Talk:Hillary Clinton/Archive 17

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Deletion without explanation

Why has the New York Times source been deleted?[1]Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:55, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

I see it's now restored, but it does not support any text in the Wikipedia article. Is that because we only describe the subject with superlatives?[2]Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:59, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
It was deleted because you were using it against consensus to alter the meaning of the text to make it look as if Ms. Clinton had taken responsibility for things she was neither saying explicitly or implicitly by either the source or her statements. I re-added the source as it does strengthen the claim that this was about security, not "preparedness" but the source from the NYT also states that Clinton stoped short of taking blame for events that lead up to the deaths of the diplomats, but you failed to add that proper balance from the source. The compromise is to simply leave the text as it is (it is accurate) and then add the source.--Mark Miller (talk) 20:04, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
The lead now says, " She took responsibility for the security of the American diplomatic outposts during the 2012 Benghazi attack". Was the security wonderful, so that she was claiming credit for it? Or was there a security failure, so that she was accepting some blame? Our lead gives no clue, of course. The NYT says there was a security failure, but we whitewash it. A very impressive whitewash indeed.Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:14, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
The New York Times says a lot more than that but you take a very convenient blind eye to it as well as the lack of consensus for changes. Calling it a "Whitewash" seems to say a good deal here as well, but perhaps not what you intend.--Mark Miller (talk) 20:21, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
I give up. Slant the article as much as you want.Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:23, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
"Responsibility" is a neutral word. "Credit" and "blame" are not neutral words. "Responsibility" is what she took. --MelanieN (talk) 23:14, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
I never suggested inserting "credit" or "blame". Suppose the lead said: "She took responsibility." That would be nuts, right? To say she took responsibility without saying what she took responsibility for would be insane. The lead right now omits to mention that she took responsibility for something that did not go well. What the lead should say is that she took responsibility for a security "failure", as the New York Times said in its headline. Is that POV? No, it's POV to omit it. I already put in the lead that she had a "leading" role in enacting various legislation. That's positive about Hillary. But the lead is not for positive information only, unless we want the lead to be a crappy specimen of Orwellian propaganda.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:40, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
I don't care if it's positive, negative or neutral. If it isn't accurate and doesn't have consensus it isn't included. You keep harping on blame and have shown you have a clear point of view that Ms. Clinton took blame for a "failure" because on a single headline from one source. You do realize that this is an ongoing current event and that everything on the events in question are still not entirely clear. What the lead says right now is: "She took responsibility for the security of the American diplomatic outposts during the 2012 Benghazi attack, but defended her personal actions in regard to the matter". It does, in fact, state what she was taking responsibility for, which was the security of US outposts during the Benghazi attacks. That is a neutral short summary of the accurate information from the body of the article. What you want is to assign "blame" for a "failure". Frankly that is far too broad and generalized when you are asking for such specifics. What is needed is for this entire section of the Secretary of State portion to be copy edited for encyclopedic value, proper due weight and balance where needed and to remove POV and politically motivated nonsense or puffery for the sake of controversy or sensationalism. This is a Wikipedia, encyclopedic article. Neutral presentation of content is important and it need not be flattering but it does need to be accurate and presented fairly.--Mark Miller (talk) 03:02, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
She took responsibility for something that went wrong, according to dozens of reliable sources. Our lead completely fails to convey the message that she took responsibility for something that went wrong. Readers should not have to click on the links or read cited sources or read the whole Wikipedia article to figure out that she took responsibility for something that went wrong. What we have now is a whitewash.Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:10, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
No, you don't get to generalize. Period. There is nothing in the body of the article in regards to what failure you are assigning to her statement of taking responsibility for security. Your original complaint about "formal" responsibility was actually baseless to begin with as that is in the body of the article and now you are demanding things that are not and throwing up other edits that you proposed as "neutral" like a shield against the perception that your main issue is that you want to blame Clinton and you want to assign a failure to her statement against what I am seeing in all of the sources. Where there failures? Sure....but this isn't the Benghazi article and that amount of detail into the exact failures and which ones Ms. Clinton has specifically taken responsibility for are not up to us to create or interpret. In the lead section of a BLP we should also be careful with how anything as unclear as this situation is be presented. It must presented as fairly and accurately as possible.--Mark Miller (talk) 03:22, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

(Outdent) I really have no idea what you mean by "generalizing". I have sought more specific language instead of generally saying that she took responsibility for vague stuff that happened during her tenure. The lead said:

She took responsibility for the security of the American diplomatic outposts during the 2012 Benghazi attack, but defended her personal actions in regard to the matter.

I have modified it:[3]

She took responsibility for the security of American diplomatic outposts following the tragic attack on the Benghazi outpost in 2012, but defended her personal actions in regard to the matter.

She took responsibility following the attack, not during. If we're going to talk about "outposts" then it is useful to mention that the thing that got attacked was an "outpost". Moreover, the "attack" was not a harmless asault that was repulsed; as President Obama has said, "This tragic attack takes place at a time of turmoil and protest in many different countries." The Accountability Review Board said it was tragic: "We seek to draw the right lessons from that tragic night...." News outlets like MSNBC and the LA Times have also reported that it was a tragic event.[4][5] I strongly object to whitewashing the lead about this. First, the lead was edited to remove that there was a "lack of preparedness". Then the lead was edited to remove that there was a "security failure". The lead should indicate that something bad happened in Benghazi, e.g. by referring to that event as "tragic".Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:23, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

'Tragic' doesn't belong, otherwise every WP article that discusses a war, a battle, an assassination, a murder, etc would have to be modified to include that. If you want you can change "attack" to "fatal attack" or something like that. Moreover, your other wording is confusing, in that it reads like she took over security responsibilities following the attack in a bureaucratic reshuffling.
Let's go back to the start; I don't understand why the original "preparedness" was removed, as that is what is at issue and what she took responsibility for: did the State Department prepare adequate security precautions for the Benghazi outpost? The basic thrust of what I was trying to get across in the original wording is conveyed by this NYT story: "'I feel responsible for the nearly 70,000 people who work for the State Department,' Mrs. Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the morning. 'But the specific security requests pertaining to Benghazi, you know, were handled by the security professionals in the department. I didn’t see those requests. They didn’t come to me. I didn’t approve them. I didn’t deny them.' ... In essence, Mrs. Clinton’s approach was to accept the responsibility for security lapses in Benghazi but not the blame." That's why I called it "formal responsibility". It's the different between the football coach after the big defeat accepting responsibility for the loss and the quarterback who threw five interceptions accepting responsibility for the loss. The first 'responsibility' is a pro forma 'the buck stops here' obligation. The second 'responsibility' is the actual blame. Clinton is taking the first but not the second. Now I'm not stuck on "formal" and I'm okay with leaving that out if no one else likes it, but that's the essence of what we should be trying to say. Wasted Time R (talk) 21:11, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
It now says: "As the person formally in charge of all of the country's diplomatic outposts, she took responsibility following the fatal attack on the Benghazi outpost in 2012, but defended her personal actions in regard to the matter." The fact that she didn't really accept blame is amply described by the stuff after the last comma (and the stuff before the first comma). Considering the many times she said "I take responsibility", I would feel very uncomfortable sticking in the word "formal" there. But I've stuck it in earlier in that sentence. I never had any problem with the word "preparedness" but apparently Mark Miller did (for reasons I don't understand), so I've left it out.Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:31, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
It's overly long and upside down again. And it still doesn't mention either security or preparedness, so it still isn't fully clear what it is that it's talking about. What about something like: "Following the fatal attack on the Benghazi diplomatic outpost in 2012, she took overall responsibility for any lack of security preparedness, but defended her personal actions in regard to the matter." Wasted Time R (talk) 12:44, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
If you're looking for overly long, a much much much much better example is the completely superfluous novella about smart power (I wrote a shorter explanation but think the whole thing is not notable). As to this taking of responsibility, can we please use language that does not put some limiting adjective immediately before the word "responsibility"? She said over and over and over and over again "I take responsibility". Not formal responsibility, not overall responsibility, not technical responsibility, etc. I was in favor of "security failure" (per NYT), or lack of "preparedness" (per WTR), but was overruled. Miller seemed bound and determined that we should say she was responsible not just for the outpost in Benghazi, but all outposts worldwide, so that's what the sentence does now (along with lots of hedging like the word "formal", and that she thought her "personal actions" were fine). Moreover, your new phrasing is bad because it suggests that there may not have been "any" lack of preparedness. Obviously, the ARB concluded that there was such a lack, and Clinton has explicitly accepted that. At the very least, an Ambassador like Stevens located in a violent Middle East country on 9/11 should have been lying low in the embassy in Tripoli.Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:44, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
The "any" was an accidental oversight by me, I agree with you on that count. Regarding the other, you take politicians at face value more than I do. But whatever. How about: "Following the fatal attack on the Benghazi diplomatic outpost in 2012, she took responsibility for the lack of security preparedness, but defended her personal actions in regard to the matter." Wasted Time R (talk) 02:25, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
That's fine with me, on condition that if that doesn't work out then we go back to how it is now. Regarding smart power, I can support how it is now as an improvement over violating Wikipedua guidelines on technical terms in the lead, but I really encourage you to either shorten or remove the whole sentence. It's not notable enough, and not concise.Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:34, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
It is worth including, because it gives her view of how American foreign policy can best operate, which is one of the main things Secretaries of State work on. The Condi lead talks about her Transformational Diplomacy for the same reason. I looked at the leads of the secretaries before that, but they're all way too short and don't say anything about their tenure at all - you have to go back to Cy Vance to find one that does even a little. That's not right. A certain percentage of readers never get past the lead and they deserve to learn something deeper than you can get just by by scanning the infobox. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:49, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
The Condi lead presently says: "Following her confirmation as Secretary of State, Rice pioneered the policy of Transformational Diplomacy directed toward expanding the number of responsible democratic governments in the world and especially in the Greater Middle East." That's fine for two reasons. First, it's concise. Second, she parted ways with American leaders who sought to cultivate and support useful dictators. In contrast, the smart power sentence is not concise, and it's been virtually unanimous that the US should combine military with softer power.Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:03, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
Whether smart power as an idea is smart or dumb, wise or foolish, insightful or obvious, is for the reader to judge. But she talked about it at the beginning of her tenure, she talked about it during her tenure, she wrote about it during her tenure, and she talked about it again at the end of her tenure. It was, as I mentioned earlier, the subject of a Time magazine cover story and other press attention. It thus merits being in the lead. (I have tried to expand a bit her motivation for it in the article body.) As for brevity, your Condi sentence is longer than the one here. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:28, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
[Transformational diplomacy is] "directed toward expanding the number of responsible democratic governments in the world and especially in the Greater Middle East." ****19 words****
[Smart power is ] "the strategy for asserting U.S. leadership and values, by combining military strength with American capabilities in economics, aid, technology, creativity, and human rights advocacy." ***24 words****
More to the point, Rice's doctrine caused change in the real world (e.g. see nation building in Iraq), and was also a controversial doctrine. In contrast, you've not pointed out any real world change caused by Clinton's doctrine, nor pointed to anything unusual or controversial about that doctrine. So, it still looks to me like fluff in the lead. Clinton said a looooooot of stuff repeatedly. Cheers.
I was counting whole sentences, but whatever. The Condi lead isn't too bad, but the body is so wrongly organized and so slanted against her that I'm reluctant even to bring the article up in my browser. As for smart power, the Time story considers the whole Libyan intervention an example of it in use, as well as a collaboration of Southeast Asian nations to resist Chinese territorial claims in the region, as well as various longer-term initiatives involving development projects, social media engagement, and the like. And it has been controversial in places - the Time story talks of foreign policy traditionalists who denigrate anything that isn't classic great power diplomacy and those who consider "leading from behind" unworthy of America. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:51, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Smart power

A piece in Mother Jones includes this explanation:

"Smart power" is not about the inherent value of diplomacy, the virtues of collective decision-making, or the imperatives of peace, justice, or environmental sustainability. Rather it is a way of calculating how best to get others to do what America wants them to do, with the threat of a drone strike or a Special Forces incursion always present in the background.

I'm not suggesting we include this or reference it, but it's something to keep in mind. Massimo Calabresi was the author of the big Time cover story about Clinton and "Smart Power". Here's Calabresi's own summary of his article, in a video interview with CNN. Accordingly, I don't think we're getting this right in the lead, which currently says:

She viewed "smart power" as the strategy for asserting U.S. leadership and values, by combining military strength with American capabilities in economics, aid, technology, creativity, and human rights advocacy.

That seems too amorphous, and does not cover Calabresi's main point. How about:

She viewed "smart power" as a combination of hard military power together with diplomacy and other soft capabilities, especially to assist or influence the world's increasingly important nongovernmental entities.

Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:14, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

The trouble with John Feffer's "Dumb and Dumber; Obama's 'Smart Power' Foreign Policy Not Smart at All" article in Mother Jones that you like so much is that it is a critique of Obama's foreign policy, and focuses mostly on the foreign policy areas that Obama kept in the White House and that Hillary didn't have too much to do with, such as Afghanistan and Pakistan and drone strikes and the growing roles of the CIA and the Pentagon. And this subject is better dealt with by others, such as Daniel Klaidman's book Kill or Capture. But this article here is not about Obama's foreign policy in general - Foreign policy of the Barack Obama administration is for that - nor is it about critiques of "smart power" in general - Smart power is for that. This article is about Hillary as Secretary of State. Nowhere does the Feffer piece mention women or cookstoves or gay rights or human rights or social media or any of the things that Hillary was focused on during her tenure.
The problem with the CNN interview of Calabresi is that the amount of time he spends talking about smart power and Hillary is very short - the interviewer chose to spend more time on her poll numbers and nonsensical gambits about her running against Obama or replacing Biden in 2012. That interview does not trump the written cover story in Time, and just because he didn't mention something from it in the interview, doesn't mean it isn't important, and just because he mention nongovernmental organizations in the interview, doesn't mean it's a major focus of the article. Again, the biggest focus of Calabresi's article is the application of smart power to the Libyan situation. It appears that you have not read the written piece - I know it's behind a paywall, but I'm sure you can afford the three bucks or whatever it is to get it out. And you aren't even accurately summarizing the interview - you've eliminated "technology" from the lead and the body when he clearly mentions it in the interview.
Finally, you eliminated "Clinton looked towards 'smart power' as the strategy for asserting U.S. leadership and values ...", which is what motivates the whole thing (otherwise it reads like she's just defining a term rather than advocating and using a strategy). So I've done a merge of my text and yours in the article body, trying to keep everything significant from both. See what you think. I've tried to further boil down that merge in the lead. I think it's best there not to introduce hard power and soft power, because then you have three terms all together - the lead needs to stay about Hillary, not about foreign policy doctrines. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:57, 28 September 2013 (UTC)
Well, that's a very scholarly reply, so I guess it deserves some serious consideration and thoughtfulness before I blast it to smithereens respond. Busy now, so it will be awhile.Anythingyouwant (talk) 13:27, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Smart power 2

The Time Magazine article by Calabresi says:


Likewise, in his CNN interview, Calabresi said:


As I mentioned previously, the lead of this Wikipedia article doesn't seem to mention anything about the point Calabresi was emphasizing about dealing with foreign powers other than the standard national governments. The lead currently says:


So, I'd suggest something that does more to address Calabresi's main point:


That's about the same length as the current version, but says a lot more, and tracks the Calabresi material more closely.Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:15, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

The first thing you bold is referring to Russia and various Arab countries, especially Qatar and its Emir. There were no nongovernmental actors in the Libyan action other than the obvious case of the Libyan rebels themselves. I also think it is a mistake to lump Hillary's advocating of the empowerment of women into an explanation of "smart power". She would be doing that regardless of what foreign policy doctrine she was embracing, as she views it as a moral imperative and of great strategic value. Take another look at the four links I gave above after "Whether smart power as an idea is smart or dumb ...", which represent various explanations she made of her approach over the course of her tenure. In them, she doesn't talk about nongovernmental actors much at all (there are a few minor references only) and when she talks about the empowerment of women, it's not in the context of smart power. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:58, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
She urged the Qatari Emir (al-Thani) "to encourage the rebel militias to unify", so that was an example of her building coalitions with new allies such as the various rebel groups (Qatar was already an ally, and is where the U.S. Central Command was based during the Iraq War; Russia was not an ally of the US in Libya, but has been a U.S. ally before, as in WWII). Anyway, even putting aside the first bolded comment from Calabresi's article, he was still linking Clnton's "smart power" to non-governmental actors in both his article and interview. I'll pass on reading her own explanations, since we're supposed to give priority to secondary sources. I feel like I've helped to make a few small improvements in the lead, and so will bow out for now. When I get a chance, I want to buy some books on Christie, and bring that article to featured status if possible. Incidentally, regarding what you call "lumping", would she still have been "asserting U.S. leadership and values" regardless of what doctrine she was embracing? I stick by my proposal here in this subsection, and recommend that you reconsider. Cheers.Anythingyouwant (talk) 13:13, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

references to Lady Macbeth

In the section on her husband's presidential campaign, the last two sentences refer to "sources" comparing Hillary Clinton to Lady Macbeth. I suggest these two sentences should be removed. First, a great many readers will not understand this comparison to an obscure literary figure, and second, the sentences amount to "this is what her self appointed enemies say," which does not seem appropriate for the article. Under the BLP policy, the article should reflect facts, not the consistently negative opinions of editors at American Spectator.Catherinejarvis (talk) 21:13, 21 October 2013 (UTC) And by the way, we should not get into a contentious discussion about who Lady Macbeth was, or why the comparison fits. It doesn't matter. The comparison is pointless, except to disparage a living person.Catherinejarvis (talk) 21:15, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Lady Macbeth is not an obscure literary figure; she is one of the most well-known female characters of the greatest writer ever in the English language (and the name is linked for any readers who do not know it). The fact that Hillary came under prolonged political assault during the campaign is quite relevant, because that usually does not happen with candidate spouses; it did not happen with Ann Romney or Cindy McCain, to pick two recent examples. The American Spectator article is worthy of mention because it sort of led the way and because many sources talk about it - see this Google Books search. The next sentence in the article says that at least 20 other publications made the same comparison, so it's not just the American Spectator. That is sourced to Lisa M. Burns' First Ladies and the Fourth Estate: Press Framing of Presidential Wives, a serious work by a scholar who has focused on political spouses and the treatment they get from the media. This particular fact in her book is sourced to this New York Times story by Robin Toner, which says "At least 20 articles in major publications this year involved some comparison between Mrs. Clinton and a grim role model for political wives: Lady Macbeth." These writers found the comparison a significant element of the campaign, and it is worthy of inclusion here. And doing so is not a BLP violation; this article is not stating that the comparison is true, just that it happened, and being compared to a character from Shakespeare is something that politicians have to bear; the Mario Cuomo article appropriately mentions that he was often called "Hamlet on the Hudson". Wasted Time R (talk) 11:02, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Women's Rights are Human's Right- Hillary Clinton

It belongs as part of the main page or as a sub section of it. 🍺 Antiqueight confer 00:37, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

No. This main article already has a substantial mention of this speech:
"In a September 1995 speech before the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, Clinton argued very forcefully against practices that abused women around the world and in the People's Republic of China itself,[154] declaring "that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights".[154] Delegates from over 180 countries heard her say: "If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights, once and for all."[155] In doing so, she resisted both internal administration and Chinese pressure to soften her remarks.[148][155]"
Doing more simply isn't practical, given the space constraints here. Instead, the new detail article on the speech should be linked to from this mention, which I have now done; thus readers can click through if they want to learn more about the speech. WP has at least a couple hundred detail articles about speeches, which you can see by traversing Category:Speeches. Now this particular new creation is poorly done by WP standards and likely would not survive AfD, but the potential for a worthy detail article is there - looking at this Google Books search, there are many sources that talk about this speech. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:13, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
No, this article is already obese at over 200kb (readable prose size is 75kb).Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:48, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Cool -I didn't think there was THAT much information from the other page that realistically needed to be kept and that perhaps a line or two here would be enough considering it is already mentioned. Instead I'll see if there is any improvement to the other page I can make and link to it from here instead. I don't know that much about her so I wasn't sure if the speech needed a whole page of its own or not..I'm not really comfortable making changes to the page as it is.-- 🍺 Antiqueight confer 16:42, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Edit request (better prose)

In the section Health care and other policy initiatives, final sentence of the first paragraph, change "she was forced to wear a bulletproof vest at times" to "she wore a bulletproof vest at times". Let's not be overly dramatic: it's enough to state simply that she wore a vest. 106.69.12.18 (talk) 15:46, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Done. Thanks. --Stfg (talk) 16:11, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

first sentence

Per WP:MOSBIO, it should be in the present tense (i.e. "is a former" not "was"). And per WP:BEGIN, "the first sentence should tell the nonspecialist reader what (or who) the subject is." She is much more than a former Secretary of State, as the rest of the paragraph shows. The answer to the question, "Who is Hillary Rodham Clinton?" is not "She was the Secretary of State under Obama." any more than "She was a US Senator from New York." or "As Bill Clinton's wife, she was the First Lady of the US in the 1990s." -- Irn (talk) 01:29, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Per MOSBIO, past tense is fine, as in this example from MOSBIO: "Cleopatra VII Philopator (December 70 BCE/January 69 BCE – c. August 12, 30 BCE) was a queen of ancient Egypt. She was the last member of the Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty to rule Egypt." Now, I grant you that there is a difference here in that Cleopatra has slipped the surly bonds of Earth whereas the subject of this article has not slipped, but that distinction seems less important than the fact that neither is significant for what they're doing now (decomposing and giving speeches respectively).Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:01, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
I think Irn is correct on the tense, if you look at the examples in WP:MOSBIO#Tense, the first sentence has to say "is" rather than "was". I'm okay with something like "... is an American politician and diplomat, who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State ..." I don't think "politician" is pejorative, but AYW and I have had this disagreement before in other articles. (As usual, WP is inconsistent in this regard - some articles use "politician" in the first sentence and some don't, with no rhyme or reason as to why.) However I disagree with Irn about the first sentence. Because she's had so many positions, the whole first paragraph serves the WP:BEGIN role, not just the first sentence. Then the summary biographical recap begins with the second paragraph. I think that arrangement works fine. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:16, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
Oh, I missed that part of MOSBIO. Sorry about that. But like Irn said, that guideline suggests "is a former", so I'll install that per Irn's suggestion.Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:21, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

(Outdent) Okay, this is what I came up with:

Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:36, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

That works for me. As an aside, I also don't see politician as a pejorative, and I thought it might be better to keep it shorter, but this wording adequately addresses my concerns. -- Irn (talk) 03:54, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 January 2014

I have found this:

"Illinois Senator Barack Obama who went on to win the national election"

in the opening summary paragraphs of this Wikipedia article. Please change to:

"Illinois U.S. Senator Barack Obama, who went on to win the national election"

The changes are:

Inserting "U.S." between "Illinois" and "Senator"; the existing construct could be interpreted as Illinois state senator.

Adding comma after "Obama"; the "who went on ..." is not a restrictive description, but only adds information about Barack Obama, who in that sentence has already been identified UNIQUELY.

128.63.16.20 (talk) 21:49, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

checkY Done. Thanks for catching this, you are quite right. --MelanieN (talk) 22:38, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Actually, you removed the reference to "Illinois" when describing Obama as (then) U.S. Senator. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.63.16.20 (talk) 23:23, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I did. It didn't seem important enough for the lead, and it made the sentence awkward. --MelanieN (talk) 23:45, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Watergate Commission involvement?

I'm seeing a batch of 'Net blogs and comments about Hilary Rodham Clinton being fired from the Watergate Commission for being "a dishonest lawyer". If true, I doubt that it would have taken this long for people to start posting about it. I find nothing about her involvement with the WC in this article. Real situation or a canard? Thank you, Wordreader (talk) 07:55, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Okay, so I'm a dumb, sleepy bunny. I was using Firefox search and did not capitalize Watergate, so it didn't find it. Here's what's in the article:
"Marriage and family, law career and First Lady of Arkansas: From the East Coast to Arkansas
. . .In 1974 she was a member of the impeachment inquiry staff in Washington, D.C., advising the House Committee on the Judiciary during the Watergate scandal.[52]''"
No mention of a "Watergate Commission" either in this article or on Wikipedia at all. Thanks again for your time, Wordreader (talk) 08:05, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
She was not fired by anyone. I have not seen any reliable, mainstream sources that say that Jerry Zeifman, who supposedly fired her, was even her supervisor on the House committee. The Bernstein biography says that Bernard Nussbaum was her immediate supervisor (pp 96-97). The apparent origin for this circulating e-rumor has been a 2008 column by Dan Calabrese, a conservative op-ed writer who started his own news service which then folded. It was then republished by WorldNetDaily and by some site linked to Herman Cain of 2012 Republican primaries "9-9-9" fame ... all of which are about as far from reliable sources as you can get but got it some additional traffic. Were there differences of opinion on the committee about historical precedents and how those should influence the course in the Watergate case? No doubt. Did they amount to some grand conspiracy to do in Nixon while protecting the Kennedys, as Zeifman seems to think? There are no mainstream sources that support this that I have seen. Neither the Bernsein biography nor the Gerth/Van Natta biography say anything about this. They say mostly that Hillary, like others on the committee staff, worked long, sometimes tedious hours, and that she and the few other women on the staff had to post a sign telling the male staffers that they were not there to make them coffee. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:06, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
A user has tried three times to add this to the article. It has been deleted three times by two different people, and I warned the editor not to add it again. --MelanieN (talk) 15:32, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Requested Move 7

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Speedily closed as no consensus. We had a very emotional requested move on this not too long ago. I strongly suggest that we either wait a bit longer to propose it again... or at least give a rationale that extends beyond two words. (non-admin closure) Red Slash 03:02, 24 February 2014 (UTC)


Hillary Rodham Clinton → Hillary Clinton – common name 76.120.175.135 (talk) 20:32, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Oh please, not again. See the history of this in the Talk headers above. Wasted Time R (talk) 21:17, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Support per WP:COMMONNAME. The fact this keeps coming up and getting no consensus every time is perhaps a sign that the current title isn't optimum. Timrollpickering (talk) 23:26, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose. "Rodham" is the last name that she was born with and used even after marriage for a while and that she chooses to keep. "Hillary Rodham Clinton" is her official name, see her official Senate page (archived) and her official former Secretary of State page and her signature. This was also the name she announced that she preferred when she became First Lady in 1993, see here. The serious media generally always refer to her as Hillary Rodham Clinton on first mention, see for example any New York Times article, such as this story from a week ago, or see any Washington Post story, such as this one from earlier today. The Times also uses Hillary Rodham Clinton to title its profile page on her. This is her name, and this is what the article's name should be. The fact this keeps being brought up here over and over and over and over again suggests to me, with all due respect, that some editors need to WP:DROPTHESTICK. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:22, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Per above, and my arguments given in the last extensive discussion, this is the name she is commonly known by. I don't even consider this to be a valid RM filing; a wiki-gnome IP user that advances no substantive argument, just a throwaway one-liner. Tarc (talk) 01:06, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The best, most reliable and reputably published biographies introduce her as "Hillary Rodham Clinton". We should be guided by our best sources. They probably like to stick with including the "Rodham" because "Hillary Rodham" was a significant notable person, pre-clinton. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:36, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

First female Senator from NY

I'm not sure that's lead-worthy given that many states had already elected female senators. By analogy, we don't say in the Romney lead that he was the first Mormon governor of Massachusetts, even though he was.  :-)Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:26, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Given that NY is one of the largest state's in the union, I'd say it's pretty important. Hot Stop talk-contribs 07:31, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
Well, here in Massachusetts, we think we're pretty big too.Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:35, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
I'm in Massachusetts too. Anyway, there are a lot more women in the U.S. than Mormons and when HRC was elected only about a dozen other states had elected female senators at the time. Hot Stop talk-contribs 07:42, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
So, given the small number of Mormons, it was even more notable that one managed to become Governor of Massachusetts. Whatever.Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:58, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
It is notable. Is it notable enough for the lede? Sure...I think so, yes.--Mark Miller (talk) 09:00, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
I think it's borderline to go in the lead, since the really significant 'first' from that period is first (and only) First Lady to run for office. The Women in the United States Senate article gives perspective on this ... she wasn't one of the first few female senators to win election, and she wasn't in the 1992 Year of the Women wave, but she is in the next wave after that. If I remember right, back in 2006-07 some other editors felt strongly that it should be in. It may remain in the lead now because it takes so few additional words (to take it out, you'd just remove "the first female"). I'm okay with it staying there, but it could also be moved to the article body (where it isn't now), as an addition to the last sentence in the "Senate election of 2000" section. Comparing with other leads from the list of early elected female senators, about half of them mention first in the state and half don't (typical WP!). I guess on balance I'd leave it in. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:00, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
  • I think it doesn't belong in the lede. I don't remember hearing or reading anyone making something of her being the first female NY senator. The lede is currently too long. I'd cut "After moving to the state, Clinton was elected the first female Senator from New York; she is the only First Lady ever to have run for public office" to "In her eighth year as First Lady, Clinton ran for and was elected Senator for New York." --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:25, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
Like I said, I'd be okay with removing "the first female". But not removing the rest; we have to briefly explain why she was the senator from New York, not Arkansas or Illinois, and that she is the only First Lady ever to have run for office is highly remarked upon. Google prefilled this "hillary clinton is the only first lady ever to be elected to public office" query when I started typing it and it returns over 100,000 hits. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:38, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
There is room in the body to expand on things in the lede. Don't be steered by these google things. Google is influenced by bored kids interested in simple trivia. Do reliable sources, do the published biographies, point to "first female NY senator" in their first few hundred words? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:11, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
I wasn't steered by Google hits, just using it as backing evidence for the "remember hearing or reading anyone making something of" test that you used. This lead here is a 600-word mini-biography written with the assumption that the reader won't go on the article body (WP:LEAD: "The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview"), which is a true assumption for some percentage of readers (exactly what percentage would be great to know, but I've never seen a usage study that tells us). Is "only First Lady ever to have run for public office" one of those things that such lead-only readers need to know? Definitely yes. Is "first female Senator from New York" one of those things? Borderline, to me. We'll see what some more others think. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:41, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
As a historical milestone it is not important enough for an already-bloated lead, given how common female senators were. The only way to justify it in the lead would be if her gender substantially affected the outcome of the primary or the general election. Did it?Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:10, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes, in the sense that her gender was a constant theme of this particular election: her time as First Lady; was she really capable on her own or was she taking advantage of her husband's position; her riding of wave of sympathy as a scorned wife in the wake of the Lewinsky scandal; her "listening tour"; the kiss with Suha Arafat; Lazio invading her personal space during a debate; and so on. No, in the sense that I doubt there was any real barrier to a woman being elected Senator in New York by 2000. Wasted Time R (talk) 16:15, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
Okay, then we ought to leave in the lead that she was the first First Lady in elective office, and remove that she was the first female NY senator. (Which seems about as relevant as that she was the first New York senator from Illinois via Wellesley via Arkansas). Lazio would have been screwing up her personal space even if she had been running to be the 5th woman senator from NY.Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:21, 9 March 2014 (UTC)


Harvard Law episode

Should Hillary's story about not going to Harvard Law School and the reason why be in the main text or a Note? User:Dezastru says main text, because it's "more than just an aside - she's made the fight for gender equality a key focus of her political career, and this recollection shows how important it was for her even at that early point in her youth". I say it belongs in a Note, because:

  • even women who didn't focus on gender politics would be put off by comments like this
  • Yale didn't treat her this way, a school just as good, so she didn't suffer any loss (compared to, say, Sandra Day O'Connor or Ruth Bader Ginsberg, both of whom were shut out of the most desirable jobs early in their careers)
  • it's only her version of the tale, there's no corroboration or other side of the story that I've seen, which means we should probably give it a little less weight
  • it disrupts the flow of the narrative - instead of the reader getting into her time and accomplishments at Yale, they are immediately disrupted by thinking about Harvard
  • it's less important than other things that the article shows in Notes (such as the full "Tammy Wynette" and "baking cookies" remarks, or the details behind the "vast right-wing conspiracy", or the "What difference at this point does it make?" statement at Senate hearings, just to pick three).

The structure of the article is to keep the narrative moving forward without getting bogged down in matters like this, and I think the Harvard Law episode is thus best dealt with in a Note. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:12, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Even women who didn't focus on gender politics would be put off by similar comments, but that doesn't mean that they would have decided to go to a different law school based on those comments, or that they would have made a point many years later, when recalling moments in their lives that left lasting impressions, of sharing the experience with others. It's only her version of the tale – and attributed as such in the text; only her version matters because it's the recollection, her understanding of events that shaped her life, that matters, not whether the incident occurred exactly as she says it did. If she says this incident strongly influenced a major decision she made in life, then that should be what we report. (If some other evidence were to surface that would pose a reasonable challenge to the accuracy of her recollection, then we would report that too.) The Tammy Wynette, baking cookies, and "vast right-wing conspiracy" incidents are all at least mentioned in the text, even if additional details are provided in the notes; yet you are arguing to put everything the article says about her recollection of the Harvard professor's remark in the notes. If there is an issue with 'breaking the flow' and getting the reader right into her time at Yale, just move the mention of the Harvard professor's remark to the beginning - ie, talk about how she decided which law school to attend before getting into which one she actually enrolled at and what happened while she was there. Dezastru (talk) 14:16, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
WTR, I may as well chime in before my latest ArbCom appearance precludes it. Perhaps there is an analogy here to be made with her choice to attend college where no males were allowed at all. If the Harvard incident goes in main text, maybe this Wellesley aspect should go with it.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:42, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
First of all, Hillary says in Living History page 38 that "I was leaning towards Yale anyway, but this encounter removed any doubts about my choice." So it wasn't the deciding factor. Secondly, whether to go to Harvard Law or Yale Law is not really a major life decision - the two are practically identical in terms of quality and getting you on the inside track to the upper crust of American life. You could flip a coin and your general future would be the same either way (modulo the random accidents of who you happen to meet in either place, such as future spouses). By contrast, for example, marrying and going to Arkansas with Bill versus staying single in Washington where she had promising career prospects was a major life decision. As for Wellesley, in Living History, she says that she applied to it and to Smith based upon the recommendation of two of her high school teachers because "if [you] go to a women's college, [you] could concentrate on your studies during the week and have fun on the weekends." She didn't visit either college and picked Wellesley based on liking photographs of its campus. (Things were simpler back then; I picked the college I went to on roughly the same criteria, and also never visited it.) So User:Anythingyouwant, I don't think there are any reasons to delve into this either. But I do think you're an absolute masochist, ending up at ArbCom over gun control articles!? After all your issues with abortion articles?? Next I suggest you get into Israeli-Palestinian topics as well as naming disputes in the Balkans ... Wasted Time R (talk) 01:30, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
Yes, a masochist who will probably soon face the ultimate pleasure at Wikipedia, though undeservedly so I might add. And just why does Hillary begrudge Professor Charles Kingsfield wanting his students to study during the week and play on the weekends?  :-) Take it easy.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:51, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
Wasted, you might want to look up the definition of "deciding factor" in a good dictionary. Dezastru (talk) 02:01, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
No sympathy for my predicament, Dezastru? BTW, I'm with Wasted on this one, it's just some filler for her six-figure speeches.  :-)Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:05, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
Dezastru, I don't see this phrase in any of the dictionaries I have, but if factor A is 75% responsible for a decision and factor B is 25% responsible, seems to me that if we mention either factor, it should be A. In this case I think we should just say she went to Yale and be done with it, which is why I never put the Harvard episode in the article in the first place. But I'm willing to compromise and include it as a Note. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:13, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
Feel free to add any other factors Clinton has said contributed to her decision to attend Yale instead of Harvard, and feel free to put those other ones in a note. Her specific remark about how the Harvard professor's comment affected her decision-making on this issue should be in the body of the article, not in a note. She has recounted the incident a number of times in public. She mentioned it in her 2003 memoir; she mentioned it at a visit to her undergraduate alma mater, Wellesley, in 2007;[6] she brought it up again as she talked about the course of her life during a black-tie gala just 3 months ago.[7] Dezastru (talk) 03:53, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 April 2014

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 02:16, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Hillary and the bin Laden raid decision

User:Dezastru, here are the relevant passages from the Mark Bowden book The Finish, which you have misinterpreted from that CNN interview. It concerns the big, final approval meeting of April 28 in the White House Situation Room, where many advisors were present.

page 198: "In fact, there was overwhelming support [in the meeting] for launching the raid."

page 201: "Nearly everyone present favored the raid." [Then describes the three who objected - Biden (no raid at all), Gates and Cartwright (wanted a specialized drone strike instead of the special forces raid]

page 203: "Everyone else favored sending in the SEALs. At first it didn't seem like Clinton would. She had famously faulted Obama years earlier for asserting that he would take a shot in Pakistan unilaterally if there was a good chance of getting bin Laden, and now, as secretary of state, she would bear the brunt of the diplomatic fallout if he did. Presenting a detailed assessment of pros and cons, she outlined the likely dire consequences for the U.S.-Pakistan relationship but wound up concluding that, because it was built more on mutual dependence than friendship and trust, it would likely survive. Someone pointed out that if going after bin Laden was enough to destroy the relationship, it was probably doomed anyway. Suspense built as Clinton worked her way around to her surprising bottom line. They could not ignore a chance to get Osama bin Laden. It was too important to the country. It outweighed the risks. Send in the SEALs."

page 203: "Admiral Mullen, the president's top military adviser, gave a detailed PowerPoint presentation before delivering his verdict. McRaven's rehearsals for him and the others had achieved the desired effect. Mullen said he had such high confidence in the SEAL team that he advocated launching the raid."

page 203-4: "Brennan, Donilon, Clapper, Panetta, and Morell all agreed. Brennan had long believed in his bones that it was bin Laden hiding in the compound, and if they indeed had found him, he argued, they had to go after him. The CIA director felt particularly strongly about it, which was not unexpected. This had been his project all along, and the analysts who worked for him were so eager to go in that they would have felt betrayed by their boss if he hadn't supported them. The former congressman told Obama that he ought to ask himself, "What would the average American say if he knew we had the best chance of getting bin Laden since Tora Bora and we didn't take a shot?" And going in on the ground would give them the proof they needed to make the mission worthwhile, or, possibly, gave them a chance of slipping out if bin Laden was not there."

So when you say that "Clinton was one of two senior national security advisors, the other being CIA Director Leon Panetta, who argued most strongly for President Obama to order U.S. special forces to conduct a raid to capture or kill Osama bin Laden", yes that it true about Pannetta, but is natural and unremarkable given his institutional representation. It is not true about Hillary - yes she favored doing it, but so did nearly every other advisor, and often just as strongly, such as Mullen and Brennan just to name two.

The CNN interview you are using as a source does not contradict this - Amanpour asks "Who do you think amongst his circle were those who were egging him on or agreeing with him? And who were those pulling back? Who did he really listen to?" and Bowden responds that Pannetta was the "was the most enthusiastic advocate of sending in the SEALs" and then goes on about Hillary "surprised everyone in the room". In any case, the definitive source is what Bowden wrote in his book, not what he was trying to cram into the little sound bites that TV interviews give you. The other source, the LA Times article about some Q-and-A Hillary did after a recent speech, is useless as a source - it's some reporter saying what some other reporter said what some state legislator said about what Hillary said about the April 28 meeting. Even if it is correct that Hillary's playing up her role compared to Biden, that just bears out JFK's famous saying, "Victory has a thousand fathers while defeat is an orphan." Hillary was right about going ahead with the bin Laden raid, but so were a lot of other advisors, and this article should not overstate her role. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:38, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

The decision to go after bin Laden – in Pakistan without advance notification of Pakistani authorities, and with a fairly high degree of uncertainty in the intelligence on whether the person they had been monitoring at the target site was actually bin Laden – was one of the most significant foreign policy and national security events of Obama's presidency, and of Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State. The potential diplomatic (not to mention domestic) fallout that would have resulted from a failed mission could have been overwhelming. Yet the version of the article you are arguing for devotes a mere single line to the whole incident, and only says that Clinton played a role in the decision to not release the photographs of bin Laden's remains after the mission had been completed. Do you really think that the one thing about the mission that readers of this article will be interested in is that Clinton argued against releasing the photographs? And of those of us who were closely following the news of these events at the time, how many even recall the debate about whether to release the photos? Or paid attention to the fact that Clinton had argued against releasing them, once that information was made public?
I've rewritten[8] the section to include the point that a number of advisors apart from Clinton favored ordering the raid. The section does need to mention that this was a difficult decision for the administration and that Clinton argued in favor of the raid. Bowen's is not the only account available; Bowen was not in the room at the time (other who were have said that the advice was conflicting); and Bowen himself has said that Clinton's opinion was very influential.
In April 2011 internal deliberations of the president's innermost circle of advisors over whether to order U.S. special forces to conduct a raid into Pakistan to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, Obama had received conflicting advice.[9][10] Clinton was among those who argued that the President should order the raid.[11][12] Following completion of the mission, which resulted in bin Laden's death, Clinton played a key role in the administration's decision not to release photographs of the dead al-Qaeda leader.[13]
Dezastru (talk) 16:44, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
I think we are making progress. You are right that the article needs to say where Clinton stood on the raid decision; I didn't add it originally, because this kind of background wasn't known then, but it was an omission on my part not to add it later.
I've consulted another source, the recent Allen and Parnes Sec State years bio HRC, pages 233 to 238. Of course it focuses on the role of Hillary more than others, but generally agrees with Bowden's narrative, and indeed the back matter notes indicate Bowden's magazine article version was a main source. The main area whether they differ is that they say Hillary's decision in favor was not a surprise, that her support for taking action was known all along. They also play up the importance of Hillary being in favor, given that the Veep and Sec Def were against. They quote an unnamed Hillary inner circle person as saying, "I don't think the president needed her [support] per se, but I do know that other people in the room were either swayed or comforted by her confidence and her certainty." Well, that's what a Hillary inner circle person would say ... we'd need people outside her circle who said that in order to state in the article that her support was especially influential.
I have changed the wording to avoid explicitly saying Obama received conflicting advice - I think that's already implicit given the "internal deliberations" and "among those who argued in favor". I've used the space to give the nature of Hillary's advice, that she thought the benefits outweighed the diplomatic risk, since that was her institutional territory.
I have also changed the wording of the text to avoid "capture or kill". This wasn't a mission to capture and that only would have happened under very unlikely circumstances. Nobody wanted that - the problems of where to keep him, how to try him, etc would have been very difficult to deal with. If capture was discussed, it was mostly as a fig leaf. See Daniel Klaidman, Kill or Capture: The War on Terror and the Soul of the Obama Presidency, for example. Fortunately, we don't have to get into this question here, just avoid it. So now the text is:
In April 2011 internal deliberations of the president's innermost circle of advisors over whether to order U.S. special forces to conduct a raid into Pakistan against Osama bin Laden, Clinton was among those who argued in favor, saying the importance of getting bin Laden outweighed the risks to the U.S. relationship with Pakistan.[1][2] Following completion of the mission on May 2, which resulted in bin Laden's death, Clinton played a key role in the administration's decision not to release photographs of the dead al-Qaeda leader.[3]
I have also only used book cites for the first part of this. That's because books are generally valued more as sources than news articles are; because they are shorter, take less space, and have faster load times; and because they don't have links that go bad or disappear behind paywalls. Past FACs have urged the use of book cites as much as possible. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:02, 2 April 2014 (UTC)


Political positions

On 5 March 2014, Clinton saw parallels between Vladimir Putin and Adolf Hitler, in the former's position on the 2014 Crimean crisis: “Now if this sounds familiar, it’s what Hitler did back in the 30s. Hitler kept saying: ‘They’re not being treated right. I must go and protect my people.’ And that’s what’s gotten everybody so nervous. The claims by President Putin and other Russians that they had to go into Crimea and maybe further into eastern Ukraine because they had to protect the Russian minorities, that is reminiscent of claims that were made back in the 1930s when Germany under the Nazis kept talking about how they had to protect German minorities in Poland and Czechoslovakia and elsewhere throughout Europe,”[4][5]

69.60.247.253 (talk) 03:22, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

While I'm not sure I agree with the proposed wording ("saw parallels"?), this request raises an interesting point. There really is no section covering what could be called (for lack of a better term) Clinton's post-political career. Granted, it may only be temporary, but although she is neither an office-holder nor a candidate at this point, she is still a newsmaker whose activities and opinions are widely reported. There should be at least a brief section mentioning what she has been doing since leaving the State Department, including her weighing in on the Crimea situation. bd2412 T 03:31, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
There is such a section, "Subsequent activities". As for weighing in on Crimea, I'm reluctant to include that here, because what she thinks doesn't matter that much now that she's out of office. It could be included in Political positions of Hillary Rodham Clinton, however, where there's more space. The thing here is that she subsequently clarified her initial remark, see for example this Reuters story. So she's not comparing Putin to Hitler (I'm sure at some point she's heard about Godwin's Law), but she is saying that this particular Putin tactic was one of the ones used by Germany in the late 1930s. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:59, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
Oops, indeed there is. Perhaps there should be a line there indicating that, although Clinton is not presently active as a politician, her public comments have continued to be widely reported. bd2412 T 17:36, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
I have, however, added a brief account of the "reset button" and relations with Russia during her tenure. It was previously left to the Hillary Rodham Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State subarticle, but gains in retrospective importance given the events of this year. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:18, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Requested move 8 (17 April 2014)

There is currently another pending move. We need to wait till that one closes before starting new ones.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:06, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Hillary Rodham Clinton → Secretary Clinton – HRC is way too long, and "Secretary Clinton" is her "official" name. 76.105.96.92 (talk) 20:03, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

Discussion

Any additional comments:
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

And the decisions is..............?

Not to complain or anything, but the delay on getting a decision on the move request above seems to be getting excessive. @TParis:,@Adjwilley:,@BrownHairedGirl:, any chance we could get a date on a decision? NickCT (talk) 19:37, 21 April 2014 (UTC)


A new panelist may be called for. I glean from a few notes here and there by and amongst the panelist that that this dragging-on is the product of one of them who is perhaps too overburdened with other things to conclusively attend to this one. I will grant, fairly enough, that there's no closure deadline and this was a lengthy discussion with many points raised, but really it's not that complicated.

Some 63 people opined definitively in the course of the thing, and about 43 ultimately backed the proposed move (plus the proposer), for something better than a 2/3 showing in favor. So either that's enough or there's some overwhelming issue of policy which counters even so solid a majority, setting this move request apart from all others like it.

Either way it is certainly worth remembering in the moment that whatever is done here can be undone, in a month or a few or a year if those people or others like them can be convinced that things ought to be otherwise. Or if some new rule is agreed to which spells out why what was done ought then be undone. Simply put, hit the button which gets the move over with and if there's a reason to move it back in the future, hit the button a second time. Not complicated.

And if there is as it seems one panelist who is not in a space to handle this matter uncomplicatedly, do allow them to bow out and be replaced with somebody who can pull together the resolution with due speed. Blessings!! DeistCosmos (talk) 19:54, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

It is certainly a single party. We've all shared our reading of the discussion but we're waiting on the final person to agree to the summary that was drafted. We can either post the draft without them, knowing that it includes their perspective, or we can find someone to replace them. What would be the preferred choice?--v/r - TP 20:05, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
There is no deadline. Be calm. The title will inevitably be the wrong version, as this is Wikipedia.  :-)Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:08, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
@User:TParis, given the situation you describe, the swiftest resolution would be to go ahead and post the draft, as it reflects this last perspective. It can always be amended later, or this lagging panelist can post some qualifications of their own. DeistCosmos (talk) 20:12, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
So long as they take a look at it at some point - the world isn't going to end if it isn't tomorrow (or next week even). Publishing a draft is only going to lead to yet more post-closure postings. DeCausa (talk)
There is no hurry, is there? Personally I appreciate the fact that these three people were willing to take on this thankless task. All three have spent what I imagine is a lot of time reviewing the complex and possibly TL;DR discussion, evaluating it, and reaching a conclusion. I think we should respect that effort and wait until they are ready - not post a draft, and not ask them to do it all over again with some third person. Take your time, folks. I see only one person here who thinks it is urgent to get closure now. --MelanieN (talk) 20:21, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
I would hazard that no matter the resolution of this decision, an appeal will swiftly follow from the disgruntled members of whichever side fails to prevail, so we may as well get on to that. DeistCosmos (talk) 20:27, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
We could have two appeals at once, each assuming a different initial decision.  :-)Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:32, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
There is a hurry! I don't mean to be a busy body or a task master, but two weeks is a reasonably long period of time to conduct these kinds of things. If there is no sense of urgency here the matter will fall into the bureaucratic abyss. We have some responsibility to conduct our actions within reasonable time frames.
If one of the panelist is causing delay, I suggest the other two simply agree that posting without express consent is OK! No more delay please.... NickCT (talk) 20:34, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
There has been far more than sufficient time. Just post the decision, along with your statement saying you're unanimous on finding consensus (as has been previously noted) and the wording was crafted and approved by 2/3 of you, but it includes the perspective of the 3rd as well. --B2C 20:58, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
They need to get it right or it will all be easily overturned on appeal, or by the next move request. Taking time now saves more time later.Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:07, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

The panel is not working to reach a decision at this point, they've reached one and are simply quibbling over wording (or perhaps not even quibbling, it sounds like 2 of the, have agreed-to wording and the third is simply not getting around to signing off on it). So the decision having been reached wouldn't you like to know what it is? DeistCosmos (talk) 21:13, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

TP has posted it as you requested. --MelanieN (talk) 22:00, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Another discussion of interest

Since this discussion seems to have attracted the interest of many RM f(r)iends, see Talk:Afghan_Girl#Requested_move_22_April_2014 for another move on which your input would be most welcome.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:51, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Questions about RM #7 decision

TParis (talk · contribs), I agree with you about COMMONNAME and her preference - these do not give us any indication about which title to prefer here.

However, regarding "On the other hand, the WP:CONCISE argument was opposed with many valid counter examples of articles where we (correctly) use less concise titles, including articles about royalty, several U.S. presidents, laws, etc.", I'm not following your reasoning at all. Valid counter examples? But were those counter examples comparable? That is, in those cases, didn't the longer name meet WP:COMMONNAME or another criteria like consistency (as in royalty) better than the more concise name? Even if some of the counter-examples were valid, since when does a few WP:OTHERSTUFF examples comprise a valid reason to ignore policy? The dismissal of the concision argument, based on merely this, is bewildering.

Then, as far as the "The two main arguments opposing the move that pushed the discussion into the no consensus zone", you cite "the arguments that higher quality and longer lasting sources generally preferred HRC over HR". It's true that WP:RS says that " scholarly secondary works are preferred", but that's in the context of establishing basis for article content. The context here is title decision-making. That aspect of WP:RS is not referenced anywhere in WP:AT, nor has ever been used to prefer one title over another, so far as I know. Until a few years ago, COMMONNAME did not even mention WP:RS. But in order to make it clear that usage on blogs and Facebook did not count towards establishing common name, the reference to WP:RS was added to WP:COMMONNAME, mostly due to the urging of PBS (talk · contribs). But this idea (argued only by SmokeyJoe (talk · contribs), so far as I know) that RS should be given different weights in the context of determining common name - that has no basis in policy or convention, so far as I know. Besides, you already decided that COMMONNAME did not favor either title. Now you're saying common name does favor HRC, if you weigh the RS according to quality and longer lastedness??? This novel notion is one of the two main arguments opposed?

The only other oppose argument you mention is TITLECHANGES, which is based on if "there is no good reason to change it". To accept the applicability of TITLECHANGES here, you again have to dismiss better compliance with policy (i.e., WP:CONCISE) as not being a good reason to change a title. This is especially bewildering because concision is often the sole basis given for a move proposal, and often the only reason titles are changed. WP:RM always has several active examples of this, usually several per day.

Doesn't this entire "no consensus" decision rest upon dismissing WP:CONCISE because of a few WP:OTHERSTUFF examples which often did not even apply because in most of those cases the less concise titles are preferred for other policy based reasons like COMMONNAME and consistency which do not apply in this case? --B2C 22:56, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Born2cycle for the questions. I hope you don't mind if I respond in the stead of TParis since I was responsible for some of that verbiage. First off, regarding the WP:Concise bit, weighing that against the other arguments was one of the hardest parts of the close for me. Saying that there were counter examples was not an excuse to ignore or dismiss policy, but a (very) brief summary of some of the arguments against applying that policy to this case. The specific examples we used originated I believe in a post by User:WastedTimeR, but those were not the only arguments against applying WP:Concise, nor was it the only reason we felt there wasn't enough support on that point to be judged a consensus. (I note that WP:OTHERSTUFF relates to deletion discussions, but I do understand how the label could be applied to counterexamples, though I'm not convinced that it is entirely helpful.) For the WP:RS bit, in hindsight, that probably should have been in one of the earlier paragraphs. It was most influential in the closing decision in the sense that it was one of the key points in rebutting the some of the WP:COMMONNAME arguments that otherwise would have ruled the day. I would also stress that none of us are saying that the this was a clear-cut case. Quite the opposite. It was very difficult to close, and I'll be the first to admit that our page-long summary doesn't begin to do justice to the depth of the arguments that were presented. I know this probably won't satisfy you, but I hope it has answered at least some of your questions. ~Adjwilley (talk) 03:20, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
Thank you, Adjwilley (talk · contribs). First, I strongly agree in principle with the idea that closers are to find consensus in arguments and policy, not in !vote counts. However, when going against a clear majority, that finding has to be strong. The example given below in the outrage section by DD2K (talk · contribs) is exactly correct.

You could start an AFD for an article and have 60 people show up and state "Delete - not notable", and then have 2 show up and provide dozens of reliable sources showing that the subject of the article is in fact notable and meets the correct guidelines for an article. The close would/should be "Subject notable, no consensus to delete". Even though the deletes outnumber the keeps 60 to 2.

But in that hypothetical case, the strong support for deletion is based on supposed lack of notability, but then two editors bring strong evidence of notability, clearly countering the support argument. There was nothing like that here. COMMONNAME was strongly supported by both sides with different type of arguments, both reasonable, both based in policy, both based in usage in sources.

But let me make sure I understand. You are not convinced that WP:OTHERSTUFF is entirely helpful? The point is that just because there are articles with titles that also have shorter names is not a reason to dismiss the applicability of WP:CONCISE, nor a rebuttal to the WP:CONCISE argument. There are reasons the longer name is indicated by policies in those cherry-picked counter-example cases (most notably WP:COMMONNAME and consistency) that do not apply in this case. Yet you cite those counter-examples as if they comprise a valid rebuttal, and a major reason that you did not give WP:CONCISE due weight. Is that not a major error in your reasoning?

Another reason you say you didn't give much weight to the WP:CONCISE argument is "the CONCISE argument did not receive an amount of support that would indicate a clear consensus". Yet you stress that your decision primarily rested ("most influential", "key points") on what you refer to here as "the WP:RS bit" (a.k.a as "higher quality and longer lasting sources generally preferred HRC over HR"). Yet that argument received far less support than the CONCISE argument you so greatly discounted due to "lack of clear consensus". Proposal supporters rightfully largely did not bother refuting that oppose argument because it was so off the wall, had no support in policy nor precedence in convention, and so little support among discussion participants (much less than the CONCISE argument did, for example), and yet you found it to be "most influential" and one of the "key points".

How is anyone to make any sense of this? Frankly, in the absence of more satisfactory answers to these questions, the only explanation that makes sense is that you were looking for reasons to support a "no consensus" finding - that the decision is a contrived (though not necessarily consciously) rationalization for finding "no consensus" in order to favor the status quo by default, and the outrage expressed in the following section is starting to seem quite appropriate. --B2C 18:48, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

  • I was puzzled to see User:BrownHairedGirl appearing on my watchlist this morning making a minor edit to an article on my list. I thought she was out of action in some way. Had a look at her contribs over the last two days and there are hundreds of them. What's going on? Is there a reason she hasn't endorsed the decision? DeCausa (talk) 06:16, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
If you discover the answer to that question let me know. This is only speculation, but it might be that she didn't want to deal with the huge amount of time and potential drama involved in a close like this, or that she felt like she had fallen into the closer's position without having had much of a say in the matter herself. (If I remember correctly only she was asked directly to participate.) Whatever her reason I hope we all will respect it, since she is only here as a volunteer in the first place, and deserves a choice of which tasks she wishes to take on and which she would rather ignore completely. ~Adjwilley (talk) 15:45, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
Yes, of course fully understand on the volunteer bit; although non-communication by an admin in this situation is, well, noteworthy for want of a better word. But what I was really asking (into the ether really since only BHG can answer) was whether it is indicative of disagreement with the decision. DeCausa (talk) 16:18, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
And apologies, I should have included thanks and acknowledgement to you and TParis for your hard work on this - the time and drama involved can't have made this an attractive task. DeCausa (talk) 17:08, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
It certainly wasn't disagreement with the overall result. We all withheld our readings until each of us had had an opportunity to review the discussion and then we shared and our readings were unanimous. She may have disagreed with the summary, but we don't know, we lost contact with her before it was even drafted.--v/r - TP 17:47, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
Indeed it is becoming quite clear that there wasn't disagreement with the overall result. In fact, it appears you all agreed with the overall result - to retain HRC - from the outset, and then sought to find basis for supporting that result in the discussion. This is a big dent in all of your reputations, as far as I'm concerned. One of the most poorly made RM decisions I've ever seen. --B2C 18:48, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
B2C, that is an outrageous slur against people who voluntarily agreed to judge this controversial matter - and who were accepted from the outset as neutral, uninvolved administrators. Now that you don't like the result they (all three independently) came up with, you decide to accuse them of bias. You should apologize and go back to our core principle of assuming good faith. --MelanieN (talk) 18:54, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
I made no judgements until after they had a chance to explain the decision. My problem is not with the result. My problem is with the lame reasoning that supposedly explains the result. Sorry, but this is one of the most poorly explained RM decisions I've ever seen, in the follow-up answers as well as the initial statement.

All the hand-wringing about how difficult it was doesn't help. Of course it was difficult to defend the indefensible - contrary to consensus and policy. It wouldn't have been difficult at all to follow policy and consensus. --B2C 19:04, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

MelanieN: I couldn't agree more. ╠╣uw [talk] 19:26, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
B2C, there simply was no consensus, and policy did not clearly come down on the "move" side. Omnedon (talk) 19:27, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
Did you read the same decision I did? It's just rambling. It may claim that policy did not clearly come down on the "move" side, but it does so by relying on dubious reasoning, discounting the support side and inflating the oppose side inexplicably. --B2C 19:34, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

B2C mentioning my user name brought me to this page I would like to add my tuppence worth. B2C the link to reliable sources from WP:AT is to WP:SOURCES not WP:RS because the former is the policy and RS is a guideline. As can be seen SOURCES is more concise than RS and I think it is a better fit for AT. Use SOURCES and your concerns about "scholarly secondary works are preferred" evaporates, because SOURCES qualifies the statement by adding "such as in history, medicine, and science", and this subject is not yet historical :-) Also for those who do not know this is further qualified in AT with "Recognizability – The title is a name ... of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in,..." So we use a more general name as the article title than a specialist might choose to do (B2c I know you know this but others in this particular discussion may not). B2C I do not think you are completely right that all sources can be viewed equally from the point of view of naming as WP:COMMONNAME mentions considerable weight needs to be given to the sources used within an article so that if other things are in balance the title of the article is reflected in common usage within the source used to support the article. I think some of the sources mentioned above fall under MRDA. I often find in baffling how little cynicism there is in America about politics (compared to that in the Westminster system). To give an example in British politics. Tony Benn died recently. While he was active in politics he preferred to be known as "Tony Benn" and not "Anthony Neil Wedgwood Ben, former 2nd Viscount Stansgate" (both his father and son were and are viscounts), because he was a left of labour politician. Consequently Tory sources while he was active in politics of course informed younger voters that he was really a nob by emphasising his full name in their headlines (in the hope of causing some FUD among their opponents). So when looking at sources for the names of politicians one also has to consider the politics behind the preferred name (both by the politician, their supporters and their opponents). The last point I wish to comment on is that made by SmokeyJoe The nom appeals to recentism. Recentism should be avoided. If she runs for 2016, there will be all sorts of excitement, but a reference work should remain steady, firstly I agree with In ictu oculi's comment about use outside the US, and the second is that if it can be shown that at one point Clinton used the name "Hillary Rodham Clinton" and later started to use "Hillary Clinton" (presumably for political reasons) then the sentence in WP:COMMONNAME comes into play "If the name of a person, group, object, or other article topic changes, then more weight should be given to the name used in reliable sources published after the name change than in those before the change". So SmokeyJoe your dismissal of "Recentism" is not supported by policy if indeed Clinton has changed her name. -- PBS (talk) 13:10, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

  • Just to quickly(as we are working on addressing the coming MR) address your 3 points above.
  1. WP:SOURCES does not "qualify" in the manner you are claiming. Those are examples, not qualifiers. There are no exclusions listed. This is plain to see if one just reads the sentence above the so-called "qualifier", which states "Be especially careful when sourcing content related to living people or medicine."
  2. I am not convinced that either name is good or bad for the subject of the article, politically speaking. But I do know that some of her critics do not like her using her family name(Rodham). Sources that are more reliable that use editors and fact checkers are more likely to use HRC than HC, and partisan blogs are more likely to use HC than HRC.
  3. The last point can be addressed rather quickly by just stating she has not changed her name. Dave Dial (talk) 16:58, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
  1. ^ Bowden, Mark (2012). The Finish: The Killing of Osama Bin Laden. Atlantic Monthly Press. pp. 198–204. ISBN 0-8021-2034-2.
  2. ^ Allen and Parnes 2014, pp. 233–237.
  3. ^ Ambinder, Marc; Cooper, Matthew (May 4, 2011). "Why Obama Nixed the Photo Release". National Journal. Washington, DC.
  4. ^ theguardian.com: "Hillary Clinton says Vladimir Putin’s Crimea occupation echoes Hitler" 6 Mar 2014
  5. ^ cbsnews.com: "Hillary Clinton on Putin: We can learn from Hitler’s tactics" 5 Mar 2014
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