Anythingyouwant (talk | contribs) →Survey: clarify what this was responding to, and fixing indent so that my comment of 11:24 on 14 May is not in reply to myself. |
→Survey: restore thread. Awilley and Anythingyouwant, please stop disrupting these threads |
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::*Thanks for responding. The RfC was not about the word "lost." It was simply about eliminating the word "plurality' and had nothing to do with the word 'lost,' which happened to be in the suggested options to replace the sentence in the article. [[User:SW3 5DL|SW3 5DL]] ([[User talk:SW3 5DL|talk]]) 22:38, 9 May 2017 (UTC) |
::*Thanks for responding. The RfC was not about the word "lost." It was simply about eliminating the word "plurality' and had nothing to do with the word 'lost,' which happened to be in the suggested options to replace the sentence in the article. [[User:SW3 5DL|SW3 5DL]] ([[User talk:SW3 5DL|talk]]) 22:38, 9 May 2017 (UTC) |
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::::That RfC was absolutely about the concept of losing the popular vote. The initial filer suggested to replace the "less than a plurality" wording with the "lost popular vote" wording. Several grammatical variants of the "lost" wording were suggested, and the overall balance of editor comments rejected all of those. I'm afraid that the same issues are being needlessly re-litigated here since the B4 variant was suggested. Surely, [[WP:consensus can change|consensus can change]] but to demonstrate consensus on B4 we would need to run it through a proper RfC. — [[User:JFG|JFG]] <sup>[[User talk:JFG|talk]]</sup> 09:02, 11 May 2017 (UTC) |
::::That RfC was absolutely about the concept of losing the popular vote. The initial filer suggested to replace the "less than a plurality" wording with the "lost popular vote" wording. Several grammatical variants of the "lost" wording were suggested, and the overall balance of editor comments rejected all of those. I'm afraid that the same issues are being needlessly re-litigated here since the B4 variant was suggested. Surely, [[WP:consensus can change|consensus can change]] but to demonstrate consensus on B4 we would need to run it through a proper RfC. — [[User:JFG|JFG]] <sup>[[User talk:JFG|talk]]</sup> 09:02, 11 May 2017 (UTC) |
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This RfC is about changing from plurality and the majority so far want to use '''B4.''' B4 matches the wording in [[WP:RS]]. Attempting to avoid using 'lost' is original research, as [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3ADonald_Trump&type=revision&diff=778656895&oldid=778656007 MelanieN notes above]. This RfC right here, replaces all other RfC's on this issue. B4 is a legitimate choice. Consensus has changed. [[User:SW3 5DL|SW3 5DL]] ([[User talk:SW3 5DL|talk]]) 19:44, 11 May 2017 (UTC). |
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::::::This local survey is not an RfC. We can't assume that consensus has changed without a community-wide discussion. — [[User:JFG|JFG]] <sup>[[User talk:JFG|talk]]</sup> 22:33, 11 May 2017 (UTC) |
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:::: |
:This local survey is not an RfC. We can't assume that consensus has changed without a community-wide discussion. — [[User:JFG|JFG]] <sup>[[User talk:JFG|talk]]</sup> 22:33, 11 May 2017 (UTC) |
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::An RfC is done only when consensus cannot be reached, and it appears that B4 is gaining consensus. In addition, many of the items on the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Donald_Trump#Current_consensus current consensus list] were done 'locally' without a formal RfC. In addition, there are 1,934 page watchers. I don't think anything we do here could be considered 'local.' [[User:SW3 5DL|SW3 5DL]] ([[User talk:SW3 5DL|talk]]) 01:21, 12 May 2017 (UTC) |
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*'''A.''' We don't need to worry about B or B2. <small><s>No one's going to find a supporting source for them, so</s></small> they'd likely get <small><s>immediately</s></small> <u>eventually</u> reverted, <small><s>either</s></small> for <u>alleged</u> falsity <small><s>or per [[WP:BLPSOURCES]]</s></small>. (The subject had three significant opponents, not one.) <s><small>The only remaining choices are '''A''', '''A2''', and '''Abort'''. And A2 would likely get fought over per [[WP:BLP#Balance]]. Some reasonable (if partisan) editors could feel it's unfair to Johnson (without whom the subject might well have won the national popular vote).</small></s> --[[User:Dervorguilla|Dervorguilla]] ([[User talk:Dervorguilla|talk]]) 01:52, 4 May 2017 (UTC) 06:18, 4 May 2017 (UTC) |
*'''A.''' We don't need to worry about B or B2. <small><s>No one's going to find a supporting source for them, so</s></small> they'd likely get <small><s>immediately</s></small> <u>eventually</u> reverted, <small><s>either</s></small> for <u>alleged</u> falsity <small><s>or per [[WP:BLPSOURCES]]</s></small>. (The subject had three significant opponents, not one.) <s><small>The only remaining choices are '''A''', '''A2''', and '''Abort'''. And A2 would likely get fought over per [[WP:BLP#Balance]]. Some reasonable (if partisan) editors could feel it's unfair to Johnson (without whom the subject might well have won the national popular vote).</small></s> --[[User:Dervorguilla|Dervorguilla]] ([[User talk:Dervorguilla|talk]]) 01:52, 4 May 2017 (UTC) 06:18, 4 May 2017 (UTC) |
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Donald Trump was a Social sciences and society good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake. | ||||||||||||||||
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Current status: Former good article nominee |
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Open RfCs and surveys
- #Options about popular vote yet again
Current consensus
NOTE: It is recommended to link to this list in your edit summary when reverting, as:[[Talk:Donald Trump#Current consensus|current consensus]] item [n]
To ensure you are viewing the current list, you may wish to .
official White House portrait as the infobox image. (Dec 2016, Jan 2017, Oct 2017, March 2020) (temporarily suspended by #19 following copyright issues on the inauguration portrait, enforced when an official public-domain portrait was released on 31 October 2017)
1. Use theQueens, New York City, U.S.
" in the infobox. (Nov 2016, Oct 2018, Feb 2021) "New York City" de-linked. (September 2020)
gaining a majority of the U.S. Electoral College" and "
receiving a smaller share of the popular vote nationwide", without quoting numbers. (Nov 2016, Dec 2016) (Superseded by #15 since 11 February 2017)
Oct 2016) In the lead section, just write: Removed from the lead per #47.
Forbes estimates his net worth to be [$x.x] billion.
(July 2018, July 2018)
Many of his public statements were controversial or false." in the lead. (Sep 2016, February 2017, wording shortened per April 2017, upheld with July 2018) (superseded by #35 since 18 February 2019)
without prior military or government service
". (Dec 2016)
Include a link to Trump's Twitter account in the "External links" section. (Jan 2017) Include a link to an archive of Trump's Twitter account in the "External links" section. (Jan 2021)
10. Keep Barron Trump's name in the list of children and wikilink it, which redirects to his section in Family of Donald Trump per AfD consensus. (Jan 2017, Nov 2016)
12. The article title is Donald Trump, not Donald J. Trump. (RM Jan 2017, RM June 2019)
13. Auto-archival is set for discussions with no comments for 14 days. Manual archival is allowed for (1) closed discussions, 24 hours after the closure, provided the closure has not been challenged, and (2) "answered" edit requests, 24 hours after the "answer", provided there has been no follow-on discussion after the "answer". (Jan 2017) (amended with respect to manual archiving, to better reflect common practice at this article) (Nov 2019)
14. Omit mention of Trump's alleged bathmophobia/fear of slopes. (Feb 2017)
Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016, …"). Accordingly the pre-RfC text (Diff 8 Jan 2017) has been restored, with minor adjustments to past tense (Diff 11 Feb 2018). No new changes should be applied without debate. (RfC Feb 2017, Jan 2017, Feb 2017, Feb 2017) In particular, there is no consensus to include any wording akin to "losing the popular vote". (RfC March 2017) (Superseded by local consensus on 26 May 2017 and lead section rewrite on 23 June 2017)
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is the 45th and current president of the United States. Before entering politics, he was a businessman and television personality." The hatnote is simply {{Other uses}}. (April 2017, RfC April 2017, April 2017, April 2017, April 2017, July 2017, Dec 2018) Amended by lead section rewrite on 23 June 2017 and removal of inauguration date on 4 July 2018. Lower-case "p" in "president" per Dec 2018 and MOS:JOBTITLES RfC Oct 2017. Wikilinks modified per April 2020. Wikilink modified again per July 2020. "45th" de-linked. (Jan 2021)
Wharton School (BS Econ.)", does not mention Fordham University. (April 2017, April 2017, Aug 2020, Dec 2020)
20. Mention protests in the lead section with this exact wording: His election and policies
(June 2017, May 2018) (Note: In February 2021, when he was no longer president, the verb tense was changed from "have sparked" to "sparked", without objection.)
have sparked numerous protests.
22. Do not call Trump a "liar" in Wikipedia's voice. Falsehoods he uttered can be mentioned, while being mindful of calling them "lies", which implies malicious intent. (RfC Aug 2017)
Trump ordered a travel ban on citizens from several Muslim-majority countries, citing security concerns; after legal challenges, the Supreme Court upheld the policy's third revision.(Aug 2017, Nov 2017, Dec 2017, Jan 2018, Jan 2018) Wording updated (July 2018) and again (Sep 2018).
25. Do not add web archives to cited sources which are not dead. (Dec 2017, March 2018)
26. Do not include opinions by Michael Hayden and Michael Morell that Trump is a "useful fool […] manipulated by Moscow"
or an "unwitting agent of the Russian Federation"
. (RfC April 2018)
27. State that Trump falsely claimed
that Hillary Clinton started the Barack Obama birther
rumors. (April 2018, June 2018)
28. Include, in the Wealth section, a sentence on Jonathan Greenberg's allegation that Trump deceived him in order to get on the Forbes 400 list. (June 2018, June 2018)
29. Include material about the Trump administration family separation policy in the article. (June 2018)
30. Supersedes #24. The lead includes: "Many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racially charged or racist.
" (RfC Sep 2018, Oct 2018, RfC May 2019)
31. Do not mention Trump's office space donation to Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/Push Coalition in 1999. (Nov 2018)
32. Omit from the lead the fact that Trump is the first sitting U.S. president to meet with a North Korean supreme leader. (RfC July 2018, Nov 2018)
33. Do not mention "birtherism" in the lead section. (RfC Nov 2018)
34. Refer to Ivana Zelníčková as a Czech model, with a link to Czechs (people), not Czechoslovakia (country). (Jan 2019)
Trump has made many false or misleading statements during his campaign and presidency. The statements have been documented by fact-checkers, and the media have widely described the phenomenon as unprecedented in American politics.(RfC Feb 2019)
37. Resolved: Content related to Trump's presidency should be limited to summary-level about things that are likely to have a lasting impact on his life and/or long-term presidential legacy. If something is borderline or debatable, the resolution does not apply. (June 2019)
38. Do not state in the lead that Trump is the wealthiest U.S. president ever. (RfC June 2019)
39. Supersedes #21 and #36. Do not include any paragraph regarding Trump's mental health or mental fitness for office. Do not bring up for discussion again until an announced formal diagnosis or WP:MEDRS-level sources are provided. This does not prevent inclusion of content about temperamental fitness for office. (RfC Aug 2019, July 2021)
40. Include, when discussing Trump's exercise or the lack thereof: He has called golfing his "primary form of exercise", although he usually does not walk the course. He considers exercise a waste of energy, because he believes the body is "like a battery, with a finite amount of energy" which is depleted by exercise.
(RfC Aug 2019)
41. Omit book authorship (or lack thereof) from the lead section. (RfC Nov 2019)
42. House and Senate outcomes of the impeachment process are separated by a full stop. For example: He was impeached by the House on December 18, 2019, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. He was acquitted of both charges by the Senate on February 5, 2020.
(Feb 2020)
43. The rules for edits to the lead are no different from those for edits below the lead. For edits that do not conflict with existing consensus: Prior consensus is NOT required. BOLD edits are allowed, subject to normal BRD process. The mere fact that an edit has not been discussed is not a valid reason to revert it. (March 2020)
44. The lead section should mention North Korea, focusing on Trump's meetings with Kim and some degree of clarification that they haven't produced clear results. (RfC May 2020)
46. Use the caption "Official portrait, 2017" for the infobox image. (Aug 2020, Jan 2021)
47. Do not mention Trump's net worth or Forbes ranking (or equivalents from other publications) in the lead, nor in the infobox. (Sep 2020)
48. Supersedes #45. Trump's reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic should be mentioned in the lead section. There is no consensus on specific wording, but the status quo is Trump reacted slowly to the COVID-19 pandemic; he minimized the threat, ignored or contradicted many recommendations from health officials, and promoted false information about unproven treatments and the availability of testing.
(Oct 2020, RfC Aug 2020)
49. Supersedes #35. Include in lead: Trump has made many false and misleading statements during his campaigns and presidency, to a degree unprecedented in American politics.
(Dec 2020)
50. Supersedes #17. The lead sentence is: Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
(March 2021), amended (July 2021), inclusion of politician (RfC September 2021)
51. Include in the lead that many of Trump's comments and actions have been characterized as misogynistic. (Aug 2021 and Sep 2021)
52. Supersedes #23. The lead should contain a summary of Trump's actions on immigration, including the Muslim travel ban (cf. item 23), the wall, and the family separation policy. (September 2021)
53. The lead should mention that Trump promotes conspiracy theories. (October 2021)
54. Include in the lead that, quote, Scholars and historians rank Trump as one of the worst presidents in U.S. history.
(October 2021)
55. Regarding Trump's comments on the 2017 far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia
, do not wiki-link "Trump's comments" in this manner. (RfC December 2021)
56. Retain the content that Trump never confronted Putin over its alleged bounties against American soldiers in Afghanistan
but add context. Current wording can be altered or contextualized; no consensus was achieved on alternate wordings. (RfC November 2021) Trump's expressions of doubt regarding the Russian Bounties Program should be included in some capacity, though there there is no consensus on a specific way to characterize these expressed doubts. (RfC March 2022)
57. Do not mention in the lead Gallup polling that states Trump's the only president to never reach 50% approval rating. (RfC January 2022)
58. Use inline citations in the lead for the more contentious and controversial statements. Editors should further discuss which sentences would benefit from having inline citations. (RfC May 2022, discussion on what to cite May 2022)
59. Do not label or categorize Trump as a far-right politician. (RfC August 2022)
60. Insert the links described in the RfC January 2023.
61. When a thread is started with a general assertion that the article is biased for or against Trump (i.e., without a specific, policy-based suggestion for a change to the article), it is to be handled as follows:
- Reply briefly with a link to Talk:Donald Trump/Response to claims of bias.
- Close the thread using
{{archive top}}
and{{archive bottom}}
, referring to this consensus item. - Wait at least 24 hours per current consensus #13.
- Manually archive the thread.
This does not apply to posts that are clearly in bad faith, which are to be removed on sight. (May 2023)
62. The article's description of the five people who died during and subsequent to the January 6 Capitol attack should avoid a) mentioning the causes of death and b) an explicit mention of the Capitol Police Officer who died. (RfC July 2023)
63. Supersedes #18. The alma mater field of the infobox reads: "University of Pennsylvania (BS)". (September 2023)
64. Omit the {{Very long}}
tag. (January 2024)
65. Mention the Abraham Accords in the article; no consensus was achieved on specific wordings. (RfC February 2024)
Lead is now false
This recent edit changed the lead to say that Trump is the fifth president elected with less than a majority of the popular vote. That is false, as the number is actually much higher (the correct number is at least 19). This change is also contrary to a recent RFC that concluded: "No consensus for a change. In about a proportion of 3 to 2, editors prefer the current text per option 1 ('elected with less than a plurality') to any of the other options that involve some variant of 'lost'." Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:14, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- Did this fix the problem? ~Awilley (talk) 05:17, 3 May 2017 (UTC) Actually, after skimming the RfC you linked, I simplified it further to avoid the word "lost" that so many objected to, and to put it in plain English that nobody can misunderstand. ~Awilley (talk) 05:28, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- It says now that he's "the fifth to have won a presidential election while receiving fewer votes than his opponent." He received less of the national popular vote, but received more electoral votes, and the latter are the votes that count. The current version is talking about the national popular vote but doesn't say so, and therefore is confusing. I would suggest going back to the RFC version or clarifying what votes we're talking about. The RFC version also had the advantage of indicating that the opponent won a plurality rather than a majority. Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:31, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- I don't think anybody is going to read "votes" and interpret it as "electoral votes". But if you insist, "...while receiving a smaller share of the popular vote than his opponent" also avoids the "plurality" jargon. ~Awilley (talk) 05:37, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- @Awilley: I believe there is a prior consensus on this sentence. SW3 5DL (talk) 05:46, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)@SW3, I see the consensus in the RfC not to use the word "lost". But RfCs are blunt tools and should not be used to prevent incremental improvements to an article. Just because a bunch of people agree it is confusing to say Trump "lost" something doesn't mean we have to use jargon like "plurality". I think I'm fairly well-educated, but I learned what the word "plurality" meant while watching the discussion on this talk page a few months ago. People shouldn't have to follow wikilinks in order to understand what an encyclopedia is saying. That's the whole point of WP:Jargon. ~Awilley (talk) 06:09, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- @Awilley: We've had problems with editors who have WP:OWN problems. That's why this isn't settled properly. There have been a few RfC's but they failed because they were undermined. I agree we should eliminate plurality. As for the claim that Trump is not the fifth to lose the popular vote, that's not true. He is. That argument was hashed out, too, and settled. So ignore that. SW3 5DL (talk) 06:17, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)@SW3, I see the consensus in the RfC not to use the word "lost". But RfCs are blunt tools and should not be used to prevent incremental improvements to an article. Just because a bunch of people agree it is confusing to say Trump "lost" something doesn't mean we have to use jargon like "plurality". I think I'm fairly well-educated, but I learned what the word "plurality" meant while watching the discussion on this talk page a few months ago. People shouldn't have to follow wikilinks in order to understand what an encyclopedia is saying. That's the whole point of WP:Jargon. ~Awilley (talk) 06:09, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- Yes, it must be clear that we're talking about the popular vote. This is especially necessary for historical purposes (context gets lost with time) and for those unfamiliar with USA politics. -- BullRangifer (talk) 05:58, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- @BullRangifer, as of right now, the article says, "...and the fifth to have won a presidential election while receiving a smaller share of the popular vote than his opponent." Are you wanting it more clear than that? ~Awilley (talk) 06:11, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- Awilley, that is better. My point was that elimination of the distinction between total votes and popular votes created a problem. It's better now. -- BullRangifer (talk) 15:15, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- @BullRangifer, as of right now, the article says, "...and the fifth to have won a presidential election while receiving a smaller share of the popular vote than his opponent." Are you wanting it more clear than that? ~Awilley (talk) 06:11, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- I agree with SW3, when he says "there is a prior consensus". There was a pre-existing stable version, and no consensus to change it. Moreover, the word "plurality" is used in thousands of Wikipedia articles. Google News currently has tens of thousands of hits for this word. We wikilinked the word "plurality" in the lead, for anyone unfamiliar with the word. Plurality voting is typically covered in high school.[1] Clinton won a plurality, not a majority, and that is indicated by saying Trump won less than a plurality. Why omit this key fact? It's very rare for a president to be elected with less of the popular vote than an opponent who won less than a majority of that vote. As currently phrased, the lead suggests that Clinton may have won a majority, perhaps a landslide majority, which is not necessary for us to suggest. Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:01, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- There are several holes in your logic. There will always be a pre-existing stable version on Wikipedia, and consensus can always change. Every word in the English language will have many hits on Google, but that doesn't mean we should use them all in the Lead section of this article. Your Google books search of "high school plurality" demonstrates only that a math text book used plurality in a story problem. And nobody is suggesting that Clinton won a majority or a landslide majority (see straw man).
As far as I can tell, our primary disagreement here is that you think we should use the words "elected with less than a plurality" and I think we should say "received a smaller share of the popular vote". Let's see if we can't agree on this: A "smaller share of the popular vote" is "less than a plurality". And "less than a plurality" is "a smaller share of the popular vote". Can we agree that A=B and B=A? ~Awilley (talk) 06:44, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- Unlike the longstanding stable version, your new version does not indicate that Clinton got less than a majority of the popular vote. If you can concisely restore that information without the word "plurality" then please do. Saying "less than a plurality" suggests that Clinton got a plurality, saying by "less than a majority" suggests that she got a majority. The latter is false. Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:48, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- This article isn't about Clinton, and there's nothing particularly noteworthy about a losing candidate receiving less than half the vote. And nobody here has suggested that we should say Trump won "less than a majority". (Straw man again.) But you haven't answered my question. ~Awilley (talk) 07:03, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- When we say candidate A got more votes than candidate B, and we don't mention any candidate C, doesn't that suggest candidate A got a majority? I think so. Democrats emphasize that Clinton got more votes. That's true so we should put that in the lead. Republicans emphasize that Clinton's popular vote lead was not so big that she won a majority. That's true too, but you want to now suddenly exclude it from the lead. All I'm saying is that I disagree. I'm not going to revert you, given my promise not to edit the article. So go ahead and do what you want. I'm just saying that it gives the lead a partisan bias. And I think you know very well that it's very noteworthy when a losing candidate who receives less than half the vote nevertheless gets more votes than the winner. Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:12, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- This article isn't about Clinton, and there's nothing particularly noteworthy about a losing candidate receiving less than half the vote. And nobody here has suggested that we should say Trump won "less than a majority". (Straw man again.) But you haven't answered my question. ~Awilley (talk) 07:03, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- Unlike the longstanding stable version, your new version does not indicate that Clinton got less than a majority of the popular vote. If you can concisely restore that information without the word "plurality" then please do. Saying "less than a plurality" suggests that Clinton got a plurality, saying by "less than a majority" suggests that she got a majority. The latter is false. Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:48, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- There are several holes in your logic. There will always be a pre-existing stable version on Wikipedia, and consensus can always change. Every word in the English language will have many hits on Google, but that doesn't mean we should use them all in the Lead section of this article. Your Google books search of "high school plurality" demonstrates only that a math text book used plurality in a story problem. And nobody is suggesting that Clinton won a majority or a landslide majority (see straw man).
- @Awilley: I believe there is a prior consensus on this sentence. SW3 5DL (talk) 05:46, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- I don't think anybody is going to read "votes" and interpret it as "electoral votes". But if you insist, "...while receiving a smaller share of the popular vote than his opponent" also avoids the "plurality" jargon. ~Awilley (talk) 05:37, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- It says now that he's "the fifth to have won a presidential election while receiving fewer votes than his opponent." He received less of the national popular vote, but received more electoral votes, and the latter are the votes that count. The current version is talking about the national popular vote but doesn't say so, and therefore is confusing. I would suggest going back to the RFC version or clarifying what votes we're talking about. The RFC version also had the advantage of indicating that the opponent won a plurality rather than a majority. Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:31, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
@Awilley: Can we agree that A=B and B=A? Yes. SW3 5DL (talk) 06:52, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- I agree that if A=B then B=A, no argument from me about that. Trump got fewer votes than Clinton, but heaven forbid we also mention that the vote difference was not so large as to give Clinton a majority. Anythingyouwant (talk) 11:02, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- I agree w/ Anythingyouwant. Use "less than a plurality". (It is a bad idea to leave the text the way it is now, that Trump won less popular vote than his opponent. It is a bad idea because of the social environment the USA is and has been in, where Trump haters have and do take everything that isn't nailed down specifically, as mud to throw. [Don't know what I mean? Then turn on any media. The fact Trump said "I'm not standing by anything" when specifically meaning his comments re Obama, is used by liberal press to suggest Trump has "admitted" that he doesn't stand by anything he says about anything. Hell, I even heard Whoopi repeat again this week that "He said it!" -- referring to Trump's June 2015 comment about some Mexican illegal immigrants being rapists, where Trump left out word "illegal" but clearly meant it and clarified also later. The point is, there is so much concerted intentional hatred towards Trump, if you say in WP article Trump received less than a majority of popular vote, even though true, it will be picked up and intentionally twisted by Trump haters to imply that we have a president whose opponent received a popular majority while he did not. [How many times will that argument be made? Oh, perhaps thousands of times.] WHY would you add fuel to that fire in this environment, when "less than a plurality" fixes the situation and is totally encyclopedic, not only correct, but clear w/o adding wood to this crappy social-environment fire? But neither do I believe that this article isn't dominated by those who would fan flames of said unnecessary fire, as WP is a sort of "major media" too, not without bias.) --IHTS (talk) 11:52, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- It's just not as simple as that. As I have said before, it's only Americans who use the term "plurality". In many other English-speaking nations, the term "majority" is used to refer to the winning margin of one candidate over another ("Clinton had a majority over Trump"). In still others, "majority" is used instead of "plurality" ("Clinton won a majority") - even though it is technically wrong. It's better if unambiguous, easy-to-understand terms are used - even if it means using more words than should really be necessary. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:01, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- The OED agrees. It specifically states plurality is used in this manner in “U.S. Politics”. Objective3000 (talk) 13:15, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- I agree with Awilley's edits. Using "plurality" is like putting up a speed bump for the reader. The 'plurality' argument is old and we should allow new editors to come along and make these changes. The article needs to be a smooth read and right now it is not. I keep referring to Barack Obama, but if you start reading it, you'll find it's a smooth and interesting read. Right now, this article is choppy, filled with disjointed sentences, and lately, attempts to smooth things out have been getting reverted flat out. I say let the edit stand a few days. And @Scjessey:, if you'll recall we had a gathering consensus that was subverted with an RfC that came out of nowhere. Interesting how those things cropped up at just when things were getting resolved. That's happened several times now. Let Awilley's edit stand. It's time to move on. SW3 5DL (talk) 13:51, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- The OED agrees. It specifically states plurality is used in this manner in “U.S. Politics”. Objective3000 (talk) 13:15, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- It's just not as simple as that. As I have said before, it's only Americans who use the term "plurality". In many other English-speaking nations, the term "majority" is used to refer to the winning margin of one candidate over another ("Clinton had a majority over Trump"). In still others, "majority" is used instead of "plurality" ("Clinton won a majority") - even though it is technically wrong. It's better if unambiguous, easy-to-understand terms are used - even if it means using more words than should really be necessary. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:01, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- First point: the article clearly says, in an invisible comment, "DO NOT CHANGE anything in this paragraph without prior consensus, see Talk:Donald Trump#Current consensus, items 8 and 15." So why do people keep changing it?
- Second point: what exactly IS the consensus version? Consensus #4 said "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." That has been struck out and replaced by Consensus #15, but Consensus #15 does not quote the consensus version, thus there is no easy way to know what it's supposed to say. It links to "the pre-RfC text" which says "Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016, in a surprise victory againstDemocratic candidate Hillary Clinton. At age 70, he will become the oldest andwealthiest person to assume the presidency, the first without prior military or governmental service, and the fifth elected with less than a plurality of the national popular vote." That was presumably the consensus version up to now. Right now the article says "and the fifth to have won a presidential election while receiving a smaller share of the popular vote than his opponent." That was the version put in by Awilley, in response to somebody changing it who obviously didn't know what "plurality" means. In effect it more or less restores consensus #4. I happen to prefer Awilley's version, but what happened to process and consensus? I'd like to lock this in and once again make the invisible comment mean something, so I am proposing a yes/no vote, below, to approve or disapprove Awilley's version. --MelanieN (talk) 14:46, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- MelanieN, I appreciate your second point about process, so I should probably explain mine. My first edit last night was a hurried response to Anythingyouwant's post that there was something false in the Lead. I saw that the previous editor was confused about what "plurality" meant, so instead of reverting outright I tweaked it to say Trump won the election but lost the popular vote. After making that edit, I re-read Anything's post and followed the link to the RfC where I saw consensus against using the word "lost". So I tweaked the wording again to say Trump received fewer votes than Clinton, and then tweaked it again because of another objection by Anythingyouwant. I discussed it with him for some time, hoping we could find agreement without having to resort to another RfC or something like that, because that is, in my opinion, how Wikipedia should work. You see a problem, make a change, discuss objections, find common ground, then implement a compromise. Respecting community consensus is definitely important, but should not get in the way of tweaking a sentence to make it more clear without changing its meaning.
Regarding hidden comments, I'm not a huge fan. When an article is well-written, clearly, stating uncontroversial facts with due weight and in neutral language, readers stop feeling the need to jump in and change stuff. Unfortunately the partisan tug-of-wars in articles like this too often result in jarring sentences with competing points of view, locked in by clumsy RfCs that make hidden edit warnings necessary. ~Awilley (talk) 15:50, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- Hidden comments may be against guidelines. But, when it comes to recent politics, no matter how well-written an article, there is no way to satisfy everyone and folk will always feel the need to jump in and change stuff. At least, so it appears. Objective3000 (talk) 16:13, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- @Awilley: I couldn't agree with you more. @Objective3000: That's true, but it is against guidelines. SW3 5DL (talk) 18:07, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- @Objective3000 and SW3 5DL: Where is there a guideline against hidden comments? --MelanieN (talk) 20:33, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- WP:HIDDEN says
When it is a mere local consensus that a certain edit should not be performed, the hidden text should be worded more softly to suggest to the editor to consult the talk page (or archive page if appropriate) for the current consensus prior to making the edit. Since consensus can change, it is inappropriate to use hidden text to try to prohibit making a certain edit merely because it would conflict with an existing consensus.
But, the last time I saw anyone make a complaint, an admin said this was a good example of WP:IAR. Objective3000 (talk) 20:51, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- WP:HIDDEN says
- @Objective3000 and SW3 5DL: Where is there a guideline against hidden comments? --MelanieN (talk) 20:33, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- @Awilley: I couldn't agree with you more. @Objective3000: That's true, but it is against guidelines. SW3 5DL (talk) 18:07, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- Hidden comments may be against guidelines. But, when it comes to recent politics, no matter how well-written an article, there is no way to satisfy everyone and folk will always feel the need to jump in and change stuff. At least, so it appears. Objective3000 (talk) 16:13, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- MelanieN, I appreciate your second point about process, so I should probably explain mine. My first edit last night was a hurried response to Anythingyouwant's post that there was something false in the Lead. I saw that the previous editor was confused about what "plurality" meant, so instead of reverting outright I tweaked it to say Trump won the election but lost the popular vote. After making that edit, I re-read Anything's post and followed the link to the RfC where I saw consensus against using the word "lost". So I tweaked the wording again to say Trump received fewer votes than Clinton, and then tweaked it again because of another objection by Anythingyouwant. I discussed it with him for some time, hoping we could find agreement without having to resort to another RfC or something like that, because that is, in my opinion, how Wikipedia should work. You see a problem, make a change, discuss objections, find common ground, then implement a compromise. Respecting community consensus is definitely important, but should not get in the way of tweaking a sentence to make it more clear without changing its meaning.
Options about popular vote
- A. (the version up until yesterday):
...and the fifth elected with less than a plurality of the national popular vote.
- B. (proposed new version, currently in the article):
...and the fifth to have won a presidential election while receiving a smaller share of the popular vote than his opponent.
- B2. (proposed new version, shorter):
...and the fifth to receive a smaller share of the popular vote than his opponent.
B3. (proposed new version, shorter):Technically incorrect because of Jackson situation....and the fifth to have won the electoral vote while losing the popular vote.
- B4. (fixing B3):
...and the fifth to have won the election while losing the popular vote.
- A2. (proposed new version, clearer):
...and the fifth elected with less than a plurality of the national popular vote (i.e. Clinton received more votes but not a majority).
- B2.1 (same as B2, but doesn't imply only one opponent):
...and the fifth to receive a smaller share of the popular vote than an opponent.
- B5 (the same as B2.1 but adds no candidate got a majority)
...and the fifth to receive a smaller share of the popular vote than an opponent, with no candidate reaching a majority nationwide.
- C Save info about the popular vote for later in the BLP
since neither candidate's goal was to win it, and unusualness does not always equate to significance.
Please choose only between these two versions. Don't propose third versions, because the proliferation of other opinions is the reason why these discussions too often end in "no consensus". Minor tweaks to the wording can be made after an overall approach is decided.
Threaded discussion related to the addition of new options along the way
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C uses a false argument, as explained here. The whole object of the election is to win as many votes as possible, and that refers to the popular vote. The popular vote is the ONLY vote given by voters. The electoral vote is usually based on that. -- BullRangifer (talk) 04:38, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
How about this:
Would that work for you? -- BullRangifer (talk) 06:50, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
B4 is the best choice. |
Survey
- Version B. Clear, simple, does not require an understanding of the sophisticated and somewhat obscure term "plurality". Remember we are writing here for the world, not just for highly educated Americans. --MelanieN (talk) 14:49, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- I would accept version B2 as well. --MelanieN (talk) 18:15, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- I would accept B4 as well. B4 has the advantage that it matches with the wording used by most Reliable Sources. We had been avoiding any reference to "winning" or "losing" the popular vote because the popular vote is not an actual contest - but that might be considered Original Research on our part. B4 is clear and understandable and is not likely to cause as much edit warring as we have seen up to now over this sentence. This is in fact the wording we use in the article text, and to the extent that the lede is supposed to reflect the text this could be the preferred choice. --MelanieN (talk) 13:54, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- I would accept version B2 as well. --MelanieN (talk) 18:15, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
Version B - Plurality is a speed bump for the reader..SW3 5DL (talk) 15:16, 3 May 2017 (UTC)- Version B4 - settles the matter without the speed bump. BullRangifer Are you going to update to B4? SW3 5DL (talk) 19:38, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- Version B4. (UPDATED) Simple and clear. Getting rid of "plurality" really helps. -- BullRangifer (talk) 15:18, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- Either A or B. If plurality is a problem, wikilink it like this: plurality. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 15:43, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- @RoyGoldsmith: MOS:LINKSTYLE, 9th, 10th, and 11th bullets. ―Mandruss ☎ 16:13, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- Version C, Version A or
something else that says neither candidate got a majorityVersion A2. The latter is much clearer, indicates the vote was close, and that no candidate got a majority. If I had to choose between B and B2, the latter is vastly more concise and polished, but both B and B2 imply that Trump had only one opponent, and thus that his opponent won a majority of the popular vote which is manifestly false. Regarding B4, I'm against it primarily because it contradicts a prior RFC that decided against using variants of the word "lose", but also because B4 fails to indicate that no candidate got a majority of the popular vote; that information is provided by both A and A2, thereby implicitly telling the reader that the popular vote was not a landslide and also that some other candidate(s) got a significant percentage. Version C would also be okay, since neither candidate's goal was to win the popular vote, and unusualness does not always equate to significance (Trump's hairdo is also unusual but does not belong in the lead). B5 would also be fine, whereas B2.1 would leave many readers with the misimpression that electing Clinton was the will of the majority.The latter is a very important aspect of the election, and is indicated by saying Trump got less than a plurality.By the way, Roy Goldsmith is right about wikilinking (the previous stable version included that wikilink). Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:12, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
Threaded discussion
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- Version B2 – Say "smaller share" but with shorter prose. — JFG talk 16:25, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- Support B-whatever. The purpose of a Lead section is not to expand our readers' vocabulary by making them click on wikilinks, but to convey information using words most people already know. It shouldn't take an RfC to marginally improve a sentence without changing its meaning, and the current B version is longer than it needs to be because I was chasing the moving goal post of satisfying Anythingyouwant's many objections.
Responding briefly to Anything's latest objection, it seems like a red herring to me. I have tried and failed to understand why it is important that we emphasize that Clinton got less than 50% of votes. This article isn't about Clinton, and it's the Lead section we're talking about. Could there conceivably be people who will read that Trump received fewer votes than Clinton and interpret it that Clinton won in a "landslide"? Of course. And most of those people will continue to believe that no matter what we write. It's not our job to write to the extreme fringes. Details on win-loss percentages and an in-line definition of "plurality" should be in the body of the article. ~Awilley (talk) 20:45, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
Tangential meta discussion about editing comments after they have been replied to and a little personal back-and-forth ~Awilley (talk) 03:35, 4 May 2017 (UTC) |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
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- [Replying to Awilley's !vote and comment immediately preceding the "tangential meta discussion"]Please note that when User:Awilley !voted for version "B-whatever" there was no version B4 yet (i.e. B4 was added at 15:26, 4 May 2017). Moreover, B4 seems contrary to this RFC. Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:48, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- People have rearranged the comments at this page so often that my reply to User:Awilley's specific "red herring" remark about me seems to have gotten lost. It is in my view important to at least briefly mention in the lead (without emphasis) that no one won a majority of the popular vote because if we merely mention that Clinton got more votes then many readers will assume that the will of the majority of voters was that she be president. That did not happen. We should follow the vast number of reliable sources that mention no one got a majority, which has the added benefit of implicitly alerting readers that the popular vote margin in the election was not a landslide, and that other candidates got significant percentages. Call this a red herring if you wish, and dismiss it as my "latest objection", but it's a very prominent fact in reliable sources that it was not a landslide popular vote, and no candidate won a majority. Only saying she got more votes is cherry-picking. Anythingyouwant (talk) 11:24, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
- Comment to @Sandstein:, Could you please clarify your close of this RfCas to whether or not you were saying that the RfC is closing as being in favor of "not using the word lost" in the lede, or are you saying it was one choice (which was the extant edit) versus three choices with the word lost in them? An editor is claiming that you meant to say that the RfC is saying we cannot use the word "lost" in the lede. Sorry for the bother. Thanks. SW3 5DL (talk) 19:48, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
- Sorry, I'd need to read everything again to even remember what was the issue then, and I don't currently have time for that. Sandstein 21:20, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
- Thanks for responding. The RfC was not about the word "lost." It was simply about eliminating the word "plurality' and had nothing to do with the word 'lost,' which happened to be in the suggested options to replace the sentence in the article. SW3 5DL (talk) 22:38, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
- That RfC was absolutely about the concept of losing the popular vote. The initial filer suggested to replace the "less than a plurality" wording with the "lost popular vote" wording. Several grammatical variants of the "lost" wording were suggested, and the overall balance of editor comments rejected all of those. I'm afraid that the same issues are being needlessly re-litigated here since the B4 variant was suggested. Surely, consensus can change but to demonstrate consensus on B4 we would need to run it through a proper RfC. — JFG talk 09:02, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
This RfC is about changing from plurality and the majority so far want to use B4. B4 matches the wording in WP:RS. Attempting to avoid using 'lost' is original research, as MelanieN notes above. This RfC right here, replaces all other RfC's on this issue. B4 is a legitimate choice. Consensus has changed. SW3 5DL (talk) 19:44, 11 May 2017 (UTC).
- This local survey is not an RfC. We can't assume that consensus has changed without a community-wide discussion. — JFG talk 22:33, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
- An RfC is done only when consensus cannot be reached, and it appears that B4 is gaining consensus. In addition, many of the items on the current consensus list were done 'locally' without a formal RfC. In addition, there are 1,934 page watchers. I don't think anything we do here could be considered 'local.' SW3 5DL (talk) 01:21, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
- A. We don't need to worry about B or B2.
No one's going to find a supporting source for them, sothey'd likely getimmediatelyeventually reverted,eitherfor alleged falsityor per WP:BLPSOURCES. (The subject had three significant opponents, not one.)The only remaining choices are A, A2, and Abort. And A2 would likely get fought over per WP:BLP#Balance. Some reasonable (if partisan) editors could feel it's unfair to Johnson (without whom the subject might well have won the national popular vote).--Dervorguilla (talk) 01:52, 4 May 2017 (UTC) 06:18, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
Threaded discussion
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- Support B2 - Absolutely spot on for me. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:08, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- B4 - It is clear and concise. Most of the other options are unnecessarily convoluted. B2 is inaccurate because Trump had more than one opponent.- MrX 21:23, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- B4 is the easiest to read and makes my head hurt the least while trying to figure out the precise meaning of the wording so I can compare these. Jason Quinn (talk) 15:38, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
- B4 - accurate, clear, concise, and unlike the others, not unnecessarily convoluted. Neutralitytalk 05:09, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
- B4, which is what the reality is. I find it mindboggling that the same editor is still bludgeoning this topic to death months after the last go-around. TheValeyard (talk) 01:01, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
Discussion
It's unfortunate that there is no attempt in the options provided to rephrase Option A so as to overcome the objections to it, while retaining the important fact that neither candidate obtained a popular vote majority. I would be glad to educate readers: "and the fifth elected with less than a plurality of the national popular vote (i.e. elected with less than the highest number of votes received by any candidate when no candidate received a majority)." Or rephrase it without the word plurality: "and the fifth elected with less than the highest number of votes received by any candidate when no candidate received a majority". Leaving out that no candidate got a majority is biased in favor of Clinton, suggests that she got a majority, and completely fails to distinguish between a landslide and a squeaker. Or say it even more plainly: "and the fifth to have won a presidential election while receiving a smaller share of the popular vote than his opponent, and while no candidate received a majority of the popular vote."
The poll is slanted otherwise, it seems to me. Arguing that in many elections no candidate receives a majority is beside the point; it's like arguing that we shouldn't mention Trump has children because may presidents have had children, or that we shouldn't mention in the lead that he's from New York because many people are from New York; the info is needed here because otherwise many readers will think she received a majority (which is what the DNC would like people to think, by the way). Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:37, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- Your proposed wording looks even more convoluted than the proposed versions. The fact that Clinton didn't get a majority either is best left for her article. I don't see that it's implied by the "smaller share of the popular vote" wording. Only people with a predetermined bias towards thinking "Trump is illegitimate" would see this phrase as confirmation of their prejudice. — JFG talk 16:59, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- The green text I provided is not convoluted at all. You really think adding this is convoluted: "while no candidate received a majority of the popular vote"?If we merely say that candidate A got more votes than candidate B, and we don't mention any candidate C, that obviously suggests candidate A got a majority. Version B also gives no clue whether the popular vote gap was huge or tiny, which is a huge omission that is taken care of by the green text I suggested. Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:13, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- I don't think it's a "huge omission", it's just too much detail for this bio. In a prior discussion (open the collapsed section and look at "Benchmarking"), we looked at many presidents' biographies, to check in which level of detail their elections were described. None went to such lengths, not even the agonizingly close Bush election in 2000, which merely says that Bush
was elected president in 2000 after a close and controversial election against Al Gore, becoming the fourth president to be elected while receiving fewer popular votes nationwide than an opponent.
Very similar to version B here. — JFG talk 17:29, 3 May 2017 (UTC)- That's nothing like Version B here. Version B here does not indicate in the slightest way that the popular vote tally was "close". Both the GW Bush and JQ Adams leads say it was close, and the proposed version here does not, obviously. Additionally, the JQ Adams lead says that there were more than two candidates, which removes the implication that one of the candidates obtained a majority of the popular vote. Neither the Adams lead nor the Benjamin Harrison lead says the winner lost the popular vote; I don't object to us saying that here as long as we don't imply Clinton won a majority. My global preference would be for only the Rutherford B. Hayes lead to discuss that he got less votes than his opponent, because in that case the matter was much more controversial given that the opponent (Tilden) got more than 50%. If we want to falsely suggest that Clinton got a popular vote majority, and suggest that Trump's presidency violates the principle of majority rule, then absolutely we should adopt this new proposed version. Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:38, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- Anything, you have been very insistent for months that we MUST make it clear that Clinton got less than a majority. You are entitled to your opinion and have expressed it. Continuing to WP:BLUDGEON it does not make it any more correct, and does not make your opinion count for more than anyone else's. This is a survey. Let's see what people think, and respect consensus when it develops. --MelanieN (talk) 18:15, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- Despite your screaming the word "MUST", I never said that User:MelanieN. I said that if we imply that one of the candidates got a majority of the popular vote, we should stop because it did not happen. I don't know how more meek and deferential I could possibly be than voluntarily opting to not edit this BLP. I guess I need to shut up entirely. Apparently the editors here do not want to even indicate in the lead that the popular vote was close. Fine. Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:24, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- Actually it wasn't close. "No candidate in history has won the popular vote by so much yet lost the White House."[5] I'm not suggesting we point that out either, but it would be more accurate than "close". --MelanieN (talk) 19:30, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- I have added an Option A2 proposed below by another editor. It adheres to NPOV. Your comparison of the election to only four others regarding closeness is rather a limited comparison, no? Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:34, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- @MelanieN: OK, now I get your point. And it's an excellent one. I would advocate changing the Hillary Clinton lead accordingly. Would you have any thoughts as to why it currently uses the "plurality" phrasing instead? --Dervorguilla (talk) 06:44, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- Actually it wasn't close. "No candidate in history has won the popular vote by so much yet lost the White House."[5] I'm not suggesting we point that out either, but it would be more accurate than "close". --MelanieN (talk) 19:30, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- Despite your screaming the word "MUST", I never said that User:MelanieN. I said that if we imply that one of the candidates got a majority of the popular vote, we should stop because it did not happen. I don't know how more meek and deferential I could possibly be than voluntarily opting to not edit this BLP. I guess I need to shut up entirely. Apparently the editors here do not want to even indicate in the lead that the popular vote was close. Fine. Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:24, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- Anything, you have been very insistent for months that we MUST make it clear that Clinton got less than a majority. You are entitled to your opinion and have expressed it. Continuing to WP:BLUDGEON it does not make it any more correct, and does not make your opinion count for more than anyone else's. This is a survey. Let's see what people think, and respect consensus when it develops. --MelanieN (talk) 18:15, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- That's nothing like Version B here. Version B here does not indicate in the slightest way that the popular vote tally was "close". Both the GW Bush and JQ Adams leads say it was close, and the proposed version here does not, obviously. Additionally, the JQ Adams lead says that there were more than two candidates, which removes the implication that one of the candidates obtained a majority of the popular vote. Neither the Adams lead nor the Benjamin Harrison lead says the winner lost the popular vote; I don't object to us saying that here as long as we don't imply Clinton won a majority. My global preference would be for only the Rutherford B. Hayes lead to discuss that he got less votes than his opponent, because in that case the matter was much more controversial given that the opponent (Tilden) got more than 50%. If we want to falsely suggest that Clinton got a popular vote majority, and suggest that Trump's presidency violates the principle of majority rule, then absolutely we should adopt this new proposed version. Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:38, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- I don't think it's a "huge omission", it's just too much detail for this bio. In a prior discussion (open the collapsed section and look at "Benchmarking"), we looked at many presidents' biographies, to check in which level of detail their elections were described. None went to such lengths, not even the agonizingly close Bush election in 2000, which merely says that Bush
- The green text I provided is not convoluted at all. You really think adding this is convoluted: "while no candidate received a majority of the popular vote"?If we merely say that candidate A got more votes than candidate B, and we don't mention any candidate C, that obviously suggests candidate A got a majority. Version B also gives no clue whether the popular vote gap was huge or tiny, which is a huge omission that is taken care of by the green text I suggested. Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:13, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- Again I agree w/ Anythingyouwant, we s/n leave any weak inference dangling that Clinton won a majority. (It's just not healthy.) How are either of these (the first w/ "plurality", the second w/o):
Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016, in a surprise victory over Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. He became the oldest and wealthiest person ever to assume the presidency, the first without prior military or governmental service, and the fifth elected with less than a plurality of the national popular vote (i.e. Clinton received more votes but not a majority). His political positions have been described by scholars and commentators as populist, protectionist, and nationalist.
Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016, in a surprise victory over Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. He became the oldest and wealthiest person ever to assume the presidency, the first without prior military or governmental service, and the fifth who received a smaller share of the popular vote than an opponent who did not achieve a majority. His political positions have been described by scholars and commentators as populist, protectionist, and nationalist.
- Ok, --IHTS (talk) 18:54, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- Thanks, "the fifth elected with less than a plurality of the national popular vote (i.e. Clinton received more votes but not a majority)" is perfect. I've added it as option "A2". Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:06, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- "He became the oldest and wealthiest person to assume the presidency, the first without prior military or government service, and the fifth elected with less than a plurality of the national popular vote.' was in the article already before Awilley changed it. It doesn't need to add that Clinton didn't get a majority of the vote. SW3 5DL (talk) 23:22, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
- Thanks, "the fifth elected with less than a plurality of the national popular vote (i.e. Clinton received more votes but not a majority)" is perfect. I've added it as option "A2". Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:06, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
For now, let's just quietly shut this down and restore A. It doesn't look like this survey is going anywhere. Any passing editor could immediately revert B or B2 -- and keep reverting -- per WP:BLPSOURCES or for falsity. (Trump had three significant opponents, not one.) A2 might stay for awhile, but any passing Libertarian editor could demand a new survey based on WP:BLP#Balance (unfair to name Clinton but not Johnson, who could arguably have given Trump the popular vote by endorsing him). --Dervorguilla (talk) 01:54, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- I agree that the longstanding A should be restored until we get consensus for a new version that is not manifestly false. Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:01, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- What are your thoughts on this one?
...and the fifth to receive a smaller share of the popular vote than an opponent.
~Awilley (talk) 03:42, 4 May 2017 (UTC)- We need to deal with this repeated claim that it is somehow "false" to say that he got a smaller share of the popular vote than someone else. A few of you are inferring that this means the other person got a majority, but that is not at all implied in the statement, and it is not a conclusion that most people would jump to. This is an attempt to solve a non-problem. --MelanieN (talk) 03:53, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- P.S. BTW the George W. Bush says "becoming the fourth president to be elected while receiving fewer popular votes than his opponent". This has been in the article for a decade. It's apparently never bothered anybody. Now all of a sudden, it's false? --MelanieN (talk) 04:08, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- "
This has been in the article for a decade.
" False. (It bounced around to a lot of expressions, the first it started moving in the direction of "fewer votes" was in this edit from 2012.) --IHTS (talk) 05:36, 4 May 2017 (UTC)- OK, half a decade. (I assume we wound up with that wording, having previously said "lost" the popular vote, for the same reason as we are avoiding "lost" here even though most Reliable Sources use it: because the popular vote is not actually a contest. If we were going strictly by Reliable Source usage we would say in both articles that he "lost the popular vote".) My point was, and is, that this wording doesn't seem to have been regarded as "false", i.e., that it might somehow falsely imply that Gore got a majority of the popular vote. This wording isn't false there, and it isn't false here. --MelanieN (talk) 13:45, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- "
- @Awilley: Thanks for coming up with a comparatively concise and logical solution. But the verb tense is wrong. He wasn't "...the fifth [presidency-assumer] to receive..." He was "...the fifth [presidency-assumer] to have received..." --Dervorguilla (talk) 04:43, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- @Dervorguilla:
He became the oldest and wealthiest person ever to assume the presidency, the first without prior military or government service, and the fifth to receive a smaller share of the popular vote than an opponent.
I'm not a grammar expert, but it works both ways for me. ("He became...the fifth...to receive..." vs. "He became...the fifth...to have received...") ~Awilley (talk) 15:04, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- @Dervorguilla:
- What are your thoughts on this one?
"For now, let's just quietly shut this down and restore A."
Strongly disagree. This discussion has been open less than 24 hours, and it is currently running 2-to-1 in favor of option B. Please do not attempt to short-circuit the discussion in favor of your own preferred outcome. --MelanieN (talk) 03:48, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- @MelanieN: "Option B's", not "option B". We're now up to
threefour option B's, not one. --Dervorguilla (talk) 04:02, 4 May 2017 (UTC) 04:43, 4 May 2017 (UTC)- True. But there are still twice as many people wanting a version of "B" than there are wanting a version of "A". We are looking at which approach to take - wording to be tweaked later if necessary.--MelanieN (talk) 04:06, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- Version B has consensus. It should be implemented and this continuing disruption about,"neither candidate won a majority of the vote' needs to be stopped. It means nothing to the outcome, it means nothing in the article, and it means nothing on this talk page except more disruption. SW3 5DL (talk) 04:37, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- Agreed. Version B seems to solve the problems. -- BullRangifer (talk) 05:38, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- I have proposed the shortest version yet as B3. -- BullRangifer (talk) 05:42, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- Short is not a virtue if deficient. --IHTS (talk) 05:58, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- Of course. Is it deficient? -- BullRangifer (talk) 07:10, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- Short is not a virtue if deficient. --IHTS (talk) 05:58, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- I have proposed the shortest version yet as B3. -- BullRangifer (talk) 05:42, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- Labelling good-faith argument as "disruption" and insisting "needs to be stopped" is what is disruptive. Text that says only Clinton won "more votes" or "won the popular vote" leaves begging whether she won a majority, and even though nothing is technically implied by the omission she didn't, readers are gonna presume that who are otherwise unfamiliar. And that's bad. --IHTS (talk) 05:53, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- @BullRangifer: Thanks for the helpful suggestion. The verb tense is wrong, though. It's "to have won", not "to win". --Dervorguilla (talk) 06:02, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- Good catch. Now it's fixed. Will it work, or is it "deficient", as implied(?) by IHTS above? -- BullRangifer (talk) 07:10, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- @BullRangifer:, he's the 5th to have won the election while losing the popular vote. But he's only the 4th to have won the electoral college while losing the popular vote. In 1824 John Quincy Adams won the presidency while losing the popular vote and failing to get more than 50% in the electoral college. ~Awilley (talk) 14:45, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- Awilley, that's true. Per how we handle it at United States presidential elections in which the winner lost the popular vote, it's probably wisest that we just ignore that weird detail about the Jackson election and only mention whoever won the election and lost the popular vote (in the lead). It's simpler that way. The details can be in the body, but leave it out of the lead. -- BullRangifer (talk) 15:22, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- Fixed with version B4. -- BullRangifer (talk) 15:26, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- Awilley, that's true. Per how we handle it at United States presidential elections in which the winner lost the popular vote, it's probably wisest that we just ignore that weird detail about the Jackson election and only mention whoever won the election and lost the popular vote (in the lead). It's simpler that way. The details can be in the body, but leave it out of the lead. -- BullRangifer (talk) 15:22, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- @BullRangifer:, he's the 5th to have won the election while losing the popular vote. But he's only the 4th to have won the electoral college while losing the popular vote. In 1824 John Quincy Adams won the presidency while losing the popular vote and failing to get more than 50% in the electoral college. ~Awilley (talk) 14:45, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- Good catch. Now it's fixed. Will it work, or is it "deficient", as implied(?) by IHTS above? -- BullRangifer (talk) 07:10, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- @BullRangifer: Thanks for the helpful suggestion. The verb tense is wrong, though. It's "to have won", not "to win". --Dervorguilla (talk) 06:02, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- Agreed. Version B seems to solve the problems. -- BullRangifer (talk) 05:38, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- Version B has consensus. It should be implemented and this continuing disruption about,"neither candidate won a majority of the vote' needs to be stopped. It means nothing to the outcome, it means nothing in the article, and it means nothing on this talk page except more disruption. SW3 5DL (talk) 04:37, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- True. But there are still twice as many people wanting a version of "B" than there are wanting a version of "A". We are looking at which approach to take - wording to be tweaked later if necessary.--MelanieN (talk) 04:06, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
"Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, Clinton lost the Electoral College and the presidency to her Republican opponent Donald Trump." We can stop worrying about using the word "plurality": that featured article doesn't even bother to link the term. --Dervorguilla (talk) 07:01, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- @BullRangifer: I like B3. I believe that was a choice in one or more of the multiple discussions about this before. What we don't want is to say "neither candidate won a majority of the vote." That is totally misleading and will likely draw edit wars. This choice, A2, is not tenable. When you have to explain an edit to the reader, it's a bad edit ". . .and the fifth elected with less than a plurality of the national popular vote (i.e. Clinton received more votes but not a majority)." SW3 5DL (talk) 13:09, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
What do reliable sources say?
New issue: Above I raised the question of what Reliable Sources say, but am moving it here. What wording do Reliable Sources use? The vast majority talk in terms of "winning" or "losing" the popular vote.[6][7][8] We do use that wording in the article text. But in the lede, we chose to avoid a win-lose wording because the popular vote isn't an actual contest. That left us choosing between "fewer/less/smaller share" of the popular vote (option B, B2) and "less than a plurality" of the popular vote (option A, A2). I did find one source using the "fewer" terminology: Vox. "Trump will be the 4th president to win the Electoral College after getting fewer votes than his opponent" and "it’s important to remember that he received fewer votes from Americans than Hillary Clinton"[9] I did not find any major Reliable Source using the word "plurality"; anyone? Looked at in these terms, Wikipedia policy suggests we should use version B3 B4, because it is based on what Reliable Sources say. --MelanieN (talk) 14:25, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- I think BullRangifer's B3 reflects RS. Also, the argument over 'majority' is the real false argument. The only votes that count in the American presidential election, are the electoral votes, where the candidate must achieve a minimum of 270 electoral votes. So this banging on about 'majority' is a false argument about either electoral or popular votes for this election. The so-called 'popular vote' cannot overcome the electoral college winner. Hillary could easily have got the majority of the popular vote and she would still have lost this election if those votes were not scattered among the states to give her 270. I suggest, through a process of elimination, we agree on certain points. The first is the most important, because otherwise, the rest is moot. Do we want to eliminate A, which is what is in the article now? Yes or No? SW3 5DL (talk) 14:33, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- We're always on safer ground when we follow the wording used in most RS. In common parlance, which is what most RS use, talking about winning the election (which is not the same as winning the voting) refers to whoever got the most electoral votes (which is subject to backroom dealings). Note that the people do not cast electoral votes, only popular votes. The actual number of votes cast by voters is the popular vote, and that's what's usually being referred to when sources talk about whoever won the most votes. Those are the votes which were cast by voters. That's why RS talk about winning and losing the popular vote. We should apply both "win" and "lose" terminology to each candidate (Trump won the election because he got the most electoral votes, but lost the popular vote, while Clinton lost the election but won the popular vote.). -- BullRangifer (talk) 15:00, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
Just alerting that there is now a version B4, since B3 was actually inaccurate. -- BullRangifer (talk) 15:28, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- Those arguments were debated at length and repeatedly found wanting. The latest RfC concluded that there was no consensus to include any variant of "losing the popular vote". I think this horse should rest in peace and proposal B4 should be withdrawn. — JFG talk 17:58, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
How important is "not a majority"?
The other issue under debate here, aside from whether to use "plurality" (A, A2), "smaller share" (B, B2), or "won"(B4), is that a vocal minority thinks it is important to point out that Clinton did not win an actual majority of the popular vote. They claim it is false to report the popular vote outcome without such a disclaimer, because readers will automatically assume she got a majority if it isn't explicitly stated that she didn't. I haven't seen any evidence for that, and most Reliable Sources have seemed comfortable omitting that clarification. We already do make that point in the article text. Let's reach a consensus about whether "not a majority" (or "plurality," which implies not-a-majority to those who understand the term and its implications) needs to be in the lede. --MelanieN (talk) 15:06, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- The question of 'not a majority' is a false argument. As I pointed out above, the Americans do not use the popular vote to elect the president. They use the electoral college. Trump won 306 electoral votes. He won 57% of the EC vote which is the majority that counts. There's no need to go on about the 'majority' of the popular vote as it is undue weight. Trump won the electoral college vote and lost the popular vote as the RS has noted. That's all we need to say. SW3 5DL (talk) 16:07, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- Don't use "plurality". This creates an issue where there is none, as long as we leave it alone. Without dealing with it it's understood just fine. -- BullRangifer (talk) 15:15, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
Just alerting that there is now a version B4, since B3 was actually inaccurate. -- BullRangifer (talk) 15:28, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- Do you want to strike out B3 so that it doesn't confuse the situation? --MelanieN (talk) 15:33, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- Done. -- BullRangifer (talk) 16:01, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
Side conversation about now-deleted material. --MelanieN (talk) 18:18, 4 May 2017 (UTC) |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
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How important is it for the lead to imply that Clinton won a majority?
Version B says: "the fifth to have won a presidential election while receiving a smaller share of the popular vote than his opponent." This obviously implies that there was only one opponent, and therefore that that opponent won a majority of the popular vote. The same is true of version B2. It's one thing to deliberately exclude from the lead that neither candidate won a majority of the popular vote, but quite another to include in the lead a manifestly false implication that one of the candidates did obtain a majority. Is it not obvious that the lead ought to be accurate? Moreover, if we include information about who got more of the popular vote (unlike in the Wikipedia leads for John Quincy Adams and Benjamin Harrison who both received less than opponents), then I don't see any harm in mentioning very briefly that no candidate got a majority, which has the added benefit of indicating that this was not a landslide election in the popular vote (about which versions B and B2 give no hint). Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:49, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- P.S. The false nature of B and B2 could be somewhat alleviated (e.g. by inserting the word "main"), but it would seem to require a new survey, and in any case I strongly oppose the consistent efforts here to to do somersaults (and jump through hoops and bend over backward) in order to avoid any suggestion in the lead that perhaps Clinton might not have won a majority. Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:06, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- Would making it into "main opponent" satisfy your objection? If so, that could be the compromise that brings us consensus here. --MelanieN (talk) 19:15, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- As I said, inserting that word would alleviate the problem, though many readers would probably still assume that Clinton won a majority of the popular vote. My objection remains that we are going to extraordinary lengths to omit a simple clarifying fact that also tells readers that this was not a landslide in the popular vote. And this survey should be closed as faulty. Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:18, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- There was only one opponent. Neither Gary Johnson nor Jill Stein won any electoral votes. Johnson won around 1% of the popular vote and Jill Stein won 0.36 of the popular vote. Statistically they don't even register. As for wining/losing majorities, B4 settles it. Trump won the electoral vote, which counts, and lost the popular vote, which does not count. SW3 5DL (talk) 19:32, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- If you want to focus on electoral votes rather than the popular vote regarding Johnson and Stein, then do so for Clinton and Trump as well. I disagree with you that we should call Trump a loser in the lead while implying Clinton got a majority of the popular vote. Your position violates WP:NPOV, don't you think? Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:37, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- I've read over my comments several times now, I don't see anywhere that I called Trump a loser. SW3 5DL (talk) 19:41, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- You've supported version B4 which states: "and the fifth to have won the election while losing the popular vote." That matter was also discussed in this RFC, where the closer stated: "In about a proportion of 3 to 2, editors prefer the current text per option 1 ('elected with less than a plurality') to any of the other options that involve some variant of 'lost'". Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:50, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- What's that got to do with claiming I am suggesting we call Trump a loser? SW3 5DL (talk) 19:56, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- Obviously, you want to put that Trump was "losing" into the lead, and "losing" is a variant of lost and a variant of loser Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:56, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- That's a gross distortion because, no, that does not follow at all. Calling Trump a loser is slanderous, but saying, ". . .he won the electoral college but lost the popular vote," is simply stating facts. I don't see how that in any way makes him a 'loser' especially in the sense that you are obviously using it. SW3 5DL (talk) 22:29, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- Obviously, you want to put that Trump was "losing" into the lead, and "losing" is a variant of lost and a variant of loser Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:56, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- What's that got to do with claiming I am suggesting we call Trump a loser? SW3 5DL (talk) 19:56, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- You've supported version B4 which states: "and the fifth to have won the election while losing the popular vote." That matter was also discussed in this RFC, where the closer stated: "In about a proportion of 3 to 2, editors prefer the current text per option 1 ('elected with less than a plurality') to any of the other options that involve some variant of 'lost'". Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:50, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- I've read over my comments several times now, I don't see anywhere that I called Trump a loser. SW3 5DL (talk) 19:41, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- If you want to focus on electoral votes rather than the popular vote regarding Johnson and Stein, then do so for Clinton and Trump as well. I disagree with you that we should call Trump a loser in the lead while implying Clinton got a majority of the popular vote. Your position violates WP:NPOV, don't you think? Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:37, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- There was only one opponent. Neither Gary Johnson nor Jill Stein won any electoral votes. Johnson won around 1% of the popular vote and Jill Stein won 0.36 of the popular vote. Statistically they don't even register. As for wining/losing majorities, B4 settles it. Trump won the electoral vote, which counts, and lost the popular vote, which does not count. SW3 5DL (talk) 19:32, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- As I said, inserting that word would alleviate the problem, though many readers would probably still assume that Clinton won a majority of the popular vote. My objection remains that we are going to extraordinary lengths to omit a simple clarifying fact that also tells readers that this was not a landslide in the popular vote. And this survey should be closed as faulty. Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:18, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- Would making it into "main opponent" satisfy your objection? If so, that could be the compromise that brings us consensus here. --MelanieN (talk) 19:15, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
How important is it... to recognize that the lede does NOT imply that Clinton won a majority? This particular interpretation, and especially the odd notion that the statement is "false" because of the way some people might interpret it, seems to be unique to a few people on this page. (Suppose I say "I like eggs"; is that statement false because some people might infer from it that I am a vegetarian? Do I have to add "and also meat" to make it true?) Most Reliable Sources (and our longstanding George W. Bush article) don't seem to have this concern, and it may ultimately come down to a few outliers (no matter how passionate) not being able to overcome consensus and policy. Policy like WP:RS. --MelanieN (talk) 20:01, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- @MelanieN: Which statement are we talking about? There are so many now. . .SW3 5DL (talk) 20:45, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- So, Melanie, when version B refers to "his opponent" that doesn't imply he had only one significant opponent? Obviously it implies that. And if the only significant opponent got more votes, then that opponent necessarily got a majority. I believe you might just be bludgeoning and POV-pushing here? After you accused me of making this article a "battleground", I disagreed but voluntarily pledged to stop editing this article. I hope that decision has not paved the way for blatant POV in this BLP. Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:59, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- It doesn't seem she's doing any such thing. It's very clear. I agree with her vegetarian analogy. When we have to keep adding to make something clear to the reader, we've probably got the wrong sentence. And Trump did have only one significant opponent because the other two had no chance of winning the Electoral College, whereas, Hillary did have a chance. The others were not real opponents to either Trump or Hillary. SW3 5DL (talk) 20:45, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
See "How Gary Johnson and Jill Stein helped elect Donald Trump", CNN.
- Trump: 62,984,825 which was 46.09%
- Clinton: 65,853,518 which was 48.18%
- Johnson: 4,489,221 which was 3.28%
- Stein: 1,457,216 which was 1.07%
Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:28, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) About "one significant opponent", I offered to accept your suggestion of "his main opponent" - thus making it clear there were others - but apparently that still doesn't satisfy you. About "bludgeoning", I would be happy to have someone count up how many times in the past few days you have posted here that it's essential to point out that she didn't get a majority, or how often you have claimed that any statement that doesn't overtly say that is "false" - vs. how many times I have disagreed with you about "false". ("Blatant POV" is a new one, and rather over the top if you mean that some people might interpret an accurate statement to come up with an inaccurate conclusion.) As for "battleground", I will just say, you certainly have a funny way of stopping editing this article. --MelanieN (talk) 21:13, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- Maybe someone should count up the times you have wrongly asserted I think it's essential for the lead to say she didn't get a majority. I have denied that previously here in response to you, and I now deny it yet again. What I have said repeatedly is we should not imply in the lead what is manifestly false: that she got a majority. There are various ways to remove that falsity from the lead. One is to explicitly say neither candidate got a majority. Another is to say he got less than the plurality. Another is to follow the JQ Adams lead and the Benjamin Harrison lead, by not discussing the irrelevant popular vote (which might well have been different in 2016 if it had been a determinant of victory). Regardless, I do think it would be wise and useful (not essential) to briefly mention that neither candidate got a majority, if we are going to mention that she got more votes, which also has the benefit of indicating it was not a popular vote landslide. Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:28, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- We've been down the 'neither candidate got a majority of the votes,' many times before. You mentioned somewhere you would consult with @NeilN:, so I'm pinging him to see if he can offer any suggestions for this dilemma. SW3 5DL (talk) 22:29, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- OK, I get it: you wouldn't insist that "not a majority" (or "a plurality") be included in the article if we didn't mention the popular vote at all. But since we clearly are going to include it, you do
insistpropose it as wise and useful but not essential. Because of your (IMO incorrect) belief that if we even mention that he got a smaller share of the popular vote, people will automatically assume "she got a majority". Which would be true if there were only two people in the race. But it won't be enough to indicate (by saying "main opponent") that there were other people in the race, to take away the assumption that the person who got a larger share actually got a majority. It has to be explicit, lest some people jump to a wrong conclusion. And philosophically you do believe that if some people might infer an incorrect impression from a statement, that makes the statement false (or even "blatant POV"). So even though the article text already says neither candidate got a majority, that has to be specified in the lede also. OK, at least now I understand you. Now all you have to do is convince enough people that this all makes sense. --MelanieN (talk) 22:33, 4 May 2017 (UTC)- It makes no sense to go through those gyrations to get to the simple fact that Donald J. Trump won the electoral college vote by 57% and lost the popular vote." That explains why he's president in one neat sentence. SW3 5DL (talk) 22:53, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- That is a false parity, since in one case a majority was won (electoral), in the other, not (popular). (Plus it's also already for a long time known in discussions that "losing" the popular vote is a misnomer [since it is not a race to be "won" or "lost"], so why do you keep beating that drum by continually suggesting that text??) --IHTS (talk) 05:55, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- "A false parity"??? Who cares? That's your OR reasoning. We document what sources say, and a huge amount of weight was given by those sources, and Trump himself, to the issue of winning or losing the popular vote. Trump is very thin skinned and obsesses about such things. He obsessed about mentioning it, just as you are obsessing about how we shouldn't mention it. You are in opposition to Trump and RS. You have created your own criteria, one not found in RS, to determine whether we should mention the popular vote, but RS don't listen to your criteria. They discussed Trump's losing it and Clinton's winning it very intently, and the voters did too, since it was the popular vote which proved that far more people voted for Clinton than voted for Trump. He was elected by some numbers, while she won the popular vote. She was the people's choice, and they felt cheated, so they discussed it and RS documented that. We follow what RS say, not your artificial OR "parity" idea. Please don't mention that word again, unless you have about a ton of RS to back it up as worthy of mention with even one word. -- BullRangifer (talk) 07:32, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- No, and you are really getting personal (uncivil) and WP:NOTFORUM here (who gives a damn about your Trump hatred?). My contention was that SW's view that "won the election" and "lost the popular vote" is a straightforward fact OK to state in the article, is instead a false parity, nothing more, nothing about RSs, but about misleading text. (And where did I say that the relative popular vote count s/b scrubbed from the article? Nowhere. What are you smoking to come up w/ such wild & erroneous accusations!? Please knock off your unwarranted hostility.) Oh, less I forget: parity, parity, parity, parity. --IHTS (talk) 10:34, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- "A false parity"??? Who cares? That's your OR reasoning. We document what sources say, and a huge amount of weight was given by those sources, and Trump himself, to the issue of winning or losing the popular vote. Trump is very thin skinned and obsesses about such things. He obsessed about mentioning it, just as you are obsessing about how we shouldn't mention it. You are in opposition to Trump and RS. You have created your own criteria, one not found in RS, to determine whether we should mention the popular vote, but RS don't listen to your criteria. They discussed Trump's losing it and Clinton's winning it very intently, and the voters did too, since it was the popular vote which proved that far more people voted for Clinton than voted for Trump. He was elected by some numbers, while she won the popular vote. She was the people's choice, and they felt cheated, so they discussed it and RS documented that. We follow what RS say, not your artificial OR "parity" idea. Please don't mention that word again, unless you have about a ton of RS to back it up as worthy of mention with even one word. -- BullRangifer (talk) 07:32, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- That is a false parity, since in one case a majority was won (electoral), in the other, not (popular). (Plus it's also already for a long time known in discussions that "losing" the popular vote is a misnomer [since it is not a race to be "won" or "lost"], so why do you keep beating that drum by continually suggesting that text??) --IHTS (talk) 05:55, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- User:MelanieN says about me: "you do believe that if some people might infer an incorrect impression from a statement, that makes the statement false (or even 'blatant POV')." No, no, no. Speaking of "his opponent" who got more votes implies he had one opponent who got a majority. That's a false implication, and the only readers who would infer otherwise don't understand how to read plain English. I have had it up to here with my comments being misconstrued, and it apparently makes no difference how many times I try to explain it in a different way. So do what you so evidently want to do. Consider me scared away from the article, and driven insane by the talk page. Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:05, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- P.S. Maybe coming from someone else this concern will be heard. Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:06, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
- MelanieN, I also feel it is appropriate to clarify by saying "not a majority" if the lede says Clinton (or "main opponent") received more popular votes. It's important to this article because of the ongoing societal contention re election result "legitimacy". The incessant avoidance of simple & informative & appropriate clarifying language is what is POV, and in worse cases does imply the falsity that Clinton got a majority. p.s. Your "eggs/vegetarian" analogy is bogus. ("I like eggs" w/o other context has no connection/relevance re topic "vegetarianism", anymore than it has connection/relevance re liking/disliking anything else in the world, like hot climates or fast cars. So no clarification needed. But "received more popular votes" has direct connection/relevance to "a majority" or not, there are only two possibilities in the context of popular vote totals.) Your analogy fails but I'm not surprised SW jumps on it enthusiastically. (Thick POV.) --IHTS (talk) 06:20, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- It makes no sense to go through those gyrations to get to the simple fact that Donald J. Trump won the electoral college vote by 57% and lost the popular vote." That explains why he's president in one neat sentence. SW3 5DL (talk) 22:53, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- OK, I get it: you wouldn't insist that "not a majority" (or "a plurality") be included in the article if we didn't mention the popular vote at all. But since we clearly are going to include it, you do
- We've been down the 'neither candidate got a majority of the votes,' many times before. You mentioned somewhere you would consult with @NeilN:, so I'm pinging him to see if he can offer any suggestions for this dilemma. SW3 5DL (talk) 22:29, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- Maybe someone should count up the times you have wrongly asserted I think it's essential for the lead to say she didn't get a majority. I have denied that previously here in response to you, and I now deny it yet again. What I have said repeatedly is we should not imply in the lead what is manifestly false: that she got a majority. There are various ways to remove that falsity from the lead. One is to explicitly say neither candidate got a majority. Another is to say he got less than the plurality. Another is to follow the JQ Adams lead and the Benjamin Harrison lead, by not discussing the irrelevant popular vote (which might well have been different in 2016 if it had been a determinant of victory). Regardless, I do think it would be wise and useful (not essential) to briefly mention that neither candidate got a majority, if we are going to mention that she got more votes, which also has the benefit of indicating it was not a popular vote landslide. Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:28, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) About "one significant opponent", I offered to accept your suggestion of "his main opponent" - thus making it clear there were others - but apparently that still doesn't satisfy you. About "bludgeoning", I would be happy to have someone count up how many times in the past few days you have posted here that it's essential to point out that she didn't get a majority, or how often you have claimed that any statement that doesn't overtly say that is "false" - vs. how many times I have disagreed with you about "false". ("Blatant POV" is a new one, and rather over the top if you mean that some people might interpret an accurate statement to come up with an inaccurate conclusion.) As for "battleground", I will just say, you certainly have a funny way of stopping editing this article. --MelanieN (talk) 21:13, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
Because I was pinged, I'm going to respond (carefully) here and make a few general points:
- Wikipedia articles are written for English-speakers worldwide, not just Americans.
- Many functional democracies involve multiple parties.
- In these countries, one person winning the majority of the popular vote is rare. Where I live, you wouldn't hear "x won the majority of the popular vote" when they garnered <50% of the vote from quality news sources.
- You may want to look at newspapers or historical accounts of elections from other countries (or even the U.S.) to see what phrasings they use.
Again, these are general points - I don't know how useful they will be. --NeilN talk to me 22:57, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
Quantitative RS data
The most mainstream RS do use the term "plurality".
- 80 results for plurality "donald trump" "electoral college" site:nytimes.com
- 20 results for plurality "donald trump" "electoral college" site:wsj.com
- 17 results for plurality "donald trump" "electoral college" site:usatoday.com
And the most analogous featured article -- Hillary Clinton -- also says plurality (in the lead). --Dervorguilla (talk) 16:54, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
Dervorguilla, please actually look at some of the articles, not just the fact that they include "Trump" and "plurality" in the same article. Taking the USA Today results: Of the 8 articles displayed by the link, seven are opinion pieces (i.e. not Reliable Sources), and the one news item is not about the presidential election and uses "plurality" in an entirely different context. WSJ is behind a paywall but of the snippets I can see, I don't see any that seem to say what we are talking about, i.e., "plurality of the popular vote in the 2016 election" - and many of them are pre-election so they definitely aren't. Bottom line, this search tells us nothing. Let's refine the search to look for actual news items that are actually about the popular vote outcome in the 2016 election.
- Searching for "plurality of the popular vote" and "Hillary Clinton" I found no RS articles using that phrase about this election in the first four pages of results. (Lots of Wikipedia articles - apparently Wikipedia loves that word - but Wikipedia is not a Reliable Source.)
- Searching for "plurality of the popular vote" and "Donald Trump" Same result: No RS articles using that phrase about this election in the first four pages of results.
You keep bringing up the Hillary Clinton article. WP:OSE. We don't know who decided that or why. Let's decide what we want to do at THIS article. --MelanieN (talk) 18:12, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- Agree. We have to decide what's best for this article. I think B4 settles it nicely. SW3 5DL (talk) 18:20, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- B4 won't fly. As i wrote above, the latest RfC concluded that there was no consensus to include any variant of "losing the popular vote". I think this horse should rest in peace and proposal B4 should be withdrawn. — JFG talk 18:50, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- It's an election. One wins, one loses. The RS call it that. I don't see any prohibition to stating it in plain language. It seems to be the obscuring of the win/loss that is causing this sentence to be brought up for revision over and over. Plain English should settle the matter. SW3 5DL (talk) 19:21, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- It's an election, indeed, won or lost by the electoral college. The nationwide popular vote is not an election. Those arguments were abundantly commented and settled in the RfC that you had called. — JFG talk 19:48, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- B4 settles the matter, imho. He won the electoral college, he lost the popular vote. This is a different RfC with better choices. SW3 5DL (talk) 19:59, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- JFG, we can't ignore Trump's loss of the popular vote. There was a huge amount of RS commentary about that fact, and one of Trump's notable lies at that time was that he had not lost the popular vote. He got pretty creative with multiple deceptive and factless theories about why he either didn't lose the popular vote, or why he did (millions of illegal votes for Clinton was one).
- The lead must be concise, without unnecessary detail, so B4 very simply avoids a lot of controversial wordings and issues while mentioning the two aspects to the election which were most noted in RS. Your obsession with not connecting Trump with the word "lose" or "loss" is very Trumpian. He was raised to never lose and to never admit when he did lose. In his own mind he never loses. His myriad and constant losses and defeats are always someone else's fault. Roy Cohn even taught him to call every defeat a victory, and that's what he does. Well, Wikipedia is not Trump. We don't lie here. We're documenting that he won the election (IOW the electoral vote) while losing the popular vote, and that by a huge margin (which should be discussed in the body of the article). Trump hates that fact, but we don't care what he thinks. -- BullRangifer (talk) 02:59, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- @BullRangifer: I have no "obsession" and nobody is "ignoring" the result of the popular vote. My conclusion from the numerous discussions which repeatedly found no consensus is that such detail is not necessary in the lead of Trump's biography, or in Clinton's biography for that matter. The appropriate page is the 2016 election. — JFG talk 10:26, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- B4 settles the matter, imho. He won the electoral college, he lost the popular vote. This is a different RfC with better choices. SW3 5DL (talk) 19:59, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- It's an election, indeed, won or lost by the electoral college. The nationwide popular vote is not an election. Those arguments were abundantly commented and settled in the RfC that you had called. — JFG talk 19:48, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- It's an election. One wins, one loses. The RS call it that. I don't see any prohibition to stating it in plain language. It seems to be the obscuring of the win/loss that is causing this sentence to be brought up for revision over and over. Plain English should settle the matter. SW3 5DL (talk) 19:21, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- B4 won't fly. As i wrote above, the latest RfC concluded that there was no consensus to include any variant of "losing the popular vote". I think this horse should rest in peace and proposal B4 should be withdrawn. — JFG talk 18:50, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- And we don't care what *you* think, BullRangifer, when you showcase your Trump hatred WP:NOTFORUM-style and psycho-analyze the article subject for us. (Are we allowed equal time? (Redacted) --IHTS (talk) 10:51, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- @MelanieN: From the comments above: "If you can produce evidence that 'the word plurality is fairly understandable to most readers', kindly do so." ... "People shouldn't have to follow wikilinks in order to understand what an encyclopedia is saying." The data show that USAToday does sometimes use the word plurality in describing the election. The newspaper has the third-largest print circulation in the US; so it likely tries to use words that most of its readers can understand without following a link.
- Also, most Wikipedia readers can understand the leads in most featured articles -- including, for example, the Hillary Clinton article. The term "plurality" is used there, with no wikilink. That doesn't mean we have to use it; it just means we can. --Dervorguilla (talk) 22:44, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- Well, at least one person didn't understand it. The edit that touched all this off [10] had the edit summary "Clearly, it is not correct that Trump didn't obtain a plurality of the popular vote. He did. He did not, however, obtain a majority of the popular vote, as one opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton obtained millions more votes by individual voters than he did." Clearly, this editor has no idea what "plurality" means. --MelanieN (talk) 22:48, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- Yes, agree with MelanieN. Hillary beat Donald like a drum in the popular vote. But he did the same to her in the electoral college. SW3 5DL (talk) 22:54, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- @MelanieN: True, but I'd have to call him a rather "unreliable" editor! Perhaps he thought the term meant "more than one vote" (singular)??? ... Given that this often becomes the most viewed article on Wikipedia, there's going to be at least one editor who fails to understand any given four-syllable word... As I keep pointing out, though, the Hillary Clinton article is a featured article, and there was evidently no consensus to remove the term plurality from the lead -- or even to wikilink it.
- In any event, I doubt we're going to establish a consensus here without an RfC. I'd like to acknowledge, however, that you've had to spend some time correcting a couple of careless errors I made, and I do appreciate it. --Dervorguilla (talk) 02:07, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- He's a pretty reliable source to answer the question, "does everybody understand what "plurality" means?" 0;-D Reliable answer: NO! --MelanieN (talk) 04:21, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- Not really, he just has his own definition that he thinks is better than the standard dictionary definition, per his user talk. Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:31, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- This evening in the car I was trying to explain this dispute to my wife, an intelligent woman with 19+ years of formal education. She stopped me halfway through with, "Wait, what does plurality mean?" ~Awilley (talk) 06:10, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- I'll infer that your spouse appreciates A2 then. 🙂 Anythingyouwant (talk) 11:45, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- This evening in the car I was trying to explain this dispute to my wife, an intelligent woman with 19+ years of formal education. She stopped me halfway through with, "Wait, what does plurality mean?" ~Awilley (talk) 06:10, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- Not really, he just has his own definition that he thinks is better than the standard dictionary definition, per his user talk. Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:31, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- He's a pretty reliable source to answer the question, "does everybody understand what "plurality" means?" 0;-D Reliable answer: NO! --MelanieN (talk) 04:21, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- MelanieN, you are so right. I've always failed at parsing those sentences because it is a very mixed and self-contradictory message. Avoiding the word "plurality" altogether saves lots of problems. He won the election while losing the popular vote. That's all the lead needs to say. -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:06, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- @MelanieN: From the lead: "His political positions have been described by scholars and commentators as populist..." Some readers would understand that term to mean "popular"; many others would have no idea what it's supposed to mean. (Actual definition: "Favoring the common people".) --Dervorguilla (talk) 04:52, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- "
He won the election while losing the popular vote. That's all the lead needs to say. -- BullRangifer
". Bad for two reasons: Popular vote is not a "race"; implies falsely that Clinton received a majority. --IHTS (talk) 06:33, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- Well, at least one person didn't understand it. The edit that touched all this off [10] had the edit summary "Clearly, it is not correct that Trump didn't obtain a plurality of the popular vote. He did. He did not, however, obtain a majority of the popular vote, as one opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton obtained millions more votes by individual voters than he did." Clearly, this editor has no idea what "plurality" means. --MelanieN (talk) 22:48, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
@BullRangifer: is correct. Donald Trump . . . won the election while losing the popular vote
. It does not in any way imply that Clinton received a majority. It simply tells the facts and is backed by RS. We need more eyes on this. I'm wondering what @MrX: has to say since he's just made a comment on another thread. SW3 5DL (talk) 13:29, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
@MelanieN: Can we clean up the choices and move them down? The threads are getting too long and the choices seem displaced. Thanks. SW3 5DL (talk) 13:37, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- I'd rather not, because they already have a lot of responses in the form of a survey. If I move the options, do I move the survey results too? If I don't, do people have to !vote a second time? One list of choices, in one place, is important IMO. --MelanieN (talk) 14:31, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- Keeping it all together is important, I agree. I just don't want it to get lost. Maybe we could link it occasionally in comments as a reminder that we're referring to the survey hereSW3 5DL (talk) 14:52, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- You guys are crazy. (I don't mean that literally.) This discussion started out with a disagreement over whether a single word in the lead should be changed from "plurality" to "majority". It morphed into two options, soon to be replaced by five or more. And 10 or more screen pages of debates. In a normal article, any one of the options would be alright.
- In 99.9% of Wikipedia articles, even in the lead section, this would require at most a couple of paragraphs on the talk page. Most editors would simply slap in the replacement word and then, if they wanted to, wait for possible reversions; see WP:BOLD. But Trump is like 10 or 20 articles at any given time that attracts many people who, in seems, prefer to argue on the talk page rather than contribute to articles.
- I don't know anyway of fixing this, other than the ten-year rule; see WP:10YT. As for me, I'm off to edit more productive articles. (Anyone can hide this using the {{hat}}/{{hab}} construction.) --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 15:14, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- @RoyGoldsmith: Indeed this is crazy: welcome to the Trump article! And you could have even more fun suggesting a single-word good-faith well-sourced change at Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. — JFG talk 18:15, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- It's been like this for the better part of a year. Welcome to Groundhog Day. --MelanieN (talk) 18:24, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- @RoyGoldsmith: Indeed this is crazy: welcome to the Trump article! And you could have even more fun suggesting a single-word good-faith well-sourced change at Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. — JFG talk 18:15, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- I don't know anyway of fixing this, other than the ten-year rule; see WP:10YT. As for me, I'm off to edit more productive articles. (Anyone can hide this using the {{hat}}/{{hab}} construction.) --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 15:14, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- I don't have much of an opinion on this, but I tend to think clarity and concision are good for an encyclopedia. "... won the election while losing the popular vote." seems to accomplish that.- MrX 19:08, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- If clarity and concision are desired, then "...won the election" is the best choice. The popular vote game was a game that neither candidate was playing, so it might be best to leave that out of the lead, and mention it later in the article, especially since the popular vote difference was not unusually large. If the popular vote difference had been one single solitary vote, I suppose we would still be trumpeting in the lead that Hillary won it --- and still without bothering to give any hint that she won less than a popular vote landslide. Right? Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:45, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- Anythingyouwant and MrX, "The popular vote game was a game that neither candidate was playing,..." That's factually wrong. The popular vote is the ONLY vote given by the voters. The overall strategy is to win as many votes as possible, and those are what constitutes the "popular vote". A secondary, and parallel, strategy is to win the states where each vote is worth most. For example, each vote cast in Wyoming is worth 3.6 as much as the same vote cast in California. Wow! That's how a candidate who wins small states and loses big ones can lose the popular vote and still get enough electoral votes to win the election. The popular vote IS THE VOTE upon which everything else hinges. All efforts aim to get as many as possible, everywhere possible, but especially in those small states. That's the popular vote "game" BOTH "candidates were playing".
- It was a very big deal because of the surprise upset victory, which happened in spite of the will of
the majoritymore voters than those who voted for Trump. It was constantly mentioned, so we can't ignore it. The subject is so notable that we even have an article which deals with the subject, United States presidential elections in which the winner lost the popular vote. - RS didn't ignore it, our article doesn't ignore it, so we can't do it either. -- BullRangifer (talk) 04:27, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
- If "the will of the majority" is so important, then why have editors such as yourself been fighting tooth and nail to keep out of the lead any hint that Clinton did not get a majority? Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:34, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
- I have tried to avoid that mess. Above I mean a majority, as compared to Trump, IOW she got more than he did. The "plurality" and "majority" debate on this page is really weird, using meanings not understood by normal people. To avoid anymore problems for you (everyone else understands what I mean), I'll strike it and fix it. -- BullRangifer (talk) 04:48, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
- "
A secondary, and parallel, strategy is to win the states where each vote is worth most.
" Wrong. Winning specific states is not a "secondary strategy", the election is won by racking up 270 electoral votes and consequently strategies center on winning "battleground states" while maintaining red or blue states to reach the 270 figure. --IHTS (talk) 11:26, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- If "the will of the majority" is so important, then why have editors such as yourself been fighting tooth and nail to keep out of the lead any hint that Clinton did not get a majority? Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:34, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
- Yeah, I don't think it's all that important that it needs to be mentioned in the lead.- MrX 00:19, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
- If clarity and concision are desired, then "...won the election" is the best choice. The popular vote game was a game that neither candidate was playing, so it might be best to leave that out of the lead, and mention it later in the article, especially since the popular vote difference was not unusually large. If the popular vote difference had been one single solitary vote, I suppose we would still be trumpeting in the lead that Hillary won it --- and still without bothering to give any hint that she won less than a popular vote landslide. Right? Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:45, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
This one Talk section now has 95,852 characters. And, the argument seems to be over a few words. It may be fiction; but supposedly Pope Julius II said to Michelangelo: “When will you make an end?”. Think about that before debating another minor point. Objective3000 (talk) 00:23, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
- It beats apathy. Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:26, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
- I dunno. It’s just that sometimes we fight too hard for our own wording. I don’t mean to cast aspersions. It’s just that one man’s lack of apathy is another man’s OCD. (You can quote me; but I’ll deny I said it.).:) Objective3000 (talk) 00:40, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
- Count me apathetic, if that's your preferred spin. I call it a sense of proportion. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:24, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
- I did not mean to imply that you are apathetic, User:Mandruss. All I meant was that being over-interested is better than being under-interested, and perhaps you are neither. Cheers. Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:19, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
Couching contentious material in quotes
In perusing the article today I noticed that there are a lot of direct quotes from Donald Trump himself. While some in-line quotes are to be expected, we should not be using quotes as vehicles to insert contentious material that is not verifiable in secondary sources, or to put a positive or negative spin on events.
A couple relevant Wikipedia guidelines are:
- WP:Quotation: "Where a quotation presents rhetorical language in place of the more neutral, dispassionate tone preferred for encyclopedias, it can be a backdoor method of inserting a non-neutral treatment of a controversial subject into Wikipedia's narrative on the subject."
- MOS:QUOTE: "It is generally recommended that content be written in Wikipedia editors' own words. Using too many quotes is incompatible with an encyclopedic writing style, and may indicate a copyright infringement. Consider minimizing the use of quotations by paraphrasing, as quotations should not replace free text (including one that the editor writes)."
Here are a few examples of what I'm talking about, along with suggested replacements.
Topic | What the article currently says (quote) | Suggested replacement | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Involuntarily enrolled in a military boarding school | At age 13, Trump's parents enrolled him in the New York Military Academy, after discovering Donald made frequent trips into Manhattan without permission. "I was a wise guy, and they wanted to get me in line,"Trump said. "Thinking back, it was a very positive influence." |
At age 13, Trump's parents enrolled him in the New York Military Academy, after discovering Donald made frequent trips into Manhattan without permission. | Could also be paraphrased to, "Trump later said he thought it was a positive influence." |
Loan of $1M | Trump has said that he began his career with "a small loan of one million dollars"from his father (which "isn't very much compared to what I've built"), and paid back that loan with interest. |
Trump has said that he began his business career with a loan of $1 million dollars from his father. | If the $1M figure is also supported in reliable sources, we can put it in Wikipedia's voice. |
Renovation of the Plaza Hotel | The hotel was built in 1907, and Trump called it "the ultimate work of art", spending $50 million on its restoration. |
The hotel, built in 1907, cost $50 million to restore. | Also makes it less confusing, since Trump certainly didn't build the hotel in 1907 |
On his business bankruptcies | The six bankruptcies were the result of over-leveraged hotel and casino businesses in Atlantic City and New York: [...]. Trump said, "I've used the laws of this country to pare debt ... We'll have the company. We'll throw it into a chapter. We'll negotiate with the banks. We'll make a fantastic deal. You know, it's like on The Apprentice. It's not personal. It's just business." |
The six bankruptcies were the result of over-leveraged hotel and casino businesses in Atlantic City and New York: [...]. | No need for the "fantastic deal" spin, and there are better descriptions of how bankruptcy works. |
The Hollywood Access tape controversy | On the tape, Trump is heard bragging to the show's then-cohost Billy Bush about forcibly kissing and groping women. "I just start kissing them,"he says, "I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it, you can do anything ... grab them by the pussy." |
On the tape, Trump is heard bragging in vulgar terms about forcibly kissing and groping women. | It's enough to say that it's vulgar without giving the whole quote. (Billy Bush would be moved into the preceding sentence.) |
I would like to implement these and possibly other similar changes int the article, but wanted to get some feedback first to avoid any edit skirmishes. (But please let's not turn this into another RfC!) ~Awilley (talk) 22:41, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
Looks good to me.btw,"involuntarily enrolled in a military boarding school," I love that. Can we put that in the article? SW3 5DL (talk) 22:45, 4 May 2017 (UTC)- Also to me. (In most cases, the direct quotation could be included as a ref quote.) --Dervorguilla (talk) 22:52, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- I am OK with the first three changes, but I think the Trump quotes should be retained in the last two. His attitude toward bankruptcy is entirely relevant. And what he said on the tape has been widely reported and belongs here so that people can understand what the issue was all about. Censoring it to merely "vulgar" does a disservice to our readers IMO. --MelanieN (talk) 22:53, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- I'm with Melanie on this one. the last two quotes are necessary. They give us a good description of his thinking, and readers deserve to get that. Otherwise those are good edits. -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:13, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- As I recall, the only quote that I put in was "The hotel was built in 1907, and Trump called it 'the ultimate work of art', spending $50 million on its restoration." The point was that he invested so much money in restoration largely because he viewed it as the ultimate work of art. You can check the cited sources (footnotes 128 and 129) about that, so I support keeping the quote or modifying the paraphrase. I was not aware this was contentious. Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:29, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- I am OK with the first three changes, but I think the Trump quotes should be retained in the last two. His attitude toward bankruptcy is entirely relevant. And what he said on the tape has been widely reported and belongs here so that people can understand what the issue was all about. Censoring it to merely "vulgar" does a disservice to our readers IMO. --MelanieN (talk) 22:53, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
- @Awilley: I agree with your approach. Trump has a notoriously rambling speaking style, which translates poorly in direct quotes, so that paraphrasing is generally more encyclopedic. However I think we should keep certain small nuggets of Trump speech that have defined issues or raised controversy, e.g. among your examples "a small loan of one million dollars" and "grab them by the pussy". — JFG talk 10:36, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- I agree with MelanieN and BullRangifer. The first three are improvements. The quotes in the last two should be retained because they provide essential context.- MrX 10:53, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- It might be a better idea to leave the quotes for now. Trump is such a unique character that keeping his words in the article help define him better for the reader. Looking over the article, I don't see where any of these quotes are undue, and from the response you're getting, it seems each one of these quotes have something the editors here feel are important. SW3 5DL (talk) 13:34, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- "A small loan of one million dollars" is a famous quote! We can't get rid of that! Comparisons were drawn at the time with "corporations are people, my friend." -- Scjessey (talk) 16:06, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- I don't mind keeping "small loan" if we also keep his explanation that he meant "small" in relation to what he's built. Otherwise, we should just use the paraphrase that AWilley suggested in the table ("Trump has said that he began his business career with a loan of $1 million dollars from his father"). Selectively quoting the BLP subject out of context is a lot worse than providing the full quote, IMHO. Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:32, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- OK, lots of people have responded listing different quotes they would like to see kept or removed, all citing legitimate reasons to keep/remove individual quotes. But nobody has commented on the underlying principle or the guidelines I quoted above. Any thoughts on that? ~Awilley (talk) 16:22, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- It really depends on the edit and how the quote supports it. Also, it might be that on a contentious article like this, letting Trump speak is far better than having an editor trying to figure out how to say Trump was sent off to military school because he was a 'wise guy.' And really, how else do you say in Wikipedia's voice, "grab them by the pussy?" He's Donald Trump. His words are better than ours in many situations. I don't see any copyright violations. You could run it by Moonriddengirl. She's the expert copy right on Wikipedia. SW3 5DL (talk) 18:01, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- AWilley, if you believe there might be copyright infringement, or that a particular quote inserts a non-neutral treatment, or that there are too many quotes in a particular section, then that would be the best time to invoke those guidelines. I'm not sure you believe that's the situation with all these quotes in the table. Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:06, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- Copyright infringement?? I think you misunderstood my concern, as copyright infringement has absolutely nothing to do with it. ~Awilley (talk) 23:48, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- Huh? Copyright infringement was explicitly mentioned in the guidelines you quoted, along with non-neutral treatment, and too many quotes. Maybe that's why (independently from me) SW3 wrote "I don't see any copyright violations." Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:53, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- Then let me clarify (also for SW3): My concern, as stated above, is that "we should not be using quotes as vehicles to insert contentious material that is not verifiable in secondary sources, or to put a positive or negative spin on events." I quoted snippets of relevant Wikipedia guidelines, and one of those snippets happened to mention potential copyright violations as one reason to avoid excessive quotes. I'm not concerned about copyright violations. ~Awilley (talk) 00:07, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
- I don't see how the brief quote "the ultimate work of art" puts a spin on anything or is contentious. He was referring to what someone else did in 1907, and explaining why he wanted to spend so much to restore it. As mentioned above, I don't think your paraphrase conveys that. Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:12, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
- You don't think the words "the ultimate work of art", applied to a building by the developer who owns it, might be just a little bit hyperbolic? ~Awilley (talk) 00:45, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
- Buildings can be artistic, especially their interiors. He's explaining why he bought it, and why he plowed into it tens of millions of dollars more than planned to restore the artwork instead of gutting it. If you want to paraphrase, I've said from the beginning that that's fine (though unnecessary), but try this: "The hotel was built in 1907, and Trump spent twice the planned amount on its restoration, $50 million altogether, in order to bring back what he said was a great work of art." I also am the one who put into this article that he smashed the Bonwit Teller artwork, so NPOV is a factor here too. Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:02, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
- You've edited the sentence to say that Trump called the Plaza hotel his "Mona Lisa" thus conveying the notion that Trump took credit for its artistic value and compared himself to Leonardo da Vinci. Actually, he said "I have purchased a masterpiece---the Mona Lisa".[11]. So I disagree with your edit, but thanks for discussing it with me. I have no desire to make this article a battleground, so you can correct the misimpression or leave it the way it is, as you wish. Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:34, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
- You don't think the words "the ultimate work of art", applied to a building by the developer who owns it, might be just a little bit hyperbolic? ~Awilley (talk) 00:45, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
- I don't see how the brief quote "the ultimate work of art" puts a spin on anything or is contentious. He was referring to what someone else did in 1907, and explaining why he wanted to spend so much to restore it. As mentioned above, I don't think your paraphrase conveys that. Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:12, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
- Then let me clarify (also for SW3): My concern, as stated above, is that "we should not be using quotes as vehicles to insert contentious material that is not verifiable in secondary sources, or to put a positive or negative spin on events." I quoted snippets of relevant Wikipedia guidelines, and one of those snippets happened to mention potential copyright violations as one reason to avoid excessive quotes. I'm not concerned about copyright violations. ~Awilley (talk) 00:07, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
- Huh? Copyright infringement was explicitly mentioned in the guidelines you quoted, along with non-neutral treatment, and too many quotes. Maybe that's why (independently from me) SW3 wrote "I don't see any copyright violations." Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:53, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- Copyright infringement?? I think you misunderstood my concern, as copyright infringement has absolutely nothing to do with it. ~Awilley (talk) 23:48, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- Thanks for the comments. Based on this feedback I am inclined to approach the quotes on a case-by-case basis, leaving some alone, trimming some, paraphrasing some, and moving some to the footnotes, trying to take into account the preferences expressed here. If people have problems with specific edits then they can either fix the problems themselves or we can practice up on WP:BRD. ~Awilley (talk) 23:48, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- Re item 5: Here's how the original source (Farenthold) put it-
- Trump bragged in vulgar terms about kissing [and] groping ... women... “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait... And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything... Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”
- Here's how our article puts it-
- Trump [bragged] ... about forcibly kissing and groping women...
- A lawyer might dispute our claim. As you can see from the transcript, Trump did not in fact "brag" in vulgar terms about "his" (asserted) groping of beautiful women. He said beautiful women characteristically "let" a "star" kiss or grope them. He then restated his claim, saying -- twice -- "[a star] can" do this.
- A lawyer might also say that when Trump claimed that beautiful women characteristically "let" a star grope them, he may well have meant that they appear to consent to it.
- Trump may be wholly wrong here. That's for the star's criminal-trial judge to decide, though, not us. --Dervorguilla (talk) 20:21, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
- I agree with MelanieN, BullRangifer, and MrX that the last two quotes (about bankruptcy and grabbing women) ought to remain. The proposed paraphrases do not (and maybe cannot) fully capture the essence. Having a paraphrase in addition to the full quote is unnecessary, so I support editing like this: "On the tape, Trump is heard bragging to the show's then-cohost Billy Bush
about forcibly kissing and groping women.[415][416][417] 'I just start kissing them....'" One could argue that the Trump quote about bankruptcies is self-serving, but I put into the following paragraph that the Washington Post calls his casino bankruptcies the "most infamous flop" of his business career, so there's no problem. Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:39, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
- I agree with MelanieN, BullRangifer, and MrX that the last two quotes (about bankruptcy and grabbing women) ought to remain. The proposed paraphrases do not (and maybe cannot) fully capture the essence. Having a paraphrase in addition to the full quote is unnecessary, so I support editing like this: "On the tape, Trump is heard bragging to the show's then-cohost Billy Bush
- I think removing direct quotes and paraphrasing instead would be a great improvement. Easier to read and clear, factual reporting rather than ambiguous quotes. One editor says, "I think the first quote should stay as is. Trump is revealing he knew he was a handful." That's actually a violation of WP:Quotation: "a backdoor method of inserting a non-neutral treatment." If that was what Trump clearly meant, then we paraphrase him. If not, then we need a reliable secondary source to provide that conclusion. Otherwise, it is POV-pushing.
- Regarding the Billy Bush conversation, I think we should explain what he said and provide the full quote, since it is significant. But we are leaving the quote to explain itself.
- TFD (talk) 23:26, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
- @The Four Deuces: The quote from Trump about being a wise guy came from the same article. It doesn't seem ambiguous at all. His parents discovered he was taking the subway into Manhattan at the age of thirteen, among other things, and they sent him off to a Military Academy. Trump explained that he was sent off because 'I was a wise guy." I don't see how that's a non-neutral treatment. Perhaps you don't like my reasoning for keeping it but that does not justify your comment which seems to be a back door to a personal attack. SW3 5DL (talk) 00:50, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- It's not a personal attack to say your suggestion is contrary to policy, otherwise we could have no conversations at all. If as you say a direct quote is a neutral treatment, why do you object to paraphrasing it? I think your first comment was correct, you think that it conveys something paraphrasing does not. TFD (talk) 01:12, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- If you read all my comments here, you will see that I felt Trump says things better than we can paraphrase, which can often result in an awkwardly written sentence. In other words, in some cases, he says things better than we can paraphrase or attempt to explain further. The real question though, is why is this such a big deal for you? Awilley has already deleted it and I'm fine with that.
Move onSW3 5DL (talk) 01:22, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- If you read all my comments here, you will see that I felt Trump says things better than we can paraphrase, which can often result in an awkwardly written sentence. In other words, in some cases, he says things better than we can paraphrase or attempt to explain further. The real question though, is why is this such a big deal for you? Awilley has already deleted it and I'm fine with that.
- It's not a personal attack to say your suggestion is contrary to policy, otherwise we could have no conversations at all. If as you say a direct quote is a neutral treatment, why do you object to paraphrasing it? I think your first comment was correct, you think that it conveys something paraphrasing does not. TFD (talk) 01:12, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- @The Four Deuces: The quote from Trump about being a wise guy came from the same article. It doesn't seem ambiguous at all. His parents discovered he was taking the subway into Manhattan at the age of thirteen, among other things, and they sent him off to a Military Academy. Trump explained that he was sent off because 'I was a wise guy." I don't see how that's a non-neutral treatment. Perhaps you don't like my reasoning for keeping it but that does not justify your comment which seems to be a back door to a personal attack. SW3 5DL (talk) 00:50, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- @SW3, I don't see that TFD is making a "big deal" out of anything, but can't say the same about you. And telling them to "Move on" sounds unnecessarily combative. Perhaps you meant it differently in your mind, like "let's move on to something else", but in text it sounds like you're telling them their opinion isn't welcome here and to go away. ~Awilley (talk) 01:59, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- Not at all. I think you should re-read my comment again with a more neutral pov. I have stricken the comment because you have misinterpreted it. Let's move on to something else. SW3 5DL (talk) 02:19, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- @SW3 5DL: Regarding your opposition to paraphrasing the quotation in Topic 1, I think you're right. That said, I also think you should be forthwith enrolled in Wikipedia Military Academy for being a "wise guy". It may get you in line! :) --Dervorguilla (talk) 02:43, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- @Dervorguilla: XD on your second point. Nobody says things like Donald Trump says things that's why it's so hard to paraphrase him. on your first point.SW3 5DL (talk) 03:07, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- @SW3 5DL: Regarding your opposition to paraphrasing the quotation in Topic 1, I think you're right. That said, I also think you should be forthwith enrolled in Wikipedia Military Academy for being a "wise guy". It may get you in line! :) --Dervorguilla (talk) 02:43, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- Not at all. I think you should re-read my comment again with a more neutral pov. I have stricken the comment because you have misinterpreted it. Let's move on to something else. SW3 5DL (talk) 02:19, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- @SW3, I don't see that TFD is making a "big deal" out of anything, but can't say the same about you. And telling them to "Move on" sounds unnecessarily combative. Perhaps you meant it differently in your mind, like "let's move on to something else", but in text it sounds like you're telling them their opinion isn't welcome here and to go away. ~Awilley (talk) 01:59, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
arbitrary page break
- @Awilley: Re topics 2 and 4, I support your careful suggested rewording. Re topic 5, I oppose both the current and suggested language. To me, it looks like this contentious passage
- Trump is heard bragging ... about ... groping women.
- fails WP:BLPSTYLE. "The material [is to be] presented conservatively... Beware of biased content... Biographies must be fair to their subjects."
- And we do know what Trump said here. He said that beautiful women characteristically “let” “a star” kiss them. Clarifying, he then said -- twice -- that a star “can” kiss (or grope) them.
- A fair reading: Trump is saying that any star can do so. He's making no claims to superiority over any other star in this regard. So he's not “bragging” about anything. (Nor is he saying anything about “women” as a class; his literal claim, as worded, is more nuanced than some of us may think.)
- Can we use WaPo's apparently unfair characterization of Trump's claim? Based on Pew Research survey data, WaPo's content may reasonably be treated as more biased than BBC's or WSJ's. And per (1) WP:V and (2) WP:BLPSTYLE, we can use biased content about the subject (1) if and (2) only if he gets shot or whatever. Not yet, though.
- Why not? Because a fair rewording could have a potential positive impact on the subject's life. (Wikipedia's language, not mine; but I have to believe it's possible.) --Dervorguilla (talk) 05:54, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) The use of "positive impact" does not actually appear to be Wikipedia's language, only that (obviously) BLPs have an impact on a subject's life. More importantly, in the section you helpfully linked, is
Articles should document in a non-partisan manner what reliable secondary sources have published about the subjects
. The reliable secondary coverage of Trump's quote here is overwhelmingly clear about how they describe his comments, and the carriage follows the horse. Parabolist (talk) 06:05, 7 May 2017 (UTC) - Per WP:QUOTE, "quoting a brief excerpt from an original source can sometimes explain things better and less controversially than trying to explain them in one's own words." Since we're including the excerpt, there's no need to explain that "Trump was heard bragging about forcibly kissing and groping women". That would also make Dervorguilla's point moot. Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:02, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- Anythingyouwant is right. Using Trump's quote is good enough. Attempts to paraphrase it tend to either interpret it (making it worse or better), or whitewash it (making it better). Both are serious violations of NPOV.
- Keep in mind that NPOV refers primarily to how editors present material, not to the content itself. Content may be biased, both positively and negatively. Editors must remain neutral and not tamper with the bias found in RS. They must present what they find in those sources and preserve the bias. They must remain "neutral" and not alter the intent of the source. For an in depth examination of this topic, see my essay "NPOV means neutral editors, not neutral content". -- BullRangifer (talk) 06:28, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- Two points: 1. I didn't change any of the paraphrasing in my edit. I simply reordered it in the paragraph and changed the tense of a verb. 2. We are't the ones who get to interpret Trump's words. We rely on secondary sources to do that. I did a quick check of the source used at the end of the paraphrase sentence and it fully supports the paraphrase. (The wording in the source is,
"...newly unearthed audio recordings showed Trump bragging about forcibly kissing women and grabbing them by the genitals."
) I don't know if this source (NBCNews) is representative of the other sources that certainly covered this, but looking to the sources is going to be a more productive approach than trying to interpret Trump's words ourselves. ~Awilley (talk) 06:59, 7 May 2017 (UTC)- Is anyone suggesting to interpret Trump's words ourselves? Why not just provide the quote and remove all paraphrasing? Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:02, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- @Anythingyouwant: That's exactly what I've been saying. And I agree with @BullRangifer:. As I said to @The Four Deuces: above, Trump says it better than we can paraphrase it. SW3 5DL (talk) 13:14, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- @Dervorguilla: I think I understand what you mean and, if so, I agree that Trump was speaking more in generalities than specifically about anything he did personally. SW3 5DL (talk) 13:17, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- @Awilley: Your edit summary here where you say "wise guy' is 'anachronistic' is evidence of your pov. That's how Donald J. Trump, boy from Queens, New York says things, and it's how many New Yorkers say thing. It's a reference to the Mafia lieutenants. They are/were called "wise guys." You can put the boy in downtown Manhattan, but you can't take the Queens out of the boy. Let Trump be Trump. SW3 5DL (talk) 13:27, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- That you think it was the Trump the boy who said "I was a wise guy" illustrates my point. Trump was sent to boarding school when he was 13 (so 1959 or 1960-ish). But he made the "wise guy" remarks 56 years later (in 2016) in an interview with the Washington Post. The way it was worded in our article made it sound like it was Trump the boy talking, which is why I said it was somewhat anachronistic. ~Awilley (talk) 03:01, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
- @Awilley: lol, No, that's not at all what I thought. I knew he said it in 2016. Saying "You can take the boy out of. . ." is just a common expression. I think you're trying to do a good job with the edits and are maybe reading a bit too much into them. Not a criticism. That is how Trump talks. It's not at all uncommon for New Yorkers to use "wise guy" as I mentioned before. He was doing a lot of things, like standing between the subway cars which is extremely dangerous, and a few neighbors said he was a street bully. But it would be hard to sum them up without becoming undue. I like the quote because he wanted to sum up the problem with his behavior and he chose the language he's familiar with. He's not at all trying to be flattering of the behavior. He has said he was badly behaved in his books. That's why, for that particular edit I was saying he said it best. SW3 5DL (talk) 05:10, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
- That you think it was the Trump the boy who said "I was a wise guy" illustrates my point. Trump was sent to boarding school when he was 13 (so 1959 or 1960-ish). But he made the "wise guy" remarks 56 years later (in 2016) in an interview with the Washington Post. The way it was worded in our article made it sound like it was Trump the boy talking, which is why I said it was somewhat anachronistic. ~Awilley (talk) 03:01, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
- @Awilley: Your edit summary here where you say "wise guy' is 'anachronistic' is evidence of your pov. That's how Donald J. Trump, boy from Queens, New York says things, and it's how many New Yorkers say thing. It's a reference to the Mafia lieutenants. They are/were called "wise guys." You can put the boy in downtown Manhattan, but you can't take the Queens out of the boy. Let Trump be Trump. SW3 5DL (talk) 13:27, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- @Dervorguilla: I think I understand what you mean and, if so, I agree that Trump was speaking more in generalities than specifically about anything he did personally. SW3 5DL (talk) 13:17, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- @Anythingyouwant: That's exactly what I've been saying. And I agree with @BullRangifer:. As I said to @The Four Deuces: above, Trump says it better than we can paraphrase it. SW3 5DL (talk) 13:14, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- Is anyone suggesting to interpret Trump's words ourselves? Why not just provide the quote and remove all paraphrasing? Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:02, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- Two points: 1. I didn't change any of the paraphrasing in my edit. I simply reordered it in the paragraph and changed the tense of a verb. 2. We are't the ones who get to interpret Trump's words. We rely on secondary sources to do that. I did a quick check of the source used at the end of the paraphrase sentence and it fully supports the paraphrase. (The wording in the source is,
- (edit conflict) The use of "positive impact" does not actually appear to be Wikipedia's language, only that (obviously) BLPs have an impact on a subject's life. More importantly, in the section you helpfully linked, is
In my reading, there is be a conflict between what Trump said to Billy Bush and how it was reported. Dervorguilla is right that Trump was speaking about what celebrities could do, not what he actually did. On the other hand, the reporting was a possible interpretation which no reliable sources or the Trump campaign challenged. It's not clear how we should proceed: when secondary sources inaccurately report facts we should correct them, but we cannot challenge their interpretation. Perhaps we could say, "News media reported that Trump bragged [etc.]...." There is no justification to include the quote because we want to show readers that the interpretation was wrong, which would be injecting our personal interpretation, despite the fact it has not appeared in reliable sources. The reason it should be included is because it has been widely quoted and hence is significant. Whether or not readers want to decide the media description is wrong is up to them, but we should not push them in that direction. We should not for example decide that "Trump says it better" and put his words in without commentary in secondary sources. TFD (talk) 15:35, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- User:The Four Deuces, Trump apologized but also challenged the interpretation by secondary sources, saying it was just talk (Anderson Cooper asked: “Have you ever done those things?” “No, I have not," Trump answered). Limbaugh said: "How can there can be assault if somebody's granting permission? How can it be assault if they let you do anything?" Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:56, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- @The Four Deuces: When I say Trump says it better, I'm not referring to that particular quote. If you look further up at my comment to Dervorguilla, I agree with her that Trump is speaking in generalities. As for the media bias, that's not something we can control but somewhere there's a reliable source that points this out, that he's speaking in general terms. He might even have been quoted saying just that. SW3 5DL (talk) 16:57, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- @The Four Deuces: Show me where I say we should ONLY use Trump's words and not use any commentary from secondary sources. I've missed where you've put that diff. Don't put words in my mouth. Thanks. SW3 5DL (talk) 17:02, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- @The Four Deuces: When I say Trump says it better, I'm not referring to that particular quote. If you look further up at my comment to Dervorguilla, I agree with her that Trump is speaking in generalities. As for the media bias, that's not something we can control but somewhere there's a reliable source that points this out, that he's speaking in general terms. He might even have been quoted saying just that. SW3 5DL (talk) 16:57, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- User:The Four Deuces, Trump apologized but also challenged the interpretation by secondary sources, saying it was just talk (Anderson Cooper asked: “Have you ever done those things?” “No, I have not," Trump answered). Limbaugh said: "How can there can be assault if somebody's granting permission? How can it be assault if they let you do anything?" Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:56, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
Here is an example of Trump speaking within an edit: When asked if he used the tax code to avoid paying taxes, he said, "Of course I did. Of course I did." He then went on to say he paid "hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes", calling it a "simple" thing. "I pay tax, and I pay federal tax, too", he said.
I would not see any reason to remove that quote and sub in, "When asked if he used the tax code to avoid paying taxes, Trump said of course he did and that he pays his taxes." I don't think that paraphrase gives as much information to the reader as listening to Trump go on about it. He's quite vigorous in defending himself and that comes across better than an editor saying, "Trump defended himself by saying he pays his taxes." SW3 5DL (talk) 17:23, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- As for the Access Hollywood bit, the article says,
Two days before the second presidential debate, a 2005 recording surfaced in which Trump was heard bragging about forcibly kissing and groping women. The hot mic recording was captured on a studio bus in which Trump and Billy Bush were preparing to film an episode of Access Hollywood. "I just start kissing them," Trump said, "I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it, you can do anything ... grab them by the pussy."[418] During the recording, Trump also spoke of his efforts to seduce a married woman, saying he "moved on her very heavily."[418] These statements were recorded several months after Trump married his third and current wife, Melania, who was pregnant at the time.
- The line, "Trump was heard bragging and forcibly kissing and groping women," has several sources attached to it. That's the spin that was put on this immediately by the media. It's not the editors here doing that. If anyone feels that Trump was misunderstood in what he said, then a source must be found that agrees with him. SW3 5DL (talk) 17:30, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
SW3 5DL, this is an encyclopedia article and it statements information it presents should be accurate, precise and unambiguous. I think the summary below captures the story better than the current wording. Note that the "I'm smart" quote can be included not because the Donald tells it better but because it became the subject of notice, for example in "Trump: 'I'm smart' for not paying taxes" (CNN). The word count goes down from 141 to 100, more information is conveyed, it explains the details and significance of the controversy, and it includes the noteworthy quote not currently mentioned.
- On October 1, 2016, the New York Times published a page from each of Trump's 1995 state income tax filings in Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey, which had been leaked to a reporter. They showed a loss of $916 million. Trump's opponents claimed this was an abuse of tax credits and speculated that since the losses could be carried forward that Trump may not have paid any income tax for over 20 years. In reply, Trump defended his use of the credits, saying "That makes me smart," and claimed to have paid hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes.
TFD (talk) 18:04, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- That's a very different edit. As a reader, it seems to say Donald Trump abused the tax laws and by doing so, hasn't paid taxes in 20 years, and somehow managed to slip that abuse past the IRS because as he says, "That makes me smart." He's a smart tax cheat who got away with it. Except that the tax papers seem to show he did take the $916 million loss in 1995 and there do not appear to be carry overs from it, and the tax credit abuse claim is not defined, and nor are the identities of his 'opponents' making these claims revealed. So as a reader, I have to ask, Is that edit accurate, precise and unambiguous? SW3 5DL (talk) 21:52, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- It does not say Trump abused the tax laws has not paid taxes in 20 years, it says "Trump's opponents claimed this was an abuse of tax credits and speculated that [he] may not have paid any income tax for over 20 years." There is a distinction between allegations by ones opponents and facts. Furthermore the current wording although it does not explain the significance of the credit, but implies that it waa iffy (otherwise why mention it). Furthermore, there is a distinction between tax evasion, which is illegal and tax avoidance, which is legal, although some might see it as unethical.
- Also, there is no reason to name Trump's opponents. He was running for office and his opponents were people who did not want him to win. If you like you could create a list article containing names of the thousands or tens of thousands of people who opposed Trump, which we could link to, so we would not have to mention them all in the paragraph about his 1995 taxes.
- TFD (talk) 22:15, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- I was simply offering a reader's viewpoint. It gave me the impression that his $916 million loss was a tax cheat and that he benefitted from that cheat for 20 years and when asked specifically about his abusing the tax credits he said. "That makes me smart." Was he even asked, specifically, if he abused the tax credits and then did he respond, "That makes me smart?" I don't see the benefit of putting speculation by opponents who are not able to see his full returns, and there is no law that requires him to provide them, who obviously want to harm him, as you mention, into his BLP. On the other hand, I do see the benefit in providing his words in response to direct questions, and when he was asked about his $916 million loss and if he took advantage of the tax laws he responded, "Of course I did. Of course I did." The speculation is just that, and it is also synthesis by the news organization. They know he didn't use a carry over, but want to give the impression that he did so they can suggest he did not pay taxes for 20 years. That is synthesis and it doesn't belong in his BLP. SW3 5DL (talk) 22:42, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- SW3 5DL, you write: "They know he didn't use a carry over,..." Where do you get that from? When they asked him, his reply implied that they were right, IOW that he was smart for not paying taxes all those years. (If they were wrong, his reply makes no sense.) He was taking advantage of some technicalities in the tax code. It might be unethical, but it's not illegal. That's his MO.
- You also write: "That is synthesis and it doesn't belong in his BLP." Actually it does belong. The only synthesis which is disallowed here is editorial synthesis. Otherwise we want others to do it and then we report it. Without such synthesis, we'd be reporting primary content. We want to report how others connect the dots, the ones we are not allowed to connect. -- BullRangifer (talk) 05:29, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
- Ah, yes, I see your point. Just so long as the quote is actually part of his answer directly to his opponents, otherwise that is Wikipedia doing the synthesis. SW3 5DL (talk) 05:31, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
- Synthesis is "comb[ing] material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." The rule is against us doing it, not people who write reliable sources. All scientific theories are synthesis. All court verdicts are synthesis. All literary and artistic criticism is synthesis. In each case a human weighs evidence and comes to a conclusion. All fringe theories are also synthesis. Also, why would be even mention Trump's tax credit unless it was controversial? Your phrasing implies it was questionable without explicitly saying so. That is synthesis: "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." TFD (talk) 17:20, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
- Ah, yes, I see your point. Just so long as the quote is actually part of his answer directly to his opponents, otherwise that is Wikipedia doing the synthesis. SW3 5DL (talk) 05:31, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
- I was simply offering a reader's viewpoint. It gave me the impression that his $916 million loss was a tax cheat and that he benefitted from that cheat for 20 years and when asked specifically about his abusing the tax credits he said. "That makes me smart." Was he even asked, specifically, if he abused the tax credits and then did he respond, "That makes me smart?" I don't see the benefit of putting speculation by opponents who are not able to see his full returns, and there is no law that requires him to provide them, who obviously want to harm him, as you mention, into his BLP. On the other hand, I do see the benefit in providing his words in response to direct questions, and when he was asked about his $916 million loss and if he took advantage of the tax laws he responded, "Of course I did. Of course I did." The speculation is just that, and it is also synthesis by the news organization. They know he didn't use a carry over, but want to give the impression that he did so they can suggest he did not pay taxes for 20 years. That is synthesis and it doesn't belong in his BLP. SW3 5DL (talk) 22:42, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
Inaccurate polls? No, they were right.
Off-topic for Trump's bio; please discuss on Talk:United States presidential election, 2016. — JFG talk 10:09, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
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There are a number of articles where this issue should be addressed, and I'm not sure how to start. The issue is the widespread idea, reported in numerous RS, that the pre-election polls during the 2016 campaign were inaccurate, when in fact they weren't. The polls predicted that Clinton would get the most votes and win. Well, they were right, at least in part; she did get the most votes, but no polls could have predicted that this was one of those rare occasions where a popular vote win wouldn't translate into an electoral college win. This article addresses the issue:
We should make an effort to fix/counter the mistaken impression, left by numerous RS, that the polls were wrong. They were not, and this source can be used to puncture that balloon. -- BullRangifer (talk) 05:51, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
References
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Breitbart tutorial on BLP
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.
Tom Ciccotta, "UC Berkeley Professor Banned from Wikipedia over Anti-Trump Edit Project", Breitbart, May 9, 2017.
- A course description for Gelobter’s course on environmental justice activism at UC Berkeley posted on Wikipedia argued that the first few months of the Trump administration have been uniquely “anti-environmental, sexist, and racist.” The post was ultimately removed, as Wikipedia prevents unsourced negative claims about living people. A Wikipedia editor said that the line about the Trump administration was a “blatant BLP [Biography of Living Person] violation,” which means that commentary on a living person does not come from a “neutral point of view.”
--Dervorguilla (talk) 08:21, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
- Why do think this should be added to the article, and where? Breitbart is a notoriously unreliable source, so do you have other sources to justify the proposed edit?- MrX 11:25, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
- Even with good sourcing, I don't see this improving the article. Objective3000 (talk) 11:30, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
- @Dervorguilla: I agree with MrX and Objective3000. I don't see a place for that here or in any Trump article. SW3 5DL (talk) 14:07, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
- First of all, Breitbart is not a reliable source. Second, this is not relevant to an article about Donald Trump. This would fit better in something like criticism of Wikipedia. κατάσταση 14:12, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
- As indicated in the heading, I added this for BLP training purposes only. :) --Dervorguilla (talk) 17:49, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
Images in family section
There are two images in the family section, the first on the right, and the second on the left. On a laptop, the one on the left interferes with the next header ("Religion"). So, I suggest sliding the first image left, and the second image right. Standard practice is to not place images so they push headers to the right.[12] It also looks sloppy. Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:13, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
- Done DRAGON BOOSTER ★ 02:46, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
The lead is still false
Saying "the fifth to have won a presidential election while receiving a smaller share of the popular vote than his opponent" implies there was only one opponent. So please change "his opponent" to "an opponent" or "his main opponent". Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:13, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
- Done This seems pretty uncontroversial, and certainly doesn't go against any emerging consensus in the survey above. ~Awilley (talk) 17:24, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
False claims about the Trump family living in Scotland
While we are getting used to "alternative facts" from Trump and his supporters, the sentence proposed by JFG ("The Trump family were [...] Presbyterian on his mother's side in Scotland") is blatantly wrong. The Trump family never ever lived in Scotland. The Trump family is not the same as Donald Trump the individual's ancestors on the non-Trump side of the family. We can say that Donald Trump's ancestors were Presbyterian on his mother's side in Scotland, but not that the Trump family were Presbyterian in Scotland. --Tataral (talk) 15:57, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
- Suggest changing "the Trump family" to "Trump's ancestors" and the rest is fine. A person's bio is not concerned only with his or her patrilineage; that's about an arbitrary name-label, not genes. ―Mandruss ☎ 16:19, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
- Well, that's exactly the point, but it also goes the other way, the Trump family being a distinct entity from the individual and the individual's ancestors. What I proposed was also to use the word ancestors in this context. --Tataral (talk) 16:44, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
- I would support "Trump's ancestors were Lutherans on his father's side in Germany and Presbyterian on his mother's side in Scotland.", which is not to say that I support changing it without a more substantial consensus than two editors. If this page stays true to form we'll debate the precise wording for two weeks, then take it to RfC with three options which will be expanded to seven during the course of the RfC, resulting in no consensus for change. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:22, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
- Well, that's exactly the point, but it also goes the other way, the Trump family being a distinct entity from the individual and the individual's ancestors. What I proposed was also to use the word ancestors in this context. --Tataral (talk) 16:44, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
Dismissal of James Comey to end Russia investigation should be summarized in the lead section
The Dismissal of James Comey rightly has its own section here (as well as its own article), which both highlight the fact that this is a highly notable event. It should therefore be summarized in the lead section, for example like this: On 9 May 2017, Trump dismissed FBI Director James Comey, and two days later he said he had intended to fire Comey regardless of any recommendations due to the FBI's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections; Trump was as a result accused of obstruction of justice by legal experts and politicians, leading to calls for impeachment
. --Tataral (talk) 16:50, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
- Were there any legal experts or politicians who did not call for impeachment for obstructing justice? You give the impression that they all did, or that anyone who didn't was in a tiny insignificant minority. I suggest we await further developments (e.g. nomination of successor to Comey), before putting this in the lead. Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:13, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
Timing is a central issue
The subsection about this ought to mention the centrality of timing. Many of the politicians criticizing Trump's firing of Comey had previously themselves called for Comey's ouster, and their primary objection to Trump's action is not to the ouster but rather to the timing of it, given the ongoing Russia investigation.
- "Democrats cry foul over Comey firing after previously calling for him to resign", ABC News (May 11, 2017): "Democrats in Congress are questioning the timing of Donald Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey....but less than a year ago, some of the same Democratic politicians who are now attacking Trump for firing Comey called for the director's resignation or questioned his credibility."
- "Democrats Question Timing Of James Comey's Dismissal From FBI", NPR (May 9, 2017
- Sen. Amy Klobuchar: 'Stunned' by timing of Comey ouster", CNN (May 12, 2017).
- "Timing of Comey's firing 'frightening,' says Hillary Clinton's former campaign manager", CNBC (May 10, 2017)
- "Sen. Angus King Questions Timing Of James Comey's Firing From FBI", NPR (May 9, 2017).
Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:10, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
- It's not so much the timing as the reason Trump had/gave for firing Comey. Firing the FBI Director to obstruct an investigation of himself and his associates is both a crime and an impeachable offence, so that's what the criticism is all about, not whether people like Comey or believe he did a good job in the past. Also, while many people questioned Trump's motives in the two days after it became known, this changed on 11 May when Trump directly confirmed that he had intended to fire the Director regardless of any recommendations (contradicting what his staff had said) and specifically mentioned the Russia investigation as his primary reason. Without that confirmation, it would only be an allegation/suspicion, but now it's a fact. --Tataral (talk) 17:25, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
- No, it's the reason being given by opponents of Trump's decision. See the cited sources. Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:28, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
- It's the reason given by Trump himself which is the central issue, and which could lead to his impeachment. The timing is merely related to the suspicion that what Trump later confirmed was the case. --Tataral (talk) 17:30, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
- If you're going to edit your comments after they've been replied to, please indicate that using strikethroughs and underlines. Also, please see the sources I cited above. Thanks. Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:33, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
- I have to agree with Tataral's comments. Let's not try to promote the narrative of Democrat's hypocrisy and take the focus away from the much more relevant conflict of interest at play.- MrX 18:59, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
- There's nothing hypocritical about it. The politicians who want Comey replaced may still want him replaced, just not at a time when the president may be subject to criminal investigation. That's the whole issue of timing, and reliable sources are not evidently reporting it as a diversionary tactic. Bipartisan support for firing Comey at some point in time is very relevant here. Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:50, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
- OK, but is this fact really relevant to Trump's biography? You seem to posit that what makes the firing controversial is that Trump didn't fire Comey on January 20, when what actually makes it controversial is that he was fired days after giving testimony and at a time when the Russia-Trump campaign collusion investigation was heating up.- MrX 20:20, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
- Yes, if we have a whole subsection about this, then it's relevant to mention that it's when he fired Comey that's controversial, not that he did so at all, given support from many quarters for the latter. I think I've said all I wanted to about this timing issue. Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:35, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
- "Multiple FBI insiders said they believe the real reason Comey was fired was [X]." The FBI has 35,100 insiders, so I have to suspect that our better-educated readers would attribute the reported findings to the well-known problem of reporting bias. Also, the investigation has been "heating up" for several months, so it's a straightforward matter to calculate the statistical significance of Trump's timing. A Wikipedia article is supposed to "better inform the reader"; and there doesn't seem to be much in the way of helpful data that's come out yet. Also, the current language fails WP:EDITORIAL (see sentence 3). --Dervorguilla (talk) 07:33, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
- OK, but is this fact really relevant to Trump's biography? You seem to posit that what makes the firing controversial is that Trump didn't fire Comey on January 20, when what actually makes it controversial is that he was fired days after giving testimony and at a time when the Russia-Trump campaign collusion investigation was heating up.- MrX 20:20, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
- There's nothing hypocritical about it. The politicians who want Comey replaced may still want him replaced, just not at a time when the president may be subject to criminal investigation. That's the whole issue of timing, and reliable sources are not evidently reporting it as a diversionary tactic. Bipartisan support for firing Comey at some point in time is very relevant here. Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:50, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
- I have to agree with Tataral's comments. Let's not try to promote the narrative of Democrat's hypocrisy and take the focus away from the much more relevant conflict of interest at play.- MrX 18:59, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
- If you're going to edit your comments after they've been replied to, please indicate that using strikethroughs and underlines. Also, please see the sources I cited above. Thanks. Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:33, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
- It's the reason given by Trump himself which is the central issue, and which could lead to his impeachment. The timing is merely related to the suspicion that what Trump later confirmed was the case. --Tataral (talk) 17:30, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
- No, it's the reason being given by opponents of Trump's decision. See the cited sources. Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:28, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
Uncle
Please consider moving the last sentence of the "Ancestry" section to the end of the first paragraph of "Early life and education". The sentence I'm referring to says, "Fred's brother John (Donald Trump's uncle) became a notable physicist and inventor.[10]" Actually, John was not an ancestor, given that Donald Trump is not descended from his uncle (the sentence about John also looks weird as a one-sentence paragraph). Moreover, John lived until 1985 (whereas Trump's brother Freddie only lived until 1981), and so John was part of Trump's early life. Thanks. Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:12, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 14 May 2017
Awards, honors, and distinctions section add:
The Ellis Island Medals of Honor
Awarded in 1986, the 100th anniversary of the statue of liberty and the first year the medal was offered.
http://www.nytimes.com/1986/10/16/nyregion/80-named-as-recipients-of-ellis-island-awards.html
https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/5zGOrSR0rIKFmziyXGWY7g--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO3c9MTI4MDtoPTk2MA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en/homerun/feed_manager_auto_publish_494/4757a62168a6433f905716409a1f5ae1 GuruNemesis (talk) 04:37, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
- Not a notable award or achievement. TheValeyard (talk) 04:45, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
- "87 prominent Americans of foreign ancestry"! "Donald J. Trump, German, developer"! Sounds like no natives or British need apply... --Dervorguilla (talk) 06:06, 14 May 2017 (UTC)