Talk:Hillary Clinton/Archive 46

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The article is to too long

In order to reduce article size, I propose that we split out the following sections:

  • "Early life and education"
  • "Marriage, family, law career, and First Lady of Arkansas"
  • "First Lady of the United States"
  • "Cultural and political image"

—MartinZ02 (talk) 18:11, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

While the FAQ says: that "This article is long [because s]o is her career. The length is in line with some comparable articles", the 102 kB readable prose size of the article pushes it above the WP:TOOBIG 100 kB threshold: "> 100 kB Almost certainly should be divided". Something ought to be done. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:19, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
Being only 2 kB above the suggested split threshold does not call for radical pruning. The "cultural and political image" section could possibly be forked. The "early life and education," career, and First Lady sections need to remain part of this biography. --MelanieN (talk) 04:05, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
It "almost certainly" calls for action. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 04:12, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
Agree. And the argument that the article is long because so is her career is bogus. So are the careers of anyone her age. TFD (talk) 04:45, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
Most people don't get this much Reliable Source coverage, about this many different things. --MelanieN (talk) 05:18, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
Comparing the length of the article (in words) to her career (in years, I presume) is apples and oranges. While previous discussions have probably arrived at some consensus, the FAQ entry is extremely poorly worded. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 19:23, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
This has been discussed many times - her career indeed is quite complex and the article is only barely over the suggested length. I do not think it should be forked. Tvoz/talk 06:58, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
The article is 287 kB. WP:TOOBIG says an article greater than 100 kB "Almost certainly should be divided." Even articles over 60 kB probably should be divided and we should consider division for an article over 50 kB. It is longer than Franklin Delano Roosevelt (196 kB) who was elected president four times, led the country through the Great Depression and WW2, was a state senator, assistant secretary of the Navy during WWI, governor of New York and unsuccessful candidate for Vice-President and Senator from New York, most notable for the New Deal, creating the modern Democratic Party and being ranked as one of the top three presidents. TFD (talk) 10:02, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
The article is around 120k, you only measure the words, not all the wikitext and references. ValarianB (talk) 12:52, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
Thank you, I stand corrected. But it still exceeds 100 kB. There is a huge section about her relatively unremarkable Senate career which carries excessive detail on her campaigns, votes and committee memberships. Surely it could be trimmed and a complete article about it already exists. TFD (talk) 18:45, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
Perhaps some modest trimming would help here or there, but I am objecting to the idea of forking sections off. And let's try not to characterize one part of a person's career or another as "relatively unremarkable" - I don't think that's our job. Tvoz/talk 20:55, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
Indeed it is, it is part of weight. And it is the lack of adherence to that policy that has allowed the article to swell with trivial details. TFD (talk) 23:41, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
@Tvoz: 50 kB is the suggested length, 100 kB is a point where there is pretty much no justification for not splitting. —MartinZ02 (talk) 19:47, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
WP:RECENT is likely the culprit. We had the same trouble with the John Kerry article, during the 2004 US presidential election. GoodDay (talk) 06:10, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
Look, this isn't hard. The article doesn't need major forking, just trimming in some of the obvious areas. For starters: There is already a "political positions" fork, which is linked as "main article", so that section could be reduced to a one-paragraph summary of the highlights. That alone would probably bring it under 100 kB. Some of the detail could be trimmed from the campaign sections and the tenure sections but I really don't think it is excessive as it is. --MelanieN (talk) 19:04, 26 January 2017 (UTC) P.S. If people agree with this step, I will do the "political positions" trim myself. --MelanieN (talk) 19:07, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
Support trimming the political positions section. Since there's already a separate article, it would be nice to trim that section down. Thanks for offering! Michelangelo1992 (talk) 19:13, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
My suggestion is to split "Cultural and political image" into its own article. I propose titling it Public Image of Hillary Clinton. The length of this section perhaps justifies doing this.
Similar articles exist for the Public image of Barack Obama, Public image of George W. Bush, Public image of Mitt Romney, Public image of George W. Bush, Public image of Bill Clinton, Public image of Rudy Giuliani, Public image of Mike Huckabee, Cultural and political image of John McCain, George McGovern in popular culture, Public image of Sarah Palin, Public image of Donald Trump, etc.
SecretName101 (talk) 04:53, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
We could also consider splitting bulk of the section about her years as FLOTUS into its own article. Perhaps entitled Hillary Clinton's tenure as First Lady of the United States.
SecretName101 (talk) 04:56, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
What are editors' thoughts on splitting "Cultural and political image" into its own article?
SecretName101 (talk) 23:41, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Proposal to split Cultural and political image into seperate article

As mentioned previously, I maintain a belief that it is worth considering splitting the section discussing Clinton's cultural and political image into its own article. Similar articles exist for for Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, Bill Clinton, Rusy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, George McGovern, Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, etc. SecretName101 (talk) 21:23, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Still opposed, same reasons. This has been discussed many times - look at the archives. There's no compelling reason to change this and it's irrelevant that there are others. This is a featured article - it has been through a lot of vetting. Maybe find articles that are in poor shape that could use the work rather than mucking around with this one. Tvoz/talk 04:27, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
However, if length is indeed a problem this would be a sensible solution. Would it not? Also, I was mentioning the other articles not for justification, but rather to give a sense of the format of such an article. SecretName101 (talk) 20:50, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
I don't think the length is a problem. Tvoz/talk 05:26, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

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Rivals

Fortunately, on Wikipedia, we are allowed to use our intelligence in formulating judgements about the wording used in our writing. I have suggested that this sentence,

Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, Clinton lost the Electoral College and the presidency to her Republican rival Donald Trump.

could be improved by rendering it like this:

Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, Clinton lost the Electoral College and the presidency to the Republican candidate, Donald Trump.

I was reverted by an editor, no doubt acting sincerely, who said Rival is the more precise and correct English word: "To stand in competition with; to strive to gain some object in opposition to". Now, first of all, I will not argue that rival is denotatatively wrong. But I will argue that rival is not "more precise and correct". English words have both denotative and connotative meaning, and while "rival" does on occasion get used in this context (a political race), most writers probably avoid it because of the connotative meaning of "rival". Specifically, most writers reserve "rival" for competitors whose competition is not a one-off. For example, as I said in my edit summary, a political example of rivals would be Abner Mikva and John Porter, who were the Democratic and Republican nominees, respectively, for the Illinois 10th Congressional District for three or four consecutive elections. A more famous example would be Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, whose rivalry was contested in battles for the Senate, the Presidency, and the hand in marriage of Mary Todd. Rivalries also exist in sports, but they are not used just any time two teams play. For example, Gonzaga and South Dakota State played each other in the NCAA basketball tournament. I defy you to find a single sentence in any article in any publication from anywhere in the entire United States that characterizes that game as being between “rivals”. You will not find it, because rivals play each other multiple times before the rivalry is even recognized.

I google “examples of rivalries”, and these are the first two things that came up:

• From Listverse, a listing of rivalries of all types, including “Star Trek vs. Star Wars” and “Dogs vs. Cats”. No one-offs here. ( http://listverse.com/2008/08/31/top-10-ultimate-rivalries/ )

• From ‘’Fortune’’ magazine, a listing of business rivalries, including Coke vs. Pepsi, GM vs. Ford, Thomas Edison vs. Nikola Tesla. (http://fortune.com/2013/03/21/the-50-greatest-business-rivalries-of-all-time/ ) Again, all long-lasting rivalries. Because that’s what a rivalry is.

So no offense intended towards the editor who reverted me, but I think that the connotative meaning of “rival” is simply not called for here. It wouldn’t be the worst use of language that I’ve seen, but it’s unnecessarily deceptive, and I think it needs to go. I see that someone else has already restored wording similar to what I put in here, and I’m okay with leaving it as it is for now. If the Good Editor would like to reply, I am more than willing to discuss the matter. Unschool 18:03, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

"Rival" indicates that the two were in competition for the presidency, and is absolutely a standard term for a contest of this kind (e.g., [1]). Merely saying that she lost to the Republican candidate does not convey the same content. "Rival" is more informative than the proposed wording. Sławomir Biały (talk) 18:10, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
First of all, you completely ignored my comments here. You should know that that's hardly the best way to start off a sincere conversation.
Secondly, the word rival is not needed to "indicate that the two were in competition for the presidency". If they both were candidates for the presidency, then by definition they were, ipso facto, competing. So your word choice, "rival", is not adding anything to the understanding of what happened. Unschool 18:19, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
I did not ignore your comments. The word "rival" merely underscores that they were competing against each other. That's what the word means after all. I disagree that this is not the correct "connotative" word. Thousands of books on Google discuss "presidential rivals". I submit that perhaps the connotative meaning in sports is not relevant to the way the word is used outside of sports. And listverse does not seem like a reliable source for common English usage. The Oxford English Dictionary lists several uses of the word "rival", none of which involve Star Wars or Star Trek. Sławomir Biały (talk) 18:24, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
I did not ignore your comments. Well, perhaps you read them, and perhaps you gave them consideration, but you did not (until this last post) mention the connotative vs. denotative issue, so I understandably thought you ignored them. And no, I'm not going to say Listserve is the most reliable source (indeed, I'd never heard of it before today); I merely listed the first two google hits.
I think that the most reliable source on the connotative meaning of a word comes from people who have spoken the language for their entire lives. Your command of English is quite impressive, you have a knowledge of syntax and grammar superior to many Engish speakers I know, even some who are ostensibly well-educated. But it is also possible that, because it is not your native tongue, that a subtle connotation here has escaped you. Still, on the other hand, maybe I am wrong. (It wouldn't be the first time.) How about we just let the matter rest for a while and see what others have to say? Is that fair? Unschool 18:36, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Here arethousands of scholarly sources using the word "rival" in the context of candidates in an election. That seems fairly conclusive that this is the correct word to use in an encyclopedia. Sławomir Biały (talk) 18:39, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Conclusive? Did you even look at what you pulled up?
Opening of the first abstract:

The Third-Person Effect in Communication ( https://academic.oup.com/poq/article-abstract/47/1/1/1906961/The-Third-Person-Effect-in-Communication )

Abstract

A person exposed to a persuasive communication in the mass media sees this as having a greater effect on others than on himself or herself. Each individual reasons: “I will not be influenced, but they (the third persons) may well be persuaded.” In some cases, a communication leads to action not because of its impact on those to whom it is ostensibly directed, but because others (third persons) think that it will have an impact on its audience. Four small experiments that tend to support this hypothesis are presented, and its complementary relationship to a number of concepts in the social sciences is noted. The third-person effect may help to explain various aspects of social behavior, including the fear of heretical propaganda by religious leaders and the fear of dissent by political rulers. It appears to be related to the phenomenon of censorship in general: the censor never admits to being influenced; it is others with “more impressionable minds” who will be affected.

From the second link:

Personal genomics services: whose genomes? ( http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v17/n7/abs/ejhg2008254a.html )

Abstract

New companies offering personal whole-genome information services over the internet are dynamic and highly visible players in the personal genomics field. For fees currently ranging from US$399 to US$2500 and a vial of saliva, individuals can now purchase online access to their individual genetic information regarding susceptibility to a range of chronic diseases and phenotypic traits based on a genome-wide SNP scan. Most of the companies offering such services are based in the United States, but their clients may come from nearly anywhere in the world. Although the scientific validity, clinical utility and potential future implications of such services are being hotly debated, several ethical and regulatory questions related to direct-to-consumer (DTC) marketing strategies of genetic tests have not yet received sufficient attention.

Here is the entirety of the third link. Unlike the last two, this one is about politics:

Voter Turnout and Candidate Strategies in American Elections ( http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-2508.t01-1-00008/full )

1 In deterministic spatial competition involving a single policy dimension, the candidates are expected to converge to the position of the median voter (or the mean voter for probabilistic voting models in which utility is based on quadratic loss). In multidimensional deterministic competition, the prediction is that the candidates will cycle within the voting space (for most realistic voter distributions) so that some divergence between the candidates’ positions can be expected (see Plott 1967; Schofield 1978). However, research on the “uncovered set” (McKelvey 1986; Miller 1980) and the “yolk” (see Feld, Grofman, and Miller 1988; Ferejohn, McKelvey, and Packel 1984) suggests that the candidates will cycle within a circumscribed policy space near the center of the voter distribution, so we should still expect the candidates to present similar, centrist policies. 2 We apply the term “office-seeking” to candidates who attempt to maximize their vote margins vis-à-vis their opponent. This contrasts with candidates who maximize the number of votes they receive without regard to their opponent's support. We focus on the former motivation because, in elections with variable turnout, it is the candidates’ vote margins that determine the winner (see Hinich and Ordeshook 1970). 3 Several recent spatial modeling studies explore elections in which one candidate enjoys an advantage arising from incumbency, charisma, or competence, and these studies argue that such nonpolicy factors motivate policy divergence on the part of the competing candidates (see Berger, Munger, and Potthoff 2000; Feld and Grofman 1991; Groseclose 2001; Londregan and Romer 1993; Macdonald and Rabinowitz 1998; for reviews see Ansolabehere and Snyder 2000). We show that office-seeking candidates may diverge even when neither competitor has a systematic nonpolicy advantage, an outcome that does not occur in the models cited above. 4 In earlier work (Adams and Merrill 1999a, 1999b; 2000) we have shown that in multicandidate elections the candidates are motivated to shift in the direction of the mean preferences of their traditional voting constituencies, even in situations where no voters abstain. Thus, we see the central contribution of the present as highlighting the joint effect of voters’ nonpolicy motivations and turnout effects on candidate strategies in two-person elections. 5 In addition to the measured components in equation 1, behaviorists typically incorporate a random term, which represents unmeasured sources of voters’ candidate evaluations. We incorporate these terms below in our empirical analysis of voting in the 1988 presidential election. 6 Other empirical studies model the vote as a two-stage process, in which citizens first decide whether to vote, and, if they decide to turn out, choose among the competing candidates (Born 1990; Dubin and Rivers 1989). A drawback of these specifications, from our perspective, is that they imply that the turnout level is independent of the candidates’ policy proposals—a proposition that appears dubious and one that does not permit us to explore the ways in which variable turnout affects candidate strategies. 7 Expressing the relation in equation 4 in terms of derivatives, we obtain inline image, so that the rate of change of the Democrat's margin is inline image. 8 In addition, D's vote margin vis-à-vis R improves further because any Democratic partisans located between D and R near the position [(D + R)/2 + (B + TI)/2] switch from voting for R to abstaining, as do any Republican partisans located near the position [(D + R)/2 − (B + TI)/2]. 9 To see this, note that in our illustrative example each voter i’s utility differential between the candidates exceeds her indifference threshold provided that |B− |R−xi| − |D−xi|| > TI, and that this condition is satisfied for all voters when B−TI > |R−D|. 10 For instance, in the 1992 and 1996 ANES respondents’ reported turnout rates were near 70%, far higher than the actual turnout rates in these elections. By contrast the validated turnout rate in the 1988 ANES is near 50%, which is close to the actual participation level for that election. 11 We also analyzed a policy specification in which candidate utilities decreased with the absolute distance between respondents and candidates (the assumption we used in our illustrative arguments). This analysis yielded identical substantive conclusions to those we report below. 12 As discussed in Adams, Dow, and Merrill (2001, Appendix 2), the conditional logit choice probabilities Pi(D) and Pi(R) associated with voting for Dukakis and Bush are given by:inline imagewhere the specifications for Vi(D), Vi(R), Vi(A), and Vi(I) are given in Appendix 3. The probability of abstention is Pi(abstain)=[1 −Pi(D) −Pi(R)]. 13 We also estimated that approximately 19% of the NES respondents abstained from alienation, 14% from indifference, and 18% from both alienation and indifference (the details of these calculations are reported in Adams, Dow, and Merrill 2001). The fact that both types of abstention were important suggests that candidates should take account of both motivations when devising their election strategies. 14 As another approach to address these issues, we simulated the electoral effect of each candidate moving across the policy dimensions one at a time, while holding his opponent's positions unchanged at their actual (mean perceived) values. This approach, determining one-step policy optima, is similar to those employed by Alvarez and Nagler (1995; see also Alvarez, Nagler, and Bowler 2000), Dow (1997), Schofield, Martin, Quinn, and Whitford (1998), Schofield, Sened, and Nixon (1998), and Adams and Merrill (1999a, 1999b, 2000), in their studies on spatial competition in historical elections. The candidates’ one-step optima are very similar to their equilibrium policies, so that consideration of one-step optima supports identical substantive conclusions to those we report below. 15 To locate this equilibrium configuration we employed an iterative algorithm (see Merrill and Adams 2001). The equilibrium we compute is such that no candidate can improve his margin over the other candidate by moving along one issue at a time. For these exercises we placed no restrictions on candidate positioning, so that we even considered scenarios in which Bush took more liberal positions than Dukakis. However our results show that “credible” candidate positioning—simulations that place Dukakis to the left and Bush to the right of the median voter—is also optimal positioning even in situations where candidates can freely manipulate their policy images. 16 In the parametric bootstrap analysis, Dukakis's equilibrium position is significantly to the left of Bush's for each dimension at the .001 level. 17 The likelihood ratio test comparing the nonpolicy turnout model and the policy-only turnout model is significant at the .001 level. 18 The likelihood ratio test comparing the unified turnout model with and without the alienation component is significant at the .001 level. Abstract

Most spatial models of two-candidate competition imply that candidates have electoral incentives to present similar, centrist policies. We modify the standard Downsian model to include three observations supported by empirical research on American elections: that voters are prepared to abstain if neither competitor is sufficiently attractive (abstention due to alienation) or if the candidates are insufficiently differentiated (abstention due to indifference); that voters are influenced by factors such as education, race, and partisanship that are not directly tied to the candidates’ positions in the current campaign; and that voters’ nonpolicy characteristics correlate with their policy preferences. Our results suggest that voters’ turnout decisions and their nonpolicy characteristics, even if the candidates in the course of a campaign cannot manipulate the latter, are nonetheless necessary for understanding candidates’ policy strategies.

However, the word "rival" does not appear one single time. Not. Even. Once.
Finally, the fourth link (I'm not going to look at everyone of your "thousands".)

Designs for Discriminating Between Two Rival Models ( http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00401706.1965.10490265 )

Abstract

In most statistical literature on the design of experiments it is assumed that the correct form of the mathematical model is known and the problem is to select the experimental conditions so that some criterion is satisfied, for example, the parameters are estimated with maximum precision. Such an approach, however, ignores one important question that often confronts experimenters who, instead of having only one model known to be correct, have a number of rival candidate models to consider. Such situations can arise, for example, at the outset of investigations on the kinetics of solid-catalyzed gas reactions in chemical engineering. Often the immediate question in these circumstances is: how should experiments be planned so that the inadequate models can be detected and hence eliminated most eliiciently? In this paper a sequential design procedure is proposed for discriminating between two rival models. The basic idea is to select for the next experimental point that at which the models differ the most. Examples are included which illustrate the application of this procedure to problems in chemical kinetics.

Again, just like links 1 and 2, this has nothing to do with politics.

Look, this appears to be important to you. It's actually not that important to me, because, in my opinion, your version is not wrong per se, it merely provides an incorrect connotation. So why don't you just give it a break for a while--you just wasted time (yours and mine) with some research on genetics that you thought proved your point about the English language. Let's just wait a bit for others to chime in on this. I'll certainly accept whatever consensus develops. Again I ask you, is that fair? Unschool 18:58, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

TLDR is not likely to win an argument here. Many of the links do involve politics (so to answer your question "Yes" I did "look at what pulled up"). Any reasonable editor is also perfectly able to follow the Google scholar link and see that for themselves. You even still get thousands with this search, so the above borderline copyvio simply looks like clutching at straws. I should add that you certainly do not appear to be making a good faith effort to see you are, in fact, in error, as you previously acknowledged was a possibility, in your belief that "rival" is not in fact a standard term in electoral politics. This is not to mention the thousands of Google books Certainly, other editors are welcome to make this determination for themselves, and I am certain that sense will prevail. Sławomir Biały (talk) 19:07, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Many of the links do involve politics (so to answer your question "Yes" I did "look at what pulled up") Ah, well then, I guess we have different ideas of courtesy. I would never presume to hand someone a search results page and presume that they will know which ones I went to and which ones were relevant. This is not the only thing I have on my plate today. As to your claim that I am not exercising good faith, I can only say that I am mystified. I'm not the one sending another person on a wild goose chase.
TLDR is not likely to win an argument here. TLDR? Are you serious? I'm guessing that I wrote less than 50 words. The rest was text copied from your sources so as to show that I wasn't editing out the word "rival" from your sources where it did not exist.
One more thing: I am not claiming, as you just asserted, that "rival" is not "a standard term in electoral politics". Indeed, I presented an example of this in the edit summary of my original edit, and I gave another here on this talk page. And I can give more. For example, it is a common term in US presidential politics during the primary politics. Why then? Because there is not just one primary--candidates compete in literally dozens of races over the course of four or five months. So to say that Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were rivals would be more acceptable, though I confess, I remember this more from other years, like 2008 (Democrats especially), 1996 (Republicans only), 1988 (both parties) and so forth. In each of these there were contests between more than one candidate perceived as viable. (And, by the way, this viability is yeet another part of the perception of the term "rival". For example, Harold Stassen was a candidate for the Republican nomination in 1988, yet nowhere will you find him being referred to as Bob Dole or George Bush's "rival", because it was understood that he never had a chance.)
Anyway, we appear to agree upon one thing, and that is that we are not going to come to a mutual understanding. I would suggest that part of our problem is that we have a very different approach here. I've already stated that I could be wrong. I've already stated that I'm willing to hear what others have to say and to yield to that consensus. But your attitude is quite different; you want to "win" and "prevail", and you are "certain" that only you are exercising any "sense". Clearly implying that there is no chance that my position is sensible might, by more sensitive types, be regarded as a personal attack, but I don't believe that I've ever, in over ten years of editing, ever brought that charge against anyone, because my skin is a bit thicker than that. I'm only mentioning it to you now so that you might realize how you're coming across—as someone who is doing battle, rather than having a good-faith discussion.
So anyway, it appears we are agreed to await the input of others to determine the best English phrasing of the sentence in question. I have no idea how frequently people will weigh in on this; do you have a time frame that you would like to set for us to wait? Days? Weeks? Months? I honestly do not know what would be reasonable. Unschool 19:56, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
This last TLDR is frankly bizarre. And here is a link to a recent high quality source referring to Trump as Clinton's "rival". In addition to the above thousands of search hits establish this as a term of art in the abstract. Sławomir Biały (talk) 20:12, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Well, calling something "bizarre" without clarification is, itself, a form of dismissal without substance. That's certainly forceful and persuasive.  :-) However, your NYT link is a good source, undoubtedly. And it only took you two hours of searching to find it, not bad.
But I never said that the term was not used; in fact I stated that it is not "wrong". I merely stated that it wasn't, IMO, the best usage. And we've already agreed to listen to the points of view of others, and allow a consensus to develop.
You see, something can be "correct" without being the best usage. Even the article from the NYT you provide never uses the word "rival" in the article—only in the headline. And headlines are notorious for sometimes using words, not because they are the best choice, but simply because they fit the allotted space.
Because this is so long, I am going to place a new section below for people to add their thoughts. If you feel that I have mischaracterized your position, feel free to change the wording. But I am hoping to keep the explanations extremely brief. Unschool 22:21, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Rival or opponent?

Currently there is a question about which of the following sentences would serve the article best in the lead:

  • Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, Clinton lost the Electoral College and the presidency to her Republican rival Donald Trump.
  • Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, Clinton lost the Electoral College and the presidency to the Republican candidate, Donald Trump.

User:Sławomir Biały asserts that the former makes more sense, because, as he says, ""Rival" indicates that the two were in competition for the presidency . . . Merely saying that she lost to the Republican candidate does not convey the same content. "Rival" is more informative than the proposed wording". He asserts that there are "thousands [2] of scholarly sources using the word "rival" in the context of candidates in an election. That seems fairly conclusive that this is the correct word to use in an encyclopedia."

User: Unschool (me) believes that the latter is preferable, because "rival" often carries the connotation of an extended series of competitions, such as Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, or the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers, or during a long divisive primary campaign, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. "Rival" is not wrong, per se, but, unlike "opponent", may carry unnecessary connotations.

Excuse me, but are you two serious? This argument is a ridiculous waste of time and space, on an extremely small point. My opinion, as one of the longtime lead editors here? The neutral "candidate". I think we should move on.Tvoz/talk 05:34, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Polling

  • Rival - I am going with rival, because the way an election is conducted is like a series of competitions. Each state is won or lost, not to mention several debates, and many rallies which are reported on each day with various ups and downs. It's kind of like a Decathlon in the olypics, competitors emerge as rivals as more events are completed even though as a whole it only results in one overall victory for the winner...that's my view on it at least, no toe stepping intended. PersistantCorvid (talk) 02:08, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
  • I prefer "opponent," since rivalry could imply a long-term adversarial relationship. (Trump actually supported Clinton until he decided to run for president.) The term "candidate" incidentally implies there was a competition, so it would be fine to use the second version. But it is not a major issue. TFD (talk) 07:56, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 April 2017

I need to edit some things about her email Nazipageprotecter (talk) 14:03, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Not done: this is not the right page to request additional user rights. You may reopen this request with the specific changes to be made and someone will add them for you, or if you have an account, you can wait until you are autoconfirmed and edit the page yourself. EvergreenFir (talk) 14:05, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 May 2017

2601:19C:4502:9BFB:C0B:3450:AEBB:11EE (talk) 16:09, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format.Crboyer (talk) 16:15, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Legitimacy of presidency

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

There is a wide perception, especially here in Europe, but probably also in other parts of the world, that Hillary Clinton won the election. In Europe Clinton is more or less universally considered to have legitimately won the election, both because she actually won the largest number of votes (which in most parts of the world translates to: won the election) and because of the documented Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. The lead should take this into account to a greater degree, because this is not USpedia, but a global encyclopedia, and the article needs to reflect a global point of view, not just a US point of view. Even if a particular person is declared as the "winner" of an election within his own country, the world might not always agree and consider the election to be fair or legitimate if there are genuine concerns, typically such as another candidate having actually received the largest number of votes, but also if there have been such things as Russian interference in the election. We have seen this countless times when the election or appointment in question took place in Africa, South America, Asia and other countries Putin likes to mess with – in fact the Unites States has voiced such views with regard to other countries' presidential elections or appointments many times. Political scientists and international observers agree that the US electoral system is rather deficient compared to those of advanced democracies e.g. in Europe.[3][4] In 2016 and 2017 the world does not seem to agree that Donald Trump won the election in his country in a legitimate or fair way. There are a lot of reliable sources to be found which discuss whether Trump was legitimately elected and whether Clinton won the election. Even within the US, even within its parliament, many commentators and sources hold this opinion[5] --Tataral (talk) 17:58, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

The perceived "deficiency" in the Electoral College does not delegitimize Donald Trump's victory in the election, and I have personally seen no major rejections of the legitimacy of Trump's presidency from, as you put it, "the world". Notwithstanding that, I don't see how the legitimacy (or lack thereof) of his presidency is directly relevant to Hillary Clinton herself or the article bearing her name. I would suggest, however, that you raise this topic in the talk pages of either the actual election article or in its sister page describing international reactions to the election. Frevangelion (talk) 00:35, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
You would need not just examples of people saying that but a secondary source that explains how typical that view is. Bear in mind too that outside the U.S., the Democratic candidate has been favored 4 to 1 for decades at least. TFD (talk) 04:43, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
Americans have been Constitutionally electing presidents under the Electoral College system for over 200 years, longer than many European nations have been electing their heads of state (some still don't). What you're saying is like me saying that the Queen of England or the King of Belgium aren't legitimate heads of state because they aren't popularly elected, or that the various prime ministers elected by parliaments rather than by popular vote aren't legitimate heads of government, or that the European Commission isn't a legitimate legislative body because it isn't democratically elected by the people of Europe. In other words, it is nothing more than an editorialized personal opinion and does not belong in an encyclopedia article. Trump won, Hillary lost, get over it already. Rreagan007 (talk) 06:49, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
Please close this topic. There is no such "wide perception," only a mild delusion among some liberals. Trump won; he is the President; HRC lost; please get over it and move on.Zigzig20s (talk) 09:28, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Reference choices violate "Neutral Point of View" (NPOV) Policy

An explanatory theme for this section is:

What you can report about color of the objects in a room, is defined and limited by the color of the light in which you view them, and the color of the glasses through which you view them. ~ Penlite (talk) 14:04, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Bias in choice of Major-Media Sources

The principal mainstream media references (liberal and conservative) cited in this article reflect a strong liberal bias in referencing, and -- perhaps -- in the article itself... in direct violation of Wikipedia's official Neutral Point of View (WP:NPOV) policy.

A quick review of sources cited in the "References" section shows an overwhelming preponderance of liberal major media sources over conservative major media sources -- by a roughly 10-to-1 ratio.

As a base-line example, the References list refer to over 100 articles in the nation's two principal liberal newspapers (by a combination of circulation, influence and reputation):

By contrast, there are less than a dozen articles cited in in the nation's three principal conservative newspapers (by a combination of circulation, influence and reputation):

A similar distortion is apparent when comparing TV news networks with distinct partisan leanings:

  • liberal CNN (27 articles cited)
vs.
  • conservative Fox News (2 articles cited).

And that's not taking into account the dozens of other citations from comparatively liberal "mainstream" networks -- ABC, NBC, and CBS -- let alone the blatantly liberal PBS (whose news PBS News Hour anchor Judy Woodruff all but openly endorsed Clinton for President.)

To be sure, Republican media -- in my humble opinion -- is far more partisan, and far less reliable, on most points, than the liberal mainstream media. As a trained, experienced journalist, I recognize their blatantly partisan agendas interfering with their ability to simply report the news (recall Fox News boss Roger Ailes alleged claim that it was his goal to elect a Republican president in 2016).

And it might be argued that the Wall Street Journal is far more libertarian than truly conservative ("conservative" only where the power and money are concerned, and quietly "liberal" as regards social moral issues.)

And, it seems, the conservative papers are far less forthcoming, generous and ethical in their delivery of online content than the liberal papers -- the Wall Street Journal, in particular, in most articles, limiting non-subscriber readers to an introductory paragraph or two (especially in the archives), while forcing viewers' browsers' through long, torturous scripts that can dog, foul or crash browsers.

And, certainly, there are likely other sources cited here that could be fairly accused of being questionable and/or extremist (especially conservative extremist sources, for the trolls and vandals who seek to engage in malicious Clinton-bashing).

I absolutely support the idea of incorporating significant amounts of reference to articles from America's two most reputable newspapers -- the New York Times and the Washington Post -- the nation's principal "newspapers of record," which have truly earned their impressive reputations through a long history of mostly solid, conscientious, world-class journalism, in my opinion.

But that does not excuse Wikipedia editors from substantially balancing statements from substantial, credible liberal sources with statements from substantial, credible conservative sources -- a failure that is grossly in evidence in this article.

Consequently, this article, based on its cited sources, blatantly violates Wikipedia's official Neutral Point of View (WP:NPOV) policy.

~ Penlite (talk) 05:05, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

What in "Neutral Point of View" are you referring to? Facts are facts regardless of whether they come from liberal or conservative media. Note that since there are more liberal than conservative media and they are mostly more respected and more widely read, that they will be used more often. Incidentally, the news reporting does not vary much between what you call "liberal" media and the "Wall Street Journal" or "Fox News." What distinguishes them is op-eds and columns which are not reliable sources for articles. TFD (talk) 05:18, 6 June 2017 (UTC)


You claim:

"the news reporting does not vary much between what you call "liberal" media and the 'Wall Street Journal' or 'Fox News.'"

I beg to differ. I've been reading all of the cited newspapers and watching all the cited news channels for decades, and have identified very noticeable, often very significant, variances in how each reports the news -- and in which news items each choses to report.

Journalistic judgement as to what is and is not "important news" varies conspicuously between these various outlets. Their emphasis on various issues in a news item, and their choice of sources -- e.g.: whom they interview or cite as authortative sources -- often vary widely, as well, further distinguishing their individual differences in POV about a story.

That is why they have distinctly different readerships -- even from other major media outlets in their own geographic markets (e.g.: New York Times vs. Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune vs. Chicago Sun-Times, etc.).

Each of the major media outlets that I cited at the top of this topic have a general "Hillary Clinton articles..." web page that lists their stories on/about her, or in which she figures prominently. A quick review of those shows a noticeable difference in focus and emphasis in each outlet's news coverage of Clinton.

Compare the various sources' coverage of her most recent controversial statements, on why she lost the election. Do you seriously think that the CNN and Fox News coverage of that topic contain the same observations? They can both be completely true, and yet not draw the reader to, at all, the same conclusions about the event, nor about her.

"Accuracy" is not the same thing as "full disclosure," nor "even-handed" treatment -- and it does not, on its own, fulfill the fundamental WP:NPOV requirement.

In Wikipedia articles about political subjects, balancing credible liberal sources with credible conservative sources -- and vice-versa -- is the essential, basic safeguard against misrepresentation of the evidence, and bias in the article.

You ask:

"What in 'Neutral Point of View' are you referring to?

Answer:

"Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources.
"Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased, accurate, and proportionate representation of all positions included in the article."
"Neutral point of view should be achieved by balancing the bias in sources based on the weight of the opinion in reliable sources and not by excluding sources that do not conform to the editor's point of view."
"On controversial topics, Wikipedians often need to deal with sources that are reliable but non-neutral. The best solution to this is to acknowledge that a controversy exists and to represent different reliable points of view according to the weight that reliable sources provide. Intelligent readers will weigh the opposing sides and reach their own conclusions."

Even in the second leg of the Wikipedia foundation triad -- Verifiability -- the "Verifiability" policy includes this subtopic: "Neutrality," which says, bluntly:

"All articles must adhere to NPOV, fairly representing all majority and significant-minority viewpoints published by reliable sources, in rough proportion to the prominence of each view."

Under this clear, unambiguous Wikipedia policy -- in a nation where nearly HALF the ballots were cast against Hillary Clinton -- it is inappropriate to exclude their "reputable" sources (or cite them only a TENTH as often as pro-Clinton sources), in the references used and cited in the main Wikipedia article about her. It's an extremely clear violation of that policy.

Finally, if, as you say, in these diverse media sources...

"the news reporting does not vary much between what you call "liberal" media and the 'Wall Street Journal' or 'Fox News.'"

...then WP:WEIGHT would suggest that Fox News" should be the source most-often cited in the article, since it has the largest audience (even the arch-liberal The New Yorker concedes that "In 2010, one in four Americans got the news from Fox News" -- and who else can make that claim?)

I'm absolutely NOT a fan of Fox News nor other arch-conservative media. But as a veteran professional journalist, I'm committed to WP:NPOV. It's basic, settled, core Wikipedia policy -- for good reason.

~ Penlite (talk) 08:08, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Policy does not require that the number or type of sources used in an article reflect your or anyone else's viewpoints; what matters is that the viewpoints are fairly covered. Due and undue weight applies to particular viewpoints, not to sources. If you think a particular viewpoint is no.t properly reflected, that would be a matter for discussion; removing sources that you don't like is not up for debate. As TFD notes, we prefer reliable sources dealing with facts, not opinions. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 09:27, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
You say:
"Policy does not require that the number or type of sources used in an article reflect your or anyone else's viewpoints; what matters is that the viewpoints are fairly covered. Due and undue weight applies to particular viewpoints, not to sources."
However, a volume of sourcing implicitly reflects biased content, even if it's not a certainty. Certainly a TEN-to-ONE ratio of liberal-to-conservative sources rather obviously implies bias in sourcing, and in resulting content -- whether it proves biased content or not.
You say:
"If you think a particular viewpoint is no.t properly reflected, that would be a matter for discussion; removing sources that you don't like is not up for debate."
WHOA, there! When did I ever say "remove sources"?? NEVER. But that doesn't excuse the duty of the editors who used them to match them, in somewhat "proportionate" amounts (as precisely stated by the above-noted Wikipedia policy statements) with credible sources from the opposing viewpoints. I am not one of the editors who chose to violate WP policy by excluding sources whose viewpoints I disagreed with.
If, as you say, you and TFD "prefer reliable sources dealing with facts, not opinions," -- and if you concur with TFD that:
"the news reporting does not vary much between what you call "liberal" media and the 'Wall Street Journal' or 'Fox News.'"
...and if you concur with one-fourth of the U.S population who see Fox News as THE credible news source (a larger segment of the population than any other news source so far as I'm aware)
...then start prioritizing the insertion of balancing content in this article sourced from Fox News and other credible, conservative, major-media sources.
(And please keep in mind that I do NOT "like" Fox News and it's ilk -- and do not appreciate the innuendo that suggests I'm trying to slant things their way because I "like" them, or "don't like" their opposite numbers in the major media -- such a suggestion could only come from someone who doesn't know me at all.)
~ Penlite (talk) 10:47, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
I don't have hours to reply point by point. However, the Pew report you linked shows only one or two reliable sources to the right of center (Fox News and the Blaze) compared with over twenty to the left. I am excluding talk shows and comedy news programs. Therefore neutrality requires the article be overwhelmingly based on "left-wing" sources. If you recall, mainstream media overwhelmingly backed Clinton in the election and we are not supposed to correct the bias in mainstream media. In fact mainstream media is pretty right-wing compared with academic writing. TFD (talk) 16:57, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Another bias - East coast / urban

Some might argue that the excessive percentage of citations of the New York Times is attributable to Clinton's short political career there.

But that really doesn't begin to explain the negligible coverage in her principal hometown newspaper, the Chicago Tribune, nor the utter absence of referencing (except one very indirect reference) to the two dominant newspapers in the state where she spent most of her career: Arkansas (the Southern-Democrat-leaning Arkansas Democrat and its Republican-leaning rival, the Arkansas Gazette (among the nation's oldest and largest-circulation newspapers in the South).

One might easily assess this article's almost exclusively East-coast-oriented major-media reference citations as implicitly biasing the content -- particularly towards the coastal/urban/liberal end of the media spectrum -- and away from the perspectives, and news-and-information priorities, of a huge percentage of America.

~ Penlite (talk) 08:27, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Why would you think that her "hometown newspaper" would have more than "negligible coverage" when it's readily apparent that Clinton moved away from Chicago after high school and never returned? What are you expecting the Tribune to have covered about her high school years? NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 09:27, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
"Hometown" newspapers -- particularly away from the coasts -- commonly take special interest in the subsequent away-from-home careers of their nationally-noted natives, and put extra effort to exploiting their special geographic advantage in exploring the individual's formative past.
Further, the "hometown-hero-made-good" is common popular reading, motivating much more ooverage of that individual's subsequent career "abroad."
And when that hometown is a major city (Chicago, in this case) it likely has newspapers of sufficient resources, reputation and clout to do really good bio's and other stories on those individuals -- and the results are often more informative than simlutaneous coverage of that same national figure in the national press.
Further, major-city "hometown" newspapers (like the Chicago Tribune) have commonly fielded national reporters in Washington, D.C. and New York City -- and they often pay special attention to their hometown natives on the national stage.
~ Penlite (talk) 10:59, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Another bias - Two books = one-sixth of citations

Another bias: Just two books constitute about one-sixth of all 572 reference citations listed in the articles "References" section -- dwarfing all other books cited, combined. They are:

  • 57 citations (one-tenth of all reference listings) of book by (former Washington Post writer) Bernstein, Carl (2007). A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-375-40766-9.

While it is fair to note that these books were widely reviewed as fairly tough on Clinton, their toughness nevertheless came from arguably liberal perspectives -- potentially slanting or minimizing the criticisms. (Arch-liberal authors are likely to find and report some very different faults in Clinton than arch-conservative authors will find and report).

~ Penlite (talk) 11:19, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia is biased in favor of using the best available factual sources. If there are two or more sides to an issue, and one is published by reputable academic publishers, and the other is published exclusively on blogs, then Wikipedia will be exhibit a bias to the former perspective, often at the exclusion of the latter. This is a feature, not a bug. Sławomir Biały (talk) 11:17, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
You seem to be saying, or at least implying, that all the other books on Clinton (or at least the conservative-perspective books) are not "published by reputable academic publishers" -- but rather "published exclusively on blogs." Is that your claim? If not, why did you write this?
~ Penlite (talk) 11:25, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
No, I didn't say that. But you seem to be arguing that there is a bias in using books as sources, as opposed to other types of media. Books that are reviewed by the relevant scholarly community are typically the ones that get assigned the most weight. Take, for example, the book "The Truth About Hillary". This widely panned the scholarly community, and it would be inappropriate to "balance" the article by including references to it, simply because it provides a "conservative" counterweight. Sławomir Biały (talk) 11:38, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
Wow. You really didn't get my point. (Perhaps my fault?) It was not my intention to suggest dismissing the use of books, nor even to express a preference for other media over books.
My point was to show bias in the choice of which books were cited, and how often -- and the extent to which just TWO books (of many books about Hillary and Bill Clinton, and their world) were allowed to utterly dominate the book-sourcing for this article.
Further, though not primarily, I was again pointing out how authors from liberal major-media outlets (in this case, again, the New York Times and Washington Post) were given total dominance in this article's citations within their medium (in this case, books), further extending the biases that I previously noted, in the other subsections, above.
And, finally, it was my objective, also, to point out that just TWO sources -- from just THREE people -- amounted to one-SIXTH of all 572 reference citations listed. And, in a very major political subject -- with countless credible sources available, in all kinds of media -- that's simply inexcusable.
~ Penlite (talk) 12:00, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
I think it's wrong to focus the distinction on liberal versus conservative here. Let's focus on getting the best sources, regardless of the political affiliations of their authors. There are a lot of very bad sources available (see above). If there are other good sources, present those. But I don't think it is constructive to complain about bias in sources in abstract. We aren't going to add bad sources simply because we perceive their political affiliations to bring the article more to our sense of where the "center" lies (WP:GEVAL). We should be using factual sources, with a solid reputation for accuracy, period. The two books you are complaining about appear to have that reputation. If there are other books, perhaps with a more conservative outlook, that have a similar reputation, then present those. Sławomir Biały (talk) 12:21, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
It seems that you're insistent upon your own subjective valuations of sources, and in choosing to exclude those that you don't find credible, from your perspective. If this was an impersonal scientific or technical question (or perhaps even an economic or legal one), this subjective assessment would seem less peronsally subjective. But where a major national political figure is at issue, no one can honestly claim a truly objective perspective -- and that is why Wikipedia is so emphatic about WP:NPOV -- not only in the content of the article, but also in its sources -- as the above policy quotations state.
You say:
I think it's wrong to focus the distinction on liberal versus conservative here. Let's focus on getting the best sources, regardless of the political affiliations of their authors."
First of all, "best" is an utterly subjective term. Second, that opinion very directly defies just about all of the official policy quotations from WP:NPOV subtopics that I listed and boldfaced in the first subsection above. Please review them.
You say:
"There are a lot of very bad sources available (see above). If there are other good sources, present those. But I don't think it is constructive to complain about bias in sources in abstract."
Not sure what you meant by "very bad sources available (see above)," but I wasn't citing "bad sources," even by TBD's admission. I was calling on you to also use conservative major-media sources -- some of which even TBD claims, explicitly, have essentially the same news coverage as the cited liberal sources. Again, the WP:NPOV sections cited above make it clear that in areas of major debate, with conflicting scholarship from solid sources, both perspectives are due "proportionate" attention. Excluding the credible sources from a side you dislike is not acceptable under Wikipedia policy. (See the boldface quotations above from the Wikipedia manual.)
You say:
"We aren't going to add bad sources simply because we perceive their political affiliations to bring the article more to our sense of where the "center" lies (WP:GEVAL)."
Well, in the first place, I haven't suggested ANY "bad sources," so you're raising a diversionary implication. And, this article's bias issue is not a question of "Conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, speculative history, or plausible but currently unaccepted theories," as WP:GEVAL concerns itself with, but rather about hotly-contested, sharply-divided perspectives on one of the nation's principal political figures. This is not about being whacko if you don't settle for the New York Times / Washington Post perspective on Clinton -- a difference in values leads to a difference in the assessment of the relative importance of specific facts, and the extent to which they should be covered. The only honest way to resolve this is through those rules expressly quoted above.
WP:GEVAL says:
"While it is important to account for all significant viewpoints on any topic, Wikipedia policy does not state or imply that every minority view or extraordinary claim needs to be presented along with commonly accepted mainstream scholarship as if they were of equal validity"
This is about simply including "all significant viewpoints" and "commonly accepted mainstream scholarship" (the Wall Street Journal, even under Rupert Murdoch is hardly a lunatic-fringe publication) in a field with two very divergent camps of scholarly opinion and scholarship perspective and focus, on the subject of this article (Hillary Clinton).
You say:
"We should be using factual sources, with a solid reputation for accuracy, period."
Well, then, let's start using the conservative newspapers that I cited above. They are as clean, in repute, as the liberal newspapers I cited above -- and have (as my memory serves) fewer national scandals about fradulent articles in their modern history.
In fact, the Wall Street Journal is more trusted, nationally, across the ideological spectrum, than any other U.S. newspaper -- decidedly more than either the New York Times or the Washington Post, which currently overwhelmingly dominate the References section of this very subjectively-sourced article.
~ Penlite (talk) 13:45, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
Thank you for engaging me in this discussion. I must log off, now, to tend to other responsibilities.
~ Penlite (talk) 13:53, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
I thought we were discussing books with a solid scholarly reputation here. In fact, you carefully corrected me on that point. Yet now as examples of reliable books, you present The Wall Street Journal. That seems to be changing the subject. But my take is: the news section of the WSJ is reliable for factual content, while the opinion section is not, nor would be (for example) the Lifestyle or Food section. Nor would it be relevant to cite an article about French expatriates living in Iowa in an article about HRC. So, if there are specific facts that are not addressed by the current selection of sources, you need to present some specific sources. You cannot just WP:VAGUEWAVE and ask us to compare high quality scholarly sources with WSJ, as a whole. That is a meaningless comparison. If there are specific books or articles that you feel should be used to support specific statements, perhaps you should present those, instead of continuing this WP:SOAPBOXing. Sławomir Biały (talk) 14:08, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
When adding material about events long ago, newspapers are poor sources and therefore reliance should be made on biographies. Are there any sources we overlooked? TFD (talk) 17:06, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Bill Clinton's Scandals

Does every scandal that Bill Clinton's administration had need to be covered in this article, in more depth than on Bill's article? Power~enwiki (talk) 19:28, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

They aren't. As far as I can see only the Lewinsky scandal is mentioned. TFD (talk) 21:55, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
What about "Whitewater controversy, Travelgate, Filegate"? Power~enwiki (talk) 23:09, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
She was a key figure in those stories. It could be written in a more concise style. I prefer too to begin with the outcome (e.g., "there was insufficient evidence to prosecute") rather than leave readers in suspense. TFD (talk) 23:21, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Content wording

Would someone look at this? This is a featured article so the content must be at a higher standard. In the Wellesley College years section, around the 3rd paragraph, it states "Clinton would later write in 2003 that her views at this time changed...". The next sentence states "In a letter to her youth minister at this time...". If there are quotes that reflect this language then it should be presented. Twice in two sentences using "at this time", that appears to be a POV for a definitive point in time when she changed her mind, direction, or party affiliation, is dubious. It does not matter why she made a change and unless the source of the 2003 writing and the letter to the youth minister are the same, or her writing does in fact show she indicated twice "at this time", this is not appropriate for such an article. Otr500 (talk) 09:16, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Reverted POV in intro

Rather than inserting "...but Hillary!"-style POV into this article because negative information is in that guy's page, might want to clean up that guy's page instead. The response to POV on another page isn't to introduce it into another. Acalamari 01:11, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Note that my revert has been reverted, for no reason. This isn't Breitbart, Conservapedia or Stormfront - and as I said above, you don't fix POV in one place by putting it in another. Acalamari 01:13, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

They restored the comments; I removed after making sure they had been warned about the Discretionary Sanctions. For purposes of discussion, this is what they want to add:

  • She made many false statements during her campaign [1][2],
  • She was the oldest person ever nominated as a Democrat. [4]

References

  1. ^ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/aug/01/hillary-clinton/hillary-clintons-wrong-claim-fbi-director-comey-ca/
  2. ^ http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/james-comey-testimony-clinton-email-225224
  3. ^ http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/07/rep-trey-gowdy-rips-into-fbi-director-james-comey-on-hillary-clintons-intent.html
  4. ^ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2016/07/14/clinton-and-trump-are-the-oldest-candidates-ever-no-one-seems-to-care/?utm_term=.83347ba1d864

The user made it clear, from their edit summaries, that their purpose in adding this material was POV. But let's discuss whether something neutrally worded could or should be added to the article on these three points. --MelanieN (talk) 01:31, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

The user's argument boils down to WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. And it's clear from their past edits that they are quite anti-Hillary. – Muboshgu (talk) 03:16, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
That's true, but that doesn't mean all their ideas are bad. The "age" thing could be used in the article text, if it isn't already there. The "false statements" comment does not belong here; she falls in the "all politicians lie occasionally" category, while Trump according to numerous reliable sources is in an unprecedented class by himself when it comes to false statements. And I am open to discussion whether to mention the FBI probe in the lede. --MelanieN (talk) 03:36, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
According to a scientific Quinnipiac poll taken in the middle of the campaign, most people associated the word "liar" when asked what they thought of Secretary Clinton. "Arrogant," on the other hand, was used for the president.[6] In July 2016, CNN's poll showed that 68% of people didn't think the word "trustworthy" applied to Clinton. 55% of people thought the word didn't apply to Trump.[7] Everyone is entitled to their own opinion of course, but the thesis that "Trump lies more than Hillary" just isn't backed by the numbers (regardless of what the "fact checking" blog PolitiFact thinks). I'd argue that Clinton was criticized far more for her allegedly false statements than Trump was, and this should absolutely 100% be reflected in the lead. The criminal investigation is also probably lead-worthy, as this was a major aspect of the entire campaign (justified or not). Her age is completely irrelevant and has no business being in the lead. It was much more significant that she was the first woman to win the DNC nomination. Just my two cents. Hidden Tempo (talk) 03:57, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
Our statement has nothing to do with how many people THINK the individual tells lies. It is about actual evaluation of the truth or falsity of what they say - comparing the person's statement to the facts or state of nature, and leading to a determination whether the statement is true, somewhat true, somewhat false, mostly false, or totally false. Note that "liar" or "lie" does not appear anywhere in our evaluation, nor should it. "Liar" implies deliberate deception, whereas "false" can include falsehoods where the person actually believes that what they are saying is true, for example through ignorance or misinformation. Multiple fact checkers from many sides agree that Trump's usage of false statements is unprecedented, in a class by itself.[8][9] ("President Trump is the most fact-challenged politician that The Fact Checker has ever encountered... the pace and volume of the president's misstatements means that we cannot possibly keep up.") That is what our statement is about. It is not about polls. --MelanieN (talk) 22:30, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
I actually didn't mean to turn this into a "Who's a bigger liar?" debate so let me try to bring it back to the original content in question. Nowhere in this article is it appropriate to refer to Clinton as a "liar" or refer to "lies" she may or may not have told. However, her honesty was constantly called into question by both parties and was fiercely criticized for a perceived inability to tell the truth (again, not my opinion, but the fact that she was constantly criticized for past and ongoing false statements is factually correct). Certainly, this article's lead is just as deserving as the Trump article's lead of a note about this. A neutral statement such as "Her campaign received extensive free media coverage; many of her public statements were controversial or false" would work well. Similarly, the criminal investigation into her handling of classified material (regardless of any of our personal feelings about its validity) was the single biggest issue that dogged Clinton's campaign from beginning to end. She repeated the false claim that there was no classified material on her server endlessly, only to be refuted by James Comey last July.[10] Both facts deserve a neutral mention. Hidden Tempo (talk) 23:33, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
her honesty was constantly called into question by both parties and was fiercely criticized for a perceived inability to tell the truth (again, not my opinion, but the fact that she was constantly criticized for past and ongoing false statements is factually correct). You keep saying this. Could you provide us with some Relaible Source examples of how she "constantly" had her honesty called into question and was "fiercely criticized" for an inability to tell the truth? The election wasn't that long ago, and I mostly remember this kind of talk coming from partisans or opponents of hers, not from neutral sources - although neutral sources may have and almost certainly did call attention to individual examples of false or misleading statements. In contrast, Trump has been called a liar in headlines from neutral, reliable sources, and fact checkers have said his level of false statements was unprecedented. That's why it is the Trump lede. Do you have any comparable neutral reliable sources saying anything similar about Clintion? --MelanieN alt (talk) 02:25, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

@MelanieN I do believe we've been through this before, but unfortunately I'm unaware of a method to search the archives for certain phrases. Here is a smattering I found on the first page of Google. Note that I only included two opinion pieces, and zero conservative news outlets (as only liberal outlets are considered reliable here, which still baffles me). WND, Free Beacon, National Review, the Washington Times, the Washington Examiner, and The Federalist have done some really great journalistic work on this particular topic. That being said, even outlets that formally endorsed Clinton/condemned Trump documented her pattern of making false statements, especially during her campaign:

Liberal and non-partisan sources discussing Clinton's "lies" and "false statements"
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Again, this is just a sample. From the above list, we have two liberal RS that say Hillary literally "can't stop lying/fudging the truth." Another liberal source says that her candidacy was "marred" by questions of her truthfulness. A highly respected libertarian magazine contains the no-nonsense headline "Clinton lies about lying about her lies," and refer to her lying as a "tendency." It should also be pointed out that in that 300+ source list that allegedly call Trump a liar, "neutral" is a highly subjective term. I don't want to soapbox and writing the above list was hard enough as it is to make it BLP-compliant, but there's a Harvard media study that came out a month or two ago that I'd love to talk to you about on my talk page (or yours). The scientific poll out of highly regarded tl:dr - Quinnipiac also showed the words "crook," "untruthful," "criminal," "deceitful," "corrupt," and "crooked" on Clinton's word association list. On Trump's? "Honest" and "truthful." "Untrustworthy" was the only adjective that appeared on both lists. The first two contentious edits at the top of this section are highly due and strikingly well-sourced. The third seems trivial and not all that relevant. Hidden Tempo (talk)

These are not "liberal sources" and these are opinion pieces.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:05, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
Two of 'em are opinion columns, and the rest are either hard news or PolitiFact's "fact-checking," which is routinely used as a RS in political articles. Oh, and there's a scientific study in there too. I'd be happy to discuss the Harvard study and WikiLeaks revelations on our talk pages, but it would be soapboxing to do it here. Feel free to ping me if you're interested. Cheers. Hidden Tempo (talk) 05:13, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
Nope, most of them are opinion pieces, except for the polls ones, and as far as that goes, who cares? Oh and the one that says "Why Hillary Clinton is So Hard to Trust Even When She's Telling the Truth" which actually says the opposite of what you are claiming it says.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:17, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
This one also says the opposite of what you are claiming it says.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:21, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
This is utter trash. Where you really pretending this was a "liberal" source?Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:22, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
OK, so I count TWELVE opinions pieces, not "two". A couple sources which says the opposite of what you claim. And a few that while they don't claim the opposite, they don't claim what you claim they say. ... ... ... there's a certain irony to this discussion, no? Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:27, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

I oppose adding any of the three statements mentioned above. Power~enwiki (talk) 05:32, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

"Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point" applies: just because one thinks that editors are behaving unfairly in the Trump article is no reason to introduce the same problem into this article. And note that very few editors in the Trump article support the "liar" proposal. I would like to point out that opinion pieces are not reliable sources. Also, there is no favoritism toward "liberal" sources. It's just that most reliable sources happen to be liberal by your standards. For example, three of the four major TV networks are "liberal" (NBC, CBS and ABC). And opinion polls are primary sources, they need secondary sources for interpretation. We could not for example say that Obama has been described as "arrogant," without mentioning that it is a codeword for "uppity." While there may be some merit in mentioning Clinton's reputation for honesty, you would have to present the proposal in a fair manner. TFD (talk) 05:44, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
I'm not aware of any problems that I'm introducing here. MelanieN asked if I had any neutral sources that referred to Hillary's statements as "false" and/or "lies." I provided about twenty, I believe, many of which were actually liberal and enthusiastically endorsed Clinton for President. In regards to the opinion pieces, we use those regularly all over political articles. A fashion magazine is cited in the lead of James Comey, and Wikipedia's voice refers to the authors of that magazine article as "analysts." BuzzFeed, Slate, Politico, and nearly every other source I used for MelanieN's request is already used on this very article. There's an opinion poll already here as well (from Pew). But even if you delete the opinion pieces (I believe there's two or three in there), you're left with WaPo, USAToday and Politico, which all (arguably) are very friendly to Clinton. This material wasn't even mine to begin with so I don't much care either way if the edits make it into the lead, but I was asked to provide RS that support the edits and I did. I'm not going to address your comment about Obama because it didn't really make sense to me and I don't even want to go there...lmao. Also, I'm game to discuss the "liberal favoritism" you mentioned on my talkpage, but not here. Hidden Tempo (talk) 06:10, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
While we use opinion pieces as sources of opinions, we only use reliable sources as sources for facts. Indeed, we can find opinions for almost politician being a liar - that's a popular epithet thrown against anyone and everyone in politics. That these opinions are expressed by liberals does not magically transform them into reliable sources. When presenting opinions in articles we need to establish their weight, which normally requires secondary sources that comment on the degree of their acceptance. TFD (talk) 07:14, 10 July 2017 (UTC)


MelanieN - User:Ablust has valid point but I think 'oldest Democratic candidate' fits better at the article about the election, as would any 'untrustworthy' bit theme in the Bernie Sanders periods circa March thru May though I think that's less likely to be accepted. (I still say it was more said her deceptive/secretive and Trump nutty offensive junk.) It doesn't belong in a BLP, the mess at Trumps BLP notwithstanding. Markbassett (talk) 00:53, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Category:Critics of Islamophobia and removal of this category by User: Cpt.a.haddock

This article is in the category "Critics of Islamophobia", but there seems to be no source to this.

I am trying to understand if a source is needed to categorize it also for this and all other articles.

There are many articles where the article is categorized and it is sourced to a published article.

User:Cpt.a.haddock is removing this category from several pages even though it is sourced to published article. He says it is not enough for categorization.

See his contributions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Cpt.a.haddock

For example, at Vinay Lal its sourced to this article: Vinay Lal: Implications of American Islamophobia, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 50, Issue No. 51, 19 Dec, 2015

The question is, is this enough for categorization? If this source is not good enough, I do not understand how this article is categorized in the category without sources. --Sebastianmaali (talk) 14:23, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

I for one do think the source is probably "good enough", but for my own part, I think a bigger question is what the wider Wikipedia community thinks about the existence of this category in the first place. It strikes me as an inherently prejudicial title of the category. Sławomir Biały (talk) 14:57, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
There is no source for islamophobia in this article. The source above by Vinay Lal was used to categorize the Vinay Lal article in the same category. And User:Ctp.a.haddock removed the category from the Vinay Lal article. But in this article this category is wholly unsourced.
The issue here is consistency in using this category. It makes no sense to keep many unsourced articles in the category and at the same time removing sourced ones from the same category.
I have not thought about the category title (English is not my first language). What would a better name be? There is also a discussion if the category should be deleted..--Sebastianmaali (talk) 16:40, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
I don't claim to have the answer to these questions. I think nominating if for CfD would (under good circumstances) clarify the purpose of the category, and perhaps a more natural and neutral name would arise. It does not seem to be very WP:DEFINING to me, and maybe there's an obvious title that is. Sławomir Biały (talk) 21:43, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

The Subsequent activities section should be minimal

I took the liberty of snipping Clinton's comments on several Trump antics/actions. I heartily voted for Mrs. Clinton last fall, but she is not a currently-serving Democrat and being an ex-presidential candidate with no intentions of running again is really not a leading party position. She is not the voice of the Democratic opposition to Trump and her opinions on current political affairs are that of a private citizen, albeit an incredibly famous and still-popular one. ValarianB (talk) 19:35, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Her "subsequent activities" should be weighted appropriately based on their significance in press coverage. Your opinions of her aren't relevant, and the media coverage of her suggests that her opinions still matter. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:56, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
I agree with Muboshgu. Tvoz/talk 06:08, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
Further, @ValarianB:, it seems she's not done with politics. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:58, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
I also agree with Muboshgu. While it's arguably a "chicken-or-the-egg" question (Is she still an important public figure because the public/media is still interested? -- OR -- is the public/media still interested because she is still an important public figure?). But let's let the major media coverage arbitrate that issue, not Wikipedia.
Keep in mind that the post-defeat activities of most of the recently-defeated major-party U.S. Presidential nominees (e.g.: Jimmy Carter, Bob Dole, Al Gore, John Kerry, John McCain) have continued to be of broad public interest long after their electoral defeat, and -- in many cases -- had significant continuing political and/or social influence... and even been widely considered as key potential future Presidential candidates.
And, in any case, for at least a few years after their defeat, they are widely considered, quite logically, to be the de facto spokesperson for that broad segment of the population who nominated them for the Presidency -- and often the unofficial, but commonly accepted, primary spokesperson for the tens of millions of voters who were on the losing side in the last Presidential election... until the next Presidential nominee of their party emerges.
~ Penlite (talk) 11:28, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
In the cases of Kerry and McCain, they continued serving as members of the senate following their defeats. But this is indeed a valid point nevertheless.SecretName101 (talk) 03:42, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Private/public position

I feel that its important to mention that Hillary said that "you need both a public and a private position," as per wiki leaks. Every piece of bad press about any conservative is included in their articles. This is something that needs to be included. Source: https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927 Ktm4391 (talk) 12:52, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Wikileaks is a primary, and partisan unreliable (now Russian-controlled), source. You'd need to have that from a secondary/tertiary source placing it in some context. This isn't "bad press" anyway, since all public persons, including politicians, are careful how they state things in public. If a secondary source used this statement in connection with proven lies, deception, or notable and serious hypocrisy (not garden variety), you might be able to build a case for inclusion, but again, you couldn't cite Wikileaks, but must use the secondary source making the connection, otherwise you'd be engaging in a SYNTH violation. -- BullRangifer (talk) 14:50, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
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