Marcus Gilmer (October 3, 2018). "Wikipedia demotes Breitbart to fake news". Mashable. Retrieved October 5, 2018. Wikipedia, the internet's crowd-sourced encyclopedia, has declared "fake news" on far-right site Breitbart, deeming the outlet an unreliable source for facts.
An alternative date format is the ISO format: "Harding-20171115"
This is good practice indeed. I also like that you use some breathing space between parameters, that makes citations much easier to read and update. Let me suggest an improvement: when you cite a newspaper, replace cite web by cite news, and use newspaper=The Guardian instead of website=The Guardian. There are handy substitutes for "newspaper": you may equivalently use "magazine" or the generic "work" (which I tend to use because it's shorter and always valid). It's also nice to link to the article of the cited newspaper, such as [[The Guardian]]. Be careful that piped links in citations need to be made explicit, so that you need to type work=[[Time (magazine)|Time]], not just work=[[Time (magazine)|]]. Finally, ISO date is better practice because of the confusion that often arises between US and British ordering of months and days. Hope this helps; feel free to discard this message. — JFGtalk06:14, 10 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"When opinions are clearly factual, and the opposing views are fringe ones pushed mostly by unreliable sources, we state the facts and ignore the fringe by giving the fringe the weight it deserves, in some cases no mention at all. Framing factual opinions as mere "opinions" poisons the well and serves to undermine the factual nature of the content. It would serve to frame facts as mere opinion which can be ignored, and frame debunked conspiracy theories as factual." -- BullRangifer
"Claims made with misleading evidence or no evidence whatsoever--especially in political contexts--should always be referred to as 'false' when they are utterly unfounded. If any evidence ever emerges for Seth Rich's involvement--or for any captive koalas--then another term should be considered." -- FatGandhi 15:50, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
"I think this idea that there is no truth is the thread that will run through the rest of the Trump presidency, as it has his entire candidacy and his presidency so far." -- Nicolle Wallace[1]
"The president is possibly the single most unreliable source for any claim of fact ever to grace the pages of WP." -- MPants 04:57, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
"For the 'whataboutism' thing to work, you need an actual 'about' to 'what'." -- Calton 21:05, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Trump's dubious relationship to truth
We should just follow what RS say, and that will usually be "anti-Trump" and factual. That's just the way it works. At other times and with other presidents it might be otherwise. He just happens to be on the wrong side of facts much of the time, and since RS document that, it appears they are being "anti-Trump", when they are just defending facts.
Here are just a few of the myriad RS (I have saved literally hundreds of very RS on the subject) which document Trump's dubious relationship to truth (completely off-the-charts, beyond anything fact checkers have ever encountered):
"I think this idea that there is no truth is the thread that will run through the rest of the Trump presidency, as it has his entire candidacy and his presidency so far." -- Nicolle Wallace[1]
"Let's just assume Trump's always lying and fact check him backward."[2]
President Trump has made more than 5,000 false or misleading claims.[3]
Time to stop counting Trump's lies. We've hit the total for 'compulsive liar.'[4]
"...what's even more amazing than a President who is averaging -- repeat: averaging -- more than eight untruths a day is this: Trump's penchant for saying false things is exponentially increasing as his presidency wears on."[5]
"[W]hat we have never had is a president of the United States who uses lying and untruth as a basic method to promote his policies, his beliefs and his way of approaching the American people and engaging in the world.... Uniquely, we have a president who does not believe in truth." -- Carl Bernstein[6]
"I think this idea that there is no truth is the thread that will run through the rest of the Trump presidency, as it has his entire candidacy and his presidency so far." -- Nicolle Wallace[1]
As president, Trump has frequently made false statements in public speeches and remarks,[2][3][4][5][6] and experience teaches that, quoting David Zurawik, we should "just assume Trump's always lying and fact check him backwards"[7] because he's a "habitual liar".[8] In general, news organizations have been hesitant to label these statements as "lies".[9][10][5]
Fact checkers have kept a close tally of his falsehoods, and, according to one study, the rate of false statements has increased, with the percentage of his words that are part of a false claim rising over the course of his presidency.[5] According to The New York Times, Trump uttered "at least one false or misleading claim per day on 91 of his first 99 days" in office,[2] 1,318 total in his first 263 days in office according to the "Fact Checker" political analysis column of The Washington Post,[11] and 1,628 total in his first 298 days in office according to the "Fact Checker" analysis of The Washington Post, or an average of 5.5 per day.[12] After 558 days in office, the tally was at 4,229 false or misleading claims, and it had risen to an average of 7.6 per day from 4.9 during Trump's first 100 days in office.[13]
Glenn Kessler, a fact checker for The Washington Post, told Dana Milbank that, in his six years on the job, "'there's no comparison' between Trump and other politicians. Kessler says politicians' statements get his worst rating — four Pinocchios — 15 percent to 20 percent of the time. Clinton is about 15 percent. Trump is 63 percent to 65 percent."[14] Kessler also wrote: "President Trump is the most fact-challenged politician that The Fact Checker has ever encountered ... the pace and volume of the president's misstatements means that we cannot possibly keep up."[3]
Maria Konnikova, writing in Politico Magazine, wrote: "All Presidents lie.... But Donald Trump is in a different category. The sheer frequency, spontaneity and seeming irrelevance of his lies have no precedent.... Trump seems to lie for the pure joy of it. A whopping 70 percent of Trump’s statements that PolitiFact checked during the campaign were false, while only 4 percent were completely true, and 11 percent mostly true."[15]
Senior administration officials have also regularly given false, misleading or tortured statements to the media.[16] By May 2017, Politico reported that the repeated untruths by senior officials made it difficult for the media to take official statements seriously.[16]
Trump's presidency started out with a series of falsehoods initiated by Trump himself. The day after his inauguration, he falsely accused the media of lying about the size of the inauguration crowd. Then he proceeded to exaggerate the size, and Sean Spicer backed up his claims.[17][18][19][20] When Spicer was accused of intentionally misstating the figures,[21][22][23]Kellyanne Conway, in an interview with NBC's Chuck Todd, defended Spicer by stating that he merely presented "alternative facts".[24] Todd responded by saying "alternative facts are not facts. They're falsehoods."[25]
Author, social scientist, and researcher Bella DePaulo, an expert on the psychology of lying, stated: "I study liars. I've never seen one like President Trump." Trump outpaced "even the biggest liars in our research."[26] She compared the research on lying with his lies, finding that his lies differed from those told by others in several ways: Trump's total rate of lying is higher than for others; He tells 6.6 times as many self-serving lies as kind lies, whereas ordinary people tell 2 times as many self-serving lies as kind lies. 50% of Trump's lies are cruel lies, while it's 1-2% for others. 10% of Trump's lies are kind lies, while it's 25% for others. His lies often "served several purposes simultaneously", and he doesn't "seem to care whether he can defend his lies as truthful".[27]
In a Scientific American article, Jeremy Adam Smith sought to answer the question of how Trump could get away with making so many false statements and still maintain support among his followers. He proposed that "Trump is telling 'blue' lies—a psychologist's term for falsehoods, told on behalf of a group, that can actually strengthen the bonds among the members of that group.... From this perspective, lying is a feature, not a bug, of Trump's campaign and presidency."[28]
David Fahrenthold has investigated Trump's claims about his charitable giving and found little evidence the claims are true.[29][30] Following Fahrenthold's reporting, the Attorney General of New York opened an inquiry into the Donald J. Trump Foundation's fundraising practices, and ultimately issued a "notice of violation" ordering the Foundation to stop raising money in New York.[31] The Foundation had to admit it engaged in self-dealing practices to benefit Trump, his family, and businesses.[32] Fahrenthold won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for his coverage of Trump's claimed charitable giving[33] and casting "doubt on Donald Trump's assertions of generosity toward charities."[34]
Here are a few of Trump's notable claims which fact checkers have rated false: that Obama wasn't born in the United States and that Hillary Clinton started the Obama "birther" movement;[35][36] that his electoral college victory was a "landslide";[37][38][39] that Hillary Clinton received 3-5 million illegal votes;[40][41] and that he was "totally against the war in Iraq".[42][43][44]
A poll in May 2018 found that "just 13 percent of Americans consider Trump honest and trustworthy".[45]
The Editorial Board of The New York Times took this telling sideswipe at Trump when commenting on the unfitness of Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court: "A perfect nominee for a president with no clear relation to the truth."[46]
Other sources
"The First 100 Lies: The Trump Team's Flurry Of Falsehoods. The president and his aides succeeded in reaching the mark in just 36 days." Igor Bobic[47]
"Killing the Truth: How Trump's Attack on the Free Press Endangers Democracy" Philip Kotler[49]
The New Yorker has published a series of 14 essays entitled "Trump and the Truth". They "examine the untruths that have fueled Donald Trump's Presidential campaign."[50]
The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board wrote a seven-part series about Trump's dishonesty, starting with the article "Our Dishonest President".[51]
Fact checking Trump
Trump's incessant attacks on the media, reliable sources, and truth have kept an army of fact checkers busy, the latter having never encountered a more deceptive public person. Tony Burman wrote: "The falsehoods and distortions uttered by Trump and his senior officials have particularly inflamed journalists and have been challenged — resulting in a growing prominence of 'fact-checkers' and investigative reporting."[52]
Professor Robert Prentice summarized the views of many fact checkers:
"Here's the problem: As fact checker Glenn Kessler noted in August, whereas Clinton lies as much as the average politician, President Donald Trump's lying is "off the charts." No prominent politician in memory bests Trump for spouting spectacular, egregious, easily disproved lies. The birther claim. The vote fraud claim. The attendance at the inauguration claim. And on and on and on. Every fact checker — Kessler, Factcheck.org, Snopes.com, PolitiFact — finds a level of mendacity unequaled by any politician ever scrutinized. For instance, 70 percent of his campaign statements checked by PolitiFact were mostly false, totally false, or "pants on fire" false."[53]
"Throughout President Trump's first 100 days, the Fact Checker team will be tracking false and misleading claims made by the president since Jan. 20. In the 33 days so far, we've counted 132 false or misleading claims."[62]
"Fact-checking President Trump's claims on the Paris climate change deal"[63]
President Trump has made more than 5,000 false or misleading claims[64]
The Star's Washington Bureau Chief, Daniel Dale, has been following Donald Trump's campaign for months. He has fact checked thousands of statements and found hundreds of falsehoods:
"Donald Trump: The unauthorized database of false things."[65]
"How does Donald Trump lie? A fact checker's final guide."[68]
"Smoke and mirrors: how Trump manipulates the media and opponents."[69]
NOTE: Many of the sources above are older. The situation has not improved, but is rapidly getting much worse, as described by Pulitzer prize winning journalist Ashley Parker: "President Trump seems to be saying more and more things that aren't true."[70]
As Trump rapidly accelerates the rate of his false statements, one suspects he is following the advice of his friend and advisor, Steve Bannon:
"The Democrats don't matter. The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit."[71]
How is it possible that we allow people to edit political articles who ignore the following facts? They should be topic banned.
Allied foreign intelligence agencies were spying on Russians, not on the Trump campaign, and they overheard Russians discussing how the Trump campaign was illegally working with them to sabotage Hillary & steal the election. That alarmed our allies, as it should. What else should they have done but report it to the FBI? They did the right thing.
These editors reveal their lack of competence here:
We don't mention Sergei Millian (Sergei Kukut) at all, and yet he has been identified as the Dossier's Source D (and E), and many RS have discussed him and his proven and unproven roles in the Trump-Russia affairs and dossier (as Source D/E). Articles which mention him by name in connection with the dossier (after the release of the dossier) and/or just as Source D/E (both before and after release of the dossier) are fair game in this article.
RS reveal that his Trumpian tendency to hyperbole and self-promotion have rendered him an unwitting "loose lips" witness, similar to Papadopoulos, Giuliani, etc. Such people are very useful witnesses, much to Trump's chagrin. Later, when their revealings are seen as embarrassing, they try to deny, downplay, and even scrub the information, but history usually reveals they have exposed facts that should have been kept hidden, at least from the viewpoint of the Trump administration. They have thus placed themselves firmly in the center of Mueller's net for potential witnesses.
There is likely enough for an article about him, so I'm including a few articles from before release of the dossier.
Gandydancer, please AGF and spare me the vitriol. I don't need the grief. I've got more than enough for several lifetimes. Right now nothing in life for many thousand people, my family included, is functioning normally, and won't for a very long time, maybe never. We're alive, barely. My memory is totally out of whack, and I was being polite. I finished my comment, and then later realized I hadn't pinged you. If you activated your email, I could explain. I have done so to Cullen328 and Mandruss. They understand. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe05:45, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You did nothing wrong--I was being overly sensitive. BR, I want you to know that some of us really do appreciate what you have done to keep WP's political articles honest and unbiased for the past two years. I watch over certain articles, MT's for one, but you have been down in the trenches fighting the battle for all this time while I have stayed on the sidelines working on less difficult articles. In fact someone recently gave me a brownie for one and upped it to "a nice glass of whiskey" when I complained about how meager just a brownie was. OK, just hang in there while I go shopping for some fine whiskey...or perhaps there is something else or a special brand you prefer??? Best, Gandy Gandydancer (talk) 16:42, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. All of the above sounds good. Would that brownie have any "herb" in it? After 15 years here, that would be nice. (Actually, I haven't touched pot since 1973.) -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe17:03, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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I don't know what happened, BR, just that something did - and I hope it has nothing to do with this issue. I stopped by to wish you the best, and I hope that whatever pain and sorrow you're dealing with now will soon pass. Kindest regards...Atsme✍🏻📧20:52, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Fortunately that issue was handled and I seem to be in the clear. It's a very different type of issue. I'll explain by email. Thanks so much for your concern. You have a good heart. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe21:56, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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Not sure how to say "thank you" for your impressive work at List of Trump–Russia dossier allegations? Template:Trump Barnstar has, well, Trump on it. If you you like tea (or coffee), or maybe something with ethanol? Wiki-snacks? Or maybe Template:Curious cat, or even something less dignified and muckraker-ish (Hopefully you don't find it offensive, but as intended):
Cool Cat Award: I know the evidence is in here somewhere.
Love it! We have two dogs and one cat. The latter is missing in the Camp Fire (2018). We hope he survived and will be reunited with us soon. Life's a bit of a mess right now, but we're alive. Cats are one of those things that make life more special. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe04:24, 13 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Holy shit! I am glad to hear the rest of you are together. Cats are semi-wild, really they domesticated us. They are smart (except for string and laser pointers), so if your cat wants to re-domesticate you, they'll show-up. Again, I am so sorry to hear of your intense challenges. Thank you for continuing to edit here. X1\ (talk) 23:40, 13 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Editing here preserves my sanity. I just don't have as much time right now. Things will return to normal at some point in the distant future. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe02:13, 14 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Being homeless is a busy situation. Time flies with seeking aid, meeting appointments, and waiting in long, long lines. If this were a normal "lost their home in a fire" situation, we'd be able to buy another home quickly and get on with our lives. In this area there is absolutely nothing available. Dumping 45,000 plus people, within a few hours, into a city of 90,000, just doesn't work. Every single rental, home, and storage container was immediately taken, with most people left without proper shelter. Many have left the area to stay with family elsewhere, but many are forced by other circumstances to stay in the area. We are among those. It's more difficult for us. We're safe, warm, and okay for now. This nightmare will end someday. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe02:19, 14 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
After 15 years here, that would be nice. (Actually, I haven't touched pot since 1973.) -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 17:03, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
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