Talk:2020 United States presidential election/Archive 10

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Requesting consensus to include Libertarian Party Presidential nominee in the infobox

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.

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There is no reason to block the Libertarian nominee from being visible in the infobox. Doing so only adds fuel to speculation that the election is rigged.

I vote in favor of inclusion. JLMadrigal @ 22:04, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

While I tend to think we should keep them in the infobox, until it is clear if they are polling above 5%. The consensus seems to be that they are not to be included, based on a recent RfC that occurred here. I think the only way to achieve consensus to include them (or the Greens) now would be to hold another RfC which received high participation and came to a different conclusion (or perhaps set a polling standard that they met). I expect that is unlikely to happen, but you could try if you wish.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 22:30, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

favor inclusion Polling should have nothing to do as to whether or not a candidate is included in the infobox, in the prior presidential elections all candidates who had ballot access to 270 or more electoral votes were included. This is the same standard that should be used here. The Libertarian and Green parties are mentioned in the lead and throughout the article, it makes no sense not to list them in the infobox if they are mentioned in the lead. A number of editors have complained that the prior RFC was closed to quickly and cited various other problems with its closure. The allegation that third party editors added tags that particular editors were supporting or opposing the rule change without those editors consent is particularly disturbing, and is reason enough for another RFC. Given the problems with the prior RFC, and that there is now a Libertarian nominee, it makes sense to open the discussion again. To not include the Libertarian and Green Party candidates in the infobox presents a severe NPOV issue.XavierGreen (talk) 01:09, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

The purpose of an encyclopedia is to inform -not to predict. Every presidential candidate with ballot access needs to be included for the purpose of information. JLMadrigal @ 01:34, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose, we had this discussion literally six weeks ago, and it was decided that including third party candidates in the infobox was a violation of WP:UNDUE as they have not performed above 5% in the previous election, and they have not polled consistently above 5%. This discussion should be closed immediately as illegitimate, we do not just attempt to undo consensus every six weeks. The prior RFC was closed fine enough, and I would note that actually, the bolded statements actually held a bias towards keeping third party candidates in the infobox, my comment for example was originally bolded as Keep when I had wanted to remove them. Devonian Wombat (talk) 02:14, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

The NPOV issue is blatant, given that the LP is mentioned in the lead and the LP and Green parties have their owns sections in the article. This discussion will keep appearing consistently until election day, there is nothing you can do to stop it. And even if a consensus was reached, it can certainty be overturned every six weeks or less. If two hundred editors posted comments here supporting the old method for establishing who is in the infobox, the suspect RFC would be meaningless. Given that this is such a high profile page, and the NPOV violation is so strong, it would not surprise me at all if the Arbitration Committee ended up being involved at some point, and the prior objective method ended up being reinstated anyway.XavierGreen (talk) 16:03, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

You might want to read through this: WP:Listen. David O. Johnson (talk) 18:32, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm simply stating the facts, i wasn't the one that opened up this discussion here. This issue is going to come up repeatedly over and over again until the election is over, just as it did in 2012 and 2016. Consensus can, and does often change.XavierGreen (talk) 19:00, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose, I see no reason to retread the same ground, so to speak. Having this exact same discussion is a perfect example of WP:STICK. David O. Johnson (talk) 02:44, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

XavierGreen, can you explain why you removed my "Oppose" vote in this edit [1]? David O. Johnson (talk) 20:04, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Apparently by mistake, it looks like i overwrote it in error. I would correct it, but you have already done so.XavierGreen (talk)

The RfC was closed with comments that "Clear result to remove [Green and Libertarian candidates], with opportunity to re-add should nominated candidates perform well in polling." I think we should leave this until there is some polling. If any other candidate is polling near 5%, we should reconsider, whether that candidate is Green, Libertarian, independent etc. That said, I am not sure we actually agreed 5% was the appropriate threshold.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 03:58, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose WP:UNDUE.Casprings (talk) 16:47, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose, We just had this debate not too long ago. Cards84664 16:49, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
• Re-evaluate when polling and ballot access known - As I have noted above the actual close was "Clear result to remove [Green and Libertarian candidates], with opportunity to re-add should nominated candidates perform well in polling." There seems to have been two different criteria proposed (or used in the past) for including them:

1. Do they have ballot access to 270 electoral college votes? (ie could they theoretically win); OR
2. Have they met a % threshold that makes it WP:DUE to include them? (ie are enough people considering voting for them for their inclusion to be appropriate)

We are not at a point where we can evaluate this yet. But we need to figure out what criteria applies, and also apply it. The last RfC decided that they were removed "for now" but not "permanently".--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 20:44, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

• The Libertarian Party already has ballot access to 408 Electors as per their website. The Green Party has ballot access to 298 Electors as per their website. As for polling, that assumes that the Pollsters are going to define Third Party candidates beyond "Other" or "Third Party", which for the time being has been virtually nonexistent except for a smattering of polls that opted to included Justin Amash, and I'm not sure if that is going to change going forward. --Ariostos (talk) 03:59, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Okay, well if that is true then we should reconsider it now. My understanding is that in the past the ballot access standard has been applied, but I am not sure we had agreement on that here. The % polling threshold was also discussed, not sure what we should be going with.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 06:32, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

In favour, pending decision on polling criteria - If they have met the ballot-access criteria, I think they should be included in the infobox, unless (or until) we decide we are going to use a polling criteria. I note however that Ariostos has raised some reasonable questions about whether using a polling criteria before the election would be possible (namely whether polling firms do these polls and include the Libertarians as an option in those polls). I think this decision would equally apply to the Greens (if they have access to 270 electoral college votes) or any independent (if one runs) who achieves that level of ballot access.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 19:26, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose Per reasoning established in previous threads on this matter, and per all the reasoning provided by other opposing votes previously mentioned in this thread, especially the reasoning laid out by Darryl Kerrigan in his comment above. --Jgstokes (talk) 01:48, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
• In Favor, for the same reasons as stated by Madriga and Green. --Ariostos (talk) 03:42, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
• In Favor, Libertarian Party has access to 408 electoral votes, meaning they can get the majority. That's been the criteria since 2012 (I think, maybe we did that in 2008) and I think it makes sense. Nojus R (talk) 19:13, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
• Comment, pinging all editors who commented in the previous discussion and have not yet commented here, as said discussion was six weeks ago that is definitely the right course of action. Reywas92, SecretName101, Jasejudkins, Benjamin.P.L, Antony-22, Dhalsim2, SharabSalam, Yeah 93, Kookamooka, ThisUserIsTaken, Nice4What, MyPreferredUsernameWasTaken, DemonDays64, Shivertimbers433, Cards8664, Paintspot, TDKR Chicago 101, JayCoop, StraussInTheHouse, yeungkahchun. Devonian Wombat (talk) 13:32, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
• In favour no reason has conviced me to support removing it. I agree with the arguments in favour of including it.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 13:55, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per previous discussions and WP:UNDUE. Nice4What (talk · contribs) – (Thanks ♥) 15:09, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. A clear consensus on this was reached merely six weeks ago, with the discussion being closed with a comment about the opportunity to re-add should nominated candidates perform well in polling. This has not happened, and there aren't any new reasons on the table that weren't there back then that may sway the result in a different direction other than personal preferences. As repeteadly stated, adding Libertarian at this point would be giving it undue weight. Also note that, under WP:CCC, Editors may propose a change to current consensus, especially to raise previously unconsidered arguments or circumstances. On the other hand, proposing to change a recently established consensus can be disruptive. No "unconsidered arguments or circumstances" have been brought here to justify changing such a recently-established consensus, and the fact that this discussion was opened under the single premise that not adding the Libertarian Party "only adds fuel to speculation that the election is rigged" brings WP:RGW and WP:STICK concerns here. Impru20^talk 15:12, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Isn't the fact that they are now on the ballot and eligible for over 270 electoral college votes a "unconsidered circumstance"? Particularly if it is correct that that is the standard we have applied in the past? If we are going to shut this conversation down shouldn't we do so by applying an actual standard (ie ballot access, or polling)? Just saying we talked about it and don't want to talk about it again is does not address these new points. And while I was one of the proponents of the "polling" standard, I think we need to actually address Ariostos' concerns about that standard given that much mainstream polling may not even include them.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 17:33, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

The last discussion's opening statement by Devonian Wombat said that Previous consensus on the 2012 and 2016 pages dictated that any parties with ballot access in enough states to have access to 270 electoral votes would be included in the infobox. I am of the opinion that it is time for another discussion to confirm or reject this past consensus. This means that not only wasn't this an "unconsidered circumstance": it was actually a previous consensus which was commented and ultimately (and specifically) overturned by the result of that discussion, according to the ordinary consensus-change procedure. The fact that "they are now on the ballot and eligible for over 270 electoral college" means nothing as this pertained to an older, no longer appliable consensus from 2016, and using this as a reasoning for attempting to prompt Libertarian and Green only six weeks after the change in consensus can be seen as a refusal to drop the stick after that discussion's result. This is not "we talked about it and don't want to talk about it again" (I didn't take part in that discussion, btw), but seems more like "we talked about it and since I didn't like the result we should keep talking about it until my viewpoint wins". That's at least what it looks to me, considering that the opening statement of this discussion is a rather veiled election-rigging accusation and that arguments in favour of adding Lib/Green are a reiteration of what was said six weeks ago, with the result that we all know.

Plus, if sources and opinion polling don't prompt them, then this is actually one more argument in favour of not adding them into the infobox. Neutrality is not achieved by giving equal prominence to all candidates, but by representing all significant viewpoints "in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources". If such prominence is not given by the sources, we shouldn't be finding ways to give it ourselves. Impru20^talk 19:06, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Again, as I've mentioned below, polling shouldn't be a factor when the pollsters themselves are blending the Third Party vote into a single column unless we are also considering that column of support as meeting the benchmark or not. There is also the case where in many of the other Presidential Elections on Wikipeida, whether it be the 2018 Russian Presidential Election, the 2017 Chilean Presidential Election, the 2018 Czech Presidential Election, the 2018 Irish Presidential Election, the 2018 Mexican Presidential Election, and I probably could keep going; we are the outlier when it comes to whether polling should matter for the sake of inclusion in the infobox, and are effectively operating outside of consensus on this point in respect to how just about every other article on Presidential Elections is done. --Ariostos (talk) 02:58, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

On what is done for other presidential elections worldwide, other stuff may indeed exist but reality is that source coverage for candidates is very different from one country to another because circumstances are different, so different criteria may very well apply. What shouldn't be a factor is to base ourselves on supposedly "impartial" criteria that are built not upon sources, but upon personal beliefs that they will be neutral. Giving a neutral treatment to candidates does not mean they should be put at the same level of relevance. Previous consensus tended to favour giving an excessively undue weight to minor candidates in the infobox over the Republican and Democratic ones, and this is the core issue of it, because sources themselves do not give notability or relevance to candidates just because of them having access to 270 electoral votes. Verifiability and neutral point of view are two core policies of Wikipedia. A criterion based upon opinion polling results is, at the very least, one that is based on actual sources and media coverage, being much more justifiable under WP guidelines. It's sources that should be determining the candidates' relevance, not ourselves. Impru20^talk 20:17, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

I understand where you are coming from, but I cannot on principle approve an approach that isn't actually neutral. --Ariostos (talk) 01:25, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Then you shouldn't be approving ballot access as a credible approach, as it is not neutral. Below, you argue that it is "objective", but the issue is that it has nothing to do with a candidate's relevance in an election, because media coverage or source relevance is not awarded to candidates depending on their ballot access. This is a false dilemma. Wikipedia's policy on neutrality calls for carefully and critically analyzing a variety of reliable sources and then attempting to convey to the reader the information contained in them fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without editorial bias. Using ballot access as the criterion for infobox inclusion excludes such analysis by automatically establishing an intrinsic bias under which all parties having access to 270 electoral votes or greater are considered to be equally relevant to the election at hand, which is simply not true. Impru20^talk 09:48, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose again. They have no chance of winning anything. They are irrelevant in a two-party system when getting over 3% in 2016 was a relatively good result and they’ve never won a state (and have no chance of doing so). DemonDays64 (talk) 15:53, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Ross Perot didn't win a state either. Candidates can be relevant even when they lose. A third party/independent candidate can be particularly relevant if they split the vote, or if a significant number of people vote for them (signaling significant dissent, dissatisfaction with the mainstream choices). We need to have an actual conversation about what standard should be applied and what standard we are applying here.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 17:33, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose, they haven't been featured in any major polls. Including would be undue weight.Shivertimbers433 (talk) 16:39, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. No reason to believe the Libertarian ticket (or the Green ticket, for that matter) will be any more successful than in 2016. They haven't been included in major polls. We already had this discussion a few weeks ago, no need to change the consensus.yeah_93 (talk) 18:16, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
• Strong support. If they have ballot access to a majority of electoral votes, they should be included. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 22:10, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose — The Libertarian candidate did not win 5% of the national vote in the last election and polls do not appear to show this either. Jay Coop · Talk · Contributions 00:20, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose Still no evidence parties/candidates have received due major coverage for listing, even proportional to their negligible polling. Reywas92^Talk 16:36, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose, As I have stated before I believe a candidate should be at least polling 5% in two or more polls to be included in the info box before an election. Benjamin.P.L (talk) 14:26, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
• Strong In Favor Just as they have been permitted in the InfoBox in previous presidential elections seasons, there is no legitimate reason to leave them out now. They have the requisite electoral votes. Polling shouldn't be a requirement, and certainly not polling at 5%. That would be a threshold higher than has been seen for past major party candidates! --Dhalsim2 (talk) 20:43, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose until they actually win an electoral vote get invited to the major presidential debates. Like it or not, the U.S. is a two-party system, and treating the Libertarians the same as the Dems and GOP is WP:UNDUE. Especially if you don't also include the Green Party. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:07, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I just noticed the comment invoking Ross Perot above so I'm tweaking my comment. Yes, Ross Perot didn't win an EV. But, he had a clear impact on the race in a way that Gary Johnson didn't in 2016, or any other Libertarian nominee prior. Perot debated Bush and Clinton. Libertarians don't get those invites. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:13, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. The Libertarian party is not a major party, has not been since, well, ever, and there is no evidence of this changing. Rami R 15:30, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. The Libertarian or Green candidate should not be in the infobox, the previous standard is more than fair. 5% should be the threshold for inclusion. Jp16103 19:58, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

The previous standard was to include all candidates who had ballot access to 270 electoral collage votes or more, not a 5% threshold.XavierGreen (talk) 20:24, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose: They're not a major party. If we include the LP, why not the Greens, or the Prohibition Party? If they get over 5% nationally, add them after the election. --User:Governor123987 —Preceding undated comment added 21:23, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

It seems like this discussion is being used to justify adding a polling requirement; however, that discussion was an unstructured discussion that was improperly refactored it into !votes without early commenters' consent, mischaracterizing at least my own comments. It does not by itself demonstrate that the long-standing consensus against polling requirements has changed. The closer of this discussion should take these irregularities into account when closing this discussion. There has never been a poll-based pre-election infobox criterion in the past, because there are no clear guidelines about what polls to include and how to aggregate them, and still are none. Ballot access has always been used because it is easy to verify. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 22:10, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

The polling aggregations in the primaries worked pretty well, and they were used for inclusion in the respective primary infoboxes, and it was done there by calculating the polling average by using polling aggregators from respected sources, (538, The Economist, RealClearPolling etc:) as opposed to the individual polls. This solves the problem of what polls to include, and means there are only a few discussions around reliability as opposed to dozens. Devonian Wombat (talk) 22:45, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Just to note on this, the previous consensus was reached in a 2012 discussion, actually. You could dub it in many ways, but "structured" or "using !votes" are not some of them, since that discussion was a very long mix of a wide range of issues. As far as I've been able to check, the issue was again raised a number of times in 2016; in most of them discussions were very short and limited themselves to refer to the 2012 consensus (1 2 3). There were two longer discussions, but these took place already into the campaign and revolved around the practical scope of the 2012 consensus rather than on its own opportunity and, as you may see, it's mostly discussing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin (1 2). In fact, many of the discussions on this issue seem to refer to the 2012 consensus as if it was immutable and to be taken for granted rather than proposing reasons as to why should it be maintained. The discussion of six weeks ago, as well as the current one above, are showing that such a consensus has little support as of currently and that it has indeed changed. Not only this, but discussions throughout the years have shown that the previous consensus raised many more concerns than it solved, since its practical interpretation was subject to each one's opinions and not to what was reported by reliable sources. Impru20^talk 01:01, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Many of the opposing votes seem to be coming down into either two camps; either they are basing it on the history of the Party's past performances, which should not enter consideration as there situations where a group can more or less explode on the scene (the 2011 Berlin State Election comes to mind), or they are basing it on polling which, as has been already pointed out, can't be fairly done if the polling in question isn't including the candidates in the first place. The only way we could properly enact a polling rule at this stage would be to consider all polling that specified support for "Other Candidates", otherwise we have exactly zero polls on which we can even draw a conclusion; there isn't much fairness in the rule if the other players are not even allowed on the field so to speak. If pollsters were regularly asking voters if they were willing to vote for Jorgensen, Hawkins or Blankenship that would be one thing, and I'd agree with the rule in principle as we'd have a fair gauge of their support; until then though, barring candidates on the basis of polling isn't just as there is no manner in which they can meet that criteria. --Ariostos (talk) 02:40, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

As the closer, I agree with Antony that my closure means inclusion is not necessarily based on a pure polling threshold, but is a holistic consideration. For each candidate we should consider if they are being included in polls and how they perform, as well as how they are being covered in the media with the main candidates. However simple access to the ballot is not meaningful and I did not see much consensus for maintaining this, which is not well correlated with real-life coverage or performance. Reywas92^Talk 16:20, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

This is not Wikipedia decision making at its best. Whether fair or not, many look at these decisions as purely partisan and WP:POV. If we want to be able to convince them that we are not making decisions based on our own biases, it is helpful for us to have impartial guidelines/criteria made BEFORE an election for how to proceed. Then if a party meets the criteria it is included, if it doesn't it isn't (better luck next time). Failing that we need to clearly and transparently set out the reason for our decision. Calling this a "holistic" decision opens us up to allegations (whether fair or not) that we are playing favourites. I am strongly opposed to this sort of local "consensus" building in the immediate lead up to an election. I think SecretName101 was right when they said a "very strong consensus" was required to set aside the previous consensus on Ballot Access. I am not sure we had that, and most of the recent discussion here was around whether the Libertarians/Greens should be included, not what criteria we should be using to decide. We also seem to be alluding to "polling criteria" without defining what that is. Is it 5%? 4%? 3%? What polls do we use? How can we say we have a strong consensus if we can't even articulate what the reasoning behind it is? It is better to set a criteria in advance instead of editors present during a specific election forming a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS ad-hoc, because frankly people's own political views play more of a role when we are talking about a specific election, and deciding at this page, ignores wider consensus across the project. While I get that any criteria needs to be reconsidered periodically, it seems to me that we too regularly override previous consensus right on the eve of a new election. Changing the rules every time, seems a poor way to me to build a good encyclopedia. Concerning Devonian Wombat's comment above, I would note that the ultimate decision concerning the 2020 Democratic primaries was that there was no-consensus for instituting a polling criteria pre-election (or what polls we would use to do so).--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 19:18, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Ballot access is an incredibly dumb and meaningless bar to pass or not. Access requirements vary significantly by state, from just paying a fee, to collecting tens of thousands of signatures. Nothing magical happens when you get on enough ballots to theoretically win a majority of EVs, nothing happens when you're on the ballot in every state. This doesn't mean the public, the media, or anyone else gives a damn about you, that you are a viable candidate, that you have any chance of impacting the election anywhere. Even more ridiculous is allowing write-in ballot access to count. It is poor Wikipedia decision making to decide simply to no longer make decisions based on reality and instead rely on something so arbitrary and pointless. 1996_United_States_presidential_election#Third_parties uses this same ridiculous standard to give UNDUE weight to parties with <0.2% of the vote, while the Green party did more than three times better and is not listed. That was a poor decision to put Constitution Party in the infobox in 2016 and would be just as dumb to do so again. Past performance would be a much more meaningful bar, perhaps allowing in the box any party with >3% of the vote in the previous election? Reywas92^Talk 23:52, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Ballot access is objective, and it is actually incredibly difficult for any candidacy to meet the basic threshold unless they have the necessary resources. Off the top of my head I believe that traditionally only around two or three Parties manage to ever actually push past the (50%) mark, those traditionally being the Libertarian and Green Parties, with Nader and Perot being the odd Independents that also succeeded in doing so. On the other hand I don't believe anyone is arguing to Write-In access to count in this instance, and despite my prior support for it I've come around to the position that it shouldn't for the case of passing the bar. --Ariostos (talk) 01:20, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Reywas92 Yes, my understanding is that Ballot Access, at least for presidents, has historically been seen as a hurtle and a way of measuring how serious a party is, because it can actually be rather difficult to get on the ballot in every state and county. That said, a cut-off based on the last election's popular vote results can be a generally acceptable criteria (something like that is often used in Canadian elections, usually >5% or an MP). It does suffer from the reality that past performance does not predict future results (as financial planners like to say). Credible independents can rise up (say Bloomberg or Amash decided to run), and sometime new parties go on a role. Still, >3% in the last election could be an acceptable cut off. That would place Jo Jorgensen in the infobox since the Libertarians received 3.28% of the vote in 2016, but it would leave out Howie Hawkins or Dario Hunter since the Greens received only 1.07%. I am not married to that criteria, but think it is helpful to have one that is perceived as fair, and that we generally try to stick to. Otherwise, some party receives 4% this time, and when we exclude them in 2024 based on "holistic considerations" the allegations start again that we are simply being WP:NPOV and moving the goal posts, playing favourites etc. Some of that is bound to happen regardless of how careful we are, but I tend to think it is a very good idea to establish actual guidelines and try to stick with them, barring good reasoning to change the criteria going forward. Perhaps, 3% in the last election is a criteria folks can live with. Perhaps, not.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 01:30, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@Reywas92: I think it's reasonable to exclude states that allow a candidate on-ballot access solely by paying a fee, but there are only two states, Colorado and Louisiana, that do this. The rest require a petition with a sufficient number of signatures. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 02:13, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I'd say that ballot access is ballot access. Whether it's paying a fee or collecting signatures is irrelevant. Additionally, the reason ballot access is seen as a relevant marker, is that no candidate can win the presidential election outright without access to the requisite 270 electoral votes (barring a situation where no candidate receives 270, in which case the top-three candidates in regards to electoral vote would be eligible to be voted president the House of Representatives). SecretName101 (talk) 22:51, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

No candidate other than the Democrat and Republican can win the presidential election outright. To point to only using ballot access is simply to close your eyes and plug your ears and ignore reality. Minor candidates can have an impact in the race and should be included if there is evidence pointing to their significance, but the theoretical counting of inobtainable numbers is irrelevant. Reywas92^Talk 00:32, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Candidates that have access to the hypothetical 270 needed to win should be included.

That would extend to the Libertarian (412) and Green (291) Nominees Liberaltarian12345 (talk) 22:27, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

I think many of the arguments brought above clearly reflect how the 270 electoral vote threshold is a flawed one for evaluating a candidate's notability. "Difficulty" in getting ballot access is an argument which actually goes against such candidates, not in favour. For instance, why should a candidate having ballot access to just 270 votes be put in an equal standing to one having access to the full 538 college? Or one having access to 291? 412?

Plus, where is the "objectivity" in arguing that 270 is the number that we should be considering? Some notable candidates may run without any aim of winning the election, but just to influence its outcome by securing 10-20-30-40-50-whatever electoral votes. Take the 1948 United States presidential election for instance, where Thurmond had access to just 194 votes (out of 531, meaning he needed 266 to win outright), yet he is in the infobox because he won four states and 39 votes (attaining percentages as high as 70-80% in some states). Under the "ballot access" criterion, he wouldn't have made it to the infobox prior to the election, yet it's very clear even from the sources covering the 1948 election's background that he and the Dixiecrats were notable. Perot has also been brought as an example: it should be noted that he even led opinion polling throughout May and June 1992, polled consistently between 10-20% throughout October 1992 and between 5-10% in 1996. This has not been attained by Libertarian/Green candidates but Nader briefly in 2000 and Johnson in 2016, both of whom clearly failed to meet previous expectations. Now their polling numbers are not even close to that.

The point is that a candidate without access to at least half the electoral college can be notable on his/her own right, and one with access to even the full 538 slot can be entirely irrelevant. Having ballot access to 270 means nothing in itself. In fact, attempting to create such a made-up rule ahead of an election can be seen as an attempt to devirtue the (lack of) relevancy of specific lesser candidates going into the campaign and give them an undue weight, on the basis of a criterion which is entirely useless to determine a candidate's notability. I for myself would find it more logical to stick to some criteria that evaluate notability according to what sources actually report, and that allow us (if needed) to take out truly notable candidates who ultimately fail to meet previous expectations rather than forcibly having to add candidates later on if their election results prove notable but that were previously artificially diminished because of not meeting the 270-ballot access threshold.

Nonetheless, it can be seen at this point after two discussions in a six week-timeframe that if there had ever a consensus in favour of ballot access as a valid infobox inclusion criterion, it's no longer there. Impru20^talk 15:25, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

And yet there is no other standard in its place. So we are essentially just saying no Libertarians, Greens or independents... because. Because why? Because. That does not inspire confidence that we are making a WP:NPOV decision here.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 23:08, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Because? It has been pointed out a dozen times at least: because of WP:UNDUE (ultimately leading to a sense of false balance). Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects. I don't see a defense for automatically excluding Libertarians, Greens, independents, etc. from the infobox, but to treat them in proportion to how reliable sources present them (which, right now, is several orders of magnitude lower than Republican and Democratic candidates). That does not mean ommitting them entirely from the article, obviously, but going the other extreme must be avoided as well. Maintaining a standard that automatically awards lesser candidates a notability equal to Rep/Dem based on criteria unrelated to notability and disregarding actual sources is the actual WP:NPOV-breaking decision here. Impru20^talk 09:44, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

The reason I say we are defaulting to "because" is that all of our reasoning to keep the Libertarians, Greens, and independents out of the infobox are subjective and arbitrary. Whether it is the correct decision or not, saying they are a insignificant third party, didn't get "enough" votes last time, aren't polling "well enough" now, or aren't "getting enough" coverage now are all unmeasurable things. We need to reach a fair decision, and it is also helpful if other editors and readers think we are being fair and WP:NPOV here. The problem is now the Libertarians are at roughly 3% from the last election. If they receive 5% this election are they in next time? 10%? Or will folks say that is a one off and they shouldn't be included in the 2024 infobox? Or that they are unlikely to do well now, even if they did last time. I think it would be wise for us to set a fair measurable threshold guideline (that we should attempt to abide by). Refusing to do so, will continue to leave us open to accusations that we are simply showing our bias in excluding them. All guidelines need some flexibility, but I don't know why it is so hard for us to have a general go to guideline for this sort of thing. It would be wise for us to turn our mind to it, otherwise we are going to spend more time debating it this election (and the next... and next) when someone comes with any polling or increased coverage etc. We have said they don't have "enough" but we keep refusing to be tied down to any definition of what would be enough. The SPAMMING of this talkpage with edit requests, is at least in part a response to our refusal to set an objective standard.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 20:06, 17 June 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.

Semi-protected edit request on 21 June 2020

Please add information on the Libertarian Candidate, Jo Jorgensen. This would be very helpful and also better represent the 2020 election cycle. Thank you! 172.4.121.154 (talk) 00:57, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

•  Not done There is already information about her in this article. 331dot (talk) 00:59, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

@331dot: Bloody f*. This page was protected just for this and as soon as the protection goes off this starts again... Obviously we can't semi-protect a talk page for the nearly 5 months remaining until the elections (and going with repeated short protections as has been the case so far due to perfectly understandable reasons, is of course an inefficient waste of time) but still... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:46, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian: Should we ask for protection at RFPP again? Maybe a long-term solution would be best; this would prove it, I think. David O. Johnson (talk) 05:03, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

It would be wise for us to set a guideline for what would qualify the Libertarians (or others) to be included. We had been applying the standard of eligible for 270 electoral college votes (ie ballot access). We now have a consensus against that but no other standard has replaced it. We are just saying NO, not explaining what it would take. I find it disappointing that we tend to make the rules up every election as we go along, regularly discarding past consensus whenever we feel like it without even bothering to explain why we are deviating from what we have done before. We have made a habit of moving the goalposts. This may be a response.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk)

I think there is at the very least an implicit consensus that it should be reliable sources that should be taken as reference for candidate inclusion. In fact, as the heading templates specify, it looks that the criteria for infobox inclusion as of currently are either of these: a) that the party representing the candidate secured at least 1 electoral vote at the preceding election; b) that the party representing the candidate secured at least 5% of the vote at the preceding election, with a note stating that Further discussion is needed to determine if third party candidates should be included based on polling numbers, and if so what level of polling they should reach. In my view, opinion polling could constitute a decent criterion for candidate inclusion (for instance and based on polling numbers, Johnson and Stein would have made it to the infobox in 2016, as they frequently polled around the 5-10% mark), since it is based on actual sources. As far as I see, the 270-EV ballot access was more of an ad hoc criterion artificially built to justify the inclusion of Libertarian/Green in 2012 and 2016, at a time when they were growing in notability and could have merited inclusion anyway. But such criterion has fallen apart in the extremely-polarised 2020 scenario, where Lib/Green are not even reported by most polls.

Nonetheless, I wouldn't take the recent edit requests seriously. Most, if not all of them, are part of a political party's propaganda campaign. Canvassing and meatpuppetry are not allowed in Wikipedia, so in these cases saying No may just be enough. Impru20^talk 09:18, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Strictly speaking this was a different question, not mentioning the infobox('add information'). Perhaps they didn't read the article carefully enough or at all. 331dot (talk) 09:52, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

@David O. Johnson: We can certainly ask, though as I said admins are usually reluctant to protect talk pages, which are anyway not seen by most readers, for long periods of time. Regarding "candidate inclusion in the infobox"; I thought it a bit of WP:COMMONSENSE that only parties which had a reasonable amount of votes (and were not completely immaterial to the results, unless you're of course criticising FPTP for vote-splitting...) and media coverage (so as not to fall foul of WP:UNDUE) should be included. So far, as in most recent elections, it does appear to be only the Republicans and the Democrats; which does fit with the observation that most of US politics, including polling numbers, is reported on the "blue to red" scale (PVI, and of course the individual predictions from pollsters)... Of course, if polling averages (not just indivdual polls) start indicating that one of the minor parties is above the 5% mark (which seems quite reasonable threshold for being note-worthy, given that in the recent past no 3rd parties have reached it), and there is media coverage to match this supposed new level of note-worthiness, this is subject to change. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:55, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Suggested new section - National Forecasts

This page has a very good summary table with various models predictions of each state. Can I propose another table, probably just before this section, which compiles the overall % probability of each candidate winning on a daily basis? As forecasts are increasingly sophisticated and prominent I feel this would be valuable information to include. But I want to hold off for a few days to see if people have reasons to disagree. Prokhorovka (talk) 21:52, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Daily probability of winning falls afoul of WP:NOTSTATS... (and given that national forecasts are not usually done daily, this would probably involve some WP:OR). Forecasts of each individual state also don't tend to change daily either and in any case if somebody is really interested the various projections are summarised at the bottom of the table. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:07, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Polls are more neutral than forecasts, because the conditions governing each are markedly different. Plus, forecasts can be manipulated more easily than polls to portray the data as something it isn't. lAnd unless there was a way to automatically update such forecasts every time any of those predictions changed, it would get more than a little difficult to accurately maintain. Regardless of the current president's (incorrect) assertions to the contrary, national or state-by-state polling is a very effective way to measure the voice of the people in the United States as far as their political preferences and leanings. I'd therefore recommend keeping polls as the status-quo determining factor here. --Jgstokes (talk) 01:34, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I see your points, but other election pages have had both and I think the context for the forecasts would prevent NOTSTATS from being violated. See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_United_Kingdom_general_election#Opinion_polling. Perhaps if the table was updated less frequently than daily. Prokhorovka (talk) 08:44, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

"2020 United States pandelection" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect 2020 United States pandelection. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 June 23#2020 United States pandelection until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Hog Farm (talk) 00:21, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Biden's home state isn't Delaware

It's Pennsylvania, see for example this site this Guardian article also metions Pennsylvania as Biden's home state. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.208.116.15 (talk) 23:44, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Well, Biden was born in PA, but to my knowledge currently resides in Delaware (which he represented in the Senate for decades). Much like Trump was born in NY and officially resided there until recently when he changed his residence to Florida. Mdewman6 (talk) 00:13, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Biden's home state is Delaware. His state of birth is Pennsylvania. Biden has lived in Delaware for a long time. This is the same as how Obama is from Illinois though his birth state is Hawaii. Also keep in mind, The Gateway Pundit is not a reliable source. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:21, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Early voting

Early voting in the 2020 United States presidential election is decided per state. Early voting starts earliest on September 19th, and latest on October 29th, based on the state. <https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/early-voting-in-state-elections.aspx A> The state can also limit the rigth to vote early based on terms like "Out of County on Election Day", "Illness or Disability", "Persons Older Than a Certain Age", "Work Shift is During all Voting Hours", "Student living Outside of County", "Election Worker or Poll Watcher", "Religious Belief or Practice", "Incarcerated (but Still Qualified to Vote)" or "Juror Duty" <https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/absentee-and-early-voting.aspx B>

In some countries early voting is very common, in the US election this is a debated issue. Therefore could you consider to bring in a small chapter or a reference to information on early voting in this article? Hogne (talk) 08:53, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Because early voting is so widely different from state to state, such information would be better suited on the pages covering the presidential election in each state.XavierGreen (talk) 15:43, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 July 2020

Please add Jo Jorgensen to the list of Candidates for President of the United States at the top right (with a picture). The Libertarian is the 3rd largest party in the United States (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_parties_in_the_United_States). Gary Johnson achieved voting access in 50+ and Jo Jorgensen recently beat his 'same time period' fund raising, indicating she is likely to also be on 50+. While admittedly a long shot for winning, she is running and technically has enough ballot access to win (https://www.lp.org/ballotaccess/) and will likely have 'total' ballot access. As such please ensure Wikipedia remains unbiased, and does not show favoritism to the two party system. Thank you! Eomar2828 (talk) 03:25, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Not done. The existing consensus is that the Libertarians do not qualify for the infobox. David O. Johnson (talk) 03:46, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 July 2020

Add Jo Jorgensen and Howie Hawkins as they are both on the polls and viable options for the presidency. Both are doing well in unbiased polls on Twitter/Facebook and other social media platforms and in the interest of unbiased and fair presentation of information it would help many understand and see that there are more and in many ways better options. Thank you. 2600:1011:B115:D361:C81:DDE8:5E0F:25F1 (talk) 22:19, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

 Not done - These candidates are already included in the article, but not in its infobox. There is currently a consensus against including any third parties or independents in the infobox. Perhaps, in the future we will set a standard for what would qualify them to be included in the infobox. Thank you.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 22:23, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia actually does not claim to be free of bias. Wikipedia presents the sources so readers can evaluate them and judge them for themselves as to any bias or viewpoint. Social media platforms might conduct unscientific surveys, they don't usually (if ever) conduct scientific polling of their own. 331dot (talk) 01:30, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Social media polls are worth exactly nothing in support of anything. The only polls and coverage we should be caring about is that reported in reliable sources such as independent newspapers and poll aggregators, which as I explained in my previous edit currently assess that 3rd party candidates are a non-factor as usual. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:42, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Your assertion that 3rd parties are a non-factor is woefully inaccurate. One needs only look at the 2016 and 2000 presidential elections to see the impact third party candidacies can have on an election. In both instances the margin of victory in many key states was less than the vote totals of third party candidates running in those states.XavierGreen (talk) 15:35, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

So the guy that shot me down originally, and has shot down every single person that has requested this edit, has been banned as an editor for apparently creating multiple accounts and arguing his side of edits using those accounts. RandomCanadian I think is their name. So in light of that information, can someone please revisit this topic and have a fair and unbiased discussion? I think most actual Americans have common knowledge that there are two “main” parties, but there are also 2 smaller parties. I really don’t see the problem with including pictures /info for all four candidates in the info box. Boogiesmommy2004 (talk) 02:36, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

I believe we used to have the Libertarians and Green Party candidates at the top on Wikipedia presidential Candidate pages. Greendogo (talk) 09:39, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Political Manipulation through "Existing Consensus"

"Existing Consensus" is being used to argue that Libertarians and Green Party do not qualify for the Info Box.

This is political manipulation. Any modern adult knows of the existence of the multi-party state. There is no reason to lock this information box for just the Democrat Party and the Republican Party based on the polling or effects of the election. Historically these other two parties are participatory, not non-existent.

The election should have no bearing on the placement of these pieces of information in a box. The only possible reason is the desire for political manipulation. Greendogo (talk) 09:46, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Any objections to just removing this constant spam? Devonian Wombat (talk) 13:44, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Not from me. I wonder whether these new/sleeper accounts should be denounced at WP:ANI, it's fairly obvious they're appearing out of nowhere here just for one purpose. Impru20^talk 13:48, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

I have no issue with removing it. I was hopeful that the spamming had ended a few weeks ago, though. David O. Johnson (talk) 16:46, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

You should not be removing others comments on the talk page, you've been around long enough to know that. And this issue is going to continue until election day, no matter who ends up in the infobox, like it does every presidential election year.XavierGreen (talk)

I don't think there is any perfect way to deal with this. There clearly has been canvasing, meatpuppetry, and possibly sock-puppetry in some of these repetitive edit requests. But perhaps it would be better to just immediately archive it (after inviting folks to participate in the RfC, and taking the usual SPA, and canvasing precautions). That said, archiving all of these edit requests will make a bit of a mess of the archives, and if the RfC becomes a target of canvasing, puppetry it will be a real mess. At the same time, I am always reluctant to completely delete talk page discussions, as opposed to labeling SPAs, striking out sock comments, and archiving unproductive ones when appropriate.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 20:43, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Sorry for being annoying but your arguments make no sense to me. I'll stick around to argue my point if necessary, I would prefer not to be labelled "canvasing, meatpuppetry, and possibly sock-puppetry". I came across this page and saw the info box, thinking I would find this argument going on in the talk section. Well, I was right, there are people arguing against expanding the info box.

What is even the point of an encyclopedia article about the presidential election when it is editorialized for the purposes of the election?

Why don't you remove the Libertarian and Green Party candidates from the info box AFTER the election? It should be important enough before hand to give people as much direct information about the available candidates. Greendogo (talk) 08:36, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Greendogo, you were not the person being referred to; there has been a clear issue with meatpuppetry. Take a look at this diff here:[2]. There was a coordinated effort. David O. Johnson (talk)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 June 2020

Howie hawkins is also a presidential candidate. 2605:A000:161E:53A:E595:54:6BC7:7C64 (talk) 16:05, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

 Not done You did not specify the edits that you wish to be made. Hawkins is already on this page in the lead, nomination, and endorsement sections. --Spiffy sperry (talk) 16:13, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Please see the note at the top of this page regarding the criteria to be listed in the infobox, agreed to by community consensus; 5% of the vote or getting at least one electoral vote. 331dot (talk) 16:30, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Your assertion is partially wrong, the RFC and subsequent discussion undertaken due a defect in the RFC are more or less in favor of a polling test in addition to the aforementioned, although there was no consensus on what that number should be its clear from the discussions that a candidate that got 5% in a poll would qualify. Thus if someone can show a poll where Hawkins or Jorgensen or anyone else gets 5% of the vote they can be added to the infobox. If they got less, the discussion would need to be reopened regarding what that polling standard should be.XavierGreen (talk) 19:43, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

This is a pretty rough standard, because most media outlets this cycle are routinely excluding "minority" candidates for inclusion in polls. Most media outlets are biased in one direction or the other, and in this hyper-polarized era, they seem largely keen to keep minority candidates out of the discussion. The polls, therefore, are inaccurate and not reflective of actual sentiment in the country. This is why I think the prior requirement of ballot access to 270 electoral votes is a far superior metric. You can't achieve that without real popular support across the nation - it is more reliable than "poll results" that don't include notable and popular candidates as an option. I do think that there is bias against giving fair exposure to what some may see as "spoiler" candidates, and when Wikipedia moves the goalposts to achieve a pre-determined result of excluding "minority" party candidates, Wikipedia is demonstrating clear bias. Prior standards should be kept, not changed on the eve of an election, and perhaps it would be wiser to discuss what the requirements should be changed to *after* the election, so as to minimize personal biases clouding fair judgement. I still see no rational reason why ballot access to 270 electoral votes is not a worthy metric, or why it should be changed, outside of a desire and intentional effort to minimize the visibility of perceived "spoiler" candidates when the prior standards didn't meet that objective. HeroofTime55 (talk) 21:28, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

I mostly agree with HeroofTime55. What is particularly troubling is that we don't actually even have a consensus to include them if they poll over 5% (or some other number). We are excluding any third party or independent without the intellectual honesty to even say definitively what standard they would have to meet to be included. We moved the goal posts by abandoning the ballot access standard used in past elections, and have failed to come up with another one, besides "we don't like third parties or independents". I have said it before and will say it again. Our refusal to set a new standard leaves us open to reasonable allegations of bias, and that we are not acting in a truly WP:NPOV manner.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 21:44, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

The standard should be sufficient coverage in independent sources, which is clearly not the case here as what I can find does not mention any "3rd party candidate" by name, if they even mention them: the British Independent has a single mention of 3rd party candidates, which is in the first sentence: "unlike the late Republican he is not dogged by a third-party candidate."... I'll let you judge that one but clearly that source is making the judgement that 3rd parties are a non-factor (as usual) in this election. USAToday (reporting on a poll) has all 3rd parties together at 11% but does not mention anyone by name but Biden and Trump. Coverage in poll aggregators, such as 538, is also very overwhelmingly Trump v Biden. Unless this changes dramatically, I don't think there's any good reason to mention anybody but Biden and Trump in the infobox. Wikipedia is not here to right the great wrongs of the first past the post system, anyway. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:25, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

If one of the third parties (or independent candidates) was polling consistently at say 5%, it is fair to say they would most likely have to be receiving "sufficient coverage". It is also fair to say if 1/20 Americans say they are going to vote for a specific third party or independent that is enough of a issue in the election that we should not be erasing it. But always saying you need more coverage is not helpful. "More coverage" is not measurable and thus highly subjective. In certain facets of the media there is a lot of coverage of the Green and Libertarian candidates. So what? The reason we have used ballot access, polling, or previous election results before is that they are objective (or mostly objective in the case of polling). Using "sufficient coverage" as the standard, is no standard at all. The subjectivity it invites will lead to editors knowingly or unknowingly deploying their own biases. A party does not have to win or even come in second to have a significant effect on an election and warrant inclusion in an infobox. It may be that neither the Greens nor Libertarians are there yet, but our refusal to set an objective standard is not helping to lay this issue to rest.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 01:41, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

AFAICS, there is already a standard for this, which is listed in the three "consensus" talk page headers. "Sufficient coverage" would of course imply mainstream and reliable sources, not the "Third Party Official Herald" and closely affiliated groups... Needless to say, if a candidate has 5% of the polling, but there's no mention of him in either the NYT or CNN or Fox or [other well known news organisation of your choice]/international newspapers/poll aggregators, they probably don't deserve a mention. Same as (if I compare with deletion discussions) the WP:SNGs, those are presumptions, and if there's no actual coverage, then we shouldn't have an article on it: same thing here, if there's no actual significant coverage, we shouldn't be covering it in a prominent fashion (the infobox) in the article. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:09, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

And there is the rub, some editors don't care if a third party is consistently polling at 3%, 5%, 10%, or 20%. They just don't like third parties or independents. So they will find a way to say, "well the candidate doesn't have significant coverage in [my reliable source of preference] so we have no choice but to exclude them". We have not articulated an objective standard. We keep coming back to insisting on subjective and poorly defined ones. Previously, we had an objective standard (ballot access to 270 electoral college votes), but we changed it. When we did, we didn't bother to set a new objective standard. In the discussion several weeks ago (about maybe setting a new standard), one editor suggested maybe we should include parties that received 3% in the last election. That idea was quickly forgotten when it was pointed out that the Libertarians received 3% in 2016. We have moved the goal posts several times. Now we are refusing to even put any in place. By insisting on a subjective standard, we are reserving the right to place the goal posts after the ball/puck crosses the goal-line. Until we set an objective black and white standard, this issue is going to keep coming up, as it should.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 02:43, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Those editors are tendentious and will get brushed aside by an RfC if need be. As for the "subjective" standard I am describing, that is nothing else but WP:NPOV, which is well accepted, and has a tendency to be applied consistently and coherently (especially in a topic so well attended as US politics) when more editors are involved in the matter (such, again, as in an RfC if there are particularly stubborn editors about not including them). I will also note that even seemingly objective standards (such as many of the WP:SNGs, which are often matters of fact or not - such as "subject won a significant award" or "held a significant (state-wide, usually) political office") can be manipulated by sufficiently stubborn editors (whether such manipulations holds up to scrutiny is another topic). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:15, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

I am by no means a regular Wikipedia editor, but I have deep respect for the process that is intended to weed out biases. I don't know all the wiki law that is being cited by seasoned editors here. But I can make the observation that, by changing the standards on the eve of the election, you are 100% of the time going to let your biases seep into the process. If you think the standards need to be changed, which is fair enough an argument on its own, I think that discussion has to be made after the election, so as to avoid biases of the political moment. Because right now, everyone wants to either suppress or promote certain candidates, and when you open up the process to decide criteria in such a time as this, you're going to let biases take over the process. Go back to the old standard and discuss changing it after the election has taken place. I am in agreement with Darryl Kerrigan that the new criteria are also way too vague, and wide open to the insertion of personal biases. They should not have been changed on the eve of an election just because they were returning a result that was deemed undesirable to some. HeroofTime55 (talk) 16:37, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

I just noticed that RandomCanadian has been blocked for sock-puppetry. RandomCanadian was the one who (I think, correct me if I am wrong, but it looks like it) declared that a consensus was reached (in Archive 10) but I do not believe consensus was actually reached (consensus is not a majority vote), and certainly not a strong enough consensus to overturn the prior longstanding consensus used for several past Presidential contests. People arguing for "5%" never really specified why this is more ideal than ballot access to 270 electoral votes, whereas ballot access to 270 EVs has a pretty strong case, as it encompasses all candidates that are eligible to win the office (which I believe is a total of four candidates, Trump, Biden, Jorgensen, and Hawkins, and I believe this list cannot expand further as deadlines for ballot access are now past). My central belief remains that the criteria should not be changed regardless until after the election takes place, so as to avoid the accidental or purposeful insertion of political bias (and that a discussion should certainly take place sometime after the election on November 3, so as to establish ground rules well in advance of 2024 and beyond), and therefore, that the prior effort to change the criteria was highly suspect and vulnerable to bias. I am a bit new to this, is there any way to address this situation?HeroofTime55 (talk) 22:42, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

It is problematic that RandomCanadian closed the recent discussion about this. We must take into account that he has been banned as a sockpuppet.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 03:02, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes, that in itself is enough of a reason to have another RFC on the issue.XavierGreen (talk) 16:05, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

On the RandomCanadian issue, he didn't participate in that discussion as far as I can see. Anyway, a RfC is already going so that should be fine. I was just interested in replying here to refute the statement that People arguing for "5%" never really specified why this is more ideal than ballot access to 270 electoral votes. Yes, people did, myself included, and it was a very obvious case since having access to 270 EVs has nothing to do with a candidate's notability ahead of an election (and could, indeed, give undue weight to a candidate securing access to just 270 EVs over those who have access to the full 538 college. Why?). Not going to repeat my whole argument again, but it's just untrue that this was not specified. Impru20^talk 16:17, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Where is the current RfC discussion taking place? Sorry, I am new to this dimension of Wikipedia! I would like to address the 270 vs 5% thing but probably it would be better suited for the proper discussion, which I cannot seem to find. Thank you! HeroofTime55 (talk) 22:37, 7 July 2020 (UTC) EDIT: Nevermind, I scrolled down, lol HeroofTime55 (talk) 22:38, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

RandomCanadian blocked for sockpuppetry

Every edit request has been shot down, primarily by RandomCanadian, and I feel like this Topic should be revisited And an actual unbiased decision made, seeing as how the sockpuppetry could have played into this, and they were trying to get the account locked so no more requests could be made (I think. I’m not sure about how edits work on here but that’s what I understood was happening).

There have been numerous threads asking to add Howie and Jo Jorgensen to the info box. Almost every American knows there is a Libertarian and Green Party in addition to the Republicans and Democrats. They’ve been around for years, and there are registered voters for those parties.

Personally, this doesn’t seem like such a big deal, to simply add two pictures and a brief bio to the info box, and it would probably stop a lot of people from coming here and putting in requests daily for the next 4 months. Thanks! Boogiesmommy2004 (talk) 02:50, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't see how that changes anything. Neither the Greens nor the Libertarians will be added to the infobox; it's the existing consensus. David O. Johnson (talk) 02:48, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

I feel we are reaching a new consensus. Greendogo (talk) 09:40, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

RandomCanadian had nothing to do with most of the edit requests. Also please note that canvassing and meatpuppetry are as discouraged as sockpuppetry in Wikipedia. Impru20^talk 10:24, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

RandomCanadian had long detailed rebuttals on nearly every single request, some bordering on rude and went to the trouble to dig up an ancient tweet long deleted from an account with like 5 followers as a basis for his canvassing and meat puppetry argument. How do I know you aren’t RandomCanadian under another name? I just don’t understand why this is the hill you all have chosen to die on regarding edits. It’s so bizarre. I understand not letting me say my picture should be up there Because I woke up and decided to run for President, no one knows who I am, but these are legit political parties. Boogiesmommy2004 (talk) 12:03, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

It wasn't RandomCanadian who brought up the Twitter evidence for canvassing. It was me. And it wasn't "ancient tweets", considering that they were concurrent with the discussions taking place in this talk page in mid-June.

How do I know you aren’t RandomCanadian under another name? This is a very serious accusation, and I'll please ask you to bring this to WP:ANI or WP:SPI and back it up with actual evidence if you are willing to hold on your accusation. However, once such an attempt eventually fails, I may very well ask for an investigation on you as a clear single-purpose account which has been created solely for the purpose of raising these issues to this talk page. Your call. Impru20^talk 12:11, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

It’s not an accusation. It was an observation that it could be possible. I was simply stating that an account that was very influential in contributing to the decision was determined to be a sock puppet. I’m not going to open an investigation. I have used Wikipedia for years, but I’ve never created an account to edit because I haven’t ever felt the need to edit something...I was researching something else and clicked through to this page and noticed she wasn’t in the info box, decided to request an edit, and got shut down immediately by RandomCanadian. I seriously do not understand why this simple edit is such a big deal. No one is spamming you all...obviously it’s a change that a lot of people would like to see, but it’s instantly negated as spamming because more than one request came in. I’m going to drop it at this point, it’s not worth getting banned over simply because I’ve never seen anything that needs editing, or that I felt qualified to edit, and I’ve been using Wikipedia since it was created. Just curious though, how many people are ACTUALLY allowed to edit the account and make decisions? I’m not trying to be a jerk. I’m genuinely curious. Boogiesmommy2004 (talk) 18:36, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

It was a coordinated spam effort about a month ago. You just have to go to the talk page history and see the repetitive edit requests.— Preceding unsigned comment added by David O. Johnson (talk • contribs) 19:07, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It was an observation that it could be possible. No, it's not an observation, it's called casting aspersions and it's egregious. Unless you can actually demonstrate your accusation, it must come to a stop and you should probably withdraw it, rather than throwing the stone, then hiding the hand. Just because someone tells you something you don't like doesn't mean it's cool to cast aspersions on them.

No one is spamming you all... This talk page's history during the last month does not agree with you. Impru20^talk 19:27, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

The contributions of RandomCanadian on this topic were similar to quite a number of editors here over last last few months, so I wouldn't characterize their contribution as influential. There was significant spamming on this topic, particularly about two dozen similar/identical requests on June 13. (They were mostly removed, not archived, but can be viewed in the talk page history.) Currently, there is no protection on this [talk] page, so any editor is allowed to participate in the discussion. --Spiffy sperry (talk) 19:17, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Now that we have the RfC going on above, I suspect you are right that we can likely sidestep this issue. His closure of this discussion was highly problematic, because it attempted to close down the conversation we are having now about what the standard should be. But now that we are having that discussion, I think we are fine to disregard this and move forward with the RfC.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 20:30, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you Darryl. I hope it was ok to vote on the RfC, and that it wasn't only open to those that actually have access to page edits. If I made a mistake, please feel free to delete it or I can. Thanks. --Boogiesmommy2004 (talk) 22:41, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 July 2020

Jo Jorgensen is running for president in 2020 and is the Libertarian Party Nominee. (Insert her picture) Give the Facts2020 (talk) 02:33, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

 Not done Jorgensen's photo is already in the article here. It is just not in the infobox. There is an ongoing discussion called a Request for Comment (RfC) about this issue above. It is about setting the what the cut off should be for including third party candidates and independents in the infobox. You may wish to comment there.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 03:00, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Considering this is his first edit, I do not think that would be a good idea. He is probably a sock or a canvassed user. Devonian Wombat (talk) 22:50, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Addition of Jorgensen next to Biden/Trump

What criteria need to be met for Jorgensen's image to be added to the page?

Are the criteria for her image to be added achievable within a specific timeframe?

Gary Johnson's 2016 statistics seem to be a large reason why Jorgensen isn't being added, (per GoodDay), perhaps even the sole reason: is there anything that could override this in the near future?

Is the decision to keep Jorgensen's photograph away from Biden/Trump something that may change under certain circumstances?

I understand that Kanye has been added a few times and then taken down, and I appreciate the consistency shown by keeping his image off especially when his announcement was likely trolling to promote merchandise. Billbrandy (talk) 17:15, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

There is an ongoing discussion on this very topic in the RFC discussion above, I suggest you voice your opinion there if you like. It does no good to create a second thread on the same topic as one that's already being discussed.XavierGreen (talk) 17:35, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Geoffrey Lane from Wikimedia advised me to create my own discussion. I'm not sure why my questions cannot be answered. Billbrandy (talk) 18:31, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Your question can't be answered, because the criteria have not yet been established, the RFC is the process that is currently establishing the criteria for inclusion in the infobox (the pictures of the candidates at the top of the page). There were two prior discussions to create these criteria, but they were both tainted (and thus suspect) for various technical reasons. Thus there is a new RFC discussion above that I encourage you to participate in.XavierGreen (talk) 18:58, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

User:XavierGreen, those discussions were not tainted, you disagreeing with the outcome does not taint it. Devonian Wombat (talk) 22:00, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

The previous process being shut down prematurely by a sockpuppet account does taint it, however. HeroofTime55 (talk) 22:42, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

It was not closed prematurely, it was clearly heading for a consensus. It was also, and I cannot stress this enough, not the first discussion on the subject. In fact, it was opened as a blatant attempt to undo a clear consensus established only six weeks previously. Devonian Wombat (talk) 22:54, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Will do and thank you for gently re-explaining this Billbrandy (talk) 19:46, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Oldest President

"Biden and Trump are respectively the oldest and second-oldest major party presumptive presidential nominees in U.S. history; and if Biden is elected and inaugurated, he will also become the oldest serving president." Contextually, shouldn't we mention here that Trump too would be the oldest serving president should he serve out a second term? GreatCaesarsGhost 13:53, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Reference

David O. Johnson, you undid my revision filling out a reference on the basis of it being a duplicate. The reason I did that was because the original reference was missing parameters, and due to the unfortunate way references have been formatted on this page it is effectively impossible to fix that without redoing the entire reference. I would appreciate if you undid your revert, because now the reference is missing parameters again. Devonian Wombat (talk) 04:41, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Devonian Wombat Feel free to revert my edit. I would do it, but my earlier revert counts towards WP:1RR and I'd rather not run afoul of it. I'll go through the refs at a later date and tweak the formatting. David O. Johnson (talk) 04:52, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Devonian Wombat, I've undid my reversion of your earlier edit, now that it's outside the 24 hour 1RR window. David O. Johnson (talk) 03:59, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't think self-reverting counts as edit warring. Although maybe the the 1RR is different..? Honestly, I wouldn't worry about self-reverting. I highly doubt it would get you in trouble. Prcc27 (talk) 04:10, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. David O. Johnson (talk) 22:21, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Serve out term

Regarding " they will also become the oldest serving president presuming they serve out their term"; As I understand the math, Biden would be the oldest president to serve on day one, so he doesn't need to serve out his term, whereas Trump would indeed need to serve more of his term before he would be the oldest, so the statement should be clarified to better reflect that. 331dot (talk) 07:48, 22 July 2020 (UTC)