Talk:Donald Trump/Archive 151

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Is length becoming an urgent problem?

(I withdrew my support for the Abraham Accords proposal above)

With Trump starting his 2024 campaign (and no doubt, there'll be controversies, lawsuits trying to prevent him from running, primaries we must cover, more controversial statements, etc), and with Donald Trump at 107kB prose size, we should likely foucs on removing & summarizing stuff, not expanding, to prepare for that. Targeting ~75kB or less would be ideal.

Here's what I propose:

• move most of the immigration section to Immigration policy of Donald Trump and summary-style it in just a single subsection of "Domestic policy"
• do the same with the COVID-19 pandemic section; turn it into a single subection of "Domestic policy"; it's far too detailed for a biography
• same with some material from the longer subsections of "Foreign policy"
• the "Special counsel investigation" subsection is too long as well; it's the longest subsection in the whole article.
• Lafayette Square: I don't think we need a whole subsection on that; should be summarized in a few sentences in another subsection
• does "Concern about a possible coup attempt or military action" even belong here? It seems like speculation, no? I'm not as familiar with Trump as I'm sure most of you are, so I might be wrong on this.
• the "Racial views" section could probably stand to be ~3 paragraphs; there's already a split-off article on it; it's currently the longest subsection in "Public profile"; we should target ~5kB, not 14kB raw size.

These may not all be necessary to reach 75kB prose size; I'm just floating ideas. DFlhb (talk) 05:32, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Difficult to say, with the caucuses & primaries 14+ months away. GoodDay (talk) 05:38, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

lawsuits trying to prevent him from running What do you mean by this? SPECIFICO talk 10:16, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

What I was referring to were the (IMO very predictable) future lawsuits to keep him off the ballot, which I expect we'll see in many states. Funnily enough, I just discovered I was proven right in a few very recent articles, on that point and on related efforts (I hadn't seen any of them when I wrote my comment). [2][3][4][5]

Possible avenues are: inciting an insurrection (Jan 6), corruption, mishandling classified materials (the Florida raid), and obstruction of justice (which Mueller hinted was possible after he left office), though I want to make clean I'm not expressing an opinion on any of these; just a prediction that may directly affect how the page ends up looking. DFlhb (talk) 10:36, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

IMO, if he's sued, or if his candidacy is challenged in individual states, we won't be mentioning more than the fact, citing the RS, ditto when the lawsuits/challenges succeed or fail. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 10:57, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree, as discussed before. Maybe we can rationalise the article this time.--Jack Upland (talk) 10:40, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

I don’t see the urgency. WP is not a newspaper, and any new controversies, lawsuits, etc. would have to receive lasting coverage in RS. The archives contain quite a few discussions about article length, and we’ve managed to keep the article at a size where the page doesn’t "break". Several of the sections you mention are written summary-style, linking to other main pages. How did you arrive at 75 KB? This article has 109 kB of readable prose, JFK’s has 113, Reagan 105, Eisenhower 103, Hillary Clinton 94, Nixon 89, Bill Clinton 87, George W. Bush 88, Obama 81. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 10:45, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

How did you arrive at 75 KB? Might be too ambitious; 85-90 wouldn't be bad. Re: your other reply, it's more than lawsuits; a full campaign might end up taking 2-3 paragraphs. Not unreasonable to expect this campaign to differ somewhat from the last one, with the lawsuits, key allies dropping him [6], and potential future violence. I concede that's all speculation, but 109kB is IMO unreasonable when further expansion is a given. DFlhb (talk) 11:16, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

1. I don't think we should prioritize compactness over content. This has come up many times and it leads to cuts that end up being reinstated after a lot of silly talk page discussion about size comparisons.
2. The way to make the article more readible and to implement summary style is for editors to be much much more familiar with the vast number of tertiary sources that have become available. Books, academic articles, thougthful essays by experts. Instead of giving long narratives of examples and incidents of Trump's thoughts and actions, we can present the weight of RS characterization of them and point to the detailed articles on each facet of his extensive history. This is not happening because most editors have not read those books or even read most journals and news accounts. The talk page discussions archive shows that most editors rely on TV news and immediate press coverage, with little perspective on the range and central narratives of RS. We need to build back better. SPECIFICO talk 14:22, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

One of the main issue is that not everything is of equal importance always. Everyone that shows up here is 100% certain that their little nugget of information is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER, and that IF IT ISN'T INCLUDED IN THE ARTICLE, WE ARE CENSORING THEM AND WHITEWASHING THE ARTICLE ZOMG BIAS ARGH!!1!11!. Not every true thing must be included in this article. Editorial decisions need to be made for the sake of narrative flow, tone, relative importance, and yes, length. Sometimes that means someone pet nugget of information gets moved to a different article. Or maybe not included at all. It has to be that way. Not everything that is true is equally worth writing about, and there's a priority threshold that means that sometimes, something is true and just not included in the article. And that isn't censorship, and that isn't whitewashing, it's making editorial decisions to create a quality piece of writing. --Jayron32 19:14, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Very much like any other bio, particularly BLPs. Nothing substantial gets added into or taken out of a bio, without a consensus. GoodDay (talk) 00:56, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

I think you mean "very much like any other high-traffic, heavily watched bio". Most bios are editing with zero discussion.

@DFlhb, there's one thing that just about any editor could do, that I think would have a significant effect on the page size (NB: not word count). That is: Replace the zillions of newspaper articles and other primary sources with citations to a page in a decent book that says the same thing. As a bonus, systematically working your way through a book (or a couple of them) should give editors a clearer idea of what gets more (and what gets less) attention in this article than it does in high-quality secondary sources.

I'm unfamiliar with the literature, but there seem to be multiple options from university presses, and that's usually a good place to start. Here are links to some options: [7][8][9][10][11] and I'm sure there are many more at places I didn't think to check. I suggest that editors with access to a good library system check with their library first. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:32, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

High-traffic & heavily watched? Yeah, that sums up this page quite well :) GoodDay (talk) 03:39, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

That's a solid idea. DFlhb (talk) 20:16, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

we’ve managed to keep the article at a size where the page doesn’t "break": what exactly is the size when the page breaks??? From previous discussions it seems there is no such size...? And the size is what it is because of major cuts to the content in time passed.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:31, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Pages break when the "post-expand include size" exceeds 2 MiB. This is not a size you can predict by looking at the numbers in the history page. It is a number that depends very heavily on how many complex templates are transcluded. At the moment, there are 1,003 templates on this page. 817 of them are citation templates, which definitely qualify as "complex" for this purpose. In practice, the way that you figure out whether you're going to break the page is: you add something else, and it breaks. Then you know that it was close to breaking before your addition.

One very reliable way to prevent this is: replace individual WP:PRIMARYNEWS sources with sources that can be cited for many claims. There are 749 instances of {{cite news}} in this article. That's 92% of the cited sources. Less than one percent(!) of the cited sources are books. We don't need to replace all of the news sources, but over time, we should move towards replacing many of them. For comparison, 40% of the sources in Ronald Reagan are news articles, and 16% are books. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:30, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

But WhatamIdoing, roughly how close are we to breaking the page?--Jack Upland (talk) 04:12, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

@Jack Upland, there's no precise way to do this. However, I did a little experimenting, and I think the page could handle maybe as many as another 100 citation templates (or other templates of similar complexity). You shouldn't worry about breaking the page if you add a couple, but this suggests that we're within about 10% of the limit, so we should be thinking about consolidating sources (e.g., replacing multiple news articles with one book that says the same thing). WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:04, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

The problems we've experienced with this page breaking weren't caused by the readable prose, they were caused by the close to 900 citations we had at one time (and the over-linking doesn't help). We have pared them down considerably - and if we could get rid of the occasional left-over from initial outrage over Trump tweets we might be able to get rid of a few more. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 12:06, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

I've changed the title of this section back from Length of the code for this page to what I put originally, Length is becoming a bit of an urgent problem.[12] The new section name changed the meaning of my comment and the intent of the discussion: concerns about excessive citations are reasonable, but my comment was solely focused on article contents and prose size, and excluded non-prose contents. Individual content removals require discussions, but I was hoping we could brainstorm where to look for cuts, since I believe there's quite a bit of undue things remaining, and I don't see a reason to delay doing this. I like Specifico and WAID's proposal to determine article contents based on reputable books. DFlhb (talk) 23:35, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, @DFlhb:, our guideline does require neutrally-worded headers. Please see WP:SECTIONHEADINGOWN. It would be best to self-revert or find some other neutrally-worded header for this discussion thread. SPECIFICO talk 01:02, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

I see a large difference between generally acceptable to change and "require neutrally-worded headers" (italics mine). It would also have been apropriate to notify me before completely changing its meaning from prose size to code size, which are separate issues altogether. As it is, the heading poses no issue, since the discussion is about whether it's an urgent issue or not, and what to do about it, if it is. There is zero requirement whatsoever that headings represent the consensus of a discussion, merely its topic. DFlhb (talk) 01:17, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

The change in heading was confusing.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:35, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

No, you're not getting it DF. You don't own the talk page header. Yes, they are required to be neutral. There's an infinite number of ways you could have satisfied the confused Mr. Upland and still had a neutral header. But since thi thread will not result in any change in our editing or page content, it's not likely anyone will press the point further. Do be sure to read the link I cited very carefully for the future. SPECIFICO talk 02:46, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

I never claimed that I owned it, and don't agree with your reading of a requirement. I've reworded it. Please ping me or discuss, next time you change one significantly, as WP:SECTIONHEADINGOWN suggests. Thanks. DFlhb (talk) 00:00, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

On the non-technical subject, the article currently stands at 17,000 words. WP:CANYOUREADTHIS suggests a maximum of 10,000 – not because of technical limitations, but because of the limitations in the human attention span. People don't read 17,000 words on wiki at a time. They don't want to sit down and read an article for two straight hours. If you want them to actually read this article, you need to make it possible for a human to start at the top of the page, read straight through, and reach the end of the page, and that means making this page a lot shorter. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:10, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Trump May 2020 complaint about social media

FMSky removed a grammatical error from the direct quote of a Trump tweet that I then removed altogether, saying it was an opinion tweet. FMSky then reverted my edit, stating the tweet was relevant because it’s on Trump’s page. It’s a tweet from May 2020, Trump complaining on social media that social media had totally silenced conservative voices after Twitter had started to tag some of his falsehoods as falsehoods. It’s sort of funny but do we need this "Well, he would, wouldn’t he" in his top bio? Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 11:20, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

the tweet also said that he would "strongly regulate, or close them down" which is relevant as he was still president back then. the typo should also not be reinstatet, per MOS:TYPOFIX --FMSky (talk) 11:27, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

It's not a spelling or typographic error, so " [sic] (producing [sic]) to show that the error was not made by Wikipedia" applies. It has already been restored by another editor. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 12:10, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

FMSky, error aside, why is a direct quote of a Trump claim, followed by a threat that he couldn't legally follow up on, relevant just because this is Trump's page? The paragraph is about Twitter finally starting to tag some of his falsehoods in May 2020 and social media platforms banning him in January 2021. We wouldn't lose any information, just a bit of trivia. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 14:20, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

because it shows his opinion on social media, which is relevant in a section about social media. honestly, why is this even being discussed ffs --FMSky (talk) 15:36, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

If we want to write about Trump's views and potential regulatory proposals wrt to social media, why don't we find a high-quality secondary source, instead of a source talking about what happened that week? If that tweet is particularly important, then it shouldn't be difficult to find a source that mentions it and isn't WP:PRIMARYNEWS. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:38, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/robpegoraro/2020/07/28/heres-trumps-plan-to-regulate-social-media/ -- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/27/trump-twitter-social-media-threat-conservatives -- https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/5/27/21272675/trump-executive-order-social-media-twitter-facebook-youtube-tweet-fact-check-section-230 -- https://www.reuters.com/article/twitter-trump-idUSL1N2D90JY -- etc -- FMSky (talk) 08:45, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Were any of those sources written even three months after this event? Did anybody mention this May 2020 communication in, say, September 2020? Or even May 2021? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:00, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

WP is WP:NOTNEWS. Of course various news media reported on Trump tweeting that he would "strongly regulate" or close down social media platforms, along with their assessment that he would be unsuccessful if he tried, the news of the day being their business model. He didn't try, and that was the last anyone heard of it. The social media section is not about Trump's opinion about social media, it's about his use of it and the platforms' belated reaction to the misinformation and disinformation he spread. If anywhere, the tweet belongs on the main page Social media use by Donald Trump where they already have a number of Trump opinion tweets. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 10:38, 21 November 2022 (UTC) There

Agreed; he did nothing whatsoever beyond tweet about it, as far as I'm aware. I don't think it's even worth mentioning that he criticized Twitter for it. DFlhb (talk) 20:21, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

If independent, reliable sources didn't talk about something he did 2.5 years ago for longer than 2.5 months after the event, then it should probably not be mentioned in this article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:01, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

“Worst President”??

It states he was the worst presidents. I feel this is extremely controversial and should be removed, as it is one’s opinion — Preceding unsigned comment added by CrayolaTeam (talk • contribs) 18:37, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

The article states this is the belief of scholars and historians - this is notable enough for inclusion. — Czello 18:39, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

CrayloaTeam, did you read the rest of the sentence and the sources attached to it, or only the two words "worst president"? – Muboshgu (talk) 18:40, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

One could mention "some scholars" instead. The way that the statement is written implies that all objective historians and scholars have deemed him as one of the worst presidents. Nkienzle (talk) 05:27, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

They have, and it is not a mere implication. In 4 different rankings, Trump has been ranked between the 42nd and the 44th position. The Siena College specifically cites his overall lack of accomplishments as the reason they placed him at the bottom. Dimadick (talk) 20:20, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

I'd of preferred we wait 'ten years' after he left office, before adding any historians or scholars views. GoodDay (talk) 18:04, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Although you may have a point -- that's not what WP:10YT says. O3000, Ret. (talk) 18:17, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

• I agree with User:GoodDay.

• Pfiffner (2003) says: As a scholar I know that ranking and rating presidents is not very rigorous, and dedicates the rest of his papers to explaining how these surveys are problematical.
• In response, Nichols (2012) finds that ranking polls may tell us more than critics admit, though he [does not claim] that [these surveys] provide a true measure of presidential greatness. He also admits that these rankings received comparatively small attention [..] in scholarly journals compared to public interest.
• Nice 1984 highlights significant problems with comparisons across such great tracts of time, and that rankings are heavily affected by circumstances outside a presidents' control, like whether the presidency occurs during peacetime or war.
• Rottinghaus et al. (2020) call these surveys a cottage industry spawned by [a] breathless desire to rate and rank presidents. They find that political polarization affects expert rankings, that this is especially true for recent presidents, and that this possibly compromis[es] [these rankings] for presidents who have recently left office.
• I'll also just note that the C-SPAN poll exclusively interviewed [people] drawn from databases of C-SPAN programming,[13] i.e. people who appeared on TV!

I don't think rankings belong, and I frankly I doubt they ever will. Assessments of his actual legacy are far more appropriate and encyclopedically useful.

I really think it would make for a better article to imitate what's in Barack Obama#Legacy (but necessarily shorter, since less time has passed) and cover expert assessments of his legacy (appointment of conservative judges, any major legislation, polarization, standing with foreign allies, impact on minorities, impact on American competitiveness through his tariffs and immigration policies). It goes without saying that each of these points would need solid sourcing. DFlhb (talk) 19:23, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Scholars are the most important sources for Wikipedia. We strive to learn from scholarship and history. That's one of the purposes of an encyclopedia. O3000, Ret. (talk) 19:48, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

I have no idea how your comment relates to mine. I cite more scholarship here against inclusion than has ever been cited in favor of including rankings. DFlhb (talk) 21:35, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Your citations are irrelevant, it isn't difficult to cherry-pick a handful of opinions to support your personal preference on the matter. In particularly I like how you had to reach back 38 years for one. Zaathras (talk) 22:00, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Your comment is unconstructive. If you want to accuse me of cherry-picking, then prove it with citations that contradict these. They're not "opinions", they're peer-reviewed scholarship. I had a preference for inclusion before reading them. And finally, I didn't "[have] to reach back", I quoted Nice 1984 because it's a well-regarded paper which I came across in both Nichols 2012 and in Lamb & Neiheisel (2020) "On Studying the Trump Presidency", which I didn't cite above, but which would be a solid resource for a "Legacy" section. I'll note that Lamb & Neiheisel also endorses the comparative importance of scholarly assessments over rankings. DFlhb (talk) 22:47, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Your entire section here is unconstructive. We have scholarly sources to support the presentation that the Trump administration was regarded as one of the worst in American history. You dug up a few naysayers, cool. It doesn't change what we're going to include in the article. Zaathras (talk) 23:59, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

My comment has nothing to do with the "worst in history" sentence from the lead (which is backed by RFC consensus #54).

I proposed replacing the last paragraph of the "Approval ratings" section, which quotes C-SPAN and SCRI (neither are peer-reviewed scholarship). Scholarly sources, which I cite, support my claim that rankings are less relevant than in-depth scholarly assessments, which I proposed we add. Calling them "a few naysayers" is not a good faith description. DFlhb (talk) 00:46, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Seems to be a perennial complaint by New Editors, really nothing to discuss here. Zaathras (talk) 21:25, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

• Completely disagree with GoodDay. This has been hashed out in an RFC Talk:Donald_Trump/Archive_140#RFC:_Should_we_mention_historical_evaluations_of_Trump's_presidency? and consensus was to include, especially on the basis of precedents (presidents prior to Trump, and yes, Obama even had assessments inserted within his lead as early as 2018). More to the point: scholars have not waited 10 years to render a verdict on the subject — nor should we wait a decade to include them. As appropriate, this article reflects the high quality assessments (and the consensus established a year ago). —MelbourneStar☆^talk 05:47, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Outdated statement in social media section

(Revision permalink)

Trump's attempts to re-establish a social media presence were unsuccessful.

This is sourced to an outdated June 2021 article, which predates the Feb 2022 launch of Truth Social. The next two sentences imply that nothing happened between Trump's blog shutting down and his Twitter reinstatement. And the sentence after that mentions Truth Social out of nowhere, but isn't coherent with what comes before.

Taking a step back: it's clear that neither Rumble nor Trump's blog are due here, since neither received sustained coverage.

Proposal

Delete:

Later in June, Trump joined the video platform Rumble and began to post the messages of his website blog on the Twitter account of a spokesperson. Trump's attempts to re-establish a social media presence were unsuccessful. In May 2021 he launched a blog that had low readership and was closed after less than a month.

Keep:

On November 19, 2022, Twitter owner Elon Musk reinstated Trump's account. Trump had said that he would stay on his own media platform Truth Social.

That sentence comes right after my proposed deletion. DFlhb (talk) 20:51, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

• support removal, clearly WP:RECENTISM Anon0098 (talk) 21:11, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
• support.--Jack Upland (talk) 04:48, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
• Keep because it's still true. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 04:53, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
• Keep existing text. Donald's vitriolic complaining and maneuvering to find a new social media outlet post-Twitter suspension was notable and well-documented. Zaathras (talk) 22:07, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
• Keep but maybe edit it or add to it a bit, "In the XXX after being banned from Twitter and other platforms with similar reach..." may be a good preamble to the existing sentence, where XXX is some appropriate length of time that makes the statement true, something like "year" or "several years" or some such. --Jayron32 15:52, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
• Keep as there is no evidence he is back on Twitter, or in fact has a major social media presence anymore. Slatersteven (talk) 15:55, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
• Comment I've made an alternate proposal below that incorporates the feedback here. DFlhb (talk) 21:03, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Alternate proposal

How about this alternative proposal that keeps the "attempts were unsuccessful" sentence? I copied the current paragraph verbatim, used red for removals, and green for additions.

After years of criticism for allowing Trump to post misinformation and falsehoods, Twitter began to tag some of his tweets with fact-checking warnings in May 2020. In response, Trump tweeted that "Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices" and that he would "strongly regulate, or close them down". In the days after the storming of the United States Capitol, Trump was banned from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other platforms. Twitter blocked attempts by Trump and his staff to circumvent the ban through the use of others' accounts. The loss of Trump's social media megaphone, including his 88.7 million Twitter followers, diminished his ability to shape events, and prompted a dramatic decrease in the volume of misinformation shared on Twitter. In May 2021, an advisory group to Facebook evaluated that site's indefinite ban of Trump and concluded that it had been justified at the time but should be re-evaluated in six months. In June 2021, Facebook suspended the account for two years. The loss of Trump's social media megaphone, including his 88.7 million Twitter followers, diminished his ability to shape events, and prompted a dramatic decrease in the volume of misinformation shared on Twitter. Later in June, Trump joined the video platform Rumble and began to post the messages of his website blog on the Twitter account of a spokesperson. Trump's early attempts to re-establish a social media presence were unsuccessful. In May 2021 he launched a blog that had low readership and was closed after less than a month. In February 2022, he launched alt-tech social media platform Truth Social, where he only attracted a fraction of his earlier following. On November 19, 2022, Twitter owner Elon Musk reinstated Trump's account. Trump had said that he would stay on his own media platform Truth Social.

Keep in mind that the paragraph on his bans takes up most of Donald Trump#Social media, which is completely wack.

Please consider each endnote as separate proposals; feel free to weigh in on any or all. DFlhb (talk) 21:03, 30 November 2022 (UTC) ; edited 22:35, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

We might want to mention that he launched Truth Social before stating that he "had said that he would stay on" it. And yes, the launch was mentioned earlier in a different section of the article, but the article is so long and convoluted, and I expect people just read sections that interest them, so I think it's worth sticking a sentence in between "Trump's attempts to re-establish a social media presence were unsuccessful." and "On November 19, 2022..."

Perhaps something along the lines of, "Trump's attempts to re-establish a social media presence included joining the video platform Rumble, a shortlived blog entitled "From the desk of Donald J. Trump", and launching his own social media platform, Truth Social. These attempts were largely unsuccessful." ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 22:15, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

I've added two proposals (end notes F and H) that propose a way to address "it's worth sticking a sentence[...]". Thanks DFlhb (talk) 22:40, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

• I'm not comfortable with pejorative, metaphorical language where simply descriptors would work better. The "social media megaphone" feels rhetorical in a very non-encyclopedic way. "Use of social media" or "social media presence" or something like that seems much better. --Jayron32 14:17, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

  Agreed; that's rhetorical wording, and came from the headline of Deutsche Welle[14] (which I've since replaced with a better NYT cite). The term has been used by a few WP:RS: [15][16], but it's not the common term for his social media use, and also, they're writing news and we're writing an encyclopedia. DFlhb (talk) 14:46, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

  Information should match what reliable sources say. Phrasing and wording is determined not by sources, but by Wikipedia's own policies and guidelines. I don't really care what style of writing reliable sources use or don't use; whether or not they used the megaphone metaphor is irrelevant. We have our own WP:TONE standards that are not necessarily the same standards other source, even reliable ones use. We need to be careful in not relying too heavily justifying our phrasing on what source materials use; instead we should choose our phrasing based upon Wikipedia's own standards. --Jayron32 18:11, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

  For the record, I was agreeing; I made the change you suggested before posting my reply. DFlhb (talk) 18:36, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

"The trade deficit reached its highest level in 12 years under his administration"?

I'm concerned about the relevance and arguably non-neutral presentation of the following information at Donald Trump#Trade: "Although he pledged during the campaign to significantly reduce the U.S.'s large trade deficits, the deficit reached its highest level in 12 years under his administration." The Associated Press source cited for this statement clarifies that the monthly trade deficit in July 2020 "was the largest monthly deficit since July 2008 during the 2007-2009 recession" and occurred in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which "has seriously disrupted global supply chains this year".

In fact, annual figures show that the COVID-19 pandemic coincided with a huge and sustained increase in the U.S. trade deficit, which reached an all-time high in 2021, during the presidency of Joe Biden (Trump's Democratic successor). As reported by CNBC on February 8, 2022: "The Commerce Department said on Tuesday that the trade deficit increased 27.0% last year [2021] to an all-time high of $859.1 billion. The deficit was at $676.7 billion in 2020. 'The US trade picture won't return to normal until the pandemic purchases start to slow and life returns to what it was,' said Christopher Rupkey, chief economist at FWDBONDS in New York."

In retrospect and considering this fuller context, it's hard not to see our text about the 12-year record high monthly trade deficit in July 2020 as a cherrypicked "gotcha" moment more reminiscent of a political campaign attack ad than an encyclopedia article. Moreover, what relevance does this data point have to Trump's overall biography? Would it be justifiable to note the record 2021 trade deficit in Biden's BLP (despite the obvious implication that there is very little any one man, even the president, can do in the face of a nearly unprecedented global pandemic/supply chain crisis)? Furthermore, please bear in mind that, contrary to rhetoric by Trump himself and by other politicians, economists do not generally believe that reducing the national trade deficit is an unalloyed good or the metric by which to evaluate the health of the economy.

To be clear, there may be comprehensive academic sources that could support a more objective (and clearly relevant) statement to the effect that (even before the pandemic) Trump's tariffs failed in their stated objective "to significantly reduce the U.S.'s large trade deficits," which I would fully support (provided the sourcing is there). However, the cheap one-liner we have now just doesn't cut it, in my view. In sum: I think that the sentence in question should be removed (and possibly replaced along the lines suggested above); failing that, it should at least be modified to better match the AP source (about this being the monthly trade deficit in July 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic). Thoughts?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 05:16, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree. Remove it. It's misleading.--Jack Upland (talk) 05:25, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

The cherry-picked gotcha moment per the AP: "The U.S. trade deficit surged in July to $63.6 billion, the highest level in 12 years, as imports jumped by a record amount. ... When Donald Trump campaigned for president in 2016 he pledged to sharply lower the country’s large trade deficits, especially with China, which for years has been the country with the largest trade surplus with the United States." The cited source juxtaposes Trump's campaign pledge with the reality 3.5 years after he took office. The trade deficit during Biden's tenure is of no concern here, take it up with the editors on that page. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 16:07, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Right, and as explained in greater detail above, rather than selecting just a single month (with an unusually high trade deficit, during a global pandemic) to score this partisan talking point, you should (especially now that Trump has left office) use retrospective academic sources evaluating the economic data from all 48 months of Trump's presidency. If such sources show that (even before the pandemic) Trump's tariffs failed in their stated objective "to significantly reduce the U.S.'s large trade deficits," that would be noteworthy encyclopedic content—which an attack ad-style "gotcha" moment never is.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 17:52, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

CNBC and its finance industry "experts" are not the best sources for matters of economics, policy, and international relations. I suggest we find one or more notable economists' assessments of the issue. SPECIFICO talk 18:47, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

I checked Google Scholar and could not find a source discussing all four years of Trump's presidency (on the first page of the search results, at least), but I have modified Donald Trump#Trade to give a more representative overview of the topic, focusing on the failure of the Trump tariffs to reduce the trade deficit during 2018. See the difference between the old and new revisions in the respective links.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 05:25, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

You used a primary source (a paper published by Trump's "economic advisory team") for the campaign pledge part to make a point that the original RS made. I think that's WP:SYNTH? You cited one source (a financial markets research company guy quoted by CNBC) saying the trade deficit wasn't "normal" because of the pandemic. The point of our current sentence is that, while Trump said he could fix the deficit, he couldn't. Consumers went on an extended shopping spree for cars and consumer goods. Seems those are often manufactured abroad which apparently was news to Trump and his advisory team. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 12:24, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

• "You used a primary source (a paper published by Trump's 'economic advisory team') for the campaign pledge part to make a point that the original RS made. I think that's WP:SYNTH?" As explained in my edit summary, that content was merged with attribution from Presidency of Donald Trump#Economy (where it is evidently long-standing). You could have simply removed that sentence if you perceived a SYNTH or WP:OR issue, but I did not.
• "You cited one source (a financial markets research company guy quoted by CNBC) saying the trade deficit wasn't 'normal' because of the pandemic." That's largely incorrect in that I did not cite CNBC in article space or for any edit (although I quoted CNBC regarding the record 2021 trade deficit, above, here on the talk page). In fact, your own Associated Press source states that "[t]he pandemic has seriously disrupted global supply chains this year [2020] and economists said while it was good news to see trade rebounding now, the gains are coming from very low levels."
• Based on your comment, it seems unlikely that you carefully read both revisions (as suggested above) and simply reverted based on the prior conversation/my edit summary. The only original text that I authored in my edit is the following:

However, the overall U.S. trade deficit increased by 12.5% in 2018, with the goods trade deficit with China seeing a particularly large increase. The Economic Policy Institute stated in March 2019 that "[t]he rapid growth of U.S. trade deficits reflect the failure of Trump administration trade policies".

(Needless to say, even if it supports a less spectacular assertion than made in your preferred revision, this is hardly content favorable to Trump's trade policies, and my source is the Economic Policy Institute, not CNBC.)

Why is the monthly data point from July 2020, which your own AP source describes as an outlier and which Jack Upland called "misleading" above, the only one that you want to emphasize—as opposed to the above revision based on the annual figures from 2017 and 2018 showing the trade deficit grew by 12.5%? Aren't the annual figures from 2017 and 2018 more representative, more useful to the reader, and more likely to quiet Trump fans who will instinctively dismiss the July 2020 figure as an obvious cherrypicked outlier because—let's face it—it is exactly that? I even did the work for you and got the figures for 2017 and 2018, showing that the Trump tariffs (even before the pandemic) failed to achieve their primary stated objective, but you still reverted without engaging with that content at all in your reply. This does not seem like collaborative behavior.

If we can't reach agreement on a replacement text, then we may have to modify the existing text to accurately reflect the AP source (about this being the monthly trade deficit in July 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic), which the now-current version manifestly does not do—or (as Jack Upland suggested) simply remove it altogether as WP:UNDUE (without a replacement, since you rejected the proposed replacement at this time).

• "Consumers went on an extended shopping spree for cars and consumer goods. Seems those are often manufactured abroad which apparently was news to Trump and his advisory team." Correct, and this was also predicted by one of the sources that I found on Google Scholar, "The Economic Consequences of Mr Trump": "The consequences of Mr Trump's first economic policy initiative—the tax cuts and the larger budget deficit—are primarily macro-economic. ... The consequences of the second—increases or threats of increases in protection—are essentially micro-economic, affecting the allocation of resources across different economic activities." (p. 411); "One element of the low savings of the United States is the recent Trump-determined fiscal deficit. Thus macro-economic policy is in the way of what appears to be a target that he wants to achieve by protectionist—id est microeconomic—policy. But he is unlikely to achieve this target because of macroeconomic prospects." (p. 414).TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 22:05, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

BTW, Space4Time3Continuum2x, per your comment it seems that the only portion of my edit that you are contesting is the part that I did not even write, but rather was merged from Presidency of Donald Trump#Economy, citing Trump campaign material as background information. That same information (on Trump's pledge to reduce the trade deficit) can instead be sourced to "The Economic Consequences of Mr Trump" (or any number of other reliable sources) or simply omitted altogether, while retaining the rest of my edit (i.e., "the overall U.S. trade deficit increased by 12.5% in 2018 ... "). Can I reinstate my edit with those modifications, or do you have another (unstated) objection in addition to the one that you stated in your comment?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 22:44, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

It will take me a while to work through this wall of text, including the text you merged from another article where it is evidently long-standing & therefore not written by you, just copied into this article (?). Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 17:04, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Fully agree. Remove it. 159.180.250.103 (talk) 07:50, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Reviewing your proposed edit: the first sentence is cited to Trump's website, which isn't appropriate. The second and third sentences are sourced to the Economic Policy Institute, which appears to be a partisan think tank; they're not credible for these claims, though they might be perfectly credible in other articles. We should also strongly avoid quoting a single person describing a policy as a "failure". If there is consensus (among prominent reputable experts, not think tankers) that it was a failure, then it's preferrable to avoid directly labelling it a failure (too vague), and instead to mention what makes it a failure (e.g. the deficit reached its highest level in 12 years) for precision and conciseness. I don't see anything wrong with the passage as it is, though it should be replaced with proper scholarship once that's available. DFlhb (talk) 20:04, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Links in the lead

About this revert:

User:Space4Time3Continuum2x, just so you know, a WP:SEAOFBLUE is when adjacent words link to different Wikipedia articles without any visual indication that they are separate links. It has nothing to do with someone subjectively feeling like there are a lot of links. That means that "populist, protectionist, isolationist, and nationalist" (four links separated by punctuation and a word) is not a SEAOFBLUE, but "Trump's political positions" (three links with no separation) would be.

On the substance of the question, this is a popular article, which means it will be read by people from all levels of education and a wide variety of interests. This is exactly the situation in which we should lean heavily on what our guidelines call "an important feature of Wikipedia" that "can increase readers' understanding of the topic at hand" and "help the reader find related information", specifically for making "Relevant connections to the subject of another article" and the "people, events, and topics" that are associated with the subject. Our guidelines also say that the lead should "provide links to the broader or more elementary topics that are important to the article's topic", which we are currently not doing.

In terms of common sense, rather than official guidelines encouraging more links (and different ones – does anyone seriously think readers need a link to a university degree that is awarded around the globe, but not to specific US-only laws?), if someone's looking for a specific event, the sooner they find the link to the details they want, the better. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:25, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Looking at your edit, it may not be technically WP:SEAOFBLUE, but it's definitely MOS:OVERLINK. Not every word that has an associated WP article needs to be linked; see that MOS policy for the criteria.

As a side note, you made a content removal in the same edit, with an edit summary that simply said "links," which is pretty poor form. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 17:42, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

I think that example is just to illustrate a point in this discussion. Overlinking can be a problem, but don't allow that issue to derail this discussion. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:03, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

I think you're assuming too much about this discussion. So far, all I see is @WhatamIdoing trying to defend their addition of 20+ assorted wikilinks, some of which included links to "media personality", "skyscraper", "real estate", and "golf courses." This user MAY have added relevant links in that edit, but it's hard to tell based on initial review of both their edit, and this new thread.

My advice would be to take the reversion under advisement, and add fewer, more relevant links in a new edit, to see if the pushback is the same. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 19:41, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

What is skyscraper? SPECIFICO talk 20:11, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

I tried to pick words that might not be familiar to English language learners. This is a popular article, including being popular with people who aren't native English speakers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:41, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Referring to the original discussion at #Leadrefs, we have three choices:

1. Restore the original wikilinks in the lead like at all other articles here. They would immediately take readers away from this article, which is not a desirable thing. We want them to stay here long enough to read the whole lead, at the very least.
2. Make sure all wikilinks in the lead point to the relevant sections in this article, IOW reinforce the primacy of the body as the source for the lead. That leads readers to the more developed content and refs related to the mention in the lead.
3. Use the discrete section links I had first proposed. That serves the purpose of #2 above while keeping the lead free from any blue links.

I obviously prefer #3. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:03, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

I support the lead staying as it is; the lack of blue links is a relief for the eyes (blue is harder to read for many), and frankly I wish more BLPs were like this. Links are far more important in the body; but when users are reading the lead, the search bar is still right there (and on mobile, it's always there). DFlhb (talk) 18:31, 15 November 2022 (UTC) ; edited 16:04, 18 November 2022 (UTC); changed my mind; the previous proposal was excessive, but the new one is good

I think it's more common to hear people say that they like having blue links as more subtle "highlighter" for key words. Do you happen to use a dark mode? Most people don't mind blue links, but I could imagine the default color not being well-suited for a dark background. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:48, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

The blue links look fine on Wikipedia's standard dark mode (I'm using it right now). Cessaune (talk) 02:56, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

The lead as it is is fine. A few more things could potentially be linked, but we don't need a link for every term. Cessaune (talk) 22:07, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Adding to Valjean's #3: see the recent discussion about replacing the sea of blue (spirit, not letter of WP:SEAOFBLUE) in the lead taking readers to other pages with section links to the body, indicated by silcrows. Copying from that discussion to show what the lead looked like before, during (1), during (2), and after the change. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 20:42, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Please OP, no more links. GoodDay (talk) 22:10, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

No., the linkgasm in the lede was ridiculous. A reader of the Donald Trump article does not need to be directed to generic crap like "protectionist", "skyscrapers", and "political endorsements". Zaathras (talk) 22:16, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Were you responding to me (section link proposal) or to Whatamidoing? Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 07:52, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

I think we need to strive toward limiting wikilinks in the lead, but no change of practice for them in the body. How about refining this into a guideline? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 22:44, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm confused what you mean. Is WP:LINK/MOS:LINK not a good enough existing guideline for this? PhotogenicScientist (talk) 22:51, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't recall any difference being made between the lead and body. That's the issue here. Should we make a difference? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 23:00, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

You should review that guideline again, then. The MOS:LEADLINK section says "Too many links can make the lead hard to read." Seems appropriate to me. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 23:12, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

I missed that. Maybe we should strengthen that wording. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 00:28, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

What we have now is probably too few, not too many. (Also, why do we need a sentence about where he went to school in this unusually long lead? He's famous for what he did, not for where he went to school.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:45, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

• The lead should keep links to important, specific things like the Special Counsel Investigation, the Tax Cuts & Jobs act, and the two impeachments. It should not have links to more generic terms like "protectionist" or "bachelor's degree." Note: the given are all examples, I'm not making an exclusive list. —Ganesha811 (talk) 02:55, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Ganesha811, we've had the toc limit set to 4 since this edit in August 2021. There were a couple of brief discussions since then, in connection with lead refs if I remember correctly. I think four in this case is better, it makes it easier for readers to locate specific topics in Trump's messy life. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 08:53, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

No problem, I couldn't find the relevant talk page section amongst everything but figured there probably was one. —Ganesha811 (talk) 13:37, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

• I submitted this edit, reverted by User:Space4Time3Continuum2x. Waiting for an explanation pertaining to MOS:EGG. The discussion hasn't gone anywhere, you're simply talking. I was bold and made a pretty reasonable edit, no overlinking as far as I understand it... You said of course those things were fundamental to his presidency, yet they aren't linked for people to gain a further understanding of what they are without scrolling down a multitude of pages worth of off-topic information. Makes no sense. -Teammm ^talk? 16:31, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

  I think that's a very reasonable edit and should not have been reverted. As I stated above, it makes perfect sense to link to specific, non-intuitive things like the Special Counsel investigation and similar. There's no need for generic links in the lead, but the anti-link efforts shouldn't be taken too far. —Ganesha811 (talk) 16:42, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

  I agree with S4T3C2 that there are at least a couple MOS:EGGs in that edit:

  • [Veracity of statements by Donald Trump|false and misleading statements]
  • [Communication of the Trump administration during the COVID-19 pandemic|promoted misinformation]
  • "[United States Capitol|Capitol], which many of them then [January 6 United States Capitol attack|attacked]" - Probably only need one here

  PhotogenicScientist (talk) 17:22, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

  I'm not convinced that we need [[United States Capitol|Capitol]].

  I don't think the other two are MOS:EGG violations. Someone clicking on "false and misleading statements" would hope and expect to go to an article that talked about Trump's "false and misleading statements", and Veracity of statements by Donald Trump seems like a likely candidate. Similarly, if you click on "promoted misinformation", you would hope to end up at Communication of the Trump administration during the COVID-19 pandemic.

  MOS:EGG isn't trying to have the link label and the linked article's title match. The point is that you shouldn't use links to hide specific information from readers who don't click the link. In the MOS:EGG example, the problem is that if readers don't click on the Parton (particle physics) link, they won't know that Feynman worked on that particular model. That information belongs in the article, and hiding that information only in the link hides it from readers. That's why we call them Easter egg links: they're hidden, and you can only find them if you look. That's not what's happening here. These links don't hide information that belongs in the article. They're just linking to the most relevant article related to those words. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:08, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

  I understand the point of MOS:EGG. I still don't think those 2 are good links. 1) "False and misleading statements" came from a sentence about his campaign; the first sentence in the linked article begins "During his term as President of the United States..." It was confusing, and the link isn't needed. 2) This is the worse of the two. The Communication of the Trump administration during the COVID-19 pandemic is not holistically and accurately represented by being linked to with "promoted misinformation." Whatever gets linked to that phrase should be a straightforward representation of "promoting misinformation." If you want to link the whole 'Communications' article, there needs to be a more detailed description of the communications in this article. Seems like cut-and-dry MOS:EGG to me. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:48, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

  MOS:EGG does not say that the link label must fully describe the contents of the linked article. MOS:EGG says that the link label must fully describe the information that you want readers of this article to have. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:02, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

  Nowhere in that guideline does it mention what information we "want" readers to have. It's about making sure links are "reasonable, make sense" and are "as intuitive as possible." I don't understand how you can look at the example there, see the improvement that was made to the link and the sample article text, and still think link 2 is OK under that guideline. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 15:09, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

• I agree with Teammm's proposal as-is (though without the link to bachelor's degree); I think many people, including non-Americans, will visit this article to try to understand Trump's legacy. Ultimately, people may not be familiar with the travel ban, or with Trump's history of false statements, and those should be linked in the lead so readers can read the relevant articles and inform themselves. The goal of links is twofold: so readers don't need to manually type things into the Search, and so readers become aware that a Wikipedia article exists on a subject, when they might not expect it to (e.g. our article on the veracity of Trump's statements). I liked the bare-minimum version for its minimalism, but this version better serves readers' interests. DFlhb (talk) 16:04, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

• Re MOS:EGGs laid in this edit.

1. I'd expect "false and misleading statements" to go to False statement, not to [[Veracity of statements by Donald Trump|false and misleading statements]], and "conspiracy theories" to Conspiracy theory, not to [[List of conspiracy theories promoted by Donald Trump|conspiracy theories]]. The non-egg version for the sentence would be Trump promoted conspiracy theories and made many false and misleading statements during his campaigns and presidency, to a degree unprecedented in American politics.
2. I'd expect "travel ban" to go to the page Travel ban, not to [[Trump travel ban|travel ban]], "family separations" to Family separations, not to family separations</nowiki>. (Also, do we need a link to "muslim"?) Non-egg version of sentence: Trump ordered a travel ban on citizens from several Muslim-majority countries, diverted military funding towards building a wall on the U.S.–Mexico border, and implemented a policy of family separations for apprehended migrants.
3. I'd expect "COVID-19 pandemic" to go to COVID-19 pandemic, not to [[COVID-19 pandemic in the United States|COVID-19 pandemic]].
4. I'd expect "attacked" to go to Attack, not to [[January 6 United States Capitol attack|attacked]]. Non-egg: which many of them then attacked.
5. I'd expect "impeached" to go to Impeachment or Impeachment in the United States, not to [[First impeachment of Donald Trump]]. Non-egg: After he pressured Ukraine to investigate Biden in 2019, he was impeached
6. I wasn't expecting a page for "second time" but, sure enough, there's a redirect page to Evering Road, not [[Second impeachment of Donald Trump|second time]]. Non-egg: The House of Representatives impeached Trump a second time in January 2021

To make each of them less of a surprise to the reader, you'd have to expand each one considerably — lots of blue to direct readers to other pages when we have more information right here in the body. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 12:37, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

"Promoted misinformation" less egg than unnecessary: Why Communication of the Trump administration during the COVID-19 pandemic and not COVID-19 misinformation by the United States? This shows the difficulties of linking to other pages when we have the information in the body. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 13:58, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

I think all of your concerns relate to a single theme, which is context. Taking your last item, in an article entirely about Trump, in a sentence that is 100% about Trump himself ("He reacted slowly to the COVID-19 pandemic, ignored or contradicted many recommendations from health officials in his messaging, and promoted misinformation about unproven treatments and the need for testing.") it's not obvious to me that we should link to an article about misinformation by Trump plus other people. But the chosen link could be criticized on the grounds that a "Communication" article could also contain information about things the Trump administration got right, i.e., anything that was not misinformation. In the end, I think either of these links is acceptable, and my main point is that there should be a link to an article that says something specifically about misinformation from Trump.

And that, generally, is the theme above. When you read an article about Trump, and you see a sentence about Trump's false statements, Trump's travel ban, Trump's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the attack that happened on Trump's watch, and Trump's two impeachments, you are better served by getting links to the specific, relevant, topical, contextually appropriate information – not the generic articles on the general subjects, which may not mention Trump at all.

I've no particular objection to re-phrasing things, but I want to be clear that MOS:EGG does not object to this. MOS:EGG objects to hiding information, such as the fact that Feynmann worked on the Parton (particle physics). MOS:EGG says that the word parton needs to appear in the sentence, for the sake of readers who don't/can't click on the link. There is no information hidden when you link to just the word "He was impeached" instead of the whole clause "He was impeached". MOS:EGG accepts either of them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:44, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Your concept of not hiding information is not without merit, but it's not what EGG is about. The text of the guideline doesn't say or imply anything about that. Space4 is correct that readers encountering a link of "impeached" should expect it to target an article about impeachment in general, and they would have no way of knowing it was about impeachment of Trump without following it. That makes it inconsistent with EGG. Perhaps there should be a separate guideline about not hiding information, but it wouldn't bear on this discussion. (FKA 68.97.42.64, FKA Mandruss) 161.97.225.237 (talk) 21:12, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Frankly, I think the majority of readers would expect "He was impeached" to lead to our article on Trump's impeachment; if they want to know what impeachment is, they can click one of the first links in that article to get to the general topic. But most of this page's readers clearly want to know more about Trump, so they'd want to read information specific to him, not general stuff. Same for the other links; I agree with WhatamIdoing's reasoning here. I've been pretty annoyed myself (as a reader) when links go to general topics, when more specific pages exist; it made me assume the specific page didn't exist. DFlhb (talk) 21:18, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

I hate silly links as much as anyone, but I'm in agreement with WAID here. For example the Paris Agreement on climate change is mentioned and IMO most people would give up on trying to find the right link, which is this one United States withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. I know that I don't represent the average reader but I know that I'm far from alone. I like information background and if I don't read the entire article (though I often do) I want a good lead with links. Sectionworker (talk) 06:38, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm not arguing for longer, non-EGGy links in the lead, I'm arguing for keeping readers on the page and going to the body, where we have a ton of links, for information summarized in the lead. For example:

Covid-19 pandemic

Main articles: COVID-19 pandemic and COVID-19 pandemic in the United States

Further information: U.S. federal government response to the COVID-19 pandemic and Trump administration communication during the COVID-19 pandemic

See also: Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States

In December 2019, COVID-19 erupted in Wuhan, China; the SARS-CoV-2 virus spread worldwide within weeks.

We should be linking to the body, not to other pages. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 12:59, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

So add some links in the lead to the body, and see whether anyone disagrees enough to revert you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:15, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

I added a few to the third and fourth paragraph. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 16:45, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Why are you linking to him winning the election? It just seems... unnecessary. Cessaune (talk) 17:23, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, Space4Time. @Cessaune is asking about this:

"He won the 2016 United States presidential election^§ as the Republican nominee against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton despite losing the popular vote."

I'm curious why you use this "^§" markup instead of adding a normal link. I would normally link straight to the separate 2016 United States presidential election, but you could link to the section in this article like this: [[#2016 presidential campaign|2016 United States presidential election]]. This is the normal way to add a link. Why did you decide to try something different? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:00, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Less blue in the lead, and gets rid of the added surprise of clicking on a link expecting it to take you to a new article and instead being sent to a section in the same article (see Talk:Donald Trump/Archive 149 and 150). It's a proposal on this page that was narrowly shouted down recently and, as there is no consensus to include it, Space4Time should self-revert. Everything on this page works through consensus, and we haven't established consensus for this addition. Cessaune (talk) 21:35, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't know if you are familiar with the Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle (the actual/original one, not Wikipedia:What editors mean when they say you have to follow BRD), but the idea is that when there's a dispute, especially a dispute that is not being resolved through discussion, and you have an idea about how to fix it, you should just do that, and then wait to see who will emerge as a "Very Interested Person (VIP)". You find that VIP by waiting to see who disagrees strongly enough to revert your change. Self-reverting defeats BRD by depriving your would-be VIP of the clearest opportunity to express disagreement. Consequently, I recommend that Space4Time follow BRD instead of taking you up on your suggestion.

I think the likely outcomes are that we'll discover a VIP through reversion, or that someone will respond with Wikipedia:Bold-refine (e.g., converting them to standard links). In the meantime, all we need to do here is wait for someone who is interested in enough to make a change. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:22, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Which ones of the numerous discussions on lead citations are you referring to? There is also no consensus to exclude section links. I didn't add all of them, per citegasm, one of editors may have called them, I believe. I replaced some of the recently reinserted wikilinks to other pages with section links. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 14:27, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Fair. Cessaune (talk) 23:51, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Is there a reason we've deviated so much from WP:SUMMARY?

The Presidency section is a poor WP:SUMMARY of Presidency of Donald Trump. User:Valjean made similar comments a year ago, so I'll try to tackle it here and be specific.

• §§COVID-19 pandemic^§ is double the length of Presidency of Donald Trump#COVID-19 pandemic (38KB vs 22KB). Summaries should be shorter, not longer. I fail to understand, for example, why the White House outbreak is due in his BLP.
• §§Conflicts of interest^§ should be replaced with a summary of the Ethics section in Presidency, which has far more breadth.
• §§First impeachment^§ is 12KB, the same length as the section in Presidency; it should obviously be shorter. Both impeachments (and the trial) should likely be combined into a single section.
• §§False statements^§ is 11KB, the same length as the section in Presidency.

• §§False statements^§, §§Promotion of conspiracy theories^§, §§Relationship with the press^§ and §§Incitement of violence^§ should be transformed into a summary of Presidency of Donald Trump#Leadership style as a single section under §Presidency (2017–2021). Almost their entire contents are about his presidency, not his prior life.

• §§Concern about a possible coup attempt or military action^§: this content has received no sustained coverage; and is completely absent from the Presidency article. Is it due? I support trimming this and moving it to the proposed summary in §§Leadership style.
• §§Lafayette Square protester removal and photo op^§ inexplicably focuses on a single part of his administration's response to the George Floyd protests. These protests (or his admin's response) are otherwise not mentioned in this article whatsoever. In Presidency, the photo-op section only takes up a third of the George Floyd section. Cut cruft, and change it to a proper George Floyd protests summary section. We can keep the picture.
• The entire §§Foreign policy^§ section here is amazingly the same length (41KB) as the foreign affairs section in Presidency. It should be trimmed; take away his contradictory statements (already covered in §§False statements), and focus on his actions and their consequences.

DFlhb (talk) 23:44, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

To address a likely counterargument: any split-off article related to his presidency should be summarized in the Presidency article, which itself should be summarized here. They shouldn't be summarized here directly, since that would give them undue weight, and wouldn't respect the spirit of WP:SUMMARY. DFlhb (talk) 23:48, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

All these ideas are good ideas. Iamreallygoodatcheckers^t@lk 23:49, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Sedition is a fashion statement? Negligent homicide is a leadership style? Sources for that? SPECIFICO talk 23:58, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Could we keep this page on the constructive, not snarky, side? (and avoid putting garbage in others' mouths while we're at it?) The terms "sedition" and "negligent homicide" are absent from both pages.

See Presidency of Donald Trump#Leadership style, which is what these sections are summarizing (some bits are missing from there, so they should be copied to the Presidency article so we stop breaking WP:SUMMARY). DFlhb (talk) 00:14, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Then conform the subsidiary articles to this one,which has gotten far more attention and discussion. SPECIFICO talk 00:43, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Correcting the "summary is the same length as the original" problem without changing this article would require me to further bloat the 148KB Presidency article, which is not happening.

Treating the status quo as inherently valid would prevent this article from ever reaching GA- or FA-class. No RFC I'm aware of contradicts any of these changes, which nullifies the far more attention and discussion bit. DFlhb (talk) 01:57, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Good ideas. The Lafayette Square section has always been oversized.--Jack Upland (talk) 02:36, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

DFlhb, please review the editing history and talk page archives for this article and compare them with the associated "subsidiary articles". Yes, the best and most thorough editorial collaboration has been on this page, among nearly all the Trump-related pages. SPECIFICO talk 15:37, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

The presidency section in this article is not a summary of Presidency of Donald Trump, it's a summary of his presidency. Editors of this article may not concur with what editors of other pages have done. Also, the main article on the Lafayette Square photo-op, for example, is Donald Trump photo op at St. John's Church, not the presidency article. For the military and for some members of the Trump administration it was a pivotal event that was reflected in the actions/non-action before the Jan6 insurrection. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 15:06, 4 December 2022 (UTC) Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 15:28, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

For better or worse, the history of Trump articles on WP is that the content invariably originated here among a large number of well-informed editors. The quality of the "main articles" varies from excellent to atrocious. SPECIFICO talk 15:30, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

is not a summary of Presidency of Donald Trump: it should be, per WP:SUMMARY. If you want to ignore that guideline, please present arguments in favor of doing so.

The presidency section should give a bird's eye view, or synthesis, of his presidency. It currently gives excessive weight to certain aspects that some editors feel are important. The Presidency article achieves a far more proportional synthesis, which better reflects what has been found significant by secondary sources.

I've pointed out that St John's is a child article of his presidency, not his BLP, since it is pertains to his presidency; you assert otherwise, but without providing arguments. Incidentally, a past RFC concluded that just a few sentences were due here about that photo op, not a whole subsection, and my proposal would be a great way to implement that. Your link between St John's and January 6 doesn't seem to be shared by experts or scholars. The Lafayette lawsuits were tossed or settled, and the IG report, which says Trump was not a factor in the protests being cleared, has to my knowledge not been contested in published scholarship. DFlhb (talk) 17:37, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

I previously asked you to review the article history and talk page discussions that led to the current article text. I'll again ask you to do so. Some actions and events, such as the St. Johns bit, the "good people on both sides" bit, the North Korea love letters, etc. reflect Trump the man rather than or in addition to his official administration. I think your concerns will be greatly answered if you will please read the history of this article and the editing decisions relating to its text. SPECIFICO talk 18:11, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

I indeed have reviewed the archives, so please don't ask again unless you want to link me to a specific discussion. My lack of reply to your comment was deliberate, since it's a flawed appeal to implicit consensus ("far more attention and discussion", "most thorough", "large number of well-informed editors"), which I've already pointed out constitutes WP:STONEWALLING unless you can point to an specific relevant RFC that my proposal contradicts (I am not alleging bad faith).

Thankfully your reply also brings us to the crux of the matter: the presidency section should cover his presidency. WP:PROPORTION is determined by WP:RS, not any editor's WP:OR beliefs about which events best "reflect" his true personality. DFlhb (talk) 18:56, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Since you've reviewed the archive, perhaps you can identify specific discussion threads for which you can offer rebuttals that will change the outcome? Also, I'm sure you are aware that there is no RS that tells us how to write an encyclopedia and that NPOV is a matter of editors' evaluation. SPECIFICO talk 19:09, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Also, I've never heard anyone, previous to your comment, refer to Trump's "true personality" as my understanding is that he's overwhelmingly viewed as a WYSIWYG figure. But this is a bio, so the presidency section focuses on the personal stamp he put on his administration. Just as Reagan's does on his and FDR's does on his. SPECIFICO talk 19:17, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

There is no "outcome" to change, since you continue to handwave about non-existent past consensus. The BLPs of Reagan and FDR do not suffer from this issue, and you know they are off-topic. Don't expect me to engage any further unless you provide precise and constructive objections. DFlhb (talk) 19:38, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

OK then, all's well. SPECIFICO talk 20:08, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Which auxiliary function of "should"? Donald Trump has so many child and related articles that our summaries are usually shorter than the leads of those articles. We may eventually (when he's not runningm for or holding public office) get to the point where we can synchronize all of them but I don't see any way to do that now. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 11:52, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

I suspect concerning the 45th US president, summarising may be a challenge. GoodDay (talk) 20:04, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Definitely. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 11:52, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Modern-day party boss

Is this what we meant to say: he has been compared to a modern-day party boss. Compared? Isn't he a modern-day party boss? Jack Upland (talk) 03:03, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Have other articles than that NYT one called him that? If so, keep wording as is ("has been called/labelled" would IMO require quite a few WP:NEWSORG assertions, and straight Wikivoice would require scholarly consensus). If it's just one or two articles, it's not due. DFlhb (talk) 03:16, 1 December 2022 (UTC) , updated since I'm now strongly leaning towards the latter; it's just a metaphor and is not a common description based on my research 14:54, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

@DFlhb Regarding "Have other articles than the NYT one called him that?"

• Stephanie Muravchik and Jon A. Shields, The Other Democratic Party, The Bulwark, October 4, 2020
• MSNBC in this 7 minute YouTube clip (discussing the NYT article)
• Max Greenwood, No ‘mass exodus,’ but GOP sees Trump grip loosening, The Hill, February 25, 2022
• Maggie Haberman, Three Conversations With Donald Trump, The Atlantic, September 25, 2022

I think the most pertinent are the ones in the Bulwark and the Atlantic. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 19:23, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for that list. I don't think The Atlantic claims he's a boss, just that he tried to emulate one. The Bulwark is the highest-quality, since it's an exerpt from a book by two professors trying to explain Trump's rise. I like their "social proximity" argument, which other experts have echoed and which I think would be due, as we should try to explain Trump's rise. But I still don't think the "party boss" comparison is due: this piece came out before the 2020 election, and more recent commentary emphasizes the ways in which Trump's influence is waning. DFlhb (talk) 20:41, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

He has supplanted the traditional role of the party boss, who normally serves all the party's candidates, thus using the party machinery and funding exclusively for his own benefit and to harm any potential rivals within the party. The internal power struggle is very real. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:20, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

My understanding is that party bosses rarely ran for elective office. They preferred controlling a political party from behind the scenes. GoodDay (talk) 14:46, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

I think this is UNDUE. SPECIFICO talk 15:34, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

GoodDay, you're right. In European democracies, the party leader is the party boss, and if the party wins, they become the Prime Minister. Not so in American politics. The two functions are separate. That's what makes Trump an exception. Whatever he's doing, he grabs all power and tolerates no competition, including dissent from voters. He quashes all opposition. That's an attitude add odds with a fundamental principle of democracy. Trump's attitude is that his single vote trumps all votes against him, even a majority, so he rejects it and grabs power. In 2020 he tried to illegally retain it. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:55, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

He needs Republican voters in the 2024 primaries/caucuses to gain the Republican presidential nomination. If he can accomplish that? then he'll need independent voters to win the 2024 prez election. GoodDay (talk) 17:22, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Regardless, I don't think it's worded logically at the moment.--Jack Upland (talk) 23:55, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps what is meant is "compared to an old-fashioned party boss".--Jack Upland (talk) 06:08, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

New sentence?

Proposed sentence in lead, after paragraph 3, sentence 2: At the time of his inauguration, Trump was the oldest person to assume the office of U.S. president. (or something similar). What do y'all think? Cessaune (talk) 04:57, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

We've discussed this before. I would oppose this for two reasons. Firstly, the introduction shouldn't be like a baseball card composed of this and that supposed record. Secondly, because of increased longevity, presidential age is not remarkable. Recording the relative ages of presidents is an exercise in trivia, which is increasingly uninteresting the more presidents are contending for the crown of "oldest".--Jack Upland (talk) 05:55, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Agree with Jack Upland that, given all else Trump is known for, this point isn't worth putting into the lead. But it's a great suggestion and worthwhile having it in the article body. -Darouet (talk) 15:53, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

donald trump

You should add twice impeached. 47.7.246.107 (talk) 06:42, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

It is literally in the lede, and each impeachment has its own section. Chaheel Riens (talk) 07:41, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Trump Organization found guilty

A jury has found Trump Organization guilty of tax fraud in a New York court.[17]. SPECIFICO talk 22:45, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

You should discuss it at The Trump Organization article. TFD (talk) 05:32, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Detailed coverage belongs there. A brief description definitely belongs here. This man built and operated a criminal enterprise for decades. Cullen328 (talk) 05:36, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Was Trump himself charged or convicted? or just the company. GoodDay (talk) 06:06, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Trump was not charged. However, his wealth is in the organization. It is likely to be affected not so much by the fine, more by the financial/reputational effect on the company's continued operations. Whether a mention belongs in this article depends on what RS say. O3000, Ret. (talk) 16:30, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Undecided whether and how to mention here. It's just two of the 500 or so entities of the Trump Organization, i.e., the Trump Corporation and ‌the ‌Trump Payroll Corporation who were convicted and are now felons, "maximum penalty the company could pay is $1.62 million". They'll pay out of petty cash, AKA Trump's personal PAC, shut the two entities down, and register new corporations. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 16:27, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

• It probably should be mentioned in the body of the article, but at this time, likely doesn't itself need a whole section or highlighting in the lead. It certainly is, in some way, relevant to the story of Trump's life, but given that the article is already so long, we can use other articles to contain the details. --Jayron32 16:30, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
• I'm leaning toward a brief mention in Donald_Trump#Real_estate but nothing more here. If this becomes something bigger (likely will) then we can dedicate more space to it. EvergreenFir (talk) 16:32, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

  Tend to agree, a line or two is all we need. Slatersteven (talk) 16:38, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Nothing is needed in this article. The tax fraud was about officers in the Trump Organization - not about Donald Trump. There is no reason to mention it here.Not Illogical (talk) 18:53, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

"The Trump Organization". Can you identity the 2nd word of that three-word name, and then identify the particular person who is the sole or principal owner of the roughly 500 business entities under that umbrella? A mention in Trump's bio is most quite relevant and necessary, and I am usually hesitant to add new material to this already large article. Zaathras (talk) 23:35, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Mention it in the The Trump Organization page, since the former US president himself hasn't been charged/convicted. GoodDay (talk) 23:44, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

counterexample SPECIFICO talk 00:07, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Not really. The Teapot Dome scandal was Watergate before Watergate and resulted in new balances of power in the federal government and directly involved the Harding administration. Incomparable to the Trump Organization getting convicted of tax fraud, unless RSs directly say this significantly damages him in some way (ie his reputation, wealth, etc) Anon0098 (talk) 01:08, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

All fine. I just meant to address the mere fact he was not charged does not outweigh whatever other factors may be assessed or develop. We do have lots about Trump Org in this article without knowing his particular role in much of it. SPECIFICO talk 01:45, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, Anon0098. I couldn't have pointed out the difference any better. GoodDay (talk) 02:06, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

• The separate fraud lawsuit against the Trump org is likely to have far more effect on Trump. Last month, the judge ruled that: "Trump and the Trump Organization 'demonstrated propensity to engage in persistent fraud' and that appointing an outside monitor 'is the most prudent and narrowly tailored mechanism to ensure there is no further fraud or illegality' pending the resolution of the lawsuit." The article continues with several major effects on the Trump org., and therefore Trump. Basically, Trump cannot make major financial moves without court approval. O3000, Ret. (talk) 16:25, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

  Also, prior to the verdict, Trump attempted to incorporate Trump Organization II, which was reported as an attempt to insulate future business from liability he expected in the matter of the recent and current matters. I didn't start this thread with any proposal that we should add text at this time. However, there's lots of content in this article that is less closely related to Trump than the just-announced convictions. SPECIFICO talk 17:03, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

  Well, then we should trim it out, right? The article is massive as it is. Cessaune (talk) 23:23, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Well Objective3000. We'll have to wait & see if it'll effect Trump or more importantly, his campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. GoodDay (talk) 18:11, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

It has already affected Trump. It will not affect his campaign. O3000, Ret. (talk) 19:30, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

• We already mention In 2018, he and his family were reported to have committed tax fraud, and the New York tax department began investigating. Propose we remove; and support mentioning these two companies' convictions. I'm not comfortable with the current "reported to have"; either Trump and his family have been charged (in which case, mention it), or they haven't been (so don't). DFlhb (talk) 00:32, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

References

False statements

Why is there a specific section devoted to false statements by Mr. Trump? There is nothing similar for President Biden or, indeed, any other Democrat politician. In contrast to the statements about Trump, Biden's statements are characterized not as lies, or false, but rather as "gaffes" or "embellishments" or statements meant to get a point across. This despite the fact that Biden has been lying for decades as a senator, VP, and now President, and his press secretary and other must constantly walk back his statements and try to explain why he didn't really lie. For purposes of nonpartisanship and a neutral point of view, a similar standard of downplaying the statements by Biden should apply to Trump. His statements should be referred to similarly as gaffes or embellishments. Not Illogical (talk) 18:49, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Our content is based on what is reported in reliable sources. If the reliable sources say that Trump's statements were lies, and others' were gaffes, then the content on Wikipedia will reflect that. Additionally, why is your only issue whether Democrat politicians have similar content? Why not other Republicans? Why not members of the Conservative Party? --OuroborosCobra (talk) 18:59, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

From the Wikipedia policy section Wikipedia:Verifiability#Verifiability_does_not_guarantee_inclusion,

"While information must be verifiable for inclusion in an article, not all verifiable information must be included. Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article. Such information should be omitted or presented instead in a different article. The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content."

The responsibility for what is presented in the article and how it is presented lies with the editors, not the reliable sources. From the above, "The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content." Bob K31416 (talk) 00:49, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Not Illogical, please read the many citations that support the article text. That will answer your question without requiring the time of other editors here. SPECIFICO talk 19:13, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia, Not Illogical. You need sources to prove Trump doesn't lie and you need sources to prove Biden does lie. With sources for neither? you're very much (figuratively) stuck in the mud. GoodDay (talk) 19:22, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

You're just playing semantics. Gaffes, embellishments, fabrications - these all mean the same thing - false statements. Same as Trump. There should not be a different standard for one politician vs another. Not Illogical (talk) 21:06, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

I too wish we could bring a balance to this page & Biden's page. If you can accomplish that? all the power to you. GoodDay (talk) 21:11, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

The same standards are used for all biographical articles. The articles differ because the people differ: Veracity of statements by Donald Trump O3000, Ret. (talk) 21:50, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Biden's false statements have gain widespread attention. He said he had three degrees, finished in the top half of his law class, his son died in Iraq, he was arrested for supporting Nelson Mandela, he marched in the Civil Rights movement, etc. Bush said Saddam Hussein had WMDs, Clinton said he never had sexual relations with that woman, George H.W. Bush wouldn't raise taxes. It's all part of the job description. — Preceding unsigned comment added by The Four Deuces (talk • contribs)

Disingenuous. There is a world of difference between gaffes (Beau Biden served in Iraq, and later died of cancer) and the deliberate delivery of a lie (Inauguration crowd, and ordered a gov't photographer to falsify images). Be better. Zaathras (talk) 06:11, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

This article is based on reliable sources. If you have reliable sources that contradict e.g. the sources for the "false statements" section, please present them. If you think that the Biden article fails to mention parts of his biography, you need to take that up on the Biden page. BTW, Biden has a speech impediment (stutter) that he’s learned to control but has to control every time he speaks. That makes it harder to concentrate on what he’s saying, so he misspeaks, notices, and corrects. If you want to take the false or misleading claims Biden made on the campaign trail in 1987 to the Biden page, here’s the info, and here’s the info on the arrest story which may have been Biden misremembering being detained during a visit to South Africa. Just as a reminder: Trump never stopped making false claims even after they had been pointed out to him over and over again, and there is a difference between keeping up the "Big Lie" (rigged voting machines, millions of illegal aliens and dead people voting) and saying you graduated in the top half of your class instead of the bottom half. Politicians (Cotton, Pompeo, DeSantis, to name a few more Republicans currently believed to be contemplating a 2024 run) and celebs polishing their resumes — not the same as spreading lies about treatments for COVID-19 or election fraud). Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 11:30, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Well the sources can be biased. What is reported and misreported can be just as biased as what is not reported or ignored by certain media outlets.--JOJ ^Hutton 11:39, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

That's why we use reliable sources. O3000, Ret. (talk) 12:30, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

So-called reliable sources in the news media are a problem. They are usually better than sources not considered reliable by Wikipedia but they are not trustworthy enough to be considered authoritative, especially when politics or other contentious subjects are concerned. Bob K31416 (talk) 14:43, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes they are if consensus says they are. Slatersteven (talk) 14:48, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Last time I was involved with the reliable sources board, concerning discussions on which news outlets were reliable & which weren't. The supposed pro-Republican ones were voted down as unreliable & the supposed pro-Democratic ones were mostly voted as reliable. So, I'll let ya figure it out from there. GoodDay (talk) 14:52, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

This article does not only use American sources. Besides (even if this were true), maybe the problem is that many "pro-republican" sources tell lies? But this is not the place to change policy or argue for source reliability. We go by policy and policy is all we go by. The consensus is these are RS, so wither change it at the right venue or stop using non policy-based arguments. Slatersteven (talk) 14:58, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Those arguments were already held & thus again, I say to the OP, if he can get over the hurdles placed in front of him? all the power to him. GoodDay (talk) 15:19, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

The problem the OP has is attempting to edit a very difficult article, with very little experience, no understanding of WP:RS, and the burden of a heavy bias. You are not helping them by suggesting their problem lies with WikiPedia. That gives them no reason to learn the ropes. O3000, Ret. (talk) 16:18, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

• The deal is, it isn't merely that Trump has said things that weren't true. It's that it is a defining characteristic of the story of his life. Let's take a little analogy. Joey Chestnut's article spends much more time highlighting the fact that he eats hot dogs. Really, much more than articles on other people. I'm pretty sure Joe Biden has eaten hotdogs before. If Joey Chestnut's article spends so much text space dedicated to eating hot dogs, but Joe Biden's does not, then that is wrong! They both eat hot dogs! Why are we being so unfair to Joey Chestnut! We need to remove any mention of him eating hot dogs unless we also catalogue every hot dog Joe Biden ate! That, in a nutshell, is the OP's only argument here, and it really makes no more sense in the context of untruthful things said by Trump... --Jayron32

So then nothing can be done here, and this is a waste of everyone's time and should be closed. Slatersteven (talk) 16:29, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Do not close the discussion. Bob K31416 (talk) 18:51, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

It's the"'defining characteristic of the story of his (Trump's) life? Seriously? That is an incredibly biased statement. But along a similar vein, why aren't decades of Biden's public gaffes, folklore, dates that don't add up, shaving factual edges, exaggeration, and other lies considered to be his defining characteristic? Not Illogical (talk) 19:00, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Because Trump is the Joey Chestnut of making false statements. Just because other people have eaten things, doesn't mean that the Joey Chestnut's article is biased because it heavily focuses on what he eats. Same deal here. --Jayron32 19:05, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

It appears that your argument comes down to simply expressing your opinion about Trump, by saying that he makes false statements like a competitive hot dog eater eats hot dogs. Bob K31416 (talk) 20:11, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

It's not my opinion. For many years, reliable sources have described Trump as a habitual speaker of untruthful statements. It isn't that he makes untruthful statements, it's that he is well noted as making them, so much so that it makes up a significant part of the narrative of his life. Not merely that he has made them, but rather that reliable sources have focused on the number, severity, frequency, etc. of the untruthful things he says. Since reliable sources have given it special attention, Wikipedia should as well. --Jayron32 15:38, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

A Google search will show you that there are a quite large number of sources which state that the defining characteristic of the Trump presidency has been lies. OTOH, your comment about Biden is a WP:BLP violation that you ought self-delete. This is particularly concerning as it appears you have had multiple edits on Biden's TP that were WP:REVDELed. O3000, Ret. (talk) 19:23, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

No doubt you can find such sources, but the authors aren't necessarily unbiased. Here is a BBC article written at the end of his presidential term, US historians on what Donald Trump's legacy will be. None of the sections in the article is focused on lying. Bob K31416 (talk) 20:11, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

You think finding one article that doesn't say something means something? We have an entire article on this with 417 cites: Veracity of statements by Donald Trump. O3000, Ret. (talk) 20:28, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

I was responding to your remark that "the defining characteristic of the Trump presidency has been lies." Note "the defining characteristic" was your point, not simply that he made many false statements. The article I gave consisted of historians' views at the end of Trump's presidency, not journalists' opinions during presidential election campaigns or during a presidency involving an ongoing conflict between the press and Trump. You'll need to find historians' views at the end or after Trump's presidency that make your point that "the defining characteristic of the Trump presidency has been lies." Bob K31416 (talk) 21:41, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Your cite is not relevant as it does not respond to my remark. I can find a billion cites that don't say something. Did you read our article on this? Veracity of statements by Donald Trump It includes scholars and historians. Over 30,000 documented incidents in his presidency alone. I didn't make up the term. And please don't blame this on an "ongoing conflict between the press and Trump". (As I sit here, I look at the Trump building across the street that he claimed has 18 more floors than it has. I find it humorous.) O3000, Ret. (talk) 21:57, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

That's not the BBC talking. They selected six historians and published what they said two years ago. Quoting one of them: As a historian who studies the intersection of media and the presidency, it is truly striking the ways in which he has convinced millions of people that his fabricated version of events is true. ... four years during which President Trump actively advanced misinformation. Brownell also mentions "alternative facts". Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 12:51, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

The BBC article [18] came out at the end of Trump's presidency, Jan 19, 2021. The article consists of responses by six historians to two questions posed by the BBC author, "What's Trump's key legacy?" and "What else stands out to you?". The responses were edited for length and clarity by the BBC author. The BBC author gave the following titles to each historian's section, 'His relationship with alt-right', 'A surrender of global leadership', 'Putting democracy to the test', 'Reshaping the judiciary', 'Contesting the 2020 election', and 'Standing up to China'. Bob K31416 (talk) 15:50, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

For all normal people (Trump is not one of them ), lying is a "bug", not a "feature", of life. It's part of being human, but an exceptional and regrettable part for which normal people apologize and self correct. Not so with Trump. For him, lying is his fundamental modus operandi, so it's a constant, second by second, ever present, part of everything he says and does. Always assume Trump is lying. He lies "all the time". David Zurawik says we should "just assume Trump's always lying and fact check him backwards" because that's "how to cover a habitual liar". -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:32, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Isn't calling Trump a habitual liar, not normal, the Joey Chestnut of making false statement, etc. a WP:BLP violation? Not Illogical (talk) 20:11, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

No, they are backed up by the myriad RS we use to document this topic in our articles, a few of which I used above. Habitual liars are not "normal". His penchant for lying is so well known and documented that calling him a liar is no more sensational or a BLP violation than saying "the sky is blue." Disputing that would be a sensational and false claim without any foundation in RS. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:26, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

There are also numerous sources that document Biden's habitual lying. So we can call Biden a habitual liar, not normal, and the Joey Chestnut of falsehoods. Good to know. Not Illogical (talk) 21:59, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

No, there are not numerous RS that document Biden habitual lying. First, I suggest never linking to a NYPost editorial again. The only good sources you provided say nothing about habitual lying. They are mostly about relating old stories incorrectly, often to comfort or praise people who have been through a disaster or war. On the Biden TP, you said this was all due to Biden's age and went on to talk about a supposed bathroom incident when meeting with the Pope, and what you called other “pooping issues". Now you are saying it’s lies. Please read WP:BLP carefully. O3000, Ret. (talk) 22:25, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

I think Biden knows that he wasn't arrested in South Africa.--Jack Upland (talk) 02:30, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Actually, I believe detained means arrested. Arrested does not mean charged. O3000, Ret. (talk) 02:43, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Detained does not mean arrested. Arrested does mean you have been charged. Not Illogical (talk) 12:19, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Glad we have an expert here on South African legal terminology under de Klerk. Even in the US, a warrantless arrest does not mean charged. After a period of time, there must be a charge or release. And, the first definition of arrest in the OED is "To stop". To compare this example of semantics with the subject of this article is just odd. As presidential historian Michael Beschloss said: "I have never seen a president in American history who has lied so continuously and so outrageously as Donald Trump, period,....” O3000, Ret. (talk) 14:06, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

References

Glad you are an expert on reliable sources. I guess in your mind (like many editors here), if it's left-leaning newspaper like NY Times, Washington Post, etc. it's just fine, but if it's a right-leaning news organization it is unreliable. Not Illogical (talk) 11:55, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

We allow plenty of right-wing sources, The Times The Telegraph for example. Slatersteven (talk) 12:09, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

You appear to be unacquainted with Wikipedia’s perennial list of reliable and unreliable sources. You may want to take a look at it. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 12:58, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Call for "termination" of the U.S. Constitution

An RFC is being held on this matter, below this discussion GoodDay (talk) 06:57, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

On 4 December 2022, Trump apears to have used his Truth Social social media platform to call for the "termination" of the Constitution of the United States to attempt to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election. This is one of the most remarkable statements ever uttered by a U.S. politician, let alone by a former president; as far as I can see, it appears to be to a call for the overthrow of not just the current U.S. government, but the Republic itself.

Accordingly, I've added it both to Trump's 2024 presidential election campaign section, and to the lede.

Please discuss here as appropriate. — The Anome (talk) 15:54, 4 December 2022 (UTC) — The Anome (talk) 15:54, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Did he actually say that, in his words? Slatersteven (talk) 15:57, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes. His exact words were reportedly:

“ "A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our great ‘Founders’ did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!". ”

"termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution" seems pretty clear to me. -- — The Anome (talk) 16:16, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

He said it. Or "Truthed" it. Now we get another batshit crazy thing that he has said to debate for inclusion vs. WP:NOTNEWS. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:19, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, this I think should be added. 16:18, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

This statement and others like it are just drivel and if we add all of them to the article we are just giving him what he most wants, attention. Let us be the grown-ups and ignore this tantrum. Carptrash (talk) 17:15, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

This is not ordinary Trump drivel. This is exceptionally dangerous and unusual drivel, even for Trump. I support including this. Cullen328 (talk) 17:23, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Exclude it. If we included every quote/statement (spoken or written) by Trump? This BLP would be ten times longer, then it currently is. GoodDay (talk) 17:25, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

A statement is irrelevant. This belongs in Donald Trump 2024 presidential campaign. along with the Fuentes stuff. Every controversy over the coming years will "feel" significant, but we should heed WP:NOTNEWS. This article should instead cover scholarly views on Trump's relationship with the rule of law while President. [19][20][21][22][23][24] DFlhb (talk) 20:15, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

This is easy to include with minimal text addition, and it may facilitate compression of his similar anti-American views that are currently reported at greater length. SPECIFICO talk 20:26, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

We shouldn't include this per WP:NOTNEWS. It's way too early to be including this statement. It may be significant, or maybe not. Let's wait a bit. Cessaune (talk) 23:56, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Exclude this is WP:NOTNEWS. Iamreallygoodatcheckers^t@lk 02:00, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Any examples of other times a former POTUS or current candidate for POTUS has explicitly renounced the US Government in writing? Some events, in context, are immediately and self-evidently noteworthy, per HINDENBURG SPECIFICO talk 02:08, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

If he goes up in flames, we’ll definitely mention that. Inflammatory social media posts — yawn. Dime a dozen, that piggy bank is about the size of the Hindenburg already. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 11:47, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

If it's included, it should be the actual quote from Trump, instead of the fraudulent media paraphrasing. Should read "Trump used his Truth Social social media platform to call for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution." Blue Eyes Cryin (talk) 02:13, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

• We seem to be heading down the "did you hear the latest outrageous thing Trump wrote/said/did" road again. Been there, done that - WP:NOTNEWS, TFG on his social media platform whose only users are the members of his "base" and the unfortunate journalists who have to monitor it so they can fill some space in their newspapers. Quoting/paraphrasing other editors: batshit crazy and attention-seeking drivel sound about right. Public patio dinners with lunatics and far-right extremists, troothing the first outrageous thing that comes to his mind, suing the United States — anything to get in and/or dominate the news. "There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 11:56, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

The back-pedaling by the usual suspects has begun. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 12:58, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

• I think this provides a chance to summarize a lot of the content that refers to or gives examples of anti-American sentiment and make the article more concise. We can't remove all of the other content, but this does provide his own summary of his creed. So I don't think NOTNEWS is quite as clear with this one. SPECIFICO talk 13:55, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Aside from WP:NOTNEWS, this isn't even new. When did he ever put the interests of the U.S. (or humanity, for that matter) above his own self-interest? Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 14:59, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Space4Time3Continuum2x, when you say here that "appears to imply a conclusion that isn’t in the two 2022 cites," do you mean "...so he could be reinstated as president"?

• CNN: "...called for the termination of the Constitution to overturn the 2020 election and reinstate him to power..."[25].

• Politico: "...argued that unprecedented measures were, therefore, called for to return him to office."[26]. (emphases mine)

or do you mean some other conclusion? soibangla (talk) 13:56, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

These is the paragraph you added to the 2016 campaign's Campaign rhetoric and political positions: During his 2016 campaign, legal experts across the political spectrum said Trump's rhetoric showed contempt for the First Amendment, the separation of powers and the rule of law. After his many failed attempts to overturn the 2020 election he had lost, in December 2022 Trump called for "the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution" so he could be reinstated as president. Seems to imply a straight line from the 2016 legal experts (that's almost a verbatim quote from the NYT) to CNN and Politico's 2022 articles but those two articles are basically about (mostly Republican) politician's reactions to Trump's latest "big lie" outburst. Quoting Hakeem Jeffries, as quoted in Politico and others: "It was a strange statement, but the Republicans are going to have to work out their issues with the former president." Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 14:42, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

The edit shows he has for years consistently demonstrated he has contempt for core American values, culminating now with a flat-out call to terminate the Constitution so he can be reinstated, and the provided sources show that. soibangla (talk) 14:55, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

"consistently demonstrated he has contempt for core American values" That is why he was elected in the first place. This contempt for democracy is shared by his voters. Dimadick (talk) 13:47, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

I don't see this article even touches upon his consistent authoritarian rhetoric. It's time it does. soibangla (talk) 14:59, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

• Include Trump's statement in this article at least; I am ambivalent about the lead and will let others decide. I'd suggest using his exact wording for the article body: "A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Or a paraphrase, or some mix of paraphrase and quote: "In response to his electoral defeat that he described as fraudulent, Trump called for the 'termination' of articles within the constitution... [end with direct quote?]" -Darouet (talk) 13:44, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
• Include It’s one thing that a president spends years praising multiple, brutal, authoritarian leaders. It’s one thing that an ex-president says he loves members of a mob, 900 arrested, involved in an insurrection and states he’ll consider pardons. It’s one thing that he calls for a state election to be ignored and the loser installed as Governor of Arizona. But, it’s another when that ex-president calls for the “termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution", and for his immediate reinstatement as president or a repeat of a two-year past election. I think this warrants a brief inclusion. O3000, Ret. (talk) 16:12, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Include and comment, but I think if this is to be included (and I believe it should, personally,) then it should be included as a direct quote. Given the nature of the statement, in order to avoid any kind of accusation of bias we should report the incident via his quote exactly. We should avoid any implication, and just say what he says. I know that's kind of obvious, but that's my thought. Chaheel Riens (talk) 16:40, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

• Does anyone have a link to the original statement in Truth Social, or a link to a copy of the original whole message that the excerpt came from? Neither of these appear to be in the sources. Bob K31416 (talk) 20:41, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
  • Here is his whole post: "So, with the revelation of MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION in working closely with Big Tech Companies, the DNC, & the Democrat Party, do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our great ‘Founders’ did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!" --Fox News @Bob K31416: -- MelanieN (talk) 00:25, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

    Thanks. Coincidentally, I was just about to post the following message when I saw your post.

—Here's a copy of the original in situ post [27] that I obtained from [28]. Bob K31416 (talk) 00:50, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

I'll take a crack at trying to interpret it. It looks like he was trying to say that election rules and regulations, including those in the constitution, have proven to be a failure because they allowed a massive election fraud, and they should be corrected. When he said "terminated", I think he meant that they should be replaced with election rules that would correct what he claimed was a massive fraud. Bob K31416 (talk) 16:31, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

That isn’t close to what he said – which doesn’t matter as we don’t do interpretations here. And, his claim that there was a revelation of massive fraud is, yet again, another flat out lie. He said that there should be a new election or declare him president. Curious in what that means. Does he become president for four years changing all future election dates? The entire thing is crazy. O3000, Ret. (talk) 21:05, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

• Include per my comments at #Discussion in the thread Talk:Donald_Trump#RFC:_terminating_the_Constitution. (But unless you have great sources specifically addressing this distinction, don't fall into the trap of framing it as advocating for throwing out the whole constitution; Trump was advocating for throwing out the inconvenient parts. In other words, not quite as hypocritical, but still self-serving.) TheFeds 00:37, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

He wrote that "A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution", as quoted in the sources. "All" sounds pretty inclusive. (Not that I think it matters. He's been saying and doing or trying to this all along — WP:NOTNEWS.) Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 12:28, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

• Include as a truly unusual and very widely reported and discussed statement no other American politician has uttered as it violates their oath of allegiance to the Constitution. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 06:36, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
• See below - There's an RFC being held ↓ on this topic. GoodDay (talk) 06:55, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

May we please 'hat' this discussion? There's an RFC being held about this very topic. GoodDay (talk) 22:23, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

• Comment. The incident is mentioned on Truth_Social#Donald_Trump, with a full quote of Trump's post. I just checked for any mentions in RS later than six days ago — nothing. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 12:43, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

References

Bone spurs etc

Space4Time3Continuum2x, Re [29] — Here's the sentence with bone spurs.

While in college, Trump obtained student draft deferments during the Vietnam War era and after college he was deferred due to bone spurs on his feet.

Bob K31416 (talk) 20:29, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

This is the current text:

While in college, Trump obtained four student draft deferments during the Vietnam War era. In 1966, he was deemed fit for military service based upon a medical examination, and in July 1968, a local draft board classified him as eligible to serve. In October 1968, he was classified 1-Y, a conditional medical deferment, and in 1972, he was reclassified 4-F due to bone spurs, permanently disqualifying him from service.

Why remove four? Trump's story about why he was drafted in 1968 shifted, from high lottery number (i.e., unlikely to be drafted), to conditional medical deferment after journalists looked up his Selective Service record, and back to high lottery number. He couldn't remember which foot and eventually settled on both feet, didn't mention the 4-F permanent classification, and said his temporary deferment was for a "temporary minor malady", based on a letter from a doctor whose name he didn't remember. I don't see a reason to keep the part I struck in the above quote but I think the rest needs to stay. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 13:35, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

I made the change you suggested. Bob K31416 (talk) 17:34, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

After college, Trump's student deferment ended, so his classification automatically changed to 1-A for a couple of months until he had an Armed Forces physical exam and was classified 1-Y. So the rest of the second sentence isn't very useful. I would suggest the following rewrite.

While in college, Trump obtained four student draft deferments during the Vietnam War era. After college he got a 1-Y medical deferment in 1968, and in 1972 he was reclassified 4-F due to bone spurs, permanently disqualifying him from service.

Bob K31416 (talk) 19:12, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

That completely removes the significant content on this matter. If that were the whole story it would be trivia that does not belong in this or any article. Please see my proposed edit below, in which I attempt to state and source what is significant without excessive detail that asks the reader to draw the conclusion that has been stated explicitly in RS. SPECIFICO talk 20:10, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

This is another one of several similar cases in which we're leaving it to the readers to make a conclusion about his truthfulness, etc. If RS found the the evasive statements, spur jump, etc. noteworhty, the article could just state the conclusion. This would be more compact than a list of the details, leaving the sources' conclusion implied. I'm not sure. What do you think? SPECIFICO talk 14:50, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Do you have a suggestion on how to word this? There was a 2018 follow-up to the 2016 NYT story. The daughters of a podiatrist who rented office space from Fred Trump said that their father had told them about the diagnosis "as a courtesy to the elder Mr Trump" and that another podiatrist may have been involved who then became a tenant. There's also Michael D'Antonio's interview of Trump. He asked Trump how he avoided the draft during the 18 months between his graduation and the December 1969 lottery when he drew the high number. "I have spurs on the back of my feet, which at the time, prevented me from walking long distances. ... Very healthy, but in the back, in fact it is here. You can see it on both feet. I have spurs." As he explained his condition, the man who would become president took off his shoes and pointed at his right heel. He asked me to take a look for bumps, which I didn’t actually see, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Someone who's never had a heel spur might reasonably believe they're at the back of the heel like the kind riders put on their boots (shame on them) but they're actually on the underside of the heel. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 17:48, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Actually, this is not technically correct. A heel spur can occur in between the achilles tendon and the heel, instead of the plantar fascia and the heel, though it is much, much more common for it to occur between the plantar fascia. Still possible though. Cessaune (talk) 03:02, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

I have not read the sources recently, but I was thinking something roughly along the lines of,

After his graduation from college, Trump, who had already passed a Selective Service physical, was likely to be called to active duty. He then obtained a physical disqualification from service through actions that were considered dubious by journalists who investigated the matter. Trump himself gave flawed and inconsistent narratives as to his 4-F disability.

Per recent concerns about article length and summary style, we would include somewhere a link to the WP page that contains the blow-by-blow. SPECIFICO talk 18:42, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

That isn't very NPOV ("actions that were considered dubious?") nor encyclopedic. The current version is fine, and is stylistically similar to how it's covered in the Biden article. This USA Today fact check notes that Trump received 4 deferments and then the 1-Y classification, while Biden received 5 deferments and then the 1-Y classification. There's no reason to complicate it. Mr Ernie (talk) 20:56, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Please read the reason for this summary of the RS and propose some other summary that captures the narrative of the sources. Reciting the long sequence that RS find dubious and not credible is not an encyclopedic presentation. It is better simply to state the fact rather than insinuated it. That kind of insinuation is one of the reasons this article is long and removing it is one way it could be made more direct and more compact. SPECIFICO talk 21:32, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

You didn't cite any RS for me to check, whereas the USA Today fact check I posted is simple and straightforward. Mr Ernie (talk) 21:43, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

They are right up above in this thread. Please familiarize yourself with the content, sources, and history of the discussion so far. SPECIFICO talk 22:37, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

The wording seems a bit... iffy. Considered dubious? Flawed and inconsistent narratives? Why don't you just quote him and explain what his actions were and why they were considered dubious? "Flawed" isn't encyclopedic, IMO. Cessaune (talk) 03:22, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

I'd have no objection to that. I was starting from the idea of shortening it. SPECIFICO talk 03:56, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

If you are proposing article text you need to put the sources with the claims that require sourcing. Otherwise it just looks like original research. Mr Ernie (talk) 13:37, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

The sources come from the text already. Read the Early Life section. Cessaune (talk) 15:24, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

"Inconsistent narratives about his 4-F disability" — he first claimed that he didn't serve because of his high draft number although the draft lottery didn't take place until over a year after the disability (was that before or after Dr. Bornstein's "healthiest president ever" letter).

While in college, Trump passed the Selective Service physical but obtained four student draft deferments during the Vietnam War era. After graduation, he was classified as eligible to be drafted. He then obtained a physical disqualification from service for bone spurs. He later gave inconsistent narratives about his 4-F disability.

Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 17:25, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Your proposed text is unimpeachable. Thanks for the improvement. Everyone on board? SPECIFICO talk 22:45, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Don't like the He then... He later wording, but it's good.

While in college, Trump passed the Selective Service physical but obtained four student draft deferments during the Vietnam War era. After graduation, he was classified as eligible to be drafted. In 1972, Trump obtained a physical disqualification from service due to heel spurs. He later gave inconsistent narratives about his 4-F disability.

Cessaune (talk) 23:58, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Where in the sources does it say that "Trump passed the Selective Service physical"? Bob K31416 (talk) 01:08, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

They just don't always use the long form "local Selective Service draft board". WaPo: On July 9, 1968, his local draft board had scrawled a “1A” beside his name in its handwritten ledger, classifying him as available for unrestricted military service. ... Two months later, on Sept. 17, 1968, he reported for an armed forces physical examination and was medically disqualified, according to the ledger from his local Selective Service System draft board in Jamaica, N.Y., now in the custody of the National Archives. NYT: Mr. Trump’s public statements about his draft experience sometimes conflict with his Selective Service records ... 2011, when The Smoking Gun published his Selective Service documents ... For many years, Mr. Trump, 70, has also asserted that it was “ultimately” the luck of a high draft lottery number — rather than the medical deferment — that kept him out of the war. But his Selective Service records, obtained from the National Archives, suggest otherwise. CBS (quoting the Smoking Gun): "Selective Service records show that the purported presidential aspirant actually received a series of student deferments while in college and then topped those off with a medical deferment after graduation that helped spare him from fighting for his country," the site reports. Trump did not face a draft lottery until December 1969. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 13:03, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

First you start your response with a straw man argument involving "local Selective Service draft board", which wasn't the issue of a physical. And then you have a lot of material, none of which says that he passed a physical. The only physical you mentioned was an Armed Forces physical that he did not pass. Apparently you were unable to find anywhere in the sources that says that Trump passed the Selective Service physical, or any other government physical. Bob K31416 (talk) 15:42, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Bob, please read the RS accounts of this. "1-A" means good to go. The significance of this bit is not so much that Trump appears to have connived his way out of service, which was not uncommon at that time. It's his narratives under scrutiny and his reaction to such scrutiny as a candidate for the presidency. SPECIFICO talk 16:40, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Apparently you too were unable to find anywhere in the sources that says that Trump passed the Selective Service physical, or any other government physical. Bob K31416 (talk) 16:54, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

WaPo: Trump’s draft board records show that he had another armed forces physical two years earlier, on Dec. 15, 1966. Although the ledger does not spell out the results, he was not granted a medical deferment at the time — indicating that he was found fit for duty. The Selective Service ordered registrants to report to a Military Entrance Processing Command (MEPS) for a physical, mental, and moral evaluation. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 17:26, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

The WaPo author's conclusion is based on incomplete information and is questionable. A 1-Y deferment may not have been considered by the draft board because Trump renewed his 2-S deferment. Bob K31416 (talk) 19:53, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

If you have RS backing that explanation, then that should be used. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:18, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

My comment was just to point out that the WaPo author's conclusion is questionable and shouldn't be used. Bob K31416 (talk) 23:15, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

The WPost is a reliable source. Your opinion of their reporting carries no weight here. Zaathras (talk) 23:21, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Bob K31416, would you at least provide an explanation for why it's questionable? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:08, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

The WaPo author essentially admitted that the record did not clearly show that Trump was found fit for duty when the author said, "Although the ledger does not spell out the results...". The WaPo author then reasoned that because Trump had a physical in 1966 and did not get a medical deferment, he was found fit for duty. That's not necessarily true because a medical deferment may not have been considered by the draft board because Trump had renewed his 2-S student deferment so that the question of deferring Trump had been determined. Bob K31416 (talk) 07:08, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 13:03, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Concerning avoiding service in the Vietnam War. How is this handled in the bios of other US presidents, that fit that category? Use those as a guideline. GoodDay (talk) 18:57, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

References

Impeached presidents/individuals

SecretName, about this edit: It goes beyond just Presidents. The presidents are the only ones who matter in the context of Trump, a sitting president, having been impeached. Three of them were impeached, one of them twice. How many readers know or care that a senator was impreached in 1797, a cabinet secretary in 1876, and 15 federal judges between 1803 and 2010? In this article, "the only individual" is a meaningless statistic. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 12:51, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

The only individual to be impeached twice by the House, is certainly something to mention in this page. GoodDay (talk) 23:37, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

The only individual twice impeached by the House

After this revert, the article again says that Trump was the only president twice impeached by the House. He is actually more than that: he is the only person at at all twice impeached by the U.S. House as I had changed the article to say: that he is the only individual. Limiting it to just presidents is bad practice: it gives the illusion that some non-president out there was twice impeached by the House and that is why the claim limits itself to just presidents. This illusion is wholly unnecessary if we restored the language that I had.

@Zaathras and @Space4Time3Continuum2x can chime in with why they think it is more important to emphasize presidents in such a manner that creates this illusion. Presidents, after all, are obviously individuals and are therefore obviously included in the claim as I had it phrased.

I urge others to chime in too. I propose restoring the language I had or something similar. SecretName101 (talk) 02:39, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Let's remember, not all individuals can be impeached by the House. I think you have to hold or have held an American office. For example, the House can't impeach the prime minister of Canada. GoodDay (talk) 03:05, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

This is not an article about impeachment, but an article about a president. The focus of our mention of impeachment is not on individuals who have been impeached, but on presidents who have been impeached. This article is not the place to introduce the intricacies about "who" can be impeached. The change is not an improvement. Take it to the Impeachment in the United States article. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:37, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

I think it's pretty clear that only people who can be subjected to federal impeachment have been subjected to federal impeachment. But you can word it "federal official" if you so please.

This article is just as much about a US federal impeachment as it is about a presidential one.

@Valjean Leaving this illusion leaves a false impression that the impeachment of an individual twice by the House is more common than it actually is. This is the singular instance of that overall, and readers deserve not to be left with a false impression to the contrary. SecretName101 (talk) 05:29, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

"...only individual..." would be misleading, though. Not every one can be impeached by the US House of Representatives. GoodDay (talk) 06:41, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

(Why did you start a new discussion when I already started one at Talk:Donald_Trump#Impeached_presidents/individuals five days ago?) Re false impression that the impeachment of an individual twice by the House is more common than it actually is - no, it doesn’t. Your wording implies that the House of Representatives has the authority to impeach any individual and not just a small subset of individuals, i.e., certain federal officeholders. Within that small subset, the 46 presidents are the only ones who matter in the context of sitting president Trump having been impeached twice by the House. Only three former presidents were ever impeached, and only one of those twice. How many readers know or care that a senator was impeached in 1797, a cabinet secretary in 1876, and 15 federal judges between 1803 and 2010? Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 15:35, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree that "only individual" is an odd word choice. I don't mind "only federal official" to be twice impeached by the house. I also wouldn't mind "only person" - I think it has some of the disadvantages of "only individual" in that it doesn't provide clarity on what sorts of persons can be thus impeached, but it sounds more natural while conveying that the uniqueness of being twice impeached goes beyond presidents. I would want to see sources that talk about him being not just the only president, but the only person/individual/federal official to be twice impeached before changing that language in this article. Regarding @Space4Time3Continuum2x's (rhetorical?) question, "How many readers know or care that a senator was impeached in 1797, a cabinet secretary in 1876, and 15 federal judges between 1803 and 2010?" I think the answer is "substantially less than 100%, but probably a great many more than you would think." ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 16:20, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

"...only person..." would also be misleading, as not every person can be impeached by the US House of Representatives. GoodDay (talk) 16:43, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Like I said, "I think it has some of the disadvantages of "only individual" in that it doesn't provide clarity on what sorts of persons can be thus impeached, but it sounds more natural while conveying that the uniqueness of being twice impeached goes beyond presidents." ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 16:46, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Try the "only US office holder...", since we don't need to say federal. The US House can only impeach those who hold or held federal office. GoodDay (talk) 17:02, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

I would think that "US office holder" could be interpreted to include officials at the state and local levels, or, if the reader was unaware that the House could only impeach those who hold federal office, anyone who holds an office in a company or a club. It's a little more precise than "individual" or "person" - the person has to be an office holder and must be in the U.S. - but it doesn't tell you which office holders. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 18:17, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Add "federal", to clarify which US office holders. GoodDay (talk) 18:38, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

@ONUnicorn The sources I cited before in the edits I had made changing the wording listed all of the impeachments to pass the house, with Trump being the only individual twice listed. So it is verified. SecretName101 (talk) 22:31, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

GoodDay brings up a good point. It's not clear to the reasonably informed reader who lives outside the U.S. that only federal officials can be impeached. Westminster, the mother of impeachments, can impeach anyone. It's not even clear to the average American that federal judges are federal officials, while U.S. senators are not.

Another distinction is that all impeachments of U.S. presidents were politically motivated and resulted in acquittals, while most impeachments were for actual serious crimes committed by judges.

TFD (talk) 19:17, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

TFD, may I tweak that? "Another distinction is that all impeachments of U.S. presidents were for alleged serious crimes and resulted in politically motivated acquittals, while most impeachments of judges were for actual serious crimes committed by judges." I assume that version is also correct. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:47, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Indeed, no US president was ever fully-bipartisan impeached. A. Johnson & Clinton were both Democrats, impeached by a Republican-controlled House. Trump was a Republican (twice) impeached by a Democratic-controlled House. The only US president who likely would've been fully bi-partisan impeached (not to mentoned convicted in the US Senate), was Nixon. But he resigned before it got to that point & the US House didn't bother. GoodDay (talk) 20:14, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

The larger pool of eligible personnel doesn't make the two impeachments more significant, the importance of the office does. "Only federal officeholders" waters down the significance of that — uh — achievement. One president versus many "civil officers", currently understood to mean "high-level Executive officers", although "it is unclear how far down the ranks of the federal bureaucracy this principle travels." TFD: Another distinction is that all impeachments of U.S. presidents were politically motivated and resulted in acquittals, while most impeachments were for actual serious crimes committed by judges. Trump’s abuse of power, obstruction of Congress, incitement of insurrection - those are actual crimes. The impeachment on the first two charges was not bipartisan but the minority of Senators who found Trump guilty was (Senator Romney voted to convict). The second impeachment was bipartisan, and there was a bipartisan majority of Senators who voted to convict, but it was short of the required two-thirds majority. GoodDay, is there a definition of "fully-bipartisan"? Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 12:43, 16 December 2022 (UTC) (corrected Senate vote on first impeachment from majority to minority) Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 14:40, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm sure this "bi-partisan", "federal office" and other no-doubt American political terms are really essential to the article, but as far as the rest of the world generally knows - or cares - the issue at hand is the impeachment of a President, not once, but twice. "Only individual" doesn't carry the same level of import as "president", and that's what's important to a casual reader. Trump wasn't an individual to be compared to - he was the president of the united states. Chaheel Riens (talk) 13:32, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Space4Time3Continum2x, a near 100% pro-impeachment vote in the House for either A. Johnson, Clinton or Trump, would certainly be a form of fully or near fully bi-partisan. Since you mentioned the US Senate, which only deals with conviction/acquittal? A. Johnson is the only president to be nearly convicted & removed from office. Nether Clinton's or both of Trump's Senate trials came even close to conviction or removal from office - or in Trump's second trial, banishment from ever holding office again. GoodDay (talk) 14:54, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

As others have said, can we now stop saying "bipartisan impeach" as if it were anything real or considered significant in the weight of mainstream discourse. And by discourse, we refer to historians, political scientists, and notable tertiary comment, not to cable tv or daily media. To put it another way, "bipartisan impeachment" is not a thing and it can't go in the article, so why discuss it? SPECIFICO talk 15:03, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

If a non-president had been impeached twice, we would need to say only president. Since no other federal official has been impeached twice, we can say federal official as that indicates just how unusual this is. Having said that, this isn’t a hill worth dying on and president sounds better. (Which is to say, I wouldn't bother to !vote.) As for bipartisan, never liked the term as it has been used when one person from a party votes with the other party. It begs the question, how bi-partisan and why. The word is too fuzzy. O3000, Ret. (talk) 16:08, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Let's also be clear that although this is inherently an American article, "bi-partisan", "federal office", "US office holder" etc mean nothing to an international man in the street, whereas the whole world knows who - and what - the President is. This is the point I'm trying to get across - is that the audience is most likely unaware of the minutia of all these terms, but when you say "president", everybody - and I mean everybody - knows instantly what position of power and responsibility you're talking about. Chaheel Riens (talk) 18:26, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

We don't want readers thinking that federal impeachment in the USA, is limited to US presidents. GoodDay (talk) 19:50, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Then you need to include the term "American" somewhere in the phrase, because "bi-partisan", "federal office", "US office holder" don't do that either. Although it's unlikely that in an article on Donald Trump people will automatically think of Sahle-Work Zewde and all previous presidents of Ethiopia... Chaheel Riens (talk) 20:04, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

As Valjean has pointed out, this is not the page for detail on "impeachment in America" etc. The comment that our readers will make some unrelated inference has nothing to do with the content of this page. For the minority of readers who suddenly become impeachment-curious, well... that's what wikilinks are for. SPECIFICO talk 20:37, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

@Chaheel Riens It sounds like you think poor of the world if you think that they do not know what an officeholder is. They have officeholders in other countries too, you know. SecretName101 (talk) 23:10, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Just follow the policy. Bob K31416 (talk) 01:08, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Well, that doesn't help GoodDay's argument that including such terms will identify federal impeachment as being an American matter then, will it? What I really don't know is why there's so much fervour over not saying "president"? Why so much negativity over this? Is it in some way not accurate? Does saying "president" lessen the import of the incidents? Chaheel Riens (talk) 09:27, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

We want it as specifically broad as possible. For example:

Widely regarded as one of the greatest Argentinian footballers of all time, Lionel Messi has won a record seven Ballon d'Or awards, a record six European Golden Shoes, and in 2020 was named to the Ballon d'Or Dream Team. True.

We could also say this: Widely regarded as one of the greatest athletes of all time, Lionel Messi has won a record seven Ballon d'Or awards, a record six European Golden Shoes, and in 2020 was named to the Ballon d'Or Dream Team.

Both of these make perfect sense and are 100 percent true. However, the article uses the phrasing one of the greatest players in reference to the previous sentence, which talks about Messi being a professional footballer. This is done because it conveys the broadest possible understanding of his power while still containing it in the well-defined box of all professional footballers, as the term 'athlete' is too vague.

In this case, Trump is the only US president to have been impeached twice. He is also the only US citizen to have been impeached twice, right? See this:

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

And this:

The House of Representatives... shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.

Therefore, he is the only individual to have been impeached by the House of Representatives, if we are keeping with this 'as specifically broad as possible' rule. Realistically, the president or vice president being impeached is the only impeachment type US citizens actually care about, so IMO we should just keep it at president and move on. Cessaune (talk) 09:01, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

He wasn't the 'only individual' to be impeached by the House, though. There were two other US presidents who were impeached, many judges impeached, etc. GoodDay (talk) 23:35, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

@GoodDay Clearly they meant to say "only individual impeached twice" but accidentally omitted the word "twice". I'm pretty sure you could have figured that out. SecretName101 (talk) 00:07, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

One has to be certain. GoodDay (talk) 00:09, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

@Bob K31416 Which policy? I'm not sure what policy you are thinking of or what it says on this matter. SecretName101 (talk) 01:10, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

See WP:NOR and your source. Bob K31416 (talk) 19:27, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

@Bob K31416 There’s no original research. The list of all impeachments per the congressional website shows that there is only one individual on it listed twice. That makes this claim directly supported. SecretName101 (talk) 21:08, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

It's not directly supported. See note b of WP:NOR. Also, see WP:SYNTH of WP:NOR, "Similarly, do not combine different parts of one source to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source." Bob K31416 (talk) 12:40, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

@Bob K31416 Fine. Here's a source that DOES state it explicitly. So no problem. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/our-founding-scoundrel-how-first-impeached-u-s-official-beat-n1256757 SecretName101 (talk) 19:09, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Well done. Bob K31416 (talk) 19:40, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Saying that Trump was the only person to be twiced impeached isn't meaningful to readers, unless they know what persons can be impeached. If the article says that Trump was the only person twice impeached, it should mention who these other people were. It's also confusing because most of the people impeached were guilty and therefore had no opportunity to regain a position that qualified them for impeachment. But the three presidents continued in the presidency following their acquittals, hence continuing their eligiblity for impeachment.

While I am not denying that the impeachments of the three presidents were for alleged actions that were considered crimes, there is no doubt that they would have been overlooked had the president been in the same party. it's also questionable whether courts would have convicted any of them, although we might find the answer to that in Trump's second impeachment.

TFD (talk) 13:34, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Which is fine to say officials or some other wording. My main point here is to gauge whether it should be broader than just limiting the claim to presidents. SecretName101 (talk) 19:08, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

"Only president to have been impeached twice" is fine. In fact just "Trump was impeached twice" would be even better. Excessive detail reads like athletic records with asterisks, steroid exceptions, etc. Lead should be a bare factual summary.17:36, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

One would think being the 'only' US federal official to be impeached 'twice', would be the bigger dubious honour. GoodDay (talk) 20:33, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Links in the lede

@Space4Time3Continuum2x : I see that this edit of mine might have its detractors. It came from a good intention, I wanted to make it easier for a reader to directly read more about a topic without having to look for it in the article... Synotia (talk) 11:51, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

I always assume good faith , I just happen to disagree that readers coming to Donald Trump's biography want to be taken to other articles to read more about, e.g., the more than 100 environmental policies and regulations he/his administration rolled back — a very long and very detailed article about the Trump administration. If someone is looking for info on "Trump" and "environment", a simple Google search for those two words produces the WP article as the top result. Also, this particular wikilink is a MOS:EGG that appears to lead to an explanation of "roll back". Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 12:53, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, why not remove all blue links in the lede then? Synotia (talk) 13:54, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Synotia, please add your thoughts to the section above, "Seeking consensus for individual link additions to lead." I am trying to get more links restored as well and would appreciate your comments. —Ganesha811 (talk) 05:55, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

COVID-19 response (lede)

I think, to add some balance, maybe the sentence on his response to COVID-19 in the lede should include a mention of Operation Warp Speed, which by most accounts was successful? 2405:201:E00B:6E35:A429:8F69:3C87:EAE (talk) 12:12, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

A singular part of his Covid response was successful, but, taken as a whole, it was generally considered unsuccessful/not as successful as it could have been. I don't think we need to add more to the lead to address this. Cessaune (talk) 10:05, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Tax returns released

This relates to the §Financial disclosures (and possibly §Wealth) sections. Feel free to add more reputable WP:RS to this list, so we can discuss proposed changes as the dust settles over the coming weeks. DFlhb (talk) 19:44, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

• Tankersley, Jim; Craig, Susanne; Buettner, Russ (2022-12-30). "Key Takeaways From Trump's Tax Returns". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-12-30.
• "What do Trump's tax returns show?". BBC News. 2022-12-30. Retrieved 2022-12-30.
• "Big Write-Offs, Tax-Cut Perks: Key Takeaways From Trump's Tax Returns". Bloomberg News. 2022-12-30. Retrieved 2022-12-30.
• Vazquez, David Goldman,Jeremy Herb,Jeanne Sahadi,Maegan (2022-12-30). "Key takeaways from six years of Donald Trump's federal tax returns | CNN Politics". CNN Politics. Retrieved 2022-12-30.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 2 January 2023

Please change the following, such that new sources 5 and 6 are added:

−

Trump dismantled many federal regulations on health,<sup class="noprint Inline-Template Template-Fact" style="white-space:nowrap;">[<i>[[Wikipedia:Citation needed|<span title="This claim needs references to reliable sources. (September 2022)">citation needed</span>]]</i>]</sup> labor,<sup class="noprint Inline-Template Template-Fact" style="white-space:nowrap;">[<i>[[Wikipedia:Citation needed|<span title="This claim needs references to reliable sources. (September 2022)">citation needed</span>]]</i>]</sup> and the environment, among other topics. Trump signed 14 [[Congressional Review Act]] resolutions repealing federal regulations, among them a bill that made it easier for severely mentally ill persons to buy guns. During his first six weeks in office, he delayed, suspended or reversed ninety federal regulations, often "made after requests by the regulated industries."

+

Trump dismantled many federal regulations on health, labor, and the environment, among other topics. Trump signed 14 [[Congressional Review Act]] resolutions repealing federal regulations, among them a bill that made it easier for severely mentally ill persons to buy guns. During his first six weeks in office, he delayed, suspended or reversed ninety federal regulations, often "made after requests by the regulated industries."

Detetrident (talk) 16:43, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: Thank you for finding sources to replace the cn tags. Unfortunately, I don't think the Politico piece verifies "Trump dismantled many federal regulations on health", as it mostly covers plans and initiatives to do so. Hopefully there's another source out there that follows through on what actually occurred. The Brandeis source for labor regulations is unreliable. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 04:14, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

I added these cites for health, labor, and environment. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 12:41, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

References

Infobox spacing

Currently, the infobox in the article includes no spacing whatsoever. I have been reverted in the past for adding spacing, so I am bringing it to the talk page. I understand concerns that any spacing artificially inflates the article byte count, but I don't see any other reason for not including spacing, especially since the infoboxes on every single other president's articles include it, and it is much more visually appealing when editing. Politicsfan4 (talk) 21:49, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

For clarity, you appear to be referring to vertical alignment of the template parameter values in the infobox coding, not spacing in the infobox rendering (which isn't possible to my knowledge). Here are the diffs of your attempt (or one of them) and its revert, which occurred in early August: [30][31]

I like neatness and I find the alignment aesthetically appealing; on the other hand, I don't see any real ease-of-use improvement for editors. I don't put much stock in your argument about a need for consistency in coding between presidential articles. It doesn't even make a difference in what readers see, and I think a lot of those consistency arguments are overblown. I also don't think the 0.1% increase in article file size is enough to worry about, especially considering that editors aren't too concerned about the article being already about 30% larger than it should be. I could go either way. (FKA 68.97.42.64, FKA Mandruss) 161.97.225.237 (talk) 22:52, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Why? Why would you do this? If anything, I find the version with the spaces to be LESS visually appealing as it introduces confusion as to whether the data goes in the empty space before or after the equal sign. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 23:53, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

@Khajidha: You're gonna have to make yourself more clear. It's pretty obvious when there is spacing that the data goes after the equal sign, because there is spacing. I don't see how anyone could possibly be confused by that. Also, spaces make the infobox more uniform, as every parameter is the same "length" in code, at least up till the equal sign, although this isn't a big deal for me personally. -- Politicsfan4 (talk) 01:47, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Information goes after the label. If you put all that space in the label before the equal sign, it looks like it has ended, and then it starts back up again with the equal sign. Having the equal sign immediately after the label is much clearer, because the apparent end of the label is the actual end of the label. To me, the varying length of the spaces looks more "ragged" than the varying length of the unspaced version. As for the question of consistency, I feel no need to make this box look hideous just to match other hideous layouts. If you want consistency, go take the spaces out of the others. It will be a great improvement. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 05:05, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

BTW, as a clarification note: the article used to have spacing consistent with other presidential infoboxes. It was removed with this edit in January 2022 in an attempt to reduce the article size, although it only ended up cutting 382 bytes off, with no visual difference obviously. -- Politicsfan4 (talk) 01:53, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

This is a remarkably silly hill to die on. As long as what is presented to the reader is proper and accurate, what is under the hood is irrelevant. Zaathras (talk) 05:22, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

@Zaathras: I'm not really dying on this hill. It's no big deal either way for me if the spacing is there or not; I'm simply explaining an option to restore previous spacing or keep it the same. I would quickly do it on my own in an edit but I have been reverted before for doing so, therefore, I'm bringing it to the talk page. -- Politicsfan4 (talk) 07:24, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Then, honestly, don't even think about it, this just isn't a thing to give a second thought to. And this applies to whoever reverted it, too. Zaathras (talk) 04:06, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

"Whoever" — that's you, me, and Muboshgu. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 08:00, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Derp, guess I forgot about that. Well form this point forward, I'm going to leave it alone one way or the other. Zaathras (talk) 22:45, 3 January 2023 (UTC)