Talk:Donald Trump/Archive 168: Difference between revisions

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

This talk page is currently under discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources#Comments. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:59, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Note, this discussion is about our consensus #25 and has been open since January 23 without notifying editors of this article. Sneaky (not by Nikkimaria), but justice ultimately prevails. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:11, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

@

WT:CITE? That goes both ways, you know. —Locke Cole • t • c

20:16, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

No, it doesn't go both ways. We don't notify a guideline talk page when we're considering a consensus that would deviate from the guideline. Unlike what you did, that is not a community norm and I've never seen anyone do it. (As I've previously said, you are free to do that if you want to bring in outside voices. But it is not a procedural "community norm".) The essential difference is that changes to an article are discussed at its talk page, not at guideline talk pages. Out of 65 current consensus items, not a one links to discussions off this page (although the linked discussions may link to discussions off this page). And #25 is hardly invalid, as I've thoroughly articulated at

WT:CITE. Guidelines are only guidelines and we are allowed to deviate from them (your CONLEVEL claim is completely baseless).

You have done everything except what might change #25—start a discussion about it on this page. When do you plan to drop this stick? ―Mandruss ☎

22:45, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Since you can't seem to let go of this CONLEVEL thing, I've now raised it at

WP:VPP#CONLEVEL and guidelines. Feel free to go there and lose. ―Mandruss ☎

01:44, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

I recommend you stepping away from the page for a bit, you are getting close to crossing

WP:NPA over here. Soni (talk

) 05:53, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Oh my. We seem to interpret NPA differently. Where have I come close to violating it? Certainly not by referring to

disruptive editing, consider unilaterally cancelling a consensus item[1] (this is NOT something subject to BOLD editing) and then edit-warring one's change.[2]

For now, I'll decline your thoughtful recommendation. ―Mandruss ☎

06:12, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

"Feel free to go there and lose." is arguably a civility thing, depending on where in the world one lives, but not NPA vio. I'll strike that as unessential. ―Mandruss ☎ 07:19, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

NPA isn't exactly the right policy in my opinion. Maybe

WP:DBI? The discussion at VPP CITE reeks of sarcasm and unnecessary snark, from both parties. And Feel free to go there and lose is a step too far. Phrases like that show pretty clearly that any potential discussion has preemptively been set up for failure. Cessaune [talk]

07:27, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

I see zero sarcasm and unnecessary snark at VPP (yet). Perhaps you meant WT:CITE? ―Mandruss ☎ 07:43, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Yep. Thank you for the correction. Cessaune [talk] 07:46, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah you're right. I was thinking of WP:civility for that exact line, just mentally mixed up the page names Soni (talk) 10:57, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Right now the article is extremely long, a lot of which does not need to be there. I think it might be good to discuss which sections need to be trimmed and split off.

For example, the Presidency section is nearly half the page, and clearly does not all need to be here. There is a separate Presidency of Donald Trump article. This article should not repeat all the points there. We should try to summarise them further Soni (talk) 19:21, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

@Izno, Novem Linguae, Locke Cole, and ActivelyDisinterested: - Pinging everyone who discussed adjacent things in the VPT discussion Soni (talk) 19:30, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

• I am still of the opinion that 99% of the presidency stuff should be removed in favor of a summary style section and hatnote link to the main presidency article. That alone will solve the problem. No one should be allowed to add content to that section here. They should be reverted and directed to the main presidency article. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:33, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

  This would be great to do ...have not been able to load the page on my phone in almost a year.... simply too big and times out. This happens to me with articles that are over 15000 words and or over 900 kB of sources and or 25 plus images.... Combining all these makes it impossible load. That said on my PC everything works just fine and looks good. Moxy🍁 20:18, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

  You may need a new phone with more capacity. I have no problem with any articles on my Samsung Galaxy S21 5G 128GB. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:33, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

  I do have a better phone....but use an old one to see what will be accessible for people with older phones. The vast majority of the world has phones older then 8 years old. All those phones that Americans turn in for an upgrade get recycled and used somewhere in the world. Our goal is to make things accessible to the vast majority of people not just Americans with the newest technology..... that's why we have size limits. Moxy🍁 20:44, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

  Most readers are not on desktops, and there proportion bof all readers is only going to increase. Also depending on where they are from they may not have or be unable to access the most modern equipment. The articles suffers heavily from "It works ok for me". -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:15, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

  I think this section is probably the lowest-hanging fruit, yes. If you look at the

  Template:Section lengths above, the 4 years of his presidency (out of his 78 years of life, ~5%) is 50% of the current wikitext. Izno (talk

  ) 20:43, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

• Considering that he may become the 47th US president on 20 January 2025. His BLP will certainly become even longer. GoodDay (talk) 20:38, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

I trimmed the section a bit, but we should probably trim it further. I might make some more BOLD removals. QuicoleJR (talk) 21:26, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Honestly I prefer just going a bit more BOLD and using Template:Excerpt style excerpts sourced directly from the Presidency lede. If 99% of the article needs to be trimmed, iterative removal can only go so far. I think that's what @Valjean said above as well, but maybe they were saying something different with a "summary style". Soni (talk) 22:57, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

I think we have to face the fact that Trump has had a very full and varied life, and we editors will always disagree about what the highlights are. That said, give trimming a go.--Jack Upland (talk) 23:23, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Support dramatic trimming over splitting. Way too much of the article is excessive detail for a one-page account of a 77-year life. This is not a 400-page book, but many editors seem to think it is. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:30, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

We have trimmed considerably, or we would still be at just below 500,000 bytes despite having added 30,000 bytes since the trim. As for making room for new content just in case TFG is elected again, let's cross that bridge when we get to it. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 09:48, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

I believe what the other 5-10 editors are saying is that the current trims are just not enough. The article has significant load problems on older devices already, there are sections much longer than even other comparable pages, and a lot of it would benefit from summarising further. Soni (talk) 09:55, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

"Trimming" is perhaps the wrong word for what I have in mind. I tried "dramatic trimming", but maybe "gutting". Post-2014. Summary style. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:59, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Complicating this is the fact that nothing can be removed that's mentioned in the lead. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:05, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Any suggestions for the post-2014 gutting that wouldn't involve white-washing, e.g., banning authoritarian actions such as forcibly removing lawful and peaceful demonstrators for a photo-op with a Bible; pardoning family, cronies, and people recommended by cronies and celebrities; considering two of the pardoned felons (Manafort and Stone) for campaign positions (We do not need to list who the 5 people were)? Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 11:29, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

I think you're conflating "Don't list every event/action that happened" with whitewashing. You do not need every single thing Trump did to be mentioned here to make an accurate summary that also lists things in more depth. In fact, I'd argue that listing nearly everything is more "white-washy" simply because the most pertinent things are "drowned out". Is removing peaceful protesters notable? Sure. For Trump, is it of equal importance as Jan 6? Definitely not.

Focus on scholarly consensus and a selection of the "most notable" things Trump did in his presidency. People who want to learn about these in more depth can go to subarticles, but the article must gut out most of the current detailing Soni (talk) 11:38, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

It isn't whitewashing, it is summarizing. All of the info would be kept on the pages about those specific topics. QuicoleJR (talk) 16:53, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Why wouldn't we be able to remove things mentioned in the lead? —Locke Cole • t • c 09:50, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

We can cut the president stuff, as we have an article on that. Slatersteven (talk) 11:35, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Better summarisation and directing readers to articles that cover the specific details in full is definitely the way to go. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:17, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

I don’t get why size is (again) such a pressing matter for this article (well, actually I do — Village Pump) when Presidency of Donald Trump is much larger. It currently has 533,000 bytes and 907 citations, and there's been no discussion about its size in four years. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 18:44, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

That other articles are also in a bad state isn't an argument to not do anything about this article. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:03, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Anything that large should probably also be reduced in size, but that one does not have as many sub-articles. No individual person should have a page this long. QuicoleJR (talk) 01:09, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Half-joking, half serious: make only section headings with {{Main}}. Zero prose. Just sections and hatnotes. SWinxy (talk) 06:53, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Presidency draft page

Most editors seem to agree on Presidency section needing severe to very severe cuts. So I have created Draft:Donald_Trump/Presidency where we can collaborate on the Presidency section without affecting the current article's stability. I started off with a simple use of Template:Excerpt because that would cut things down to a reasonable size while keeping it easy to maintain. Either way, once we have a reasonable draft, we should replace the entire Presidency section with it. Soni (talk) 04:50, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

We already have Presidency of Donald Trump, we do not need two pages on the same topic. Slatersteven (talk) 09:11, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

This draft is supposed to replace all of Donald_Trump#Presidency_(2017–2021), not be a separate article. We currently use 200K bytes to say nearly everything the Presidency article already says, so I want to get people's opinions and reduce all of that to the minimum manageable amount. I'm starting it as a draft so we can iterate before we actually replace it in Article space. Soni (talk) 10:26, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Why not just use the article we have? Slatersteven (talk) 13:14, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Personally, I think using the Excerpt template here is a bad idea, since the lead of the Presidency article does not have sources. It might make readers think that the content in that section is unsourced. QuicoleJR (talk) 15:40, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

If we add sources to that articles lede (or make a copy of that lede with sources), would that work for the overall section? Soni (talk) 21:01, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes. The lead should be the best possible summary of the article, so just adding sources should make it good enough for a summary style section here. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:09, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

• @Moxy, ActivelyDisinterested, Izno, GoodDay, Jack Upland, Mandruss, Space4Time3Continuum2x, and SWinxy: Pinging everyone else who discussed trimming in the section above. I'm hoping we can establish consensus on a new draft for the Presidency section to replace the current one. Soni (talk) 13:08, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

  Personally, I still do not think that using the Excerpt template is a good idea, because the other article's lead has different goals than this article's section, and is subject to the consensus of that article's talk page and not this one. The summary needs to be trimmed, but this isn't the way we should do it. SXWinxy's proposal would be a good one, if it weren't for the need to make this article work without requiring clicking links. QuicoleJR (talk) 14:51, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

  One option we could try is making the hatnote more explicit. Put it in prose, like new editors sometimes do before finding out that the template exists. How about this:

  This section only contains a summary of the most important details. For a more detailed description, see Presidency of Donald Trump.

  QuicoleJR (talk) 14:54, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

  Can you clarify what exactly SWinxy's proposal means? Maybe a mock up of it? I tried to parse it a few times but I don't quite follow what it means. Soni (talk) 06:07, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

• If the lead contained sourcing, using "excerpt" would work, but here we are with no sources in the lead. See: Wikipedia:Summary style#Using excerpts for article synchronization. Alternatively, we can copy the lead and add links, or use the excerpt template and add a prose hatnote that explains where to find the sources: "This is only a summary, and the sources are found in the main article." (something like that). This is an opportunity to tweak the PAG. They are not set in stone. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 15:37, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

My first reaction in two words: hell no. Who's going to read that wall of text which has more blue links than plain text? As for the specifics, I got as far as "brokered the Abraham Accords": the next hell no — see consensus #65 (after you click "show", wishing you had purged the page). Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 20:04, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

I am soliciting feedback so we can change said specifics. For the general case, the current article has much more of a wall of text (as the sections above already show).

With the Abraham Accords, it sounds like a simple sentence change would fix it, to meet #65 anyway. I do not know why you treat Local consensus as this unchanging unbreakable rule for this page.

WP:Consensus can change, and the way to change consensus is by discussion (like the one we're having right now). Soni (talk

) 06:06, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't think any long-time editors of this article need to be reminded that consensus can change. Twenty percent of the consensus items have been superseded. ―Mandruss ☎ 08:02, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

The proposed text reads like an excerpt of the lead, expanded to include material not considered important enough to be mentioned in the lead. It's basically a bullet list without bullets, lacking "structure [] with consistent, reader-friendly layouts and formatting" (

WP:MOS). Each item says nothing but "click here if you want to know what this is about". Aside from that, the rewrite aka massive reduction of material would result in quite a few discussions, all going on at the same time. Trump is running for reelection, so IMO now isn't the time to reduce the current summary-level overview of his first presidency. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖

11:49, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Trump is running for reelection, so IMO now isn't the time to reduce the current summary-level overview of his first presidency. In fact, that is even more important to clean up the lengthy mess we have currently. But either way, we should never stall any page improvements for a full year just based on outside reasons. If the article can be improved, we should improve it. It'd be silly to stall page improvements for months based on that Soni (talk) 13:25, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

The lengthy mess, IMO, is a consistently structured, reader-friendly overview. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 14:11, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

We already have the Presidency of Donald Trump page. GoodDay (talk) 15:25, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

@Space4Time3Continuum2x: Why did you revert my trimming of these sections? QuicoleJR (talk) 13:37, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm also trying to understand HOW to (successfully/"permanently", without being reverted) WikiLink to Brand licensing SOMEWHERE in *THIS* (DT) article. It seems helping a reader understand "licensing" could be helpful??

Thanks.

(it seems I upset the same StarTrek-related-named(?) editor mentioned above…) Curious1i (talk) 16:04, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

I have reverted their revert. You discussed the edits while making it, they need to actually explain why they disagree before/while doing the revert.

WP:BRD should not be a roundabout "Stall discussions forever". Soni (talk

) 16:59, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

I understand concerns of whitewashing, but no actual information is being removed. It is just being covered on sub-articles about those specific topics. QuicoleJR (talk) 18:20, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Actually, I responded, in the above Talk:Donald_Trump#Splitting_this_article section where JR mentioned the bold trimming and their intention to do more. (AFAIK, edit summaries aren't part of the discussion cycle, and "can be covered elsewhere" or "we do not need to list these people" doesn't really say a whole lot.) The coverage in sub-articles needs to be mentioned in this article, or how else will readers not as immersed in the Trumpverse as we are know that there's something worthwhile to look up? Since a third editor (you) now reverted my revert, I'll respond in detail tomorrow. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 18:36, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

The article has been dominated by a single purpose account. Having experienced editors in other articles is a great asset that is missing from here. Moxy🍁 18:43, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

@Moxy: I think calling Space4 an SPA is excessive. QuicoleJR (talk) 01:11, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Since you mentioned it, I'll agree. I have zero objection to any editor's "dominance", provided they are dominating with fairness, competence, and commitment to process. But sure, the more competent participation, the better. It's hardly Space4T's fault that we don't have a lot of that.

If a focus on one article constitutes SPA, I'm more guilty than Space4T. I never go to other AP2 articles, and rarely to any other articles. I like the

commitment to process at this article, which is not present at many other AP2 articles. And I'm semi-retired. So sue me. ―Mandruss ☎

01:32, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

🙏 Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 10:09, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

@

aspersions are not an asset, great or otherwise, on any page. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖

10:18, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

We are mentioning the basic topic and linking to the sub-article, so it's not like we are hiding anything. We are just asking them to click the links in the hatnote if they want more specific details. Wikipedia:Summary style is an official guideline. QuicoleJR (talk) 21:34, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

@Soni: Please, restore the consensus version you reverted in this edit until the discussion has resulted in a new consensus. QuicoleRJ and me were both following procedure, you weren't. A wise editor once wrote: I think you're confusing content with edit. The ArbCom restriction is about challenged edits, not challenged content. Once content has been in the article for a certain amount of time (admin NeilN has suggested 4–6 weeks, IIRC, and that image has been in the article for longer than that), its removal is not a challenge-by-reversion but simply a BOLD edit. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 10:26, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Your link isn't right. But I'm okay with restoring (Undo button doesn't work anymore because of intermediate edits, so there's no easy way for me to do so) while we discuss. At the time I reverted you, you had no comments about the removal itself on talk. That's why I reverted, not because I disagree with restrictions or BRD.

Coming back to the discussion, what is the level of detail you think is "necessary" in this article? I'll skip over the whitewashing comments because they're not going to lead us anywhere, I just want to know roughly how much you expect this article to have versus the Presidency article.

On the "Splitting this article" section above, I sense informal but clear consensus in favour of even more drastic reductions. So I'm personally more invested in the overall plan for the article and trying to draft up a reasonable section at Talk:Donald_Trump#Presidency_draft_page Soni (talk) 10:41, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

I have to get back to this later, having trouble keeping up with the increase in editing in the main space and here (and occasionally doing paid work ). We've had numerous short, medium, and lengthy discussions about reductions/drastic reductions, all archived, often of the "10 editors, 20 opinions" variety. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 11:58, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

@

We don't decide what articles to link on the basis of the overall quality of those articles. The article is of sufficient quality to define the term for those who don't know what it means, though of course if you'd like to improve it by all means do so. The specific weapons used are not a detail that must be included. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:31, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

+1 as the original editor. Most people do not need to know the exact list of weapons law enforcement used, they just need to know that they weren't trying to kill the protesters. QuicoleJR (talk) 16:52, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

To talk about the actual content instead of the policy considerations that may or may not apply, I support exclusion as the editor who originally removed it. First off, the quality of the article linked to is irrelevant to whether the link should be here. The list, featuring five different weapons, is not worth including on Trump's article when the photo-op has its own article, especially since he is not the one who used the weapons. Non-lethal weapons (or less lethal weapons) is easily understandable and covers the relevant parts of the weapons choice. QuicoleJR (talk) 22:49, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Edit in question: replace longstanding content batons, rubber bullets,

less lethal weapons. Most readers will probably understand the named weapons, but will probably not understand and have to click "less lethal" or the previous suggestion "non-lethal weapons", and the substitution saves a mere 59 bytes. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖

13:07, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

See no reason to believe the average reader will know what a stun grenade is and not what less lethal means (since even without clicking it has a plain English meaning). And regardless of the total byte count, this is a level of detail that doesn't need to be here. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:18, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

+1. Less lethal/Non-lethal is a self-explanatory term, while the weapon list is an excessive amount of detail. Also, the concept of stun grenades is no more common than less lethal weapons, and much less common than non-lethal weapons. Overall, I really don't think that it needs to be included here. Readers who really want to see what weapons were used can go to the photo-op's article. QuicoleJR (talk) 16:21, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Discussion of content proposed for removal

1. Conflict of interest. A self-dealing president, spending tax-dollars (e.g. billing the Secret Service top dollars) at the properties he hasn't divested himself of (also golfing a lot after calling his predecessor out for golfing a lot less).

2. Quote from New York Times. It's the opinion of a legal expert at Harvard Law School's Environmental & Energy Law Program, quoted in a newspaper of record.

3. Commuting sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, Kim Kardashian connection. Meh — withdrawing objection to removal. Sentence of middle-management drug trafficker commuted while the applications of other people (who moved far less "produce" but don't have the celebrity connection) through the normal DOJ channels didn't make it to TFG's desk - a feature, not a bug.

4. Pardons. Behavior typical of authoritarian leaders: pardoning family, cronies, and people recommended by cronies and celebrities. Trump is considering two of the pardoned felons (Manafort and Stone) for campaign positions (CNN, Telegraph).

5. Muslim ban. IMO the specific is better than the generalization. The proposed new text "certain Muslim-majority countries" instead of naming the countries makes me wonder which countries. When I hear "Muslim" followed by "security concerns", I think of 9/11 and Saudi-Arabia (financed by Saudi-Arabian money, and the terrorists were mostly Saudi citizens, none of them from any of the banned countries).

The "Presidency" article is much less read than this one, so when we don't mention actions or names, they're effectively hidden. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 11:46, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

I understand your concerns, I'm just saying that not everything can stay in the article. The amount of stuff to mention will only go up from here, especially if he is re-elected in November. Eventually, we will have to remove relevant and well-sourced info simply because there is too much to cover here. QuicoleJR (talk) 12:43, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

To address some of your more specific concerns, I think #5 can stay for now, since your objection makes sense. #1 is probably relevant enough to stay at the moment, but I think we should trim the specific numbers and just say that he visited the properties on roughly 1 in 3 days of his presidency. I still think #4 should probably go, but your objection does make sense, and there are other things in the article that we can trim first. As for #2, I am going to push back on that one. This person is so important, has been relevant for so long, and has received so much media coverage that I do not think that we should include any quotes that aren't by him, with very few exceptions. QuicoleJR (talk) 12:49, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

I reinserted per the above, removed Flynn's name from the sentence on pardons. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 19:48, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

@Mandruss I urge you to revert your edit Thanks Jaymailsays (talk) 03:34, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

That's an argument? Declined, for the reasons given in my edit summary. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:04, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

You offered an invalid opinion, not a reason? It verges on vandalism. Jaymailsays (talk) 06:47, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Oh my. Wait for others. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:50, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

I see nothing invalid about the revert. And be careful with the word "vandalism". It verges on

WP:CASTING ASPERSIONS. O3000, Ret. (talk

) 12:24, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

It's excessive detail in his personal bio and belongs in the related article. Also,

WP:NOTNEWS. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖

12:33, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Excessive?

His wealth increased considerably overnight, at a time when by his own submissions he was unable to raise the original court bond amount and needed a further ten days to provide a much lesser amount. The bullying tactics are surprising, given the importance of Truth Social as an asset, albeit a paper one. Jaymailsays (talk) 14:32, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Wait a minute. He posted multiple times that he had $500 million in cash at the same time his lawyers said he couldn't afford to pay less than that. And I have no idea who you are claiming is "bullying". As far as this stock, experts say it is not worth anything close to its price, insiders sold shares before it opened, the concept that we would add this to his net worth one day after an IPO makes no sense for an encyclopedia, the variance will be enormous meaning we will be wrong if we don't change it every ten minutes. Just today, it went up 24% and then dropped 9%, and it's still morning. There is no way this number belongs in an encyclopedia at this time. O3000, Ret. (talk) 14:57, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

See Talk:Donald_Trump#Current_consensus #5. We use Trump's net worth evaluation and matching rankings from the Forbes annual list of billionaires. Axios writes that Truth Social "is trading like a meme stock, meaning its market value is completely divorced from its financial reality". It has "far fewer users and less income than any social network that has gone public before. ... Meme stocks like GameStop and AMC that soared during the pandemic-era retail investor bump have since crashed". Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 15:29, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Love the way as an amateur you try to explain stock trading. Keep digging, it is very entertaining.

All wealth fluctuates. A fact of life and death. Jaymailsays (talk) 15:13, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

how bout you try restating your opinion without the pretty blatant personal attack, before it becomes actionable. the strikethrough format would a fitting format to utilize. ValarianB (talk) 18:37, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

The stock has now dropped over 50%. O3000, Ret. (talk) 14:18, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Are you all sure you want to run the Talk page this way? I think it gives a bad impression of suppressing dissent. Bob K31416 (talk) 13:30, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

You think this nonsense needs to continue? Consensus does not require unanimity. I should've left this closed in the first place. In fact I probably should have undone your comment with the edit summary "closed is closed" rather than reply. – Muboshgu (talk) 13:50, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

The discussion was mostly carried by editors other than the IP. I think you made some good points as did others. Bob K31416 (talk) 14:28, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Repeatedly accusing editors of unfair bias has never gone anywhere, will never go anywhere, and can't go anywhere. Even where true, such editors are not going to suddenly find Jesus and change their ways because they have been called out. So why do it? This tone has continued through the IP's latest comment, unmitigated by I may be incorrect in that accusation, along with a lot of

WP:NOR vio that has regrettably been enabled by others. I have no problem with "suppressing" that. ―Mandruss ☎

14:00, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Our consensus list has no shortage of Trump-favorable consensuses that belie a claim of widespread anti-Trump bias at this article. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:10, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

1) I'm of the opinion that an involved editor who willingly engages in discussion should NEVER close a discussion, barring something truly extreme happening, and this sets a terrible precedent IMO.

2) Nothing the user did was egregious enough to warrant closure IMO. This is the exact kind of behavior that discourages new editors—engaging in discussion and then closing the discussion without even allowing the user time to read the policies that we linked.

3) I think that closing an active discussion is problematic at best. If we are willing to engage in discussion then that suggests that there is actually something worthy of discussion. If there wasn't something worthy of discussion here, then the discussion would have never taken place.

I think that any closure along these lines needs to be codified in the consensus list before it can be considered valid, and, as it stands, I would oppose such an item. Cessaune [talk] 14:27, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

The OP and the title of this section both violate policies. And the eitor is now arguing at the Flat Earth article [3] that we shouldn't state the Earth is not flat, but leave it up to the reader to decide. Such time sinks cannot continue forever. O3000, Ret. (talk) 14:34, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I do think it is a bit off to close a thread you are involved with,. but I agree with the close. "I am not arguing it needs to be stated explicitly; I am saying it is true, and that reading the article should, directly or indirectly, give that impression." killed it really, if they are not arguing for it to be said, but are arguing for us to say it, there is no agreement to be had. Slatersteven (talk) 14:40, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, time sinks cannot continue forever. But summarily closing a discussion as an involved editor is something that no one should ever do. And the points related to closure that are being made weren't brought up in the discussion or the edit summary. At the very least, we need to articulate why we are prematurely closing a thread in detail, which didn't happen. Cessaune [talk] 14:47, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I didn't close the section. After it was closed and incorrectly continued, I moved the additional text into the close window. O3000, Ret. (talk) 14:52, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

That's a distinction without a difference. And Muboshgu's rationale was valid, regardless of the outcome. Cessaune [talk] 14:55, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

A discussion is not supposed to continue after a close, so I moved the continuation into the close window. My edit summary stated: The IP can start a new topic if they find a source and argument that fits Wikipedia guidelines. How many angels are there on the head of a pin? O3000, Ret. (talk) 15:01, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Why not? If people think that restarting a discussion is warranted, then they can restart it. I don't see any reason why anyone should be barred from doing that. Cessaune [talk] 15:06, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

We already have the terrible precedent in consensus #61, and it has proven its value. Are you suggesting we should revisit #61? Muboshgu has stated their regret for keeping this open, and without that it would've been archived four days ago. Others just followed Muboshgu's lead—this kind of blue-sky, forum-like discussion is often hard to resist—and I doubt they would object to re-re-closure now. They are free to correct me. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:46, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Muboshgu's reopening nullified the original consensus #61 close, and to belatedly close based on #61 is not within the consensus item's scope IMO. The "terrible precedent" that I speak of isn't related to #61 at all. Replying with a link to Talk:Donald Trump/Response to claims of bias hardly makes you an involved editor; Objective3000 was definitely an involved editor by any reasonable metric. Cessaune [talk] 14:52, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I, Mandruss, an uninvolved editor, hereby endorse Objective3000's re-close. Happy now? ―Mandruss ☎ 14:57, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

In fact, no, per my original comment above. Cessaune [talk] 15:02, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I would be happy to see this reclosed again. And I am not inclined to stop the auto archiving again in the future. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:05, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I thought I'd look into psychology that might be related to talk pages and I happened on the Wikipedia article Groupthink. Here's an excerpt.

Groupthink requires individuals to avoid raising controversial issues or alternative solutions, and there is loss of individual creativity, uniqueness and independent thinking. The dysfunctional group dynamics of the "ingroup" produces an "illusion of invulnerability" (an inflated certainty that the right decision has been made). Thus the "ingroup" significantly overrates its own abilities in decision-making and significantly underrates the abilities of its opponents (the "outgroup"). Furthermore, groupthink can produce dehumanizing actions against the "outgroup". Members of a group can often feel under peer pressure to "go along with the crowd" for fear of "rocking the boat" or of how their speaking out will be perceived by the rest of the group.

Bob K31416 (talk) 15:36, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

When you can't come up with an argument that fits Wikipedia policies and guidelines, just insult everybody. DJT is not one of the richest men who ever lived as claimed by the OP. This has nothing to do with groupthink. It's simply false. Your response shows the value in section closes that go off the rails. O3000, Ret. (talk) 15:44, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Unuseful here, as you could call any set of like-minded editors an "ingroup" or an "outgroup". A better place for such discussion might be

WP:CONSENSUS. This is just more forum-like discussion, now taken to a meta level. It's not what article talk pages are for. ―Mandruss ☎

16:00, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Bob, you haven't edited this article in ages, and back when you did you used to lose argument after argument, i'd wager that greater 90% of the positions you staked out here were failures. you coming back like this now just reeks of bitterness. do everyone, including yourself a favor, just unwatch this article. ValarianB (talk) 19:37, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

To be fair, this isn't the first time that Bob has popped their head around here in recent months. And your final sentence is bordering on

WP:UNCIVIL, maybe. Cessaune [talk]

21:18, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Look at the last many posts in this thread. Do you actually think there is anything here that is not a waste of editor time? It should be closed. As I said in my edit summary when I moved the close bottom, it can be restarted in a new section given an actual reliably sourced rational. Wouldn't that have been better instead of endless, gotcha wikilawyering? O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:27, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

In fact I'm inclined to agree with you, but what you're saying is tangential to my point. Cessaune [talk] 04:34, 24 April 2024 (UTC)