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Current consensus

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NOTE: It is recommended to link to this list in your edit summary when reverting, as:
[[Talk:Donald Trump#Current consensus|current consensus]] item [n]
To ensure you are viewing the current list, you may wish to purge this page.

1. Use the official White House portrait as the infobox image. (Dec 2016, Jan 2017, Oct 2017, March 2020) (temporarily suspended by #19 following copyright issues on the inauguration portrait, enforced when an official public-domain portrait was released on 31 October 2017)

2. Show birthplace as "Queens, New York City, U.S." in the infobox. (Nov 2016, Oct 2018, Feb 2021) "New York City" de-linked. (September 2020)

3. Omit reference to county-level election statistics. (Dec 2016)

4. Superseded by #15
Lead phrasing of Trump "gaining a majority of the U.S. Electoral College" and "receiving a smaller share of the popular vote nationwide", without quoting numbers. (Nov 2016, Dec 2016) (Superseded by #15 since 11 February 2017)

5. Use Trump's annual net worth evaluation and matching ranking, from the Forbes list of billionaires, not from monthly or "live" estimates. (Oct 2016) In the lead section, just write: Forbes estimates his net worth to be [$x.x] billion. (July 2018, July 2018) Removed from the lead per #47.

6. Do not include allegations of sexual misconduct in the lead section. (June 2016, Feb 2018)

7. Superseded by #35
Include "Many of his public statements were controversial or false." in the lead. (Sep 2016, February 2017, wording shortened per April 2017, upheld with July 2018) (superseded by #35 since 18 February 2019)
8. Superseded by unlisted consensus
Mention that Trump is the first president elected "without prior military or government service". (Dec 2016, superseded Nov 2024)

9. Include a link to Trump's Twitter account in the "External links" section. (Jan 2017) Include a link to an archive of Trump's Twitter account in the "External links" section. (Jan 2021)

10. Canceled
Keep Barron Trump's name in the list of children and wikilink it, which redirects to his section in Family of Donald Trump per AfD consensus. (Jan 2017, Nov 2016) Canceled: Barron's BLP has existed since June 2019. (June 2024)
11. Superseded by #17
The lead sentence is "Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American businessman, television personality, politician, and the 45th President of the United States." (Jan 2017, Jan 2017, Jan 2017, Jan 2017, Jan 2017, Feb 2017) (superseded by #17 since 2 April 2017)

12. The article title is Donald Trump, not Donald J. Trump. (RM Jan 2017, RM June 2019)

13. Auto-archival is set for discussions with no comments for 7 days. Manual archival is allowed for (1) closed discussions, 24 hours after the closure, provided the closure has not been challenged, and (2) "answered" edit requests, 24 hours after the "answer", provided there has been no follow-on discussion after the "answer". (Jan 2017) (amended with respect to manual archiving, to better reflect common practice at this article) (Nov 2019)

14. Omit mention of Trump's alleged bathmophobia/fear of slopes. (Feb 2017)

15. Superseded by lead rewrite
Supersedes #4. There is no consensus to change the formulation of the paragraph which summarizes election results in the lead (starting with "Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016, …"). Accordingly the pre-RfC text (Diff 8 Jan 2017) has been restored, with minor adjustments to past tense (Diff 11 Feb 2018). No new changes should be applied without debate. (RfC Feb 2017, Jan 2017, Feb 2017, Feb 2017) In particular, there is no consensus to include any wording akin to "losing the popular vote". (RfC March 2017) (Superseded by local consensus on 26 May 2017 and lead section rewrite on 23 June 2017)
16. Superseded by lead rewrite
Do not mention Russian influence on the presidential election in the lead section. (RfC March 2017) (Superseded by lead section rewrite on 23 June 2017)
17. Superseded by #50
Supersedes #11. The lead paragraph is "Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is the 45th and current president of the United States. Before entering politics, he was a businessman and television personality." The hatnote is simply {{Other uses}}. (April 2017, RfC April 2017, April 2017, April 2017, April 2017, July 2017, Dec 2018) Amended by lead section rewrite on 23 June 2017 and removal of inauguration date on 4 July 2018. Lower-case "p" in "president" per Dec 2018 and MOS:JOBTITLES RfC Oct 2017. Wikilinks modified per April 2020. Wikilink modified again per July 2020. "45th" de-linked. (Jan 2021)
18. Superseded by #63
The "Alma mater" infobox entry shows "Wharton School (BSEcon.)", does not mention Fordham University. (April 2017, April 2017, Aug 2020, Dec 2020)
19. Obsolete
Following deletion of Trump's official White House portrait for copyright reasons on 2 June 2017, infobox image was replaced by File:Donald Trump Pentagon 2017.jpg. (June 2017 for replacement, June 2017, declined REFUND on 11 June 2017) (replaced by White House official public-domain portrait according to #1 since 31 Oct 2017)
20. Superseded by unlisted consensus
Mention protests in the lead section with this exact wording: His election and policies have sparked numerous protests. (June 2017, May 2018, superseded December 2024) (Note: In February 2021, when he was no longer president, the verb tense was changed from "have sparked" to "sparked", without objection.)
21. Superseded by #39
Omit any opinions about Trump's psychology held by mental health academics or professionals who have not examined him. (July 2017, Aug 2017) (superseded by #36 on 18 June 2019, then by #39 since 20 Aug 2019)

22. Do not call Trump a "liar" in Wikipedia's voice. Falsehoods he uttered can be mentioned, while being mindful of calling them "lies", which implies malicious intent. (RfC Aug 2017, upheld by RfC July 2024)

23. Superseded by #52
The lead includes the following sentence: Trump ordered a travel ban on citizens from several Muslim-majority countries, citing security concerns; after legal challenges, the Supreme Court upheld the policy's third revision. (Aug 2017, Nov 2017, Dec 2017, Jan 2018, Jan 2018) Wording updated (July 2018) and again (Sep 2018).
24. Superseded by #30
Do not include allegations of racism in the lead. (Feb 2018)

25. In citations, do not code the archive-related parameters for sources that are not dead. (Dec 2017, March 2018)

26. Do not include opinions by Michael Hayden and Michael Morell that Trump is a "useful fool […] manipulated by Moscow" or an "unwitting agent of the Russian Federation". (RfC April 2018)

27. State that Trump falsely claimed that Hillary Clinton started the Barack Obama birther rumors. (April 2018, June 2018)

28. Include, in the Wealth section, a sentence on Jonathan Greenberg's allegation that Trump deceived him in order to get on the Forbes 400 list. (June 2018, June 2018)

29. Include material about the Trump administration family separation policy in the article. (June 2018)

30. Supersedes #24. The lead includes: "Many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racially charged or racist." (RfC Sep 2018, Oct 2018, RfC May 2019). Consensus on "racially charged" descriptor later superseded (February 2025).

31. Do not mention Trump's office space donation to Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/Push Coalition in 1999. (Nov 2018)

32. Omit from the lead the fact that Trump is the first sitting U.S. president to meet with a North Korean supreme leader. See #44. (RfC July 2018, Nov 2018)

33. Do not mention "birtherism" in the lead section. (RfC Nov 2018)

34. Refer to Ivana Zelníčková as a Czech model, with a link to Czechs (people), not Czechoslovakia (country). (Jan 2019)

35. Superseded by #49
Supersedes #7. Include in the lead: Trump has made many false or misleading statements during his campaign and presidency. The statements have been documented by fact-checkers, and the media have widely described the phenomenon as unprecedented in American politics. (RfC Feb 2019)
36. Superseded by #39
Include one paragraph merged from Health of Donald Trump describing views about Trump's psychology expressed by public figures, media sources, and mental health professionals who have not examined him. (June 2019) (paragraph removed per RfC Aug 2019 yielding consensus #39)

37. Resolved: Content related to Trump's presidency should be limited to summary-level about things that are likely to have a lasting impact on his life and/or long-term presidential legacy. If something is borderline or debatable, the resolution does not apply. (June 2019)

38. Do not state in the lead that Trump is the wealthiest U.S. president ever. (RfC June 2019)

39. Supersedes #21 and #36. Do not include any paragraph regarding Trump's mental health or mental fitness for office. Do not bring up for discussion again until an announced formal diagnosis or WP:MEDRS-level sources are provided. This does not preclude bringing up for discussion whether to include media coverage relating to Trump's mental health and fitness. This does not prevent inclusion of content about temperamental fitness for office. (RfC Aug 2019, July 2021)

40. Include, when discussing Trump's exercise or the lack thereof: He has called golfing his "primary form of exercise", although he usually does not walk the course. He considers exercise a waste of energy, because he believes the body is "like a battery, with a finite amount of energy" which is depleted by exercise. (RfC Aug 2019)

41. Omit book authorship (or lack thereof) from the lead section. (RfC Nov 2019)

42. House and Senate outcomes of the impeachment process are separated by a full stop. For example: He was impeached by the House on December 18, 2019, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. He was acquitted of both charges by the Senate on February 5, 2020. (Feb 2020)

43. The rules for edits to the lead are no different from those for edits below the lead. For edits that do not conflict with existing consensus: Prior consensus is NOT required. BOLD edits are allowed, subject to normal BRD process. The mere fact that an edit has not been discussed is not a valid reason to revert it. (March 2020)

44. The lead section should mention North Korea, focusing on Trump's meetings with Kim and some degree of clarification that they haven't produced clear results. See #32. (RfC May 2020)

45. Superseded by #48
There is no consensus to mention the COVID-19 pandemic in the lead section. (RfC May 2020, July 2020)

46. Use the caption "Official portrait, 2017" for the infobox image. (Aug 2020, Jan 2021)

47. Do not mention Trump's net worth or Forbes ranking (or equivalents from other publications) in the lead, nor in the infobox. (Sep 2020)

48. Supersedes #45. Trump's reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic should be mentioned in the lead section. There is no consensus on specific wording, but the status quo is Trump reacted slowly to the COVID-19 pandemic; he minimized the threat, ignored or contradicted many recommendations from health officials, and promoted false information about unproven treatments and the availability of testing. (Oct 2020, RfC Aug 2020)

49. Supersedes #35. Include in lead: Trump has made many false and misleading statements during his campaigns and presidency, to a degree unprecedented in American politics. (Dec 2020)

50. Superseded by #70
Supersedes #17. The lead sentence is: Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. (March 2021), amended (July 2021), inclusion of politician (RfC September 2021)

51. Include in the lead that many of Trump's comments and actions have been characterized as misogynistic. (Aug 2021 and Sep 2021)

52. Supersedes #23. The lead should contain a summary of Trump's actions on immigration, including the Muslim travel ban (cf. item 23), the wall, and the family separation policy. (September 2021)

53. The lead should mention that Trump promotes conspiracy theories. (RfC October 2021)

54. Include in the lead that, quote, Scholars and historians rank Trump as one of the worst presidents in U.S. history. (RfC October 2021) Amended after re-election: After his first term, scholars and historians ranked Trump as one of the worst presidents in American history. (November 2024)

55. Regarding Trump's comments on the 2017 far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, do not wiki-link "Trump's comments" in this manner. (RfC December 2021)

56. Retain the content that Trump never confronted Putin over its alleged bounties against American soldiers in Afghanistan but add context. Current wording can be altered or contextualized; no consensus was achieved on alternate wordings. (RfC November 2021) Trump's expressions of doubt regarding the Russian Bounties Program should be included in some capacity, though there there is no consensus on a specific way to characterize these expressed doubts. (RfC March 2022)

57. Do not mention in the lead Gallup polling that states Trump's the only president to never reach 50% approval rating. (RfC January 2022)

58. Use inline citations in the lead for the more contentious and controversial statements. Editors should further discuss which sentences would benefit from having inline citations. (RfC May 2022, discussion on what to cite May 2022)

59. Do not label or categorize Trump as a far-right politician. (RfC August 2022)

60. Insert the links described in the RfC January 2023.

61. When a thread is started with a general assertion that the article is biased for or against Trump (i.e., without a specific, policy-based suggestion for a change to the article), it is to be handled as follows:

  1. Reply briefly with a link to Talk:Donald Trump/Response to claims of bias, optionally using its shortcut, WP:TRUMPRCB.
  2. Close the thread using {{archive top}} and {{archive bottom}}, referring to this consensus item.
  3. Wait at least 24 hours per current consensus #13.
  4. Manually archive the thread.

This does not apply to posts that are clearly in bad faith, which are to be removed on sight. (May 2023)

62. The article's description of the five people who died during and subsequent to the January 6 Capitol attack should avoid a) mentioning the causes of death and b) an explicit mention of the Capitol Police Officer who died. (RfC July 2023)

63. Supersedes #18. The alma mater field of the infobox reads: "University of Pennsylvania (BS)". (September 2023)

64. Omit the {{Very long}} tag. (January 2024)

65. Mention the Abraham Accords in the article; no consensus was achieved on specific wordings. (RfC February 2024)

66. Omit {{infobox criminal}}. (RfC June 2024)

67. The "Health" section includes: "Trump says he has never drunk alcohol, smoked cigarettes, or used drugs. He sleeps about four or five hours a night." (February 2021)

68. Do not expand the brief mention of Trumpism in the lead. (RfC January 2025)

69. Do not include the word "criminal" in the first sentence. (January 2025)

70. Supersedes #50. First two sentences read:

Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 45th president from 2017 to 2021.

Linking exactly as shown. (February 2025)


Internal consistency

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This article conforms to MoS guidelines. Where MoS guidelines allow differences between articles at editor discretion, this article uses the conventions listed here.

Copy editing:
These conventions do not apply to quotations or citation |title= parameters, which are left unchanged from the sources.

  • Use American English, per the {{Use American English}} template.
  • Use "Month Day, Year" date format in prose, per the {{Use mdy dates}} template.
  • To prevent line breaks between month and day in prose, code for example April 12. Since content is often moved around, do this even if the date occurs very early on the line.
  • To prevent line breaks within numerical quantities comprising two "words", code for example $10 billion.
  • Use "U.S.", not "US", for abbreviation of "United States".
  • Use the Oxford/serial comma. Write "this, that, and the other", not "this, that and the other".

References:
The Citation Style 1 (CS1) templates are used for most references, including all news sources. Most commonly used are {{cite news}}, {{cite magazine}}, and {{cite web}}.

  • |work= and its aliases link to the Wikipedia article when one exists.
  • Generally, |work= and its aliases match the Wikipedia article's title exactly when one exists. Code |work=[[The New York Times]], not |work=[[New York Times]]. Code |work=[[Los Angeles Times]], not |work=[[The Los Angeles Times]].
    • There are some exceptions where a redirect is more appropriate, such as AP News and NPR News, but be consistent with those exceptions.
    • When the article title includes a parenthetical, such as in Time (magazine), pipe the link to drop the parenthetical: |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]. Otherwise, there is never a good reason to pipe this link.
  • Code |last= and |first= for credited authors, not |author=.
  • Code |author-link= when an author has a Wikipedia article. Place this immediately after the |last= and |first= parameters for that author. |last1=Baker|first1=Peter|author-link1=Peter Baker (journalist)|last2=Freedman|first2=Dylan.
  • In |title= parameters, all-caps "shouting" is converted to title case. "AP Fact Check:", not "AP FACT CHECK:".
  • Per current consensus item 25, omit the archive-related parameters for sources that are not dead. These parameters are |url-status=, |archive-url=, and |archive-date=.
  • Omit |language= for English-language sources.
  • Omit |publisher= for news sources.
  • Omit |location= for news sources.
  • Omit |issn= for news sources.
  • Code a space before the pipe character for each parameter. For example, code: |date=April 12, 2025 |last=Baker |first=Peter |author-link=Peter Baker (journalist)—not: |date=April 12, 2025|last=Baker|first=Peter|author-link=Peter Baker (journalist). This provides the following benefits for the edit window and diffs:
    • Improved readability.
    • Over all, this tends to allow more line breaks at logical places (between cite parameters).
  • Otherwise, coding differences that do not affect what readers see are unimportant. Since they are unimportant, we don't need to revert changes by editors who think they are important. For example:
    • Any supported date format is acceptable since the templates convert dates to mdy format.
    • For web-based news sources, the choice between |work=, |newspaper=, and |website= is unimportant.
    • Sequence of template parameters is unimportant.
  • There is currently no convention for the use of named references.

Citation access-date

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Can someone here tell me please why the access-date is omitted from so many refs? I will fix them all if somebody can explain. IABot can use the access date if a link goes dead. Thanks. -SusanLesch (talk) 20:21, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Accessdate is an optional parameter for fixed works with a publication date. If there's going to be a push for consistency, I'd advocate omitting it in more cases, given the number of references involved here. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:57, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Besides, if you added an access-date, I would think you would have to re-verify the content. That would be a lot more work than I think you have in mind. ―Mandruss  IMO. 13:27, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Nikkimaria. Mandruss, I was prepared for a long slog. Never mind. -SusanLesch (talk) 16:14, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Article bias forum

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This forum is about bias at this article. For discussion about Wikipedia article bias in general, please visit Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) or Wikipedia:Village pump (policy).

Anyone is welcome to read the forum. Users who have some experience working with Wikipedia content policy are invited to participate.

To enter the forum, follow this link.

Related reading: Talk:Donald Trump/Response to claims of bias.

Tracking lead size

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Word counts by paragraph and total.

5 Nov 2024614 = 29 + 101 + 106 + 156 + 101 + 121

12 Nov 2024657 = 46 + 101 + 116 + 175 + 176 + 43

19 Nov 2024418 = 62 + 76 + 153 + 127

26 Nov 2024406 = 56 + 70 + 138 + 142
3 Dec 2024418 = 53 + 64 + 158 + 143

10 Dec 2024413 = 54 + 62 + 153 + 144

17 Dec 2024422 = 58 + 57 + 141 + 166

24 Dec 2024437 = 58 + 57 + 156 + 166

31 Dec 2024465 = 87 + 60 + 154 + 164
7 Jan 2025438 = 58 + 60 + 156 + 164

14 Jan 2025432 = 58 + 60 + 145 + 169

21 Jan 2025439 = 46 + 60 + 181 + 152

28 Jan 2025492 = 47 + 84 + 155 + 135 + 71
4 Feb 2025461 = 44 + 82 + 162 + 147 + 26

11 Feb 2025475 = 44 + 79 + 154 + 141 + 57

18 Feb 2025502 = 44 + 81 + 154 + 178 + 45

Tracking article size

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Readable prose size in words – Wiki markup size in bytes – Approximate number of additional citations before exceeding the PEIS limit.

5 Nov 2024 — 15,818 – 421,592 – 103

12 Nov 2024 — 15,883 – 427,790 – 46

19 Nov 2024 — 15,708 – 430,095 – 12

26 Nov 2024 — 15,376 – 414,196 – 67
3 Dec 2024 — 15,479 – 415,176 – 64

10 Dec 2024 — 15,279 – 404,464 – 122

17 Dec 2024 — 15,294 – 405,370 – 80

24 Dec 2024 — 14,863 – 402,971 – 190

31 Dec 2024 — 14,989 – 409,188 – 180
7 Jan 2025 — 14,681 – 404,773 – 187

14 Jan 2025 — 14,756 – 403,398 – 191

21 Jan 2025 — 15,086 – 422,683 – 94

28 Jan 2025 — 12,852 – 365,724 – 203
4 Feb 2025 — 11,261 – 337,988 – 254

11 Feb 2025 — 11,168 – 339,283 – 249

18 Feb 2025 — 11,180 – 339,836 – 247

New Trump-produced portrait

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Change Trumps official portrait to the 2025 portrait 2601:300:4B81:9C70:B848:8708:D29D:D129 (talk) 23:59, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit extended-protected}} template. — In any case, what 2025 portrait? There should be a new one available after he takes office. It might be a month or two, so be patient. Don't worry, we have this covered. ―Mandruss  00:10, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
https://www.timesnownews.com/world/us/us-news/donald-trumps-inauguration-portrait-sparks-mugshot-comparisons-on-social-media-bad-article-117280859 - this is what I believe they where talking about, Trump today had a unofficial portrait taken of him for his inauguration. I think that is what they where talking about. I personally think we should wait until after he takes official, but it is a recent photo and honesty would be more appropriate to use then the current portrait taken in 2017, which is over 8 years old. Jimco1945 (talk) 03:13, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agree I think so too! https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:TrumpPortrait.jpg MediaGuy768 (talk) 03:52, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Should be noted on the page that this is his inauguration portrait, not his official portrait (at least not yet). Biden and Harris (and Trump and Pence) had different inauguration portraits than official presidential portraits. Dingers5Days (talk) 04:02, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Were they included in Wikipedia articles without being deleted by the WP copyright police? ―Mandruss  04:14, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Bidens page used his official portriat as Vice President until April 9th, 2021 when his official portrait was released by the White House. Just double checked way back machine Are Jay Morrison (talk) 06:59, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the explanation. It baffles me how often people expect us to read minds, remotely over the internet. I'm converting this to a discussion thread: Edit request is for things that don't require discussion, such as typo corrections, grammar corrections, reverts of clear violations of consensus, and so on. ―Mandruss  03:55, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The photo is the current profile picture for the official POTUS account, signifying it as an official photo Btomblinson (talk) 04:41, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. All other factors aside, the reason we can use the White House-produced portraits is because they are produced by the U.S. Government and not subject to copyright issues. That is not the case for this photo. Looks like a non-starter to me. ―Mandruss  04:01, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's my concern too. I was trying to figure out any more information, but I can find no evidence whatsoever that this was created by an employee of the government acting in their official duties. His Twitter does not suggest that he is working for the government - but for Trump directly. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 04:05, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Special Case for Presidential Transition Teams. The presidential transition team is federally funded and operates in coordination with government agencies. This would fall under PD. MediaGuy768 (talk) 04:19, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We'll see. Anyway, we need a new consensus to supersede consensus 1, as stated elsewhere. Everyone needs to leave the infobox image alone pending that new consensus. ―Mandruss  04:23, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And since Consensus 1 references potential copyright issues on the inauguration image from 2017, I've now reverted this change in image until a new consensus forms and any copyright issues are resolved. I've also asked at the Commons village pump for more opinions regarding the copyright status. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 04:17, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, thanks. It didn't occur to me that someone would be so WP:BOLD, so I wasn't even watching the article. ―Mandruss  04:20, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Consensus 1 references temporarily suspended by #19 following copyright issues on the inauguration portrait - any idea where these issues were brought up, especially any related deletion requests on Commons that may be able to be referenced? -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 04:24, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The author... Daniel Torok...said the following in my inquiry to him: "Should be public domain on the 20th but with the exception that it can’t be used for commercial purposes without WH approval" From the source himself. Looks like the author intends PD for the photo. No issue to publish. MediaGuy768 (talk) 04:34, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is not public domain then. Images uploaded to Commons must be free to use for any use, with only attribution allowed to be required. See this page. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 04:37, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
All presidential portraits have the same terms as the 2025 author mentioned. MediaGuy768 (talk) 04:39, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No they do not. Official portraits created on behalf of the US Government by an employee of the US Government are explicitly public domain. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 04:40, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In this case, the official portrait will be this image. They will not retake it. The author is going to PD the image for the National Archives. MediaGuy768 (talk) 04:43, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Of course they'll retake it. The White House would never let that be the "official" portrait. ―Mandruss  04:48, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia does not operate on "the author is going to PD [it]" at some undetermined point in the future. Until it is public domain, it is not public domain. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 04:46, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Nope! The author took it on behalf of the federally funded transition team. The author said he is not enforcing the copyright and that it will be full PD on Jan 20. Additionally, the "can’t be used for commercial purposes without White House approval" portion is not enforceable because the WH cant take action on behalf of the author nor should any NC restriction apply to such from the WH. MediaGuy768 (talk) 04:50, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The image cannot be used until it is explicitly released under a free license by the author or when it is entered into the public domain on the 20th, as has already been explained. The author simply stating that he does not intend to enforce the copyright is not sufficient. See Commons:Licensing Pave Paws (talk) 05:46, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia copyright policy is an arcane science not meant for mere mortals. After all, a local consensus to include would not mean squat to the copyright police. Wait for Commons feedback. If they sign off on it, we can discuss other factors. I would still oppose, but it would be premature to say why. ―Mandruss  05:49, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Made an account just to change this. Yes! Evaburden (talk) 04:25, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Evaburden, it would just get deleted. Wait until the official portrait is released by the White House itself. Hurricane Clyde 🌀my talk page! 19:12, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
207.96.32.81 (talk) 04:31, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Wait/Oppose based on above arguments (particularly in regards to copyright). Hurricane Clyde 🌀my talk page! 19:11, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. It's a photo the Trump transition team published on their X account, i.e., it's not in the public domain. Here is the deletion request on Wikimedia Commons. We'll replace the 2017 official portrait if and when the new administration releases an updated official portrait. What was TeamTrump, whoever they are, thinking when they published the pictures, Trump with a droopy eyelid and Vance looking like a tired, bearded hamster. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 15:08, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I challenge you to take an actually good photo of Trump. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:55, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Our current one is a good photo, if one is able to perceive it objectively. Good composition, lighting, and color balance, there's a somewhat-genuine-looking smile, and there's no smoke emanating from the ear that took a bullet. ―Mandruss  06:54, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Trump with a droopy eyelid, the "fuck with me and I'll bury you" scowl, and almost comical dramatic film-noir lighting. ―Mandruss  01:45, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Nicholas Cage's character Spider-Man Noir from the film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse comes to mind when you describe the portrait like so. BarntToust 01:51, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe the scowl is just me. At minimum, he's trying to look like Edward R. Murrow or something. He's trying to project an image or persona, which is not encyclopedic. It belongs on his personal website, not Wikipedia. (Again, this is cart-before-horse pending resolution of the copyright question. Sorry.) ―Mandruss  02:24, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's not just you. It's pretty obvious that they're channeling the Fulton County Jail mugshot. They're probably using it for another round of extracting donations from the MAGA cult members. But, hey, if it becomes the new official presidential portrait I'd be all for it, wrinkles and all. Doesn't do justice to the bronzer, but at least the soft focus didn't get anywhere near Kary Lake's preferred settings (day or night). Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 13:57, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe it's just me, but aside from the copyright issues of this image, I think that there are some warranted WP:NPOV concerns here with the lighting/post-production and expression (which I think is aimed at conveying something), as outlined by Mandruss. We often use officially produced portraits of cabinet members and members of Congress because they are current, of high quality, and free use as works of the U.S. Government (usually confirmed by their metadata). I would posit that these are routine images taken without much thought given for the pose, composition, lighting, etc. aside from what a typical portrait photographer would consider. However, I am not sure the same can be said for this image. Connormah (talk) 02:05, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I broadly agree with this train of thought. Even if the copyright concerns are resolved (such as the photographer themselves releasing into public domain), I would only support this image if there is no other free image that even comes close to being as neutral. I broadly agree with the idea that we should try to update the image to one that reflects his current (approximately 8 years older) appearance, if/when a free option is available that otherwise works. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 02:19, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
+1. Well said. ―Mandruss  02:39, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If it is a portrait produced under directive by Trump and co., then I think that if it looks devious, that's the choice of Trump, and we use the official portrait anyhow. Ultimately, if what ends up being the official portrait is something comparable to this & that is the image millions see as they look at Wikipedia, so be it. That image is what Trump wants to project? We go along with it.
Let's not ignore our common sense when we look through this article and we see that a good chunk of it is damning info about crime, uprising, totalitarianism, and fascism. Perhaps a portrait of this caliber would be poetic in a way, representing the content within? BarntToust 14:36, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That image is what Trump wants to project? We go along with it. Absolutely not. Trump's wishes are completely irrelevant here. That applies as much to the infobox portrait as to any other content in this article. ―Mandruss  14:45, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not saying we make Trump's Infobox the way he wants because we want to appease him, I'm saying that we go along with the portrait per policy, and that if it looks horrible, by all means it will be reflective of the horrible things that he has done that are present in the article. BarntToust 14:59, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Like, even if it's a shitty portrait, it would be due as it would represent the contents of the article therein. Point is, a shitshow should be represented thusly if that's what Trump is gonna send to the Library of Congress. BarntToust 15:03, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Let's try this: Why are we spending so much time discussing a hypothetical that is extremely unlikely to become a reality? Check out the Commons deletion request; it's almost certain to pass and the image will be deleted. ―Mandruss  15:07, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
BarntToust, as I indicated above, it is not a WP policy to use official images, and we are not obligated to do so if we feel they might violate our NPOV policy. Usually that is not a consideration, but like many things, that could be a point of discussion here. Connormah (talk) 15:21, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oh boy! https://www.whitehouse.gov/ has those exact portraits uploaded now. Public domain licenses thus attached. My point still stands: Trump is known for doing not-good things, the portrait happening to reflect that not-good-ness is reflective of the article, which also does not violate NPOV. BarntToust 17:16, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In short, having a devious-looking portrait—for a felon who has been compared to Hitler, made racist and sexist remarks, makes falsehoods like rabbits make babies, stole and mishandled official documents, so on and so forth—is not a problem? BarntToust 14:40, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
this is about the portrait and not the politics. Pizza noob 65 (talk) 18:14, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
TeamDrumpf believes the portraits "go hard", so that's what they're thinking. Incoming prez's resembles image at Mug shot of Donald Trump. I'm assuming you meant Vance looking like a tired, bearded hamster as a complement to his work ethic, and as hamsters are cute. Def no BLPVIO there. BarntToust 22:05, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hm, work ethic ... Let's go with that, and hamsters are cute. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 14:06, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Depending on how Trump's new official photo looks, I would be in favour of just keeping his photograph as-is. The current one looks really good. Mgasparin (talk) 06:19, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, but it will be 12 years old by the time he leaves office. People don't like such old photos in infoboxen. A lot think it's too old now. It's unlikely a new official White House portrait will be unacceptably poor in quality; those guys know what they're doing. Anyway, we're hoping but don't know there will be another official portrait after he takes office. Trump may order this "inauguration" portrait to be the one used on the White House page, and it may be within his presidential powers to do that. ―Mandruss  06:34, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Duplicate edit requests/discussions

[edit]

I'd like to start a discussion here on duplicate discussions. At this point, they are going to keep coming in, likely multiple per day. Does anyone disagree that, after leaving them up for a reasonable amount of time for the user to see a response (I suggest 12 hours), they can simply be removed from the talk page so they don't get archived and clog up the archive?

Alternatively, if people prefer letting them get archived still, would anyone disagree with archiving them 12 hours after answered so the talk page does not get cluttered up? I am open to shorter timescales as well in either case, but would recommend a couple hours at least. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 02:26, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Berchanhimez make an request to WP:RFPP to semi-protect the talk page. It's mostly IP editors doing this. BarntToust 02:28, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Talk pages are generally not protected if it can be avoided... but if an administrator agrees that is viable here (for at least the next week or so), then I would support waiting on this to see if they die down (and letting auto archiver take over the ones that are already here for now) with that. Going to make that request now, thanks. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 02:31, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And requested: WP:Requests for page protection/Increase § Talk:Donald Trump. Comments there are welcome, and if another solution is thought up here, please feel free to go contest that request. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 02:39, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
They're gone after 24 hours per consensus 13. It's not like we have to live with them for the standard seven days. And it's a temporary problem that doesn't come up very often. I don't think they "clog up" the archive, as nobody browses archive pages top to bottom, and they don't create a lot of false positives in archive searches (in my experience). ―Mandruss  02:57, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I missed consensus 13's allowance for manually archiving after 24 hours. I agree that the "clogging" of the archives is the least significant issue. The clogging of this page however.. hopefully if an admin agrees temporary semi protection is warranted that will suffice, but if not (or if it's still a problem) I still think 24 hours may be too long if they continue increasing. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 03:02, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't oppose semi, but some competent IPs might. In my view, avoidance of that is just one of the benefits of registration. ―Mandruss  03:07, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Presuming the proposed image, isn't a White House image. Recommend we stick with the 2017 image, for now. GoodDay (talk) 06:37, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Does the image’s publishing on whitehouse.gov make it public domain? anikom15 (talk) 18:49, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Normally yes, we would be able to assume that anything posted on whitehouse.gov that isn't identified as copyrighted is free to use (either public domain or CC-BY license).
However, Trump's White House has a history of trying to "steal" images that look good to him. In 2017 he directed his White House staff to do the same thing - take his copyrighted photos that were taken of him by a private photographer for his inauguration materials and post them on WH.gov without a copyright notice. The private photographer had no idea Trump was planning to do so, and while the photographer was okay with Trump using them on the White House website, he did not wish them to be freely licensed/public domain.
So in this case, given the historical wanton theft of copyright, it is prudent to assume they are not until the private photographer makes an irrevocable statement that they have done so. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 18:58, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This should be determined at Commons, not here. A deletion request was recently closed rejecting that argument and keeping the photo: Commons:Deletion requests/File:Presidential Portrait of Donald Trump, 2025.jpg -- JFHutson (talk) 19:16, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The closer said this is freely licensed now (20 January). What does "freely licensed" mean? I'm not convinced that that is a proper closing. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 19:30, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's not a proper closing. While Commons does have different policies, they do have a policy akin to SUPERVOTE on Wikipedia, where an administrator should not close a discussion without summarizing the arguments made and explaining why they discounted some of them if it's not obvious. I'm shocked that the admin engaged in such blatant license laundering. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 19:37, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Then deal with it using Commons policy and procedure. I realize you are doing that, but we don't have to preemptively remove it from WP in the meantime. For now, we have an image on Commons and if we think it's the best image we should use it. -- JFHutson (talk) 19:43, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There was no license laundering. You are making assumptions without providing any tangible proof or evidence. The photo is published on the White House website under a Creative Commons license (as we already know it wasn't the work of a federal employee). That's it. Bedivere (talk) 00:59, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The White House cannot license a photo they do not own. I'm not sure how many times you have to be told that User:Bedivere. You've already been told by at least one other commons admin that you were wrong, as well as multiple other commons users opining that you were wrong. Following me to enwiki to harass me here over it is not appropriate. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 01:07, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not harassing you. I'm just responding the very unfortunate accusations you have made against me without daring to mention me! Bedivere (talk) 01:16, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Gotta ask, how do you know Trump doesn't own it and thus releases it by CC 3.0? Yeh, why are we all on Enwiki now? BarntToust 01:17, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The onus is on the users arguing for keeping it to prove that Trump owns it and can release it under that license. Not on the users arguing for deletion. See the precautionary principle. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 01:18, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And how are you to prove that Torok owns it? He just took the thing, as he worked for Trump Inaugural Committee. I say it's likely they own it, and the White House published with CC 3.0.
Lo, the pot calls the kettle black. BarntToust 01:24, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The presumption is that the photographer owns the copyright, unless and until it is proven otherwise. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 01:30, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, it doesn't. See here. The website doesn't say whether individual photos were "government-produced" or "third-party content on this site ... licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License". The photo was taken before Trump's inauguration, so it's not government-produced. The licensing statement at File:Presidential Portrait of Donald Trump, 2025.jpg is wrong. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 19:27, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Pantarch: You are in violation of the BRD enforcement - that edit was reverted and you have reinstated it. Please self-revert until the discussion here has come to a conclusion. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 19:43, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The conclusion was reached on Wikimedia Commons. I don't understand what you want to discuss here; you are needlessly discussing an alleged copyright infringement that should be discussed elsewhere. Pantarch (talk) 19:54, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Has anybody noticed that this is in the wrong subsection? I'm not in a mood to fix it. ―Mandruss  20:01, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Instead, have you noticed that there are so many duplicates on Wikimedia Commons, many with the wrong license – the correct one is CC BY 3.0 US. Pantarch (talk) 20:03, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Commons deletion request closed as keep

[edit]

[1] Me, I'd call that a supervote by the closer. And the closure rationale exists nowhere but in the page history? But what do I know. As I said above, Wikipedia copyright policy is an arcane science not meant for mere mortals. ―Mandruss  19:52, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is a supervote, it's now at their noticboard for user/admin problems as a blatant supervote and license laundering. The files have also already been renominated for deletion (if the admin refuses to vacate their close, that's the only way to discuss further unless another admin comes around and wheel wars them to reopen it - they don't have a deletion review for keep closures).
We should not rush to change the image until it is fully resolved. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 19:55, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My bad, I failed to read existing discussion. Overdue for bed. ―Mandruss  20:02, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What determines the matter to be resolved? The discussion is closed. anikom15 (talk) 20:05, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
All duplicates should be deleted, and the correct license, i.e., , should be inserted on the remaining ones. Pantarch (talk) 20:09, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That doesn't change the fact that you've violated the BRD restriction on this page, @Pantarch:. You are in violation of an arbitration enforcement remedy on this page and I strongly encourage you to self revert before it ends up at AE for violating BRD. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 20:14, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't violate the BRD restriction because my edit wasn't reverted:
"You must follow the bold-revert-discuss cycle if your change is reverted. You may not reinstate your edit until you post a talk page message discussing your edit and have waited 24 hours from the time of this talk page message" Pantarch (talk) 20:45, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Duplicate section headings in the article, Part II

[edit]

This concerns second-presidency section headings that duplicate first-presidency headings; currently:

  • "Early actions"
  • "Domestic policy"
  • "Immigration"
  • "Foreign policy"
  • "Personnel".

A recent discussion received participation from only four editors before it was auto-archived, and there was no clear consensus. This is something that needs more attention since it will affect all of our editing lives.

When there are duplicate section headings:

  • Following a second-presidency-duplicate section link in the page history will take you to the corresponding first-presidency section.
  • Same for links on a contribs page.
  • When you click "Publish changes" for a second-presidency-duplicate section, you will be positioned at the corresponding first-presidency section.
  • However, the section links in the table of contents will still work as expected, so readers are unaffected.

Normally, the duplicates would mean that it would be impossible to wikilink to a second-presidency-duplicate section. I have addressed this by adding qualifying anchors to the second-presidency-duplicate section headings. These anchors are the respective headings followed by " 2". With those anchors in place, it's now possible to link to second-presidency duplicate sections by using the anchor instead of the heading. For example: second presidency early actions. (Editors unfamiliar with the article will have to learn that trick and may accidentally link to the wrong section.)

An alternative is to eliminate duplicate headings by qualifying either all second-presidency headings or only the duplicates. E.g.,

  • "Second presidency early actions"
  • "Foreign policy 2"
  • "Personnel (2025–present)".

This would eliminate the editor inconveniences listed above, and eliminate the need for the anchors. The question for us here is whether that's the best solution. If it is, we need to decide on the best specific way to qualify the headings.

At this moment, I have no opinion or recommendation and could go either way. ―Mandruss  IMO. 09:31, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There are two problems with the anchor.
  • When editing a second presidency section with the same heading as a first presidency section, clicking Preview will display that section, but clicking Publish changes displays the first presidency section with the same heading. Not a big problem but confusing at first.
  • Linking from another article. It's not a problem when you link by copying e.g. Donald_Trump#Early_actions_2 from the url. It is a problem when you link the way I usually do, by typing [[Article name#Section heading]], not knowing that there's another section with that heading higher up in the article.
My preference is no change to first presidency headings. Second presidency headings e.g., Personnel (2025–present). Is [ampersand]ndash[semicolon] to prevent wraparound necessary in headings? Space4TCatHerder🖖 17:41, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
e.g., Personnel (2025–present) - For all second presidency, or only the duplicates? Is [ampersand]ndash[semicolon] to prevent wraparound necessary in headings? - Use of ndash doesn't prevent wrapping. You may be confusing it with nbsp. But wrapping is unlikely to happen so early on a line. ―Mandruss  IMO. 20:22, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
confusing it with nbsp: yes. Are ampersandndashsemicolon necessary because the anchor span class value can't contain the – character? Space4TCatHerder🖖 13:49, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, they're interchangeable. Some editors including me prefer to use ndash because it's clearer for editors. In some fonts, it's hard to distinguish between – and — (endash and emdash, respectively)—particularly if you don't have both side-by-side for comparison. ―Mandruss  IMO. 15:36, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Is it worth looking at the way that the Grover Cleveland article dealt with this same issue? ErnestKrause (talk) 00:06, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sure. Not exactly this same issue. He has only two duplicates, "Foreign policy" and "Military policy". Editors there have chosen to qualify both duplicates on both sides, first and second, and only the duplicates. Following that example, we would have:
  • "Early actions, 2017–2021"
  • "Domestic policy, 2017–2021"
  • "Immigration, 2017–2021"
  • "Foreign policy, 2017–2021"
  • "Personnel, 2017–2021"
  • "Early actions, 2025–present"
  • "Domestic policy, 2025–present"
  • "Immigration, 2025–present"
  • "Foreign policy, 2025–present"
  • "Personnel, 2025–present"
Those headings interspersed with a lot of unqualified non-duplicates, such as first presidency "Conflicts of interest" and second presidency "Mass firings of federal employees and hiring freezes". ―Mandruss  IMO. 04:10, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Being a believer in "crossing that bridge when we get to it", I don't see the necessity to add "2027–2021" to the first presidency sections or "2025–present" to non-duplicate second presidency sections. Space4TCatHerder🖖 13:49, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Mandruss idea looks practical to follow in the case of duplicates. Following the example of the Grover Cleveland article seems like a safe way to move forward. ErnestKrause (talk) 15:07, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've convinced myself that the "editor inconveniences" listed above are unacceptable. We again lack sufficient participation to form a consensus. I plan to wait a few more days and, if there is not a substantial increase in participation, implement the solution with the least change to section headings. That happens to coincide with Space4T's position. If editors don't like it, they can participate in discussion. ―Mandruss  IMO. 06:16, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think my position here is just to leave the sections with their duplicates. Yes, it creates some small inconveniences for editors — but links from other articles are very easy to fix and the "preview"/"public changes" section discrepancy is by Space4T's own admission "not a big problem." On the other hand, renaming duplicates creates a much more awkward situation for readers because there's no logical reason why "Foreign policy, 2025–present" needs to be a subheader under "Second presidency (2025–present)," which already makes very clear what the time period being talked about is, and looks inconsistent with the non-duplicates. I wish there was some snappy policy I could link but the gist is that editors should Always prioritize the experience of the reader, even at the cost of a few very minor inconveniences to editors. DecafPotato (talk) 22:22, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@DecafPotato: I just want to be sure you understand what you're supporting; you didn't mention inconveniences 1 and 2. Go to the article's page history and locate this recent edit to second presidency "Foreign policy". Click on the section link, "Foreign policy". You will find yourself at first presidency "Foreign policy". Is that an acceptable inconvenience, for all duplicates, for all editors including editors not familiar with the article, for the remainder of the article's life? ―Mandruss  IMO. 22:35, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Following the Grover Cleveland example for an FA-article still seems best. Except for the "Mass Firings" section, all of these subsections match up between the 1st presidency and 2nd presidency. You can just append the listed years already in the top section heading to solve this issue like the FA-article for Grover Cleveland does successfully already. ErnestKrause (talk) 00:24, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@ErnestKrauseGrover Cleveland was promoted to FA in 2008, and the version promoted had duplicate section headings between the two presidency sections. DecafPotato (talk) 01:14, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Those links are to the very old version of the article for Grover Cleveland when it was originally promoted. The current version updated many times since then uses the format, for example, of "Foreign policy, 1885–1889", adapting the dates for 1st presidency and 2nd presidency. I'm thinking that it looks ok and unambiguous in the updated format. Mandruss version above for Trump appears to adapt this in a usable format for Trump. ErnestKrause (talk) 01:24, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Given that I just now learned those section links are clickable and that they are easily fixable by either just knowing to type "2" in your edit summary or simply by checking the diffs to see what section was actually edited, yes, I do think that's an acceptable inconvenience. DecafPotato (talk) 01:13, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's a big ask in my opinion. ―Mandruss  IMO. 07:14, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And also is this fixable by simply appending hidden comments to the duplicate headings? I genuinely don't know but it might work. DecafPotato (talk) 01:15, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Unclear what you're talking about, but I'd say no. The software ignores hidden comments. ―Mandruss  IMO. 07:14, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support changing the second presidency links to new values. The old ones cause confusion. -SusanLesch (talk) 20:16, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I did this. ―Mandruss  IMO. 08:38, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Criminal conviction in infobox

[edit]

I added the module "Infobox person" with two parameters. These edits then replaced the "Infobox person" module with the "Infobox criminal" module.

  • Does consensus item 66 prohibit "Infobox criminal" as a module embedded in "Infobox officeholder"?

Adding the criminal conviction to the infobox was expressly exempted in the closing of the RfC. Infobox person does not have the "conviction" parameter, but it has the parameters criminal_charges, criminal_penalty, and criminal_status, allowing us to add the conviction and the unconditional discharge sentence. Space4TCatHerder🖖 16:46, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It might be worthwhile to apply some brakes to this type of expansion since Reuters on 29 Jan has published that the cases are subject to appeal and appellate review here: [2]. If the case is vacated or reversed as in a vacated judgment then this type of expansion might turn into a goose egg or a red herring. ErnestKrause (talk) 20:34, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Trump formally filed a notice of intent to appeal and now has six months to do so. He hasn't appealed yet, and, unless and until his appeal is successful and not, in turn, appealed by the prosecution, the conviction stands. Red herring — what logical fallacy or literary device to lead readers or audiences toward what false conclusion? Space4TCatHerder🖖 21:35, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I believe earlier discussion has established that we don't wait until Trump has exhausted every last little bit of due process before we call a conviction a conviction. Inclusion in the infobox is a matter of weight, not fact. ―Mandruss  IMO. 21:38, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think we need anything about conviction or sentence in the infobox. ―Mandruss  IMO. 21:39, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sort of siding with Mandruss on his view regarding the Infobox here. The conviction information is already indexed in the information side box for the "Donald Trump series" and this Infobox addition seems to just double it up. ErnestKrause (talk) 16:37, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The series box doesn't mention the conviction. Space4TCatHerder🖖 19:50, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The series box has a tab for "Civil and criminal prosecutions" which can be clicked for the details to show up. ErnestKrause (talk) 14:57, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The details don't mention a conviction. I assume you're referring to "New York indictment (Stormy Daniels scandal·Karen McDougal affair·financial fraud)" hidden in "Civil and criminal prosecutions". That doesn't mention that the case went to trial and that Trump was convicted and sentenced. Space4TCatHerder🖖 15:56, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm assuming that you already know that the tab which you are referring to is now shown as "New York Felony Conviction"..., which seems to be the word that you were looking for. ErnestKrause (talk) 21:27, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, because I figured out how to update the series. I still think, though, that the conviction ought to be listed in the infobox. We're listing "awards and honors", so why don't we list dishonors? Space4TCatHerder🖖 14:33, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not anymore.[3]Mandruss  IMO. 15:19, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The removal of the "awards" parameter from the infobox was challenged here. So, repeating my question: why are we listing "awards and honors" but not dishonors? A criminal conviction for 34 felony counts of business fraud seems more important than, say, the Georgia (the country) Presidential Order of Excellence for licensing his name to a condo and hotel tower in Batumi that wasn't completed. Space4TCatHerder🖖 14:11, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Over three days later, with no mention of reversion in the edit summary, that probably wasn't meant as a challenge but rather as a BOLD. There's no indication Rochambeau1783 was even aware of the removal, and they don't participate much in talk (4 edits total). I have now challenged the probable BOLD. ―Mandruss  IMO. 14:40, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But I don't think the two need to be linked in this way. Smacks of whataboutism. I think the only question should be whether the infobox should list conviction and sentence. Like so many things, policy doesn't show us the way, so we're left to "editorial judgment". Mine is that we don't need to work quite so hard to broadcast to the world that Trump is a criminal by the dictionary definition. David Berkowitz he is not; I suggest we wait until he shoots someone on Fifth Avenue. ―Mandruss  IMO. 14:55, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
He'll just order the Secret Service to do it to keep America safe from protesters chanting woke slogans outside Trump Tower. Per the SC: We therefore concluded that the President must be absolutely immune from "damages liability for acts within the 'outer perimeter' of his official responsibility". Space4TCatHerder🖖 15:11, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Template:Infobox criminal:

This template is generally reserved for convicted serial killers, gangsters, mass murderers, old west outlaws, murderers, mafia members, fugitives, FBI 10 Most Wanted, serial rapists, mobsters, and other notorious criminals.

He's notorious, he's a criminal by the dictionary definition, but he's not notorious for being a criminal. He was plenty notorious before the conviction. I think we went through this with "criminal" in the first sentence. ―Mandruss  IMO. 15:05, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't embed the "Template:Infobox criminal" module in the officeholder template, I used the "template:Infobox person". It also has parameters for criminal charges/convictions, i.e., seems to be intended for people who are mostly notable for something else but also have a criminal conviction. Someone then replaced the person module with the Infobox criminal module. Space4TCatHerder🖖 15:37, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think we went through this with "criminal" in the first sentence. Labeling Trump "criminal" and listing the conviction in the infobox isn't the same thing at all. "An infobox ... in Wikipedia represents a summary of information about the subject of an article". Space4TCatHerder🖖 15:50, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Vague, generalized guidance still subject to editorial judgment on a case-by-case basis. That's the same kind of logic people were using to argue for "criminal" in the first sentence. ―Mandruss  IMO. 00:17, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, it was absolutely inappropriate for the infobox by the requirements of the template. PackMecEng (talk) 15:38, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Taking action aimed at reducing the size of the federal workforce"

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Original heading: "Precision is important". ―Mandruss  IMO. 16:18, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Taking action aimed at reducing the size of the federal workforce" is a very misleading, euphemistic, and vague wording that makes it sound like he is doing something entirely normal. Like he is proposing reductions to Congress and so on, not de facto shutting down whole agencies at will, attempting to get rid of countless FBI employees who investigated the Congress stormers. That is not how sources describe what's going on. Many sources and very highly regarded experts are describing this as a coup. "Overseeing abrupt agency federal workforce reductions that bypass traditional legislative processes" is far more precise. --Tataral (talk) 00:50, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not in the business of editorializing. That's what he's doing, as reported by reliable sources. It's not Wikipedia's job to word it in the way you want, describing it as a coup for political reasons. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 01:06, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Your edit to the lead did not follow WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY. It was imprecise, because it claimed that Trump has overseen 'abrupt agency closures'. USAID has not been abolished, nor has any other agency. If you want to call this a coup, please establish consensus here first. Riposte97 (talk) 02:27, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You did not address the points about the material you reinstated. Where is the consensus for the strange and biased wording "taking action aimed at reducing the size of the federal workforce"? Nobody said anything about changing it to coup at this time, although countless commentators, Democrats and others describe it as that[4][5][6] It only underlines why "taking action aimed at reducing the size of the federal workforce" is a biased and misleading and imprecise way to describe what Democrats, commentators and the media describe as an ongoing coup. --Tataral (talk) 02:54, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, if you can find some RS that support your preferred wording, you can propose a consensus to change that sentence. Riposte97 (talk) 03:17, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Tataral, as others have said, your proposal is nothing but wishy-washy editorializing. Moreover, Trump, being President, is the head of the executive branch, so stated in article II, section 1, clause 1, or known as the Executive Vesting Clause: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”. As such, President Trump has ample power to remove inferior officers to him. That is not a coup, period. These people serve at his pleasure, and the Supreme Court has stated it many times, so much even Congress knows this: “In 1926, Chief Justice and former President William Taft addressed the President’s removal power in Myers v. United States, holding that the executive power includes the power to remove Executive Branch officers.”. Trump absolutely can, and shown he does, fire people and that’s that. Pleasant editing, Irruptive Creditor (talk) 05:26, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blatantly biased, citing a singly barely related source. The context here is clearly different, and unprecedented. This is being widely reported on as such. 71.76.146.141 (talk) 18:26, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Blatantly biased", says the one with no evidence for any of their claims. I won't bother to further engage in what is clearly drive-by complaint on this talk page by an IP user. If you have any constructive commentary, or evidence to disprove the above in regards to removal power, I would enjoy hearing it. Until then, pleasant editing, Irruptive Creditor (talk) 19:19, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
by an IP user. Don't hate on IP users. Hate on very opinionated IP users with two edits to their name, including this one, when they show no evidence of significant editing experience under other IP address(es). ―Mandruss  IMO. 09:57, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Litigiousness, Cohn, calling losses wins

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Original heading: "Biographical detail". ―Mandruss  IMO. 09:50, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Nikkimaria: We are lucky to have your oversight of this article. You are, second only to Firefangledfeathers, the best editor I have seen on Wikipedia. Will you please work with me to replace two things that yesterday you termed "overdetail" in your revert? I am open to your suggestions if the following don't work for you.

  1. Some say Trump learned to be litigious from Cohn, and others say Trump found Cohn to be like-minded.[1][a]

    This is needed to explain Trump's muscle memory that lawsuits will always help him no matter the outcome. His reflex to sue brought us the second term barrage of executive orders with no regard for legality. Somewhere this article needs to say that Trump is litigious. It's a defining personality trait. My sources are Buettner and Craig who are both Pulitzer-winning New York Times journalists who wrote a recent Trump biography (2024). I propose to keep the sentence and drop the footnote.

    "Many have said Trump learned to be litigious from Cohn, and others say that Trump found Cohn to be like-minded.[1]

    Can you agree?

  2. In the 2000s, Trump licensed his name in real estate deals to build luxury condominium towers around the world—of forty, none were ever built.[2]

    This is simply wikt:fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. When we hear Trump ask the Palestinians to move and offer to build a tourist resort in Gaza we ought to know he has done this not once but forty times before. Customers have been duped and lost deposits on luxury projects from Waikiki to Florida, while he got paid every time. I absolutely believe there's always a first time, but this history should inform the present. I propose to shorten the sentence slightly.

    In the 2000s, Trump licensed his name to build luxury condominium towers around the world—of forty, none were built.[2]

    Can you agree?

-SusanLesch (talk) 15:29, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For the first one, I broadly agree that his attitude towards litigation is important for the biography. I don't think how he got that attitude (or from who, for example) is important. I'd recommend trying to find a way to use that footnote as the actual information. To me the important parts (that are DUE) would be that he does not care if he wins or not, and that he invents phony enemies if he loses.
I don't believe the second one is a fool me once situation. Those were all ventures he undertook as a private individual. The idea for Gaza is that the US would take over the land, and then other private developers would develop it. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 21:51, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For the first one, care to suggest text?
For the second, Trump never intended to be the developer. He licensed his name for millions. An example, in Tampa, Florida, the "other private developers" were a former professional wrestler, a dentist, and someone who'd built small apartment buildings. All unvetted and inexperienced. He claimed he, Melania, and Donald Jr. were buying units. "Buyers had to come up with a 20 percent nonrefundable deposit to lock in a unit." The developers found out after the groundbreaking ceremony that their site couldn't support the weight of the towers without supports. Trump sued them when they ran out of money. You're correct that the US government is a separate entity, but I have to question Trump's vision in light of 40 failures. -SusanLesch (talk) 23:57, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps something like "According to (source) [if attribution is needed, depending on how many sources/the strength of them], Trump believes in litigating without regard for the chance of success, and if losing the litigation, makes up phony enemies to justify the loss" or similar?
For the second, I'd be worried about a BLP violation - like you said, he just licensed his name. That doesn't make him ultimately responsible for the failure of those developers to conduct business appropriately. If there was a source that explicitly said "Trump has a history of licensing his name to unscrupulous/poorly managed development ventures, significantly more often than other people who license their names" or similar, then we could maybe include it, though I'd question if it's due. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 02:48, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
berchanhimez, thank you for the text. We should use it. Please tell me first though, how could #2 be a violation of WP:BLP? Why the secrecy here? FYI, in 2006, two years after The Apprentice launch, Trump announced "construction projects in Atlanta, Dallas, Delaware, two in Florida, Hawaii, Philadelphia, New York City,...White Plains...Panama, Mexico, and Israel". He was not the developer but he cultivated that illusion. -SusanLesch (talk) 20:16, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
berchanhimez? -SusanLesch (talk) 15:57, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you!
On the first, I'd agree, given what you've presented here, that the information in the footnote is actually the more important piece of this. I don't have access to the source you've used for that quote - does it relate to a specific lawsuit, or it's just a general statement?
All right. I'll work on berchanhimez's text. The authors present this is in about a half page in the context of him losing the federal discrimination suit. They call Trump "fully formed" at age twenty-seven. The quote refers to Trump going forward, in a general sense. -SusanLesch (talk) 23:35, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
On the second... I'm not sure I follow the argument you're making. If he didn't intend to be the developer and was just licensing his name, I wouldn't see that as giving him any obligation to ensure the buildings were actually built. You could say he was lending his name to questionable people, if the sourcing supports the assessment you've given here, and that could be folded into the sentence that precedes your addition. But IMO the whole Gaza "proposal" is a very different issue. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:38, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The courts agreed with you. People sued for their money back and often lost. -SusanLesch (talk) 23:35, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How's this?

Before age thirty, Trump showed his propensity for litigation, no matter the outcome and cost: even in a loss, he would devise phony arguments and treat the case as a win.

-SusanLesch (talk) 19:43, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Suggest "Before age thirty, Trump showed his propensity for litigation, no matter the outcome and cost; even when he lost, he would describe the case as a win." Nikkimaria (talk) 02:50, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe eliminate "would"? "[...] even when he lost, he described the case as a win."
Alternatives to "described": portrayed, characterized, represented. ―Mandruss  IMO. 10:47, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, thank you both! Much improved. Done. -SusanLesch (talk) 15:55, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How's this? It belongs at the end of §Licensing the Trump name.

In the 2000s, Trump licensed his name to luxury condominium towers around the world—of forty, none were built.[2]

-SusanLesch (talk) 20:05, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody replied so I put this in. Done. -SusanLesch (talk) 19:00, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is not what you put in. Also, how DUE is this? How many other things did Trump licence his name to? Riposte97 (talk) 20:52, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Trump made promises to forty sets of people and reneged, surely notable for inclusion per WP:DUE. There are chapters in our sources, Kranish and Fisher and Buettner and Craig, that cover his real estate deals of the period just after The Apprentice began. (I happen to know he built the JW Marriott in Panama City and The Ritz-Carlton Baku Hotel in Baku, Azerbaijan. and Trump Chicago, but creating a blow by blow list like that is WP:OR.) Regarding DUE:
  • WP:BLPSTYLE: Articles should document in a non-partisan manner what reliable secondary sources have published about the subjects...
  • WP:BLPBALANCE: Do not give disproportionate space to particular viewpoints; the views of small minorities should not be included at all.
  • WP:PUBLICFIGURE: In the case of public figures, there will be a multitude of reliable published sources, and BLPs should simply document what these sources say. If an allegation or incident is noteworthy, relevant, and well documented, it belongs in the article—even if it is negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it.
Riposte97, would you please provide the text that you prefer? Thank you. -SusanLesch (talk) 00:35, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Trump did not make promises to those people. The developers did. I’m not sure he bears any moral culpability here. Furthermore, the 'forty' number may not be hugely relevant if the total number to be built was, say, a thousand. Shorn of that context, it reads a little slanted.
Perhaps we could say, 'Trump licensed his name to a series of residential property developments, some of which were never built.' But again, it just seems trivial. Riposte97 (talk) 00:46, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This isn't a trivial point to the hundreds of people who had to agree to settlements. Nor was it trivial to the judges who sealed those records. To avoid slanted content, Wikipedia guidelines require reliable sources, WP:RS. Riposte97, I already gave you two. Two more:

All of these promotions, sales pitches, and newsletter updates created the impression that Trump was the builder and the developer, words he used.[3]

The Trump Baja News house newsletter said in July 2007:

our new and excited homeowners now are part of an elite group of vacation homeowners who own property developed by one of the most respected names in real estate, Donald J. Trump.

What is your source for saying Trump did not make promises to those people.?
What is your source for say, a thousand? Did you pull the number out of the air or do you refer to reliable data? -SusanLesch (talk) 16:26, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm I’m afraid I’m just not convinced. This is a question of editorial judgement that is probably best mediated by a third person. I understand there are RS that deal with the Baja project. What I don't understand is how important that project is in the context of Trump's business activities, particularly in circumstances where Trump wasn't the developer. The sources make clear that the primary defendant in the litigation surrounding the project was the Mexican developer. I'll leave it for others to weigh in from here. Riposte97 (talk) 19:20, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You've not answered reasonable questions and then you walked away. I will remember that. -SusanLesch (talk) 19:34, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am merely cognisant of WP:BLUDGEON. As I say, I'm not convinced by your edit, which differed from the one proffered above. It's now up to other editors to break the deadlock. Riposte97 (talk) 20:44, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Now I'm confused. Two replies ago you seemed to me to object to how I represented Trump's role. But your last reply (and your first) seemed to me to object to my edit. There was some problem with the different way I worded it (two sentences in place of one).
Proposed above:

In the 2000s, Trump licensed his name to luxury condominium towers around the world—of forty, none were built.[2]

My edit:

In the 2000s, Trump licensed his name to luxury condominium towers around the world. Forty of them were never built.[2]

My feeling is that the target is moving around. Maybe you're right that you and I can't resolve this. -SusanLesch (talk)

For the next round, I propose this based on Riposte's text, to follow the section §Licensing the Trump name:

During the 2000s, Trump licensed his name to residential property developments worldwide, forty of which were never built.[2]

Continuing rationale. Wikipedia has a List of things named after Donald Trump that puts "a thousand" about two orders of magnitude out of the picture. Combining the two sections §Real estate and §Hotels yields:

  • 38 named properties, 9 of them owned by Trump or the Trump Organization, 29 licensed
  • 35 cancelled or never completed

My source for "forty" is from 2024 (and won't help the list). I restored the date, changed "around the world" to "worldwide," and changed the word "some" to "forty" per our source and per MOS:WTW. -SusanLesch (talk) 21:40, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Riposte97: Trump did not make promises to those people. The developers did. I’m not sure he bears any moral culpability here. Trump said in a video promoting the project on the Trump Baja website "when I build, I have investors that follow me all over. They invest in what I build, and that’s why I’m so excited about Trump Ocean resort". Trump was sued separately from the investors and settled for the usual "undisclosed amount" and confidentiality agreement. Space4TCatHerder🖖 19:17, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm so I see. But again, I just don't see how Trump is morally culpable for this thing going down. In an article like this, we can't include every tidbit that would be in, say, a book-length biography. Editors have to exercise judgement about what to include, and mine is telling me that this story says little about the man. Riposte97 (talk) 20:50, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Where did you get this idea? Nobody is proposing we point to anybody's morality. One statement of fact covers a lot of ground, and is key to understanding how Trump spent the celebrity capital he earned in The Apprentice. We're talking about one sentence. -SusanLesch (talk) 18:40, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sources
  1. ^ Buettner and Craig write, "He [Trump] would pursue litigation with no regard to his chances of victory or the costs involved. When he lost, he would invent a phony enemy, or assign a phony motive to a real enemy, and reframe it as a victory."[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c Buettner & Craig 2024, p. 126.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Buettner & Craig 2024, p. 410.
  3. ^ Johnston 2016, p. 170.

Add nicknames

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Giving a complete list of AKA's might be helpful for future generations. 2601:283:4F01:7540:D934:DFE2:BD8C:1E9F (talk) 01:35, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There already is a separate article about that; it was first created in July 2016:
Pseudonyms used by Donald Trump - Wikipedia
Perhaps it should be linked from this article?
I do think it's weird that the other article, which mentions his best-known pseudonym, "John Barron" (in addition to three other names), never points out that he later named his youngest son "Barron".
It's all just so bizarre. NME Frigate (talk) 02:19, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
{{Infobox officeholder}} has a parameter for this, but I don't think it's warranted in this case. I added a link to the pseudonyms article to "See also", which otherwise had only one lonely entry. I don't know where else this would fit. ―Mandruss  IMO. 09:13, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reinserting challenged material, "hundreds" of Jan 6 rioters (redo)

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@EucalyptusTreeHugger: You added new material to the lead, I reverted, and you reinserted the material with a minor change (replacing "dozens" with "hundreds"). IMO that still counts as a violation of the contentious topic restrictions in effect on this page. "Hundreds" is also wrong, he pardoned ≈1,500 of them, as the body states. Space4TCatHerder🖖 18:29, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This edit leaves only the potential process vio. That appears to be moot, but the editor should familiarize themselves with the ArbCom-dictated process at this article. ―Mandruss  IMO. 19:17, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In case my editsum wasn't clear: if it's not in the body, it doesn't go into the lead. Renaming the Gulf of Mexico for people living in the U.S. may have a place in Second presidency of Donald Trump (section "Make America look stupid"?), but it's not important enough for the body of this bio, let alone the lead. Space4TCatHerder🖖 19:20, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Mandruss, you edited while I was adding the aforegoing text to my comment. Space4TCatHerder🖖 19:22, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hadn't noticed that Treehugger removed the Gulf but reinserted the Gaza and Greenland proposals. I challenged the entire addition. Gaza and Greenland are also not mentioned in the body, per WP:NOTNEWS. Space4TCatHerder🖖 19:30, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@EucalyptusTreeHugger: This is the third time you have reinserted material challenged here and here. Space4TCatHerder🖖 19:16, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Trans in lead

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@Riposte97 Why do you not think we should mention his trans EOs in the lead? Far less significant actions of his second term are already there Snokalok (talk) 20:55, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I take issue with your wording, that the EOs have the effect of 'stripping rights from transgender Americans.' Riposte97 (talk) 21:04, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Would you prefer "implement restrictions on the activities of transgender Americans"? Snokalok (talk) 21:12, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The more accurate, neutral phrasing would be "rolling back federal recognition of gender identity". Either way, this policy is far less notable than the mass deportation programme and overhaul of the federal government. I have removed the other insignificant "actions", as their presence in the lead is WP:UNDUE. MB2437 21:19, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure the mass deportation program is, for the most part, significant enough to mention in the lede yet. Some reporting has indicated that the federal government under Donald Trump isn't removing a substantially greater number of immigrants than happened during Joe Biden's presidency. One story today even indicated that ICE may be gaming search engine results to make it look like they're doing more than they are. It's true that there's been some flashy reporting about how the deportations are being carried out, e.g., the tiff with Colombia's president about treating deportees humanely, but there nearly 500 deportation flights to Colombia over the past five years. The one element that is clearly new is the use of Guantanamo to house illegal immigrants, with the attendant questions about habeas corpus. And there have been stories about the administration preparing to contract with private companies to build what will probably look like concentration camps, if they should ever come to fruition. NME Frigate (talk) 21:38, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
On the contrary, the US has housed illegal migrants at Guantanamo in the past. See: https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2025/2/11/the-us-held-migrants-at-guantanamo-before-is-trumps-approach-different.
In any event, regarding the point at hand, I agree it's not due for the lead. Riposte97 (talk) 23:43, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
With regards to 'ever coming to fruition', this should stipulate all details on his second presidency are removed from the lead. Worth noting that the lead does not indicate how many illegal immigrants they are removing, simply that he initiated a program with wider intention. Following WP:LEAD calls for its inclusion, as it has an entire section to itself in the body. MB2437 23:54, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I’ve always favored the inclusion of these topics in the lead section. Mörunivśa5tr (talk) 02:01, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's equivalent to white washing. Taking away recognition for someone is taking away their rights. Just as an example, he has directed the military to (and/or appointed a SecDef who will) discharge any transgender military servicepeople. In other words, the right of someone who is physically able to do so to serve their country in the military is being taken away. Furthermore, his administration has removed the ability of people to correct their gender on federal documents even for those born intersex. If that's not taking away someone's rights, what is? -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 05:58, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Nay, sir. In my view, no rights are being taken away. If you have RS stating otherwise, please submit them here. Riposte97 (talk) 06:45, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I listed two rights that were taken away by the Trump administration. The sourcing for those two rights being taken away has been presented already here (and in the article). There are many more examples. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 06:47, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Being a soldier is not a 'right'. Come on. Do asthmatics not have rights in America? I don't mean that the prohibition is unsourced. I mean there aren't serious sources arguing this is a some kind of rights violation, are there? Riposte97 (talk) 08:06, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the people who fought for the rights of Afro Americans to serve, gay people to serve, and women to serve, would disagree with you. By your logic, you could say “Banning trans people from university isn’t a removal of rights because people who score badly on the SATs can’t go either”. It’s bluesky. Snokalok (talk) 19:24, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The key difference being that the military has rigorous physical entrance requirements, and it has been widely debated—for better or for worse—whether the use of HRT is appropriate there. The user's point is that becoming a soldier is an inherently discriminative process, barring entrance for a range of factors out of one's control, and not a "right" by any means. Barring one from the right to an education, for example, is completely different. MB2437 20:40, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is getting off topic but even if it's a widely debated thing on HRT (even though biologists would say it is utterly irrelevant) it is odd to just remove people from joining the military also not every trans person goes on HRT so yes it's a bit of a removal of rights. Akechi The Agent Of Chaos (talk) 08:52, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And that conclusion can be drawn from the reader; we do not need to force feed buzzwords such as 'stripping rights'—the tone is not neutral, nor is it wholly accurate. Whether the reader should agree or disagree on that tone is not our judgement to make. MB2437 12:26, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Personally while it is something he is doing it should probably be kept in a separate section like social issues or LGBTQ issues in the other articles for something to be in the lead it needs to be really significant. Akechi The Agent Of Chaos (talk) 00:40, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's not important enough for the lead, especially not compared to global trade war, gutting the federal workforce, or mass deportation. I support removal. — Goszei (talk) 22:40, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Canadian Commons request

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We normally don't transfer over requests from Canada's Commons help pages...... however I guess IP's are unable to post at are help desks here or on the majority of Donald Trump articles.

The Donald Trump category at Wikipedia is a mess and very difficult to navigate. Was wondering if we could request an outline to be made in the same style as Outline of Canada and/or Outline of the United States.... Signature -Anonymous IP

Moxy🍁 14:54, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do we have any outlines of people? Tbf we've got outlines of George Washington, Henry Ford etc. Kowal2701 (talk) 23:15, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Some clarification ...not all messed up but odd names for articles, thus hard to find - example used was 2025 United States trade war with Canada and Mexico. Perhaps more redirects nation related? Moxy🍁 18:15, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That article definitely needs a redirect mentioning tariffs, but other than that I'm not sure I see the problem. Presumably one day we'll be deleting nonsense articles like Donald Trump and golf. An outline would be beneficial, but quite a big undertaking Kowal2701 (talk) 20:27, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Inclusion of the film The Apprentice

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Controversy has emerged about the inclusion of the movie The Apprentice. Please don't clog up this biography selling films. Jeremy Strong is the star and Roy Cohn's article doesn't even mention it except in a table (Mr. Stan was a forgettable Trump). Second, the title adds confusion with the TV show for the reader. -SusanLesch (talk) 16:10, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You say Sebastian Stan was "forgettable" playing Donad Trump in The Apprentice. If I saw the film, I might very well agree with you, but that would still be "original research." Given that Stan was nominated for a Golden Globe (he lost to Adrien Brody in The Brutalist), a BAFTA (the awards ceremony is tomorrow night), an Independent Spirit Award (awards are a week from today), and an Oscar (the ceremony is scheduled for March 2), the consensus seems to be on the other side, although perhaps if you find a raft of critics describing Stan's performance as mediocre, that might offset the industry acclaim.
I think the question is; how often are biopics mentioned in the articles on their subjects? Is Oppenheimer mentioned in the article on J. Robert Oppenheimer? Is A Complete Unknown mentioned in the article on Bob Dylan? And so forth. NME Frigate (talk) 20:45, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
NME Frigate makes a good point. I'm supporting the version of this edit made by Nikkimaria which adds mention of the Academy Award nominated biographical film The Apprentice in the Real Estate section of the Trump article. As a major production film about a sitting president, this is a notable exception to the rule that sitting president's rarely have feature length films made about them during their term of office. Also, Trump was informed of this film's production and declined to challenge this biographical film as being subject to the laws of libel or defamation. This version of the edit made by Nikkimaria should be restored to the article. ErnestKrause (talk) 21:14, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Neither J. Robert Oppenheimer nor Bob Dylan have top bios the size of this one and a hundred or so related articles on different aspects of their lives, activities, and families. Trump does, and there is an article on Donald Trump in popular culture. This article used to have a section entitled "In popular culture". It was removed on November 10, 2024, in favor of a "see also" link to the separate article where the movie is mentioned in the Films section. A new "Popular culture" section was boldly added and the content, slightly trimmed, then moved into the "Real estate" section, no reason given. Biopics are more or less fictionalized dramatizations of events and not reliable sources per WP:RS. Space4TCatHerder🖖 16:10, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
NME Frigate's argument is a good one so I took a quick look (James Brown has a whole section named §Biopics). I concur with Space4Time3Continuum2x: in the case of Trump, Wikipedia has a place to put this. Donald Trump in popular culture. And why haven't you guys added it in prose to Roy Cohn? -SusanLesch (talk) 19:52, 16 February 2025 (UTC) -[reply]
NMEFrigate has not been on the Trump Talk page here since 2-15-25 and his comments at that time seem well placed. Both Oppenheimer and Bob Dylan are FA articles on Wikipedia and deserve more attention in this context of making the Trump article more effective. I'm assuming that some editors have not seen this biographical film and I'll note some defense of the principle of recreating documentary and historical enactments when actual videotapes are not available for important scenes. In the case of "The Apprentice", Trump is the one who is biographically presented as the apprentice of Cohn, not the other way around. The film then makes the presentation of Cohn teaching his apprentice Trump his three part rules of aggressive winning, teaching Trump to: "always attack, never admit wrongdoing, and always claim victory." This biographical film maintains that this mantra is effective in understanding why Trump became the political realist that he is today, and why he was guided by a realist-oriented caveat emptor business ethic in his business career. The version of the edit added by Nikkimaria to the "Real estate" section (linked by Space4Time above) should be returned to the article, and NMEFrigate's argument should be followed. ErnestKrause (talk) 15:02, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, ErnestKrause. Wikipedia is a big place, but it does not have articles for Bob Dylan in popular culture or Robert Oppenheimer in popular culture. -SusanLesch (talk) 00:02, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The film material for Oppenheimer and Dylan is already included in those articles in their respective Legacy sections ( and not Popular Culture sections). By your analogy, then "The Apprentice" material should be added to the Legacy (aka Assessments) section of the Trump article. Unless you have not seen "The Apprentice", then I'm not sure why you appear not to want the Cohn material added here in the Trump article, since it was brought into the Cohn article last week. Your thread above on this Talk page seems to mention Cohn as relevant to the Trump article here. I'm still accepting the point raised by NMEFrigate above, and the usefulness of the addition of the edit by Nikkimaria in the Real Estate section which you deleted. ErnestKrause (talk) 00:37, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Trump was paid $50,000 a season an episode to appear in The Apprentice television show. That's not a legacy or an assessment issue; the show was his employer. -SusanLesch (talk) 13:49, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The edit you reverted had nothing to do with the television show; the edit you reverted was of the 2024 film which does not deal with Trump's years on the television show. Could you consider restoring the edit into the Real Estate section, or moving it into the Assessment section. The film version from 2024 has nearly nothing to do with the television program of the same name. ErnestKrause (talk) 18:29, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Evidently I misunderstood, By your analogy, then "The Apprentice" material should be added to the Legacy (aka Assessments) section of the Trump article.
You don't seem to understand that Donald Trump has a whole article Donald Trump in popular culture. And that article has a subarticle Donald Trump filmography. Somebody has already added The Apprentice the movie in both places. -SusanLesch (talk) 19:35, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Stating it plainly, the 2024 film is on multiple sibling pages on Wikipedia. This discussion is about my supporting Nikkimaria's version of the edit as being informative to the Real Estate section of the main article for Donald Trump; both you and Space4T appear to be opposed to this. It also appears that neither of you have seen the film. My position is to support keeping the edit in the main article for Donald Trump either in the Nikkimaria version in the Real Estate section, or in the Assessments section. If no other editors are participating in this Talk page discussion, then it appears to be difficult to move forward. The 2024 film has virtually no ties to the television program of the same name which you keep mentioning and which is already included on the main page for Donald Trump in its own subsection. The 2024 film should be mentioned in the Real Estate section as an improvement to the article. ErnestKrause (talk) 00:40, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm fine with deferring it to a subarticle as an alternative. (Disclaimer: also haven't seen the film). Nikkimaria (talk) 01:08, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Nikkimaria. ErnestKrause, why are we fixated on just this one movie? There's a long list at Donald Trump filmography#Film 2. (I did see The Apprentice and admired Jeremy Strong, as mentioned. Did you see it?) -SusanLesch (talk) 03:21, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No fixation here. I thought the edit as placed by her was well made and useful. Without further support though, it seems destined to stay on the sibling pages at this time. ErnestKrause (talk) 16:05, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Handling of edit requests, Part II

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New and improved follow-up to Talk:Donald Trump/Archive 189#Handling of edit requests.

The page Wikipedia:Edit requests describes the use and handling of edit requests. Its third sentence reads:

For potentially controversial changes, obtain consensus before submitting the request.

The page's boilerplate banner states:

[...] It may reflect differing levels of consensus and vetting.

What are the levels of consensus and vetting for that page? Per its page statistics as of this writing, it has existed since 2007, it has received 334 edits by 167 editors, it has 108,598 incoming wikilinks, and it has been viewed 2,831 times in the past 30 days. Those statistics are clear evidence of an implicit community consensus for the current content of the page.

Per WP:CONLEVEL, part of a Wikipedia policy, this article may not deviate from that community consensus.

If any editor thinks a change to the community consensus is needed, the Village Pump is thataway. Or, they may perform a BOLD edit to Wikipedia:Edit requests and see if it's accepted.

For all potentially controversial edit requests—which occur only when the user ignored instructions prominently presented to them in the edit request path—the response is one of the following:

  • {{subst:EEp|c}} (resulting in  Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit extended-protected}} template.) followed by your signature.
  • If you don't like canned template responses, equivalent non-template language followed by your signature.

The response should not include any comments about the proposed change(s), since that would be inconsistent with Wikipedia:Edit requests—thereby violating Wikipedia policy as stated above. One of the above responses and done. Per current consensus item 13, the edit request will be eligible for manual archival 24 hours after the time of the response.

Your cooperation will be appreciated. ―Mandruss  IMO. 21:16, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Interview for The Times? Email

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Probably not the right place, but I just got an Email (through wikipedia) from ‪Eugenesmithjournalist‬ asking "Interview for The Times?", because I had edited this page. (But not about any particular edit). Anyone else? Faolin42 (talk) 22:55, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and I granted the interview, which was conducted via email. It's this Times, btw. ―Mandruss  IMO. 07:37, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Article possibility for downsizing by about 52Kb in system size

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Downsizing for the Political practice and Rhetoric section

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The main space for the Donald Trump article is still about 350Kb in system space which seems rather large. A previous attempt to condense the Rhetoric section to save space was not successful. Another option is to keep the entire section with all of its subsections and Fork and merge the material from main article into Rhetoric article by CWW. I've already done this with the removal of no material from that section, and the system space saving could be about 52KB all at once in the main article. I'm suggesting that now that the material has been forked and merged into the Rhetoric of Donald Trump article, that it now makes sense to delete all of the subsections from that section in the main article, and leave only the 2 preface sections at the start in order to link to the Rhetoric of Donald Trump article from the main page. Since this preserves all of the material in all of those subsections, then perhaps this option to downsize the main article for Trump might move forward if there is support to go forward. Posting here for editors comments for support or criticism. ErnestKrause (talk) 01:23, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You have my full support. This article is bloated beyond belief. Riposte97 (talk) 01:44, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand why conserving system size should be a concern of ours. The readable prose size of the article, the metric which actually matters for the readers and according to WP:ARTICLESIZE, is perfectly reasonable at 70 kB (11182 words). — Goszei (talk) 02:28, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Goszei. Thanks to aggressive trimming, the article is down 29% since the election, as measured by readable prose word count. At Tracking article size, I'm tracking "Wiki markup size in bytes" (what you're calling "system size") mostly as a matter of tradition and BTW/FYI, not because it's significant. It could easily be dispensed with. IMO, further trimming should be a matter of proper cross-article structure (i.e., summary style), not article size. Obviously, this also applies to how we accept/modify/reject BOLD new article content. ―Mandruss  IMO. 15:43, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agreement with Riposte. Calculation of 29% is as usual accurate as done by Mandruss, but the question is now about whether the main biography for Trump gains anything by fully duplicating the material as it is already fully merged and contained in the article for Rhetoric of Donald Trump#Political practice and rhetoric. I'm not sure that I see why the full duplication of the exact same material on the biography page, in the section titled "Political practice and rhetoric" gains anything when it is already available, word for word, on the Rhetoric article as I just linked it above. The current size of the main article for Trump is still at 350Kb which seems to be needlessly large and sprawling in size. Full duplication of material already fully contained in the Rhetoric of Donald Trump article seems unneeded and it could be removed without any loss to the quality of the main biography. ErnestKrause (talk) 15:59, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Size is not excessive for a 78-year-old man who has been president twice after a long, controversial, and well-covered business career. Similar arguments, minus the word "twice", were being made when the article was considerably larger. Otherwise, I think you're describing summary style, which I have already supported. ―Mandruss  IMO. 16:07, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The Rhetoric section is written in summary style of the many child articles on Donald Trump with appropriate links to them, not just the Rhetoric article itself as some suggest. It is not a "full duplication", but a highly abridged summary of the main points of several other relevant child articles. Removing the section entirely would be the wrong way to approach this. Goszei has elaborated on this further, but the readable prose of this article is at a reasonable 70 kB (11182 words), so removing content due to system size concerns rather than article size is, in my view, mistaken. BootsED (talk) 20:29, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For Mandruss above, the featured article for Ronald Reagan who was also 78 years old in office is only 171Kb in system size, while the featured article for George Washington in 141Kb in system size; that does not appear to justify the Donald Trump article being at about 350Kb in its current system size, roughly twice the size of the Reagan article on Wikipedia. For BootsED, thanks for the comment, but the issue is not with child articles though it is with the exact same material in the Rhetoric section of this main Trump article being presented at the same time on the separate Wikipedia article for "Rhetoric of Donald Trump" here: [7]. Why keep the exact same material in two places on Wikipedia at the same time? I'm still in agreement with Riposte above that the main Trump article is just too large for comfortable reading at this time from top to bottom: even a good reader requires about 50-60 minutes to read it all the way through which is above the Wikipedia recommendations for article length. ErnestKrause (talk) 00:31, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The discrepancy in system size is explained pretty much entirely by difference in the number of references. Reagan has 10093 words and 436 references, Washington has 9386 words and 353 references, and Trump has 11182 words and 685 references. A much higher proportion of Trump's are unique web citations, as opposed to shorter sfns. There's nothing wrong with an article that is extensively cited, like this one; it shouldn't be treated as something to be fixed. Focus on the text size when making critiques. — Goszei (talk) 00:38, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Imo the point about system size is a red herring. The prose content of this page is too large. So even if the system size point doesn't stand up, the prescription that the rhetoric section should be trimmed (or indeed, as the exact same content is preserved elsewhere, gutted with a machete), stands. Riposte97 (talk) 00:50, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's pretty much what I've said. ―Mandruss  IMO. 12:35, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If Mandruss is in agreement with Riposte97, and I am in agreement with Riposte97, then does that mean that there's sufficient agreement to move forward on this trimming to the Political practice and rhetoric section as discussed above? ErnestKrause (talk) 16:58, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'll hazard a guess that supporters will say yes and opposers will say no. :) ―Mandruss  IMO. 17:11, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Summarizing Business career section

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The main violation of summary style guidelines is the Business career section, as there are section summaries which are not summaries of child articles, ie the entirety of Real estate and it's sub-sections. If it were due this much content, there would be a child article, but instead business career is only around 6,500 words total, and fundamentally is just another child article. It's also not that popular one either based on views, nor due for such extensive coverage per weight, and thus creates an unncessary WP:FALSEBALANCE (unnecessary because there is a child article already, so this indepth content isn't located here out of necessity). If someone were to calculate the ratio between the word count for other articles, and the summaries they have here, it'd confirm this also. Generally while 11,000 words isn't bad given the number of child articles there are to summarise, it's still WP:TOOBIG and could be better. There is otherwise only one other section that I came across (aside from real estate) which is also an undue summary given the lack of child article, but I'll let another editor figure that out. This is definitely a good sign that the article is generally well summarized, from a perspective of structure at last. CNC (talk) 12:59, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Mention of Manhattan developments in lead

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I think the lead should use a few words to describe Trump's 1970s and 1980s business career, which was best defined by his high-profile projects in Manhattan such as the Grand Hyatt New York and Trump Tower. My suggested addition is and undertook high-profile projects in Manhattan., which was removed in this revision. Right now, there is a gap in the biographical narrative between him becoming president of the family business in 1971 and his bankruptcies in the 1990s. This skips over the 1980s, a decade during which he was one of the most high-profile people in New York and the country, and became a household name. I think we can spare six words to allude to this. What do other editors think? — Goszei (talk) 02:49, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Best-defined — what about the Atlantic City casinos? We used to mention in the lead that he branched out into building and renovating skyscrapers, hotels, casinos, and golf courses ("acquiring or building" would be better). Space4TCatHerder🖖 17:16, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That would be a good wording too, though it was removed in the post-election cutting. I think it's concise and useful, and would support adding it back over my suggestion. — Goszei (talk) 17:32, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Goszei: Removing the info that Trump graduated with a bachelor isn't an improvement, especially after adding "Wharton School" after "University of Pennsylvania". Wharton is mostly known for its master program; many people don't know that it also offers an undergraduate program. It's one of several undergraduate school at UPenn, and we've had quite a few discussions on whether to use UPenn, Wharton, or both, and the decision was to use UPenn. Space4TCatHerder🖖 18:33, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You're right. I reverted myself on that count. — Goszei (talk) 18:36, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Details about Hillary/Obama conspiracy pushing

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Throughout his political career Trump has endorsed or otherwise propagated various conspiracy theories surrounding Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Should this be mentioned somewhere? 2603:8000:1801:65F1:D9AB:A359:6E6:3061 (talk) 07:14, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Some of them, such as the birther conspiracy (re: Obama not being a citizen) are covered (specifically in the section Racial and gender views). There's also a section titled Conspiracy theories that summarizes the longer article on conspiracy theories that Trump has promoted. That section may be able to be expanded beyond the couple sentences it is now, though. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 07:28, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There are too many of them, we'd need a separate article. We're better off with the link to the list. Space4TCatHerder🖖 16:54, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There's a link to the List of conspiracy theories promoted by Donald Trump at the top of Donald Trump#Conspiracy theories; the list has numerous links to WP articles on individual conspiracy theories. Space4TCatHerder🖖 16:54, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We have a whole article about False or misleading statements by Donald Trump. One of our longest articles.🤭 Bishonen | tålk 02:06, 21 February 2025 (UTC).[reply]

TMTG in lead

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My suggested edit is to add "He founded Trump Media & Technology Group that year." after the mention of Jan 6 in the lead. It seems odd to skip over his founding of a multi-billion dollar company here.[8] It was one of the most notable things he did between terms, and is weighted as such in the body. MB2437 13:09, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The company is basically synonymous with Truth Social, which I think could be indirectly included in the lead by introducing his broader use of social media (Social media use by Donald Trump), though I think all of this is a little below the threshold for inclusion. — Goszei (talk) 16:18, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Doesn't belong in the lead, "side venture" covers it. The Guardian article is more than 3 months old. In January, Truth Social was ranked ##1,141 in traffic in the U.S. and #4,635 globally, #73 in the category News and Media Publishers in the U.S., behind the Seattle Times and before al.com, number of monthly visits 18.9 million (X had 4.7 billion). They reported $3.6 million in sales for all of 2024 and an operating loss of $186 million. Its parent company TMTG lost $400 million in 2024 and reported $3.6 million in revenue (down 12% from 2023), so apparently they don't have any other source of revenue than Truth Social. "Founded" — a couple of former Apprentice participants brought the idea to him, did all the work, and got shafted in return. Space4TCatHerder🖖 17:47, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Fred Trump

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Due to Fred's role in kickstarting Donald's business career, I feel that Donald's parents, Fred Trump and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump, are important enough to warrant direct mention in the infobox via the "parents=" parameter - especially since Donald's father was judged important enough to be mentioned in the lead. Mörunivśa5tr (talk) 02:01, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think that would be ok. Makes sense. Sheriff U3 | Talk | Con 04:10, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Possible bias

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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.


About this paragraph in the lead:

Trump is the central figure of Trumpism. Many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racist or misogynistic, and he has made false and misleading statements and promoted conspiracy theories to a degree unprecedented in American politics. He lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden but refused to concede, falsely claiming electoral fraud and attempting to overturn the results, including through his involvement in the January 6 Capitol attack in 2021. Between Trump's presidencies, he faced legal issues including being held liable in civil cases for sexual abuse and defamation, and for financial fraud. In 2024, he was found guilty of falsifying business records, making him the first U.S. president convicted of a felony. After winning the 2024 presidential election against Kamala Harris, Trump was sentenced to a penalty-free discharge, and two other felony indictments against him were dismissed.

Im no trump fan, but this section sounds heavily biased against him. Shouldnt we include some positives as well? Ghatjwj626 (talk) 02:04, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What positives do you propose? — Goszei (talk) 02:26, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I know not why, but I'm opting not to close this per current consensus item 61. Another editor may choose to do so and I wouldn't object. In the meantime, please read WP:TRUMPRCB. ―Mandruss  IMO. 12:18, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Non-specific claim of bias, no proposals for changes, no sources — why not? Space4TCatHerder🖖 16:34, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The lead section is a summary of the article's most important contents. Please, read the body of the article and the reliable sources supporting the content. As another editor pointed out, please also read WP:TRUMPRCB. Space4TCatHerder🖖 16:34, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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.

Croatian Wikipedia article for Donald Trump

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Hello, just wanted to note that the article for Donald Trump on the Croatian Wikipedia (Hrvatski Vikipedija) is not near as in-depth as the English-Wikipedia article. If there are any Croatian speakers here, please help translate content and move it to the Croatian Wikipedia article on Donald Trump. Contributions would be much appreciated. LjuljaBarnovic39 (talk) 03:22, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Second unconsecutive term president

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The distinction ‘second present to serve two non-sequential terms’ should be distinguished to mention that this only applies to U.S. presidents. Qouwfecevskxsmsnuî (talk) 03:33, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Where exactly is it unclear? 76.170.147.28 (talk) 03:41, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is a given since is an article about an American president. This isn't the Simple Wikipedia, we don't bludgeon that reader with obvious facts. Zaathras (talk) 04:24, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sufficiently clear in context. ―Mandruss  IMO. 12:14, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why was the picture changed?

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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.


About a month ago Trumps picture in the infobox was changed to a less formal picture. I’m new to Wikipedia, so is there something I’m missing? Thanks in advance. 76.170.147.28 (talk) 03:37, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The current image is the official one released by the White House. Zaathras (talk) 04:25, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I looked at Trumps page on the White House website and it still uses the old photo. 76.170.147.28 (talk) 06:38, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The link you posted links to Donald J. Trump 45th President of the United States. Not President Donald J. Trump 45th & 47th President of the United States. The correct link to the website is: https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/donald-j-trump/ and it shows the new photo. Sheriff U3 | Talk | Con 06:46, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also you were looking at the archive version of the White House website. Not the main White House website.Sheriff U3 | Talk | Con 06:47, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I see, I was looking at the wrong page. You’re right :) 76.170.147.28 (talk) 07:06, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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.

The redirect Ronald Trump has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 February 21 § Ronald Trump until a consensus is reached. RealStranger43286 (talk) 13:48, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Critique

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We don't use LLMs, which don't know Wikipedia's rules. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:23, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Strengths

  1. Comprehensive Scope: This article is a hefty 18,000+ words, covering Trump’s life from childhood to his second presidency. It spans his business ventures, media career, two presidential terms, legal battles, and personal life, leaving little unaddressed. Sections like “Business Career” and “First Presidency” are packed with detail.
  2. Timeliness: Updated to February 2025, it captures Trump’s recent inauguration and early second-term actions—e.g., 90 executive orders, mass pardons of January 6 rioters, and Elon Musk’s DOGE role. This keeps it relevant, especially for a figure dominating current discourse.
  3. Source Density: With 684 references, it leans on a mix of reputable outlets (NYT, WaPo, AP) and primary documents (court filings, FEC reports). This bolsters credibility, especially on contentious topics like impeachments and legal affairs.
  4. Neutral Framing: Despite Trump’s polarizing nature, the article maintains a factual tone, presenting both achievements (e.g., Tax Cuts and Jobs Act) and controversies (e.g., felony conviction) without overt editorializing. It uses phrases like “described as” to signal subjective claims.
  5. Visual Support: Images—like Trump at NYMA, the Taj Mahal casino, and January 6 rioters—enhance engagement. The audio clip of his COVID-19 remarks adds a primary-source layer, letting readers hear him directly.

Weaknesses

  1. Excessive Length: At over 18,000 words, it’s a slog. Sections like “Business Career” (six bankruptcies, multiple ventures) and “Legal Affairs” (4,000+ lawsuits) drown readers in detail. Casual users might bail before reaching “Second Presidency.”
  2. Second-Term Thinness: While it covers Trump’s first month back (January 20–February 21, 2025), the “Second Presidency” section feels skeletal—only 700 words versus 5,000+ for the first term. Key moves (e.g., EPA appointees, DEI rollback) lack depth or outcomes, reflecting the early stage but risking obsolescence as events unfold.
  3. Repetition: Topics like election fraud claims resurface across “2020 Presidential Election,” “January 6 Capitol Attack,” and “Between Terms” with redundant detail. His “America First” stance repeats in “Foreign Policy” and “Political Practice.”
  4. Tone Fatigue: The dry, encyclopedic style—“Trump signed an executive order that temporarily denied entry”—can numb readers. It rarely captures the visceral energy of Trump’s persona or the chaos of his tenure.
  5. Bias Tilt: While neutral overall, the article leans on critical perspectives (e.g., “racist” and “authoritarian” labels from scholars) more than Trump’s own framing or supporters’ views. X posts from MAGA voices could balance this, but they’re absent.

Structural Issues

  1. Uneven Weight: “First Presidency” sprawls over 12 subheadings, while “Second Presidency” squeezes everything into four. “Business Career” dwarfs “Media Career,” though The Apprentice arguably shaped his public image more than, say, Trump Shuttle.
  2. Fragmentation: Related topics scatter—e.g., family separations appear in “Immigration” but not tied to “Race Relations,” despite overlap. “Personnel” splits across terms, missing a cohesive narrative on turnover.
  3. Citation Clutter: Some paragraphs (e.g., “Investigations”) are footnote-heavy (10+ in a block), disrupting flow. Others (e.g., “mass dismissals” in 2025) lack specifics—how many fired?—despite recent news availability.
  4. List Overload: Subsections like “Pardons and Commutations” and “Conspiracy Theories” lean on lists (e.g., 54 criminal cases citing Trump) rather than synthesis, making them feel like raw data dumps.

Specific Content Gaps

  1. 2025 Developments: The article stops at February 16, 2025 (e.g., “Trump moves with dizzying speed”), missing the last five days. X chatter suggests escalating trade tensions with Canada/Mexico—unaddressed here. A search could fill this.
  2. Cultural Impact: “Public Image” cites polls but skips Trump’s outsized pop culture footprint—memes, SNL skits, late-night fodder. “Donald Trump in popular culture” is a “See also,” not integrated.
  3. Supporter Perspectives: Trumpism’s appeal to evangelicals and the working class is noted, but firsthand voices (e.g., X posts from rallygoers) are missing. Critics dominate “Racial and Gender Views” without counterpoints.
  4. Health Speculation: “Health” mentions his sleep habits and golf but dodges cognitive decline rumors from 2024 (e.g., “rambling” per NYT). X buzz on this is loud—why not address it?

Opportunities for Improvement

  1. Streamline: Cut repetitive bits—merge election fraud mentions into one subsection. Summarize minor ventures (e.g., Trump Shuttle) in a table, freeing space for 2025 analysis.
  2. Real-Time Updates: Add a “Recent Developments” tag for February 17–21, 2025, pulling from X or news on trade wars or DOGE fallout. I could search if prompted.
  3. Narrative Punch: Inject color—e.g., “Trump’s brash ‘You’re fired!’ persona on The Apprentice recast him as a mogul” beats “He hosted The Apprentice from 2004 to 2015.” Quotes from X could liven it up.
  4. Balance Voices: Include Trump’s defenses (e.g., “rigged election” as a populist rallying cry) alongside critiques. X posts from @realDonaldTrump or supporters could anchor this.
  5. Visual Boost: Add a 2025 inauguration photo, a Truth Social screenshot, or a map of his golf courses. Only 11 images for 18,000 words feels sparse.

Threats to Quality

  1. Edit Wars: “Extended-protected” status signals past battles—likely over “racism” or “January 6.” Without tight moderation, bias could skew further as 2025 heats up.
  2. Event Lag: Trump’s fast-moving second term (90 orders in a month!) risks outpacing edits. X moves quicker—e.g., Musk’s DOGE teams hit 11 agencies by February 5, but details here are thin.
  3. Polarization Trap: The article could devolve into a battleground for pro/anti-Trump agendas, eroding neutrality. Scholarly rankings (e.g., “worst president”) already tilt negative—supporters might cry foul.

78.3.92.198 (talk) 19:08, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Read wp:notnews, it does not matter if we "lag". Slatersteven (talk) 19:13, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is not a person who wrote this, but a large-language model. Mellk (talk) 19:22, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Mellk: If you can prove that, I will close this immediately. I'm not interested in discussion with AI. ―Mandruss  IMO. 19:27, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
They mention needing to include X posts in nearly every point, so I would assume this is Grok. Mellk (talk) 19:28, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Or they could be a human who likes X. I'm not going to close for that. ―Mandruss  IMO. 19:30, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
X moves quicker—e.g., Musk’s DOGE teams hit 11 agencies by February 5, but details here are thin.. I doubt a human would write this. Mellk (talk) 19:31, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
One quick note is that they keep comparing Trumps second presidency without seeming to recognize the fact that Trump has only been in office for about a month, compared to his previous four years. And so they come to the conclusion that the article needs more about his second term, but we can't write the article about something that has not happened. And so I think this is AI for that reason, a person would have to be really dumb to not figure that out. Sheriff U3 | Talk | Con 19:39, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I could search if prompted. Yup, sounds like a chatbot. Mellk (talk) 19:34, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also, they are posting these 'critiques' in the talk pages of other articles fairly quickly, and these also constantly mention needing to include X posts. Mellk (talk) 19:30, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If the OP does not correctly state what this says within 24 hours, I will assume non-human and close. Fair? ―Mandruss  IMO. 19:39, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Seems fair. Slatersteven (talk) 19:43, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yep that is fair. Sheriff U3 | Talk | Con 19:43, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well spotted, Melik! (Our article says Musk teams operated in eleven agencies by early February.-SusanLesch (talk) 19:45, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's assuming that it wasn't a human who posted the AI-produced Critiques. Space4TCatHerder🖖 19:54, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So far, the IP address has added "Critiques" similar to this one to 12 articles, and they all sound AI-created. Whoever trained this AI, neglected to make it read WP rules first. firsthand voices (e.g., X posts from rallygoers) are missing, X posts from @realDonaldTrump or supporters could anchor this. The AI also doesn't seem to be aware of the calendar, i.e., the first term was four years, the second one four weeks so far. Space4TCatHerder🖖 19:49, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Humans can be dumb, too, or haven't you noticed? We don't close for that, either (or haven't you noticed?). The captcha test will work if you're right. ―Mandruss  IMO. 19:52, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is possible that the editor is just copy-pasting the response that Grok gives. For example, this edit suggests the prompt included "Wikipedia-style article" and they realized they needed to change this (so this is not fully automated). Mellk (talk) 19:54, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If it proves human, the response will be: Non-specific criticisms like this are not useful. Feel free to participate in the editing process. Same principle as in WP:TRUMPRCB. Human or non, this won't stay open for very long. ―Mandruss  IMO. 19:57, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The IP address gave the AI the same set of tasks for each of the 12 articles and posted the results to the individual talk pages, noticing the give-away ("the Wikipedia-style" article) in the first one too late. Space4TCatHerder🖖 20:02, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We are now feeding a troll. I suggest we stop. ―Mandruss  IMO. 20:05, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence_in_Wikimedia_projects#:~:text=Artificial%20intelligence%20is%20used%20in,projects%20is%20routine%20and%20iterative. 78.3.92.198 (talk) 20:17, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence_in_Wikimedia_projects#Generative_models#Text Sheriff U3 | Talk | Con 20:22, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Artificial_intelligence 78.3.92.198 (talk) 20:21, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Further reading

[edit]

I moved Jennifer Mercieca's book to Further reading. It had been inserted as a second source in §Political practice and rhetoric, without a page. I don't think her book even mentions fearmongering (which the first source does mention). Mercieca shows a complex and involved theory of Trump's language that is probably way beyond our scope, and is better explored in Rhetoric of Donald Trump. I leave it to others to decide if we need a Further reading section. -SusanLesch (talk) 19:14, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]