Talk:Joe Biden

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RfC: Infobox picture

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The consensus here is to keep the 2013 official portrait. Primefac (talk) 15:34, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

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Considering a noticeable age difference between the current infobox picture and now, I think it might be time for an image change. I have a few proposals below. Thoughts? (Originally started by User:Cliffmore but without RfC template. At that time the lead image was his 2013 official portraint.[1] ) Kolya Butternut (talk) 18:19, 8 April 2020 (UTC)Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:04, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

--Cliffmore (talk) 01:02, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

I've placed this fourth photo here after adding the RfC template. Other crops can be made from the larger original photo. Kolya Butternut (talk) 18:28, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

I would support changing it to the second image.  Nixinova  T  C  07:37, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

I agree. However, over at Hillary Clinton, editors opposed updating her 2009 picture until long after the 2016 election was over on the grounds that Secretary of State was the position for which she was most notable. It reminds me of official pictures of Kim Il Sung, which continued to show him as a young revolutionary until he finally died of old age. TFD (talk) 23:11, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Hard to say, I don't know what's more significant, his current run or his Vice Presidency. At some point his Vice Presidency may become less important than his current run but I don't know when that would switch over or if it already has. Geographyinitiative (talk) 05:36, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

I would say that if he wins a few primaries, then a change is definitely needed. There may be a need to change before that, but I'm not familiar with picture-switching policies.Geographyinitiative (talk) 06:04, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

our current pic ~is~ five or six years old. surely someone has something more up-to-date from so famous a person. Cramyourspam (talk) 23:43, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

• I oppose any change. The official picture is the proper one to use for a former vice-president of the United States.--Rusf10 (talk) 00:09, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose He is the former VP and his official portrait is the proper one to use. What's next? Are we gonna replace Bush or Clinton's official presidential picture as they age? Plot twist, we all age but that doesn't mean we have to change a distinguished politicians official portrait to a more recent pic. By that logic should we change Jimmy Carter infobox image? --TDKR Chicago 101 (talk) 05:45, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support 2nd one we have changed Bernie Sanders' "official" image. This is not a state department website, we don't need to use so-called "official images". We should use the more accurate (recent) one.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 06:22, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support I would support changing it to the second image. Telluride (talk) 21:26, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support second photograph as best depicting the subject. While VP is the highest office that he's held, I would argue that he is roughly equally notable for his senatorial career, his vice presidency, and his candidacy for president. - MrX 🖋 16:21, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
  • MrX, do you know how to reopen this RfC?  I added a new photo too.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 16:51, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Kolya Butternut The RfC was never closed. - MrX 🖋 16:57, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose #2, Support #3 His face now takes up way too much space in the infobox, it's kind of terrifying. — Goszei (talk) 00:40, 10 February 2020 (UTC).
• Support any of them, He is relevant now in the political realm and to oppose the change gives anybody ignorant of his current age a wrongful impression. There should be a picture of him when he served as Vice President somewhere in the article to associate with that time period. But arguing that it shouldn't be changed. because he was Vice President makes it sound like his relevancy now is moot. -- EliteArcher88 (talk) 22:52, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support The third image. Also, he is at a healthier distance. This is a really trivial issue. The other two too obviously reveal his beautiful veneers. No sense in provoking an ageist debate on here. -Random person at the City of Camarillo Public Library — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.79.113.210 (talk) 00:09, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support Image 3. As his official portrait is unlikely to be reintroduced to the infobox, I would support the third image as his face does not take up much space there. Lochglasgowstrathyre (talk) 20:24, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support 3 It's the best picture; it demonstrates him in action. ~ HAL333 22:14, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support updated photo. I don't think his VP photo should be used because he is famous at his current age and known now for running for president. I think if he loses and falls out of the spotlight it could go back to his VP photo because that's how he'll be remembered. Like after movie star dies we can go back to a younger photo from when they were most famous, like an obituary photo. That being said, I think the three choices aren't very good. I've found a better one (which is still less than ideal because he's facing to the right and not wearing a suit). Other crops can be made if it's too close.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:19, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

  

While my first choice is the fourth photo, my second choice is his official VP photo because the others are so poor.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:04, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

• Comment Why not use one of his offical portraits [2] or [3]. I mean he was the vice president for 8 years and most other articles on those who have held high political postions use the offical portraits. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk?

This RfC is precisely discussing whether to change the lead image from his official photo as vice president to something more recent. When this RfC began the lead image was the official portrait from 2013.[4] Kolya Butternut (talk) 03:58, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

We have an official portrait from when he was an officeholder. There is no need to resort to lower-quality images. This is not a difficult choice. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 14:25, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

• Note I have added his official portrait since there hasn't been an actual consensus in which "recent" photo would be best to replace the official portrait. Seeing that within this week there has been constant changing of the lead image I have placed the official portrait back on the infobox with a note saying that it should not be change until a final consensus on which picture would be best to replace it and hopefully it will stop the constant back and forth. --TDKR Chicago 101 (talk) 09:42, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

TDKR Chicago 101, please revert.  The consensus was clearly against the seven year old photo.[5] I mistakenly reopened this RfC because I had thought an official close was necessary.  Only one editor reverted the recent change.[6] (Also, you did not use his official portrait, you used a crop.) This is a mostly dormant account[7] has preferre Kolya Butternut (talk) 10:51, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

• Support #4 (File:Joe Biden (48554137807) (cropped).jpg; presumably added by Kolya Butternut). Biden is now more notable as the presumptive 2020 Democratic nominee than as former VP, so the recent images are preferable to the "official" portraits. Of the three images offered by Cliffmore: in the first, he is looking down; in the second, the crop is too tight and his teeth are distractingly prominent; in the third, his face and eyes are in shadow. userdude 14:42, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support Offical Portrait 2013. Where we have a fairly recent official portrait, that is prefereble. He is running for president and the candids, aside from lower visual quality, are inappropriate where the high quality professional alternative is avaliable. SPECIFICO talk 18:16, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

As I stated in my edit summary, consensus was already acheived against the official portrait.  I opened this RfC back up with a new photo.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 18:36, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

So you're claiming you opened it and then you closed it? Go to WP:AN. Or leave well enough alone and drop it. SPECIFICO talk 18:41, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Please refrain from incivil personal comments.  I did open reopen it, it's easy enough to see that it was at the time of my first edit to the RfC.  I have not closed it.  Please revert and discuss before escalating.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 18:49, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Nobody is going to "escalate" - AN is where you can request closure by an uninvolved Admin. But if the 2019 RfC was indeed closed, you should have started a new one with new information or alternatives. Closed is closed, unless there's a valid closure review. I haven't been following this, I just saw that a good photo was replaced by the worst alternative of the whole lot, a close-up candid-looking crop that's out of character with the subject. SPECIFICO talk 19:23, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

We've had consensus for two months against the 2013 photo. Affirmed by SharabSalam.[8].  Please revert to the consensus until this reopened RfC is closed. Kolya Butternut (talk) 20:08, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

You characterized the fourth photo, in this version[9] as the "worst alternative of the whole lot, a close-up candid-looking crop".  This comes off as disingenuous.  The other new photos are all candid crops (and you could edit them for a zoomed out crop).  I feel like you may be personalizing past disagreements.  Please don't escalate tensions.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 20:20, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

• I'd support the 2013 VP photo as the photo. There is no need to change it. Corky 18:56, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support official portrait - Yes it is from 2013 but I think it is best to use last official portrait. Similar to Barack Obama. PackMecEng (talk) 18:58, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

PackMecEng, Corkythehornetfan, did SPECIFICO communicate something to you about this RfC? Kolya Butternut (talk) 19:43, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

@Kolya Butternut: Ummmm... no. It’s called I saw the change on my watchlist and came to see the discussion. I’ve never liked the idea of removing an official image, especially of a VP or POTUS or top government official. Corky 20:25, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

@Kolya Butternut: No, and I am just as confused as you that I would be agreeing with her. Right SPECIFICO? PackMecEng (talk) 21:38, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

• Support #3 - Since it is more recent, he looks to be making a speech, and his head doesn't take up the whole photo like the other two. Meatsgains^(talk) 15:59, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support official portrait, which is the convention we normally apply to all politicians. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:02, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support official portrait, the argument he has aged between 2013 and 2020 is simply not true. He looks exactly the same. MyPreferredUsernameWasTaken (talk) 06:13, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support official portrait, which is the convention. More recent photos could be included in the body for more recent events. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 01:40, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support official portrait - I don't see anything wrong with it. While one can argue that he looks different now, I honestly don't see that myself. CoffeeWithMarkets (talk) 03:43, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support changing to 2nd one - He's not in office currently so a current picture is appropriate. Showing an older "official" picture when he's running for a new office is misleading. ToeFungii (talk) 02:41, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Its really not, Biden was in-office for 8 years as vice present and in-office for 36 years before that, its more misleading to attempt to portray Biden as an average "joe" when he's been politics for the majority of his life. MyPreferredUsernameWasTaken (talk) 09:20, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

• Support official portrait - as the current portrait seems to be from his time serving as vp, i believe that is the one we should use and continue to use if for example he loses the upcoming election. the images use in perpetuity would help to reflect the highest office he achieve during his career. that being said, if he is election in november, i believe we should change it once he officially becomes president. also don't think he's aged that much between the photos (at least in appearence, lol) Epluribusunumyall (talk) 03:44, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support official portrait. It's the best quality picture that we currently have of him. Rreagan007 (talk) 05:43, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support official portrait per User:Scjessey and User:Epluribusunumyall, and because it's a better photo than the others proposed here. —Granger (talk · contribs) 15:13, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
• Support official portrait per Mx. Granger slightly over #2 of the original suggestions. While there is an age difference between the official portrait and now, only a few years of aging aren't enough to warrant a change when the alternatives are not as good. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 15:27, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
• Support official portrait per above. --Wow (talk) 20:39, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
• Support contemporary portrait - He is currently running for president. Readers should see what he looks like now, not have to relive the "glory days" when he was VP. This was applied at 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries and should be at 2020 United States presidential election also.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 23:52, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
• Support official portrait The portrait we use of Donald Trump dates back to 2017, so if we change this one, I'm going to insist that we do the same for the other, and I will keep insisting until it gets done. FollowTheSources (talk) 23:59, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

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.

GA Reassessment

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:Joe Biden/GA3. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

• The article's neutrality has been questioned, it is clearly not stable and has been subject to full PP because of edit warring. Perhaps it can be reassessed after the 2020 election when things have calmed down but as it stands now, it fails GA. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 14:59, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

  I agree, this is a clear delist for the time being. Mz7 (talk) 17:32, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

• It was promoted to GA back in 2008, before he even became VP. The article has since grown by leaps and bounds, and is unrecognizable compared to the 2008 version. Now I do harbor some hope that the article can be kept at status however, as was done with Obama's article. Obama was made an FA in 2004. It received a whopping 10 FA reviews between 2007 and 2012, but hard working contributors ensured that it kept FA status throughout Obama's campaign and presidency. Now...do I think that could be done here? Perhaps. But unless a group of contributors is willing to come together to save it, I would opt to delist (And no, I don't have time to join a GA team I'm afraid). My main concerns is neutrality, especially as we come into the election. Everything is pretty much sourced, but I would like to see a thorough source review. I personally don't think stability is an issue as long as any controversial changes are made into RfC's and gain consensus...which is probably how most big edits to this page are going to need to be made in the next year anyway. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 19:32, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

That isn't how GA works, CaptainEek. We don't leave it with a GA rating when there is edit warring and controversy surrounding it. If it ever settles down, it can be renominated. Just because it passed in 2008, doesn't mean it remains a GA 12 years later. That's why we have GAR. It would be a different story if we were looking at promoting it to FA but that certainly isn't the case now. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 21:41, 16 April 2020 (UTC) ^{CaptainEek, after going back and reviewing your input, I'm concerned that I may have misunderstood your view about stability, and apologize if I came across too matter-of-factly. I'm of the mind that stability and NPOV are like bacon and eggs - they go together. 😊 Atsme _Talk 📧 23:56, 21 April 2020 (UTC)}

Atsme, we also do not delist without mentioning specific issues that makes it fall below GA. I do not think it is as unstable as you say. We should go for a couple editors to do a full review and see if some other editors can take care of any issues and rescue it. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 03:12, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Atsme, No worries, thanks for the clarification :) CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 00:22, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

• At the time this GAR was written (15 April): "as it stands now" edit warring had long ceased ("stability"), full page protection had ceased (in-line with the closing of an RfC dealing with BLP matters), and neutrality concerns remain(?) for a section in the article that is continuously being worked on (something that happens on Wikipedia every day). If the nominator for this GAR could please elaborate further as to why this article should be delisted, that'd be great. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 04:15, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
• Delist If it was going to be at GAN right now it would be an immediate fail as there is edit warring and several content disputes. Since it already is a GA but now is experencing edit warring, has content disputes and apparently editors have questioned the article's neutrality, it fails GA as shown here.--MONGO (talk) 19:20, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
• Remove GA It's not one. It won't be one during the election season. It fails a number of GA criteria and does not resemble the article that was assessed as a GA. There are major content RfC's, edit warring, content forks, and various other distractions. ConstantPlancks (talk)
• Remove GA As it stands, our article Joe Biden is partisan campaign literature in large part. Not only is it subject to edit warring, but there is massive partisan editing to minimize Biden's recent gaffes and accusations that Biden has engaged in nonconsensual physical contact with women up to and including fingerbanging a staffer while he was in the United States Senate. Compare our article Brett Kavanaugh to this article and it's apparent the degree to which this article glosses over important issues which were brought up in our article on Brett Kavanaugh.

The degree of political slant in Joe Biden makes a mockery of our WP:NPOV ethic. --loupgarous (talk) 17:30, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

• Here following a notice at the reassessment page. I am very familiar with the GAR process from a practical standpoint and don't really care about American politics if that is an issue. I haven't looked at the article yet, I am just commenting on what I am seeing at this page. This has been opened as an individual reassessment. This means that the person opening it is supposed to close it. Other comments are welcome, but in the end it is up to Atsme to close it as they see fit. In best practise the person opening the reassessment presents some clear examples of how it fails the criteria. However, we don't delist for edit warring or ongoing rfcs. The stability criteria is more a practical criteria for reviewers (it is hard to review an article if it is constantly changing). By the same principle, if there is an ongoing content dispute it is better to wait for that to settle down before conducting a reassessment. Also the GAR process should not be used as a tool to resolve content disputes (not saying that is the case here, but I have seen this in the past). AIRcorn (talk) 21:58, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
• While this is formatted as an individual reassessment, I will note that a lot of the comments here aren't particularly helpful. Assertions that an article fails one of the criteria are easy to make, but in the absence of substantiating evidence, carry no weight, and are not actionable. With respect to political articles in particular, assertions that an article fails NPOV are a dime a dozen. To be constructive GAR comments, opinions here need to get into the substance of what needs to change in the article, and why, with specific reference to the source material. Vanamonde (Talk) 02:10, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
• Thank you all very much for the input, but I disagree with the "keep" sentiment as this is a totally different article from the one that was promoted in 2008. The new article fails GA criteria which is why we have GAR, but there is more to it as the following will demonstrate:

1. GA/FA promotion has been my focus as a WP editor since 2011, and I was taken back a step or two when I discovered this article was promoted over a decade ago under dubious circumstances; the latter of which is part of the reason I initiated this GAR.
2. The article is not stable which makes it an immediate fail. It also requires a level of PP because of the disagreements regarding content - keeping in mind that consensus decides what does or does not get included but consensus can change, so if PP and DS are in place, and RfCs are ongoing as more material is added/removed, it tells us the article lacks stability and does not meet GA criteria; rather, it is a work in progress. As most long-standing editors are aware, edit wars and disputes typically arise when there are NPOV issues, and it matters not if the article is political or happens to be about dogs. An unstable article that gets promoted despite failing GA criteria makes a mockery of the process, especially when the instability is not caused by vandalism, and full protection has to be applied.
3. When an article wears the GA symbol and doesn't qualify, it sends the wrong message to editors and readers alike. It also depreciates the hard work that I and other longtime editors have invested as reviewers/promoters over the years.
4. After carefully reviewing this article from when it was first promoted in 2008 until now, I found that it was not only disappointing, it sadden me to think the process has been exploited and drug into the political arena. All one has to do is look at the spikes in revision history stats for the page.
5. GA1 failed on 9/17/2008 - read the discussion and what was involved, if you haven't already - it was supposed to fail. Two days later, GA2 unsurprisingly passes...a few months prior to the 2008 election. Look at the article that passed. The Biden article today is not even close to being the same article that was dubiously promoted to GA in 2008, 2 days after it failed.
6. During the time between elections, the article has not undergone a single peer review but it has changed dramatically and has expanded beyond what WP:Article length suggests.
7. I did not rush to remove GA status because I wanted input from other editors to see how they felt. I am quite confident that I made the right decision when I initiated this GAR.

I am going to demote this article for the reasons I mentioned above. Once all the issues have been resolved, it is possible that the article can be improved enough to meet GA criteria once it is stable, but I highly recommend a peer review first. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:50, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

I am not particularly familiar with the GA process so I will defer to others' judgement. However, I would like to respond to some of your points.

• 1, 4, 5) Could you please explain what you mean by "dubious circumstances" and/or why you disagree with GA2? I read GA1 and GA2 and nothing seemed dubious to me.
• 2, 6, 7) Coffeeandcrumbs and MelbourneStar both seem to have asked for specific issues with the article. The only issues you cited are stability, that the article's neutrality has been questioned, and length.

• With respect to the issue of stability, the recent "edit warring" was the result of an ongoing RFC. It can be expected to subside now that the Tara Reade RFC has concluded and the content has largely been moved to Joe Biden sexual assault allegation. (For this particular RFC, the unique circumstance of the gap in time between arguably-RS sources and definitely-RS sources reporting Reade's allegations contributed to the edit warring.)
• With respect to the issue of neutrality, you have only brought up that the neutrality has been questioned. Every article about a controversial/political public figure will have its neutrality "questioned" by someone. I can't tell if you are stating that the article is not neutral or just that others have stated so; if it is the former, please provide example(s).
• With respect to the issue of length, as you said yourself WP:Article length is a suggestion. WP:GAR states that compliance with the Manual of Style […is] not covered by the GA criteria and therefore not grounds for delisting.

I'd appreciate it if you could provide specific instances of where this article fails the GA criteria. I also note that WP:GAR says that the individual reassessment should be used if You don't see any ongoing content dispute or edit war, which was not the case. I believe a community reassessment is more appropriate. userdude 19:35, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

• See WP:GAFAIL: Immediate fail: It is not stable due to edit warring on the page;
• It also fails the following 2 of the 6 GA criteria:

4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.

5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.

And as I explained in detail above, it has a level of PP which is further proof of its instability. It is not the same article that was reviewed 12 years ago. Instability is a symptom of NPOV issues. Without the PP and DS, what do you think would happen? Suggestion - if you are so confident about the article's stability, then submit a request to have the PP and DS restrictions removed, and renominate it for GA. It's that simple. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 20:52, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Instead of asserting that you are correct, please provide specific instance(s) of where this article is not neutral. I am unaware of any rule that GAs may not be protected. User:Aircorn said The stability criteria is more a practical criteria for reviewers, thus WP:GAFAIL#4 should not be applied to GARs. As I said, the edit warring was due to an unusual circumstance that has since been resolved by an RFC. I would find it wholly inappropriate if this GAR were to be closed now as delist — it should not be an individual reassessment for the reason stated above. userdude 21:21, 21 April 2020 (UTC); edited 21:23, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Instability is a reason not to pass an article (again mainly for practical reasons), but not in itself a reason to delist. Otherwise any current good article that undergoes an edit war or disagreement (which are a lot) would suddenly need to be delisted. Even worse it opens the door to editors deliberately making an article unstable so they can delist it. Normal editing practices (which in this case appears to be a content dispute that turned into an edit war and now is being resolved by RFC) are not grounds to delist. In fact the Good Article process gives precedent to community consensus. So if there is community consensus established through a RFC, no matter how egregious that may appear to some, then it has to be accepted as good enough to meet the Good Article criteria. Nothing presented here has really explained how it fails the criteria. It is all very well to say it is not neutral, but examples need to be given. Protection in itself is not proof of anything apart from that the article is attracting disruptive editing. I tend to agree that this should have gone through the community process, although that can be a bit hit and miss at the moment. If someone want to challenge Atsmes close the could take it there themselves after the close. AIRcorn (talk) 23:30, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Atsme, I am the editor that brought it to GA way back when and I was the editor who kept it there for the next seven years, until I stepped away from these kinds of high-profile active political articles. I do not believe the promotion to GA was dubious and I believe it warranted its GA status for the whole time I was minding it. (I have 160 combined FA/GA/DYK credits and so I think I know something about reviewed content.) As for stability and edit-warring and NPOV claims and page protection, that comes with the territory with these kinds of articles and it has never prevented articles of this kind achieved reviewed status. Indeed, Barack Obama was FA through both his presidential elections and presidency, John McCain was FA throughout his presidential election in 2008, and the same was true for Mitt Romney in 2012 and Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2016 (I was involved in several of these). I can assure you there were always people, from both sides, complaining about the neutrality of each of these articles. That's almost the definition of neutrality – big fans will think it's too hard on the subject and big opponents will think it's too soft on the subject. I can't really speak to the current state of the article, but in my view the grounds you have for taking the GA away are not sufficient. Better would be to point out concrete, specific things wrong with it and see if those can be remedied. In my time doing these kinds of articles that was always a big frustration – people would complain in generalities but rarely list out specific, actionable points. Wasted Time R (talk) 22:40, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

• Delist - Per WP:GAFAIL points 3 & 4. The article still has maintenance tags Joe Biden#First term (2009–2013) and is far from stable with big changes and some edit warring. PackMecEng (talk) 22:59, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Decision

• The arguments to keep do not align with GA's core set of editorial standards. At the bare minimum, a good article should be neutral, stable, free of maintenance tags, and should not omit any major facets of the topic. An article is an immediate fail when there's edit warring but this one goes much further and has resulted in full or semi-PP, and DS restrictions of 1 revert per 24 hrs. A GA is exactly what its name implies - a good article, but when there is edit warring, disruption, NPOV issues and instability the article is clearly not good. Also, a GA should not be so long that it is unwieldy and difficult to read. This article is currently at 88 kB (14495 words) vs the 2008 GA article that was promoted at 31 kB (5122 words), so no, it is not the same article that was promoted over a decade ago. The delist arguments were the strongest and most convincing in support of delisting. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 01:48, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

• Atsme, I find your decision troubling. Neither you nor any of the delist !votes provided any specific examples where the article is not neutral, despite I and numerous other users asking for examples. You repeatedly said the article has grown significantly since GA2, but you have not provided any examples of new content that fails GA criteria. You cited the edit war over Tara Reade's allegations as an example of instability, but this issue has been resolved by an RFC and was caused by an unusual circumstance, as mentioned above. WP:GAR says that GAR should be used if you don't see any ongoing content dispute or edit war. You used the fact that this article is protected as evidence of instability, but per that argument no major controversial/political topic could have GA status. The only specific examples of this article failing GA criteria you cited are length and a single maintenance tag from April 2020.

You say the keep arguments do not align with GA's core set of editorial standards, but you have ignored the content of the arguments. Numerous users have asked for specific examples of neutrality failure, but none have been provided. The arguments that the article fails neutrality have not been arguments — they've been assertions. You've asserted that GA2 was dubious, but have not stated why. I and Wasted Time R challenged this assertion, but you did not respond. You used the recent edit war as evidence of failing the stability criterion, but you have not responded to my statement that the edit war was caused by an unusual circumstance and has since been resolved by RFC. You used the page's protection status as evidence of instability despite the fact that the page for a major party's presidential nominee would be protected under any circumstance, regardless of the article's quality.

I didn't come into this expecting to defend the article. Having never participated in a GAR, I was planning on just watching. But when I saw that you were planning on delisting the article after several users asked for specific examples of the article failing GA criteria and none were provided, something seemed wrong. I'm not sure even sure if this article does meet GA criteria, but you have avoided making substantive arguments for delisting and ignored arguments against delisting. I am unfamiliar with the steps of dispute resolution, but I would like for a neutral user to determine the consensus of this GAR. userdude 04:57, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

@UserDude: Atsme didn't even bother responding to my comment which had asked for further elaboration on why she intends to delist the article. Considering no elaboration was provided, it would stand to reason that the article's issues aren't "extensive" after all; yet, if that were the case, Atsme blatantly ignored the three steps to take prior to initiating GAR (particularly: #1: fix simple problems yourself, #2: tag serious problems you can't fix, #3: Remember, the aim is not to delist the article, but to fix it). So I'm not entirely shocked that Atsme came to this decision to delist... a week after she nominated the article for a GAR to delist. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 05:41, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree this does not align with the principles of conducting a reassessment. The aim is to fix problems and for that to happen the problems need to be outlined. It feels very much like this has been nominated with the intention of delisting it without giving it a chance to be kept. The pile on !votes from editors not familiar with the reassessment process do not help the cause. If it is delisted with the current commentary here I would recommend it is taken to community GAR. It should probably have been raised there in the first place. I will do so myself if nobody else does. AIRcorn (talk) 06:30, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Seems fairly straightforward to me. She has explained the issues several times that I can see and there is a clear majority supporting it. PackMecEng (talk) 14:34, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Anyone can vaguely explain issues, that's not quite difficult. Difficult is providing examples of those issues within the article, when those issues don't actually exist. If this page were still fully PP, if edit warring was still occurring, and if there were a litany of actual examples of NPOV breaches – I'd be singing a different tune. That's evidently not the case on 15 April when this GAR was opened, or now. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 15:21, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

With reverts happening daily and content changing drastically I find it hard to say the article is stable in any sense of the word. Also as I mentioned there is still an active maintenance tag in the article that pretty much requires a re-write of the section to correct. PackMecEng (talk) 15:29, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

A maintenance tag that was placed after the GAR, and per GAR's "before initiating a reassessment" (underline mine) statement: (#2) Tag serious problems that you cannot fix with appropriate template messages, if the templates will help other editors find the problems. Do not tag bomb the article. So if it were tagged prior to the GAR, and nothing was done to fix it -- you'd have a point. Now that it's been delisted? not so much of a point. Secondly, there are a few reverts here and there, which does not constitute to edit warring. Yes, changes occur to this article... you'll find that actually happens a lot on Wikipedia (GA, Featured articles too). But that hardly makes it unstable. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 15:40, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

We do not look at the article in a bubble of when the discussion started, if that were the case there was serious edit warring at the time. You cannot have it both ways. Also yes big changes, constant reverts, RFCs, and lots of talk discussion indicate unstable articles. Thats how it works. That is what unstable means. PackMecEng (talk) 15:45, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

No that's actually wrong. The edit warring ceased with the commencement of the PP; the latter, it too, ceased with the ending of the contentious (and understandably so) RfC dealing with significant BLP matters. And then this discussion started. Lot's of talk and discussion, RfCs on serious matters -- whilst that to you makes an "unstable article", to me it actually looks like a proper functioning encyclopedia. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 15:51, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Sure I agree, proper functioning encyclopedia. That is not the same as a stable article. Also yes the RFC closed, now the contentious matter of what to say exactly and how. I guess me and the majority of people that agree it is not stable are all wrong? PackMecEng (talk) 15:54, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

We can play a game of semantics till the cows come home, I think it's implied that I believe this article has been stable, and was certainly stable at the time of the GAR. Yes, RfC has closed and people can continue to work collaboratively on here. And yes, I respectfully do believe on the matter of stability, you are all wrong. Just as I'd imagine you would believe I'm wrong. The difference is, it's the onus of the GAR nominator to outline how it's unstable. GAR nominator, you, and the others can't really explain that considering at the time of writing the GAR, the brief spell of edit warring has long ceased. I feel like I've repeated myself, whether you've listened is up to you... and so that's my cue to leave things. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 16:06, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

• As promised I opened a community reassessment. If you believe it doesn't meet the criteria please leave actionable comments there. AIRcorn (talk) 23:27, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Could someone uninvolved close this thread, and point folks to the new GAR in said closing? CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 00:24, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Post-close comments

• Atsme This is an individual reassessment, and you're technically able to close it however you want, at any point that you want. However, if you're closing it as "delist", you need to list actionable issues that anyone interested in rescuing can address. "Article is not neutral" is not an actionable issue. If you have NPOV concerns, you've to point to specific instances where the article does not accurately represent available source material. I haven't read all the source material, to be clear, so I have no opinion on whether or not it does; but having worked on both promoting and reviewing a lot of political articles, this is the only way to do it. Asserting a lack of neutrality without reference to the source material, and delisting it on that basis, will just mean someone will renominate it, and request another reviewer; and they'd be within their rights to do so. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:02, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your input, Vanamonde93, it is very much appreciated. There are no clear procedures - one seems to contradict the other - and having been involved in a GAR myself several years ago which actually helped make me more aware of things to be cautious about and that has helped me immensely in my work at NPP, AfC, and as a GA/FA reviewer-promoter. The way GAR is written now tends to be quite confusing, especially since I was adhering closely (or thought I was) to the reassessment process which clearly states: The outcome of a reassessment should only depend on whether the article being reassessed meets the good article criteria or not. I will clearly list my reasons for closing this delist below, and again, thank you. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 17:42, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

@Atsme: I'd talking less about the written procedures, which are somewhat general, and more about behavioral best practices and broader policy concerns. Anyone can say an article isn't neutral. That isn't sufficient to delist an article, because if it was, we'd have no politcs GAs at all. Concerns with neutrality have to be based on the source material, and have to be actionable; these aren't things that are necessarily codified, but these are things administrators would consider if this blew up into a dispute needing administrator attention, for instance. So it's less about following the letter of the process, which you are doing, and more about minimizing drama from the outset. Vanamonde (Talk) 18:08, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

@Atsme: This is an exact copy of the instructions at WP:GAR, How to use this process instruction #8:

• Individual reassessment

  To close the discussion, edit the individual reassessment page of the article. State the outcome of the discussion (whether there was consensus and what action was taken) and explain how the consensus and action was determined from the comments.

• Community reassessment

  To close the discussion, edit the community reassessment page of the article and locate {{GAR/current}}. Replace it with {{subst:GAR/result|result=outcome}} ~~~~. Replace outcome with the outcome of the discussion (whether there was consensus and what action was taken) and explain how the consensus and action was determined from the comments. A bot will remove the assessment from the GA reassessment page and will add it to the current archive.

It doesn't appear that you need to use any fancy templates for an individual close; it's a pretty low-key thing to do. wbm1058 (talk) 18:34, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

But I should point out that the Template:GAR/current documentation does say it can be used for closing individual reassessments. – wbm1058 (talk) 18:42, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Oh, wait. It says that in the documentation for Template:GAR/AH. The documentation for those two templates is combined on the same page. wbm1058 (talk) 18:54, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

{{GAR/result}} is only to be used for closing community good article reassessments, per the documentation. Sorry about that. wbm1058 (talk) 18:57, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Close GAR

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.

---

My conclusion after carefully evaluating all of the arguments and discussion is that consensus weighed heavily to delist. The article has been delisted for the reasons I stated below:

The sentence before last in the first paragraph of WP:GAR, clearly states: The outcome of a reassessment should only depend on whether the article being reassessed meets the good article criteria or not. When we examine GA criteria, we can see that it clearly fails the criteria. Following are 4 reasons to immediately fail a GA:

1. It is a long way from meeting any one of the six good article criteria
2. It contains copyright violations
3. It has, or needs, cleanup banners that are unquestionably still valid. These include {{cleanup}}, {{POV}}, {{unreferenced}} or large numbers of {{citation needed}}, {{clarify}}, or similar tags (See also {{QF}})
4. It is not stable due to edit warring on the page

Joe Biden fails 2 of the 4 immediate fail criteria:

• Fails #3 - the article contains maintenance tags and clearly needs more. The article is unwieldy in length, difficult to read, contains trivia, and is overly promotional. MOS:LEAD states that the article should be well-written, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies. The lead fails to include any prominent controversies, and there are several, including allegations of inappropriate touching and sexual assault; however, as evidenced on the article's TP there are ongoing content disputes. The article also fails neutrality in that it does not represent viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each. Another example, UNDUE: the article personalizes Biden by focusing on his personal tragedies and emotions, as though it were an effort to garner sympathy from the reader rather than focusing on his notability. Great stuff for a book or movie, but not for an encyclopedia. There is far too much detail throughout the article, which helps to explain why it is unwieldy.
• Fails #4 - the article is not stable, it is under PP, DS with a 1RR restriction, and at one point required full PP. A brief lull in edit warring typically occurs when an RfC is in the process attempting to resolve a dispute. When a dispute has reached a consensus, another dispute arises as to how the consensus material shall be worded in the article. The article changes significantly from day to day as the edit history demonstrates, including ongoing edit wars and content disputes. It is clearly not a stable article, and without the protection afforded, the article would be a battleground. See this discussion, this RfC, and this discussion and the Proposal that follows the RfC. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 01:16, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

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.

Reply: The "immediate fail" criteria (these 4 criteria) are different from the "GA criteria"(these 6 criteria). The GAR quote (as I read it) refers to the latter set. Otherwise, any good article could be immediately delisted if it had a single maintenance tag (such articles can be seen here) — or, for that matter, if a single user was unhappy with the result of an RFC and took it upon themselves to make an individual review wherein they vaguely assert NPOV violations and edit warring, ignore requests for examples, and unilaterally decide that consensus is heavily in their favor. The immediate fail criteria exist to determine if an article is even worth a reviewer spending time on it; this article is already beyond that point.

In addition to that, your claim that this article has maintenance tags is (as of 01:45, 1 May 2020 (UTC)) untrue. MrX and I fixed the issues tagged during the course of GA3. That is the point of GAR. userdude 01:45, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

@UserDude: The 4 "immediate fail" criteria are not essentially different from the 6 "GA criteria":

• "immediate fail" #4: It is not stable due to edit warring on the page is essentally the same as 5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute
• "immediate fail" #3: It has, or needs, cleanup banners that are unquestionably still valid essentially is covered by 1. Well written and 2. Verifiable with no original research

In other words, any article that passes the "GAR six" will also pass the "immediate fail" 4. – wbm1058 (talk) 04:58, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

That is mostly true (some cleanup banners are not covered by the criteria). This is all moot now as the only one that can overturn it is Atsme and I see little chance of that happening. AIRcorn (talk) 05:38, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

@Wbm1058: My apologies, I was unclear in my previous comment. As I read it, the point of the "immediate fail 4" is essentially to shut down the GAn discussion before it starts because there is no chance of the article passing the "GA 6". It seems to me that Atsme is using the "immediate fail 4" to close the discussion in their favor, which is contrary to the purpose of GAR—to improve the article. In the course of a GAR, issues are supposed to be specified and/or tagged so the article can be improved. If a tagged issue resulted in an immediate fail, the process would be pointless. userdude 05:42, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

I have disagreed with Atsmes interpretation of the reassessment process here and since the delisting have opened it for reevaluation by the community at Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Joe Biden/1 AIRcorn (talk) 01:41, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

NYT on Reade

According to SharabSalam ([10]), mentioning the NYT's finding that "No other allegation about sexual assault surfaced in the course of reporting, nor did any former Biden staff members corroborate any details of Ms. Reade’s allegation. The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden" is WP:UNDUE in a way that including the allegation that was unsubstantiated by anybody they talked to somehow is not.

Oddly enough, I disagree. Guy (help!) 21:23, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

It seems like important context to me. How is it undue? – Muboshgu (talk) 21:31, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

JzG, these random authors are not experts in the subject also the quotation inside templates to highlight what they said, is giving them undue weight. Cant be included in the article. Also, this is irrelevant to the article, what they are talking about is their (the authors) findings and excuse to why they didnt report the incident, it has nothing to do with the incident itself, its about their lack of reporting the story which isnt even in this article. --SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 21:36, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

They are investigative reporters and they investigated the allegation. Also, that no other women have made any allegations against Biden stands in stark contrast to the cases of Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, and others who have engaged in sexual misconduct. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:51, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

The reporters are expert investigative reporters who are thoroughly aware of and dedicated to best practices for such investigation. They also provided a great deal of transparency as to the scope and nature of their investigation -- who they interviewed and some of the substance of those conversations. "Random authors" is really not applicable here. SPECIFICO talk 21:57, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

I do not see anything wrong with noting that NYT did not find any other allegations of sexual assault. That just means that they didn't find any. There could or could not be more, as we have seen before. Given the correction by the NYT they should be looked at a bit more skeptically than under normal circumstances. The statement "The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden" though seems to be undue to me. This seems to be them expressing an opinion on the entirety of the claims by Reade (and others) and those that could (or could not exist) which we know nothing about (the known unknowns). The problem with this statement about "misconduct" is that some of the past general allegations of inappropriate physical contact (touching shoulders, smelling hair etc) could be seen as "misconduct", "harassment" or simply inappropriate. Is the NYT talking about those claims too? There clearly is a pattern of complaints there. That is clearly not assault, but could be misconduct, harassment or simply inappropriate. We are not under any obligation to take the NYT's characterization of those known allegations as the gospel truth. Sure, they found no pattern of sexual assault... and maybe they don't CONSIDER these other allegations misconduct.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 22:13, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

This article is about Joe Biden, their own findings are irrelevant here, they are making an excuse why they didn't report the story earlier, if we are going to add that quote that we should give the context, which is that the NYT didn't report the allegation for long period of time.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 22:21, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

The NYT investigative journalists investigated Biden, so it fits. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:23, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

They are not experts or notable. They are only journalists. Their story is interesting but it is undue. Also, giving them a big fat quote template is giving much more undue weight.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 22:18, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

"Only journalists".... how dismissive. You realize how much Wikipedia owes to journalism? – Muboshgu (talk) 22:21, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

This is a legal matter that involves a BLP. You need real legal investigators not journalists making an excuse why they didnt report the story.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 22:23, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

So we can't use the New York Times as a source for articles about legal cases in the news? Then we'll have to delete a lot of articles starting with the Impeachment of Donald Trump. TFD (talk) 23:13, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Blocked sockpuppet distraction -- Scjessey (talk) 13:53, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
NYT is generally reliable for non-political subjects. It's important to keep in mind that the Biden campaign is running the NYT's coverage of the Biden campaign[11], hearkening back to the Hillary Clinton campaign's control over the Hillary Clinton campaign's coverage[12][13][14][15]. So we can use the NYT as some kind of general guidance or maybe for supporting links to more reliable sources, but it's important to keep in mind who NYT "journalists" are working for. SeriousIndividuals (talk) 01:20, 18 April 2020 (UTC) SeriousIndividuals, no, the Biden campaign is not "running" the NYT's coverage. It is normal for a newspaper to check content with a subject, and equally normal for them to take a conservative approach when the subject has specific objections. Citing right wing media bubble sources such as the Daily Caller as a source for a supposedly factual statement on bias in the mainstream is a problematic position on Wikipedia and I suggest you don't do that.Guy (help!) 11:53, 18 April 2020 (UTC) I included two left-wing bubble sources in my previous comment. It's one thing to take a "conservative approach." It's another thing to forward articles for a campaign's approval before publication. Or in this case, to publish a factually correct story that provided needed context for Tara Reade's allegation by describing previous allegations of sexual misconduct, and then removing the context under the direction of a candidate's PR team. Imagine if the Trump campaign had that kind of control over the NYT? Whoo, boy. SeriousIndividuals (talk) 21:37, 18 April 2020 (UTC) SeriousIndividuals The NY Times did not forward articles for pre-approval. That is a serious misstatement of fact. You should redact/replace it with something truthful ASAP. SPECIFICO talk 21:55, 18 April 2020 (UTC) I provided the links just in case someone here didn't know about what happened. If you don't think the journalists were telling the truth about the actions taken by Kenneth Vogel, Glenn Thrush, and Mark Leibovich, I suggest you voice your concerns with them. SeriousIndividuals (talk) 22:08, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

@SharabSalam: You wrote, "This is a legal matter that involves a BLP". What is your RS for claiming this is a "legal matter"? Reade has acknowledged that the statute of limitations has expired. She has said she only filed the police report for personal purposes ("safety", as if she were unsafe, without further explanation). The current status of Reade's new allegation is that it's only been a media matter. The substance is entirely unclear and it is clearly not a legal matter. SPECIFICO talk 12:24, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Due and undue weight says articles are required to "represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." The opinions expressed by the New York Times reporters and other reporters in mainstream media are the most significant viewpoints in that they have received the most prominence in mainstream sources. And the most significant aspect of the story is that the claims are not considered credible. If the claims aren't credible and have received little coverage of course it raises the question of why we should mention them at all. Personally I have no idea how credible they are, just repeating the opinion expressed in reliable sources. TFD (talk) 23:13, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

I would support including this, but not as a standout quote. We could paraphrase it to something like "Reade's allegations could not be corroborated with former Biden staff and no other sexual assault accusations came to light during an investigation by the New York Times." The last sentence of the original quote and the attribution are not necessary. - MrX 🖋 00:33, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

• The current section is fine as is, hopefully with the addition of the criminal complaint once the above RfC concludes. Further details about Biden's mishandling of Reade can be/should be included in Joe Biden sexual assault allegation. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 00:59, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

You say. Meanwhile int he real world there was a long period when people were trying to crowbar this contrent into this article but failed because it had zero coverage in good quality sources, and when we do get coverage in a good quality source (NYT is top tier for reliability), we find that they explicitly state that the allegation is not credible, which explains why it got no traction earlier. In a BLP, that is about as relevant as it gets. Guy (help!) 09:23, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Your statement is a BLP violation against Tara Reade.  The NYTimes did not state that. Kolya Butternut (talk) 12:52, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, K.B., this is the same claim you are making at the BLPN thread you opened. But without links and specifics, I don't think the rest of us are seeing this. Could you provide those? SPECIFICO talk 13:24, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

You want a link to the NYTs article we're discussing? WP:LIBEL, WP:ONUS. Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:44, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

• The details of what reporters sought and could not find are superfluous and undue. The noteworthy allegations of sexual misconduct are included in this article, readers can infer no other instances have been found. If we're going to write about staff members who saw nothing, we're going to have to write about the interns who the NYTs failed to describe as "corroborating" that she abruptly stopped supervising them, and we're going to have to write about what her friends and her brother heard about her experience. Kolya Butternut (talk) 01:33, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

• Could you provide sources and examples of that kind of additional article content, if that's what you are proposing? SPECIFICO talk 01:48, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

It sure seems like many editors here are extraordinarily keen to make sure Biden's biography contains a sexual assault allegation, but not include journalism from one of the world's most reliable sources that casts serious doubt on the allegation. Why could that be? -- Scjessey (talk) 13:36, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't think we should be using "the world" interchangeably with "Democrats." 53% of Democrats trust the NYT. 15% of Republicans share that trust.[16] I don't know the party breakdown of NYT trust internationally, but in the US, that's pretty dismal. Additionally, burying an earth-shattering story like this on page A20, and then later admitting that they cleaned it up at the behest of Biden's campaign[17] probably doesn't do much for their credibility. I think that's the primary reason that we're seeing resistance to the "journalism" of NYT staffers, and editors are relying on more reliable sources of information. SeriousIndividuals (talk) 21:46, 18 April 2020 (UTC) Blocked sockpuppet. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:53, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

By "the world", I mean "the world". The NYT is a world-renowned and trusted news source. I would speculate the reason the story is "buried" is probably because it is likely a non-credible accusation, and so isn't worthy of higher-placed coverage. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:06, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

What's your source that says "the world" trusts the NYT? I gave you my source that shows just 53% of Democrats, which the NYT caters to, trusts the NYT. I think it's only fair I see your source. Regarding the "credibility" of Tara Reade's corroborated, evidence-backed account of her experience, it's not up to us to decide if we BelieveWomen or not. That's why three women with no evidence or corroboration for their claims all have hundreds of words describing their stories on Brett Kavanaugh's page. SeriousIndividuals (talk) 22:12, 18 April 2020 (UTC) Blocked sockpuppet. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:53, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

r.e. Kavanaugh, I know that it's frustrating, but sauce for the goose is absolutely not sauce for the gander in terms of Wikipedia. Different pages are influenced by different editors and will vary wildly in terms of quality generally and specifically when it especially comes to controversy/criticism of article entities. As somebody who's looked at a lot of articles on Wikipedia about domestic abuse, sexual assault, et cetera, it's the consistent inconsistency that sticks out most to me. "But X isn't presented in Z way, so Y shouldn't be either" isn't really an argument. CoffeeWithMarkets (talk) 05:22, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

• I've asked for clarification at the RS/N; given that the NYT made a substantive edit to their piece at the request of the Biden campaign, the article might have limited use for the encyclopedia. petrarchan47คุก 03:04, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

For what it's worth, Slate addresses the NYT piece:

Whether they intend to or not, the explicit framing around the lack of pattern ends up making a statement about Reade’s believability. Not every sexual abuser makes a habit of committing multiple similar assaults in a span of a few years, but in recent years, both readers and reporters have become accustomed to gauging accusers’ credibility by counting their numbers. If an abuser leaves a trail of survivors in his wake, we demand they all make their allegations known to the press if any one of them is to be believed, in defiance of the personal and professional risks. (Reade says she didn’t tell her full story sooner because she was doxed after merely alleging that Biden had harassed her.) We’ve been spoiled, in the worst possible sense of the word, by the proliferation of stories detailing yearslong patterns of sexual violations committed by the likes of Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Roger Ailes, Matt Lauer, Bill O’Reilly, Charlie Rose, and Donald Trump. We’ve come to expect every abuser to come with an entire fleet of women giving the same details. petrarchan47คุก 02:51, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

petrarchan47, the NYTs text remains in the Tara Reade section, without consensus. The only line I support is "No other allegation about sexual assault surfaced in the course of reporting"; the rest are controversial. Also, the heading of the section has been changed without consensus. [18] Kolya Butternut (talk) 03:01, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Levivich, we could use more eyes on this section. Kolya Butternut (talk) 20:30, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Kolya Butternut, I don't know, the fact of the NYT's investigation and its results (whatever they may be) seems important enough to be a DUE inclusion in this paragraph somewhere. However, the problem I have is that what's in the article right now are details that I think are unimportant and thus not DUE: (1) No other allegation about sexual assault surfaced in the course of reporting ... – I mean, who cares? Imagine if, in an article about a murder suspect, we said that "the newspaper investigated and did not find any other murders in the course of reporting". Like, that's good, but it's not really ... relevant, unless for some reason we were expecting the newspaper to find more victims in the course of reporting. In this case, that the NYT didn't find more victims doesn't really tell our reader anything DUE about these allegations or Joe Biden. (2) ...  nor did any former Biden staff members corroborate any details of Ms. Reade's allegation – Again, we wouldn't expect them to. I'm sure that in the case of most people facing accusations, their own staff usually don't corroborate any details. In fact, it's "big news" when that happens, when someone "turns" on their boss or becomes a whistleblower. (3) The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden. I'd think this was DUE if it was the police. I mean, the Times has been covering and investigating Biden for... what.. over thirty years? In all that time they never turned this up (or if they did, they didn't report it). So I'm not seeing it particularly DUE that the Times didn't find a pattern, since "a pattern" isn't really the allegation. In sum, I'm ok with including the NYT investigation, but I'd rather include content that sums up what the Time found out about the Tara Reade allegations, and not just the lack of other victims, corroborating staff members, or a pattern of misconduct. Those three seem like unimportant details to me. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 21:06, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Levivich, I agree that that information is undue. However, the NYTs did find that "Two former interns who worked with her...recalled that she abruptly stopped supervising them in April, before the end of their internship." This corroborates Reade's claim that this responsibility was taken from her after her assault, which occurred in the spring. Kolya Butternut (talk) 22:13, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Also, there are many witnesses; her brother, two friends, a coworker and a neighbor from 1995, and ostensibly her mother. We could say that several witnesses recall Reade sharing her story with them contemporaneously. Kolya Butternut (talk) 22:23, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Kolya Butternut, in my view, the fundamental problem here is using the NYT as a source for the NYT investigation. The NYT article is a primary source for the conclusions of its own investigation. (See WP:ALLPRIMARY and related discussion in the context of academic journals at RSN.) So if we want to talk about the NYT investigation and we use the NYT article as a source, we're left with editors deciding which parts of the NYT article are DUE or important enough to mention, and that's the fundamental problem with using primary sources: any decision made by editors is WP:OR. So to get around that, what we need are other reliable secondary sources that report about the NYT investigation (there are many, everybody has reported it by now). So I'd go about it by picking two or three of the best RSes (other than NYT) that discuss the NYT investigation, and then summarize the NYT investigation based on those two or three RSes said, preferably in wikivoice if we can get there. Something like, "The NYT investigated and concluded X." Now, if the two or three RSes each reported the same details from the NYT report (whether that's two former interns recalling her abrupt departure, or Biden's aides not corroborating, or "no pattern", or the Larry King call, or whatever it may be), then I'd be convinced those details should also be included in our article. If the two or three RSes each characterized the conclusions of the NYT investigation as "X", then I'd think we should also say "X". In this way, we're just following the sources... sources other than the NYT reporting about the NYT investigation. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 22:33, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it should be included. The section looks fine as-is (at least the version I saw before clicking edit here). It was one of the first really good sources on this topic and provides useful context. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:15, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Rhododendrites, there is no consensus for this text; that should be reason enough to remove it. The text does not summarize the findings of the NYTimes; it gives weight to what was not found rather than what was found; and its statement that no coworkers corroborated Reade's claims is disputed by other sources, which consider the statements of the interns to be corroboration of Reade's story. Please revert and discuss. Kolya Butternut (talk) 23:26, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

I mainly reverted because the main reason you gave for reverting seemed to be that it was somehow WP:OR and that we need to wait until people summarize what the NYT says. That's just not what OR means. It's a newspaper doing reporting. It's a secondary source. As for not being consensus, I did look at the history a bit first and did a spot check over the last several days, and it was in each version I clicked. Whether there's consensus for it seems unclear, and I won't object if someone undoes my edit with a different rationale. Addressing what you wrote here: if the language we use is a quote rather than a summary (if I understand what you're saying), then summarize it. As for giving weight to what was not found rather than what was found, it's included because the Times articulated what wasn't found. That's very different from, say, an editor inferring from the negative space. That kind of nuance is a feature of a journalistic project, not a bug. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:43, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Rhododendrites, I removed the text mainly because as has been repeatedly discussed here and at the separate article on sexual assault allegation, there is no consensus for the text. In addition, it is undue. The fact that it has been repeated restored against consensus is not a good reason for you to restore it. If you would like to discuss new text summarizing the NYTs reporting, please do that, but first please help out by reverting your edit. Kolya Butternut (talk) 23:53, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

@Kolya Butternut: First, please stop claiming the NYT text is "against consensus" when it clearly isn't. Second, please stop claiming that any of Ms. Reade's sometime supporters are "witnesses" when they are not. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:06, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Scjessey, I do not believe there is a consensus to include that specific NYTs text.

It is not I who claim they are witnesses; the witnesses have identified themselves. If you feel the word is inappropriate, I would suggest that you stop policing others' speech before considering your own reading comprehension. Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:37, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

The consensus is obviously leaning towards inclusion of the NYT text, and frankly it would be WEIRD not to include it. And your "witnesses" didn't "witness" the incident, so they aren't witnesses. Maybe you shouldn't be commenting on my reading comprehension if you don't want to attract a sanction. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:55, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

I think we can reject, on purely logical grounds, that a witness who self-identifies as such is the most credible arbiter of that proposition. Ever hear of the cannibal and the canoe? I am not a cannibal, hop in SPECIFICO talk 17:08, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

The consensus may not be against including no NYTs text, but that is not my assertion. The consensus is against including all of it as it is now. I'm not sure how not to comment on reading comprehension when we are still having this semantics discussion. No one is claiming anyone has witnessed Joe Biden sexually assaulting Tara Reade; that is not what the sources mean by "witnesses". Kolya Butternut (talk) 17:16, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Witness is a witness, not a person with an opinion or a person who's repeating something unrelated to the allegation, especially when it is something they are kind of sure they might have heard sometime long after the event, on second thought, after they revise their recollection. Witness has a clear meaning in ordinary speech. But as I tried to suggest, logic trumps semantics and there are no witnesses. That's in the nature of these things, so that does not by itself invalidate her claims. The results of journalists' investigations do, however cast considerable doubt on the allegation. SPECIFICO talk 17:44, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Please focus on what the source say. The sources call them witnesses; the current sources do not describe there being "considerable doubt on the allegation". Kolya Butternut (talk) 17:49, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Please review our behavioral guideline on this kind of repetitive talk page insistence. You're shifting your pretext for these. First you said they were self-identified witnesses. Is her mother a witness? Larry King is a witness. Sources please. Imagine how many crimes Larry King has witnessed by that standard? SPECIFICO talk 17:57, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Stating multiple things that are true is not "shifting". I'm not going to provide you with sources if you're going to make strawmen about Larry King. First, do you disagree that Reade's friends, brother, coworker, and neighbor are accurately described as witnesses? Kolya Butternut (talk) 06:19, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Levivich Editors are using a passage from the NYT article that contains the removal of a disclaimer regarding Biden’s pattern of misconduct (NY Times faces blowback for removal of controversial passage on Biden sexual assault allegation | TheHill) made solely because the Biden campaign wanted the change. It seems clear to me that using that sentence without alerting readers as to it’s controversial history and inherent COI is a policy violation. petrarchan47คุก 18:16, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Petrarchan47, all the more reason, I think, not to cite only to the NYT for the NYT investigation. For example, here's what Reuters says about the NYT investigation: The New York Times said in a statement on Wednesday an investigation it conducted of the matter “made no conclusion either way.” [19]. BTW, I find Jack Shafer's op-ed in Politico this week to be pretty comprehensive in its survey of media coverage of the allegation [20]. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 20:22, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for helping. With regard to media coverage, might I recommend this new piece from the New York Times' media columnist Ben Smith; he conducted the interview wherein the NYT admitted to changing the text simply because Biden asked them to (discussed also here, where he was a guest this morning on Hill TV's "Rising").

The Times gave a summary of their Reade reporting yesterday, when they had to clear up a lie being spread about it from the Biden campaign, as evidenced by leaked talking points. Their summary is perfect for the encyclopedia. They did uncover evidence, and are reliable for that. Their own summary is very accurate and neutral in my opinion.

[O]ur story found three former Senate aides whom Reade said she complained to contemporaneously, all of whom either did not remember the incident or said that it did not happen...The story also included former interns who remembered Reade suddenly changing roles and no longer overseeing them, which took place during the same time period that Reade said she was abruptly reassigned,” the statement continued. “The Times also spoke to a friend who said Reade told her the details of the allegation at the time; another friend and Reade’s brother say she told them of a traumatic sexual incident involving Biden. petrarchan47คุก 21:53, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

• I've opened a straw poll at RS/N regarding the use of the NYT's edited statement, and whether we will need a formal RfC in order to remove, or properly attribute, the sentence in Biden's BLP. More courtesy pings: Levivich Scjessey Rhododendrites CoffeeWithMarkets Darryl Kerrigan Muboshgu petrarchan47คุก 14:58, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

The NYT article originally stated "We found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Biden, beyond hugs, kisses and touching that women previous said made them uncomfortable." And was later edited by NYT staff to remove the last part about the hugs and touching. This was newsworthy and reported on by several outlets, the NYT quote should reflect that change. https://thehill.com/homenews/media/492680-ny-times-faces-blowback-for-removal-of-controversial-passage-on-biden-sexual Robertexs (talk) 08:22, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

In case it is not clear from my comment above, I object to the use of the wording "The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct". As we know the original NYT piece said there was no pattern... besides the other allegations of unwanted touching etc. This was later retracted and changed at the request of the Biden campaign to omit mention of those complaints. It is not WP:NPOV for us to use this to suggest there was no other misconduct allegations and to downplay the "inappropriate physical contact" that some, myself included, see as sexual harrasment/misconduct compaints. Reasonable people can disagree whether those amount to "sexual misconduct compaints" or not. It seems the original writer/editor thought they did at the time. We should not be saying they do not amount to misconduct compaints.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 18:34, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Community reassessment

Joe Biden

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: delisted per § Reassessment – wbm1058 (talk) 20:53, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

One of my main focuses here is the reassessment process, and I am the main contributor in this area. My attention was drawn to this article following a post on the Good Article Reassessment talk page. I am not happy with how that individual reassessment process was conducted and feel that it needs to be reexamined through a community one. My main concerns are.

• That it should have gone through the community reassessment process in the first place. Articles where the decision of the nominator is likely to be controversial should be brought to the community for discussion. This is particular true for controversial or partisan topics with a sudden surge of interest.
• Stability was brought up as one of the main reasons for delisting. My feelings on this criteria are that it is important for reviewing an article nominated for Good Article status as it gives the reviewer a stable version to review. When delisting however the opposite applies. A lot of Good Articles undergo bouts of edit warring and other forms of content dispute. That doesn't mean they suddenly are no longer good articles. Generally we wait for the dispute to end and then assess the article. In fact one little pet peeve of mine here is when the Good Article process is used as a tool during a content dispute. Even if we take the stability criteria as read, at the time of reassessment the article was fully protected. You can not get more stable than that on Wikipedia.
• There was not an adequate explanation of how the article fails the criteria. Neutrality was brought up, but it was never explained how the article failed the neutrality requirement. This was despite various other editors asking. The purpose of a reassessment is to give interested editors the chance to fix problems with the article. To do that they need to know what the problems are.

I don't know, or really care, if this article is kept or delisted. What I do care about is that it is given a chance. I do not feel that was the case in the recently conducted reassessment. I know there was a lot of delist !votes there, but this is not decided by a show of hands. What is needed is a break down of the failings which allows any interested editors the chance to resolve them. Also since this is likely to attract editors not that familiar with Good Articles it probably bears mentioning that the requirements are not as strict as many think (see Wikipedia:What the Good article criteria are not). AIRcorn (talk) 23:22, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Pinging commentators at Talk:Joe Biden/GA3 @Mz7, CaptainEek, Coffeeandcrumbs, MelbourneStar, MONGO, ConstantPlancks, Vfrickey, Vanamonde93, UserDude, and PackMecEng: Sorry if I missed anyone. AIRcorn (talk) 23:35, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

• I do not disagree with the claim that the initiator of the GA reassessment should have used the community process as opposed to the individual one, given the contentiousness of the article and the probability of a controversial outcome. With that being said, the article does fail the stability criterion of the good article criteria. This criterion states that the article should not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
  Joe Biden is an active politician and a presumptive nominee for perhaps the most contentious political contest in the United States—as more information about his candidacy becomes known, so too must the article change, and since more information is coming out day-by-day, so too is his article changing day-by-day, with more than 50 edits in the last week alone. New content disputes are being contended every day on the article's talk page, many of which involve neutrality and quality of sources, which are also central aspects of a good article. I would reject the argument that because the article was fully protected at the time of reassessment, the article "technically" met the stability criterion—the article so poorly failed to meet the stability criterion that an administrator had to forcibly cause it to do so.
  I agree that if the content dispute was just a one-off thing that resolved itself in a month or so, there is no need to start a good article reassessment, and I sympathize with the complaint about good article reassessments being used as tools during content disputes. However, when the content of an article is subject to dispute after dispute, lasting several months, I think that should raise doubt as to whether the article is truly stable. We do not necessarily need to wait until the article is stable before reassessing whether it is in fact stable. Respectfully, Mz7 (talk) 00:02, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

I should note here that I am open to persuasion. Perhaps I am being a little jaded after trudging through all the recent contentiousness on the talk page when I closed the RfC. I figure the content of this article is changing on a day-to-day basis, and probably will until after the election is over. With that being said, if it is just a one-off dispute (i.e. the Tara Reade allegations) and there isn't anything else pending, then perhaps I am wrong. Mz7 (talk) 00:19, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Historical perspective: Barack Obama was FA through both his 2008 and 2012 presidential elections and throughout his presidency; John McCain was GA and then FA throughout his presidential campaign in 2008; Mitt Romney was GA and then FA throughout his presidential campaign in 2012; and Hillary Rodham Clinton was GA throughout her presidential campaign in 2008 and then FA throughout her presidential campaign in 2016. The same kinds of things that you have seen, and will see, with the Biden article this year – edit-warring, RfCs, claims of NPOV violations, momentary lacks of stability – are the same kinds of things that all these articles saw back then. But it did not prevent those articles from gaining and keeping their reviewed status, nor should it automatically cause this article to lose its reviewed status. This GAR should be about specific, detailed, concrete issues identified with this article – this fact here is wrong; that source there is weak; the prose in such-and-such section has inappropriate tone; this important topic has insufficient coverage; that not-so-important topic has too much coverage; etc. – and whether they can be remedied. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:36, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

The article either meets GA or it does not. Just because other articles did not get a reassessment has no bearing on this one. Right now because of the drastic changes, the RFCs and heavy discussions on controversial subjects, and rapid large changes to the article it fails stability. Full stop. Perhaps down the road it can be re-run though GA and might even pass. But as it stands there are stability issues and maintenance tags that require a lot of work to address. PackMecEng (talk) 03:34, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

• Arguments that claim noncompliance with WP:Article length, WP:NPOV, presence of maintenance tags, edit warring, and instability resulting in full PP and DS with 1RR restrictions should not be the criteria for delisting a GA is inadvertently making those failures the criteria for maintaining an article riddled with problems as a GA, and that makes a mockery of the entire GAR process. I see it as a slap in the face ^(hyperbole) to those editors who have worked hard over the years to promote, review and/or maintain GA articles to assure our readers the article actually does meet the criteria for GA. I hope the community will agree as others already have in the original GAR or we risk losing the dignity and significance of having on any article. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 11:05, 23 April 2020 (UTC) ^{Adding that the accusation by the OP is fallacious in regards to my motives for delisting as being partisan or anything but good faith, or that I, in any way, attempted to politicize the GAR process. The same could be said of the effort by those who are trying to pretentiously maintain its GA status, and a much stronger argument when the article clearly fails to meet GA criteria, so please, let's not politicize GAR - I would/have felt the same for any article in any topic area and my actions had nothing to do with partisanship, as my non-partisan view is further evidenced here. 11:32, 23 April 2020 (UTC)}
• Oppose delist. Completely concur with AIRcorn's assessment of why we're here again, and thank them for opening this discussion. I'd like to point out: at the time of this GAR, just like the previous GAR a week ago: no edit warring, no article protection, no article disputes (some will class an RfC as a dispute; 1. collaborative encyclopedia, 2. BLP matters ← good to get community input on both of those). Likewise, at the time of this GAR's opening no specific neutrality concerns have been raised — oddly enough, just like the GAR preceding this one. As such, I don't believe the article should be delisted. I am happy to be convinced otherwise, as long as editors can provide specific examples. Also, for the previous nominator to speak of a "slap to the face" and making a mockery of the GAR process... I would urge them to keep a look out for a WP:BOOMERANG. The only reason we are here is because they did not adequately explain the reasons as to why the article should be delisted in the first place — despite others specifically asking them to, might I add. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 15:04, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

• 29 April: editors endorsing a delist of this article have failed to provide examples of any of the issues they've discussed. Neutrality? no firm examples whatsoever. Edit warring? none post the PP. PP? temporary, to assist an RfC on a BLP matter. DS/1RR restrictions? WP:ARBAPDS, look at FA Hillary Clinton. It's rather disingenuous for editors to suggest a problem, yet fail to pin–point where exactly that problem is, leaving it unfixable. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 04:53, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

• I'm not a GAR regular and I've been adminning in the topic area, so I'm not going to take a position on delisting. But I do want to share some perspective into what I suspect might be going on.
  I believe Talk:Joe_Biden#RfC:_Should_this_article_include_Tara_Reade's_criminal_complaint_against_Joe_Biden? and the coincident page protection were deeply frustrating to many users. We've seen that frustration play out in several forums already. The issue was complicated because at the time the RfC started, many mainstream news outlets had not yet picked up the story, making it a questionable BLP issue. I suspect that many of the people trying to include the allegation in the article felt that their views were being actively censored by other editors and the admins who protected the article. (I believe this was true of Atsme too, who was liberally using big words like "stonewalling", "whitewashing" and "censorship" in the related talk page discussions.) I don't want to invalidate the frustration people probably feel, but I do wonder if strong feelings related to the Tara Reade thing might be coloring people's view of the rest of the article. Afterall, if there's this big group of editors and admins stonewalling coverage of the Reade allegation then certainly the rest of the article must suffer from that bias.
  In any case, I think it would be unfortunate if the GA process became politicized. GA shouldn't be a bone that partisans can fight over, but something that encourages and facilitates article improvement. For that reason I would encourage User:Atsme to follow the instructions at the top of Wikipedia:Good article reassessment by pointing out specific actionable problems and tagging the relevant sections, paragraphs, or sentences where appropriate, instead of simply demoting the article to a "C" and moving on. And I would encourage others who might weigh in here to take the time to read the article top-to-bottom and jot down a list of problems that need fixing. Whether the article gets a or not is unimportant. What matters is that the process results in actual article improvement. ~Awilley (talk) 22:02, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

• @Awilley: Perhaps you should read all the issues people have raised here and at the previous discussion. They have been laid out several times by several people in several ways. Please stop trying to color this as a partisan issue when nothing supports that misguided view. Also stop personalizing comments about editors, it is less than helpful. PackMecEng (talk) 22:19, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

• Only here as I was pinged. I respect that many GAC reviews are diligent and attempt to provide a good review, but question why one person can elevate such an article pretty much unilaterally but one person cannot delist it when "keep" arguments are weak (how an article can expand 4 fold and be expected to meet the earlier review a decade ago is beyond me) I am however well versed in Peer review and the FAC process with more than a dozen articles in which I was the primary editor and another 30 in which I was secondary that I do not even list on my userpage. This article FAILS GA due to the lack of stability. I think Atsme has adequately explained this previously at the GAR and since she is someone like others with background in GAC, FAC, etc. its not like they are some clueless noob about it. Comments about how the Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton (I was a participant in that FAC) "survived" being successfully challenged for their ranking while they were in the limelight are fair, but that could also mean that we had less diligence then than we do now. I find @Awilley:'s assumptions of bad faith regarding Atsme's efforts to also be troubling. Awilley seems to be saying that Atsme did not get her way so she decided to extract revenge...that is a pretty powerful accusation. Here is my recommendation: Allow the GAR to stand as "delisted" and in a month or two after gathering comments, place it again at GAC and see if anyone wishes to reexamine it and promote it back. GAR is not the same thing as FARC, where an article is reexamined by numerous folks and time is allowed for appropriate changes to perhaps keep it listed as FA. The instability, edit warring, good faith claims that the article lacks neutrality of this GA is more than enough reason since it was a GA, to demote it. Everyone should carefully read once again the criteria of a Good Article here.--MONGO (talk) 23:37, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Historical perspective II. Here is an example of a GAR being done for an article about a candidate in a presidential race, in this case Martin O'Malley during the early stages of the 2016 presidential campaign – Talk:Martin O'Malley/GA2. (It's one I remember because I'm the one who did it.) The GAR does not rely on general claims of edit-warring or instability or NPOV or article growth over time. Instead it lists a number of very specific faults, omissions, and other issues with the article. When there were no responses after a couple of weeks, the GA was removed. Had somebody done work to remedy the listed problems, the GA could have been retained. This is the approach that makes sense to me. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:35, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Further clarity for the reasons given to delist per GAR procedure: Also see Talk:Joe Biden/GA3 for the initial delist discussion.

1. The article is unstable - immediate fail. The article is currently under PP, DS with a 1RR restriction which is a clear indication that it is a locus of chaos now, has been for a while, and will continue to be for some time to come. When instability is caused by vandalism, we do not demote GA/FA promoted articles but the same does not apply to the instability this article suffers as the result of conflicting views and challenged material. The topic area has -0- influence because the same behavior occurs in other topic areas, and at times where it is least expected...such as a dog or fish article.

   • Response: "The article is currently under PP, DS with a 1RR restriction" — the article falls under the scope of WP:ARBAPDS. That includes FA article Hillary Clinton — which has the same restrictions. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 03:35, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

2. This article is plagued by edit warring - immediate fail. The argument that edit warring is expected in controversial articles and should not affect current GA status is an invalid argument to not delist as is the argument that there hasn't been any edit warring in a while, and the reason follows: this article has PP, DS, and 1RR restrictions that are not conducive to WP's open platform which is lauded for it's design that encourages article improvement and neutrality.

   • Response: Please provide recent examples of this article being "plagued by edit warring". I would be curious to see if they are in relation to the BLP matters which resulted in full-PP. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 03:35, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

3. The article has neutrality issues - immediate fail. See Talk:Joe Biden/GAR3 - neutrality speaks to POV conflicts that raise questions about content and compliance with WP's core content policies. Until a consensus is reached that resolves the neutrality issues, the article unequivocally fails GA criteria and should be delisted.

   • Response: Please provide examples. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 03:35, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

   • It took some time for the cautious Obama and the blunt, rambling Biden to work out ways of dealing with each other.[204] This is placed right after a maintenance tag. Username⁶⁸⁹² 03:37, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

   • Hardly POV, if anything awkwardly written like a story as the maintenance tag describes. Would need to be rewritten, though. Can you please provide a list of NPOV examples? because if there are blatant NPOV breaches, we all need to be made aware of them so they can be fixed. I would further be happy to delist if there's plenty of NPOV issues -- as implied within both this and the previous GAR. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 03:45, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

4. The article is not well-written per GA Criteria 1, as it contains too much detail, trivia, and promotion; e.g., things like his early life college football, and/or noncompliance with MOS:LEAD which states: The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies. Also, the article is currently 88 kB (14495 words) vs the 2008 article that was promoted to GA with 31 kB (5122 words). In its current state, the article is unwieldy and should be split per WP:Article length.

   • Would splitting his Senate career and/or his vice-presidency into seperate articles be a good idea? Username⁶⁸⁹² 14:15, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

5. The article still has maintenance tags and needs more but maintenance tags tend to be removed when instability is an issue and 1RR prevents removed tags from being restored. PP and DS w/1RR are deterrents that have a chilling effect and results in disincentivizing editors from contributing.

   • Response: I don't see why you wouldn't be able to tag where necessary if it's needed. I certainly wouldn't remove a tag (I'd be curious to see who would, especially if it's needed). Further, in the context of a GAR: we need to know where things need to be fixed. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 03:35, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

• Hopefully the above list will provide the clarity needed. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 14:00, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

I would say that the above did provide clarity, though perhaps not in the way Atsme intended. Much as I dislike bolding in this manner—it's effectively shouting—I think it's important to point out a basic fact of GAR that is being overlooked: there is no such thing as an immediate fail at GAR. There just isn't. At GAN, there is (the WP:GAFAIL, cited by many people, though in context it's clear the "immediate" part only applies to new GA nominations when article issues are so severe that there is no point in embarking on a full review), but as is evident throughout the description of how GAR works at WP:GAR, the goal of a GAR is to attempt to deal with the article's shortcomings in terms of the GA criteria: Remember, the aim is not to delist the article, but to fix it.

GAR is a deliberative process, and reading the individual GAR (Talk:Joe Biden/GA3), it's clear that the guidelines were not followed. There was no attempt to note any issues with the GA criteria aside from instability, and requests that this be done were ignored. The end result seems to have been decided from the moment it was opened: there had been edit warring, therefore GA status had to be removed, regardless of what anyone said. Never mind that the edit warring had subsided, according to more than one editor. It is a weakness of the individual GAR—as indeed with individual GAN reviews—that the opening editor has the final say, because sometimes the reassessor or reviewer gets it wrong, and that's why the community GAR is available, so that the community at large can have its say.

Going over the five points above:

1. Is the article unstable today? Right now? Measures such as being under PP, DS with a 1RR restriction are imposed to bring stability to an article that has suffered edit warring and other problems. If they have succeeded in bringing a reasonable degree of stability to the article, then the GA criteria are met.
2. Similarly, if the editing restrictions have put the brakes on edit warring (or it has subsided on its own), then again the GA criteria are met.
3. I have yet to see a specific example of neutrality issues in any of these reassessments. For this to be raised, examples of passages and/or biased sections need to be specified. Of course, since GARs are meant to bring articles back to GA level if possible, those passages and biases can be fixed in the course of this review.
4. GA criteria 1 issues: if there are sections that are problematic, again, raise them here, and if they cannot be corrected, then the delisting can stand. But they must be raised and given an opportunity for correction. The invocation of WP:Article length here, however, is not relevant, as it is not a part of the GA criteria. It may be good advice for future article development; indeed, I notice there's a split discussion currently under way. (GA status, if any, stays with the parent article.) If there are concerns regarding criterion 3b (it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style)), those should be enumerated so they can be addressed.
5. Maintenance tags on the article should be addressed in the course of a reassessment, and I hope someone will do so now that it's been highlighted. (I see one "citation needed" template, and the second half of the "First term" section's "story" template, which also has "clarification needed" and "according to whom" templates). Again, this is part of fixing the article, a clear goal of GAR.

• I have fixed the "citation needed", "clarification needed", and "according to whom" in-line tags. I used Ballotpedia references for the "citation needed" tag and reworded the content tagged with "clarification needed" and "according to whom" based on two NY Times articles. See Special:Diff/953102135; Special:Diff/953282948. userdude 00:17, 27 April 2020 (UTC), diffs added 00:23, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

My hope is that this community GAR can proceed per the guidelines at WP:GAR, particularly that the article be fully assessed against the GA criteria in terms of where it falls short today, and that those who are interested in doing so work at editing the article so that it no longer falls short of the criteria in those areas.

If the article does come to meet the criteria in a reasonable timeframe, then I trust that the consensus will reflect that fact and the article will qualify for listing. If it doesn't meet the criteria at that point, then consensus will reflect that. Either way, the reassessment can at that point be closed, and the result reflected on the article's talk page. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:43, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

• I disapprove of any attempts to cheat the system. We have proceeded per the guidelines; therefore, attempts to call an unstable article stable by ignoring challenged neutrality and multiple issues that require PP and 1RR restrictions to get it to that point make a mockery of the GA process and a travesty, indeed. Resolve the issues first, get the article stable without PP or DS, and renominate it. Imposing false stability on an unstable, challenged article is not how the GA process works. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 17:18, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

• I honestly don't know where to begin in responding to this, because phrases like cheat the system, make a mockery of the GA process, and even Imposing false stability on an unstable, challenged article is not how the GA process works don't reflect how the GAN and GAR processes do work. Even now, the challenged neutrality issues have not been identified with any specifics—flouting the very process supposedly being cheated. I just hope that when an independent closer appears for this page, they will look at the actions and arguments and actual GAR guidelines and GA criteria, and if the article meets the criteria on that date, close this GAR as relisted. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:23, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

• Thanks for the responses. I would just like to make some comments regarding a few points raised.
  • Mz7. If this was not already judged a good article and someone nominated it during a period of high activity I would mostly agree with you. It is bloody near impossible to review an article undergoing mass changes. In this case it would be prudent for the nominator to let the dust settle before proposing it for assessment. The same should really apply here. We should be judging the article under all the dust, not just looking at the current storm. A somewhat relevant discussion can be found at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 153#RfC: Proposal: make subjects actively in the news ineligible for GANs and FACs. It was withdrawn, but the consensus was clearly opposing the proposal.
  • Awilley. I agree with you. The sole purpose of this process is to improve an article. If that is not possible or no one is willing to then we delist it. Whether the article is marked as being "Good" or not is not really important. It does serve some utility as providing a standard that other similar articles can use as a template, but beyond that it is really just peer review lite. Saying that, someone has devoted a lot of time get this article up to a certain standard and we owe them or any other interested editors the chance to resolve any concerns.
  • Mongo. One person can delist it, as Atsme has already done. The community process here serves as a safety net of sorts. If someone believes an article they nominated has been unfairly failed they can bring it here so it can be reassessed by the community. Same if someone believes an article was inappropriately passed or in this case delisted. You are wrong when you say that GAR is not the same thing as FARC, where an article is reexamined by numerous folks and time is allowed for appropriate changes to perhaps keep it listed as FA.. As it says at the top of the reassessment page Remember, the aim is not to delist the article, but to fix it..
  • Atsme. You are still just reiterating the criteria with out explaining how it fails them. If it is not neutral you need to show what parts are not neutral and use sources to show how they are not neutral. If a RFC has been closed giving consensus to certain content or wording then that is considered neutral as far as GAs are concerned. This is not an end run around community consensus. Right now what we have is the equivalent of the "I don't like it" !votes at a deletion discussion. Also listen to BlueMoonset. They know more about the Good Article process than probably anyone else.

We don't need to relitigate the process. All we need is for somoene who thinks this doesn't meet th criteria to provide clear examples of how it doesn't. AIRcorn (talk) 00:04, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Oh come on. Just look at the talk page. Years ago when Biden was not running for President the article was stable enough that GA wasn't an issue. Now, there are edits all the time and they are not just gnome like edits. There are edits that involve many discussions on the talk page, many edits that have some edit wars, or RFC's, etc. The article itself is always evolving and what we have today is going to be considerable different than what may be there next week. The GA process is not for articles that are rapidly evolving. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 01:01, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

It already passed the GA process though. Sure I wouldn't recommend nominating an article that is undergoing rapid changes, but by the same token we don't delist articles because they suddenly become heavily edited. AIRcorn (talk) 08:47, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

The GA that passed 12 years ago is not the same article that was delisted - see the 5 reasons given for delisting. Just curious...Aircorn, what reasons do you believe would be valid reasons to delist a GA because it appears you are arguing in opposition to the reasons stated in GAR? A few have said that we should leave it a GA, fix the issues and improve the article but simple logic tells us articles that need fixing have problems which is the reason it was delisted in the first place, so the keep arguments contradict themselves. Fix the issues that caused the delisting, hopefully to the point the article has improved and will pass GA criteria. Until then, it is not a GA. The arguments to delist provided at GA3 were solid ones, and now similar arguments have been echoed here, some by new editors who support the delisting. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 11:47, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

BlueMoonset has already addressed your five points and I agree with what they say. The only part of the criteria I dispute as being relevant is the instability one, which has been convered quite extensively here. Every other one is fair game. I don't know how else to explain it, but we do not do immediate delists. We give editors a chance to fix the issues and to do that we need to explain how it fails. If you or other editors say it is not neutral and another editor says it is then there needs to be an explanaiton of how it is not neutral. This is not happening, just vague allusions to the talk page and protection levels. AIRcorn (talk) 23:57, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

• Comment This has reached the point of diminishing returns. There are two big problems with GAR. One is too little participation and the other is too much participation, particularly from editors who are unfamiliar with the process and not willing to listen to editors who are. This is definitely the later and it is problematic because it can drown out the more GA knowledgeable editors. I left a note at WT:GA when I opened this so hopefully some more of the regulars venture over when this settles down some and we can get some actual reassessment instead of our current retreading. This was opened because I was unhappy with how the individual delisting went. Therefore this should be considered a continuation of that reassessment, with the status quo being that it is a "Good Article". If no one presents any clear and actionable reasons on how this fails the criteria (the ongoing debate on instability notwithstanding) then it should be returned to the status quo. AIRcorn (talk) 01:08, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

@Aircorn: re: I left a note at WT:GA when I opened this – you opened this at 23:22, 22 April 2020; the last edit at Wikipedia talk:Good articles was on April 14 (a week earlier). The only note I'm finding is at Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations#Joe Biden: "make sure the comments align with the GA criteria. it also begs a deeper question on how the stability criteria applies to delisting articles that we should probably address a bit more formally at some point." It's hard for me to see how we can avoid addressing the issue now, as this strikes me as the crux of the matter. Do you mean that you want to make sure the comments align with the GA criteria, or the GA review criteria? At Wikipedia:Good article criteria#Criteria I see six good article criteria, including "it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute", but Wikipedia:Good article reassessment says, paraphrasing, "don't use this process if you see any ongoing content dispute or edit war". Despite this advice not to use this process, this process has been used twice (both individual and community) for the Biden article where there have been recent content disputes. If the GA criteria, including the "immediate failure" criteria, does not apply to GA reviews, then what are the reassessment criteria? WP:GAR doesn't clearly say what the GAR criteria are, and how they differ from the GA criteria. – wbm1058 (talk) 14:29, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Apologies, I meant the Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations#Joe Biden post. Both talk pages have similar functions (there was a propsoal to merge them at somepoint), but WT:GAN is much more frequented than WT:GA so is a better place to post if you are looking for more eyes. As far as I am concerned the stability issue is a bit of a red herring. The instructions here clearly say not to bring reassessments here during an edit war and that supercedes what other instructions on other pages say. This is backed up by Wikipedia talk:Good article reassessment/archive4#RfC: Reassessment of an "Unstable" Article on the talk page. Sure it is old, but the participants are well regarded good article contributors. Anyway old consensus still stands unitl a newer consensus is obtained, no matter how old it is. So in my opinion the instability of the article (which is disputed by some anyway) is not a reason to delist this article. It is up to those who think it should be to obtain a new consensus. Nuetrality concerns could be a reason to delist, along with referencing, prose and broadness.

As to why I brought it here, it was because I had no choice. An editor used an individual reassessment to delist this and I disagreed with how that was conducted. This is the only real way to make sure the correct decision is made as it attracts editors who are not just interested in the article, but the Good Article process as well. This will be closed by an independant editor who will either judge that the case for delisting is sound and uphold the previous delist, or that it wasn't and restore the Good Article status. I have no stake in this article so don't care whether it is a Good Article or not. What I care about is that correct process is followed and that this process is not used as a pawn to further ones own political agendas. To my mind no convincing reason has been given yet.

Moving beyond this reassessment I think some clarifiacation is needed to clear up any future misunderstandings or to change the consensus here to state that stability is a reason to delist. I close 90% of these reassessemnts and put no weight into instability arguements so if it is seen as being a good reason to delist then I would like to know that. I will start a clarification one if no one else does, but am not keen to do so while there is so much heat on this article. The last thing we need is editors with no interest in Good Articles in general making calls that could affect multiple articles based on a single relatively uncommon incidence (the reason we have such an old consensus is probably because this has not really come up that often). AIRcorn (talk) 01:25, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

The viability of your argument that instability is not a reason to delist apparently hinges on the assessment of the consensus of this RfC which was opened after a content dispute on "Poker Face" (Lady Gaga song). There is a footnote on criterion 5: "Reverted vandalism, proposals to split or merge content, good faith improvements to the page (such as copy editing), and changes based on reviewers' suggestions do not apply to the "stable" criterion. Nominations for articles that are unstable because of disruptive editing may be failed or placed on hold." In the specific case of the Lady Gaga song it was argued that edit warring was "being done under a silly pretext", but the assumption in the RfC was to take it as a good-faith disagreement rather than disruptive editing. The RfC was closed at 18:23, 18 June 2009, about a week after the last comment there, without a formal assessment of consensus, but while it was still open Geometry guy added this to the reassessment guidelines on 10 June 2009 (with edit summary "Add clause per RFC at WT:GAR)":

• Requesting reassessment during a content dispute or edit war is usually inappropriate: reviewers are rarely content experts, nor can they reassess a moving target. Wait until the article stabilizes and then consider reassessment; if significant instability persists for more than a couple of weeks, then reassessment on the grounds of instability may be considered.

The length of time to wait before considering reassessment on the grounds of instability wasn't discussed in that RfC, but I see several contemporary comments supporting "a couple of weeks":

• I guess I'll give the article a total of two weeks for the problems to be addressed and delist if they aren't. Thanks for the help guys. DiverseMentality 21:43, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
• Currently there's the backlog template on this page, despite there only being seven articles here right now. Do you think we can just remove it? Noble Story (talk • contributions) 00:54, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

  It automatically lists reassessments more than 2 weeks old, and automatically removes itself when there are none. Geometry guy 08:11, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

• Community GARs are only deliberately kept open for about 2 weeks in most cases. The fact that many remain open for 2 months or more has nothing to do with some idea that good editing happens in the second month. Instead it reflects the fact that closing GARs is a difficult responsibility which takes time to do properly - and editors with the inclination and expertise to do so are few. An article should be listed as a GA if it meets the GA criteria and not listed if it does not. Geometry guy 23:17, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

So wait two weeks, if the content dispute doesn't resolve in that time, put them on notice for another two weeks, and if after four weeks they are still disputing some content then delist it.

Thanks to BlueMoonset for pointing out this 3 March 2016 edit which they characterized as "overreach". I would use a stronger word. At this time the text "If significant instability persists for more than a couple of weeks, then reassessment on the grounds of instability may be considered." had been in the article guideline for 6 years, 8 months. Prhartcom's edit summary Major copy edit. Tried to bring consistency to the instructions for both types of reassessment. Did not change any guidelines, only improved formatting and clarity in the wording of the existing guidelines. is not truthful. Removal of the longstanding advice that after waiting two weeks, reassessment on the grounds of instability could be considered, was an (apparently bold and undiscussed) change in this guideline that put it in conflict with the "GA six". This change should have been, and still should be, reverted. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:21, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Oh, wait. The lead paragraph at WP:GAR states The outcome of a reassessment should only depend on whether the article being reassessed meets the good article criteria or not. That pretty unambiguously says that there are no separate reassessment criteria. – wbm1058 (talk) 19:57, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

• At the risk of sounding like a broken record, assessments of neutrality need to point to specific content in the source material that is inadequately represented in the article (or misrepresented). I do not see sufficient specificity in the GAR. This is not to say legitimate concerns with this article don't exist, but they have not been demonstrated clearly enough. As with Awilley, I'm not going to take a position here (the GAR was within-process, in any case; this discussion, as far as I can see, cannot overturn it; that would need a new GA review), but "biased, delist" isn't a useful thing to say at any point, because that is turning this process into a battleground, as it doesn't allow for improvement of the article. Vanamonde (Talk) 14:43, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

  struck, per below. Vanamonde (Talk) 01:08, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your insight, Vanamonde93, but I actually did explain the non-neutral issues in various places during the discussion, most recently in the formal close as follows (my bold underline): MOS:LEAD states that the article should be well-written, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies. The lead fails to include any prominent controversies, and there are several, including allegations of inappropriate touching and sexual assault; however, as evidenced on the article's TP there are ongoing content disputes. The article also fails neutrality in that it does not represent viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each. I further elaborated by providing examples of material that was not presented in a dispassionate tone (the tragedies) and that were UNDUE as over-emphasized trivia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Atsme (talk • contribs) 16:46, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Reply:

• If the "prominent controversy" you are referring to is Joe Biden sexual assault allegation I think including it in the lead would be undue recentism — dozens of controversies will likely arise during the course of a US presidential election, they do not all belong in the lede. Regardless of what I think, this is a content dispute that ought to be resolved by consensus, not you unilaterally deciding content should be included and thus the article is not worthy of GA status for not including it.
• I disagree with your claim that "the tragedies" are UNDUE and over-emphasized. With regard to UNDUE, this article is about Joe Biden and numerous reliable sources support the notion that "the tragedies" had a significant impact on his life. With regard to over-emphasis: the death of Neilia and Naomi is covered in one 135-word paragraph; the death of Beau is covered in one 85-word paragraph; Biden's brain surgeries are covered in four paragraphs, 253 words total (I agree that the fourth paragraph is trivia and I will boldly remove it after posting this comment—bringing this section down to three paragraphs, 216 words). These are all events that significantly impacted Biden's life; I fail to see how this level of coverage is UNDUE or over-emphasizing.
• If there is content written in a "dispassionate tone" please tag it or even just point it out on this page. If you already elaborated by providing examples of material that was not presented in a dispassionate tone, I kindly request that you direct me to where you provided such examples. I have tried to stay up-to-date on this discussion but I missed your examples.

userdude 17:54, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

@Vanamonde93: One function of community GARs is to reevvalute fails at GAN. We have never had to formally put it in writing that this also applies to delists at individual GARs as it has never really come up before, but the principle is the same. The Good Article process is deliberately simple by allowing individual editors to pass and delist articlew with relative felxibilty. However there needs to be a place to reavaluate contentious closes. This is the only place that can happen (I guess it could be done at the Good Article talk page if it is a blatent case of sockpuppeting or other obvious tom foolery). Bias may play a part in it (Atsme doing an individual reassessment shows an incredible lack judgement if nothing else), but the main reason I brought it here was because it was a bad close. There was no effort to give the article a chance to be saved, which is the fundamental principle of GAR and was pointed out several times. This was also in spite of multiple editors being willing to work on the article. Here was a chance for editors beleiving it should be delisted, or even better some impartial editors, to provide an actual proper reassessment. Instead it is turned into a rehash of editors saying delist because criteria and others saying explain how. The only good thing to come out of this is that it has highlighted that certain processes here need to be clarified and updated. Nothing like political wikilaywering to find the weak points in instructions. Anyway some poor bastard is going to have to read all this and come to a conclusion. My position is that if there is no consensus the default should be to keep it listed as that was the status quo before the reassessments started. AIRcorn (talk) 19:08, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

It's time for you to WP:DROPTHESTICK, Aircorn. You made my reassessment controversial when it should not have been and it was based on your fallacious allegations of it being political. Was my denial of the Trump GA nom also political? The problems with the article are blindingly obvious, and your insistence in keeping a 12-year-old promoted GA that has increased in size 4x, if not more, is now raising concern over your ability to reassess. If you think the guidelines need to be changed, then go in that direction instead of discrediting me. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 20:44, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Aircorn, Vanamonde, it has been my impression that the community reassessment was always available (as was a new GAN) if an individual GAR was felt to be controversial or problematic. (Ditto for a GAN review with similar issues.) If such was not the case, the following would not currently be given as the standard {{Article history}} introductory text at Talk:Joe Biden: Joe Biden was one of the Social sciences and society good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake. This is a perfectly valid community reassessment of an earlier individual reassessment. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:00, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

@BlueMoonset: Thanks for the clarification (and you too, Aircorn). I've struck the relevant part of my statement above. I am going to still refrain from taking a position on whether this articles meets the GAC or not, but I will state again for the record that the original GAR did not provide detailed enough analysis (with reference to source material) as to why this fails NPOV at the moment. Vanamonde (Talk) 01:08, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Are stability-based GARs appropriate?

I was reading through the WP:GAR page, and came across the following in both the Individual and Community "When to use this process" sections: You don't see any ongoing content dispute or edit war. If it's true that GARs should only be used when there aren't ongoing disputes/wars, why are we even here, and how was the original reassessment allowed to proceed at all?

It turns out that the basic idea comes down from a May/June 2009 RfC on the subject of stability reassessments. The discussion can be seen at Wikipedia talk:Good article reassessment/archive4#RfC: Reassessment of an "Unstable" Article. Consensus that something should be added to the GAR guidelines on their advisability resulted in this addition to the Community section (the feeling I get from the RfC is that individual assessments weren't appropriate, but it wasn't discussed enough for consensus): Requesting reassessment during a content dispute or edit war is usually inappropriate: reviewers are rarely content experts, nor can they reassess a moving target. Wait until the article stabilizes and then consider reassessment; if significant instability persists for more than a couple of weeks, then reassessment on the grounds of instability may be considered. The reviewers are rarely content experts, nor can they reassess a moving target phrase was removed by Aircorn in October 2012, and the current wording and expansion to all reassessments dates from March 2016. These last edits strike me as overreach, but it's interesting how many GAR nominators ignore this and many other portions of the GAR guidelines.

To answer my own question, and absent a new consensus, I'd say generally not, and delisting for stability reasons is a controversial enough practice that it should be only done as a community reassessment. Otherwise, you have editors who, as in this case, have decided the article needs to be delisted immediately, and GAR is the tailor-made process to do so. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:23, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

I am not a regular here, and Iam only going to comment on one issue: an unstable article , should not be listed as a GA. I do not see why it should be controversial.It implies a disagreement over appropriate content, and an article with such disagreement is not a GA until agreement is reached. I do not know the background of the 2009 RfC in issue, but it seems to have reached no conclusion at all. (I'm rather skeptical on the appropriateness of deciding things by 10 yr old RfCs in general) . DGG ( talk ) 19:53, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

This is probably a discussion for the talk page as it covers more than just this article. This case does highlight the issue though. From practical purposes I have closed the vast majority of community reassessments and I don't recall once delisting one for stability. In most cases they are brought here by an editor failing to get their version approved, edit warring and then claiming it can't be "Good" because of the so called edit war. We have various means to deal with content disputes and this place should not be one of them. If we take the stability criteria as including heavily edited articles or ones where content is disputed most Good Articles on current BLPs (sports personalities, politicians, etc) controversial topics (take your pick of any fringe topic) or even popular interest topics like (various sciences, countries etc) would fail it at some point. In fact even some pretty mundane articles go through periods of contentious editing. Also the aim of a reassessment is to fix an article and we fix unstablity by dealing with the root cause, either through an RFC, protection or if necessary blocks. Delisting it does not fix those issues. And then if the article stabilises do we have to have another reassessment to promote it again because it is now stable. AIRcorn (talk) 23:14, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

If stability was not an issue, it would not be one of our 6 criteria. I agree that GAR is not the place to deal with content issues, and yes, that discussion belongs on the article TP so that editors can fix the problems. When reviewing a GA, we do not edit the article, and when reassessing to delist a GA we do not edit the article, so why even bring it up? All cases are different so there is no concrete rule that applies here. We are talking about an article that was initially promoted 12 years ago when it was a fraction of the size it is now. Hopefully the process has evolved since then, and so have our standards. It is not a good article, it is not well-written, it is unwieldy in its trivia and hard to read, it is overly promotional, has neutrality issues, and more. Instability is a symptom of other issues - I refer back to the list of reasons in the highlighted section above. There are 5 reasons listed - all valid and easily spotted by an experienced reviewer/editor. In the first GA3 delist, an editor pointed out the need for a sourcing review because of neutrality concerns, and I agree. I recently attempted to recruit 2 admins to help me address Awilley's comments above because the goal is to improve the article so it will once again pass a GA review. I think BD2412 summed it up correctly in his succinct response when he politely turned down my invitation. I agree with him. It doesn't take much to see why the article was delisted, and why leaving it as a GA is a terrible reflection on the process. In the state it is in today, it is certainly not what we want representing WP's GAs. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 01:15, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Aircorn, the thing is that Atsme listed five reasons and the article RIGHT NOWis failing for those five reasons. There is just too much back and forth, and content disputing going on. The article is not neutral, the article is not stable. It just isn't a GOOD ARTICLE. It's just as simple as that. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 05:13, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Five reasons without context and some even without examples, is not five reasons at all. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 05:19, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

If you visit the talk page, you can see all the examples you need. It is clear as day that the article is not a GA candidate. What was in 2009 is not the same article. I don't get the urgency of keeping it. Delist, wait a few months and relist once everything settles. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 05:27, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

I could literally say the same thing about not understanding the urgency to delist, considering the onus is actually on those that brought this 'GAR to delist' on in the first place. Secondly, "visit the talk page, you can see all the examples" is clearly unhelpful. This is a GAR, the examples are supposed to be brought up here and discussed (especially when asked). —MelbourneStar☆^talk 05:30, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

It just makes it sound more and more like this process is being used to settle a talk page dispute. AIRcorn (talk) 23:19, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

I would encourage a wider discussion on this point at WT:GA. To the extent that this section is a question of policy, I agree with the 2009 consensus. We discourage edit wars because it harms the collaborative spirit by inflaming tensions between editors. Similarly, turning the GAR process into a venue for editors in a content dispute to complain about how the article is on The Wrong Version is not a good idea since it will most likely inflame tensions without leading to actual improvements. As an example, what meaningful improvement has come from this discussion, and how has this discussion fostered a spirit of collaboration among editors of the article? As with the 2009 discussion, I think the best procedure is to not have a GAR until after a content dispute is resolved, and if the consensus version does not comply with the GA standards, using GAR to figure out what improvements ought to be made at that point. The alternative—delisting any article in the middle of a content dispute or update—places bureaucratic nitpickery over maintaining an encyclopedia and risks editors using the GAR process to make an end run around our normal consensus building processes. — Wug·a·po·des​ 21:14, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

One exception might be if the article clearly fails the criteria before the edit war occurred. I don't think a content dispute should be a reason to have a GAR, but by the same token it should not be a reason not to have one if there were already serious flaws with the article. Although thinking about it as I type this it could be gamed quite easily so maybe better just to not have GARs during content disputes period. There is really no rush to delist articles, some sit here for months anyway before they are closed let alone the hundreds that have unresolved tags. Agree that this needs to be decided at a talk page not during a specific reassessment. AIRcorn (talk) 23:27, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

I totally disagree. We don't keep GAs for the same reason we fail them. When I delisted that article, there was not an ongoing content dispute or edit war - the RfC resolved that dispute (on the side I supported actually), and the edit warring had stopped. We don't keep GAs because of edit warring and instability. The article fails on 5 counts right out of the box. Instability is one of them, noncompliance with NPOV is another, MOS failings, yet another. I was not involved in any of the edit warring, I couldn't care less about what's going on at that article except for the fact that it clearly does not deserve GA status, and that is where my focus is and always has been. Nowhere in our GA guideline does it say you can simply overturn a delist - there needs to be more respect shown for that process. The article has already been through an initial GA3 and delisting was supported as it has been supported here. The only option that aligns with our GAR guideline is to renominate the article after the issues have been resolved and allow it to properly go through a complete GA review because of its expansion and the fact that it is not even close to the same article that was passed 12 years ago. It is going to need an experienced reviewer, and my top choices would be CaroleHenson or The Rambling Man, if they would oblige. It will not be an easy undertaking because of its unwieldy size, promotional nature and NPOV issues. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 21:30, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

With due respect, several users have raised issues with your closure of GA3 (including that it should not have been raised as an individual review to begin with)—but you have not responded to this concern, nor have you responded to the requests for examples of NPOV violations. You continue to assert NPOV and MOS violations without providing examples. Please do not try to move the goalposts of this discussion into needing a new GA review when it was clearly raised as a continuation of the GA3. userdude 22:55, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Experienced GA reviewers have already provided the information, and if you can't see where the problems are after multiple veteran editors have pointed them out, including an Arb, there is nothing more I need to say here except Happy Editing! ^Atsme _Talk 📧 23:29, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

UserDude I'd argue Atsme's conduct as it relates to this article's GA smacks of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT; when pressed on specifics, the editor has repeatedly chosen to either not respond or respond without diffs/examples. If you're going to open a GAR, delist an article, be prepared to actually answer questions and back up your rationale. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 04:53, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Appeal to authority much. Being an arb doesn't automatically give you specialised knowledge into the GA process. If we are going by experienced reviewers look at this page here User:GA bot/Stats. I have five times the number of reviews as all the editors advocating delist here combined and I have still yet to see anyone provide a set of actionable reasons why this fails. If you still need more evidence of experience then look through the closed reassessments (221 vs 5) The only other person here who could be classed as a regular is BlueMoonset who has commented on 73. These claims of experienced GA reviewers are as specious as the evidence you are providing here on how this fails the criteria. Please look at how other reassessments are conducted as you clearly do not understand the process. AIRcorn (talk) 07:32, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Re Atsme (edit conflict) But that's my whole point about placing bureaucratic nitpickery over maintaining an encyclopedia. Yes the rules might say to do X, but depending on the context, doing X may actually cause more harm than good. We're here to build an encyclopedia, not play cop over a green circle, which is why I and others have been stressing the point that GARs are collaborations to improve articles rather than a place to resolve a content dispute. So yes, you've brought up other points besides stability, but the title of this section is "Are stability-based GARs appropriate?" and so Aircorn and I are discussing that specific question; should criterion 5 apply to reassessments? I think no. GARs during and in response to content disputes are an c2:AntiPattern like edit warring. The process turns into a WP:BATTLEGROUND to gain leverage in the content dispute, and the superordinate goal of improving the article and encyclopedia take a back seat to winning an argument. The encyclopedia isn't better off because an article has or does not have a green circle in the top corner, it is better off when people work through issues and collaborate to build stuff.

With that said, I want to address your argument more directly, because I think it further exemplifies why GARs during content disputes go badly. In your opening and closing comments at Talk:Joe Biden/GA3 you cite edit warring as reasons to delist the article. In your 21:41, 16 April 2020 comment on that page, you say there is edit warring and controversy surrounding it. If it ever settles down, it can be renominated., and on this page, your second reason for delisting the article is, in bold, This article is plagued by edit warring. Your argument in this thread is that When I delisted that article, there was not an ongoing content dispute or edit war, but it seems like that is directly contradicted by your previous comment here and elsewhere. Not only are these arguments internally inconsistent, they provide no direction for how to improve an article. We have tools to resolve stability concerns, but when we use those tools that is also brought up as a reason to delist the article (argument 1: The article is currently under PP, DS with a 1RR restriction which is a clear indication that it is a locus of chaos). Stability concerns are set up like a catch-22; if the article is unstable, delist it, if administrators try to stabilize an article, that's evidence of instability and we should delist it. How is the GAR process supposed to work when the discussion is structured to force a particular outcome? I don't really care whether Joe Biden, or any article, has a green circle; I do care that the GAR process is used to build an encyclopedia and that our policies and standards reflect that goal. — Wug·a·po·des​ 07:46, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Please...sorry, but no. To begin, I find your comment "not play cop over a green circle" disrespectful to the process. In my eyes it is not just a "green circle". I will not indulge further in this unwarranted trial because it appears too much like wikilawyering. Apply the arguments you presented to me to yourselves because it works both ways with one exception - I hold that green circle and what it stands for in high regard, so please proceed with your suggestions to fix and improve the article which is the whole purpose in reassessing and renominating. But please, don't attempt to improve the article here - do it at the article TP where such discussion belongs. It is good to know that your focus is on fixing the problems and stabilizing it, and that the delisting and removal of the "green circle" is not where the focus should be. I feel that I have done my job here as a GA/FA reviewer/promoter in upholding the integrity of the process. Happy editing. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 16:05, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

I would encourage you to read User:Wugapodes/Good article status is no big deal to understand why I don't care about whether I'm disrespecting a process that has no feelings, and why I do care that GARs are more than an up-or-down vote. I've reviewed over 50 good articles nomination, written 5, and improved two of those to FA status, so I think my opinions on the process developed over the years are more than simply wikilawyering. If you would like to see the article improved, we get to the question of how to improve it? If you are such a stickler for The Process, why are you ignoring the GAR guidelines which state Remember, the aim is not to delist the article, but to fix it by saying don't attempt to improve the article here? People have asked you for specifics; you provided a list of points; other editors responded to those points; in 5 days you haven't responded to any of those comments. Your only comments since then have been to argue with people who question whether this is a good use of our time or within the spirit of the process. You're free to not participate in the community reassessment, but as the one who undertook the individual reassessment, you are not immune from having your decision and reasoning scrutinized. — Wug·a·po·des​ 20:33, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

You might want to read this article to get an idea of how things are being viewed by media. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 16:10, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

• I think this conversation isn't going anywhere fast on this page. Might I suggest that this be recapitulated in a neutral way on the GA talk page? It will get more people in the discussion and from a wider audience. Having this discussion only in the context of Joe Biden seems to be cause for discontent. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 17:47, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
• Find it preposterous that an article that has grown 3-4 fold since it was unilaterally promoted to GA like forever ago and has had a history of recent edit warring issues, suffers recentism issues, has POV issues, has NPOV issues (all evidenced by sometimes heated discussions at the article talkpage), has maintenance tag issues as clearly mentioned repeatedly and ignored by filibustering demands to provide specifics that are not even necessary since these issues alone fail this for GAC outright. If this article was presented to me for review I would immediately fail it. As I mentioned previously but apparently no one is reading...until this article is stable it should not be a GA but once it IS stable, then perhaps renominate it for GAC and see if someone passes it. I sure wouldn't in this current state, but I won't review it. I am amazed that the very criteria that would be an immediate fail at GAC are being simply ignored. These criteria are posted at the top of the GAC criteria page...if you're going to ignore that criteria then put that page up for Mfd.--MONGO (talk) 21:20, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

+1. You basically hit the nail on the head for the issues here or lack there of. PackMecEng (talk) 01:35, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

This highlights the problem I mention in my comment. You have never conducted a GA review in your 15 years editing here, yet state with absolute certainty that you would immediately fail this one. AIRcorn (talk) 01:08, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes! Based on the posted criteria. Maybe my 30 FA level article contributions of which I was the primary on more than a dozen? Maybe based on my experience doing peer reviews and FAC reviews? I recognize GA and FA are vastly different but one can read the criteria, so since you seem to want to ignore that criteria then may as well throw it to Mfd.--MONGO (talk) 10:51, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

I am only ignoring the stability one for reasons I have elaborated on about half a dozen pages now. The rest are fair game. The thing is we don't just say it fails a criteria we explain how it does. I don't doubt your FA credentials, but like you say this is a vastly different beast. I wouldn't show up at FA and insist I knew how it should operate if that flew in the face of how experienced editors there say it operates. AIRcorn (talk) 01:37, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Not to be rude but you are welcome to try and change the criteria. You do not get to ignore it though. PackMecEng (talk) 02:49, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

"You do not get to ignore it though" said with such confidence! I must say that is quite funny considering how those arguing to delist have "ignored" simple questions asking for specifics. Like examples of the supposed NPOV breaches. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 04:37, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

The consensus as described at the start of this section is not to delist based on instability. It applies if we are nominating an article for GA, but doesn't if we are delisting one. AIRcorn (talk) 05:19, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

I think we are seeing different consensus, because I am seeing consensus to follow policy. Which would delist based on instability. Specifically per WP:GAR, The outcome of a reassessment should only depend on whether the article being reassessed meets the good article criteria or not. PackMecEng (talk) 14:33, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

No, you don't get to close this one anymore than I could close the GA3 and not be challenged. You are involved as the OP. A third party closer completely independent of GA needs to close this discussion. Some good closers who have been acknowledged as good closers would be SilkTork, Emir of Wikipedia, GRuban and the like - impartial, experienced and nonpolitical. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 15:36, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

On second thought, I agree with Vanamonde's statement above: "...(the GAR was within-process, in any case; this discussion, as far as I can see, cannot overturn it; that would need a new GA review),.... I hope participation in this GAR has incentivized editors to participate in (a) improving the GAR process and (b) helping to fix the problems at the delisted article to make it worthy of GA status. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 17:10, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Strictly within the language of WP:GAR Vanamonde93's statement seems to be correct. As far as I can tell, GAN is the only GAR review process. Also strictly within the language of WP:GAR, I could open thousands of GARs en masse, assert neutrality violations, not respond to requests for specifics, and unilaterally decide that consensus is heavily in favor of delisting. I assert this is equivalent to Atsme's GA3, thus the delist result of GA3 should not be considered final and this community GAR should be seen as a continuation of GA3. userdude 17:54, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

GA3 formal close

As a formality - upon the thoughtful suggestion of Vanamonde93 yesterday, I concluded the independent reassessment Talk:Joe Biden/GA3 by providing a more formal close. It appears a few editors were confused or lacked a clear understanding of the reason behind the independent reassessment; therefore, the formal close brings further clarity without anyone having to spend a great deal of time actually reading the more detailed explanations in the lengthy discussions. I am dismayed by some of the allegations in the GAR and in this community reassessment that were used as part of the basis for challenging the first GAR, such as political motivation and a bit of back and forth regarding a lack of experience with the GA process by some of the participants. Of the 6 editors who have supported the delist (MONGO, Mz7, CaptainEek, DGG, PackMecEng, and myself), all but PME are experienced reviewers in either the GA or FA process and/or as qualified reviewers per WP:GOOD, including a few with experience in the reassessment process, so I'm not quite sure what the OP is referring to when he calls out inexperience. Furthermore, the allegation that the delist action was politically motivated is absurd, the absurdity of which is evidenced in some of the oppose statements, not to mention that the primary purpose of a reassessment is to improve an article. I see no correlation with politics unless there is a motive to use GA status as a means of assuring readers that everything in the article is factually accurate and represents a NPOV which is what an article's stability represents and why we attach a GA symbol. Granted, the AP topic area can be rather toxic which helps explain why so few editors want to spend any time there, and why I don't edit those articles. My main focus on WP has always been to promote/review and participate in article improvement and to help build the encyclopedia by attending WikiConferences, and becoming a member of several WikiProjects, including the Lead Improvement Team. I am also a qualified reviewer at NPP/AfC, and have 17 GAs and 8 FAs to my credit as either a nom or reviewer. The one editor of the 6 who supported delisting qualifies as a GA reviewer but I am not aware if their qualifications have yet been put to use, except for this reassessment. Happy editing. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 15:29, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

You brought experience into this when you said Experienced GA reviewers have already provided the information. I was pointing out the relative experiences of the reviewers as it seemed to be being used as a reason to delist the article without actually providing any substance. The lack of experience is not really the issue anyway, it is the lack of listening to editors with the experience. You have been involved in three community reassessments including this one. In the other two you display the same battleground behaviour you are displaying here. When editors that have been involved in many times more try and explain how Good Article reassessments should be conducted it is generally a good idea to listen to them instead of doubling down that you are right. Myself and BlueMoonset are probably the two most active editors here and we have both tried to explain how things work. Vandemonde and Wugapodes (each with over 50 reviews to their name) have also questioned the way the process was used to conduct your reassessment. By contrast the six you mention as being experienced reviewers have 0,8,3,0,0, and 10 reviews to there names respectively (as recorded by User:GA bot/Stats, which while not perfect is the best we have at keeping track of such things). Their input is more than welcome and can be valuable, but lets keep it in context. AIRcorn (talk) 00:25, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

@Aircorn:, I just came across this. You say you have much experience with GA, is it normal for an editor who initiates a review saying this fails GA is also the same editor to perform an Independent close of the review? I'm quite shocked. starship.paint (talk) 06:05, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

• @Starship.paint: Sorry been away for a bit. If you are talking about Talk:Joe Biden/GA3, then that is how it is supposed to work. There are individual reassessments and community ones. That was an individual one so it is expected for the initiated to close it. This one here however is a community one so it will need an independent closer. AIRcorn (talk) 07:17, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Closing this discussion

@Aircorn and Atsme: It's been 3 weeks since the last comment here. Should this discussion be closed? Username⁶⁸⁹² 20:14, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Nothing has changed - the same issues that resulted in the original GAR3 delist still exist with more occurring. The article fails WP:GAR: The outcome of a reassessment should only depend on whether the article being reassessed meets the good article criteria or not. In a nutshell, it does not meet GA criteria. The article continues to be unstable, it is constantly changing, there are serious issues involving NPOV that are not being addressed, particularly in the lead as well as several issues in the body. See my most recent comment regarding those issues wherein I basically point to NPOV, (DUE & BALANCE). Read Talk:Joe Biden - read the lead of the article. There is nothing in the lead about any controversy, as if none exists, including his inappropriate behavior which dates back to his Senate days - nothing about the sexual abuse allegation per WP:LEAD which also refers back to NPOV & DUE. There is nothing about the Ukrainian investigation, despite coverage by WaPo, AP, etc. There is an attempt to keep his racist comment out of the article despite WP:PUBLICFIGURE: ...which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic. The article still has maintenance banners and would have more if they were not being reverted. Read the GAR3 discussion, and reassessment of the reassessment which resulted in no improvement of the article because, quite simply, it is unstable and because of PP, DS, and various edit restrictions it is unlikely to be stable, much less comply with NPOV. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 11:57, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

The best way is to request a close either at the WT:GAN page or the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure. There are still a few open reassessments above this so if someone wants to close those it will bump this one further up the queue. AIRcorn (talk) 07:21, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

There are currently no fewer than three Biden-related requests for closure at the administrators' noticeboard (permanent link). One of these was just recently closed, while the other two have been archived without a formal closure. I believe that occasionally RfCs are formally closed after they have been moved to archives.

Talk:Joe Biden sexual assault allegation#RfC: "... alleged that Biden ..."

(Initiated 1562 days ago on 25 April 2020) Formal close needed. Thanks. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 19:09, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

•  Done.—S Marshall T/C 15:29, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Talk:Joe Biden sexual assault allegation/Archive 11#RfC: Should a separate section be included that lists people who have been told by Reade of her allegation, under a heading 'Corroborating statements', 'Witness statements', or similar?

(Initiated 1556 days ago on 1 May 2020) Non-involved admin close requested; controversial topic. Archived RfC. petrarchan47คุก 23:11, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Talk:Joe Biden sexual assault allegation/Archive 10#RfC: Should we use the word "corroborate" to describe accounts that align with parts of the allegation?

(Initiated 1548 days ago on 8 May 2020)

Non-involved admin close requested; controversial topic. Archived RfC. petrarchan47คุก 23:11, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

These requests for closure certainly lend credence to the assertions that the article has not been stable for an extended period of time. wbm1058 (talk) 11:14, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

It's easy to miss that the three discussions I boxed above are about the content of the sub-article Joe Biden sexual assault allegation, and thus are not directly applicable to the GAR of this article, the main bio. However, the discussion linked below,

Talk:Joe Biden#RFC: "Allegations of inappropriate physical contact" header, is applicable, and has not been closed yet. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:12, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

There is also another open RfC "Allegations of inappropriate physical contact" header which was started 22 May 2020. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:22, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I have read through this discussion and have formulated a rough closure in my head. I'm working on getting the close keyboarded and expect to post my close later today. This will be my first-ever close of a Good article (re-)assessment. Normally I would defer to a more experienced closer for such a high-profile case as this, but I see that the most active GAR participants are involved in the discussion and this project doesn't have that many active administrators closing discussions – hence I am stepping up. I have posted three comments to this discussion, but this can be closed by any uninvolved registered user. (Significant contributors to the article are "involved", as are reassessment nominators; editors are not usually considered to be "involved" unless they have contributed significantly to GA disagreements about the article prior to the community reassessment.) I did not contribute to Talk:Joe Biden/GA3 except in the post-close comments. More than four weeks have passed since the reassessment was opened on 22 April 2020‎.

19 editors have contributed to this discussion 12 of 19 also participated in the individual reasssessmet

16 editors contributed to the individual reassessment 12 of 16 also contributed to the community reassessment

23 editiors contributed to one or both of these discussions. Consensus is determined by weight of argument rather than counting votes, but given that, to ensure that I've accounted for everyone's arguments, my rough count is:

* Keep (2): Coffeeandcrumbs, MelbourneStar

* Delist (9): Atsme, CaptainEek, ConstantPlancks, DGG, MONGO, Mz7, PackMecEng, Sir Joseph, Vfrickey

* Neutral or unclear (10): Aircorn, Awilley, BlueMoonset, Starship.paint, UserDude, Username6892, Vanamonde93, Wasted Time R, Wbm1058, Wugapodes

* Technical edits only (2): MrX, SNUGGUMS

The line between neutral and keep is a bit fuzzy. I have the sense that several "neutral" editors would like to find a way to keep, but generally these editors are more concerned with process than the outcome. The "delist" voters have more conviction. – wbm1058 (talk) 15:22, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

 Doing... wbm1058 (talk) 11:14, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

First things to look for: "Before conducting an extensive review, and after ensuring you are viewing an unvandalized version, check that the article does not have cleanup banners that are obviously still valid, including {{cleanup}}, {{POV}}, {{unreferenced}} or large numbers of {{citation needed}}, {{clarify}}, or similar inline tags." Given this, after two (individual and community) reviews, I was surprised to find some of these unaddressed issues:

• remove from Category:Pages with reference errors by restoring references that were removed by the edit 04:36, 6 June 2020
• Remove {{better source}} tag which was added without explanation at 12:55, 2 May 2019 by Tobby72. How can you improve on a primary source which is a video of the man speaking himself? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1j0FS0Z6ho
• clarify statement about net worth

Remaining are a few dated statement categorizations, as old as "Articles containing potentially dated statements from September 2015". I'll assume it isn't expected to try to update these for GA status to be maintained. – wbm1058 (talk) 18:25, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Reassessment

Good article reassessment (GAR) is a process primarily used to determine whether an article that is listed as good article (GA) still merits its good article status according to the good article criteria. Most GARs don't include this ({{subst:GATable}}), but, as a first-time reviewer/closer I thought it would be a useful exercise:

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	I've just finished reading the article and have clarified the prose and corrected grammar in a few places. Apparently this was not done by earlier reviewers in this community review. wbm1058 (talk) 18:01, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	The lead section was reviewed for compliance in this discussion. As a general rule of thumb, a lead section should contain no more than four well-composed paragraphs; the lead now has five, so it's pushing the length limits, but not yet so far as to cause a fail here (this issue wasn't raised in the discussion). While assertions were made about trivia in the body, I didn't see any suggestions for removal of specific text from the lead. The lead should summarize any prominent controversies. wbm1058 (talk) 15:10, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.	The article appears to be well referenced. I have not done a thorough review for this. wbm1058 (talk) 21:06, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	The sources appear to be reliable. I have not done a thorough review for this. wbm1058 (talk) 21:06, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
	2c. it contains no original research.	No evidence of OR has been presented. I have not done a thorough review for this. wbm1058 (talk) 21:06, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.	No evidence has been presented. I have not done a thorough review for this. wbm1058 (talk) 21:06, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	The Wikipedia:Out of scope essay says "Use the most general scope for each article you can. Since Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia, it's supposed to summarise essentially all knowledge. Hence accidental or deliberate choice of a limited scope for an article can make notable information disappear from the encyclopedia entirely, or make it highly inaccessible.", which appears to discourage exclusion of "trivia", which seems counter to the advice of the next requirement (3b) to not go into unnecessary detail. wbm1058 (talk) 22:24, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	Hey! "focused on the topic" links to Wikipedia:Article size – and Wikipedia:Summary style is all about splitting to subtopics. So, not so fast about that stuff being out-of-scope for GA reviews. A split was proposed on 24 April 2020 which quickly gained consensus in support. Vice presidency of Joe Biden was created on 30 April 2020‎ and United States Senate career of Joe Biden was created on 1 May 2020‎, but as discussed on 18 May this work has yet to be finished. In contrast with the longish lead of this article (1b above) the leads of Vice presidency of Joe Biden and United States Senate career of Joe Biden are each just one short paragraph, making it difficult to summarize those sections here. This article cannot be recertified as a Good Article until after this work is done. wbm1058 (talk) 17:00, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	This is such a subjective criterion that I feel that it can only be determined by consensus in a community discussion. What I mostly see in this discussion is an assertion that the article is not neutral responded to by mostly unanswered requests for specifics, and some acknowledgement(s) of "good faith claims that the article lacks neutrality". This criterion feels somewhat redundant to me. I think an article that passes all other criteria, particularly stability, is unlikely to fail on just this one. In any event the discussion hasn't sufficiently specifically addressed this criterion for me to make a call. wbm1058 (talk) 22:50, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	As indicated above 9 !voters were leaning to delist based on instability. This was a borderline "no consensus" discussion, but regardless the outcome is the same. See additional comments below.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	All 39 images in the article are tagged; most as public domain or creative commons. wbm1058 (talk) 21:58, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	All 39 images in the article are relevant and captioned. wbm1058 (talk) 21:58, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
	7. Overall assessment.

Neutrality and stability

Items 4 and 5 are the "elephant in the room" around which this GAR revolves. I view these criteria as very much connected because the crux of the stability issues revolve around disputes over neutrality. Indeed § Are stability-based GARs appropriate? discusses this.

I noticed a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations, "List of Wikipedians by number of Good articles?" and volunteered to work on producing such a list (after I finish closing this). I think such a list for the "content creators" would nicely balance out the "gnomes list". Based on the algorithm for producing that list, I see that Wasted Time R would get credit for this GA. Indeed this seems to be a good measure based on the XTools report which gives them a significant margin over other editors in authorship, number of edits, and added text.

A point of contention in this GAR is whether an article can be delisted based on the Immediate failures criteria. It was asserted that "there is no such thing as an immediate fail at GAR" and the "immediate" part only applies to new GA nominations. But GAR determines whether an article that is listed as good article still merits its GA status according to the good article criteria. There are no separate "review criteria", so I find that the "immediate" part does apply. However, the Wikipedia:Good article reassessment "When to use this process" guideline says "Use the individual reassessment process if You don't see any ongoing content dispute or edit war and "Requesting (community) reassessment during a content dispute or edit war is usually inappropriate, wait until the article stabilizes and then consider reassessment. If significant instability persists for more than a couple of weeks, then reassessment on the grounds of instability may be considered." So, following the guideline, a GAR may only fail based on the "immediate" part after waiting at least two weeks to confirm persistent instability and obtaining a very clear consensus for an immediate fail from at least five editors in a community discussion. In fairness to Atsme, until I made this uncontested reversion, the guidelines were contradictory on stability-based reviews, so I can't fault her for starting an individual GAR. Editors are advised that in the future stability-based reassessments should only be done by the community process. This is to ensure fairness to editors like Wasted Time R who've put in a lot of work to get the article up to the GA standard. In any event, this review has gone on long enough that it is way past being able to be called an "immediate" review. - wbm1058 (talk) 21:48, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Wbm1058 for noticing my past role, it is appreciated. But during 2015–16 I retired from working on this and other current political articles, so regardless of how much work I put into it in the past, I have accepted having no part in what happens to it going forward. I will say, as I mentioned previously in these GAR discussions, that I don't see stability per se as a barrier to GA/FA, since between 2008 and 2016 five of the six major party presidential candidate articles were FA at the time of the November elections (and some had been GA before that) and all of those may have looked on the surface like they had stability issues. But in reality the vast bulk of each article changed little from day to day and the value each article presented to the reader remained consistently high. That can be done here as well. Anyway, good luck with doing the rest of this close, you have taken on a pretty thankless task ... Wasted Time R (talk) 00:05, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

Precedents. Criterion 5 is open to interpretation: "it does not change significantly from day to day". The footnote to that provides some clarification: "Reverted vandalism, proposals to split or merge content, good faith improvements to the page (such as copy editing), and changes based on reviewers' suggestions do not apply to the "stable" criterion. Nominations for articles that are unstable because of disruptive editing may be failed or placed on hold." The key word open to interpretation is "significant". This word may be ambiguous in some situations. "Having a noticeable or major effect." "Reasonably large in number or amount." An article "undergoing rapid expansion or being rewritten" is undergoing significant change, but what about the addition of a single sentence to an already lengthy article? If that single sentence mentions allegations of sexual misconduct not previously mentioned in the article, that single sentence arguably has a noticeable or major effect. Edit-warring over the addition of that sentence may reasonably be interpreted as evidence that the addition had a noticeable effect; if it didn't, in my view an edit war is much less likely to develop.

I have heard the appeals to precedents. Wikipedia doesn't have any policies or guidelines on this. Although precedents are not required to be followed, I am sympathetic with the Wikipedia:Precedents essay. With that in mind, I searched the archives and found a nearly 14-year old discussion titled "Dealing with Bad Faith objections on controversial topics". While the debate that led to this was over religion, it seems relevant given the separation of church and state, but can religion and politics really be separated?

The dispute was over the Creation-evolution controversy article, which has since moved to Rejection of evolution by religious groups. The article was delisted per this GAR as explained by the reviewer HERE and on the revewer's talk. The {{Article history}} on Talk:Rejection of evolution by religious groups shows that the article was listed on January 22, 2006, delisted on October 4, 2006, and apparently no attempts have been made to relist it after that.

I noticed that Result: 6 delist to 4 keep, no consensus was added by another editor (not the reviewer) when they archived the discussion. I'm not sure whether the reviewer counted votes, but this edit demonstrates the view that no consensus in a GAR results in delisting rather than maintaining the status quo, which is counter to the view expressed by some in this GAR. I think that's right; Good Article Reviews simply confirm that an article still passes the criteria. If a first time assessment would fail criterion 5 if there was no consensus, then I don't see how a reassessment should have a different outcome with no consensus. I haven't seen anything in the instructions supporting that view.

I'll make a quick search now for more, confirming precedents. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:56, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

I just confirmed that the stability criterion hasn't substantially changed since March 2006 so the above precedent still seems relevant.

Another point of contention in the discussion revolves around the Wikipedia:Stable version supplement to the page protection policy. An argument was made that you can not get more stable than a fully protected article, which was rejected by another participant with the rationale that if an article so poorly failed to meet the stability criterion that an administrator had to forcibly cause it to be stable, then it isn't truly stable. I concur with this latter view. If one should wait at least two weeks to confirm an article's instability, arguably most high-profile articles will always pass the criterion because administrators will not allow instability to persist for that long before protecting the article. It makes no sense to have a criterion that can never fail. The rationale for protection should be examined. If it's protected due to vandalism, then it's still stable for GAR purposes. But if it's protected due to edit warring, then it's not. Per Wikipedia:Stable version § Inappropriate usage it is inappropriate usage to invoke this argument to avoid a delisting for instability. An open request for comment over a proposed "significant" change in content, i.e. a change that will have a "noticeable or major effect" on the article, should be viewed as a sign of instability for as long as the RfC remains open.

I realize this is problematic for articles of this type. A possible solution might be to introduce the concept of a "last good version" or a new indicator showing that the good article "may be outdated and is currently undergoing review of possible content changes". wbm1058 (talk) 20:32, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

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I suppose the sections below may be considered as equivalent to the workshop page of an Arbitration Committee case. LOL wbm1058 (talk) 15:10, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Summary-style split

For 3b, I'd like to point out that I did propose a split which ended up happening, but discussion about the prose to keep in the article went nowhere. It's been brought up again, but that discussion also went nowhere. As much as I want to help, I realize that I have almost no splitting/summarizing experience and I'm terrible at summarizing things. Username⁶⁸⁹² 02:41, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Lead section

• 1b fails - it is a campaign speech with all controversy omitted and reads like a whitewashed presentation by a candidate during an election year. Remove some of the cruft and candidate marketing from the lead, add the most notable controversies per MOS, otherwise it clearly fails 1b. MOSLEAD states (my bold underline): The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies. I will also note that tags regarding NPOV were wrongfully removed from this article, and I was not going to get into an edit war over it. It is not a neutral article for the reasons I have already mentioned, and it is highly protected - again another fail. Also, the independent reassessment involved community input so I don't see any difference between the independent community reassessment and the community reassessment except for a difference in the two editors who called for comments. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 13:31, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I am not seeing much support for failing 1b from the !voters. Most of the "delist" sentiment I see is based on failing 5, and perhaps 4. Let's address your two relevant points separately. wbm1058 (talk) 15:10, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Length

The lead now has five paragraphs; the manual of style suggests reducing this to four. What would you remove? Feel free to either strike through words to omit using <s>...</s> tags or rewrite it below. wbm1058 (talk) 15:10, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

---

Username6892's opinion for removals, Removals Username6892 is less sure about, Username6892's opinion for additions

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (/ˌrɒbɪˈnɛt ˈbaɪdən/; born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who served as the 47th vice president of the United States from 2009 to 2017 and represented Delaware in the U.S. Senate from 1973 to 2009. A member of the Democratic Party, Biden is the presumptive Democratic nominee for president of the United States in the 2020 election. This is Biden’s third run for president after he unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination in 1988 and 2008.

Biden was raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and New Castle County, Delaware. He studied at the University of Delaware before receiving his law degree from Syracuse University. He became a lawyer in 1969 and was elected to the New Castle County Council in 1970. He was elected to the U.S. Senate from Delaware in 1972 when he became the sixth-youngest senator in American history. Biden was reelected six times and was the fourth-most senior senator when he resigned to assume the vice presidency in 2009.

As a senator, Biden was a longtime member and eventually chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. He opposed the Gulf War in 1991 but advocated for U.S. and NATO intervention in the Bosnian War in 1994 and 1995, expanding NATO in the 1990s, and the 1999 bombing of Serbia during the Kosovo War. He argued and voted for the resolution authorizing the Iraq War in 2002 but opposed the surge of U.S. troops in 2007. He has also served as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, dealing with issues related to drug policy, crime prevention, and civil liberties, as well as the contentious U.S. Supreme Court nominations of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. Biden led the efforts to pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the Violence Against Women Act.

In 2008, Biden was the running mate of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. As vice president, he oversaw infrastructure spending to counteract the Great Recession and helped formulate U.S. policy toward Iraq through the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2011. His negotiations with congressional Republicans helped the Obama administration pass legislation including the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010, which resolved a taxation deadlock; the Budget Control Act of 2011, which resolved that year's debt ceiling crisis; and the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which addressed the impending fiscal cliff. In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, Biden led the Gun Violence Task Force, created to address the causes of gun violence in the United States. Obama and Biden were reelected in 2012.

In October 2015, after months of speculation, Biden announced he would not seek the presidency in the 2016 election. In January 2017, Obama awarded Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom with distinction. After completing his second term as vice president, Biden joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, where he was named the Benjamin Franklin Professor of Presidential Practice. He announced his 2020 candidacy for president on April 25, 2019, joining a large field of Democratic candidates pursuing the party nomination. Throughout 2019, he was widely regarded as the party's frontrunner. After briefly falling behind Bernie Sanders after poor showings in the first three state contests, Biden won the South Carolina primary decisively, and, several center-left moderate candidates dropped out of the race and endorsed him before Super Tuesday. Biden went on to win 18 of the next 26 contests. With the suspension of Sanders's campaign on April 8, 2020, Biden became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee for the presidential election. On June 9, 2020, Biden met the 1,991-delegate threshold needed in order to secure the party's nomination.

References

References

References

Prominent controversies

What specific controversies should be mentioned in the lead? These should be controversies that are already covered in the article body.

There is no consensus for including a specific statement in the lead of Joe Biden sexual assault allegation. If attempts to add controversies to the lead of this article have been reverted, a similar discussion should be initiated to get a consensus to include them. wbm1058 (talk) 15:10, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

• Response to Wbm1058 and (1b) regarding controversies:

1. the Tara Reade RfC close states: this RfC is about how much detail about that allegation to give in the lead. A consensus has not been reached as to how much so the dispute is ongoing. Regardless, that is not the only controversy as the following will evidence:
2. Politico and other RS have published Biden's controversial ‘you ain’t black’ comment, which belongs in the lead per MOS;
3. the Vox article about Joe Biden’s controversial comments about segregationists and wealthy donors, explained;
4. the NYTimes article, Biden’s ‘Breakfast Club’ Controversy Shows What His Rivals Already Knew;
5. Time article,

Top 10 Joe Biden Gaffes - Throughout his decades of public service, the former Senator and current Vice President has earned a reputation for often saying the wrong thing at the wrong time;

• And there are many more. Not even one notable controversy is mentioned in the lead, few are in the body text, and there should be several. Sorry, but it FAILS NPOV on many counts. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 14:39, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree, but the word "gaffes" makes it sound pro-Trump. Other editors may or may not think so, but that's just what I think. Thanks, Thanoscar21_{talk, contribs} 01:10, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Even Bushisms, with their own article, didn't make it to George W. Bush's lead. I don't think Biden's gaffes are more significant. starship.paint (talk) 15:36, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

• @Atsme:, a very recent RfC discussion (which you participated in) resulted in consensus not to have "you ain't black" in the body. You are free to start a another RfC for a new consensus, but to plainly assert that it belongs in the lead is simply ignoring the current consensus. starship.paint (talk) 15:36, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

  @Starship.paint: Just for clarification that is not a RFC. That was a discussion that was open about a week and a half. PackMecEng (talk) 15:40, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

  @PackMecEng: - you're absolutely right. I apologize for my error. Thank you for the correction, I have edited my post accordingly. starship.paint (talk) 15:42, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Compromise proposal: May 10

The actual May 10 version

This version I believe addresses all of our disagreements.

The purpose for this proposal can be seen through the edit summaries in my series of edits beginning here.It was reverted without comment on the content. Please comment below  Kolya Butternut (talk) 13:07, 10 May 2020 (UTC)Kolya Butternut (talk) 18:40, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

In April 2019, former Biden staffer Tara Reade said that she had felt uncomfortable on several occasions when Biden touched her on her shoulder and neck during her employment in his Senate office in 1993. In March 2020, Reade accused Biden of pushing her against a wall and digitally penetrating her while on Capitol Hill in 1993. On May 1, 2020, Biden said, "It's not true. I'm saying unequivocally it never, never happened, and it didn't. It never happened."

While The New York Times was investigating the Reade allegation,  no other allegation about sexual assault surfaced, and no pattern of sexual misconduct was found. 

 Kolya Butternut (talk) 12:42, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Sources

The beginning of the last sentence can be changed to "Over the course of". One important goal is to separate this from the Reade paragraph.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 17:58, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Alternate version

I will simply edit it this new version:

In April 2019, former Biden staffer Tara Reade said that she had felt uncomfortable on several occasions when he touched her on her shoulder and neck during her employment in his Senate office in 1993. In March 2020, Reade clarified her story, accusing Biden of pushing her against a wall and digitally penetrating her. Biden said, "It's not true. I'm saying unequivocally it never, never happened, and it didn't." While investigating the story, the New York Times found no other sexual assault allegations, and no pattern of sexual misconduct.

Sources

I still prefer the abbreviated version favored by SPECIFICO, but I can live with this is well. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:06, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

The sentence about what The Times found is not about the Reade allegation itself; it is about Biden's history which came up during the investigation, that's why I made it a separate paragraph.

The word "clarify" is unsourced. It is unneeded; it is clear from the context that she made a new allegation. "Clarify" is inaccurate; these are two separate things that happened to her while at Biden's office. Kolya Butternut (talk) 13:14, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

The NYT sentence does not need to be in a separate paragraph, because their investigation was predicated on Ms. Reade's complaint.

"Clarified" does not need to be sourced, because it isn't a quote. It is presented in Wikipedia's voice. If you prefer something sourced, "the story that both she and her corroborating witnesses are telling has changed dramatically." is available, so how about In March 2020, Reade changed her story dramatically, accusing Biden... instead? -- Scjessey (talk) 13:22, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Why do you oppose The Times sentence being in a separate paragraph? You don't find my solution for compromise over this very contentious text to be reasonable?

I understand that you believe Reade's story is dubious, but we're not going to use a single Vox source when we have better sources, but we can discuss your Vox suggestion in another discussion. We're not going to use the contentious word "clarify" without sources. Again, "clarify" has nothing to do with this discussion; the word was neither in the previous version nor my suggestion. Please comment on my proposal. Kolya Butternut (talk) 13:33, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

We don't need to have a one-paragraph story spread out over two paragraphs, and since they are linked it makes perfect sense to keep them in the same paragraph.

"We're not going to use..." - Wikipedia is a collaborative effort. You don't get to dictate what is or isn't in an article. Reade CHANGED her story, which is HUGELY significant. We cannot possibly exclude such a detail while having all the other stuff you insist on having. I've SLIGHTLY edited the version you proposed, and THAT is my comment on your version. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:39, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Please don't tone-police me.  We are not going to achieve consensus with unsourced contentious text.

No, you have not edited my proposal, you have suggested an edit to the existing text that is unrelated to my proposal.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 13:51, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

I literally copy/pasted your "My Proposed May 10 version" text and then edited it. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:53, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

That's pedantry.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 14:00, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

It's fact. I've made very few changes to your proposal:

1. I changed a "Biden" to "he" (too many Bidens).
2. I added the "clarified" bit.
3. I removed the "Capitol Hill" location (such details are best left to the main article on the allegation).
4. I shortened Biden's response (there was redundancy).
5. I rearranged the NYT bit and pulled it into the paragraph.

That's all I did. Nothing more complicated than that. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:12, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

You're missing my point.  No need to continue.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 14:33, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

To  Kolya Butternut - you copied this subsection on the WP talk page (here [21]) and asked people there to come here, to this subsection, and comment. Here's my comment:

Your edited text While The New York Times was investigating the Reade allegation, no other allegation about sexual assault surfaced, and no pattern of sexual misconduct was found. is ambiguous so may cause the WP reader to incorrectly infer that 'after' the NYT investigation 'more' allegations of sexual assault were found, and that would be a false inference.

Your edit was reverted to: "The New York Times reported that "No other allegation about sexual assault surfaced in the course of reporting, nor did any former Biden staff members corroborate any details of Ms. Reade's allegation. The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden." This reverted text is very clear, not ambiguous at all, and it does just what you said what you want it to do on the other WP talk page where you wrote: "give information about Joe Biden's history, which is that nothing else like this is known to exist." So I support keeping the reverted text within this Joe Biden WP article. ~Respectfully BetsyRMadison (talk) 17:05, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

That's missing the point of my edit.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 17:38, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

What's the point it's missing? I also think the way it was reverted is much better. Smeat75 (talk) 18:13, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

I've tried to figure that out as well. As far as I can tell it's the word "clarified" - which I object to as well but I'm guessing not for the same reasons: She did not clarify her story, she changed it.  Gandydancer (talk) 18:20, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

It was to address the concerns in this discussion.  This alternate version is taking my proposal out of context.  We cannot discuss it if its purpose is ignored.  Look at my edit summaries.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 18:24, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

To Kolya Butternut - There's an old saying, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." The reverted text is perfect as is and does exactly what you claim you want it to accomplish. I support keeping the reverted text within this WP article. BetsyRMadison (talk) 18:44, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

I assure you that your preferred text in no way addresses my concerns. In addition, there was never a consensus for this text. Kolya Butternut (talk) 18:48, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

That's substantially the same stable text that was in the article for about two weeks. The poll above was considering whether to keep that or to shorten it to a simpler bare-bones version. Consensus seemed to be going toward the latter. There's been no support for additional text that deprecates the NY Times. Quite the opposite on the talk page, at RSN, or, per several Admins at [here BLPN. I suggest we get back to the intial question, namely, the poll on Scjessey's proposed text here vs the current text. SPECIFICO talk 20:03, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

That text has not been stable.  Additional text is not equivalent to deprication.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 20:26, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

You can check a diff around 12 days prior. Very little change. I think there was one other bit that was added or removed in the meantiem. At any rate, we have a poll in progress on Scjessey's original minimalist text. Let's resolve that firs and then if it does not prevail, we can work on other alternatives. SPECIFICO talk 21:31, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Updating NYT reporting

Since the original NYT investigation, more reporting has been done, and their latest piece includes the earlier work as well as the latest findings. Can we move forward with a proposal that includes the current state of the case, as well as Biden's responses? In their latest piece, the NYT wording doesn't use the Biden talking point about the "pattern", so this updated reporting is preferable for our use in that it is not outdated, and doesn't include COI. We could quote this verbatim and call it a day.

The New York Times interviewed dozens of workers in Mr. Biden’s office in the early 1990s and was unable to find anyone who remembered any kind of sexual misconduct against Ms. Reade or anyone else in the office. Five friends, former co-workers and family members have come forward to corroborate that Ms. Reade told them of an episode of either assault or harassment.  petrarchan47คุก 18:57, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

I assume that quote would go after the text "penetrating her"? If so I would support that instead of my proposal. Kolya Butternut (talk) 19:46, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Support per Kolya Butternut. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 20:24, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Reset the reset

This is gone beyond the ridiculous. There are now umpteen versions, claims, counter claims and even arguments over text not even worked out on this talk page. It's become almost impossible to understand what is going on. Yet again, I find myself proposing what I first proposed:

In March 2020, former Biden staffer Tara Reade accused him of sexual assault in 1993. Both Biden and his campaign denied the allegation.

This is the only way we can introduce stability into the article. Let the main article about the allegation be the battleground, not this BLP. The POV-pushing, edit warring and false claims of "consensus" must stop. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:29, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

I completely agree Scjessey, just put that into the article with a reference, remove the rest of it and have done with it for the moment.Smeat75 (talk) 23:27, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Putting a new version in that clearly has no consensus and will get reverted will not be helpful.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 23:32, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

@Kolya Butternut: Except now it has the support of 6 editors (7, if you include SPECIFICO's support in the original reset thread). That's quite the consensus already. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:30, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

That's not what consensus means.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 13:08, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

After 15 years and 28,000 edits, I have a pretty good understanding of what "consensus" means, just as I hope you have an understanding of what "tendentious" means. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:19, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

This isn't a contest.  Making a decision about what to add without discussing the concerns of others is not how you form consensus.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:27, 11 May 2020 (UTC)Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:36, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

What "decision" are you referring to? I have simply stated there are 7 supporters of my proposed text, and perhaps 2(?) opposed. I haven't acted on the apparent consensus forming around my proposal, which is evident from both weight of argument and weight of numbers. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:30, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

I do not support your proposal.  You have been part of this edit war when you restored The Times quote which was never a consensus.  Reducing the text to your proposal encourages edit warring to acheive the desired results of less text.  I worked very hard at a compromise, but your suggested changes did not address the changes I was making to the existing text.  We cannot address disagreements by introducing more disagreements.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 19:53, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Again with the revisionism. You keep on doing this, and it is why every attempt that every editor has made to negotiate with you has failed. At least pretend to want to cover this neutrally and in the proper weight. It's exasperating. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:24, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

What are you talking about?  My proposal was an extremely modest change.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 22:54, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

* Support - the version posted by Scjessey "In March 2020, former Biden staffer Tara Reade accused him of sexual assault in 1993. Both Biden and his campaign denied the allegation" should be used. It seems to me that if we're going to put in-depth details of Reade's 2020 story, then for balance we'd naturally need to put in-depth detail of Reade's 2019 story. For example, we'd have to include the fact that on 4/6/2019 Reade wrote that her story about Biden, “is not a story about sexual misconduct.” Reade wrote that in her essay (published at The Union [22]) as a follow-up to her 4/3 Union interview where she told the Union [23] that Biden touched only her neck and shoulders. And, since there is no in-depth detail of Reade's 2019 story, there should not be in-depth details of Reade's 2020 story. BetsyRMadison (talk) 21:44, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

• Support - the version posted by Scjessey. I agree with BRM's concerns as well. Also, above Petra suggests adding "Five friends, former co-workers and family members have come forward to corroborate that Ms. Reade told them of an episode of either assault or harassment." That makes it sound like what with five people all saying he's guilty, who could doubt that there must be some truth to her story? So then we would need to get into a lengthy report about how not only did her story keep changing her corroborater's stories kept changing right along with hers. Etc. IMO Scjessey's suggestion is the best one to use at least for now without getting into a long drawn out narration. After all, it's not as though our readers will be cheated of the full story and in fact are more likely to read the split article if only a couple of sentences are used here. Gandydancer (talk) 23:59, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

It's a direct quote from The Times summarizing their findings. If you would prefer fewer details, I feel my initial proposed compromise is generous. Kolya Butternut (talk) 01:08, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

The NYT article from Petra above is dated May 8,2020 where, within the paragraph Petra quotes, the NYT authors link to their "updated May 8, 2020"[24] original NYT article where they say they did not interview Reade's brother, NYT writes, "Ms. Reade said she also told her brother, who has confirmed parts of her account publicly but who did not speak to The Times" So, it seems to me we should stick with the original NYT article which is dated the same date as the NYT article Petra provides and keep Scjessey's version. BetsyRMadison (talk) 04:13, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Support - Scjessey version - "In March 2020, former Biden staffer Tara Reade accused him of sexual assault in 1993. Both Biden and his campaign denied the allegation". That's all that is needed at this point. Takes care of any POV and WP:NOTNEWS issues. CBS527^Talk 01:49, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

• Support - Scjessey version. Clear and to the point. Manannan67 (talk) 03:12, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
• "Both Biden and his campaign" is unnecessary because of course Biden and his campaign will say the same thing. We can remove the word "both" but even then I'm not sure I support this proposal. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 16:03, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

SelfieCity, what about the other proposals? Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:05, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

@Kolya Butternut: In my opinion Joe Biden#Allegation of inappropriate physical contact would be best kept as it is until more, truly important information is released that is significant to the overall story — I wouldn't consider a NY Times investigation with inconclusive results significant to the overall story. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 20:28, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

• Support Scjessey version. Sometimes less is more. Aoi (青い) (talk) 21:30, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Wilmington theatre sit-in

'During these years, he participated in an anti-segregation sit-in at a Wilmington theatre.'

Even the terminology smacks of invention, with 'these years' instead of a date and 'a Wilmington theatre' (which one?). Sit-ins attracted attention - there would be flyers advertising them and newspaper reports on them. Local media would seek out the views of those who took part, owners of targeted businesses, police and local politicians. Were theatres even segregated in Wilmington in 'these years'? The sentence should be adequately referenced or removed. Forest723 (talk) 12:17, 11 May 2020 (UTC)Forest723

To Forest723 Here's what the NYT write[25], "Mr. Biden has said that he protested a segregated movie theater in demonstrations in Wilmington, Del. at the Rialto Theater in the early 1960s. His account is backed by a former president of the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and a former president of the Delaware A.F.L.-C.I.O." In another paragraph NYT writes, "A 1987 edition of “Current Biography Yearbook,” a magazine that profiles American figures, noted that Mr. Biden had participated in “anti-segregation sit-ins at Wilmington’s Town Theatre during his high school years.” The former NAACP president the NYT refer to as backing Biden's account is Richard “Mouse” Smith who told the Washington Post [26] that he protested beside Biden at the theater. Smith also wrote an op/ed[27] saying the same thing, "We know Joe as the ally who was there beside us to protest the Rialto Theater’s discriminatory policy to segregate moviegoers based on race." I hope all that helps you. Regards, BetsyRMadison (talk) 13:27, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Betsy, please see the archived discussion of sources for Biden's claim of sit-in participation, which RS describe as dubious: [28]. This was discussed in great detail, and everything you bring up was mentioned. Consensus was to delete the sentence; please do not restore unless you have a new convincing argument to discuss. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 16:34, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

To Zloyvolsheb - No worries. I had no intention to restore it. If you read my comment, you'll find I was just trying to help Forest723 find the answers to his/her questions. Regards BetsyRMadison (talk) 00:42, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Trim the campaign section?

I think there is too much granular detail in the paragraphs describing the 2020 course of the primary campaign. I would like to trim it by about half, if others here don't object. IMO we should just have a summary in this biography; the details are in the main articles about his campaign and possibly about the Democratic primary. -- MelanieN (talk) 18:10, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

It was the most recent edit to the page that expanded it. I agree with cutting it back. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:18, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. It has its own article. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:21, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

List of federal political sex scandals in the United States

Should that article include Biden? It currently includes Kavanaugh and says that the accusations were not corroborated and denied. Biden's case is similar.—Naddruf (talk ~ contribs) 13:39, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

No. And the cases are not similar. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:38, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

In both cases the Wikipedia articles describe them as being supported by some evidence, but not officially corroborated by investigations. They were denied by the people accused and mostly made known by one person (Reade and Blasey Ford), decades after the supposed event. The Biden accusation is not totally investigated yet. The Kavanaugh accusation has been investigated by the FBI and proof was not found, but it was suggested by the accuser that the administration was politically biased against it.—Naddruf (talk ~ contribs) 17:04, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Contrary to what Kavanaugh's lawyers claimed, there was NOT an "FBI investigation". -- Scjessey (talk) 17:40, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

• Yes, of course it should include Biden on the list. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 15:58, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Ok, but why "of course"? It doesn't seem obvious to me, so perhaps you could explain your reasoning. FollowTheSources (talk) 22:19, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

• No Biden should not be put on that list at the moment, as is said above the accusation has not been investigated totally yet. Smeat75 (talk) 17:35, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
• No - The cases are not similar, at all. And, if Biden were listed, which one of Reade's stories would be included? First of all, Reade's story not only changes year-to-year but, as of May 2020, Reade's story has changed month-to-month. Dr. Ford's story never, never changed. Second: Which one of Reade's stories would be included? Reade's 2018 story where Reade said she willingly resigned because of her unwavering "I love Russia with all my heart" and her disdain for America - or- her March 2020 story where she said resigned because she was 'forced to' after she filed a complaint against Biden -or- Reade's May 2020 story where she said she never mentioned Biden in any 1993 complaint, and never mentioned sexual assault, or sexual harassment. Third, which story about Biden would be included? Reade's 2019 story where Reade writes that her story about Biden "is not a story about sexual misconduct" - or - Reade's 2020 story where she drastically changes her 2019 story from "is not a story about sexual misconduct" to "sexual assault." Fourth, if Biden were listed, which month in 2020 would be included? Reade's March 2020 story where Reade said: 'I'll never forget Biden said would you like to go somewhere else' -or- Reade's May 2020 story where Reade says 'I'll never forget he said I want to f%@k you.' Reade has so many conflicting stories that is seems to me WP editors would have to figure which one of Reade's stories would be included before considering using any of Reade's stories about Biden. BetsyRMadison (talk) 21:50, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
• No, because there is no parallel with Kavanaugh. With Kavanaugh, there were hearings in Congress to discuss his political appointment, and his accuser's story was considered plausible enough that Congress officially wanted her to testify. With Reade, there is just a private citizen making an unsupported claim and personally demanding that Biden drop out. FollowTheSources (talk) 22:18, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

The discussion belongs in the list article not here. Note that there is no deadline on reporting information. We spent weeks discussing whether the allegations should be included in Biden's article when no legacy media had mentioned it and later when it had received one article in the New York Times. We should stop playing crystal ball and have patience. Arguments could be made for or against inclusion, but if we wait say a week we will be in a better situation to know. TFD (talk) 23:46, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

• I agree with The Four Deuces that this is outside the scope of the talk page, but I feel like this should be said, lest there be accusations of a double standard on Wikipedia: the lead of List of federal political sex scandals in the United States states Politicians' sex crimes are not covered in this particular list, regardless of whether there has been a verdict yet so the Joe Biden sexual assault allegation is outside of the scope of the list regardless. I have boldly removed Biden and Kavanaugh from the list accordingly. userdude 09:23, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Can we change the archive period to 3 or 7 days?

Can we change the archive period to 3 or 7 days? --Jax 0677 (talk) 21:45, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

I just changed it to 7 days. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:49, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

I think that was a mistake. Waaay too short. This talk page just lost a ton of semi active discussions. -- Scjessey (talk) 11:15, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Yeah that went too far. I'm undoing that archive, and I set the archiving to 14 days, and increased the archive size from 80k to 180k. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:40, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Summarizing the split-off articles

It's been almost a month since Vice presidency of Joe Biden and United States Senate career of Joe Biden were split off from this article, yet none of the prose for those sections has been removed here. If no one wants to summarize those articles, we should just replace those sections with the leads from the respective sub-articles. If that isn't acceptable either, we should undo the splits. We can't just have duplicate content indefinitely. Kaldari (talk) 21:50, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Kaldari, you are right, but undoing the splits is not the way to go. We really need to start cutting from this article now. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:00, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Cutting it down to the lede from each fork sounds like a good starting point. Once that's done, we can move in a bit more detail, if necessary. FollowTheSources (talk) 22:01, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

New Burisma Recordings

There is new Burisma recordings coming out, I think it should be included because it is obviously important. [29] Sir Joseph ^(talk) 03:50, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Interesting, give it a couple days but might be something there. Here are some additional sources.[30][31][32] PackMecEng (talk) 03:55, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

A heavily edited tape where Biden says exactly what we've all been saying happened in the first place? You want to rush that in? Hunter Biden isn't mentioned. Surely Fox News had new talking points, but it has no weight. – Muboshgu (talk) 04:02, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

No one linked Fox? PackMecEng (talk) 04:04, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Just me being snarky. I'm thinking the story here is foreign interference in the election. – Muboshgu (talk) 04:25, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Ohhh I'll snark you alright! PackMecEng (talk) 04:28, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Muboshgu, our article says "Trump and his allies falsely accused Biden of getting the Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin fired" we might need to revisit that. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 04:30, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Sir Joseph, our article says "Beginning in 2019, Trump and his allies falsely accused Biden of getting the Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin fired because he was ostensibly pursuing an investigation into Burisma Holdings, which employed Hunter Biden." That statement is correct. It was dishonest of you to edit the quote deceptively. Just like the Ukrainian politician who released that audio of Biden and Poroshenko. – Muboshgu (talk) 05:04, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

You said "Just like the Ukrainian politician who released that audio of Biden and Poroshenko", what do you mean? What did the politician do?--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 05:08, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

A Ukrainian politician, Andriy Derkach, leaked edited tapes of an audio call between then-Vice President Biden & then-Ukraine President Poroshenko [33]. This same Ukraine politician, Derkach, has "registered criminal proceedings" with Ukraine's prosecutor general to investigate Biden & Poroshenko, which is what Trump is alleged to have 'been abusing his office & US taxpayer money to force Ukraine to do (investigate Biden) & was Impeached over. A subsequent Washington Post [34] article says, "Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office said Wednesday that it has opened an inquiry on counts of high treason and abuse of power or office based on Derkach’s allegation that the [leaked & edited] tapes point to Biden’s influence on Poroshenko." BetsyRMadison (talk) 13:12, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

And Derkach met with Rudy Giuliani back in December.[35] I wonder what they talked about. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:19, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, Muboshgu - you are correct. And I agree with your comment above "the story here is foreign interference in the election." in May 2019 The New York Times [36] reported on Giuliani's plans to go to Ukraine and wrote, "Mr. Giuliani’s plans [of meeting with Derkach & others] create the remarkable scene of a lawyer for the president of the United States pressing a foreign government to pursue investigations that Mr. Trump’s allies hope could help him in his re-election campaign" - which is what Trump is Impeached for. Last December, after Giuliani met with Derkach, The Washington Post reported that Giuliani was meeting with people in Ukraine to push a story that Ukraine & VP Joe Biden, not Russia, interfered in 2016 elections to help Hillary Clinton. BetsyRMadison (talk) 16:25, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

What should be added is this from Ukraine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaE9OZ89bnQ That totaly destroyes Biden. All recordings, so nice. 91.76.22.132 (talk) 17:55, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

The tape adds nothing to what is already in the article, that Biden held up a billion dollar loan guarantee until the prosecutor was fired. Putting it in adds nothing. TFD (talk) 19:38, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

No, no. The prosecutor that rearrested Burisma LLC after its money was arrested by UK (remember, Cyprus offshore) and that oligarch was trying to remove arrest on Burisma assets in Ukraine but it failed because of Shokin. Lets tell all details, please. 91.76.22.132 (talk) 19:45, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

The sources seem to indicate that this may be something that we would briefly included in the article, if the recordings can be authenticated as being recording of Biden. I would like to see what content is proposed and what section it would go in to. - MrX 🖋 20:29, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Some quotes from Poroshenko-Biden calls

from here from Ukraine prosecutors https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaE9OZ89bnQ (they talk mostly in Russian and English and a little bit of Ukrainian). About Privatbank and its nationalisation (time code 45:00). Biden: "This is getting very, very close. What I don’t want to have happen. I don’t want Trump to get into the position where he thinks he’s about to buy on to a policy, where the financial system is going to collapse, and he's gonna be looked to to pour more money into Ukraine. That’s how he’ll think about it before he gets sophisticated enough to know details." Oh, my!🤣🤣🤣 91.76.22.132 (talk) 19:25, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

"Oh my"... what? You think this is a smoking gun? Sounds pretty standard. Keep discussion on the recordings in one place, at #New Burisma Recordings – Muboshgu (talk) 19:29, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, sounds pretty standard for Biden. Anyway. We knew it for months now. 91.76.22.132 (talk) 19:40, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

TO 91.76.22.132 - Your Youtube link is a news presser for Ukraine politician Andriy Derkach. I feel these tapes would be better within an article about 'foreign interference in US elections' and here's why I say that. The Washington Post [37] report that the audio tapes Derkach leaked, "shed relatively little new light on Biden’s actions in Ukraine, which were at the center of President Trump’s impeachment last year. They show that Biden, as he has previously said publicly, linked loan guarantees for Ukraine to the ouster of the country’s prosecutor general in 2015. The Post describes Derkach as "Derkach has past links to Russian intelligence. He attended the Dzerzhinsky Higher School of the KGB in Moscow. His father served as a KGB officer for decades before becoming head of independent Ukraine’s intelligence service in the late 1990s. His father was fired from that post amid a scandal over a Ukrainian journalist who was kidnapped and murdered." Reliable sources are connecting Giuliani, Derkach, Russia, and Russian interference in US elections to help Donald Trump. BetsyRMadison (talk) 21:33, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

You do understand that back then when KGB existed Ukraine was part of Russia right? In USSR? Anyway, "relatively little new light" is mostly true, except for some details about Voice [of Soros] party and Biden controlling it (and controlling what it was before it became Voice) and some details about majorities at different periods. What it did though, it has proven "beyond reasonable doubt" <follow the blanks here>. Also, your whole argument about interference is, though open for discussion, is really strange as I am russian, you know. 2A00:1370:810C:FB59:CCD4:C7C5:9198:46FF (talk) 23:21, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Where is the police report?

Drmies closed the RfC with That text is in the article now, two weeks later, and at least that part seems stable enough, though I admit I only looked at a few samples from the article history. At any rate, it's pretty much split down the middle, on political lines it seems (I'm shocked!); there are acceptable arguments on both sides. I'm going with "close as no longer necessary", for practical reasons; if edit warring starts over this, a new RfC should be started.

"That text" refers to "Reade filed a criminal complaint over the alleged assault on April 9 with the Washington D.C. Police."

I don't see the text in the article, and am wondering whether its removal was done with community consensus (and what was used for justification?). petrarchan47คุก 19:02, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

• I was referring to "...Reade accused Biden of pushing her against a wall..." In the earlier discussion, the first section of Talk:Joe Biden/Archive 10, you pointed to the RfC below, and so it seemed to me that that was the main matter of contention, the fingers. Are you saying all that talk, over two long sections and an RfC, was about the technicality of "criminal complaint"? Because that phrasing was actually somewhat doubtful, according to comments in that RfC. Drmies (talk) 00:24, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Alleged digital rape of Tara Reade

Why doesn't this allegation have much more prominence in the wiki page on Biden? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:E000:A845:CD00:C936:C39D:9B66:8FB5 (talk) 21:11, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

There are a lot of reasons to doubt the allegations. The New York Times has reported that “Antioch University had disputed her claim of receiving a bachelor’s degree from its Seattle campus”, which strongly indicates her claims of sexual assault are not reliable. Samboy (talk) 18:56, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Because [IMO there are some] POV-pushing contributors [who] have arbitrarily chosen not to include the details of the investigation. Really it ought to be covered fairly; read the above discussions to identify the issue. Politics aside, it’s important and even what exists is threatened to be removed from the page. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 21:27, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

SelfieCity, stick to content, don't discuss other editors. Assume good faith. This page is too long as it is and needs to be trimmed. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:43, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

OK, fair enough, as I can see that my tone might have seemed harsh here. I meant it as written. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 21:46, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

That's still a problem. We are not POV-pushing contributors and we haven't arbitrarily chosen not to include the details. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:48, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

I’m not referring to you specifically, but the fact that there exist POV-pushing contributors. Let’s take it to my talk page; really I didn’t mean it that way. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 21:50, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

I’ve adjusted the wording, though, per what you’ve said. Better? --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 21:51, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

No. I would have preferred it if you struck it entirely. If you want to discuss adding something to the existing content, propose something. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:19, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Given that there is in fact a chance that Biden allegedly raped this girl (digital rape) and could possibly become the President, I believe that needs to be at the top of the wiki article. Women deserve to have that kind of importance in this day and age. Their stories matter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:E000:A845:CD00:C936:C39D:9B66:8FB5 (talk) 00:48, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

We are not here to right great wrongs. We follow the WP:WEIGHT given by reliable sources, many of which are skeptical of this allegation. BTW, our current president has been accused of sexual misconduct by approximately 40 women, and it's not "at the top" of his article. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:20, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

I agree with SelfieCity's answer, and I don't see a problem with giving an honest answer to a direct question. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 15:51, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

The OP/IP should have read the talk page. - MrX 🖋 16:07, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

You agree with describing numerous editors as “POV pushing contributors” just because they disagree with someone? I’ll remember that next time you go trying to wag your finger at someone for giving “honest answers”. Volunteer Marek 08:35, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

RFC: "Allegations of inappropriate physical contact" header

Should the header "Allegations of inappropriate physical contact" be changed to "Allegations of inappropriate physical contact and sexual assault"?--Rusf10 (talk) 02:43, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Survey

• Yes (as proposer)- the current heading is misleading as it downplays the sexual assualy allegation made by Tara Reade. The alleged act goes beyond just inappropriate physical contact.--Rusf10 (talk) 02:43, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
• Accusations of inappropriate physical contact and 1993 sexual assault allegation. If in doubt, sacrifice conciseness for precision. The current version in unacceptable, so I would also support Rusf10's proposal. Kolya Butternut (talk) 03:18, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
• No The sexual assault allegation is not that significant overall because mainstream media has given it little credence. Wikipedia is not a WP:CRYSTALBALL that predicts what will become big news stories. Ethically that would be wrong, because it would mean that Wikipedia was pushing what editors found important, rather than what the body of reliable sources found important. TFD (talk) 03:57, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

• Moved to Discussion. userdude 11:05, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

• No - Mentioning sexual assault in the heading of a section surely requires extraordinary proof, otherwise the subject of the article would suffer guilt by association. To me, that's a BLP violation. I really don't know why we are having this discussion yet again. It seems pointlessly distruptive. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:09, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

We have proof that the allegation exists; nothing in policy says we need more proof than that.  There is no consensus for the current version, so we must continue to seek consensus.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 16:47, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Kolya, you seem determined to make sure Joe Biden's article has "sexual assault" in a section heading, even though there is no proof a sexual assault occurred. Surely that is a BLP violation? -- Scjessey (talk) 13:04, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

You haven't addressed my argument. Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:39, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

• Yes because that's what the sources call it. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 15:49, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
• No per all of the reasons laid out by the majority of editors who did not want "Allegations of inappropriate physical contact and sexual assault" in the previous discussion. There should especially be no insinuation that there are multiple allegations of sexual assault; we must exercise caution on a BLP topic. And let me again echo the point first raised by SelfieCity: a link to the sexual assault allegation page already immediately follows the header, and thus this change seems neither necessary nor warranted. RedHotPear (talk) 16:48, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
• No per the reasons given by TFD and Scjessey.Smeat75 (talk) 18:51, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
• Yes #MeToo! 2A00:1370:812C:1186:1D5F:664B:1B27:845C (talk) 01:35, 23 May 2020 (UTC)— 2A00:1370:812C:1186:1D5F:664B:1B27:845C (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
• No (and this ↑ one is a WP:SPA) - This is bad idea for so many reasons as I have stated in previous discussions. This relentless effort to add sexual assault to a heading in a biography that spans decades or a public servant's life and career is contrary to several Wikipedia's policies, not the least of which is WP:NPOV. - MrX 🖋 02:18, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

I think all you said in the previous discussion was that "allegations" implies there was more than one sexual assault allegation, and you felt the current heading was appropriate to encompass all incidents.[38] The first concern is addressed by using Allegations of inappropriate physical contact and allegation of sexual assault. Your WP:UNDUE argument has nothing to do with the heading. Reade's allegation is in the article, therefore the heading must reflect that. If you believe sticking fingers in a vagina is described as "inappropriate physical contact", you're going to have to provide sources. Kolya Butternut (talk) 03:38, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

• No There has only been one allegation of sexual assault, and it appears to be very questionable. Putting anything about sexual assault in the section heading violates WP:UNDUE. Samboy (talk) 03:48, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

It's not up to us (or the New York Times) to decide whether the allegation is true. Reliable sources have reported it.--Rusf10 (talk) 04:37, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

It very much is up to reliable sources to guide us in knowing how much weight is due weight. Just because the NYT has an article on flat Earth theories does not mean we have to edit Earth to give it a section on allegations that it is flat, since the NYT article makes it clear flat Earth theories are not true. Likewise, just because the New York Times has articles on the allegations does not mean we need to imply the allegations are reliable or have a section header about them. The New York Times is a reliable source, as is Politico, and they show strong evidence placing doubt on the allegation, which makes putting the allegation in the header a WP:UNDUE violation.  Samboy (talk) 05:37, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Nothing about the specific sexual assault allegation matters except that it exists in the article, and the subheading must encompass that.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 12:34, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Actually, how reliable the allegations are matter when determining whether to give them due weight. There are allegations that the Earth is flat, The New York Times have talked about them, yet Earth doesn’t have a section on “allegations the Earth is flat”—because the allegations are unreliable. Likewise, we shouldn’t have a big section header about the sex assault allegation (singluar, very singular indeed) because it’s not a particularly reliable allegation. Samboy (talk) 18:52, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

• No per previous discussion, accuracy and the need to maintain NPOV. Volunteer Marek 08:33, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
• No - I agree with what MrX & Scjessey wrote. We should be careful not to violate BLP, "it is not Wikipedia's job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives..." BetsyRMadison (talk) 12:40, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
• Comment - As a reminder, section headings are meant to conform to the same rules as article titles. Per WP:NDESC they should be neutral and non judgmental. Words like "allegation" are meant to be avoided, except where the entire article (or in this case, section) is about a criminal allegation, which this is clearly not. On that basis, "allegation of sexual assault" (or a variation of same) would violate Wikipedia's WP:AT policy, and hence WP:BLP. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:04, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

The entire section is about accusations of inappropriate physical contact and 1993 sexual assault allegation. The entire section is about those things collectively. Sexual assault is a criminal allegation. Tara Reade did file a police report, not that that would be necessary for it to be a criminal allegation. It doesn't matter that the statue of limitations is past. Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:34, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

There is no "1993 sexual assault allegation," and there is no "criminal sexual assault" allegation because Reade never filed any such thing in 1993 or any other time. In fact, there isn't even a 2019 sexual assault allegation. There is an allegation that began in March 2020 alleging sexual assault where reliable sources report that Reade made zero mention of sexual assault, or Joe Biden, or criminal sexual assault in any filed complaint in 1993. So, as of right now, reliable sources have reported an allegation that, according to 5/23/2020 Washington Post [39], has many "inconsistencies" in it. Scjessey is correct as per WP:NDESC headings should be neutral and we should also be very careful not to violate WP:BLP. As a food-for-thought: since April 2017 reliable sources have reported that Donald Trump accuses President Obama of illegally wiretapping; and yet there is no heading that says, "allegations of criminal wiretapping" in Obama's wp page. The point is, just because reliable sources report an allegation of crime against a public figure, does not mean WP editors should violate WP:BLP, WP:NDESC, or WP:NPOV. BetsyRMadison (talk) 10:31, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

"Accusations of inappropriate physical contact and allegation of sexual assault" then. The allegation is already in the article, so there is no new BLP issue created by adding "allegation of sexual assault" to the header. Kolya Butternut (talk) 12:10, 25 May 2020 (UTC)  

• Yes that's what the allegation of Tara is, it is an allegation of sexual assault.- SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 17:21, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

• I am starting a formal RFC because even though the previous discussion seemed to come to a consensus, at least two editors don't accept it. A formal RFC will solve that problem. I am pinging all participation in that discussion: @Levivich, Scjessey, PackMecEng, CoffeeWithMarkets, Muboshgu, Kolya Butternut, UserDude, RedHotPear, Hrodvarsson, SelfieCity, Atsme, Petrarchan47, SPECIFICO, and SharabSalam: Note:For transparency, I am disclosing that I intentionally did not ping MrX as per his demands that I not do so.--Rusf10 (talk) 02:43, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

We just got done with this crap. This is just disruptive and WP:POINT. See also WP:SPIDERMAN. Volunteer Marek 02:46, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek:I thought we were done too, but even though the majority plurality of people went with #3 in the last discussion, it has not been accepted. So I encourage you to contribute to this discussion so we can get it right this time, rather than make snarky comments.--Rusf10 (talk) 03:01, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

I do not see how anyone reads "majority," let alone "consensus," from the discussion you linked. There are also many strong concerns about precision and BLP that editors have raised there. And as Selfie City noted, there is a link to the sexual assault allegation page immediately after the heading. Not sure why this is the hill you choose to die on. RedHotPear (talk) 03:12, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

There is no consensus for the current version, so this discussion should continue. Kolya Butternut (talk) 03:17, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Its longstanding existence in the article is evidence of consensus. Consensus can change, but so far that hasn't happened. - MrX 🖋 16:05, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

That's a bad faith argument. First of all, the headers "long-standing existence" means nothing because there was a new allegation made recently, which had been added to the section. Since then, the "long-standing existence" is due to you and others reverting every change to it. This is at least the third talk page thread about this section header, and each time shows no consensus for the existing header. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 16:08, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

No, it's an argument based on how Wikipedia works. I've made arguments previously about why we should not highlight this sexual assault allegation in a heading, when the existing heading already encompasses the concept. As Volunteer Marek correctly points out, "we just got done with this crap." This is just a WP:REHASH, which you appear to admit by acknowledging that this is "at least the third talk page thread about this section header." - MrX 🖋 02:08, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

The first discussion was like 8-3 in favor of this heading, but you reverted my change, now you're saying that discussion following your revert is a "rehash". This is why I say you're not acting in good faith. You won't accept the consensus of the first discussion, you revert the change, then you won't accept any further discussion. This is no way to reach consensus on an article. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 02:15, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

I dispute that there was like 8-3 support in favor of this awful heading, let alone consensus. - MrX 🖋 02:22, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

I listed the 8 and 3 editors when I implemented the change. [40] Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 02:36, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

I was not even aware of the first discussion. Let's see what those people have to say too @SharabSalam, Cbs527, Guy Macon, MelanieN, Samboy, and BeŻet:--Rusf10 (talk) 16:54, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

I unwatched this page because I was unwilling to be fight over such a clear case of whitewashing in an attempt to get Biden elected. There was a recent allegation of sexual assault as well as the older allegations of inappropriate physical contact. The section heading should reflect this instead of pretending that only the earlier allegations exist. We had extensive discussion about what to call this at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Joe Biden assault allegation and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Joe Biden sexual assault allegation That's all I have to say, and I am once again unwatching this page. I hope that I don't get pinged about this again. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:12, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Exactly, the status quo never had consensus, so enforcing a version that only three people supported in the last discussion is not acceptable. I created the RFC to get more participation.--Rusf10 (talk) 03:22, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Per your insistence on this RfC, I have added my comment. I did notice that you changed your claim from "majority" to "plurality," but I have to note that "plurality" is not true either. RedHotPear (talk) 16:59, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it is a plurality, 6 people wanted this change as either their first or second choice, only 3 wanted to keep things the way it was, that's twice as many people!--Rusf10 (talk) 17:10, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

I still cannot conceive how you are (mis)counting here. RedHotPear (talk) 17:19, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

This is my last comment regarding your evolving characterizations of the previous discussion. Whether your current flavor is "consensus," "majority," or "plurality," your description is disputed and is not an accurate reflection of that discussion. RedHotPear (talk) 17:27, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Then please enlighten me, what method of counting do you use? I really would like to know.--Rusf10 (talk) 17:37, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

To Rusf10 - I cannot speak for RedHotPear, but when I count the votes on the discussion you linked to (above), a plurality of people did not go with #3, but rather, a plurality of people voting went with option #1. The vote tally, using the Rusf10 for the option with the most first-preference votes from those who voted are: 4 votes for option #1, 3 votes for option #2, 3 votes for option #3, 2 votes for option #3, and 3 votes for option #4. I should note here that in that discussion, SPECIFICO did not vote, so the vote tally does not include any vote from SPECIFICO. In the "Plurality Method" of determining the winner, the choice with the most first-preference votes is declared the winner. BetsyRMadison (talk) 13:45, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Since there is not clear majority, you cannot just ignore people's second votes. A consensus should be what is acceptable to the greatest number of people and 6 people found #3 to be acceptable.--Rusf10 (talk) 16:48, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

To Rusf10 - You are not correct. It's not our jobs as WP editors to reinvent how "Plurality Method" [41] is used to determine a winner. In mathematics, "Plurality Method" of determining the winner, the choice with the most first-preference votes is declared the winner (not second, third or fourth preference, but first-preference). Since, Option #1 got the most votes for first-preference; option #1 is the winner. That means, options #1 is the most favored option for first-preference. And, since only 2 people voted for option #3 as their first-preference, option #3 the absolute least favored option, not most favored. BetsyRMadison (talk) 17:38, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Gaining a consensus in wikipedia is not the same thing as voting in an election. People's comments and willingness to compromise must be considered. If someone has a second choice vote, that's a compromise. see WP:NOTAVOTE--Rusf10 (talk) 20:13, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

To Rusf10 - No worries. I was just answering your question above when you asked RedHotPear why the vote in the other discussion is not a plurality for option #3 but, instead, the plurality of voters picked option #1. So, if it's the plurality you were looking for, then option #1 won that vote. As for this current vote count (in the survey above), it still looks like option #1 is the winner with 8 votes to keep "Allegations of inappropriate physical contact" and 3 votes for including additional language. BetsyRMadison (talk) 01:49, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

• I will again propose what I (and SharabSalam) proposed in the previous discussion: a level-four heading "Sexual assault allegation" covering Tara Reade's allegation within the level-three heading "Allegations of inappropriate physical contact". If this were the case, a {{main}} template could be used under the level-four heading as opposed to the current {{see also}} template. userdude 08:11, 22 May 2020 (UTC); edited 08:15, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

But that would still be inappropriately categorizing assault allegations as merely inappropriate contact.  No sources do this.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 12:02, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Assault is technically inappropriate contact. I acknowledge the concern that it may be viewed as euphemistic, but I do not think that it is realistic for a reader to be deceived by "inappropriate contact" if there's a level-four header with the words Sexual assault and a {{main}} wikilink to Joe Biden sexual assault allegation shortly below the level-three header. userdude 10:46, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

You must provide an RS which categorizes sexual assault as inappropriate physical contact.  It's WP:OR for us to decide to categorize it that way when no RS do.  Strangling someone is"inappropriate physical contact too".  We must use the words the sources use.  The wikilink is irrelevant; it has no impact on heading policy.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 13:00, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm saying sexual assault is "inappropriate physical contact" in the same sense that you said strangling is inappropriate physical contact; based purely on the definition "inappropriate" and "[physical] contact". It's inappropriate and it's physical contact. The issue at hand is if "inappropriate physical contact" is euphemistic, and I believe that as long as clarification is quickly provided (in the form of a level-four header, for example) readers will not be mislead. (Compare, for example, Bill Clinton sexual misconduct allegations, wherein a rape allegation and sexual assault allegation are lumped together under "sexual misconduct", but clarified in the lede.) userdude 23:05, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

• Re The Four Deuces: Even if, arguendo, all reliable sources decided Reade's allegation is untrue, is it not still as notable as the allegations of inappropriate physical contact based on the sheer level of coverage it's received? userdude 08:11, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

• No it has received relatively little coverage in mainstream media compared with coverage overall and that is the complaint voiced in alternative media. In fact it took them a full month to mention the case at all after it had become featured in alternative media. Some editors however have confirmation bias. They will pay more attention to negative stories than positive or neutral ones or vice versa. Also, if you want to argue it is better to use the discussion section below. TFD (talk) 23:23, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

• What exactly would meet your criteria of significant mainstream coverage? A rough search shows (currently): 67 NY Times articles, 114 WaPo articles, 49 USA Today articles, 30 WSJ articles. I just took a sample of mainstream RS that had quote search functionality, so I'm confident that these results are representative of most English-language US-based mainstream RS. Sure, mainstream RS were slow in reporting the accusation, but they have certainly given it significant coverage by now. userdude 10:38, 23 May 2020 (UTC); ce 10:52, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Muboshgu, would you add this RfC to Biographies?  I'm not sure how to do that now that it's underway.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 12:48, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

It appears to have been done. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:48, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Muboshgu, it's not listed at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Biographies. Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:43, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Wikilink "47th" in lead?

About a month ago, I wikilinked 47th in the lead to List of vice presidents of the United States#Vice presidents (Special:Diff/951520482). At some point since then, someone reverted this edit. I am taking this to the talk page per BRD.

I wikilinked "47th" for consistency with Donald Trump, where there is a weak consensus to keep the wikilink in the lead, but not in the infobox (discussion). Regarding consistency, the ordinal number that the subject held office is currently wikilinked to the list of officeholders in Donald Trump and Mike Pence, but not Barrack Obama, George W. Bush, or Dick Cheney.

Should 47th be wikilinked? userdude 08:33, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Racially Insensitive Comments

Biden's comments about black voters recently received a lot of coverage. Should we include something about this and the subsequent apology in the article? Some sources: [42], [43], [44], [45] (NBC News on Youtube), [46]. Mr Ernie (talk) 07:33, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

• Mr Ernie, you might want to sign your comment. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 07:04, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

No. WP:NOTNEWS. By tomorrow if not already people will forget about this and move on to the next fake outrage. Volunteer Marek 08:31, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

CornPop was a bad dude.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 13:11, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Oh gzz I forgot about CornPop![47] PackMecEng (talk) 15:21, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

How could you forget! Kolya Butternut (talk) 22:47, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

No. I saw this, and it was nothing. The Beltway media tried to turn it into a Thing, but failed dismally. Notably, Chuck Todd tried to make it into a Big Deal and got his ass handed to him on live TV. In stark contrast, the man Trump described as "my African American" is now so disgusted with his behavior he has left the Republican Party. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:17, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

No. - I agree with Scjessey on this. BetsyRMadison (talk) 14:13, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

• No - The comment wasn't racially insensitive. It was typical Biden bluntness. It certainly isn't worthy of including in this biography. - MrX 🖋 14:16, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

No A similar issue has come up on the article about Trump and a number of other politicians. If someone makes frequent stupid comments that get reported, we need to be selective in which ones to report, otherwise the article would quickly turn into the sayings of Joe Biden. We already mention his comments about "put y'all back in chains" and have whole sections on busing and Gaffes. TFD (talk) 15:08, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

• No - Just typical Uncle Joe not understanding what he is saying. Keep an eye out if it becomes something but I doubt it will. So NOTNEWS and UNDUE for this article at the moment. PackMecEng (talk) 15:11, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
• No Black voters know the difference between an awkward ally and a virulent racist. This is a nothingburger that will pass in a day. Zaathras (talk) 15:18, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
• No. Isn't there already a section on his tendency for gaffes? Snooganssnoogans (talk) 15:46, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Is that an argument for inclusion in that section? PackMecEng (talk) 15:51, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

  Not sure I follow you. Do you think this short blurb should be added there instead of a new section? Mr Ernie (talk) 16:31, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

• • No, the section should not start reciting every gaffe, just as sections on Donald Trump's racism shouldn't list every single racist thing he's said or done, the section on his lying shouldn't list every lie he's stated, or sections on all the sexual assault allegations shouldn't list every single sexual assault allegation. It's bad writing and a ridiculous way to restructure Wikipedia articles that are already large. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 17:10, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

• No This is one story that has already gone through the 24-hour news cycle and been resolved. There's nothing new here, Biden often puts his foot in his mouth, and we already have a good section on it that does not need to document every WP:FART his mouth utters. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:46, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
• Not now. This is a developing story. If this continues to receive significant coverage in reliable sources over a longer period of time, we may need to include this, but so far inclusion would be premature in light of WP:BALASP. In light of Biden's many race-related comments it may be appropriate to have an article such as Racial views of Joe Biden or Joe Biden race-related controversies. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 16:52, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

  Wow, no to creating either of those articles. We don't need to be making WP:POVFORKS. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:22, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

  I am 100% against POV forks, but we may have subarticles if a) there are sufficient sources dealing with this topic, and b) if it's too much to cover in a balanced way in a biographical article. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 17:31, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

  • We have the section in this article on his gaffes, which is sufficient. We have zero evidence that Biden holds any "racial views" outside of the norm, or that he's involved in any "race-related controversies". He's not out there refusing to disavow David Duke, or calling white supremacists "very fine people". He said something stupid about blackness and apologized in less than a day. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:33, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

    • Sure, but there could be further discussion apart from his gaffes, like talking about black kids and roaches or Indians at 7-11, or calling Obama the first clean-cut articulate African-American ("that's a storybook"). For example, he's also referred to the possibility of integration leading to a "racial jungle" at one point, and I'm not sure that can be called a gaffe. [48] He's also repeatedly made questionable claims about having been in the civil rights movement that we cut from the article previously per WP:BALASP, while a separate article on Biden and race could include discussion of those claims. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 17:42, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

      Give the old misleading talking points a rest. What happens with Trump is not relevant here. PackMecEng (talk) 19:09, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

      That's no talking point, it's an apples to apples comparison. Once the media starts analyzing Biden's racial views, which if I'm not mistaken they haven't, we can think about how to cover it on Wikipedia, starting this article, not a content fork. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:20, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

      The talking point is implying he never disavowed him or the context to the fine people quote. For the record I do not think Biden needs a racial views article either, I don't think anyone should have an article like that honestly. PackMecEng (talk) 19:24, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

      Has Trump clarified his comment on Nazi-sympathizer Henry Ford's "bloodlines" yet? Has Biden made any dog whistle comments? Not talking points, only pointing out the reality of disparity. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:17, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

      Again, what does any of those talking points have to do with this article besides WP:OTHERSTUFF? At this point you would be hard pressed to explain why this section should not be hatted as off topic and forum. PackMecEng (talk) 21:26, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

      Since we have a Racial views of Donald Trump page, I'm demonstrating how there is zero need for a Joe Biden version. Very much on topic. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:53, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

      Ha, do you really think a Racial Views of Uncle Joe is something likely to happen? Of course not, so stay on topic. PackMecEng (talk) 02:59, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

      Muboshgu, Will Black Voters Still Love Biden When They Remember Who He Was? Sir Joseph ^(talk) 01:55, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

      Biden’s history of controversial racial comments Sir Joseph ^(talk) 01:57, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

• Yes- this is not just a one time thing. He has a history of making comments like this. [49] [50] [51]--Rusf10 (talk) 17:03, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
• No Per WP:NOTNEWSPAPER. KidAd (talk) 20:42, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
• Comment - his comment was racially insensitive, and I agree that he has a long history of making racially insensitive comments. Calling it a "gaffe" does not make it not a racially insensitive comment. Kolya Butternut (talk) 22:57, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
• Yes of course this should be included. As Rusf10 points out, this is not the first time he has made such remarks. Remember how he called Obama "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," Biden's description of Obama draws scrutiny We all know this would be in a Trump article within minutes, let's not give those who say Wikipedia is biased any more ammunition. Biden has had many more gaffes, even from his Delaware days, so much that it can have its own article. Don't forget this one about Indian-Americans and 7-11, [52] and this, which has links to more offensive comments [53] "Recently, during an interview with the New York Times editorial board, he argued that poor black parents feel ashamed because they cannot read and skip parent-teacher conferences." Sir Joseph ^(talk) 01:40, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

To Sir Joseph - I read the Guardian article you linked to, and then clicked on the NYT link within that Guardian article to see for myself if Biden actually said what the Guardian author claims, and Biden did not. Biden did not say and did not argue "poor black parents feel ashamed because they cannot read and skip parent-teacher conferences" to the New York Times[54] editorial board. In fact, Biden did not say anything even closely resembling that. WP editors really need to be very careful when accusing someone of being "racist" or making "racist" comments. BetsyRMadison (talk) 10:55, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Guardian opinion pieces are generally not worth the paper they're not printed on. SPECIFICO talk 11:26, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

That's harsh, but opinion pieces rarely meet rs anyway.It makes little sense to use them anyway, because their authors are generally writing about stories in the news. Why not use the news source directly, if one mentions it at all, rather than second hand through an ideological filter? TFD (talk) 13:27, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

• No This falls under undue, sensationalized news. RedHotPear (talk) 01:49, 24 May 2020 (UTC)