However a new discussion is underway about including it as an appended module of a generic biographical infobox or in free-form WP:OUTBOX format. (consensus summary by involved editor — JFG talk 06:52, 5 January 2017 (UTC))

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.

Should the infobox mention Trump's business title as Chairman of The Trump Organization in the |office2= parameter, alongside his other title as President-elect? Currently, the title is mentioned in the |occupation= parameter. Edge3 ( talk) 13:24, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Donald Trump/Archive 42
President-elect of the United States
Assuming office
January 20, 2017
Vice President Mike Pence (elect)
Succeeding Barack Obama
Chairman of The Trump Organization
Assumed office
1971
Preceded by Fred Trump
Personal details
Born (1946-06-14) June 14, 1946 (age 77)
New York City
Spouses
  • ​
    ​
    ( m. 1977⁠–⁠1992)​
  • ​
    ( m. 1993⁠–⁠1999)​
  • ​
    ( m. 2005)​

Example infobox shown on the side. Other proposed versions have included the full date, Ivanka Trump as successor, and other slight modifications.

Prior discussions: 1, 2, 3, 4

See also alternate example below, where the business position is listed at the end of the navbox and with a different background color. This might be a more appropriate display option. — JFG talk 09:16, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Survey: Chairman, office, infobox

Support or Oppose

  • Support - The primary purpose of the infobox is "to summarize ... key facts that appear in the article" ( WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE). Trump's business career is an integral part of his biography. In {{ Donald Trump}} and in other parts of this article, the "President-elect" and "Chairman of The Trump Organization" positions already appear side-by-side. {{ Donald Trump series}} lists articles relating to both his business and political careers. At the bottom of this article, {{ S-bus}} is used alongside {{ s-ppo}} and {{ s-off}}, as if the positions are all equivalent. These examples show that the infobox, as it currently stands, is not giving the equal treatment to both positions that we are already displaying in other templates.
For many biographies, especially for politicians, the infobox shows progression through each office, along with the transitions from one officeholder to the next. Excluding Trump's business position from |office2= would be a glaring omission.
While recognizing WP:OSE, other politician bios have included non-governmental positions. For example, Ronald Reagan lists his prior position as President of the Screen Actors Guild. Edge3 ( talk) 13:24, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support – I am sympathetic to the argument that no distinction should be made between political, military, academic or business positions, provided that we list only significant roles. Aside from the Reagan case, we also have the Dwight D. Eisenhower article listing his military posts alongside his academic position as President of Columbia University (1948–1953), which even overlaps his role as Supreme Allied Commander Europe (1951–1952). The Trump case pleads particularly strongly in favor of inclusion because his business career dominates 45 years of his 70-year life, whereas his political emergence only covers 18 months so far. See also a similar discussion on Talk:List of Presidents of the United States#Prior service which was concluded in favor of listing his business title as "prior position" to President-Elect. — JFG talk 17:02, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support. Though from now on Trump's presidency will overshadow the other things he's done in life, I think it is important to note that the info box of a highly viewed article is likely to catch a typical reader's eye first. Piggybacking on what User:JFG said above, President Eisenhower's box has his other positions in it. Because the Trump Organization looks like it's going to be handed down Trump's family (see Ivanka Trump's infobox), I think it makes sense to note that he was the 1st Chair and President of the Trump Organization. It needs to be made clear: Trump led this large organization prior to becoming the 36th President-elect. CatcherStorm talk 02:19, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
  • No idea. Suggestion: read the Infobox officeholder template. "Many officeholders are known for more than just their appointments (e.g., Clint Eastwood), and hence it may be desirable to merge this infobox with another one, like {{ Infobox person}}." -- Dervorguilla ( talk) 19:15, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose. This is a no-brainer. Being chairman of the Trump Organization is not "holding an office". Being "in office" is a very specific term that refers to elected officials in forms of government, and has nothing to do with private sector employment. Just because they effed up the Reagan article, it doesn't mean we should repeat the mistake here. -- Scjessey ( talk) 19:26, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose – Per Scessey.— Fundude99 talk to me 20:09, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
  • What Dervorguilla said, don't screw up the officeholder infobox, just have an officeholder infobox at the top, immediately followed by a Template:infobox person which has the details of his business career(s) and such. Omit the photo-parameter from the 2nd infobox, and voila. 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 20:13, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose. "Office" is a public, elected, position. Not a job. Bastun Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 21:05, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose - While the word "office" can refer to non-governmental positions ( office sense 1b), its meaning in {{ Infobox officeholder}} follows from the definition of the word officeholder.
    I am not interested in what other editors have decided at other articles, per WP:OSE. The salient points of OSE are that (1) no two situations are exactly alike, and (2) one could cherry-pick examples to support any argument they wished to support. Community consensus lives in policy, in guideline, and sometimes in discussions with wide participation in public venues—not in sampling of things done in other articles. OSE is a widely-accepted essay for a reason. ― Mandruss  ☎ 21:30, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support - It is beneficial to the page while quickly and neatly presenting his previous positions. Archer Rafferty ( talk) 3:18, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose I do not think it provides any useful information. The field is useful when the office is better known than the person, for example the office of presidency of the U.S. is better known than anyone who has held it, while Trump is better known than his company. Also, Trump's main influence at the company comes from being owner and chief executive officer. A chairman is often a figurehead or non-executive position. As a point of pedantry, he is not chairman of the Trump Organization, but chairman of the board of directors of the Trump organization. TFD ( talk) 04:46, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose While it is a significant company and important to his life history, it is not a public office. The President-elect will become the first President without prior public service experience, and that is significant. Placing the chairmanship of his private company in the infobox equates it to elected or appointed office, whether political or institutional (university, red cross, boy scouts, other public-profile instiutions, etc.). This is incorrect to do. His company is important, but being the chairman of the company is not on the same level as being a public officer, elected, appointed, or an institutional head.    Spartan7W §   05:20, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
    Why must the infobox entries be limited to public office only? If, as you say, his business career "is a significant company and important to his life history", shouldn't we reflect that in the infobox? The guideline is "to summarize ... key facts that appear in the article" ( WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE). Edge3 ( talk) 19:24, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose as it's not a political office. GoodDay ( talk) 18:18, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support – It is an appropriate addition to best summarize Trump's career in the infobox, and there are numerous examples of other articles that feature leadership of private organizations, the military, and universities in the officeholder infobox. - Bokmanrocks01 ( talk) 22:58, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose - The Trump Organization is not a public office which that parameter is for. Naue7 ( talk) 03:13, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose - It's not a public office. The Reagan counter-example doesn't convince me, as it is an elected union position, far closer to a public office than a business position. Michael Bloomberg's infobox omits his business career altogether, even though is business career is arguably far more notable and his political office less so. No great surprise, our first "CEO President," George W. Bush, has no business info in his infobox. Chris vLS ( talk) 06:18, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Not a public office, not an elective office, and nothing that is remotely close to politics in any way. Per Chrisvls, Bush and Bloomberg's infoboxes don't include their business careers. Oh, and on another but related topic, the current infobox proposed on WP:OUTBOX looks hideous. Consider making the IB as simple as possible and to include things such as "occupation" and "net worth" into their Chairman position, as those as personal life elements. κατάστασ η 15:16, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose - The reasons for not including it far outweigh the reasons for including it. What is the justification for adding that to the infobox other than showing a part of his career? Would we do that for every other politician that has run a business? Would we do that for every business owner? Chrisvls brings up a good point in that Bush and Bloomberg don't have their business careers in the infobox. Also, the fact that Trump is the first man to ever be elected to the presidency is very significant, and to add his business into the infobox could mislead people on this issue. In short, there's no real convincing reason to include it, it could start a very unnecessary precedent, and it overshadows the fact that Trump went directly from private citizen to President of the United States. RedBear2040 ( talk) 21:18, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Scjessey, Mandruss and others who correctly point out that office has a specific meaning in this template.- Mr X 21:44, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Discussion: Chairman, office, infobox

(Response to !vote by 47.222.203.135) - Dervorguilla referred to embedding officeholder in person, so what you said isn't what they said. Just sayin'. ― Mandruss  ☎ 20:23, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

I was referencing their bolded notvote which said "no idea" specifically. As in, this is a poorly-posed question, the correct answer should be something completely different than the binary choice being offered. For the record, I'm okay with embedding person inside officeholder, embedding officeholder inside person, just using person and covering the potus-details as part of that, starting with officeholder and then following it with person... but please don't abuse oficeholder by jamming stuff that does NOT belong into it... and as I understand the rfc, notvoting 'support' means that ceo will be jammed into office2-param whereas voting 'oppose' means that ceo/realEstateDeveloper/televisionPersonality/bestSellingAuthor/'politician'/etc will eventually be jammed into occupation-param ... both of which are sub-optimal, since one is malformed and the other is insufficient space. Thus, since I have no idea whether to notvote support or notvote oppose, I opted to follow dervorguilla and notvoted No Idea, with a specific suggestion for an alternative way forward that does not involve restricting ourselves to a single infobox and trying to force-fit everything. 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 21:26, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
Interesting suggestion... maybe we don't have to use {{ Infobox officeholder}} after all. Edge3 ( talk) 02:12, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
@ 47.222.203.135: Nailed it. -- Dervorguilla ( talk) 03:25, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
I agree with others here that we should not put his business career into the politician infobox. But can we use two separate info boxes? Politician followed by business person? MelanieN alt ( talk) 14:45, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
Then we would end up with two infoboxes. Another option is using {{ Infobox person}} only rather than {{ Infobox officeholder}}, since Trump's business career is equally noteworthy as his political career. His political office can still be reflected in {{ Infobox person}}. Edge3 ( talk) 16:34, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
And yet another option is to embed officeholder in person, producing one hybrid infobox, as linked by Dervorguilla in their !vote. It's been awhile since I've seen that done, but as I recall the embedded portion is a shrunken version of its normal self (by perhaps 20%), which I felt wasn't very attractive (and would be seen as de-emphasizing his presidency). Obvious pushback for either alternative option due to the widespread but misguided opinion that All Infoboxes For U.S. Presidents Must Be The Same. ― Mandruss  ☎ 20:28, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
Mandruss, to avoid the shrinkage-effect, you have to specify "| module = {{infobox foobar | embed = yes ... " which you can see JFG doing in his chairman-embedded-within-officeholder example, below. If you forget the embed=yes thing, then you get a shrunken inner infobox (ugly). 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 02:01, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Donald Trump/Archive 42
President-elect of the United States
Assuming office
January 20, 2017
Vice President Mike Pence (elect)
Succeeding Barack Obama
Personal details
Born (1946-06-14) June 14, 1946 (age 77)
New York City
Spouses
Chairman of The Trump Organization
In office
1971 – January 15, 2017
Preceded by Fred Trump
Succeeded by Donald Trump Jr.
We have already tried embedding {{ Infobox officeholder}} in {{ Infobox person}}, as the article used to have a simple Infobox person (or at least I tried it in edit mode, not sure it was ever in the history log). While technically elegant, this method puts all the personal info (children, alma mater, website, etc.) before the various offices held, so it really looks inappropriate for a future president. And it doesn't resolve the question whether his business position should also be listed as an office rather than an occupation. Thus it looks like a dead end to me. — JFG talk 00:03, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
Note that we have {{ Infobox Chairman}} which redirects to {{ Infobox officeholder}}, so perhaps we could embed that into the template, thus listing the Chairman position towards the end of the box. See how that would look here to the right. — JFG talk 01:22, 24 December 2016 (UTC) –––––––>
{{ Infobox Chairman}} is used in only a handful of articles (stubs), and since it redirects to {{ Infobox officeholder}} I don't think {{ Infobox Chairman}} would help here. The example you propose (on the right) is essentially {{ Infobox officeholder}} embedded within itself. Edge3 ( talk) 05:11, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
What Edge3 said. Just merge {{ Infobox officeholder}} with {{ Infobox officeholder}}. This looks like it may be the closest analogue to the most relevant example at Template:Infobox officeholder, which actually refers to an old version of the Clint Eastwood article (not the current version as I'd thought). My error. -- Dervorguilla ( talk) 08:12, 24 December 2016 (UTC) 20:14, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
Yes it is a secondary {{ Infobox officeholder}} within the main {{ Infobox officeholder}}, which compared to the |office2= option puts the Trump Org position at the bottom of the navbox (and with a grey background) vs showing it close to the presidential office up top. I think this would resolve the main objection of dissenters. — JFG talk 09:11, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
I don't like any of these examples because they use the word "office" when describing his business position. -- Scjessey ( talk) 17:47, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
@ Scjessey: As a corporate officer of TTO, he's "someone who holds an office of trust, authority, or command". -- Dervorguilla ( talk) 20:34, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
But few dictionaries make use of the extended definition of "in office", and neither does Wikipedia. It would confuse the reader, perhaps leading them to think Trump may have held some form of public office prior to the presidency. -- Scjessey ( talk) 21:29, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
I think part of the problem is that the usual infobox for businesspeople is {{ Infobox person}}. We don't have a perfect solution for those who had a lengthy business career before entering public office. Given the dictionary definitions cited, I agree that his chairmanship over The Trump Organization may be construed as an "office" for the purposes of {{ Infobox officeholder}}, even though it is not the normal usage for this template. Edge3 ( talk) 22:39, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

WP:OUTBOX

Donald J. Trump
Portrait of Donald Trump during a campaign event on August 19, 2015
President-elect of the United States
Taking office
January 20, 2017
Vice President Mike Pence (elect)
Preceded by Barack Obama
Chairman of The Trump Organization
Occupation Real estate developer
Years active 1971–2017
Preceded by Fred Trump
Known for Trump Tower, Mar-a-Lago
Net worth USD$4.5 billion
Books Art of the Deal
Television The Apprentice
Personal details
Born Donald John Trump
(1946-06-14) June 14, 1946 (age 77)
New York City
Political party
Spouse(s)
Children
Parents
Relatives Trump family
Residence Trump Tower, New York City
Alma mater University of Pennsylvania ( BA)
Signature Donald J Trump stylized autograph, in ink
Website greatagain.gov
We could also try the old-school approach. 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 01:55, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
@ 47.222.203.135: Looks good to me. (The 'Nationality' data can be safely omitted, though.) -- Dervorguilla ( talk) 03:07, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
I love this idea! Edge3 ( talk) 05:39, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
Indeed. The "outbox" looks like the way to go. -- Scjessey ( talk) 13:21, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
+1 I would approve of this scheme. — JFG talk 14:55, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
I've made a few modifications to the proposed infobox so that it is more consistent with the info already displayed on the current infobox. User:47.222.203.135 (or anyone else), feel free to modify as needed. We should also figure out a way to add the images (both the portrait and the signature) through the WP:OUTBOX approach. Edge3 ( talk) 04:44, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
Proponents should look at the markup and consider the ongoing maintenance problems. Expect the OUTBOX (shouldn't that be OUTFOBOX?) to be broken regularly. If that's an acceptable trade-off to you, fine, but it should be considered. ― Mandruss  ☎ 06:53, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
 Done – Added portrait and signature via Module:InfoboxImage. The whole box should probably use Module:Infobox rather than manual markup. — JFG talk 14:04, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
I've made the to the article implementing this new infobox. I agree that {{ Infobox}} might be a better long-term solution. Edge3 ( talk) 19:02, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
..and I've reverted that bold change. You've no consensus to make such major structural changes to the infobox. Re-adding the Trump chairman stuff is one thing, but restructuring the entire infobox (which was stable since November 8) is quite another matter. The infobox should structurally match with that at the Mike Pence article. GoodDay ( talk) 19:45, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
Not sure what level of consensus you're looking for, but we had several editors express their support (above) for this new infobox scheme. Plus, this article need not be consistent with Mike Pence, nor has there been a consensus to that effect. Edge3 ( talk) 21:23, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
@ GoodDay: Would you be okay with the proposed infobox if we used {{ Infobox}} rather than manual coding? Many editors have expressed interest in this solution so I think we will try it one way or another, and reevaluate once we see it. Edge3 ( talk) 22:14, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
My personal preference is to keep the infobox we've got, as that's what's being used for all political offices. I'm more anxious though, that we keep infoboxes here & at Pence's article matching. IF I were you, I'd start a new discussion on what type of infobox to use. GoodDay ( talk) 22:18, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
I fail to see why a Trump-Pence agreement would be so beneficial to the reader. Where is the community consensus for such linkage? Absent such a consensus, the widely-accepted WP:OSE applies. ― Mandruss  ☎ 23:30, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
I agree that we need not be strictly consistent with the Pence article, but I also understand GoodDay's desire for harmony among all political infoboxes. Remember, WP:OSE arguments may be valid or invalid depending on context.
I'm fine with waiting for more discussion, or even starting a new discussion if we can't resolve disagreements here. Edge3 ( talk) 04:09, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
I think that I agree with GoodDay, that we want the layout to 'structurally match' what is found at Pence, but more importantly, what is found at Obama and the prior presidents. Per WP:Readers_first, because there will be plenty of readers that want to compare and contrast, and therefore we should try and keep the VISUAL appearance of the infobox we use here, as similar as we can to the ones elsewhere. Basically that means using the same row-labels, and in the same ordering. Thataway people with multiple browser-tabs open, will be able to see the differences easily. We are actually pretty close already, the only question is whether to combine the websites into one single row-label, rather than list the three of them separately, and whether to move up the signature-row above the website-row which is traditionally at the very bottom of the infobox. Now, it will be much harder, obviously, to keep the wikimarkup identical, since the WP:OUTTATHEBOX is just a wikitable rather than a template. Or maybe JFG had some suggestion for solving that with a module, or something? 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 23:50, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
I think we can remove all of the external links from the infobox. Isn't that what the "External Links" section is for? Edge3 ( talk) 03:16, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
Removing all of them would be unusual (for a modern human as opposed to somebody who lived in the 1700s), but typically the infobox contains exactly one "Websites:" row-label at the very bottom, and then contains one (or in rare cases more than one) primary internet 'home' of the biographical subject. See the bottom of the infobox at Tom Hanks (zero URLs interestingly enough), Hillary Clinton (one URL), Leonardo_DiCaprio (two URLs), Barack_Obama (three URLs). In the case of Donald Trump we currently list only greatAgain.gov (peotus 'home') within the infobox, and then in the EL section we list greatAgain.gov (peotus'16), donaldjTrump.com (campaign'15), 58pic2017.org (inauguration'17), twitter.com/realDonaldTrump (celeb'09+), and a few "standard links for presidential biography articles" to CSPAN/NYT/WSJ/etc which cover debate-videos and speechs and the like. In the draft- WP:OUTBOX it is possible to have multiple 'website' rows if consensus permits. If that is considered controversial, those suggestions can be deferred until a future conversation, because I would rather improve things one step at a time: first get the outbox format (or maybe the invoke:ModuleInfobox thing JFG was alluding to) acceptable, so that we can have 'CEO of Trump.com' as part of the custom outbox. Next discuss which URLs to include in the infobox, and whether to lump them all together at the bottom (as is wiki-traditional), or instead to use the power of the custom outbox to add a row for trump.com in the middle, a row for greatagain.gov near the top, and a row for personal sites near the bottom. I will HTML_comment out the additional URLs for now in the draft-outbox, to match what the current mainspace infobox does. 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 04:56, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
I think the "relatives" part of the infobox could be removed since that information is covered in the three sections above it, where it mentions his parents spouse(s) and children. CopperWhopper67 ( talk) 09:04, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
CopperWhopper67, while I tend to agree (or would maybe even prefer the opposite -- get rid of most of the detailed ancestry-datapoints and just link to the Trump family article for people that want geneaology), the reason it appears is because 'traditionally' wikipedia articles on presidents with extended families have all that same info, see for instance Barack Obama which lists spouses/children/parents/relatives, in the same rough position and the same rough ordering as the draft-outbox for Trump. George W. Bush (spouses/relatives/children/parents), Bill Clinton (elides relatives), etc. The main baby-step goal here, is to try and get CEO of Trump.com into the infobox, without abusing Template:infobox_officeholder and saying he was "in office" as CEO thereof. 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 10:41, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
I agree that the current conversation should focus on transitioning to the WP:OUTBOX approach. If there are additional changes to be made (such as adding more external links, removing the "Relatives" section, or other substantial changes) then we may discuss those in another thread. Now that we made a few changes to the proposed outbox and had a bit more discussion, I'm going to go ahead with another cycle of WP:BRD and see where we end up. Edge3 ( talk) 05:54, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

AFAIK, there's no consensus for this new infobox. So, why was it inserted into the article? Also, there's no consensus for adding the Trump organization into the infobox. GoodDay ( talk) 02:50, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Agree with GoodDay, there is no consensus for this infobox nor for the Chairman office, since the RfC is still going on. Having the support of a few editors does not constitute consensus. κατάστασ η 16:14, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Can we have a new RfC on adding Trump Organization info on this specific template? The previous objection was that it was improper to add it to the "officeholder" infobox, but that problem is avoided here. The current RfC is also being held in the context of using the "officeholder" template, so it wouldn't be the most relevant in this case. It would be best to form an official consensus on this because otherwise editors would keep continuing to remove the Trump Organization section from the infobox. - Bokmanrocks01 ( talk) 01:18, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

I would be okay with closing this current RfC on the "officeholder" template, as long as it doesn't interfere with this thread on WP:OUTBOX. The consensus seems to be that his business position should not be listed as an "office" for the purposes of {{ Infobox officeholder}}, and we have since moved on to the next suggestion regarding WP:OUTBOX. If anyone requests it, I would be happy to close this RfC as the original nominator (see WP:RFCEND) but honestly I don't know the proper form or process for doing this. Then we can move on to the WP:OUTBOX discussion as a separate Level 2 discussion, along with the other discussions that have recently started. Edge3 ( talk) 02:57, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
@ Bokmanrocks01: I just realized that you were interested in having a new RfC. Perhaps you could add it to the section below called #Adding Trump Organization leadership onto non-officeholder template?? Just a thought...
Also, I know that you, Katastasi and 47.222.203.135 have commented on this within the past two days, so I'm curious as to whether you had much else to say on this thread? Sorry, I didn't realize that my RfC withdrawal had the potential to cut you off! Edge3 ( talk) 22:58, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
Sure thing, I added the RfC request onto the section. And I also have no more comments to add to this section, so feel free to close it off. Thanks. - Bokmanrocks01 ( talk) 23:13, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
(Also pinging GoodDay in case there were any other concerns before cutting off this thread.) Edge3 ( talk) 23:01, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Harassment of teenage girl

I believe his harassment of a teenage girl should be mentioned somewhere in the article, judging by its coverage in reliable sources, e.g.

-- Tataral ( talk) 05:12, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

No it shouldn't, I don't recall "reliable" sources having been elevated to that of a court of law. That, and how irrelevant this is pertaining to the biography of Donald Trump's life, and it's pretty debatable calling what he did "harassment" to the point it's grey area territory. User:Archer Rafferty 6:31, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
Tataral: If you believe that information from the sources could fit in either Donald Trump sexual misconduct allegations or Legal affairs of Donald Trump, then feel free to add content or bring discussion to the talk pages on those articles. User:Archer Rafferty: Due to widespread media coverage of these events and similar events/allegations about Donald Trump's treatment of women, on Wikipedia these subjects are relevant information to be covered in Donald Trump's biography, though to limit the size of Trump's main article, the content is split up into multiple articles, effectively making them an extension or part of the series on Trump's life. Thanks. WClarke ( talk) 08:13, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
If you think including every allegation of harassment or sexual assault in an article is beneficial be my guest but don't be naive to the fact most of it is either flat out false (ie pedophile claims), irrelevant (ie this), or trivia clutter. (ie nearly everything being edited into this article nowadays). User:Archer Rafferty 4:33, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

(Redacted)

It has not received sufficient attention to merit inclusion. TFD ( talk) 01:07, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
Agreed, at least for this article. If anyone wants to start List of Donald Trump's bullying, intimidation and attacks on other people, there is loads of information in RS. Seriously, that's a legitimate topic. Just work out better wording for the title. It's a very notable subject. -- BullRangifer ( talk) 15:27, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
That would inherently be a WP:POVFORK, no better than List of Donald Trump's most awesome ideas. Both ought to remain redlinks, per NPOV. It is not possible to have a balanced neutral article which cuts up a natural topic ( Donald Trump or Political positions of Donald Trump or Cabinet of Donald Trump or whatever) into artificially smaller subcategories like Only the bad stuff about Donald Trump and similarly Only the good stuff about Donald Trump. Somebody suggested that Donald Trump on Twitter or perhaps Donald Trump's use of the Internet were valid topics, and if he continues using them throughout his presidency I don't doubt such articles will be written as valid WP:SPINOFF subsidiary efforts. But there should never be Only bad things Trump said on Twitter and also should never be Only nice things Trump said on Twitter. Having enough sources for an inherently POV topic-delineation, does not make it any less POV -- compare with gerrymandering where the politicians draw the lines so as to guarantee incumbent-re-elections and unfairly tilt the region-wide totals towards one of the major parties, rather than to delineate natural constituencies or geographically neutral tiling polygons or whatever. Topics must be chosen/titled in an encyclopedic fashion, too, not merely sufficiently sourced. 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 00:29, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
I agree that this probably doesn't work for this article. His long history of cyber-bullying is now and appears to be building as a significant issue. Post-election, it does not seem to abate. We may need to find a way to add this in some manner. Objective3000 ( talk) 00:47, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
I think there will be a lot of sources that talk about controversial statements made by Donald Trump, how various pundits reacted thereto, and how Trump in turn tended to double down or make yet another controversial statement or pick an ad hominem fight with some particular critic, thereby generating vast amounts of earned media coverage. Not only do I think there is a pattern, I think it is an intentional one, from his years in wrestling and then in reality television (not to mention his role as a NYC celeb before that). So there is definitely scope for wikipedia noting what the sources say (which may mean 'cyber-bullying' iff actual sources use that phrase and may mean 'intentional pattern' if actual sources use *that* phrase), I just don't want there to be a spinoff article which is title Mean things Donald Trump said or something equally POV, it needs to be melded in with the rest of his biography-stuff and the rest of his campaign & presidency & stances articles, with due weight and neutral balance and all that stuff. 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 14:07, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
The bus locker room talk is more notable. Chris H of New York ( talk) 02:17, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

ISIL not ISIS

The usually used and preferred abbreviation of the group is ISIL on Wikipedia. In addition, the group's name is " Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" on the article so ISIL makes more sense. Or maybe we should just use its full name at the article here instead. 117.207.145.10 ( talk) 22:41, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

That's true, but the media persistently calls it ISIS, and that's what most people seem to call it. (I don't really know or care what a bunch of terrorists call themselves and doubt many people do either.) Maybe we can say something like "the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, abbreviated as ISIL or sometimes ISIS when in Syria", which covers all bases. White Arabian Filly Neigh 22:49, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
No just ISIL or the full name. Including the abbreviations and the full name will make it too long. 117.207.145.10 ( talk) 23:02, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
It's called neither ISIS or ISIL. It's simply called IS. 207.245.44.6 ( talk) 23:27, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
I.S. seems better than ISIL or ISIS, because it has spread outside of Iraq, Syria, and the Levant (e.g. to Libya). I would always use periods though ("I.S."). Anythingyouwant ( talk) 23:36, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
It's called with all terms whether IS, ISIL or ISIS. The other one is Daesh. I think it is better to avoid the abbreviation confusion and use the full name in the lead. 117.207.145.10 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:04, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
Let's find out from the uncontested primary source: Abu Bakr 'Big Daddy' al-Baghdadi himself. Hey Al! What're you calling your organization now? It's The Caliphate, no? -- Dervorguilla ( talk) 02:09, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
US media calls it ISIS. Obama calls it ISIL. Arabs call it Daesh. Chris H of New York ( talk) 02:18, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

New Trump related article

SNOW opposition to content in this article, if any was proposed. Non-starter. ― Mandruss  ☎ 00:51, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

2017 Chicago torture incident

In January 2017, four people were arrested for torturing a learning disabled man in Chicago, Illinois, after they livestreamed the incident on Facebook. [1] [2] [3] [4] The victim was kidnapped, bound, gagged, beaten, had part of his scalp removed with a knife, and was forced to drink from a toilet bowl. [5] At least one of the suspects shouted "Fuck Trump" and "Fuck white people." [6]

References

  1. ^ 4 Charged With Hate Crimes Over Beating Live-Streamed On Facebook, NPR, January 5, 2017
  2. ^ 4 Questioned After Video Shows Racially Charged Beating in Chicago, New York Times, January 4, 2017
  3. ^ Chicago torture: Facebook Live video leads to 4 arrests, CNN, January 5, 2017
  4. ^ Hate crime charges filed after ‘reprehensible’ video shows attack on mentally ill man in Chicago, Washington Post, January 5, 2017
  5. ^ Four charged with hate crime for Chicago Facebook Live attack, BBC, January 5, 2017
  6. ^ What makes a crime a ‘hate crime’? And would the Chicago attack qualify?, Washington Post, Janaury 5, 2017

Bk33725681 ( talk) 02:02, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Subject of AfD. ― Mandruss  ☎ 02:07, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
Why delete it? It's being covered by many big name news stations such as CNN and Fox News. Archer Rafferty ( talk) 02:34, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
I've closed the AfD. Nomination was withdrawn, and it probably would've been closed as a SNOW keep had it not been withdrawn. JudgeRM (talk to me) 02:38, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
Thet SNOW is bewildering to me. The definition of notability appears to include "got a lot of worldwide news coverage for a few days". Whatever. ― Mandruss  ☎ 02:47, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
Hey, if you really do believe so, you can renominate the article as WP:NOTNEWS later, if it applies (only time will tell if it really does). JudgeRM (talk to me) 02:49, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, but that seems backward. The article should be created after the lasting impact has been shown, not before. For all kinds of reasons including efficient use of editor resources (no wasted time developing articles that later get deleted) and elimination of problems stemming from inaccurate early reporting. Not that that reasoning stands a chance against the hordes who can't wait to create an article on the latest sensational news story. ― Mandruss  ☎ 02:55, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
I would hesitate to call this Trump related. They don't seem to be Trump supporters who deliberately did this in DT's name, or at his behest, so I don't believe that their uttering a few words with his name makes this related to him. SW3 5DL ( talk) 04:13, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
Agree. These obviously aren't the brightest bunch having posted a video of their crime. Objective3000 ( talk) 19:31, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
Totally undue here. This would be like adding every antisemitic incident to the Jews article. — JFG talk 00:36, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
I took the OP as an FYI about the new article that referred to Mr. Trump. I see multiple editors opposing content here, but none proposing it. ― Mandruss  ☎ 00:45, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

External links

Hello. As everyone knows, Donald Trump's official Twitter account and Facebook account are used personally by him as official comunications to the public. I think the cited links should be mentioned there.

Thank you all. Anjo-sozinho ( talk) 03:55, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Please see WP:ELNO#social.- Mr X 12:51, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
That will have to be revised if politicians continue to use them as primary communication channels. In the meantime I'm not opposed to some WP:IAR here, at least as to Facebook and Twitter, I don't know about his use of Instagram. ― Mandruss  ☎ 13:05, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
Anyone is free to propose changing the guideline, but they would need to make some strong arguments for ignoring WP:NOTDIR and WP:LINKFARM. Since these social media links would not improve the encyclopedia, IAR would not apply.- Mr X 13:18, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
I think the active use of them by the President elect and I, would argue, they are his main means of communication to the public would be reason to violate policy. However, might put up a rfc on this. Casprings ( talk) 13:25, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Trump's heavy usage of social media (especially Twitter) makes it permissible in this case, IMO. Edge3 ( talk) 14:36, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Let's not confuse issues here. This article is about Donald Trump, not about linking to his social media accounts one by one. Heavy or light use of these accounts still makes linking to all of them irrelevant. Obviously, a factoid can be added to the article that he uses social media frequently, if we have a reliable source that is. But what is the encyclopedic value of painstakingly linking all these accounts to this article? Do we need to spoon-feed the links to the reader for some reason? I can't see any benefits, although I can see clutter in the external links section if that proposal gets accepted. Dr. K. 15:07, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
Equivalent to linking to his official website in the infobox, but far less prominent in External links. I differ with the words "painstakingly" and "spoon-feed". ― Mandruss  ☎ 15:11, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
Still why the clutter? What encyclopedic value do these links have to offer to the reader? Providing a link to these accounts, even in the EL section, implicitly carries the message that the readers are incapable of finding them on their own. It looks like spoon-feeding the links to the readers to me. Supplying links for convenience to readers does not look encyclopedic, at least to me. Dr. K. 15:17, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
Same reasoning could apply to the website link. For that matter, everything in the article is something readers are capable of finding on their own, so you might as well argue that the article itself is superfluous. It would be different if he just used social media for the pointless casual chatter that most users use them for (I once saw a woman use Facebook to inform her friends that she had just gotten out of bed and was enjoying her first cup of coffee), but it appears that is not the case. ― Mandruss  ☎ 15:36, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
It makes sense to list Trump's Facebook and Twitter pages. He's the first presidential candidate and now president-elect to use them as a means of communication, especially with such heavy use. Trump has already stated he plans to continue to use them to communicate with the American people. They are relevant, and in this instance, Mandruss has made an excellent point with WP:IAR . I don't see this as a violation of policy, but rather as the evolution of the policy as social media gains more prominence with this president. SW3 5DL ( talk) 16:32, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
( edit conflict) @Mandruss: Nice attempt at reductio ad absurdum, but here we are not talking about verification of an encyclopedic fact but rather about standalone links to social media accounts. Such links are devoid of WP:V value. The only thing they do is direct the reader to a twitter, facebook, etc. account., not for the purpose of verifying an encyclopedic fact but for the purpose to see the tweets, facebook activity, and so on. That's not needed and it is devoid of encyclopedic value. Dr. K. 16:44, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
Hey, no fair with the Latin. If things in External links were needed for verifiability, they would be citations instead. ― Mandruss  ☎ 16:46, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
Mea culpa. I try to polish my very limited Latin from time to time. :) In any case, yes, since we don't use ELs for verifiability and there is really no compelling reason to have them at the bottom of the article, that's why we have to limit their number per the ELMINOFFICIAL guideline. Dr. K. 16:55, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
From WP:ELMINOFFICIAL: More than one official link should be provided only when the additional links provide the reader with significant unique content and are not prominently linked from other official websites. For example, if the main page of the official website for an author contains a link to the author's blog and Twitter feed, then it is not appropriate to provide links to all three. I don't see Facebook and Twitter links on the website, let alone prominent ones. ― Mandruss  ☎ 17:03, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
It is ok to include the official website and perhaps the Twitter link, since you mentioned that it does not exist in the official site. After that, Facebook, Instagram etc. are just the slippery-slope to clutter. Dr. K. 17:13, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
I am prepared to ride that slippery slope to Buzznet, Flixster, and Adult FriendFinder if he is shown to use them for substantive communication (or what a significant, non-fringe fraction of the population considers to be substantive per RS). ― Mandruss  ☎ 17:24, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

I don't think the President-elect's Twitter feed qualifies as "significant unique content". His notable Tweets are already covered by the press, and everything else is emphemera.- Mr X 17:26, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Agree with Mandruss, and others who support inclusion. The arguments against are weak and press coverage, which is largely against Trump, is not reliable. This is an encyclopedia, this is the President-elect's BLP, and his use of social media is relevant and the links to his accounts belong here. SW3 5DL ( talk) 17:34, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

RfC: Should social network links be added to the External links section?

Closing per a WP:AN request. There is consensus to include the link to the Twitter account as an exception to the guideline, but there is no consensus about including links to other social media accounts.  Sandstein  18:38, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

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.

Donald Trump's official Twitter account and Facebook account are used personally by him as official communications to the public. He has stated that as President, he will continue to use these accounts to communicate with the American people. Should links to his accounts be included in this article's External links section? 17:46, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Support or Oppose
  • Oppose - Per WP:ELNO#social, WP:NOTDIR, and WP:LINKFARM. Twitter and Facebook are already linked from the home page of President-elect Trump's https://www.greatagain.gov/ official website.- Mr X 17:53, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
    Actually, the greatagain.gov website links only to social media accounts owned by the Transition 2017 team, not Trump himself. See Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Trump has separate accounts for his own use. Edge3 ( talk) 18:50, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
    Oh, that's a good point. Obviously since this is a biography and not a transition article, the official website listed should be donaldjtrump.com, which does in fact link to all of his social media accounts.- Mr X 02:29, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
    That's an even better link. It also includes Instagram. This fully satisfies the phrasing of ELMINOFFICIAL. Dr. K. 02:53, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
    For the BLP-topic of Donald Trump we have [3] [4] [5] [6] (plus about-self-bio [7]), for the CORP-topic of The Trump Organization we have [8] [9] [10] (plus work-bio [11]), for the ORG-topic Presidential transition of Donald Trump we have [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] (plus gov-bio [17] and soon [18] or [19] which are currently 404 errors). Part of the trouble is this page currently has the wires crossed, and we list greatAgain.gov as *the* website. Similar to Ted Cruz where we only list his senate-page, not his still-active campaign-page (Cruz has his fbook + twitr listed however). Contrast with Bernie Sanders where we list bernieSanders.com + sanders.senate.gov within the infobox and also as ELs (plus a fansite about his policy-stances). Old-school wikipedia policy is exemplified by the Tom Hanks page, where we list *zero* social media ELs, despite Hanks having 5m 'likes' and 12m 'followers' on them. We have ELs galore for Bill Clinton, including two clinton-specific-sites, but no social media ones. So it is an inconsistent mess, unfortunately. 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 22:27, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose Per MrX and my comments below. Also as MrX stated, the facebook and twitter buttons are clearly visible at the bottom of the official website. They even have a Youtube button. This is a textbook case of not including the social links. Dr. K. 18:17, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Per above and above. Any idea how many social sites exist? I don't think this is a road we want to go down. Objective3000 ( talk) 18:39, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

*Support per WP:ELMINOFFICIAL - More than one official link should be provided only when the additional links provide the reader with significant unique content and are not prominently linked from other official websites. For example, if the main page of the official website for an author contains a link to the author's blog and Twitter feed, then it is not appropriate to provide links to all three. - The links at the bottom of the website's home page are not those proposed in this RfC. Upon clicking them one can see that they are for the transition team, not Trump the man (this is a bio of Trump the man). Has anyone shown that Trump does not use the personal accounts for substantive communications to the public? Not to my knowledge. Do reliable sources cover those communications to a significant degree? I believe they do. Regardless, I don't know that pictures of a bird and a lower-case f at the rarely-seen bottom of a page clear the prominence bar required by ELMINOFFICIAL. Awareness of those logos is far from widespread. ― Mandruss  ☎ 18:45, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

  • Oppose after change of infobox website link, per WP:ELMINOFFICIAL, assuming that change stands. ― Mandruss  ☎ 11:57, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Support Arguments against are weak and outdated. WP:IAR applies here. Time to bring WP into the 21st century and ignore all outdated rules. SW3 5DL ( talk) 18:53, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Support per WP:ELOFFICIAL: "it may sometimes be appropriate to provide more than one link, such as when a business has one website for the corporate headquarters and another for consumer information." The transition website is separate from Trump's personal social media accounts. Furthermore, Trump's usage of social media has caught a lot of attention from the press. Edge3 ( talk) 19:02, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Support This ongoing attempt to suppress opposing views, in this case, Trump's very own, need to stop. The entire article is begging for a pov tag while Wikipedia is being made into a mockery. if the facts are on your side there is no need to suppress anything on such flimsy basis. -- Gwillhickers ( talk) 19:27, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
    What needs to stop are your ongoing WP:AGF failures. There is no evidence of "suppressing opposing views" here, let alone the clear evidence required by AGF. What you're seeing are differences of opinion as to proper use of External links. ― Mandruss  ☎ 19:48, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
Got an edit conflict posting nearly the exact thing: What needs to stop is these constant attacks against other editors. No one is trying to suppress Trump's views by not putting a link to his Twitter account. Although you wouldn't know it by reading some of the cites given on the political articles; not everything is a conspiracy. Yet another WP:AGF violation. Objective3000 ( talk) 19:53, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
I note that many of the !votes you call conspiracy come with p&g basis, which you failed to provide in your own !vote. ― Mandruss  ☎ 19:56, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Per WP:ELNO#social, WP:NOTDIR, and WP:LINKFARM. People can go to his official website for links to these. Richard-of-Earth ( talk) 21:23, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
    His official website does not link to his personal social media profiles. There are separate social media accounts for his transition team. Edge3 ( talk) 22:24, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Support as notable sources of information about the subject (especially given that every tweet from The Donald begets a 10,000-word WP article… ) — JFG talk 22:26, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Support. He uses them to communicate directly with tens of millions of people and often the mainstream press will pick up what he says it a tweet and make it front-page news. His twitter account is probably the most important twitter account in the world right now and it should be included in the external links section. Rreagan007 ( talk) 03:29, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Support Trump's use of social media in the way he is using it (as a primary means of communication with the people) as an incoming head of state is unprecedented and the guidelines were not (and could not) have been written with a case such as his in mind. Also, guidelines are guidelines and exceptions can be appropriate, which is, I believe, what we have here. Marteau ( talk) 15:56, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment If we're going to link to these in ELs then shouldn't there be a prose paragraph about it in the text itself? Volunteer Marek ( talk) 16:24, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
Yes, definitely. I'm surprised Trump's characterization as "the social media candidate" is not yet mentioned in the article. — JFG talk 18:19, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Support as to Twitter, Oppose as to Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Reddit, VampireFreaks, NextDoor, Couchsurfing, WeeWorld, Plurk, et cetera. Because...Donald Trump's Twitter site is a subject of immense media and public interest, and if it's not in the External Links then it ought to be in the Infobox. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 16:30, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Support as to Twitter and Facebook (and YouTube). For permanency; we can expect the Infobox Website data to get reverted back to the (outdated) campaign site from time to time. Oppose as to Instagram; see his current Biography page, " Meet The President Elect", President Elect Donald J. Trump, which shows Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube only. -- Dervorguilla ( talk) 21:24, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose social media sites as External Links, except perhaps for Twitter as a second "official site". I would look favorably on proposals to change ELNO to be less restrictive in most regards, but as of now it applies. That said, I think that there is much good sourcing for an extensive section on Trump's social media presence, and it should include these accounts as citations to the primary sources, providing secondary sources citing each of those primary sources are given also. Potentially this could even end up including a table of social media links in that section, listing various data like number of followers or frequency of use. Wnt ( talk) 23:43, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
ELNO is of course a guideline for which exceptions in unusual cases are explicitly permitted. Trump is by anyone's reckoning unusual ;) Marteau ( talk) 04:11, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Support. He uses them to communicate directly with tens of millions of people and often the mainstream press will pick up what he says it a tweet and make it front-page news. For example, his twitter account is probably the most important twitter account in the world right now and it should be included in the external links section. Anjo-sozinho ( talk) 03:32, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Weak Oppose First, as a procedural matter, the RfC statement strikes me as non-neutral in tone, seeming to advocate rather clearly for one of the proposed options. Second, the term "official" as it is used in the second instance of the first sentence is clearly meaningless. If we are talking about Donald Trump as a private citizen, then what makes any kind of social media channel more or less "official" for a given individual? If we are talking about Donald Trump as the president-to-be, then no, it won't be an "official" channel in any sense, short of a formal administrative order; the fact that Trump is committed to continuing to use these accounts does not, in any legal or formal sense, make them official channels of the Office of the President, just because he occupies it while he is using them. Now, Trump could, theoretically, perhaps change that (though there are actual substantial reasons why that may be infeasible or even illegal to do so), but we have no reason to presume he will.
But those are all just incidental concerns about the way this issue has been framed. My actual substantive reason for opposing is that I don't think these links would represent useful supplemental resources for an encyclopedic summary of the topic, which I believe is a baseline evaluation that should apply to all of our content, even the outward-facing links. Clearly we will, with some frequency, be covering the content of Trump's tweets for at least the next four years--although, hopefully in a majority of cases, only after they have been covered reliable secondary sources. But just pointing at the accounts strikes me as an indiscriminate and context-less offering just for the sake of promoting everything the man has (or will) say on the account, without any encyclopedic framing. It will also open the door on validating social media accounts as de-facto acceptable links in other articles and in other contexts, an issue that I feel the broader community ought to weigh in on before greenlighting.
It's a tough call for me, because I generally view the external links section as a field for assisting our readers in reaching information that they may be interested in and which shouldn't be included in a Wikipedia article for any of a number of reasons, but on the balance of factors, I think this particular variety of link should be avoided. At the very least, we absolutely should not list it as an "official" page for Donald Trump, as this could easily mislead the reader into thinking it is an official instrument of the head of state and government of the United States, which it absolutely is not. Snow let's rap 05:17, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose Per Snow, very well stated. I have read all of the arguments and find this a slippery slope that could create a bad precedent for the encyclopedia.  g@rycompugeek  talk 12:53, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
While I totally appreciate the slippery slope argument, it can also be contended that our beloved encyclopedia should evolve with the times and reflect current means of communication. In 2005 your identity was a web site, in 2015 it's a social media profile. I believe that infoboxes about notable persons should list one social media account of their subject; it's usually fairly obvious to determine which platform is the subject's main outlet. Maybe a debate on Template talk:Infobox person would be the better venue? — JFG talk 14:23, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
Yes it would be.  g@rycompugeek  talk 18:41, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
As an aside, I'm not sure the word evolve fits. Evolution generally moves toward more complex forms. I wouldn't characterize communication via tweet rants as evolving. An editor on one of the political pages suggests we stop using the "obsolete" NYTimes or WaPo as RS and start using far-left/right wing "news" sites since this is where younger people get their news. Evolution is slow partly because most changes fail, allowing the few that are actual improvements to thrive. Objective3000 ( talk) 14:34, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
Regardless of any editor's individual judgment on the validity of "tweet rants", the issue of documenting the preferred public outlets representing notable people is a legitimate question for the wider Wikipedian community to ponder… I for one would consider Edward Snowden's Twitter feed as highly relevant to his biography and infobox. There has been a similar debate for inanimate objects such as space probes, although that's a bit more far-fetched. Regarding your discussion of RS, I think the current guidelines are fine. — JFG talk 14:54, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
I agree with Snowden as his situation allows little other communication. Trump has pretty much all communication mechanisms at his disposal as he sits in the bully pulpit. And, I'm fine with current RS guidelines. Objective3000 ( talk) 15:18, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Support - Assuming that Donald Trump on Twitter is a red link, the bare minimum would be inclusion of the Twitter feed, which is part of his essential essence. Carrite ( talk) 15:09, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Strong support for Twitter, due to the importance of this form communication from the subject of this article; weak support for the others. Deli nk ( talk) 15:27, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose based more or less on what Snow says above. The purpose of wikipedia is primarily to provide encyclopedic information, or information which would be of use to individuals seeking what is basically encyclopedic information, which is what so far as I can tell external links are supposed to provide. Few if any social networking sites provide such information, and much of the information that they might contain which might be useful to someone seeking encyclopedic information will probably be presented without clear context as to what is being said. If information on one of those sites is clearly of encyclopedic utility, I have very very little doubt that rather quickly some more reliable source will discuss it, and very possibly even quote in toto. John Carter ( talk) 18:19, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Support. Summoned by bot. Given Trump's well-known and widely reported use of social media I think such links are both encyclopedic and necessary.

Coretheapple ( talk) 21:44, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

  • Support per WP:ELOFFICIAL LavaBaron ( talk) 01:24, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support Summoned by bot. I am with Coretheapple no this one - Trump's made it pretty apparent that social media is the most effective way for him to get his message across to the people of the world. While I think it may be inappropriate to cite his social media in the body of the article, I think at the very least it is worth having his social media accounts listed as external links at the bottom of the page. Cheers Comatmebro User talk:Comatmebro 21:04, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support It's useful for people to have links to his social media there, so they don't have to go to his website. It would only add a few lines, and wouldn't crowd anything up. Adotchar| reply here 21:35, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support for Twitter, given the amount of coverage it receives. Oppose for the remainder as there's been no substantive argument for why they are in any way remarkable. TimothyJosephWood 16:58, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support - WP:ELOFFICIAL trumps WP:ELNO#social (no pun intended). Bastun Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 17:47, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
  • I lean towards qualified "support" because it's already clear that these newsfeeds will be favoured over traditional news briefings to journalists. Thus we are almost certainly witnessing a structural change. However, I wouldn't want the use of such links in this article to be a carte blanche for adding them all over the place. What about a formal trial period of, say, six months, with a review on this talkpage at that time? Just one question for the technically informed here: are such link targets stable? Tony (talk) 05:50, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support for Twitter. I agree with the supporters about the relevance to the subject's biography due to the extensive usage of the website and the notoriety of the posts made on it. Saturnalia0 ( talk) 09:17, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support for twitter. Trump's use of twitter should be discussed in the article. It is part of many of the key themes of the campaign, and continues to be a unique aspect of his communication with the American electorate. Linking it is linking a unique primary document, rather than a dogpile list of links. Oppose adding facebook, et al. for the rationale that they did not play this unique role. I understand the WP:ELIMOFFICIAL arguments and respect them and, to be sure, I agree I wouldn't want it to be precedent for other pages, but, again, Trump's twitter is unique. Chris vLS ( talk) 06:51, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support - Summoned by bot. As Chris vLS noted, I too understand the WP:ELNO argument however, the policy does state that we should "generally avoid" providing external links to social networking sites. "Generally avoid" gives some flexibility for situations like this. Because Trump has specifically stated that he intends to use his social media accounts as a means to communicate with the public, this is absolutely relevant and his accounts are worth linking. What harm does it do including them? Meatsgains ( talk) 06:56, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support . We always give the official or principal social media account, regardless of the importance or unimportance of the person,so we unquestionably should do so here. Whether we should include others, depends on their significance; we don't do it as a matter of course. We frequently do for entertainment figures, or others whose media presence is a large part of their importance, so I consider it appropriate here also. DGG ( talk ) 23:56, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support for Twitter, with other social media to be examined on a case by case basis. Mr. Trump uses his social media accounts, Twitter in particular, as instruments for direct communication with the public. He has already made important announcements regarding the form of his future administration and foreign policy via this means. IMHO WP:NOEL was not intended to be applied as strictly as some of the oppose votes seem to believe. Given the degree to which he uses it, and what it is being used for I think failing to link at least his twitter account would violate both longstanding precedent and commonsense. For those appealing to a more rigorist interpretation of NOEL we could also cite WP:COMMONSENSE. Further, I endorse the above comments by Chris vLS and DGG. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 00:19, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support Twitter for now, as being plainly relevant and a high profile presence. Oppose the others as much less significant. Trump is known for his Tweets. Guy ( Help!) 10:34, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support as to Twitter. As per other commenters, his user of Twitter is a matter of considerable news attention. This is what External Links is for. Neutral as to other social media. Robert McClenon ( talk) 17:32, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose, link spam and promotional advertising for a particular purpose, violates WP:NPOV. Sagecandor ( talk) 23:05, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Very reluctantly support inclusion of twitr (only), due to exceptional special circumstances. Primary official website of Donald Trump is www.donaldjtrump.com, but only since early 2015. [20] It existed since 2007, but as a private website and/or email-only domain name, [21] and thus as a *website* has always and only been a campaign-website, not a personal official page. Primary official website of Presidential transition of Donald Trump is www.greatAgain.gov, but only since November 2016. Primary official website of The Trump Organization is www.trump.com -- but none of these (donaldjtrump/greatagain/trump.com) currently link to his twitr and fbook feeds. Nor have they ever done so, that I could tell. With beyonce we link only to www.beyonce.com, because her main website links to her social media accounts. With Tom Hanks we do NOT link to his official website (he may not have one), and we do NOT link to his 12m-follower twitr nor his 7m-likes fbook ... which is probably INCORRECT because although those are not encyclopedic content, neither in beyonce.com! ELs are supposed to be "helpful to the reader, minimal [in number], meritable, and directly relevant". Linking to Tom Hanks's fbook-or-twitr would be helpful (readers would want it), minimal (no official website), and directly relevant (about Hanks), but might not be "meritable" since they are technically unofficial (albeit blue-check-verified) and violate WP:LINKSTOAVOID #10. So what is the deciding factor? Sources almost never mention that Tom Hanks has a twitr URL, google-news search returns 24 hits. [22] Donald Trump is a similar case: effectively he has no official website (despite his corp-job site and his guv-job site and his campaign-site) which links to his twitr, and if anything realDonaldTrump *is* the closest thing he has to an official website. Linking to Trump's twitr would be minimal (because no 'official' one links to it), as well as directly relevant and 'helpful' to the readership (they will want it). And there is merit, which overrides LINKSTOAVOID#10 and the unofficial nature, because google-news has 1400+ hits. [23] Reliable sources pay attention to Trump's twitr feed, but not to Tom Hanks's twitr feed. Since no "official" Trump website links to his twitr, and since his twitr is close to being his quasi-official internet homepage, we should link to it. Still support keeping www.greatagain.gov as the infobox-link (until January when it will become whitehouse.gov) since that is what MOST readers will be here looking to find, but the twitr should be in the EL section... and probably as the first external link, followed by his transition-team-link www.greatagain.gov (his twitr is ALL about him whereas the transition team is mostly about cabinet-picks and only secondarily about Trump qua Trump). 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 10:26, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and not a vehicle for BLPs to use "as instruments for direct communication with the public". Jschnur ( talk) 00:56, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Closing the RfC

The RfC template has been removed as the discussion period has timed out. (30 days) Furthermore, it seems there have been no additional comments since December 19, more than one week ago. Should we ask somebody to close this discussion? Edge3 ( talk) 05:02, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Done. [24] Now #31 in line. I recently saw an RfC at Village Pump hatted at the time the close was requested, [25] and that stood until the close 5 days later. [26] I guess everybody agreed that there was nothing else that could be said, and/or was preoccupied with the holidays. I don't see why an RfC should be shut down after 30 days, although it sometimes takes up to a month for one to be closed after the request has been submitted (I think that one got expedited because it was a high-profile one). ― Mandruss  ☎ 07:40, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
FYI I had already filed a close request a bit earlier. They have now been merged. — JFG talk 09:57, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

The link to the Twitter account is already included in the "External Links" section, and based on my rough reading of the discussion here, consensus seems to be strongly in favor of including the Twitter link (at a minimum). Could it be the case that we have arrived at "implicit" consensus to show the Twitter link?

Obviously, we would prefer to have an experienced editor or admin close this RfC formally. But the RfC closure requests seem to be backlogged, and if an admin is not available, then perhaps we can move on without a formal closure. Thoughts? Edge3 ( talk) 19:39, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

I've looked into this further, and I don't think it is necessary to formally close this RfC.
WP:RFCEND states the following: "If the matter under discussion is not contentious and the consensus is obvious to the participants, then formal closure is neither necessary nor advisable. Written closing statements are not required. Editors are expected to be able to evaluate and agree upon the results of most RfCs without outside assistance." This point is further reinforced in WP:ANRFC: "Many discussions result in a reasonably clear consensus, so if the consensus is clear, any editor—even one involved in the discussion—may close the discussion."
As far as I can tell, the Twitter link was added by SVTCobra on December 11. It was briefly removed then restored on December 22. Since the Twitter link has been on the page for over 3 weeks without multiple reversions, we can conclude that it is stable and supported by consensus.
Mandruss and JFG: since you both submitted the close request on WP:ANRFC, do you think we should close this on our own? Edge3 ( talk) 05:00, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
You are asserting a consensus for a question that is different from the original question. Given that a consensus can't be seen without studying and subjectively analyzing the discussion, I don't think we can say "the consensus is obvious to the participants". In such a situation, I think an outside close would yield a more durable consensus. And there is no rush to get this closed; at the current rate of progress we should have an outside close within about 13 days. ― Mandruss  ☎ 05:26, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
Looking at the discussion above, there is no slam-dunk consensus to include social network links, although there might be an emerging consensus that the Twitter link alone is justified, as an exception to the general guidelines because of Trump's usage of this feed as his main communication outlet and the strong impact of many of his tweets. The fact that the link was indeed inserted in the infobox and not forcefully rejected afterwards tends to plead in that direction. But this is still very fresh, and I believe that nobody here would be justified in closing this discussion; involved editors can only do that when the consensus is crystal clear. The best course of action is to wait out for a formal closure; the backlog is not unusual, especially for sensitive questions such as this. — JFG talk 08:39, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Proposal about the word "plurality"

Superseded by active RfC. ― Mandruss  ☎ 09:50, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Based upon the discussion above (in the last section), I'd like to suggest modifying the lead as follows, call this Version A:


The only change above is adding the last four words ("who received a plurality"). A more concise version would be Version B:

Version C is keeping it the way it is, and Version D is removing the second sentence while keeping the first. Also, Version E is deleting everything after "2016". Anythingyouwant ( talk) 18:31, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Survey about the word "plurality"

  • Support Version B (first choice), Support Version A (second choice), Support Version D (third choice), Support Version E (fourth choice), Oppose Version C. That Clinton won a plurality is notable, it's in the lead of the Hillary Clinton article, and is explicitly stated by numerous reliable sources (e.g. BBC, Washington Post, International Business Times, Real Clear Politics, et cetera). If we omit "plurality" in the lead then we ought to omit discussion of the popular vote in the lead. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 06:47, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Version E, "Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016." There is no reason this option should be off the table, if we're discussing that sentence again. Add detail below the lead. ― Mandruss  ☎ 18:11, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose change, support C (status quo) or E (trim) – The current wording clearly conveys the message that Trump received fewer votes nationwide, or equivalently that Clinton received more. This article is Trump's biography, so it is more natural to keep him the sentence's subject. Adding the notion that Clinton received a plurality of the popular vote is best explained at the election page, or on her own biography; it does not bring value in the lead of Trump's bio. Besides the status quo, I would also support a trimmed version without the voting details, but then we need to mention Hillary Clinton somehow, so we could say: Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016 against his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. Still, the current version looks stronger to me. — JFG talk 05:59, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
    I support modification of E as per above. It's not like a bunch of people have !voted for it. ― Mandruss  ☎ 06:10, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Discussion about the word "plurality"

Comment: You need a version that mentions Trump broke the blue wall, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin, and won Ohio and Florida. That is a historic victory and should be mentioned. And as far as the coastal states that Clinton won, Trump did not campaign there. He used modeling to determine what states he needed to win, just like Obama did in the 2008 primary. Those are the states Trump focused on, and those are the states he won. SW3 5DL ( talk) 15:04, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but all this "historic victory" narrative you keep trying to push is unwarranted. Trump's electoral college win was, in point of fact, quite ordinary and unremarkable when compared to previous elections. Although he did well in the electoral college, in several states it could've gone either way and flipped the result. The existing text, the result of two previous discussions, is more than sufficient to describe what happened. -- Scjessey ( talk) 15:40, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
Show me reliable sources that call his historic victory ordinary. Even CNN acknowledges he broke the blue wall. [27]. It was an historic win. A non-politician beats a career politician, and the first woman candidate for president. He wins blue states that had not gone Republican in a very long time. He used modeling to tell him which states he needed to win, just like Obama did in 2008. Yes, it was historic. Not at all ordinary. SW3 5DL ( talk) 16:13, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
If the sun comes up, CNN will call it breaking news. Objective3000 ( talk) 16:18, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
@ SW3 5DL: It is ordinary. Trump ranked only 46th by Electoral College margin, which is statistically a rubbish performance. It is clear Trump won by the skin of his teeth thanks to Russia leaking hacked material to WikiLeaks and an outrageous (and possibly illegal) act by James Comey. Your attempt to paint Trump's win as anything other than unremarkable is hilarious. -- Scjessey ( talk) 18:21, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
It certainly was a surprising upset, biggest one since 1948. Pollsters focused so much on national polls, they neglected the state polls. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 18:37, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
(e/c) I think Scjessey is not wanting to see the point. It was historic for a businessman who has never held office to win the highest office in the land. It was historic that he broke the blue wall. It was historic on many levels including the behavior of the main stream media, etc. But at the end of the day, here's why Hillary lost: Hillary failed to campaign and 'go to every fish fry' like Obama and Trump. She engaged in pay for play while SecState and put it in emails. It was the content of the emails that lost it for her. The Russians or the Martians or WikiLeaks, or whoever got hold of her emails didn't do it. She did it. Notice, she's never denied what was in the emails. It was just the main stream media chose not to mention that big elephant in the room. SW3 5DL ( talk) 19:26, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
Accusing Clinton of "pay for play" is a WP:BLP vio. Objective3000 ( talk) 19:31, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
There’s no question that the results were surprising. But, if you look at Nate Silver’s win probability chart over time, there were wild swings in polling predictions over the last months. In any case, while the word “historical” may make some sense in a general article about polling; I don’t see it here. Since the set of presidential elections is so small, you can find numerous facts about every election that are unique. And I suppose you could even argue that every presidential election is “historical”. And yes it makes sense to point out some of the unique features of this election. But, the concept that a close election resulting in a win by a well-known, rich, white male from a major party is a “historic victory” seems a huge stretch. Objective3000 ( talk) 19:20, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
Well using the race angle of a 'rich white male' applies if you're talking about career politicians who've never done anything else in life, like Paul Ryan. SW3 5DL ( talk) 19:29, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
SW3, come on, let's not soapbox. There's already enough to do around here! Cheers. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 19:47, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, no one objects to Version B, so I plan on installing it tomorrow (Wednesday). I would install Version E, but people have made comments elsewhere on this page inconsistent with Version E. Version B can always be changed to Version E if a consensus for the latter develops. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 04:14, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
@ Anythingyouwant: I don't think it would be wise to publish your suggested version with very little participation from other editors. "No one objects" doesn't mean "There is consensus". I didn't bother to comment earlier because I was nonplussed by all your suggestions, but now I will explicitly object (with a rationale, see above)… — JFG talk 05:59, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
Per WP:Consensus, "Consensus can be assumed if no editors object to a change." Since you have objected, I will not make the change. However, the material now in the lead suggests that Clinton rather than Trump won a majority of the popular vote, which is false, and is very easily corrected. Only two candidates are mentioned in the lead, which implies that one won a majority and the other did not, and Version B corrects this problem using even less words than the current version. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 06:10, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
Because I think the sentence in question makes the lead preposterously misleading, I have left it alone but added some material to a later sentence in the lead: "At age 70, Trump will become the oldest and wealthiest person to assume the presidency, the first without prior military or governmental service, and the fourth to be elected with less than a plurality of the national popular vote (emphasis added). Anythingyouwant ( talk) 12:11, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Support for Provisional IRA?

Discussion initiated by banned editor HarveyCarter — Preceding unsigned comment added by Beyond My Ken ( talk • contribs) 23:42, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Shouldn't the fact he attended an IRA fundraiser be mentioned? ( AndyTyner ( talk) 12:09, 3 January 2017 (UTC))

You would need cast-iron sourcing for such a claim. -- Scjessey ( talk) 13:14, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
I've seen the video. But, he used to show up at fundraisers without invitation and without any support for the causes. For all we know, he may not have even known what the IRA was. Without an RS that states he actually supported the IRA, there could be BLP problems. Objective3000 ( talk) 14:39, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
I Googled this and it's not looking like a reliable claim. Not even a comment from Jerry Adams, who would probably not keep it a secret that Donald Trump supported the IRA, which is disbanded now, btw. SW3 5DL ( talk) 15:52, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Remember this is the wikipedia article for the President-elect of the United States, not a gossip column or fake news site. Reliable sources needed, not hearsay SomewhereInLondon ( talk) 16:04, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Well, it's not hearsay. Guardian independent. I'm just uncomfortable with the conclusions that could be drawn as he tended to go to lots of fundraisers just for the photo ops. I think it's WP:UNDUE. Objective3000 ( talk) 16:31, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
An important distinction, the sources describe it as a fundraiser for Sinn Féin, specifically Friends of Sinn Féin, and not the IRA. -- zzuuzz (talk) 16:25, 3 January 2017 (UTC
(e/c) It's also from 1995 and the Guardian and Independent are obviously looking to gin up something. I wouldn't pay it any mind. SW3 5DL ( talk) 16:38, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
In any case it was more than 20 years ago, and I'm not aware of him doing anything to overtly support Sinn Fein or the IRA then or since. Chances are he went to this just as part of his normal routine of networking and self-promotion. Mentioning it would be UNDUE and a form of (IMO unwarranted) guilt by association. -- MelanieN ( talk) 16:35, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
@ Zzuuzz: Just to be clear, at the time we are talking about there was no fundamental difference between Sinn Féin and the IRA. Fundraising on behalf of Sinn Féin was exactly the same as providing support to a terrorist organization. If the association between Trump and Sinn Féin was solid (and I don't believe there is sufficient RS to say there was), it would be a pretty serious matter. But the sourcing isn't great and the association appears minimal at best, which is why I agree with Objective3000 that is would be undue weight. -- Scjessey ( talk) 17:03, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
The matter is already covered adequately at Ireland–United States relations: "Trump attended an IRA fundraiser with Gerry Adams, shortly before the IRA bombed Canary Wharf." That article provides the necessary context, i.e. that Adams had been received at the White House earlier the same year. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 17:15, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
That edit makes it sound like Donald Trump had something to do with the bombing of Canary Wharf and seems a WP:BLP violation and should be rewritten. Unless there are sources connecting Trump to the bombing, then it seems to be a deliberate attempt to connect him with a crime he had nothing to do with. SW3 5DL ( talk) 17:51, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
The edit looks innocent to me. But, is why this is undue for the article as some would infer such. Objective3000 ( talk) 17:55, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
If the bombing had occurred before the fundraiser, then Trump might arguably be blamed for associating with an organization that he knew had done that. But the bombing happened after, not before, which tends to get Trump off the hook. Anyway, the material does not belong in this article at all. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 18:38, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
Could Trump have attended the fundraiser without donating money himself? This is bound to be a major issue if he appoints IRA supporter Peter King to any position, as the IRA had not ended its violent campaign in 1995. ( AndyTyner ( talk) 14:12, 4 January 2017 (UTC)) note: comment moved from unnecessary new section below. -- Scjessey ( talk) 14:16, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
Everyone who attended that fundraiser had to donate $200 to get in. I don't see any reliable sources saying Trump contributed beyond that door fee, although it is certainly possible. -- Scjessey ( talk) 14:18, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
If it becomes an issue, then we'll revisit. Objective3000 ( talk) 14:27, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
@ Scjessey: Agree with Objective3000. If it becomes an issue, and if there are reliable sources that say Donald Trump paid to get into the fundraiser. Celebrities are also invited to gin up the event and are not expected to pay. Just being there doesn't mean anything. He was a real estate developer and went everywhere to everything. Also, was the fundraiser actually held by Sinn Fein or was it really sponsored by one of the Irish societies? That's more likely who held the event. Big difference there. Also, The Guardian is a tabloid and is not a reliable source. They brought back this story from 1995 in November 2015 for click bait. They wrapped alot of non-Trump with it. SW3 5DL ( talk) 16:25, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
The Guardian is very much a reliable source. The news that the Provos have disbanded seems to have bypassed the Irish government, security forces, and courts. Those facts aside, agree this isn't worthy of inclusion. Bastun Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 16:40, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
"The Guardian" is a broadsheet, not a tabloid. There was only a temporary ceasefire in 1995 so even $200 would have contributed to the terrorist campaign when it resumed in February 1996. ( AndyTyner ( talk) 10:33, 5 January 2017 (UTC))

You might want to look back at all the history, which includes the dates and the circumstances. President Bill Clinton gave Gerry Adams permission to fundraise in America just before St. Pat's Day in March 1995. He also had Adams to the White House. New York Governor Pataki met with Gerry Adams, as did US State Dept personnel and Cardinal O'Conner, the Archbishop of New York. The Guardian claims this fundraiser occurred "just before" the Docklands incident. However, the fundraiser was held in March 1995. The Docklands attack occurred in February 1996, nearly a year later. The only thing of note that happened before the attack was the November, 1995 visit by President and Mrs. Clinton to Northern Ireland where they met with Gerry Adams, among others. They most certainly had nothing to do with the attack and neither did President-elect Trump. Ginning up the story for click bait is what makes the Guardian a tabloid and not reliable on this. SW3 5DL ( talk) 16:29, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

"The Guardian" is not a tabloid, it's a broadsheet. The fundraiser was in November 1995. ( 2A00:23C4:638C:4500:B0FC:5CF6:3969:12F5 ( talk) 19:49, 5 January 2017 (UTC))
Gerry Adams fundraiser at Essex House March 1995 so says the New York Times. Has nothing about Donald Trump other than to name him in the caption of the photo, which The Guardian, in it's best tabloid behavior, used to gin the click bait story. SW3 5DL ( talk) 22:04, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
Your opinion that it's a "clickbait" story from a tabloid is not borne out by the fact that it was covered by multiple reliable broadsheet sources, including the Guardian and the Independent. (And it's Saint Patrick's Day, St Paddy's Day, or just Paddy's Day. Never "St. Pat.") Bastun Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 23:09, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
It's not an original story. You do understand that, right? The Guardian wrote a story back in November 2015 taking a photo from 1995 by the New York Times that did have a story about the Gerry Adams fund raiser but did not feature Donald Trump at all except in a photo. You understand that right? The Guardian doesn't have an original story from March 1995 claiming Donald Trump did anything. And I'll call it what I please. I could call it St. Shite's Day for all the trouble this Guardian tabloid style story caused around here yesterday. SW3 5DL ( talk) 23:42, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
Keep in mind that The Guardian is a British paper; and the IRA is rather a sensitive subject in the UK. I don't think this discussion is particularly useful. Objective3000 ( talk) 23:50, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
You do understand your condescending tone doesn't help your argument, right? You do understand repeating something you believe doesn't make it true, right? Bastun Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 09:28, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
Objective3000, where The Guardian is published really is irrelevant. Even on articles related to the Troubles, nobody would argue for the exclusion of a source on that basis. In any case, the story has been covered by multiple reliable sources including not only the (UK) Independent and Telegraph but also the Irish Independent (December '16), the Irish Times (December '15), the (pro-Irish Republican) Irish Central (August '15), and a few thousand more... Bastun Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 09:28, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
Bastun, I was not arguing against inclusion for that reason. I was only saying that it's not surprising that The Guardian covered this recently given where it is published. I do believe that inclusion in this article is undue weight. But, it may make sense to include at Ireland–United States relations. Objective3000 ( talk) 12:11, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

non-arbitrary break

Hey, people - when something offensive has been posted, don't just ask for revdel - first DELETE it, immediately. As long as it hasn't been deleted, it continues to show up on all subsequent edits. Sorry for revdeling a bunch of your edits, but they were "tainted" with the offensive stuff. -- MelanieN ( talk) 02:08, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. My first instinct was to delete or hat. But, was afraid it wouldn't have been revdeled if I did. And, frankly, wanted to play out a bit more rope to stop a repeat. Objective3000 ( talk) 02:13, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
Thanks Melanie. I was thinking the very same as Objective3000. Worried that if I deleted it, it would cause problems. Sorry, next time, I'll let you know asap. SW3 5DL ( talk) 02:24, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
Delete on sight. And THEN holler for a revdel. And a block, of course; nobody had done that yet either. The block may or may not help; that type of user address changes frequently. If he reappears and starts doing this stuff again, delete at once and holler for me or any other admin that you see is online. -- MelanieN ( talk) 02:30, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
It's a missed learning opportunity for me, since I never saw the offensive material. Maybe some generous soul could email me. ― Mandruss  ☎ 03:02, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
Just to add to the "lesson" (sorry you missed it, Mandruss): There are actually two reasons to delete it right away without waiting for an admin. One is that the longer it stays "live" on the page, the more subsequent material has to be revdel'ed. The other, more important reason: the whole point is to get it out of sight. If you delete it, that gets it out of sight for 99% of the people who come to the page. Cleaning up the history is a minor tidying-up operation, since hardly anyone even knows about the history. One other lesson: when you posted to me about the other article, I was at dinner so it was more than an hour before I got the message. Most people, when in need of a revdel or an emergency block or something like that, ask three or four admins - and whoever gets the message first carries it out. -- MelanieN ( talk) 03:49, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
This story illustrates that we should let rely on reliable sources to determine what is important rather than look for stories we think the mainstream has ignored and waste editors' time on investigating them. At the time, Sein Fein was involved in peace talks and the U.S. had agreed to treat them as legitimate parties in the UK-Irish peace talks rather than as terrorists. So Trump's appearance with Sein Fein, not the Provos IIRC, had little significance. This was discussed earlier btw. TFD ( talk) 04:02, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
@ The Four Deuces:, the source itself was a joke. In November 2015, The Guardian reprinted an article from 1995. It was entirely taken out of context, not reliable at all, and obviously an attempt to make it seem like Trump was involved with all that had been going on. Totally inappropriate but it kept getting argued that it was all right. SW3 5DL ( talk) 05:20, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
@MelanieN - Wikipedia:Oversight begins with: "The fastest way to request oversight is to email the oversight team." I assume that means it's the fastest way to receive oversight, but I could be wrong. ― Mandruss  ☎ 04:04, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
In my experience, the fastest way to receive revdel -- which is different from oversight and I believe there is no IRC channel for that -- is using #wikipedia-en-revdel connect which is listed as one of the channels at the fairly-easy-to-remember WP:IRC shortcut. You can also email for revdel, too, but the IRC method gives instant gratification -- if there is an admin there, you can get an immediate acknowledgement that they are aware of the problem. The advantage to using IRC or email for alerting the admin (as opposed to usertalk of indivuidual or multiple individual admins) is that you do not have a lot of on-wiki activity which contains the phrase 'revdel' or the phrase 'oversight' ... theoretically that is a risk that could be capitalized on by a wikipedia-criticism-site intentionally (people with an axe to grind over lack of verified-blue-check-usernames for example), or a wikipedia-scraper-crawler unintentionally (search engines and CCBYSA re-users). This is a rare situation where off-wiki channels are better than on-wiki. And often fast(er). See also, Streisand effect. 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 05:40, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi @ MelanieN:, I did put together an ANI, then I saw on that page that for revdels I should email oversight. I sent off all the info to the email listed at ANI, and then waited. When I saw things getting worse, that's when I went to ANI and ask if any admins were about. I found one admin but he was going to bed. Then I remembered you're an admin and came to your talk page. You edit here so naturally I think of you as an editor. And you never pull the admin rank, so you blend right in. Thanks for getting on that so fast. SW3 5DL ( talk) 04:56, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

At this page I do function as a regular editor - and I don't normally do any admin stuff since I am WP:INVOLVED. But at need I can step into the phone booth and change into my Superman costume. 0;-D -- MelanieN ( talk) 05:15, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
And you did it so well. Well done, Superman. SW3 5DL ( talk) 05:18, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
@ Mandruss: WP:Oversight is different from WP:RevDel. Oversight is a complete and total obliteration of the edit, such that even admins can't see it. Oversight is very rare and it is probably not what you need. Most of the time in a situation like this you will be looking for a garden-variety revdel which any admin can do. You can ask individual admins, or you could post at AN asking for a revdel and you would probably get quick action. BTW any time you are asking for a revdel in public (as opposed to email), be sure not to repeat or explain the material you are asking to have revdel'ed! 0;-D -- MelanieN ( talk) 04:30, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
P.S. This could be useful at need: Category:Wikipedia administrators willing to handle RevisionDelete requests. -- MelanieN ( talk) 04:39, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
I see, so the mystery material was not oversight fodder. I'll try WP:AN next time. If that works within a reasonable amount of time, one post there is certainly easier than four posts on four user talk pages. And the responding admin can add a comment so that nobody else wastes precious seconds looking into it. ― Mandruss  ☎ 04:45, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
@ Mandruss: Yes, actually ANI gives you the email of Oversight for BLP violaitons that need to be deleted. I just followed the instructions there. Also sent you an email. SW3 5DL ( talk) 05:06, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
So some of you did email the oversighters? I will be curious to know if (and when) you get a reply. Meanwhile, a suggestion has been posted above that there is a dedicated IRC channel for revdel requests. That could get you a response in real time. -- MelanieN ( talk) 05:51, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
@ MelanieN: I did email the oversighters and will let you know if I hear back. SW3 5DL ( talk) 16:27, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk:Donald_Trump/Archive_42&oldid=1136731050"
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 35 ← Archive 40 Archive 41 Archive 42 Archive 43 Archive 44 Archive 45

restart section about whether Trump identifies as a conservative

References

  1. ^ http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/donald-trump-im-a-conservative-jeb-bush-121554

Does this look okay? Mainspace previously said "Trump identifies as a conservative" but it was removed as being unsourced. See existing Talk:Donald_Trump#.22Trump_identifies_as_a_conservative.2C_and....22 for previous discussion with Tataral and SPECIFICO (courtesy ping in case they want to add anything). 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 00:15, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

It is more correct that he said it during a debate. You would need a reliable secondary source that explains how he self-identifies. TFD ( talk) 01:13, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
As a general principle, a primary source may well suffice for self identification. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 05:57, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
Disagree. There is no policy-based reason to do so and it fails "Self-published or questionable sources as sources on themselves" as it is unduly self-serving or questionable. Note we do not say that Bernie Sanders is a "democratic socialist," but that he describes himself as such. And there are a huge number of secondary sources that say he describes himself that way. We do not call Hillary Clinton a "progressive," although she has claimed to be one. (The claim is dubious.) The article on Tony Blair mentions that he calls himself a "democratic socialist," but does not say he is. There are plenty of sources that question whether Trump is a conservative and no guarantee that he would claim to be one if there were no advantage in doing so. TFD ( talk) 15:00, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
Not really seeing the unduly self-serving or questionable; particularly w.r.t. inclusion as an (self-)attributed statement. I make no suggestion that a primary source is sufficient for us to include definitive categorisation of a person in line with their identification of themselves; it's clearly not. I do suggest that a primary source of Person X saying "I am a Y" is sufficient for us to say Person X self-identifies as a Y or Person X has described themselves as a Y. Outside our political articles, this type of sourcing is more than sufficient for an (self-)attributed statement. Both Sanders & Blair include attributed statements of self-identification. I would have no issue if these were sourced to statements made by Sanders & Blair, respectively. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 21:54, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
TFD, according to Politico, which is a reliable source for what Trump said in terms of accurately reporting the content methinks, Trump called himself "somewhat conservative" and then went on to say how Reagan was "pretty conservative". It is pretty much the definition of WP:ABOUTSELF that we need to use a direct quote from the subject, to say what they self-identify as. How else could we conceivably get such information? It can be a book they wrote, an interview they gave, or whatever. Saying it in a debate counts, perhaps more than writing it in a diary published post-humously, because Trump was saying it to define himself (aka self-identify) to the wider audience. It is like being a member of the Republican party -- it is a statement about his value-system. Whether it is true aka a reflection of reality, hardly matters. Sanders is not in any realistic sense a socialist independent: he caucuses with the member of the Democratic party, he tends to vote with the members of the Democratic party, and he ran as a candidate for the Democratic party nomination to the presidency. None of which impacts his *self-identification* obviously. Trump has plenty of sourced characterizations of his actual stances: populist/nationalist/protectionist. That is what he is. But he definitely does self-identify as somewhat conservative, and that too is part of what he is; whether it speaks to his aspirations, or whether he is pandering to the crowd, or whether he is completely unaware of what he really truly is deep down, or whether he truly *is* in fact 'somewhat conservative' and the pundits that say he is populist/nationalist/protectionist will turn out to be wrong a few years from now... none of that matters. If you still disagree that politico is a 'reliable source' to verify the facts about what Trump said he identified as, please explain what you *would* actually consider a reliable source? I agree that it would be self-serving to use the Politico source to say "Trump is conservative just like Reagan" because clearly THAT would be self-serving... but I don't see any problem with saying "Trump self-identifies as quote somewhat conservative unquote and has been identified as populist/nationalist/protectionist/semiIsolationist/antiEstablishment/etc. This is the language from Political positions of Hillary Clinton: "Clinton has stated that she prefers the term 'progressive'...Clinton said: 'I consider myself a modern progressive'... 'I'm a progressive who likes to get things done'..." Whether she was saying that because she really believes she meets the definition, or whether she was saying that to appeal to a key voting-bloc, is not really the question. Actual progressives, self-identified and otherwise, generally voted for Clinton in 2016, and actual conservatives voted for Trump, so there is a larger point being made here; their self-identification helps explain their winning the nominations of their respective parties (i.e. was reciprocated to a greater or lesser degree). Nobody would argue that Clinton was the *most* progressive candidate in 2016, but we do utilized a ref which says she 'aligned' herself with that faction, or that Trump was the *most* conservative candidate in 2016. But I see self-identification as important, not trivia. (Contrast with the discussions about favorite ice cream further down this page :-) See also the 'moderate conservative' label which OnTheIssues gave Trump recently, plus variations going back to 2003 which have been some subgroup of 'conservative' since 2011, and some subgroup of 'populist' in earlier years. 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 22:51, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
An off the cuff statement in one speech does not count. People say different things at different times to different groups of people depending on how they are feeling at the moment. If Trump self-identifies as a conservative, then you should find a source that says that. Presumably the author will be familiar with the various things that Trump has said and be able to decide whether his statement is consistent with whatever else he has said. And if no one has made this observation then according to weight it is insignificant. My opinion is that since Trump only said it once, it was self-serving, and Trump is inconsistent in his statements, that journalists decided this isolated statement was insufficient to say Trump self-identifies as a conservative. That is my original research as an amateur Trumpologist, but it is as valid as your original research. TFD ( talk) 23:28, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
Ah, I understand what you are saying now. You would prefer that we have some analysis work by a secondary source, which in addition to just reporting what Trump said at time t, has also looked over his other statements, and his actions, and come to some broader conclusions than just Trump-said-this-once. So in other words, you want something the equivalent of a literature review, before this phrase is put into the lead-paragraphs of Donald Trump? Which may exist, I don't know, we'll see if I can turn something up. But in the meantime, is it correct to assume that you have no objections to adding the 'somewhat-conservative' quote per politico, to supplement the existing paragraphs over at Political_positions_of_Donald_Trump#In_his_own_words? Thanks 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 13:58, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
You are making it too complex. "Primary, secondary and tertiary sources" says, "All analyses and interpretive or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, and must not be an original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors." The reasoning is that reporters are familiar with the subject and can apply judgement. We "rely" on them to use judgment in what they report, and for their newspapers to either fact check or publish retractions of errors, hence what they write are "reliable sources." Wikipedia editors are supposed to rely on reliable sources rather than apply their own judgments to primary sources. Furthermore we are supposed to report, per "Balancing aspects", information in proportion to its reporting in reliable sources. If secondary sources ignore a fact, then so should we. We "rely" on the writers of reliable sources to determine what is important and what is not. It could be that you are an expert Trumpologist and know he self-identifies as a conservative and know that fact is important. But the test is what reliable sources report, not what we think. TFD ( talk) 21:25, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
Okay, I see from looking at your original reply up above, part of what you are objecting to is the specific phrasing... which I didn't catch because I really do not consider 'Trump self-identifies as quote somewhat conservative unquote' to be any sort of analytical claim, it is just shorthand for what Politico reported he said. But you would rather we say something like this: 'During the [specify context here] debate on mm/dd/yyyy Trump said quote [longer soundbite with fuller context] unquote' or similar, for correctness/accuracy/context. Which is fine by me, as something that might fit into the paragraphs over at the In_own_words subsection of the political stances article, but too wordy for the lead-paragraphs here obviously. That said, now that you have pointed it out, though, I do agree with you that not many sources cover Trump's self-identification, at present, which strongly suggests it should not yet be in the lead-paragraph of this biographical article. I'm still digging through refs for the other article, but I will try and remember to ping you when I get around to messing with that one. 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 05:17, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Two minor tweaks I still suggest:

Suggest junking the 'scholars and commentators' stuff as WP:PUFFERY, if they weren't reliable sources we would not be using wikivoice. Also, wikilink 'positions' to the article on Trump's positions. 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 05:22, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Trump was not considered as a running mate for in 1992

Now in the section for Involvement in Politics, 1988-2015, it originally said Trump was considered for the 1988 Presidential election as Bush Sr's running mate, but that contradicts the source which mentions it was the 1992 race. But right after that it brings up Trump as a potential running mate for the 1988 presidential race. Now I looked this up and the source already here by The Hill is the only one that mentions the 1992 race being associated with Trump.

Not only that, but Bush Sr's apparent quote mentioning it "strange and unbelievable", which according to The Hill was in his diary, is not found anywhere but that one source. Which I sincerely doubt would be the case if it was real. I recommend deleting this part, of course he was considered in 1988 since multiple sources back that up, but it is highly doubtful he was considered in 1992 and Bush Sr mentioning him. I suggest deletion. Archer Rafferty ( talk) 11:23, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

I think you are right and it should be deleted. The sourcing is weak and contradictory. One source, a biographical book, says Trump proposed himself to Lee Atwater and Bush thought it was a terrible idea. The other source, Trump himself, claims Atwater approached him about it. Nobody else has picked up on the story. I am going to delete the whole section - 1988 and 1992 - subject to further discussion at this talk page. -- MelanieN ( talk) 21:34, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
Agree. Delete. SW3 5DL ( talk) 22:46, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Neither candidate won a majority of the national popular vote

The lead was recently edited as follows:

The edit summary said: "There is consensus NOT to add numbers here; that includes percentages. Discuss on talk page if you think this should be included." I do think it should be included, or we could say in words that neither candidate received a majority of the national popular vote, but the numbers are much more informative and concise.

The main text of the Wikipedia article says this:

References

  1. ^ Price, Greg. "Popular Vote Update: Why Hillary Clinton Didn't Win A Majority Of The Electorate", International Business Times (November 17, 2016).
  2. ^ Leip, David (December 20, 2016). "2016 Presidential General Election Results". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Newton, Massachusetts. Retrieved December 20, 2016.

So, there's no question that the percentages (48% to 46%) were accurate, and that they show neither candidate reached a majority. I think this is important and concise info to have in the lead, for several reasons: e.g. it shows that Clinton's popular vote win was not enough to put her over 50%, and it also shows that third party candidates may very well have determined who the next president is. Rarely does a lead get such a big bang from such a small number of characters added, though we could instead say that she "received a plurality rather than a majority of the national popular vote" if we prefer verbosity. (Notice that insertion of the percentages did not revert anything, but rather was an addition to the sentence, and so I don't know whether removing the percentages would be exempt from 1RR, per the pertinent talk page section above.)

As mentioned, the edit summary removing this info claimed a consensus against including it. I disagree. A talk page section above also claims there is consensus for, "Lead phrasing of Trump gaining a majority of the U.S. Electoral College and receiving a smaller share of the popular vote nationwide, without quoting numbers. ( link, link 2)" (emphasis added). Let's look at those last two links.

At the first link, User:Markbassett said, "going into Clinton or numbers of votes should be in the election article not the Trump article". I have not suggested putting numbers of votes into any part of this BLP. Percentages are different, more concise, and more informative than raw numbers of votes. At the second link, that talk page proposal did not even involve any percentages, just raw numbers of votes. I oppose drawing inferences about one thing from a survey about another thing, especially without support from any closing summary.

As far as I can tell, the only editor during those two cited discussions who arguably opposed including any percentages was User:JFG who said: "Imagine the text: Trump won a whopping 50% more states than his opponent, a much wider margin than Barack Obama's two terms." But the sentence in question already includes numbers ("November 8, 2016"), so let's consider each proposal for numbers on its own merits. Neither of the two cited "consensuses" included any consensus to omit "48%" or "46%" or even mentioned any percentage of the national popular vote. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 19:21, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

@ Anythingyouwant: Thanks for the ping. All such details about the election are worth including in the election page, not in the lead of Trump's bio. My argument, which you quoted in part, was that adding any number would invite adding other numbers and people would start edit-warring over which numbers are more significant: electoral college, popular vote, states won, counties won, absolute numbers or percentages of the above, historical comparisons, the possibilities are endless and can delve into partisanship quite fast… People who want details are just one click away from them. And to your side argument, the election date is not a "number" representing the level of support of either candidate, thus it's harmless and could very well be in another sentence depending on general copyediting of the lead section. — JFG talk 21:02, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
Any number about support levels could instead be expressed in words, and vice versa, so I don't see why we should prefer words over numbers. That said, I would be okay with writing the sentence in question like this: "Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016, gaining a majority of electoral college votes, while receiving a smaller share of the popular vote nationwide than Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, whose share was less than a majority." Anythingyouwant ( talk) 22:16, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
1. That's too long a sentence in my opinion. To add that would require a second sentence, as "Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016, gaining a majority of electoral college votes, while receiving a smaller share of the popular vote nationwide than Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. Neither candidate received a majority of the popular vote." 2. But, just to complicate the discussion, I think the appropriate content for the lead of this bio article is: "Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016." 3. I disagree with JFG's slippery-slope argument, as we would be able to stop any such slide at any point we deemed appropriate. ― Mandruss  ☎ 23:17, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
If we say in the lead that Clinton got more of the national popular vote, then I strongly support also saying that she didn't get a majority (which implies it wasn't a blowout and the third party candidates were very influential). But I would also support merely saying "Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016." Either way is okay, in my opinion. It might be best to start the first way, and after a few months (as the election recedes) switch to the second way. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 00:00, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
We've been through this twice already. We agreed not to say that she "won" the popular vote, although many reliable sources do, and that we would not say that she got a "majority " of the popular vote because she didn't. The percentages and numbers are quite properly included in the text of the article. Not in the lede, as you knew, and I am surprised you would suddenly add percentages in the face of all the previous discussion. My opinion is this has no place in the lede. A "smaller share" is accurate and concise and was agreed to in TWO previous discussions. The difference between the electoral college vote and the popular vote is enormous and historic, but we don't put the size of the difference in the lede. We don't point out in the lede that this was only the fifth time this has happened. Just the historically important fact that they were different. The rest of the stuff goes in the text. MelanieN alt ( talk) 03:37, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
I wasn't involved in any discussions about that. Anyway, the lead of the Hillary Clinton article says that she received a " plurality" of the national popular vote. That fact belongs in this lead too, if the lead refers to her share of the popular vote. The word "plurality" is not a number. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 05:32, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
@ MelanieN:, you shouldn't add to your comment after someone has replied to it. SW3 5DL ( talk) 04:05, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

He won 31 states. He won the majority of the country, he brought out more voters among whites, blacks and latinos than any other Republican candidate in recent history, he won the electoral college, and both houses of Congress. He beat her like a drum. She won coastal states, prominent among them California and New York which allow illegals to have driver's licenses and allow them to register to vote at the DMV. But I agree it does not belong in the lede. SW3 5DL ( talk) 03:47, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Reliable sources routinely note that Clinton received more votes. They do not routinely mention the percentages or the fact the Clinton did not receive a majority of votes. The lead should not go beyond what sources routinely note. It seems to me that we are getting distracted by what makes one candidate look better rather than just following what sources say. TFD ( talk) 05:45, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
I think it is worth saying that Clinton got more votes.-- Jack Upland ( talk) 06:41, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
Reliable sources routinely say that Clinton got 48%, but we have adopted an artificial rule against using numbers in the lead notwithstanding what reliable sources say. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 06:47, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
She did receive 48% of ballots nationwide, and Trump received 46%, there is no questioning these facts. However, mentioning this particular fact would be giving undue weight to a yardstick which is not relevant to the US presidential election system. I'm not against adding any number because it happens to be a number, I'm against emphasizing one number against another, and as we have dozens of potentially interesting numbers to add, I maintain that adding none is the wisest way to go. This is a biography, not an election page. — JFG talk 08:36, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
It's not relevant to the US presidential election system that Clinton got more of the popular vote. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 08:43, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
Agree with TFD, JFD, et al. Also, if you want to make Clinton appear that she won something, you would need to mention that Trump broke the "blue wall." He won states that in the past have always gone to Democrats. Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan. He also took Ohio and Florida. He won the majority of the states. The majority of the country. She was the biggest loser, not the biggest winner. His victory is historic in many ways, including he's a non-politician, never held office, contributed to his campaign, and won traditionally Democrat states. As he would say, he won huge. SW3 5DL ( talk) 15:00, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
...but got less votes.-- Jack Upland ( talk) 16:50, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
LOL, but got more of the votes that count. SW3 5DL ( talk) 17:26, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
Was it a "yuge" or "bigly" win? Did his opponent get "shellaced" or "schlonged"? Quick, an RfC! — JFG talk 00:04, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Historic win:

His win was historic, but it wasn't huge. He won by 80,000 votes in 3 states. No, I don't think that should be in the lede. As electoral college victories go, his was 46th out of 58; [1] it was not a landslide. No, I'm not suggesting that go in the lede either. But the simple fact that he got fewer electoral popular votes than someone else is dramatic and rare enough (fifth time in history) that it needs to be in the lede. -- MelanieN ( talk) 21:08, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
Not huge by numbers. Huge by in historic terms. Historic was my point, and I earlier stated I don't think any of it should be in the lede unless there is mention of the circumstances. Just saying fifth time in history that popular vote higher, means very little. America is a representative republic, not a democracy.. SW3 5DL ( talk) 22:51, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
I think that should definitely go in the lead: Trump was not democratically elected.-- Jack Upland ( talk) 00:08, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
@ Jack Upland: I beg your pardon? Are you seriously contending that the US democratic process is dysfunctional or wasn't followed properly? — JFG talk 11:09, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
Sounds like the new fringe narrative. An attempt to Birther Trump maybe? SW3 5DL ( talk) 16:50, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
Democracy is a much broader term than people generally think. Objective3000 ( talk) 16:58, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
Folks, can we keep this discussion to what should be in the article - and not get into political philosophy? Thanks. -- MelanieN ( talk) 18:47, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

What Does Trump Own?

The article contains repeated claims that Trump "owns" this, that, and the other piece of property. What evidence exists for any of these claims?

David Lloyd-Jones ( talk) 15:50, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

You will find references in the article. For an overview, see [2]. Objective3000 ( talk) 16:06, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Any way to condense Trump's new infobox?

I was wondering if there's a way to condense Trump's new infobox. Right now it's a big block of text when you try to edit it. CatcherStorm talk 16:16, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

It appears to be a politician info-box/businessman. This is the first time a non-politician has been elected President of the United States. The info box as it stands now, does help explain who he is. What would you condense? SW3 5DL ( talk) 16:32, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
There was a change from using Template:infobox_officeholder to use instead WP:OUTBOX which is an old-school way of building a custom infobox. Visually it looks similar to the readership. However, there is a different editing syntax, and the main downside (which I believe CatcherStorm is talking about when they say "big block of text") is that the OUTBOX syntax is basically just a WP:TABLE rather than a template. Every row needs *two* lines of text for the OUTBOX syntax, rather than one. I'm working on figuring out a combo-syntax based on either {{#invoke:Infobox}} as suggested by JFG, or based on a combination of an outer table-syntax for the custom fields plus embedded templates as used at certain complex naval-vessel articles. I think those will condense the editing-portion of the upgraded infobox, once they are implemented. (Or if those cannot be made to work then Template:infobox_office_holder_with_career might become a bluelink.) 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 05:12, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
Sounds great. Be sure it will still list him as a businessman. SW3 5DL ( talk) 16:37, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Russia

Why does the article not mention anything about Trump wanting to improve relations with Russia? I'm sure this is more important than his feud with the pope for example. Burklemore1 ( talk) 03:39, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I suppose we could add something about him wanting to improve relations with Russia by greatly strengthening and expanding U.S. nuclear capability.- Mr X 03:50, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
In the Foreign Policy section it mentions several ways in which he suggested cooperating with Russia. -- MelanieN ( talk) 08:36, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
OK, thanks. I think it should be direct that he wishes to improve relations though, rather than stating he will consider recognising Crimea as a Russian territory and lift sanctions. Statements regarding nuclear capabilities should be added too. If I'm correct also, Trump has made comments about wanting to improve relations with Russia during the Republican presidential primaries. I think it would make a nice addition. Burklemore1 ( talk) 16:54, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
Lifting sanctions so he and others can make more money and pollute the Arctic is not what one normally thinks of when discussing "improved relations" in the political sense. This is one of his conflicts of interest, where he wishes to use his political power to improve his business opportunities. -- BullRangifer ( talk) 00:57, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
BullRangifer, please limit your comments here to what you think we should have in the article - not what you think about Trump. Thanks. -- MelanieN ( talk) 04:43, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
BullRangifer, are we suppose to consider your opinion on how the article should reflect its content simply because you have a negative opinion about him? Favouring one side of the political spectrum is not a way of maintaining neutrality. Burklemore1 ( talk) 07:25, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
Our personal political opinions (and we all have them) don't go into the article, but the opinions expressed in RS do make up our content. You asked about "improved relations" and I mentioned the type he has proposed, but which you, for some odd reason don't want to mention ("recognising Crimea as a Russian territory and lift sanctions"). Those are exactly the types of things to mention because they are what RS mention. "Nuclear capabilities" is another suggestion you made above above, although expanding them does not "improve" relations. It increases the risk of war.
A vague mention of the words "improve relations" is meaningless political fluff and puff posturing. We should mention what he has actually said he would do to improve relations. He has already picked ExxonMobil's CEO Rex Tillerson to be Secretary of State, a concrete move which will improve relations because Tillerson is very good friends with Putin, owns huge oil concessions in the arctic, and removing the sanctions which prevent drilling will "improve relations". There are plenty of RS which discuss why this is happening.
So recognising Crimea as a Russian territory and lifting sanctions preventing oil drilling are two things to mention. If RS mention this is done because Trump, Tillerson and Putin will make a lot more money, then that too should be mentioned. We don't add or delete/whitewash content because of our political opinions. We add what RS say. -- BullRangifer ( talk) 15:11, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
Please tell me where I have said I did not want to mention recognise Crimea as a territory and lift sanctions. Whether or not nuclear capabilities improve relations or not, it should still have a place in the article. However, I will agree with you on that, so it could become a separate subject. "We should mention what he has actually said he would do to improve relations" This is what I'm saying. Give examples on how he would improve relations. This is what I asked for, not opinions attacking Trump. If we are to add such statements about Trump, Tillerson and Putin making a lot more money, it should only be added whenever it is actually happening. I don't think speculation from RS should be added as this may induce instability within the article. Burklemore1 ( talk) 03:57, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
Please clarify in any available edit that it is Russia who wants the Russian to improve relations with what is now basically Russia. 50.254.148.9 ( talk) 18:57, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

RfC: Should "Chairman of The Trump Organization" be listed as office in infobox?

Withdrawn by nominator following emergent consensus: Trump's business position(s) should not be included alongside his political position in {{ Infobox officeholder}}. However a new discussion is underway about including it as an appended module of a generic biographical infobox or in free-form WP:OUTBOX format. (consensus summary by involved editor — JFG talk 06:52, 5 January 2017 (UTC))

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.

Should the infobox mention Trump's business title as Chairman of The Trump Organization in the |office2= parameter, alongside his other title as President-elect? Currently, the title is mentioned in the |occupation= parameter. Edge3 ( talk) 13:24, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Donald Trump/Archive 42
President-elect of the United States
Assuming office
January 20, 2017
Vice President Mike Pence (elect)
Succeeding Barack Obama
Chairman of The Trump Organization
Assumed office
1971
Preceded by Fred Trump
Personal details
Born (1946-06-14) June 14, 1946 (age 77)
New York City
Spouses
  • ​
    ​
    ( m. 1977⁠–⁠1992)​
  • ​
    ( m. 1993⁠–⁠1999)​
  • ​
    ( m. 2005)​

Example infobox shown on the side. Other proposed versions have included the full date, Ivanka Trump as successor, and other slight modifications.

Prior discussions: 1, 2, 3, 4

See also alternate example below, where the business position is listed at the end of the navbox and with a different background color. This might be a more appropriate display option. — JFG talk 09:16, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Survey: Chairman, office, infobox

Support or Oppose

  • Support - The primary purpose of the infobox is "to summarize ... key facts that appear in the article" ( WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE). Trump's business career is an integral part of his biography. In {{ Donald Trump}} and in other parts of this article, the "President-elect" and "Chairman of The Trump Organization" positions already appear side-by-side. {{ Donald Trump series}} lists articles relating to both his business and political careers. At the bottom of this article, {{ S-bus}} is used alongside {{ s-ppo}} and {{ s-off}}, as if the positions are all equivalent. These examples show that the infobox, as it currently stands, is not giving the equal treatment to both positions that we are already displaying in other templates.
For many biographies, especially for politicians, the infobox shows progression through each office, along with the transitions from one officeholder to the next. Excluding Trump's business position from |office2= would be a glaring omission.
While recognizing WP:OSE, other politician bios have included non-governmental positions. For example, Ronald Reagan lists his prior position as President of the Screen Actors Guild. Edge3 ( talk) 13:24, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support – I am sympathetic to the argument that no distinction should be made between political, military, academic or business positions, provided that we list only significant roles. Aside from the Reagan case, we also have the Dwight D. Eisenhower article listing his military posts alongside his academic position as President of Columbia University (1948–1953), which even overlaps his role as Supreme Allied Commander Europe (1951–1952). The Trump case pleads particularly strongly in favor of inclusion because his business career dominates 45 years of his 70-year life, whereas his political emergence only covers 18 months so far. See also a similar discussion on Talk:List of Presidents of the United States#Prior service which was concluded in favor of listing his business title as "prior position" to President-Elect. — JFG talk 17:02, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support. Though from now on Trump's presidency will overshadow the other things he's done in life, I think it is important to note that the info box of a highly viewed article is likely to catch a typical reader's eye first. Piggybacking on what User:JFG said above, President Eisenhower's box has his other positions in it. Because the Trump Organization looks like it's going to be handed down Trump's family (see Ivanka Trump's infobox), I think it makes sense to note that he was the 1st Chair and President of the Trump Organization. It needs to be made clear: Trump led this large organization prior to becoming the 36th President-elect. CatcherStorm talk 02:19, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
  • No idea. Suggestion: read the Infobox officeholder template. "Many officeholders are known for more than just their appointments (e.g., Clint Eastwood), and hence it may be desirable to merge this infobox with another one, like {{ Infobox person}}." -- Dervorguilla ( talk) 19:15, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose. This is a no-brainer. Being chairman of the Trump Organization is not "holding an office". Being "in office" is a very specific term that refers to elected officials in forms of government, and has nothing to do with private sector employment. Just because they effed up the Reagan article, it doesn't mean we should repeat the mistake here. -- Scjessey ( talk) 19:26, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose – Per Scessey.— Fundude99 talk to me 20:09, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
  • What Dervorguilla said, don't screw up the officeholder infobox, just have an officeholder infobox at the top, immediately followed by a Template:infobox person which has the details of his business career(s) and such. Omit the photo-parameter from the 2nd infobox, and voila. 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 20:13, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose. "Office" is a public, elected, position. Not a job. Bastun Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 21:05, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose - While the word "office" can refer to non-governmental positions ( office sense 1b), its meaning in {{ Infobox officeholder}} follows from the definition of the word officeholder.
    I am not interested in what other editors have decided at other articles, per WP:OSE. The salient points of OSE are that (1) no two situations are exactly alike, and (2) one could cherry-pick examples to support any argument they wished to support. Community consensus lives in policy, in guideline, and sometimes in discussions with wide participation in public venues—not in sampling of things done in other articles. OSE is a widely-accepted essay for a reason. ― Mandruss  ☎ 21:30, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support - It is beneficial to the page while quickly and neatly presenting his previous positions. Archer Rafferty ( talk) 3:18, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose I do not think it provides any useful information. The field is useful when the office is better known than the person, for example the office of presidency of the U.S. is better known than anyone who has held it, while Trump is better known than his company. Also, Trump's main influence at the company comes from being owner and chief executive officer. A chairman is often a figurehead or non-executive position. As a point of pedantry, he is not chairman of the Trump Organization, but chairman of the board of directors of the Trump organization. TFD ( talk) 04:46, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose While it is a significant company and important to his life history, it is not a public office. The President-elect will become the first President without prior public service experience, and that is significant. Placing the chairmanship of his private company in the infobox equates it to elected or appointed office, whether political or institutional (university, red cross, boy scouts, other public-profile instiutions, etc.). This is incorrect to do. His company is important, but being the chairman of the company is not on the same level as being a public officer, elected, appointed, or an institutional head.    Spartan7W §   05:20, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
    Why must the infobox entries be limited to public office only? If, as you say, his business career "is a significant company and important to his life history", shouldn't we reflect that in the infobox? The guideline is "to summarize ... key facts that appear in the article" ( WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE). Edge3 ( talk) 19:24, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose as it's not a political office. GoodDay ( talk) 18:18, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support – It is an appropriate addition to best summarize Trump's career in the infobox, and there are numerous examples of other articles that feature leadership of private organizations, the military, and universities in the officeholder infobox. - Bokmanrocks01 ( talk) 22:58, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose - The Trump Organization is not a public office which that parameter is for. Naue7 ( talk) 03:13, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose - It's not a public office. The Reagan counter-example doesn't convince me, as it is an elected union position, far closer to a public office than a business position. Michael Bloomberg's infobox omits his business career altogether, even though is business career is arguably far more notable and his political office less so. No great surprise, our first "CEO President," George W. Bush, has no business info in his infobox. Chris vLS ( talk) 06:18, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Not a public office, not an elective office, and nothing that is remotely close to politics in any way. Per Chrisvls, Bush and Bloomberg's infoboxes don't include their business careers. Oh, and on another but related topic, the current infobox proposed on WP:OUTBOX looks hideous. Consider making the IB as simple as possible and to include things such as "occupation" and "net worth" into their Chairman position, as those as personal life elements. κατάστασ η 15:16, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose - The reasons for not including it far outweigh the reasons for including it. What is the justification for adding that to the infobox other than showing a part of his career? Would we do that for every other politician that has run a business? Would we do that for every business owner? Chrisvls brings up a good point in that Bush and Bloomberg don't have their business careers in the infobox. Also, the fact that Trump is the first man to ever be elected to the presidency is very significant, and to add his business into the infobox could mislead people on this issue. In short, there's no real convincing reason to include it, it could start a very unnecessary precedent, and it overshadows the fact that Trump went directly from private citizen to President of the United States. RedBear2040 ( talk) 21:18, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Scjessey, Mandruss and others who correctly point out that office has a specific meaning in this template.- Mr X 21:44, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Discussion: Chairman, office, infobox

(Response to !vote by 47.222.203.135) - Dervorguilla referred to embedding officeholder in person, so what you said isn't what they said. Just sayin'. ― Mandruss  ☎ 20:23, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

I was referencing their bolded notvote which said "no idea" specifically. As in, this is a poorly-posed question, the correct answer should be something completely different than the binary choice being offered. For the record, I'm okay with embedding person inside officeholder, embedding officeholder inside person, just using person and covering the potus-details as part of that, starting with officeholder and then following it with person... but please don't abuse oficeholder by jamming stuff that does NOT belong into it... and as I understand the rfc, notvoting 'support' means that ceo will be jammed into office2-param whereas voting 'oppose' means that ceo/realEstateDeveloper/televisionPersonality/bestSellingAuthor/'politician'/etc will eventually be jammed into occupation-param ... both of which are sub-optimal, since one is malformed and the other is insufficient space. Thus, since I have no idea whether to notvote support or notvote oppose, I opted to follow dervorguilla and notvoted No Idea, with a specific suggestion for an alternative way forward that does not involve restricting ourselves to a single infobox and trying to force-fit everything. 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 21:26, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
Interesting suggestion... maybe we don't have to use {{ Infobox officeholder}} after all. Edge3 ( talk) 02:12, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
@ 47.222.203.135: Nailed it. -- Dervorguilla ( talk) 03:25, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
I agree with others here that we should not put his business career into the politician infobox. But can we use two separate info boxes? Politician followed by business person? MelanieN alt ( talk) 14:45, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
Then we would end up with two infoboxes. Another option is using {{ Infobox person}} only rather than {{ Infobox officeholder}}, since Trump's business career is equally noteworthy as his political career. His political office can still be reflected in {{ Infobox person}}. Edge3 ( talk) 16:34, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
And yet another option is to embed officeholder in person, producing one hybrid infobox, as linked by Dervorguilla in their !vote. It's been awhile since I've seen that done, but as I recall the embedded portion is a shrunken version of its normal self (by perhaps 20%), which I felt wasn't very attractive (and would be seen as de-emphasizing his presidency). Obvious pushback for either alternative option due to the widespread but misguided opinion that All Infoboxes For U.S. Presidents Must Be The Same. ― Mandruss  ☎ 20:28, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
Mandruss, to avoid the shrinkage-effect, you have to specify "| module = {{infobox foobar | embed = yes ... " which you can see JFG doing in his chairman-embedded-within-officeholder example, below. If you forget the embed=yes thing, then you get a shrunken inner infobox (ugly). 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 02:01, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Donald Trump/Archive 42
President-elect of the United States
Assuming office
January 20, 2017
Vice President Mike Pence (elect)
Succeeding Barack Obama
Personal details
Born (1946-06-14) June 14, 1946 (age 77)
New York City
Spouses
Chairman of The Trump Organization
In office
1971 – January 15, 2017
Preceded by Fred Trump
Succeeded by Donald Trump Jr.
We have already tried embedding {{ Infobox officeholder}} in {{ Infobox person}}, as the article used to have a simple Infobox person (or at least I tried it in edit mode, not sure it was ever in the history log). While technically elegant, this method puts all the personal info (children, alma mater, website, etc.) before the various offices held, so it really looks inappropriate for a future president. And it doesn't resolve the question whether his business position should also be listed as an office rather than an occupation. Thus it looks like a dead end to me. — JFG talk 00:03, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
Note that we have {{ Infobox Chairman}} which redirects to {{ Infobox officeholder}}, so perhaps we could embed that into the template, thus listing the Chairman position towards the end of the box. See how that would look here to the right. — JFG talk 01:22, 24 December 2016 (UTC) –––––––>
{{ Infobox Chairman}} is used in only a handful of articles (stubs), and since it redirects to {{ Infobox officeholder}} I don't think {{ Infobox Chairman}} would help here. The example you propose (on the right) is essentially {{ Infobox officeholder}} embedded within itself. Edge3 ( talk) 05:11, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
What Edge3 said. Just merge {{ Infobox officeholder}} with {{ Infobox officeholder}}. This looks like it may be the closest analogue to the most relevant example at Template:Infobox officeholder, which actually refers to an old version of the Clint Eastwood article (not the current version as I'd thought). My error. -- Dervorguilla ( talk) 08:12, 24 December 2016 (UTC) 20:14, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
Yes it is a secondary {{ Infobox officeholder}} within the main {{ Infobox officeholder}}, which compared to the |office2= option puts the Trump Org position at the bottom of the navbox (and with a grey background) vs showing it close to the presidential office up top. I think this would resolve the main objection of dissenters. — JFG talk 09:11, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
I don't like any of these examples because they use the word "office" when describing his business position. -- Scjessey ( talk) 17:47, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
@ Scjessey: As a corporate officer of TTO, he's "someone who holds an office of trust, authority, or command". -- Dervorguilla ( talk) 20:34, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
But few dictionaries make use of the extended definition of "in office", and neither does Wikipedia. It would confuse the reader, perhaps leading them to think Trump may have held some form of public office prior to the presidency. -- Scjessey ( talk) 21:29, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
I think part of the problem is that the usual infobox for businesspeople is {{ Infobox person}}. We don't have a perfect solution for those who had a lengthy business career before entering public office. Given the dictionary definitions cited, I agree that his chairmanship over The Trump Organization may be construed as an "office" for the purposes of {{ Infobox officeholder}}, even though it is not the normal usage for this template. Edge3 ( talk) 22:39, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

WP:OUTBOX

Donald J. Trump
Portrait of Donald Trump during a campaign event on August 19, 2015
President-elect of the United States
Taking office
January 20, 2017
Vice President Mike Pence (elect)
Preceded by Barack Obama
Chairman of The Trump Organization
Occupation Real estate developer
Years active 1971–2017
Preceded by Fred Trump
Known for Trump Tower, Mar-a-Lago
Net worth USD$4.5 billion
Books Art of the Deal
Television The Apprentice
Personal details
Born Donald John Trump
(1946-06-14) June 14, 1946 (age 77)
New York City
Political party
Spouse(s)
Children
Parents
Relatives Trump family
Residence Trump Tower, New York City
Alma mater University of Pennsylvania ( BA)
Signature Donald J Trump stylized autograph, in ink
Website greatagain.gov
We could also try the old-school approach. 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 01:55, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
@ 47.222.203.135: Looks good to me. (The 'Nationality' data can be safely omitted, though.) -- Dervorguilla ( talk) 03:07, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
I love this idea! Edge3 ( talk) 05:39, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
Indeed. The "outbox" looks like the way to go. -- Scjessey ( talk) 13:21, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
+1 I would approve of this scheme. — JFG talk 14:55, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
I've made a few modifications to the proposed infobox so that it is more consistent with the info already displayed on the current infobox. User:47.222.203.135 (or anyone else), feel free to modify as needed. We should also figure out a way to add the images (both the portrait and the signature) through the WP:OUTBOX approach. Edge3 ( talk) 04:44, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
Proponents should look at the markup and consider the ongoing maintenance problems. Expect the OUTBOX (shouldn't that be OUTFOBOX?) to be broken regularly. If that's an acceptable trade-off to you, fine, but it should be considered. ― Mandruss  ☎ 06:53, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
 Done – Added portrait and signature via Module:InfoboxImage. The whole box should probably use Module:Infobox rather than manual markup. — JFG talk 14:04, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
I've made the to the article implementing this new infobox. I agree that {{ Infobox}} might be a better long-term solution. Edge3 ( talk) 19:02, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
..and I've reverted that bold change. You've no consensus to make such major structural changes to the infobox. Re-adding the Trump chairman stuff is one thing, but restructuring the entire infobox (which was stable since November 8) is quite another matter. The infobox should structurally match with that at the Mike Pence article. GoodDay ( talk) 19:45, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
Not sure what level of consensus you're looking for, but we had several editors express their support (above) for this new infobox scheme. Plus, this article need not be consistent with Mike Pence, nor has there been a consensus to that effect. Edge3 ( talk) 21:23, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
@ GoodDay: Would you be okay with the proposed infobox if we used {{ Infobox}} rather than manual coding? Many editors have expressed interest in this solution so I think we will try it one way or another, and reevaluate once we see it. Edge3 ( talk) 22:14, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
My personal preference is to keep the infobox we've got, as that's what's being used for all political offices. I'm more anxious though, that we keep infoboxes here & at Pence's article matching. IF I were you, I'd start a new discussion on what type of infobox to use. GoodDay ( talk) 22:18, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
I fail to see why a Trump-Pence agreement would be so beneficial to the reader. Where is the community consensus for such linkage? Absent such a consensus, the widely-accepted WP:OSE applies. ― Mandruss  ☎ 23:30, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
I agree that we need not be strictly consistent with the Pence article, but I also understand GoodDay's desire for harmony among all political infoboxes. Remember, WP:OSE arguments may be valid or invalid depending on context.
I'm fine with waiting for more discussion, or even starting a new discussion if we can't resolve disagreements here. Edge3 ( talk) 04:09, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
I think that I agree with GoodDay, that we want the layout to 'structurally match' what is found at Pence, but more importantly, what is found at Obama and the prior presidents. Per WP:Readers_first, because there will be plenty of readers that want to compare and contrast, and therefore we should try and keep the VISUAL appearance of the infobox we use here, as similar as we can to the ones elsewhere. Basically that means using the same row-labels, and in the same ordering. Thataway people with multiple browser-tabs open, will be able to see the differences easily. We are actually pretty close already, the only question is whether to combine the websites into one single row-label, rather than list the three of them separately, and whether to move up the signature-row above the website-row which is traditionally at the very bottom of the infobox. Now, it will be much harder, obviously, to keep the wikimarkup identical, since the WP:OUTTATHEBOX is just a wikitable rather than a template. Or maybe JFG had some suggestion for solving that with a module, or something? 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 23:50, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
I think we can remove all of the external links from the infobox. Isn't that what the "External Links" section is for? Edge3 ( talk) 03:16, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
Removing all of them would be unusual (for a modern human as opposed to somebody who lived in the 1700s), but typically the infobox contains exactly one "Websites:" row-label at the very bottom, and then contains one (or in rare cases more than one) primary internet 'home' of the biographical subject. See the bottom of the infobox at Tom Hanks (zero URLs interestingly enough), Hillary Clinton (one URL), Leonardo_DiCaprio (two URLs), Barack_Obama (three URLs). In the case of Donald Trump we currently list only greatAgain.gov (peotus 'home') within the infobox, and then in the EL section we list greatAgain.gov (peotus'16), donaldjTrump.com (campaign'15), 58pic2017.org (inauguration'17), twitter.com/realDonaldTrump (celeb'09+), and a few "standard links for presidential biography articles" to CSPAN/NYT/WSJ/etc which cover debate-videos and speechs and the like. In the draft- WP:OUTBOX it is possible to have multiple 'website' rows if consensus permits. If that is considered controversial, those suggestions can be deferred until a future conversation, because I would rather improve things one step at a time: first get the outbox format (or maybe the invoke:ModuleInfobox thing JFG was alluding to) acceptable, so that we can have 'CEO of Trump.com' as part of the custom outbox. Next discuss which URLs to include in the infobox, and whether to lump them all together at the bottom (as is wiki-traditional), or instead to use the power of the custom outbox to add a row for trump.com in the middle, a row for greatagain.gov near the top, and a row for personal sites near the bottom. I will HTML_comment out the additional URLs for now in the draft-outbox, to match what the current mainspace infobox does. 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 04:56, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
I think the "relatives" part of the infobox could be removed since that information is covered in the three sections above it, where it mentions his parents spouse(s) and children. CopperWhopper67 ( talk) 09:04, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
CopperWhopper67, while I tend to agree (or would maybe even prefer the opposite -- get rid of most of the detailed ancestry-datapoints and just link to the Trump family article for people that want geneaology), the reason it appears is because 'traditionally' wikipedia articles on presidents with extended families have all that same info, see for instance Barack Obama which lists spouses/children/parents/relatives, in the same rough position and the same rough ordering as the draft-outbox for Trump. George W. Bush (spouses/relatives/children/parents), Bill Clinton (elides relatives), etc. The main baby-step goal here, is to try and get CEO of Trump.com into the infobox, without abusing Template:infobox_officeholder and saying he was "in office" as CEO thereof. 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 10:41, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
I agree that the current conversation should focus on transitioning to the WP:OUTBOX approach. If there are additional changes to be made (such as adding more external links, removing the "Relatives" section, or other substantial changes) then we may discuss those in another thread. Now that we made a few changes to the proposed outbox and had a bit more discussion, I'm going to go ahead with another cycle of WP:BRD and see where we end up. Edge3 ( talk) 05:54, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

AFAIK, there's no consensus for this new infobox. So, why was it inserted into the article? Also, there's no consensus for adding the Trump organization into the infobox. GoodDay ( talk) 02:50, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Agree with GoodDay, there is no consensus for this infobox nor for the Chairman office, since the RfC is still going on. Having the support of a few editors does not constitute consensus. κατάστασ η 16:14, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Can we have a new RfC on adding Trump Organization info on this specific template? The previous objection was that it was improper to add it to the "officeholder" infobox, but that problem is avoided here. The current RfC is also being held in the context of using the "officeholder" template, so it wouldn't be the most relevant in this case. It would be best to form an official consensus on this because otherwise editors would keep continuing to remove the Trump Organization section from the infobox. - Bokmanrocks01 ( talk) 01:18, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

I would be okay with closing this current RfC on the "officeholder" template, as long as it doesn't interfere with this thread on WP:OUTBOX. The consensus seems to be that his business position should not be listed as an "office" for the purposes of {{ Infobox officeholder}}, and we have since moved on to the next suggestion regarding WP:OUTBOX. If anyone requests it, I would be happy to close this RfC as the original nominator (see WP:RFCEND) but honestly I don't know the proper form or process for doing this. Then we can move on to the WP:OUTBOX discussion as a separate Level 2 discussion, along with the other discussions that have recently started. Edge3 ( talk) 02:57, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
@ Bokmanrocks01: I just realized that you were interested in having a new RfC. Perhaps you could add it to the section below called #Adding Trump Organization leadership onto non-officeholder template?? Just a thought...
Also, I know that you, Katastasi and 47.222.203.135 have commented on this within the past two days, so I'm curious as to whether you had much else to say on this thread? Sorry, I didn't realize that my RfC withdrawal had the potential to cut you off! Edge3 ( talk) 22:58, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
Sure thing, I added the RfC request onto the section. And I also have no more comments to add to this section, so feel free to close it off. Thanks. - Bokmanrocks01 ( talk) 23:13, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
(Also pinging GoodDay in case there were any other concerns before cutting off this thread.) Edge3 ( talk) 23:01, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Harassment of teenage girl

I believe his harassment of a teenage girl should be mentioned somewhere in the article, judging by its coverage in reliable sources, e.g.

-- Tataral ( talk) 05:12, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

No it shouldn't, I don't recall "reliable" sources having been elevated to that of a court of law. That, and how irrelevant this is pertaining to the biography of Donald Trump's life, and it's pretty debatable calling what he did "harassment" to the point it's grey area territory. User:Archer Rafferty 6:31, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
Tataral: If you believe that information from the sources could fit in either Donald Trump sexual misconduct allegations or Legal affairs of Donald Trump, then feel free to add content or bring discussion to the talk pages on those articles. User:Archer Rafferty: Due to widespread media coverage of these events and similar events/allegations about Donald Trump's treatment of women, on Wikipedia these subjects are relevant information to be covered in Donald Trump's biography, though to limit the size of Trump's main article, the content is split up into multiple articles, effectively making them an extension or part of the series on Trump's life. Thanks. WClarke ( talk) 08:13, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
If you think including every allegation of harassment or sexual assault in an article is beneficial be my guest but don't be naive to the fact most of it is either flat out false (ie pedophile claims), irrelevant (ie this), or trivia clutter. (ie nearly everything being edited into this article nowadays). User:Archer Rafferty 4:33, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

(Redacted)

It has not received sufficient attention to merit inclusion. TFD ( talk) 01:07, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
Agreed, at least for this article. If anyone wants to start List of Donald Trump's bullying, intimidation and attacks on other people, there is loads of information in RS. Seriously, that's a legitimate topic. Just work out better wording for the title. It's a very notable subject. -- BullRangifer ( talk) 15:27, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
That would inherently be a WP:POVFORK, no better than List of Donald Trump's most awesome ideas. Both ought to remain redlinks, per NPOV. It is not possible to have a balanced neutral article which cuts up a natural topic ( Donald Trump or Political positions of Donald Trump or Cabinet of Donald Trump or whatever) into artificially smaller subcategories like Only the bad stuff about Donald Trump and similarly Only the good stuff about Donald Trump. Somebody suggested that Donald Trump on Twitter or perhaps Donald Trump's use of the Internet were valid topics, and if he continues using them throughout his presidency I don't doubt such articles will be written as valid WP:SPINOFF subsidiary efforts. But there should never be Only bad things Trump said on Twitter and also should never be Only nice things Trump said on Twitter. Having enough sources for an inherently POV topic-delineation, does not make it any less POV -- compare with gerrymandering where the politicians draw the lines so as to guarantee incumbent-re-elections and unfairly tilt the region-wide totals towards one of the major parties, rather than to delineate natural constituencies or geographically neutral tiling polygons or whatever. Topics must be chosen/titled in an encyclopedic fashion, too, not merely sufficiently sourced. 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 00:29, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
I agree that this probably doesn't work for this article. His long history of cyber-bullying is now and appears to be building as a significant issue. Post-election, it does not seem to abate. We may need to find a way to add this in some manner. Objective3000 ( talk) 00:47, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
I think there will be a lot of sources that talk about controversial statements made by Donald Trump, how various pundits reacted thereto, and how Trump in turn tended to double down or make yet another controversial statement or pick an ad hominem fight with some particular critic, thereby generating vast amounts of earned media coverage. Not only do I think there is a pattern, I think it is an intentional one, from his years in wrestling and then in reality television (not to mention his role as a NYC celeb before that). So there is definitely scope for wikipedia noting what the sources say (which may mean 'cyber-bullying' iff actual sources use that phrase and may mean 'intentional pattern' if actual sources use *that* phrase), I just don't want there to be a spinoff article which is title Mean things Donald Trump said or something equally POV, it needs to be melded in with the rest of his biography-stuff and the rest of his campaign & presidency & stances articles, with due weight and neutral balance and all that stuff. 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 14:07, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
The bus locker room talk is more notable. Chris H of New York ( talk) 02:17, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

ISIL not ISIS

The usually used and preferred abbreviation of the group is ISIL on Wikipedia. In addition, the group's name is " Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" on the article so ISIL makes more sense. Or maybe we should just use its full name at the article here instead. 117.207.145.10 ( talk) 22:41, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

That's true, but the media persistently calls it ISIS, and that's what most people seem to call it. (I don't really know or care what a bunch of terrorists call themselves and doubt many people do either.) Maybe we can say something like "the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, abbreviated as ISIL or sometimes ISIS when in Syria", which covers all bases. White Arabian Filly Neigh 22:49, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
No just ISIL or the full name. Including the abbreviations and the full name will make it too long. 117.207.145.10 ( talk) 23:02, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
It's called neither ISIS or ISIL. It's simply called IS. 207.245.44.6 ( talk) 23:27, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
I.S. seems better than ISIL or ISIS, because it has spread outside of Iraq, Syria, and the Levant (e.g. to Libya). I would always use periods though ("I.S."). Anythingyouwant ( talk) 23:36, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
It's called with all terms whether IS, ISIL or ISIS. The other one is Daesh. I think it is better to avoid the abbreviation confusion and use the full name in the lead. 117.207.145.10 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:04, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
Let's find out from the uncontested primary source: Abu Bakr 'Big Daddy' al-Baghdadi himself. Hey Al! What're you calling your organization now? It's The Caliphate, no? -- Dervorguilla ( talk) 02:09, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
US media calls it ISIS. Obama calls it ISIL. Arabs call it Daesh. Chris H of New York ( talk) 02:18, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

New Trump related article

SNOW opposition to content in this article, if any was proposed. Non-starter. ― Mandruss  ☎ 00:51, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

2017 Chicago torture incident

In January 2017, four people were arrested for torturing a learning disabled man in Chicago, Illinois, after they livestreamed the incident on Facebook. [1] [2] [3] [4] The victim was kidnapped, bound, gagged, beaten, had part of his scalp removed with a knife, and was forced to drink from a toilet bowl. [5] At least one of the suspects shouted "Fuck Trump" and "Fuck white people." [6]

References

  1. ^ 4 Charged With Hate Crimes Over Beating Live-Streamed On Facebook, NPR, January 5, 2017
  2. ^ 4 Questioned After Video Shows Racially Charged Beating in Chicago, New York Times, January 4, 2017
  3. ^ Chicago torture: Facebook Live video leads to 4 arrests, CNN, January 5, 2017
  4. ^ Hate crime charges filed after ‘reprehensible’ video shows attack on mentally ill man in Chicago, Washington Post, January 5, 2017
  5. ^ Four charged with hate crime for Chicago Facebook Live attack, BBC, January 5, 2017
  6. ^ What makes a crime a ‘hate crime’? And would the Chicago attack qualify?, Washington Post, Janaury 5, 2017

Bk33725681 ( talk) 02:02, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Subject of AfD. ― Mandruss  ☎ 02:07, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
Why delete it? It's being covered by many big name news stations such as CNN and Fox News. Archer Rafferty ( talk) 02:34, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
I've closed the AfD. Nomination was withdrawn, and it probably would've been closed as a SNOW keep had it not been withdrawn. JudgeRM (talk to me) 02:38, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
Thet SNOW is bewildering to me. The definition of notability appears to include "got a lot of worldwide news coverage for a few days". Whatever. ― Mandruss  ☎ 02:47, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
Hey, if you really do believe so, you can renominate the article as WP:NOTNEWS later, if it applies (only time will tell if it really does). JudgeRM (talk to me) 02:49, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, but that seems backward. The article should be created after the lasting impact has been shown, not before. For all kinds of reasons including efficient use of editor resources (no wasted time developing articles that later get deleted) and elimination of problems stemming from inaccurate early reporting. Not that that reasoning stands a chance against the hordes who can't wait to create an article on the latest sensational news story. ― Mandruss  ☎ 02:55, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
I would hesitate to call this Trump related. They don't seem to be Trump supporters who deliberately did this in DT's name, or at his behest, so I don't believe that their uttering a few words with his name makes this related to him. SW3 5DL ( talk) 04:13, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
Agree. These obviously aren't the brightest bunch having posted a video of their crime. Objective3000 ( talk) 19:31, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
Totally undue here. This would be like adding every antisemitic incident to the Jews article. — JFG talk 00:36, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
I took the OP as an FYI about the new article that referred to Mr. Trump. I see multiple editors opposing content here, but none proposing it. ― Mandruss  ☎ 00:45, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

External links

Hello. As everyone knows, Donald Trump's official Twitter account and Facebook account are used personally by him as official comunications to the public. I think the cited links should be mentioned there.

Thank you all. Anjo-sozinho ( talk) 03:55, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Please see WP:ELNO#social.- Mr X 12:51, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
That will have to be revised if politicians continue to use them as primary communication channels. In the meantime I'm not opposed to some WP:IAR here, at least as to Facebook and Twitter, I don't know about his use of Instagram. ― Mandruss  ☎ 13:05, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
Anyone is free to propose changing the guideline, but they would need to make some strong arguments for ignoring WP:NOTDIR and WP:LINKFARM. Since these social media links would not improve the encyclopedia, IAR would not apply.- Mr X 13:18, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
I think the active use of them by the President elect and I, would argue, they are his main means of communication to the public would be reason to violate policy. However, might put up a rfc on this. Casprings ( talk) 13:25, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Trump's heavy usage of social media (especially Twitter) makes it permissible in this case, IMO. Edge3 ( talk) 14:36, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Let's not confuse issues here. This article is about Donald Trump, not about linking to his social media accounts one by one. Heavy or light use of these accounts still makes linking to all of them irrelevant. Obviously, a factoid can be added to the article that he uses social media frequently, if we have a reliable source that is. But what is the encyclopedic value of painstakingly linking all these accounts to this article? Do we need to spoon-feed the links to the reader for some reason? I can't see any benefits, although I can see clutter in the external links section if that proposal gets accepted. Dr. K. 15:07, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
Equivalent to linking to his official website in the infobox, but far less prominent in External links. I differ with the words "painstakingly" and "spoon-feed". ― Mandruss  ☎ 15:11, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
Still why the clutter? What encyclopedic value do these links have to offer to the reader? Providing a link to these accounts, even in the EL section, implicitly carries the message that the readers are incapable of finding them on their own. It looks like spoon-feeding the links to the readers to me. Supplying links for convenience to readers does not look encyclopedic, at least to me. Dr. K. 15:17, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
Same reasoning could apply to the website link. For that matter, everything in the article is something readers are capable of finding on their own, so you might as well argue that the article itself is superfluous. It would be different if he just used social media for the pointless casual chatter that most users use them for (I once saw a woman use Facebook to inform her friends that she had just gotten out of bed and was enjoying her first cup of coffee), but it appears that is not the case. ― Mandruss  ☎ 15:36, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
It makes sense to list Trump's Facebook and Twitter pages. He's the first presidential candidate and now president-elect to use them as a means of communication, especially with such heavy use. Trump has already stated he plans to continue to use them to communicate with the American people. They are relevant, and in this instance, Mandruss has made an excellent point with WP:IAR . I don't see this as a violation of policy, but rather as the evolution of the policy as social media gains more prominence with this president. SW3 5DL ( talk) 16:32, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
( edit conflict) @Mandruss: Nice attempt at reductio ad absurdum, but here we are not talking about verification of an encyclopedic fact but rather about standalone links to social media accounts. Such links are devoid of WP:V value. The only thing they do is direct the reader to a twitter, facebook, etc. account., not for the purpose of verifying an encyclopedic fact but for the purpose to see the tweets, facebook activity, and so on. That's not needed and it is devoid of encyclopedic value. Dr. K. 16:44, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
Hey, no fair with the Latin. If things in External links were needed for verifiability, they would be citations instead. ― Mandruss  ☎ 16:46, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
Mea culpa. I try to polish my very limited Latin from time to time. :) In any case, yes, since we don't use ELs for verifiability and there is really no compelling reason to have them at the bottom of the article, that's why we have to limit their number per the ELMINOFFICIAL guideline. Dr. K. 16:55, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
From WP:ELMINOFFICIAL: More than one official link should be provided only when the additional links provide the reader with significant unique content and are not prominently linked from other official websites. For example, if the main page of the official website for an author contains a link to the author's blog and Twitter feed, then it is not appropriate to provide links to all three. I don't see Facebook and Twitter links on the website, let alone prominent ones. ― Mandruss  ☎ 17:03, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
It is ok to include the official website and perhaps the Twitter link, since you mentioned that it does not exist in the official site. After that, Facebook, Instagram etc. are just the slippery-slope to clutter. Dr. K. 17:13, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
I am prepared to ride that slippery slope to Buzznet, Flixster, and Adult FriendFinder if he is shown to use them for substantive communication (or what a significant, non-fringe fraction of the population considers to be substantive per RS). ― Mandruss  ☎ 17:24, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

I don't think the President-elect's Twitter feed qualifies as "significant unique content". His notable Tweets are already covered by the press, and everything else is emphemera.- Mr X 17:26, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Agree with Mandruss, and others who support inclusion. The arguments against are weak and press coverage, which is largely against Trump, is not reliable. This is an encyclopedia, this is the President-elect's BLP, and his use of social media is relevant and the links to his accounts belong here. SW3 5DL ( talk) 17:34, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

RfC: Should social network links be added to the External links section?

Closing per a WP:AN request. There is consensus to include the link to the Twitter account as an exception to the guideline, but there is no consensus about including links to other social media accounts.  Sandstein  18:38, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

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.

Donald Trump's official Twitter account and Facebook account are used personally by him as official communications to the public. He has stated that as President, he will continue to use these accounts to communicate with the American people. Should links to his accounts be included in this article's External links section? 17:46, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Support or Oppose
  • Oppose - Per WP:ELNO#social, WP:NOTDIR, and WP:LINKFARM. Twitter and Facebook are already linked from the home page of President-elect Trump's https://www.greatagain.gov/ official website.- Mr X 17:53, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
    Actually, the greatagain.gov website links only to social media accounts owned by the Transition 2017 team, not Trump himself. See Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Trump has separate accounts for his own use. Edge3 ( talk) 18:50, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
    Oh, that's a good point. Obviously since this is a biography and not a transition article, the official website listed should be donaldjtrump.com, which does in fact link to all of his social media accounts.- Mr X 02:29, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
    That's an even better link. It also includes Instagram. This fully satisfies the phrasing of ELMINOFFICIAL. Dr. K. 02:53, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
    For the BLP-topic of Donald Trump we have [3] [4] [5] [6] (plus about-self-bio [7]), for the CORP-topic of The Trump Organization we have [8] [9] [10] (plus work-bio [11]), for the ORG-topic Presidential transition of Donald Trump we have [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] (plus gov-bio [17] and soon [18] or [19] which are currently 404 errors). Part of the trouble is this page currently has the wires crossed, and we list greatAgain.gov as *the* website. Similar to Ted Cruz where we only list his senate-page, not his still-active campaign-page (Cruz has his fbook + twitr listed however). Contrast with Bernie Sanders where we list bernieSanders.com + sanders.senate.gov within the infobox and also as ELs (plus a fansite about his policy-stances). Old-school wikipedia policy is exemplified by the Tom Hanks page, where we list *zero* social media ELs, despite Hanks having 5m 'likes' and 12m 'followers' on them. We have ELs galore for Bill Clinton, including two clinton-specific-sites, but no social media ones. So it is an inconsistent mess, unfortunately. 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 22:27, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose Per MrX and my comments below. Also as MrX stated, the facebook and twitter buttons are clearly visible at the bottom of the official website. They even have a Youtube button. This is a textbook case of not including the social links. Dr. K. 18:17, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Per above and above. Any idea how many social sites exist? I don't think this is a road we want to go down. Objective3000 ( talk) 18:39, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

*Support per WP:ELMINOFFICIAL - More than one official link should be provided only when the additional links provide the reader with significant unique content and are not prominently linked from other official websites. For example, if the main page of the official website for an author contains a link to the author's blog and Twitter feed, then it is not appropriate to provide links to all three. - The links at the bottom of the website's home page are not those proposed in this RfC. Upon clicking them one can see that they are for the transition team, not Trump the man (this is a bio of Trump the man). Has anyone shown that Trump does not use the personal accounts for substantive communications to the public? Not to my knowledge. Do reliable sources cover those communications to a significant degree? I believe they do. Regardless, I don't know that pictures of a bird and a lower-case f at the rarely-seen bottom of a page clear the prominence bar required by ELMINOFFICIAL. Awareness of those logos is far from widespread. ― Mandruss  ☎ 18:45, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

  • Oppose after change of infobox website link, per WP:ELMINOFFICIAL, assuming that change stands. ― Mandruss  ☎ 11:57, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Support Arguments against are weak and outdated. WP:IAR applies here. Time to bring WP into the 21st century and ignore all outdated rules. SW3 5DL ( talk) 18:53, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Support per WP:ELOFFICIAL: "it may sometimes be appropriate to provide more than one link, such as when a business has one website for the corporate headquarters and another for consumer information." The transition website is separate from Trump's personal social media accounts. Furthermore, Trump's usage of social media has caught a lot of attention from the press. Edge3 ( talk) 19:02, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Support This ongoing attempt to suppress opposing views, in this case, Trump's very own, need to stop. The entire article is begging for a pov tag while Wikipedia is being made into a mockery. if the facts are on your side there is no need to suppress anything on such flimsy basis. -- Gwillhickers ( talk) 19:27, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
    What needs to stop are your ongoing WP:AGF failures. There is no evidence of "suppressing opposing views" here, let alone the clear evidence required by AGF. What you're seeing are differences of opinion as to proper use of External links. ― Mandruss  ☎ 19:48, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
Got an edit conflict posting nearly the exact thing: What needs to stop is these constant attacks against other editors. No one is trying to suppress Trump's views by not putting a link to his Twitter account. Although you wouldn't know it by reading some of the cites given on the political articles; not everything is a conspiracy. Yet another WP:AGF violation. Objective3000 ( talk) 19:53, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
I note that many of the !votes you call conspiracy come with p&g basis, which you failed to provide in your own !vote. ― Mandruss  ☎ 19:56, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Per WP:ELNO#social, WP:NOTDIR, and WP:LINKFARM. People can go to his official website for links to these. Richard-of-Earth ( talk) 21:23, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
    His official website does not link to his personal social media profiles. There are separate social media accounts for his transition team. Edge3 ( talk) 22:24, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Support as notable sources of information about the subject (especially given that every tweet from The Donald begets a 10,000-word WP article… ) — JFG talk 22:26, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Support. He uses them to communicate directly with tens of millions of people and often the mainstream press will pick up what he says it a tweet and make it front-page news. His twitter account is probably the most important twitter account in the world right now and it should be included in the external links section. Rreagan007 ( talk) 03:29, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Support Trump's use of social media in the way he is using it (as a primary means of communication with the people) as an incoming head of state is unprecedented and the guidelines were not (and could not) have been written with a case such as his in mind. Also, guidelines are guidelines and exceptions can be appropriate, which is, I believe, what we have here. Marteau ( talk) 15:56, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment If we're going to link to these in ELs then shouldn't there be a prose paragraph about it in the text itself? Volunteer Marek ( talk) 16:24, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
Yes, definitely. I'm surprised Trump's characterization as "the social media candidate" is not yet mentioned in the article. — JFG talk 18:19, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Support as to Twitter, Oppose as to Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Reddit, VampireFreaks, NextDoor, Couchsurfing, WeeWorld, Plurk, et cetera. Because...Donald Trump's Twitter site is a subject of immense media and public interest, and if it's not in the External Links then it ought to be in the Infobox. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 16:30, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Support as to Twitter and Facebook (and YouTube). For permanency; we can expect the Infobox Website data to get reverted back to the (outdated) campaign site from time to time. Oppose as to Instagram; see his current Biography page, " Meet The President Elect", President Elect Donald J. Trump, which shows Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube only. -- Dervorguilla ( talk) 21:24, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose social media sites as External Links, except perhaps for Twitter as a second "official site". I would look favorably on proposals to change ELNO to be less restrictive in most regards, but as of now it applies. That said, I think that there is much good sourcing for an extensive section on Trump's social media presence, and it should include these accounts as citations to the primary sources, providing secondary sources citing each of those primary sources are given also. Potentially this could even end up including a table of social media links in that section, listing various data like number of followers or frequency of use. Wnt ( talk) 23:43, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
ELNO is of course a guideline for which exceptions in unusual cases are explicitly permitted. Trump is by anyone's reckoning unusual ;) Marteau ( talk) 04:11, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Support. He uses them to communicate directly with tens of millions of people and often the mainstream press will pick up what he says it a tweet and make it front-page news. For example, his twitter account is probably the most important twitter account in the world right now and it should be included in the external links section. Anjo-sozinho ( talk) 03:32, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Weak Oppose First, as a procedural matter, the RfC statement strikes me as non-neutral in tone, seeming to advocate rather clearly for one of the proposed options. Second, the term "official" as it is used in the second instance of the first sentence is clearly meaningless. If we are talking about Donald Trump as a private citizen, then what makes any kind of social media channel more or less "official" for a given individual? If we are talking about Donald Trump as the president-to-be, then no, it won't be an "official" channel in any sense, short of a formal administrative order; the fact that Trump is committed to continuing to use these accounts does not, in any legal or formal sense, make them official channels of the Office of the President, just because he occupies it while he is using them. Now, Trump could, theoretically, perhaps change that (though there are actual substantial reasons why that may be infeasible or even illegal to do so), but we have no reason to presume he will.
But those are all just incidental concerns about the way this issue has been framed. My actual substantive reason for opposing is that I don't think these links would represent useful supplemental resources for an encyclopedic summary of the topic, which I believe is a baseline evaluation that should apply to all of our content, even the outward-facing links. Clearly we will, with some frequency, be covering the content of Trump's tweets for at least the next four years--although, hopefully in a majority of cases, only after they have been covered reliable secondary sources. But just pointing at the accounts strikes me as an indiscriminate and context-less offering just for the sake of promoting everything the man has (or will) say on the account, without any encyclopedic framing. It will also open the door on validating social media accounts as de-facto acceptable links in other articles and in other contexts, an issue that I feel the broader community ought to weigh in on before greenlighting.
It's a tough call for me, because I generally view the external links section as a field for assisting our readers in reaching information that they may be interested in and which shouldn't be included in a Wikipedia article for any of a number of reasons, but on the balance of factors, I think this particular variety of link should be avoided. At the very least, we absolutely should not list it as an "official" page for Donald Trump, as this could easily mislead the reader into thinking it is an official instrument of the head of state and government of the United States, which it absolutely is not. Snow let's rap 05:17, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose Per Snow, very well stated. I have read all of the arguments and find this a slippery slope that could create a bad precedent for the encyclopedia.  g@rycompugeek  talk 12:53, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
While I totally appreciate the slippery slope argument, it can also be contended that our beloved encyclopedia should evolve with the times and reflect current means of communication. In 2005 your identity was a web site, in 2015 it's a social media profile. I believe that infoboxes about notable persons should list one social media account of their subject; it's usually fairly obvious to determine which platform is the subject's main outlet. Maybe a debate on Template talk:Infobox person would be the better venue? — JFG talk 14:23, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
Yes it would be.  g@rycompugeek  talk 18:41, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
As an aside, I'm not sure the word evolve fits. Evolution generally moves toward more complex forms. I wouldn't characterize communication via tweet rants as evolving. An editor on one of the political pages suggests we stop using the "obsolete" NYTimes or WaPo as RS and start using far-left/right wing "news" sites since this is where younger people get their news. Evolution is slow partly because most changes fail, allowing the few that are actual improvements to thrive. Objective3000 ( talk) 14:34, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
Regardless of any editor's individual judgment on the validity of "tweet rants", the issue of documenting the preferred public outlets representing notable people is a legitimate question for the wider Wikipedian community to ponder… I for one would consider Edward Snowden's Twitter feed as highly relevant to his biography and infobox. There has been a similar debate for inanimate objects such as space probes, although that's a bit more far-fetched. Regarding your discussion of RS, I think the current guidelines are fine. — JFG talk 14:54, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
I agree with Snowden as his situation allows little other communication. Trump has pretty much all communication mechanisms at his disposal as he sits in the bully pulpit. And, I'm fine with current RS guidelines. Objective3000 ( talk) 15:18, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Support - Assuming that Donald Trump on Twitter is a red link, the bare minimum would be inclusion of the Twitter feed, which is part of his essential essence. Carrite ( talk) 15:09, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Strong support for Twitter, due to the importance of this form communication from the subject of this article; weak support for the others. Deli nk ( talk) 15:27, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose based more or less on what Snow says above. The purpose of wikipedia is primarily to provide encyclopedic information, or information which would be of use to individuals seeking what is basically encyclopedic information, which is what so far as I can tell external links are supposed to provide. Few if any social networking sites provide such information, and much of the information that they might contain which might be useful to someone seeking encyclopedic information will probably be presented without clear context as to what is being said. If information on one of those sites is clearly of encyclopedic utility, I have very very little doubt that rather quickly some more reliable source will discuss it, and very possibly even quote in toto. John Carter ( talk) 18:19, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Support. Summoned by bot. Given Trump's well-known and widely reported use of social media I think such links are both encyclopedic and necessary.

Coretheapple ( talk) 21:44, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

  • Support per WP:ELOFFICIAL LavaBaron ( talk) 01:24, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support Summoned by bot. I am with Coretheapple no this one - Trump's made it pretty apparent that social media is the most effective way for him to get his message across to the people of the world. While I think it may be inappropriate to cite his social media in the body of the article, I think at the very least it is worth having his social media accounts listed as external links at the bottom of the page. Cheers Comatmebro User talk:Comatmebro 21:04, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support It's useful for people to have links to his social media there, so they don't have to go to his website. It would only add a few lines, and wouldn't crowd anything up. Adotchar| reply here 21:35, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support for Twitter, given the amount of coverage it receives. Oppose for the remainder as there's been no substantive argument for why they are in any way remarkable. TimothyJosephWood 16:58, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support - WP:ELOFFICIAL trumps WP:ELNO#social (no pun intended). Bastun Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 17:47, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
  • I lean towards qualified "support" because it's already clear that these newsfeeds will be favoured over traditional news briefings to journalists. Thus we are almost certainly witnessing a structural change. However, I wouldn't want the use of such links in this article to be a carte blanche for adding them all over the place. What about a formal trial period of, say, six months, with a review on this talkpage at that time? Just one question for the technically informed here: are such link targets stable? Tony (talk) 05:50, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support for Twitter. I agree with the supporters about the relevance to the subject's biography due to the extensive usage of the website and the notoriety of the posts made on it. Saturnalia0 ( talk) 09:17, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support for twitter. Trump's use of twitter should be discussed in the article. It is part of many of the key themes of the campaign, and continues to be a unique aspect of his communication with the American electorate. Linking it is linking a unique primary document, rather than a dogpile list of links. Oppose adding facebook, et al. for the rationale that they did not play this unique role. I understand the WP:ELIMOFFICIAL arguments and respect them and, to be sure, I agree I wouldn't want it to be precedent for other pages, but, again, Trump's twitter is unique. Chris vLS ( talk) 06:51, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support - Summoned by bot. As Chris vLS noted, I too understand the WP:ELNO argument however, the policy does state that we should "generally avoid" providing external links to social networking sites. "Generally avoid" gives some flexibility for situations like this. Because Trump has specifically stated that he intends to use his social media accounts as a means to communicate with the public, this is absolutely relevant and his accounts are worth linking. What harm does it do including them? Meatsgains ( talk) 06:56, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support . We always give the official or principal social media account, regardless of the importance or unimportance of the person,so we unquestionably should do so here. Whether we should include others, depends on their significance; we don't do it as a matter of course. We frequently do for entertainment figures, or others whose media presence is a large part of their importance, so I consider it appropriate here also. DGG ( talk ) 23:56, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support for Twitter, with other social media to be examined on a case by case basis. Mr. Trump uses his social media accounts, Twitter in particular, as instruments for direct communication with the public. He has already made important announcements regarding the form of his future administration and foreign policy via this means. IMHO WP:NOEL was not intended to be applied as strictly as some of the oppose votes seem to believe. Given the degree to which he uses it, and what it is being used for I think failing to link at least his twitter account would violate both longstanding precedent and commonsense. For those appealing to a more rigorist interpretation of NOEL we could also cite WP:COMMONSENSE. Further, I endorse the above comments by Chris vLS and DGG. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 00:19, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support Twitter for now, as being plainly relevant and a high profile presence. Oppose the others as much less significant. Trump is known for his Tweets. Guy ( Help!) 10:34, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support as to Twitter. As per other commenters, his user of Twitter is a matter of considerable news attention. This is what External Links is for. Neutral as to other social media. Robert McClenon ( talk) 17:32, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose, link spam and promotional advertising for a particular purpose, violates WP:NPOV. Sagecandor ( talk) 23:05, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Very reluctantly support inclusion of twitr (only), due to exceptional special circumstances. Primary official website of Donald Trump is www.donaldjtrump.com, but only since early 2015. [20] It existed since 2007, but as a private website and/or email-only domain name, [21] and thus as a *website* has always and only been a campaign-website, not a personal official page. Primary official website of Presidential transition of Donald Trump is www.greatAgain.gov, but only since November 2016. Primary official website of The Trump Organization is www.trump.com -- but none of these (donaldjtrump/greatagain/trump.com) currently link to his twitr and fbook feeds. Nor have they ever done so, that I could tell. With beyonce we link only to www.beyonce.com, because her main website links to her social media accounts. With Tom Hanks we do NOT link to his official website (he may not have one), and we do NOT link to his 12m-follower twitr nor his 7m-likes fbook ... which is probably INCORRECT because although those are not encyclopedic content, neither in beyonce.com! ELs are supposed to be "helpful to the reader, minimal [in number], meritable, and directly relevant". Linking to Tom Hanks's fbook-or-twitr would be helpful (readers would want it), minimal (no official website), and directly relevant (about Hanks), but might not be "meritable" since they are technically unofficial (albeit blue-check-verified) and violate WP:LINKSTOAVOID #10. So what is the deciding factor? Sources almost never mention that Tom Hanks has a twitr URL, google-news search returns 24 hits. [22] Donald Trump is a similar case: effectively he has no official website (despite his corp-job site and his guv-job site and his campaign-site) which links to his twitr, and if anything realDonaldTrump *is* the closest thing he has to an official website. Linking to Trump's twitr would be minimal (because no 'official' one links to it), as well as directly relevant and 'helpful' to the readership (they will want it). And there is merit, which overrides LINKSTOAVOID#10 and the unofficial nature, because google-news has 1400+ hits. [23] Reliable sources pay attention to Trump's twitr feed, but not to Tom Hanks's twitr feed. Since no "official" Trump website links to his twitr, and since his twitr is close to being his quasi-official internet homepage, we should link to it. Still support keeping www.greatagain.gov as the infobox-link (until January when it will become whitehouse.gov) since that is what MOST readers will be here looking to find, but the twitr should be in the EL section... and probably as the first external link, followed by his transition-team-link www.greatagain.gov (his twitr is ALL about him whereas the transition team is mostly about cabinet-picks and only secondarily about Trump qua Trump). 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 10:26, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and not a vehicle for BLPs to use "as instruments for direct communication with the public". Jschnur ( talk) 00:56, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Closing the RfC

The RfC template has been removed as the discussion period has timed out. (30 days) Furthermore, it seems there have been no additional comments since December 19, more than one week ago. Should we ask somebody to close this discussion? Edge3 ( talk) 05:02, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Done. [24] Now #31 in line. I recently saw an RfC at Village Pump hatted at the time the close was requested, [25] and that stood until the close 5 days later. [26] I guess everybody agreed that there was nothing else that could be said, and/or was preoccupied with the holidays. I don't see why an RfC should be shut down after 30 days, although it sometimes takes up to a month for one to be closed after the request has been submitted (I think that one got expedited because it was a high-profile one). ― Mandruss  ☎ 07:40, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
FYI I had already filed a close request a bit earlier. They have now been merged. — JFG talk 09:57, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

The link to the Twitter account is already included in the "External Links" section, and based on my rough reading of the discussion here, consensus seems to be strongly in favor of including the Twitter link (at a minimum). Could it be the case that we have arrived at "implicit" consensus to show the Twitter link?

Obviously, we would prefer to have an experienced editor or admin close this RfC formally. But the RfC closure requests seem to be backlogged, and if an admin is not available, then perhaps we can move on without a formal closure. Thoughts? Edge3 ( talk) 19:39, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

I've looked into this further, and I don't think it is necessary to formally close this RfC.
WP:RFCEND states the following: "If the matter under discussion is not contentious and the consensus is obvious to the participants, then formal closure is neither necessary nor advisable. Written closing statements are not required. Editors are expected to be able to evaluate and agree upon the results of most RfCs without outside assistance." This point is further reinforced in WP:ANRFC: "Many discussions result in a reasonably clear consensus, so if the consensus is clear, any editor—even one involved in the discussion—may close the discussion."
As far as I can tell, the Twitter link was added by SVTCobra on December 11. It was briefly removed then restored on December 22. Since the Twitter link has been on the page for over 3 weeks without multiple reversions, we can conclude that it is stable and supported by consensus.
Mandruss and JFG: since you both submitted the close request on WP:ANRFC, do you think we should close this on our own? Edge3 ( talk) 05:00, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
You are asserting a consensus for a question that is different from the original question. Given that a consensus can't be seen without studying and subjectively analyzing the discussion, I don't think we can say "the consensus is obvious to the participants". In such a situation, I think an outside close would yield a more durable consensus. And there is no rush to get this closed; at the current rate of progress we should have an outside close within about 13 days. ― Mandruss  ☎ 05:26, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
Looking at the discussion above, there is no slam-dunk consensus to include social network links, although there might be an emerging consensus that the Twitter link alone is justified, as an exception to the general guidelines because of Trump's usage of this feed as his main communication outlet and the strong impact of many of his tweets. The fact that the link was indeed inserted in the infobox and not forcefully rejected afterwards tends to plead in that direction. But this is still very fresh, and I believe that nobody here would be justified in closing this discussion; involved editors can only do that when the consensus is crystal clear. The best course of action is to wait out for a formal closure; the backlog is not unusual, especially for sensitive questions such as this. — JFG talk 08:39, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Proposal about the word "plurality"

Superseded by active RfC. ― Mandruss  ☎ 09:50, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Based upon the discussion above (in the last section), I'd like to suggest modifying the lead as follows, call this Version A:


The only change above is adding the last four words ("who received a plurality"). A more concise version would be Version B:

Version C is keeping it the way it is, and Version D is removing the second sentence while keeping the first. Also, Version E is deleting everything after "2016". Anythingyouwant ( talk) 18:31, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Survey about the word "plurality"

  • Support Version B (first choice), Support Version A (second choice), Support Version D (third choice), Support Version E (fourth choice), Oppose Version C. That Clinton won a plurality is notable, it's in the lead of the Hillary Clinton article, and is explicitly stated by numerous reliable sources (e.g. BBC, Washington Post, International Business Times, Real Clear Politics, et cetera). If we omit "plurality" in the lead then we ought to omit discussion of the popular vote in the lead. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 06:47, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Version E, "Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016." There is no reason this option should be off the table, if we're discussing that sentence again. Add detail below the lead. ― Mandruss  ☎ 18:11, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose change, support C (status quo) or E (trim) – The current wording clearly conveys the message that Trump received fewer votes nationwide, or equivalently that Clinton received more. This article is Trump's biography, so it is more natural to keep him the sentence's subject. Adding the notion that Clinton received a plurality of the popular vote is best explained at the election page, or on her own biography; it does not bring value in the lead of Trump's bio. Besides the status quo, I would also support a trimmed version without the voting details, but then we need to mention Hillary Clinton somehow, so we could say: Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016 against his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. Still, the current version looks stronger to me. — JFG talk 05:59, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
    I support modification of E as per above. It's not like a bunch of people have !voted for it. ― Mandruss  ☎ 06:10, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Discussion about the word "plurality"

Comment: You need a version that mentions Trump broke the blue wall, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin, and won Ohio and Florida. That is a historic victory and should be mentioned. And as far as the coastal states that Clinton won, Trump did not campaign there. He used modeling to determine what states he needed to win, just like Obama did in the 2008 primary. Those are the states Trump focused on, and those are the states he won. SW3 5DL ( talk) 15:04, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but all this "historic victory" narrative you keep trying to push is unwarranted. Trump's electoral college win was, in point of fact, quite ordinary and unremarkable when compared to previous elections. Although he did well in the electoral college, in several states it could've gone either way and flipped the result. The existing text, the result of two previous discussions, is more than sufficient to describe what happened. -- Scjessey ( talk) 15:40, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
Show me reliable sources that call his historic victory ordinary. Even CNN acknowledges he broke the blue wall. [27]. It was an historic win. A non-politician beats a career politician, and the first woman candidate for president. He wins blue states that had not gone Republican in a very long time. He used modeling to tell him which states he needed to win, just like Obama did in 2008. Yes, it was historic. Not at all ordinary. SW3 5DL ( talk) 16:13, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
If the sun comes up, CNN will call it breaking news. Objective3000 ( talk) 16:18, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
@ SW3 5DL: It is ordinary. Trump ranked only 46th by Electoral College margin, which is statistically a rubbish performance. It is clear Trump won by the skin of his teeth thanks to Russia leaking hacked material to WikiLeaks and an outrageous (and possibly illegal) act by James Comey. Your attempt to paint Trump's win as anything other than unremarkable is hilarious. -- Scjessey ( talk) 18:21, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
It certainly was a surprising upset, biggest one since 1948. Pollsters focused so much on national polls, they neglected the state polls. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 18:37, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
(e/c) I think Scjessey is not wanting to see the point. It was historic for a businessman who has never held office to win the highest office in the land. It was historic that he broke the blue wall. It was historic on many levels including the behavior of the main stream media, etc. But at the end of the day, here's why Hillary lost: Hillary failed to campaign and 'go to every fish fry' like Obama and Trump. She engaged in pay for play while SecState and put it in emails. It was the content of the emails that lost it for her. The Russians or the Martians or WikiLeaks, or whoever got hold of her emails didn't do it. She did it. Notice, she's never denied what was in the emails. It was just the main stream media chose not to mention that big elephant in the room. SW3 5DL ( talk) 19:26, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
Accusing Clinton of "pay for play" is a WP:BLP vio. Objective3000 ( talk) 19:31, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
There’s no question that the results were surprising. But, if you look at Nate Silver’s win probability chart over time, there were wild swings in polling predictions over the last months. In any case, while the word “historical” may make some sense in a general article about polling; I don’t see it here. Since the set of presidential elections is so small, you can find numerous facts about every election that are unique. And I suppose you could even argue that every presidential election is “historical”. And yes it makes sense to point out some of the unique features of this election. But, the concept that a close election resulting in a win by a well-known, rich, white male from a major party is a “historic victory” seems a huge stretch. Objective3000 ( talk) 19:20, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
Well using the race angle of a 'rich white male' applies if you're talking about career politicians who've never done anything else in life, like Paul Ryan. SW3 5DL ( talk) 19:29, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
SW3, come on, let's not soapbox. There's already enough to do around here! Cheers. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 19:47, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, no one objects to Version B, so I plan on installing it tomorrow (Wednesday). I would install Version E, but people have made comments elsewhere on this page inconsistent with Version E. Version B can always be changed to Version E if a consensus for the latter develops. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 04:14, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
@ Anythingyouwant: I don't think it would be wise to publish your suggested version with very little participation from other editors. "No one objects" doesn't mean "There is consensus". I didn't bother to comment earlier because I was nonplussed by all your suggestions, but now I will explicitly object (with a rationale, see above)… — JFG talk 05:59, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
Per WP:Consensus, "Consensus can be assumed if no editors object to a change." Since you have objected, I will not make the change. However, the material now in the lead suggests that Clinton rather than Trump won a majority of the popular vote, which is false, and is very easily corrected. Only two candidates are mentioned in the lead, which implies that one won a majority and the other did not, and Version B corrects this problem using even less words than the current version. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 06:10, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
Because I think the sentence in question makes the lead preposterously misleading, I have left it alone but added some material to a later sentence in the lead: "At age 70, Trump will become the oldest and wealthiest person to assume the presidency, the first without prior military or governmental service, and the fourth to be elected with less than a plurality of the national popular vote (emphasis added). Anythingyouwant ( talk) 12:11, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Support for Provisional IRA?

Discussion initiated by banned editor HarveyCarter — Preceding unsigned comment added by Beyond My Ken ( talk • contribs) 23:42, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Shouldn't the fact he attended an IRA fundraiser be mentioned? ( AndyTyner ( talk) 12:09, 3 January 2017 (UTC))

You would need cast-iron sourcing for such a claim. -- Scjessey ( talk) 13:14, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
I've seen the video. But, he used to show up at fundraisers without invitation and without any support for the causes. For all we know, he may not have even known what the IRA was. Without an RS that states he actually supported the IRA, there could be BLP problems. Objective3000 ( talk) 14:39, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
I Googled this and it's not looking like a reliable claim. Not even a comment from Jerry Adams, who would probably not keep it a secret that Donald Trump supported the IRA, which is disbanded now, btw. SW3 5DL ( talk) 15:52, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Remember this is the wikipedia article for the President-elect of the United States, not a gossip column or fake news site. Reliable sources needed, not hearsay SomewhereInLondon ( talk) 16:04, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Well, it's not hearsay. Guardian independent. I'm just uncomfortable with the conclusions that could be drawn as he tended to go to lots of fundraisers just for the photo ops. I think it's WP:UNDUE. Objective3000 ( talk) 16:31, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
An important distinction, the sources describe it as a fundraiser for Sinn Féin, specifically Friends of Sinn Féin, and not the IRA. -- zzuuzz (talk) 16:25, 3 January 2017 (UTC
(e/c) It's also from 1995 and the Guardian and Independent are obviously looking to gin up something. I wouldn't pay it any mind. SW3 5DL ( talk) 16:38, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
In any case it was more than 20 years ago, and I'm not aware of him doing anything to overtly support Sinn Fein or the IRA then or since. Chances are he went to this just as part of his normal routine of networking and self-promotion. Mentioning it would be UNDUE and a form of (IMO unwarranted) guilt by association. -- MelanieN ( talk) 16:35, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
@ Zzuuzz: Just to be clear, at the time we are talking about there was no fundamental difference between Sinn Féin and the IRA. Fundraising on behalf of Sinn Féin was exactly the same as providing support to a terrorist organization. If the association between Trump and Sinn Féin was solid (and I don't believe there is sufficient RS to say there was), it would be a pretty serious matter. But the sourcing isn't great and the association appears minimal at best, which is why I agree with Objective3000 that is would be undue weight. -- Scjessey ( talk) 17:03, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
The matter is already covered adequately at Ireland–United States relations: "Trump attended an IRA fundraiser with Gerry Adams, shortly before the IRA bombed Canary Wharf." That article provides the necessary context, i.e. that Adams had been received at the White House earlier the same year. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 17:15, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
That edit makes it sound like Donald Trump had something to do with the bombing of Canary Wharf and seems a WP:BLP violation and should be rewritten. Unless there are sources connecting Trump to the bombing, then it seems to be a deliberate attempt to connect him with a crime he had nothing to do with. SW3 5DL ( talk) 17:51, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
The edit looks innocent to me. But, is why this is undue for the article as some would infer such. Objective3000 ( talk) 17:55, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
If the bombing had occurred before the fundraiser, then Trump might arguably be blamed for associating with an organization that he knew had done that. But the bombing happened after, not before, which tends to get Trump off the hook. Anyway, the material does not belong in this article at all. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 18:38, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
Could Trump have attended the fundraiser without donating money himself? This is bound to be a major issue if he appoints IRA supporter Peter King to any position, as the IRA had not ended its violent campaign in 1995. ( AndyTyner ( talk) 14:12, 4 January 2017 (UTC)) note: comment moved from unnecessary new section below. -- Scjessey ( talk) 14:16, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
Everyone who attended that fundraiser had to donate $200 to get in. I don't see any reliable sources saying Trump contributed beyond that door fee, although it is certainly possible. -- Scjessey ( talk) 14:18, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
If it becomes an issue, then we'll revisit. Objective3000 ( talk) 14:27, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
@ Scjessey: Agree with Objective3000. If it becomes an issue, and if there are reliable sources that say Donald Trump paid to get into the fundraiser. Celebrities are also invited to gin up the event and are not expected to pay. Just being there doesn't mean anything. He was a real estate developer and went everywhere to everything. Also, was the fundraiser actually held by Sinn Fein or was it really sponsored by one of the Irish societies? That's more likely who held the event. Big difference there. Also, The Guardian is a tabloid and is not a reliable source. They brought back this story from 1995 in November 2015 for click bait. They wrapped alot of non-Trump with it. SW3 5DL ( talk) 16:25, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
The Guardian is very much a reliable source. The news that the Provos have disbanded seems to have bypassed the Irish government, security forces, and courts. Those facts aside, agree this isn't worthy of inclusion. Bastun Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 16:40, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
"The Guardian" is a broadsheet, not a tabloid. There was only a temporary ceasefire in 1995 so even $200 would have contributed to the terrorist campaign when it resumed in February 1996. ( AndyTyner ( talk) 10:33, 5 January 2017 (UTC))

You might want to look back at all the history, which includes the dates and the circumstances. President Bill Clinton gave Gerry Adams permission to fundraise in America just before St. Pat's Day in March 1995. He also had Adams to the White House. New York Governor Pataki met with Gerry Adams, as did US State Dept personnel and Cardinal O'Conner, the Archbishop of New York. The Guardian claims this fundraiser occurred "just before" the Docklands incident. However, the fundraiser was held in March 1995. The Docklands attack occurred in February 1996, nearly a year later. The only thing of note that happened before the attack was the November, 1995 visit by President and Mrs. Clinton to Northern Ireland where they met with Gerry Adams, among others. They most certainly had nothing to do with the attack and neither did President-elect Trump. Ginning up the story for click bait is what makes the Guardian a tabloid and not reliable on this. SW3 5DL ( talk) 16:29, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

"The Guardian" is not a tabloid, it's a broadsheet. The fundraiser was in November 1995. ( 2A00:23C4:638C:4500:B0FC:5CF6:3969:12F5 ( talk) 19:49, 5 January 2017 (UTC))
Gerry Adams fundraiser at Essex House March 1995 so says the New York Times. Has nothing about Donald Trump other than to name him in the caption of the photo, which The Guardian, in it's best tabloid behavior, used to gin the click bait story. SW3 5DL ( talk) 22:04, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
Your opinion that it's a "clickbait" story from a tabloid is not borne out by the fact that it was covered by multiple reliable broadsheet sources, including the Guardian and the Independent. (And it's Saint Patrick's Day, St Paddy's Day, or just Paddy's Day. Never "St. Pat.") Bastun Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 23:09, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
It's not an original story. You do understand that, right? The Guardian wrote a story back in November 2015 taking a photo from 1995 by the New York Times that did have a story about the Gerry Adams fund raiser but did not feature Donald Trump at all except in a photo. You understand that right? The Guardian doesn't have an original story from March 1995 claiming Donald Trump did anything. And I'll call it what I please. I could call it St. Shite's Day for all the trouble this Guardian tabloid style story caused around here yesterday. SW3 5DL ( talk) 23:42, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
Keep in mind that The Guardian is a British paper; and the IRA is rather a sensitive subject in the UK. I don't think this discussion is particularly useful. Objective3000 ( talk) 23:50, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
You do understand your condescending tone doesn't help your argument, right? You do understand repeating something you believe doesn't make it true, right? Bastun Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 09:28, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
Objective3000, where The Guardian is published really is irrelevant. Even on articles related to the Troubles, nobody would argue for the exclusion of a source on that basis. In any case, the story has been covered by multiple reliable sources including not only the (UK) Independent and Telegraph but also the Irish Independent (December '16), the Irish Times (December '15), the (pro-Irish Republican) Irish Central (August '15), and a few thousand more... Bastun Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 09:28, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
Bastun, I was not arguing against inclusion for that reason. I was only saying that it's not surprising that The Guardian covered this recently given where it is published. I do believe that inclusion in this article is undue weight. But, it may make sense to include at Ireland–United States relations. Objective3000 ( talk) 12:11, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

non-arbitrary break

Hey, people - when something offensive has been posted, don't just ask for revdel - first DELETE it, immediately. As long as it hasn't been deleted, it continues to show up on all subsequent edits. Sorry for revdeling a bunch of your edits, but they were "tainted" with the offensive stuff. -- MelanieN ( talk) 02:08, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. My first instinct was to delete or hat. But, was afraid it wouldn't have been revdeled if I did. And, frankly, wanted to play out a bit more rope to stop a repeat. Objective3000 ( talk) 02:13, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
Thanks Melanie. I was thinking the very same as Objective3000. Worried that if I deleted it, it would cause problems. Sorry, next time, I'll let you know asap. SW3 5DL ( talk) 02:24, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
Delete on sight. And THEN holler for a revdel. And a block, of course; nobody had done that yet either. The block may or may not help; that type of user address changes frequently. If he reappears and starts doing this stuff again, delete at once and holler for me or any other admin that you see is online. -- MelanieN ( talk) 02:30, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
It's a missed learning opportunity for me, since I never saw the offensive material. Maybe some generous soul could email me. ― Mandruss  ☎ 03:02, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
Just to add to the "lesson" (sorry you missed it, Mandruss): There are actually two reasons to delete it right away without waiting for an admin. One is that the longer it stays "live" on the page, the more subsequent material has to be revdel'ed. The other, more important reason: the whole point is to get it out of sight. If you delete it, that gets it out of sight for 99% of the people who come to the page. Cleaning up the history is a minor tidying-up operation, since hardly anyone even knows about the history. One other lesson: when you posted to me about the other article, I was at dinner so it was more than an hour before I got the message. Most people, when in need of a revdel or an emergency block or something like that, ask three or four admins - and whoever gets the message first carries it out. -- MelanieN ( talk) 03:49, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
This story illustrates that we should let rely on reliable sources to determine what is important rather than look for stories we think the mainstream has ignored and waste editors' time on investigating them. At the time, Sein Fein was involved in peace talks and the U.S. had agreed to treat them as legitimate parties in the UK-Irish peace talks rather than as terrorists. So Trump's appearance with Sein Fein, not the Provos IIRC, had little significance. This was discussed earlier btw. TFD ( talk) 04:02, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
@ The Four Deuces:, the source itself was a joke. In November 2015, The Guardian reprinted an article from 1995. It was entirely taken out of context, not reliable at all, and obviously an attempt to make it seem like Trump was involved with all that had been going on. Totally inappropriate but it kept getting argued that it was all right. SW3 5DL ( talk) 05:20, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
@MelanieN - Wikipedia:Oversight begins with: "The fastest way to request oversight is to email the oversight team." I assume that means it's the fastest way to receive oversight, but I could be wrong. ― Mandruss  ☎ 04:04, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
In my experience, the fastest way to receive revdel -- which is different from oversight and I believe there is no IRC channel for that -- is using #wikipedia-en-revdel connect which is listed as one of the channels at the fairly-easy-to-remember WP:IRC shortcut. You can also email for revdel, too, but the IRC method gives instant gratification -- if there is an admin there, you can get an immediate acknowledgement that they are aware of the problem. The advantage to using IRC or email for alerting the admin (as opposed to usertalk of indivuidual or multiple individual admins) is that you do not have a lot of on-wiki activity which contains the phrase 'revdel' or the phrase 'oversight' ... theoretically that is a risk that could be capitalized on by a wikipedia-criticism-site intentionally (people with an axe to grind over lack of verified-blue-check-usernames for example), or a wikipedia-scraper-crawler unintentionally (search engines and CCBYSA re-users). This is a rare situation where off-wiki channels are better than on-wiki. And often fast(er). See also, Streisand effect. 47.222.203.135 ( talk) 05:40, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi @ MelanieN:, I did put together an ANI, then I saw on that page that for revdels I should email oversight. I sent off all the info to the email listed at ANI, and then waited. When I saw things getting worse, that's when I went to ANI and ask if any admins were about. I found one admin but he was going to bed. Then I remembered you're an admin and came to your talk page. You edit here so naturally I think of you as an editor. And you never pull the admin rank, so you blend right in. Thanks for getting on that so fast. SW3 5DL ( talk) 04:56, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

At this page I do function as a regular editor - and I don't normally do any admin stuff since I am WP:INVOLVED. But at need I can step into the phone booth and change into my Superman costume. 0;-D -- MelanieN ( talk) 05:15, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
And you did it so well. Well done, Superman. SW3 5DL ( talk) 05:18, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
@ Mandruss: WP:Oversight is different from WP:RevDel. Oversight is a complete and total obliteration of the edit, such that even admins can't see it. Oversight is very rare and it is probably not what you need. Most of the time in a situation like this you will be looking for a garden-variety revdel which any admin can do. You can ask individual admins, or you could post at AN asking for a revdel and you would probably get quick action. BTW any time you are asking for a revdel in public (as opposed to email), be sure not to repeat or explain the material you are asking to have revdel'ed! 0;-D -- MelanieN ( talk) 04:30, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
P.S. This could be useful at need: Category:Wikipedia administrators willing to handle RevisionDelete requests. -- MelanieN ( talk) 04:39, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
I see, so the mystery material was not oversight fodder. I'll try WP:AN next time. If that works within a reasonable amount of time, one post there is certainly easier than four posts on four user talk pages. And the responding admin can add a comment so that nobody else wastes precious seconds looking into it. ― Mandruss  ☎ 04:45, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
@ Mandruss: Yes, actually ANI gives you the email of Oversight for BLP violaitons that need to be deleted. I just followed the instructions there. Also sent you an email. SW3 5DL ( talk) 05:06, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
So some of you did email the oversighters? I will be curious to know if (and when) you get a reply. Meanwhile, a suggestion has been posted above that there is a dedicated IRC channel for revdel requests. That could get you a response in real time. -- MelanieN ( talk) 05:51, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
@ MelanieN: I did email the oversighters and will let you know if I hear back. SW3 5DL ( talk) 16:27, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk:Donald_Trump/Archive_42&oldid=1136731050"

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