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:<blockquote>High confidence generally indicates that our judgments are based on high-quality information, and/or that the nature of the issue makes it possible to render a solid judgment. A “high confidence” judgment is '''not a fact or a certainty''', however, and such judgments still carry a risk of being wrong.</blockquote> ] (]) 04:02, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
:<blockquote>High confidence generally indicates that our judgments are based on high-quality information, and/or that the nature of the issue makes it possible to render a solid judgment. A “high confidence” judgment is '''not a fact or a certainty''', however, and such judgments still carry a risk of being wrong.</blockquote> ] (]) 04:02, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
:: Instead of asking here, maybe you should look it up and find some sources on the subject, then see whether there's any information worth adding to this article. -- ] (]) 12:07, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
:: Instead of asking about the current agency heads opinions here, maybe you should look it up and find some sources on the subject, then see whether there's any information worth adding to this article . -- ] (]) 12:07, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
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RM, 2016 United States election interference by Russia → Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, Not moved, 21 December 2016, /Archive 2#Requested move 21 December 2016
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RM, 2016 United States election interference by Russia → Allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, No consensus, 7 January 2017, /Archive 3#Requested move 7 January 2017
RM, 2016 United States election interference by Russia → Alleged 2016 United States election interference by Russia, No consensus, 4 February 2017, /Archive 5#Requested move 4 February 2017
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While the discussion above has evolved into a source battle over depicting Russian interference as fact or allegation, I'd like to submit the updated lead section as amended by myself and several editors before yesterday's revert by MrX. This version does not call the intervention alleged, although several editors have failed to acknowledge this simple fact. Besides the "alleged" controversy, some editors have expressed concrete concerns about awkwardness of the first two lead sentences and general "poor writing style". I say the first two sentences can be improved, and the writing style was even poorer before. Now, here's my proposal, with an amended first paragraph to address the discernable concerns. Please comment in the survey and discussion below.
Several cybersecurity firms stated that the cyberattacks were committed by hacker groups Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear associated with Russian intelligence. In October 2016, U.S. President Barack Obama directly warned Putin to stop interfering or face "serious consequences". Russian officials have repeatedly denied involvement in any DNC hacks or leaks.
In December 2016, Obama ordered a report on hacking efforts aimed at U.S. elections since 2008, while U.S. Senators called for a bipartisan investigation. President-elect Donald Trump initially rejected the intelligence reports, dismissing claims of foreign interference and saying that Democrats were reacting to their election loss. Investigations on Russian influence, including potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials, were started by the FBI, the Senate Intelligence Committee and the House Intelligence Committee.
Starting in late 2015, European spy agencies intercepted communications between suspected Russian agents and Trump campaign associates. Six federal agencies have been investigating possible links and financial ties with the Kremlin, notably targeting Paul Manafort, Carter Page and Roger Stone. Clapper said that as of January 2017 the agencies he supervised had found no evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia.
On December 29, 2016, the U.S. expelled 35 Russian diplomats, denied access to two Russia-owned compounds, and broadened existing sanctions on Russian entities and individuals. Russia did not retaliate.
List of citations has not changed; they will appear correctly in the article, as most of them are culled from the article body.
Cite error: The named reference rg-20161230 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
Survey
Please indicate your support or opposition to this version of the lead section, with a short rationale.
Support paragraphs 1 and 3 only - "US" should be changed to the more conventional "U.S". Important material about investigations of Stone, Kushner, Manafort and Page have been omitted from the second paragraph."Provided" should be "leaked". "Cut it out" should be change to "warned". The sentence: "Clapper said that as of January 2017 the agencies he supervised had found no evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia." is not lead worthy.- MrX11:44, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
I switched to "U.S." per MOS:US, except in the citation of the report, which spells it "US". Investigations of Stone, Kushner, Manafort and Page are mentioned twice in paragraph 4, just not named individually: Investigations on Russian influence, including potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials, were started by the FBI, the Senate Intelligence Committee and the House Intelligence Committee. Six federal agencies have also been investigating possible links and financial ties between the Kremlin and Trump's associates. The Clapper statement is the only "status report" about those collusion investigations so far, hence relevant to the lead. "Provided" vs "leaked" was to avoid saying "leaked to Wikileaks" which looks awkward; what's wrong with "provided"? "Cut it out" is a direct citation of Obama's language, which gives some personal tone to the statement; we could instead paraphrase, e.g. "warned Putin to stop", but that's a bit dull. — JFG15:22, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
I believe the individuals being investigated should be named, but the rest of the sentence is fine.
"... and provided their contents to WikiLeaks." is a little vague. Perhaps we could say: "... and gave the stolen emails to WikiLeaks."
"Cut it out" is not a quotation of what was said on the call; it's a quotation of Obama's reflections of what what said. Do you really believe that he spoke to Putin in idiomatic slang? How about this as a more faithful account: "In October 2016, U.S. President Barack Obama directly warned Putin to stop such cyberattacks or face serious consequences."? Mentioning the red phone is fairly trivial.
Thanks; I have incorporated all your suggestions except Kushner who is not named in the cited sources, and the word "stolen" which is redundant with "hacked"; replaced "provided" with "forwarded"; used "stop interfering" per source, to avoid repeating "cyberattacks". Hope this addresses your objections so you can move to a full Support !vote. — JFG06:20, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
@MrX: I'd like to know if you now approve the full text with the latest amendments. Your voice is particularly significant as you were first to revert the proposed lead changes. — JFG08:41, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
@JFG: Everything except the first sentence looks acceptable to me. Articles such as this should be written from a historical perspective. The use of present tense in the first sentence is jarring and sounds like breaking news. I also strongly prefer "officially concluded" or "concluded" over "highly confident".- MrX11:41, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Done OK, amended again with "has concluded with high confidence" directly in the first sentence, so there's no need to repeat it in the second one. Good? — JFG14:14, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Support para 1 with the following edit — with due credit to Geogene. Afaics no one else has suggested using the phrase in the Oct 2016 joint statement that is the PS cited by the RS cited in the lead sentence: "The United States Intelligence Community is confident that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”? The progression from "is confident that" in the 1st sentence citing the Oct 2016 statement to "expressed 'high confidence' that” in the 2nd sentence citing the Jan 2017 report uses simple phrasings, allows all sides to move on peaceably, and can be further appended in a timely manner with -results- of the next official work product. Humanengr (talk) 06:40, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Support other paras as long as para 1 comports with either my suggestion above or your further mod below in Discussion. 21:13, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
@Humanengr: Do you agree with the latest amendment to the lead sentence saying "has concluded with high confidence", per discussion with MrX above? If we get consensus between the two of you on this part too, that would be immense progress… — JFG14:18, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Yes -- and with that in the lead sentence, I'm ok with the non-qualified (and ergo more certain) "stated … that x" in the 2nd sentence and "stated that y" in 2nd para 1st sentence. Humanengr (talk) 15:11, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
The current lede is much better than this version - The version above removes the "Intelligence allies of the U.S. in Europe found communications between suspected Russian agents and the Trump campaign as early as 2015" fact from the first paragraph. Gouncbeatduke (talk) 16:05, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
@Gouncbeatduke: That's only because this phrase was added to the lead after the RfC was opened; we could certainly incorporate it in the proposed new lead, perhaps in a more logical spot, I'll think about it. What do you think of the rest of the text? — JFG11:35, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
We should use the same wording as discussed and agreed upon a few days ago: "Intelligence allies of the U.S. in Europe found communications between suspected Russian agents and the Trump campaign as early as 2015". Pinging SusanLesch who led that discussion.- MrX12:10, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
Yes, I had to edit it slightly to fit the placement in the paragraph discussing inquiries on links between Russian agents and Trump campaign associates. Just now tweaked the wording to be closer to Susan's version: Starting in late 2015, European spy agencies intercepted communications between suspected Russian agents and Trump campaign associates. Fine? — JFG12:58, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
Oppose The most significant part of this is that the FBI has an open investigation that "included looking at whether associates of Mr. Trump were in contact with Russian officials, and whether they colluded with them."(Comey) The paragraph needs to directly state that, not mention "ties" nor mention 4 individuals, which makes it appear that the investigation only includes them. I also agree with MrX's comments above.Casprings (talk) 22:33, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
Do you have a concrete proposal for improvement to take your concerns into account? — JFG05:52, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
Oppose This is a disaster of wiki-process, to launch another RfC on this topic and then short-circuit it by continuing to change the article. The result has been that one of the two RfC options no longer exists. Given this situation, we should close this RfC. There's no point opening an RfC without waiting for it to demonstrate consensus on whatever the question. Then, we can then either revert to the pre-RfC version or we can work to improve the current article version, which is no longer what the RfC proposed. SPECIFICOtalk22:45, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
I can't make heads or tails of your comment. We shouldn't open an RfC without waiting for consensus first??? Assessing consensus is precisely the goal of opening an RfC. I don't see why this one should be procedurally flawed. I also don't see your specific objection to the proposed text, which has been evolving to take into account other editors' remarks. If you have something constructive to add, I'm all ears. — JFG05:51, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
Simpler statement: It's disruptive to make changes to one of the alternatives while the RfC is ostensibly comparing its now-defunct text to a proposed alternative. SPECIFICOtalk15:34, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
<<"has stated" is the most truthful>> doesn't seem to relate to the issue at hand. Please rephrase your point about "has stated" and "most truthful" in terms of WP policy and RS treatments of the matter. SPECIFICOtalk20:51, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
@Darouet: Given the outcome of the other RfC "concluded vs accused", I believe we should stick with "concluded with high confidence" at this point. About Russia's denial, I'm not sure how to incorporate your suggestion without going into excessive detail. Perhaps simply add "Russia dismissed the allegations." with one of the relevant citations. Do you have a better suggestion? — JFG20:59, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
Support – I don't see any big red flags but I see some major improvements. I would add that the "intercepted communications" (fifth paragraph) were "suspicious" – because that's what the source says. Politrukki (talk) 14:34, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
@Politrukki: Thanks. Not sure "suspicious" adds much value to this particular sentence. It's not even in the current lead or full article. I think communications between Trump-related people and Russian operatives are suspicious by definition. — JFG21:06, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
I'm not saying that this must be decided in this RFC but the relevant discussion was archived before I had a change to raise this point. My opinion is that "suspicious" is somewhat important because every Russian having discussions with Americans is potentially a spy. Politrukki (talk) 05:29, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
Oppose. The current lead paragraph is clearly messed up, but this RFC started a long time ago and therefore omits recent developments in the news. The current lead starts okay: "The United States government's intelligence agencies have concluded the Russian government interfered in the 2016 United States elections." But then the lead paragraph goes into detail about that conclusion instead of providing more overview. So, I would suggest splitting the lead paragraph at the end of the first sentence; why not run an RFC like that? Then we could discuss what, if anything, ought to be added to the lead paragraph, and/or cut from the rest of the lead. Two items that seem appropriate in the lead paragraph's overview might be that Russia is not believed to have interfered in vote tallying, and/or no evidence has yet emerged regarding collusion between Russia and Trump or his campaign. Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:00, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
Lead section discussion
Please place suggested amendments or longer discussions here.
The lede as of this version was much better. While a few editors have said they don't like the version I've linked, I don't think they've articulated any clear reason why, beyond disagreement with the word "alleged." The first sentence states the subject of the article:
Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections refers to the alleged role that the Russian government played in the 2016 US presidential election.
The second sentence gives a very short summary of the events that led to the scandal:
Following the release of emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta by WikiLeaks, the US Intelligence Community concluded that Russia was behind the leaks.
The third sentence paraphrases what US intelligence has claimed about Russian interference:
An assessment by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) expressed "high confidence" that Russia favored presidential candidate Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign to harm Clinton's electoral chances and "undermine public faith in the US democratic process".
Well, that "alleged" is a big deal. Other than that it's ok as far as the first three sentences go. The major problem with your version is that it then proceeds to conceal/remove a bunch of pertinent info that follows those three sentences.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:54, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
I've presented several major news sources (BBC, Financial Times, Associated Press, Reuters, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Le Monde) that use "alleged" or equivalent language. If you don't have any answer to that, then you should withdraw your objection to that language. Right now, you're simply blockading without any reasonable rationale. You've cited WP:IJUSTDONTLIKEIT at me several times now, and it's highly relevant here. -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:43, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
The objection before was that reliable sources treat "Russian interference" as a fact. That's not true, as the sources I've cited show. So now that you've been presented with evidence, has your opinion changed? If not, why not? You can't just ignore the evidence and continue citing policies. Reliable sources say "alleged." That's what the article should say, unless you have a substantive objection. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:32, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Their policy of not saying things they don't know to be true. "Some sources" includes the BBC, the Financial Times, Reuters, Associated Press, the largest papers in Germany and France, and NBC News. If they're not willing to say that "Russian interference" is a fact, then Misplaced Pages shouldn't either. We're having this discussion because MrX reverted changes to the lede that several editors had hashed out together in one of the few productive discussions I've ever seen on this talk page. If you're going to declare this a dead horse, then you should do the honors and restore the reformulated lede yourself. One can't revert and then refuse to discuss. -Thucydides411 (talk) 05:13, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
You can stop pinging me Thucydides411. I'm actively watching this page. You conveniently neglect to mention that several of these same news agencies do treat the Russia interference as fact. . I'm going to join in the chorus of others asking you to let this go. This incessant REHASH has become disruptive and could result in you being topic banned, or otherwise sanctioned.- MrX12:12, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
@MrX: I hate to jump into this discussion, but I'm afraid the sources you just cited are reinforcing Thucydides411's case: Le Monde 1 says "allegations of Russian interference" and "Russia was accused by US intelligence services or interfering in the presidential election", Le Monde 2 says "Hacking attributed to Russia" and "The report by intelligence agencies affirms that the Russian president influenced the American election campaign.", Reuters 1 says nothing (just quotes Senators about requesting sanctions over "attempts to influence" the election), Reuters 2 mentions "Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election" within a list of issues addressed by Tillerson (doesn't say it's a fact or an allegation, it just names the issue), NBC 1 says "allegedly meddling in the election", NBC 2 says "alleged ties between Trump's surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government", AP 1 talks about "the House probe into Russian interference" (doesn't call it a fact, just says there's a probe), AP 2 talks about "an investigation into Russian meddling" (same thing). So out of 8 sources, that's 4 explicitly qualifying the interference as "alleged", 1 saying nothing of substance, 1 just naming it as an issue among other things, and 2 talking about the existence of investigations. — JFG14:54, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
I have to say that I agree with JFG's assessment of the sources. MrX, when you say that a source treats Russian interference as a fact, you should say in what way you can tell it treats Russian interference as fact. Reading through your links, I don't see the news agencies making any assertions that Russia interfered in US elections.
You and the chorus of people asking me to let this go should instead be asking yourselves why you're holding onto your position in the face of mounting evidence. You guys haven't been able to quote a major newspaper saying directly that Russia interfered in US elections, and there have now been dozens of articles posted on this talk page where major newspapers explicitly call "Russian interference" an allegation. So rather than threatening to try to topic ban me (for what - doing research on what reliable sources say and then posting it here?), why don't you actually consider the evidence here, and possibly change your mind? If you don't change your mind, you at least need to express some rationale that passes a basic plausibility test. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:18, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
And the dispute is not new either: here's FallingGravity pointing to plenty of RS explicitly calling the allegations "allegations" in January 2017. The reply from the "it's an undisputed fact, DEADHORSE" chorus? Crickets… — JFG15:40, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
JFG, your analysis of my sources is flawed across the board. For example in Le Monde 1, the word "allégations" is from a quote from an unnamed third party, not the voice of the newspaper. "Hacking attributed to Russia" means "the hacking that Russia did", not "the hacking that Russia is alleged to have done". My reading of the body of sources makes it very clear that sources overwhelmingly treat the Russia interference as fact.- MrX16:05, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Look, I don't care any longer whether Russian interference is called "alleged" in Misplaced Pages's voice, but I can't just remain silent when you guys keep straight denying that a very large fraction of RS articles either express no opinion on the U.S. intelligence officials' accusations against Russia or call them explicitly "allegations". (I knew I shouldn't have jumped into the source battle, but now I'm there…) Back to Le Monde, the first article quotes a Washington official using the word "allegations", that's even stronger than the journalist's neutral voice; the second article merely says that the attribution of hacks to Russia "has become the official position of the American administration". And the title word "imputé" does convey an attribution, effectively saying "somebody (US intelligence) is accusing somebody else (Russia) of something". Best translation would be "Hacking blamed on Russia". Don't take my word for it, just check the numerous examples in a French analytical dictionary. — JFG16:37, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
JFG, examining NBC2 as per your example: Meddling is used twice, once with, once without alleged; interference/interfere is used four times (Russia’s election interference, Russian interference in the election, Putin … became personally involved in the campaign to interfere, Moscow’s interference). So by your reckoning this source is "explicitly qualifying the interference as "alleged""? Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 16:48, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
@Space4Time3Continuum2x: Given the excerpts you cite, you must be talking about NBC1. So let's look at the context around the words (emphasis mine): "Sen. Ben Cardin called for an independent commission into election meddling", "sanctions imposed by the Obama administration against Russia for allegedly meddling in the election", "a 9/11-style commission to investigate Russian interference in the presidential election", "U.S. intelligence officials believe Putin became personally involved in the campaign to interfere in the election", "Trump frequently denied the claims about Moscow's interference", so yes by my reckoning this source is not taking an affirmative position about the nature, scope or impact of the interference, it correctly attributes the claims of interference to US intelligence services, it mentions calls for investigations and it does call the meddling alleged in the journalist's voice. — JFG17:05, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
OK good, cause even the non-RS say that Russian Interference is a fact With JFG no longer contesting the fact, next step would be to deep six (American Nixonism) the latest lede RfC. SPECIFICOtalk17:36, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
I found 5 pages hits for the term "alleged" in a Google news search for the last hour. It seems to be a fairly common and evenhanded term used when police or others have made accusations against living people that have not been proved in a court or other tribunal. Here's ABC an article called, "Charleston Shooting: A Closer Look at Alleged Gunman Dylann Roof". That did not cast doubt on whether Dylann Roof was the gunman. That's just how serious sources report things. TFD (talk) 13:08, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
If the title is so difficult to understand that it needs to be explained in the lead, then maybe we should change it, to something like "Alleged Russian …"? No, wait, been there, not done that. Replacing hacking & providing to WL with "release of emails", "leaks" - did the DNC and Podesta turn them over to WL? Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 16:01, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Sorry, SPECIFICO, but I don't know what C16 means. I don't have a copy of the DNC talking points glossary. FYI, people who commit crimes against the United States or its citizens are subject to prosecution in the U.S. Osama bin Laden for example was on the FBI ten most wanted list despite having never entered the U.S. and attempts were made to by the U.S. government to apprehend him. Closer to the topic, Julian Assange, who released the DNC and Podesta emails, is currently under criminal investigation in the U.S. for possible violation of the Espionage Act. Guccifer, a computer hacker living in Romania, has been indicted on multiple counts in the U.S. and is facing extradition. TFD (talk) 17:21, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
You mean the alleged Osama! Assange takes credit for "wikileaks" Guccifer is as real as "SPECIFICO", not a person. Next...SPECIFICOtalk17:53, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Do you think it is possible to reply to my statements without going off on a tangent? Guccifer is a name for Marcel Lazăr Lehel, "an individual accused of a crime subject to pending US prosecution." Whether or not Assange takes credit for wikileaks, he does not take credit for conspiring with the Russian government to subvert democracy in the United States.Any person regardless of nationality or current whereabouts may be prosecuted by U.S. authorities if they were involved in hacking into the DNC and Podesta emails. So just concede you were mistaken about your strawman argument accusation and move on. TFD (talk) 18:10, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
OK we'll get serious cause folks don't know you're just flirting with me. The tangent is bringing up examples of OTHERSTUFF instead of sticking to whether mainstream RS overwhelmingly accept the fact that Russia took various actions to interfere with the US elections. So let's reboot and you can demonstrate that the mainstream view is not that Russia tried to interfere. SPECIFICOtalk18:16, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
The problem is that they consistently qualify the claims with terms such as "alleged." And they will continue to do that until evidence is presented and experts provide their opinions. That does not mean they question the intelligence any more than they questioned WMDs in Iraq or that accused criminals are guilty. And that's how this article should be written according to policy. TFD (talk) 20:32, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Do you have any evidence that the intelligence community actually claimed that Iraq had WMDs as claimed by the executive branch? Objective3000 (talk) 21:52, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
We're going round and round here. There were a couple of threads on this earlier (such as the hatted discussion about Iraq in this RfC). The TL;DR is that both the Bush administration and the intelligence agencies were complicit in aggressively overselling intelligence about supposed Iraqi WMD. In the years afterwards, we in the public found out that the internal, classified conclusions of the intelligence agencies were much weaker than had been publicly stated. We had been told they were certain about things that they weren't actually certain about. That's a cautionary note for everyone to take to heart. -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:06, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Editors' opinions are required when assessing the reliablity of sources. U.S. intelligence has consistently provided conveniently misleading information and therefore is not a reliable source. Whether or not specific claims are accurate is something we determine based on what reliable sources, such as mainstream news media and academic research, say. TFD (talk) 06:02, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
Yes, now we have your opinion, and then we have U.S. intelligence declarations published in RS. Hmmmm...which should we choose, your opinion and OR about their reliability, or the RS? Just in case you haven't noticed, there is an ongoing investigation, and as more has leaked out, we have discovered that any seeming dissembling by them was because they had to protect the investigation, and what has been revealed is that the seriousness of the interference is far more than anyone of us realized, and that the likelihood of collusion seems stronger as well. The latest revelations about Carter Page, and his denials (which draw quite the revealing picture) are very interesting. His denials are like dots scattered on the floor, with an area with no dots, and that area is a picture, exactly the one described on page 30 of the dossier. Without being accused, he "doesn't" mention it several times in several different interviews. How odd. It's as if he knows something. Stay tuned.
My point is that your OR seems more based on personal POV than upon the revelations coming from RS, so I suggest we just go with them, and time will tell. Otherwise, this is the talk page, and this is an interesting discussion, but we can't put yours or my speculations in the article....fortunately. -- BullRangifer (talk) 06:49, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
That's your personal OR. However, having an opinion quoted in a reliable source does not make that opinion a fact, unless the reliable source says it is. And reliable sources policy does not mention U.S. Intelligence agencies as reliable sources. Anyway you know that, I know that you know that etc. TFD (talk) 19:43, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
@The Four Deuces: You really hit on the heart of the problem. The fact that a reliable source quotes person A does not mean we should treat that person A's statement as true. Putin has been quoted by reliable sources as saying that Russia did not interfere in US elections. That doesn't make Putin's statement true. -Thucydides411 (talk) 05:18, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
The proposed text cites the Nakashima article about the January 2017 report; we could cite an extra source mentioning the October 2016 report; their conclusions are essentially the same. As you recently pointed out, mentioning an exact date was superfluous in the lead sentence itself. — JFG07:23, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
@The Four Deuces: We are not relying on "US Intelligence" - we are simply reflecting what RS say. Mainstream RS could report on a confident idiot in a cage and we would need to cite that. It has nothing to do with our opinion of the opinion, let alone our opinion as to the facts. SPECIFICOtalk12:16, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
@JFG: Re "their conclusions are essentially the same": Yes, contra the 1st sentence, neither report said "concluded that".
The Oct report said "x was confident that y". The Jan report said "x had high confidence that y" -- as noted in the 2nd sentence after the title and 1st sentence have set the tone for the entire article; too late. (Good to link 'high confidence' though few will follow that; the damage has been done.)
The certainty of the title and 1st sentence are reinforced elsewhere in the lead paras.
Any RS's that reports that the USIC "concluded that" are lying about the degree of certainty and should be disqualified as RS; their error-checking is meaningless. Humanengr (talk) 12:35, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
That's ridiculous, but feel free to inquire at WP:RSN if you think you can get other editors to concur with that reasoning.- MrX12:53, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
You do understand that different sources may use different words to convey the same information, right? I don't understand why anyone has difficulty understanding why journalists would interpret "The U.S. Intelligence Community is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises..." to mean "USIC concluded that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises...". See alsoWIKT: conclusion: "A decision reached after careful thought."- MrX13:17, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
In the context used, those two statements are semantically equivalent. I thought that was obvious from my previous response.- MrX13:59, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but I have precious little time to help improve this article, and this discussion is not helping to fulfill that goal. Cheers.- MrX14:25, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
Given that the DNI does not see those statements as semantically equivalent, is there any improvement you could make that is more substantive than to use their language in the lead sentence? Why propagate a misrepresentation? Humanengr (talk) 14:40, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
@MrX: And yes, I can understand some "journalists would interpret …". They inhabit a common culture with common biases that distort. The DNI report is clear and succinctly indicates degree of certainty., There is no excuse except our own biases not to use DNI language in the very first sentence. Humanengr (talk) 15:07, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
@Humanengr: Report said "determined" which was in the article briefly but reverted by one of the POV fringe edits. It's really important everyone review the history of the article and the talk discussions, because the more we reopen rehash and relitigate settled discussions, the less participation we're going to have here and the worse the article will be served. SPECIFICOtalk12:57, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
@Humanengr: I kept "concluded" because any other word is going to be fiercely contested, and because there's an open RfC about using this exact word vs "accused". I once suggested "affirmed", which sounds more neutral and factual to me, hoping we could get consensus on that… Opinions? — JFG15:00, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
@JFG: I appreciate your efforts. 'Affirmed' seems both nebulous (affirmed what?) and too certain (the 'that x' part). Here’s a thought that afaics no one else has expressed: How about using the phrase in the Oct 2016 report that is in the PS cited by the RS cited in the lead sentence: "The United States Intelligence Community is confident that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”? As much as I don’t think it helps to continue to refer to the older report now that the newer one is available, it does allow for a short accurate summary statement. Humanengr (talk) 19:09, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
@JFG: On the chance that Geogene agrees (see discussion above), given the time constraint, would it make sense to incorporate this into this RfC, start another or ?? Humanengr (talk) 21:00, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
@Humanengr: I would support this alternate wording; please add it to the survey section, similarly to MrX's amendments "Support, conditional on suggestion XYZ", so that other editors can follow the draft evolution without going through walls of text. — JFG05:53, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
As the second sentence already says "high confidence", we would have to rephrase it slightly. I would suggest:
OK as I understand the situation the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said they were highly confident the Russians had been behind the hacks. What about the rest of the US intelligence community? The FBI see to have said the Russians did do it. GRIZZLY STEPPE accuses the Russians. So the lead must reflect the fact that much of the US intelligence community has said the Russians did it.
"Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections refers to the alleged role that the Russian government played in the 2016 US presidential election. Following the release of emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta by WikiLeaks, much of the US Intelligence Community concluded that Russia was behind the leaks. However an assessment by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) expressed "high confidence" that Russia favored presidential candidate Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton..."
@Slatersteven: It seems we are converging. My focus is almost (but not completely) on the 1st sentence. Re your proposed 1st sentence, 'alleged' works for me but not for many here as we have seen. Re your cmt at Teahouse re 'high confidence': JPG's mod (immediately above at 06:30, 14 April 2017 (UTC)) shifts that from 2nd sentence to 1st. IMO, that accomplishes much. I can explain further and comment on the rest, but wanted to get your reaction to that. Humanengr (talk) 20:56, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
You're "converging" with one editor? That's not converging. That's diverging. Your proposed words are much worse than what's currently there, and your negotiations among the scant minority of editors who will even bother responding to you are fruitless. SPECIFICOtalk21:05, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
@Slatersteven: I think we mostly agree on the first paragraph. The only change I'd make to your proposal would be to remove the word "However," because the statement that follows "However" doesn't really contradict the preceding sentence. This proposal is very close to what a number of editors worked out together earlier. -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:48, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
"A number of editors worked out" What number do you claim? I count about 4 out of 30-40 editors who've collaborated to produce the current consensus text. SPECIFICOtalk22:51, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
General comment -- I'm finding this RFC to be hard to follow. I'm not even sure what we are supposed to !vote on. Generally, I'd like to convey that the use of "alleged interference" is not some nefarious way of casting doubt on the findings of the U.S. intelligence agencies. Essentially, Misplaced Pages is reporting on a current event (investigation of said interference) and it's good journalistic practice to qualify the incident in question as "probable" / "likely" / "evidence of", etc, and not as a statement of fact. K.e.coffman (talk) 17:16, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Except that we are not journalists and this and the alleged RfC can be ignored. Various parts of the article actually need work right now. SPECIFICOtalk17:40, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
@SPECIFICO: Should I read "alleged RfC" as a manifestation of your sense of humour or as a personal attack? I find it really insulting that you would disparage my efforts to build consensus, especially as I've been following your own advice! — JFG17:53, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Another scarecrow. I said to take it to a Sandbox page and work out something that has a snowbowel's chance of being accepted. I suggest you withdraw it and do that now before more time is wasted on this. SPECIFICOtalk02:21, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
I am going to reply here, rather then above as this discussion is far too long and rambling.
It is clear that whilst one arm of the US intelligence services has used ore diplomatic language to make the claim much of the rest (and it seems to be the majority) have not caveated their comments and have asserted that Russia did it. Our lead must reflect that, any thing else is weasel wording.Slatersteven (talk) 09:02, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
Just popping in here. Slatersteven, I assume we're discussing this sentence: "Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections refers to the alleged role that the Russian government played ...." Is that correct?
So the first part is without "alleged" (I totally agree), and the second part is with it. What is the distinction you're making? Is it that there is still some uncertainty about the degree to which the actual Russian government was involved, as opposed to other players? I'm just throwing this out there to probe your thinking. -- BullRangifer (talk) 18:17, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
(Perhaps BullRangifer mistook your "OK as I understand …" para as a proposed lead para?)
Re 'alleged': As others here have objected to that word, can you offer an alternative phrasing to the lead sentence that captures your intent? Humanengr (talk) 04:34, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
Slatersteven, I was referring to the first and second halves of your sentence I copied in my comment. Here it is again: (1) "Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections refers to (2) the alleged role that the Russian government played ...."
Yes those are the words I used, I am not sure what there is to not understand. It is an allegation, so it has been alleged. As to alternative wording. However I am wondering what we are arguing about, as it stand the opening paragraph of the lead seems to sum it up. |Maybe wee need to make it clear that not all the US intel agencies were quite so equivocal, but I do not see what about the lead paragraph is a problem.
"A number of US intelligence agencies officially concluded that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 United States elections. In January 2017, whilst another U.S. intelligence community assessment expressed "high confidence" that Russia favored Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally ordered an "influence campaign" to harm Clinton's electoral chances. Intelligence allies of the U.S. in Europe found communications between suspected Russian agents and the Trump campaign as early as 2015"
It is odd that it says that "everyone" and then goes on to say "except these people". This is the germ of the debate, the fact we do over egg the cake over the degree to which US intelligence had concluded the Russians did it.Slatersteven (talk) 09:02, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
Slatersteven, we aren't arguing about anything. I just wanted to make sure I understood you. My questions were just as much to figure out your meaning as to learn from you. I'll repeat them here.
What is the distinction you're making? Is it that there is still some uncertainty about the degree to which the actual Russian government was involved, as opposed to other players? Why use alleged? I thought there was a lot of certainty about the involvement of the Russian government, enough that we wouldn't need to use the word "alleged" there. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm just trying to figure this out. I've read most RS, but there are other RS and other ways of looking at this. -- BullRangifer (talk) 20:44, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
A lot as not absolute. And whilst there may be "a lot of certainty" this is not 100% (even in the US intelligence community). it is not "a lot of certainty" that is needed but "beyond reasonable doubt", and that seems to me to not be the case yet.Slatersteven (talk) 08:29, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Implementing the reformulated first paragraph
I think it's time to reinstate the reformulated first paragraph of the article. Here it is:
Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections refers to the alleged role that the Russian government played in the 2016 US presidential election. Following the release of emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta by WikiLeaks, the US Intelligence Community concluded that Russia was behind the leaks. An assessment by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) expressed "high confidence" that Russia favored presidential candidate Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign to harm Clinton's electoral chances and "undermine public faith in the US democratic process."
I'm not saying this first paragraph is perfect, but it is much stronger than the current first paragraph, and I think it has greater support from active editors on this talk page than the current lede. The advantages of this first paragraph, in my view, are:
The first sentence states generally what the article is about.
It gives a brief description of the major background elements of the affair (the release of emails by Wikileaks, the claims made by US intelligence).
It uses the appropriate word, "alleged," to refer to the allegations of Russian interference. Many reliable sources use exactly this word regularly, and almost all treat "Russian interference" as an allegation.
A number of editors worked together to formulate this intro paragraph. It was then reverted by MrX (diff). In the ensuing discussion, several more editors have expressed support for the reformulated first paragraph, and I think that it has majority support here. The main bone of contention with this text has been the word "alleged," but I think the above source discussion has shown that "alleged" is completely in line with reporting from numerous reliable sources (among them the BBC, Financial Times, Reuters, Associated Press, NBC News, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Le Monde, although this list is by no means exhaustive).
Since the source discussion has established that "alleged" is a completely mainstream designation for Russia's alleged interference, I think this objection is now moot. I'd therefore propose to reinstate the reformulated intro paragraph. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:28, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
No, just no. Those who understand these things best have "concluded" that Russia interfered in the election, and numerous RS have so stated. This is a very controversial proposal. One cannot make such a decision based on the presence or absence of one word. It started as allegations, which quickly were confirmed. Investigations since then have been on the basis that the allegations were correct, and discoveries since then have repeatedly confirmed that Russia was behind it, and that Putin directed it.
What's left is to confirm the allegations that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians to steal the election. So far what's been discovered tends strongly to confirm that allegation. So far we're calling that part an allegation. -- BullRangifer (talk) 00:41, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Regarding the lead section, you should both comment in the RfC. Somehow all discussions have turned into a kind of source battle on the word "alleged" but that's not what the amended text says, so I would appreciate that opinionated editors give a honest look and state their position.
Now, BullRangifer, I wish you could convince me about your statements:
"It started as allegations, which quickly were confirmed" – what confirmation did we get besides the allegations, started by CrowdStrike and the DNC in June 2016 and repeated ad nauseam by US intelligence services and politicians since then, that Russian intelligence services were the perpetrators of DNC hacks and acted as sources to WikiLeaks, while being directed by Putin himself? On what basis, and by whom, were these inferences made? And with which evidence?
"Those who understand these things best" – you mean the intelligence services of a nation alleging misdeeds by intelligence services of another nation? or a political party who happened to lose an unlosable election alleging misdeeds by a rival political party who happened to win it? or established members of a political party alleging misdeeds by a newcomer into their party who happened to win the support of their voters, to their dismay? or vested interests who fear what an "unfit" president may bestow upon them?
"discoveries since then have repeatedly confirmed that Russia was behind it" – Which discoveries have confirmed anything? I read an awful lot about this issue, and see only innuendo. If you have seen some tangible confirmations which are not mere allegations, I'd love to see them.
"No, just no" is not a very productive attitude to take. If I understand your above post, you're saying that since US intelligence agencies ("Those who understand these things best") have said Russia interfered in the US elections, we should take that as fact. That's not how Misplaced Pages works. We go on the basis of reliable sources, and the large majority of reliable sources are treating "Russian interference" as an allegation. I say "large majority," because I'm holding out the possibility that one or two newspapers might state unequivocally that Russia interfered. I haven't seen any such clear statements from reliable sources, and they're apparently sufficiently difficult to find that (to my knowledge) they haven't been posted in this talk page yet. We go with source like the BBC and Reuters, not with allegations made by intelligence agencies.
We should absolutely describe the allegations made by US intelligence agencies, and the reformulated first paragraph does that. Reliable sources have reported heavily on those allegations, so we will, of course, describe them in this article. That's very different from taking raw statements from US intelligence and pasting them into Misplaced Pages as statements of fact, which is something we're not going to do. -Thucydides411 (talk) 01:00, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Thucydides411, you wrote "large majority". You must have missed my explanation of the flaws in your thinking. There are plenty of RS which don't use "alleged". Your search, which "includes" alleged just confirms your bias. Others have performed the same search "without" alleged and found plenty of RS. This just shows that the search, especially without a complete (that would be hundreds of references) analysis on a time line, really doesn't prove anything other than that we can find RS which use it and which don't use it. -- BullRangifer (talk) 02:27, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
@BullRangifer: I responded to your points here. The fact that a newspaper does not use the word "alleged" in a particular article does not mean that the newspaper does not treat "Russian interference" as an allegation. There are synonyms for "alleged," and there are plenty of ways of describing an allegation without endorsing it as true. Anyways, what I said above is that the large majority of reliable sources treat "Russian interference" as an allegation, and based on our discussion of sources above, that's true. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:50, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
I haven’t seen anyone here taking raw statements from US intelligence and pasting them into Misplaced Pages as statements of fact. Exaggerating what other editors have done does not convince. I’ll say it again, if you are attempting to convince other editors, you are using the wrong tact. This talk page is way too long, filled as it is, with the same repetition . Objective3000 (talk) 01:12, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
@Objective3000: BullRangifer clearly said, in reply to my proposal, that we should take the claims of US intelligence agencies as fact. That is specifically what I was responding to. I assume you disagree strongly with BullRangifer on this - if you don't, please correct me.
Thank you for the note about my tact, but I'm proposing something concrete here. What do you think of the proposed wording of the first paragraph? I think the source discussion above settled the issue of whether "alleged" is a mainstream way of describing "Russian interference" (again, please correct me if you disagree), so I think we can move on to reimplementing the reformulated first paragraph. -Thucydides411 (talk) 01:26, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Maybe I should just ask my two questions directly:
Do you agree with BullRangifer's statement that we should treat statements made by US intelligence as facts?
Do you agree that reliable sources often use "alleged" when describing "Russian interference," and that they generally treat "Russian interference" as an allegation, without endorsing it as fact?
I really don't know what would convince you, but I think I've shown what needs to be shown: that reliable sources generally frame "Russian interference" as an allegation. I've also said why I think the reformulated first paragraph is better than what we have now. If you don't agree, it would be more helpful if you'd say what it is you don't like about the reformulated first paragraph. "You do not convince" isn't productive. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:56, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
You've made your point. The community can't allow a talk page to be bludgeoned against consensus. We all need to accept reality when our views are not shared by the consensus of editors on a given issue. SPECIFICOtalk03:03, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Thucydides411, you're setting up a straw man argument. I didn't say that we "should treat statements made by US intelligence as facts." I believe they are correct, just as you, as an advocate for the Russian denial that any of this ever happened and that Trump is pure as snow, think the U.S. intelligence community is wrong. (Okay, I guess Putin has a right to have someone defending his POV here, and God knows that Trump and Putin are not ignoring our proceedings or allowing this discussion to happen without actively seeking to influence the editing process. C'est la vie.)
What we should NOT do is make the intelligence community state it as an "allegation", when they have "concluded" it happened. Don't misquote them. They are certain, even if you aren't. The current lead sentence is: "The United States Intelligence Community officially concluded that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 United States elections." Don't change that to "alleged". That's dishonest. -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:25, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Well, have you read the proposals? Thucydides' text does not connect "alleged" with the intelligence agencies' statements: he says that this article discusses the alleged role of Russia in the US presidential election, and that "the US Intelligence Community concluded that Russia was behind the leaks", that's pretty unambiguous. Alternately, my proposed lead in the RfC totally removes "alleged" and states, in their exact words, that said agencies are "highly confident" that Russia interfered in the election. Isn't that satisfactory? — JFG03:33, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
@BullRangifer: The text I'm proposing is the one that you helped write. I don't think your comments here apply at all to the text that I proposed above. For example, the text states unambiguously that "the US Intelligence Community concluded that Russia was behind the leaks." I'd really appreciate if you gave it a second look. -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:23, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
I'm pretty tired right now (jetlag), and this is a bit confusing,so maybe I'm conflating things. Somewhere on this page is a discussion to rename the article to some kind of "alleged" whatever. I think that's wrong, but I suspect that both of you support that idea, even though multiple intelligence agencies (USA and foreign), plus multiple competing cybersecurity companies, all conclude that the Russians did interfere in the election. That's factual, and there are plenty of RS which say it. That's the view which should get the most weight, and the title should reflect it.
I have made this comparison before, because I see what's happening here as similar to what has happened with the subject of climate change/global warming. The scientific consensus among 97% of published real climate scientists says that anthropogenic global warming is a fact, but there are multiple non-climate scientists and many amateurs who say it's not true. So in people's minds they see the 97% as ONE (as here they count the 17 US intelligence agencies as one), and the long list of people in the List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming as a whole lot of people (because they are named and can be counted) against that ONE. They think the deniers have the weightier argument. Fortunately the Misplaced Pages community gave the climate scientists the weight they deserve. Unfortunately, here I see the opposite happening. The amateur deniers get to push their POV and get more weight than the real experts when it comes to naming the article. They want the title to enshrine the doubt. I see that as problematic. -- BullRangifer (talk) 04:40, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
FWIW neither Thucydides411 nor I are suggesting to change the title. We do agree with Adlerschloß and others that the article is biased towards the "official" POV, especially the lead section, and there are two proposals being floated to make it more neutral: this section and the open RfC. — JFG05:05, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Also, this is being misframed as an either/or. As noted elsewhere, the fact that the intelligence agencies have concluded something does not mean that it ceases to be an allegation in the wider sense. The two things are not mutually exclusive, and the CIA etc do not act as the sole adjudicators of fact. The comparison with climate change is a little off-beam. The agencies are not a wide range of disinterested parties relying on the objective scientific method to look at hard data, but partisan players, from a narrow and specific sector, who are in the business of making often subjective assessments about actions and motive etc. With a history not only of getting things wrong but of deliberate misinformation. There is widespread scepticism IRL, at least among those not too heavily invested in blaming Russia for everything that went wrong for Clinton and right for Trump, about their claims on this point. The page should reflect that, not privilege the IC conclusions, let alone take them as read or as the last word N-HHtalk/edits08:19, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
But we're not relying on them alone. The strongest evidence comes from competing cybersecurity companies whose individual interests would be best served by not agreeing. Instead CrowdStrike, Fidelis, Mandiant, SecureWorks and ThreatConnect agree that Russia was behind the hacks. They are essentially looking at the DNA left under the fingernails of those attacked. It's strong evidence. -- BullRangifer (talk) 15:30, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
@BullRangifer: Have you had a chance to look again at the paragraph I'm suggesting above? It's the same paragraph that you were involved in formulating, and that you previously expressed support for. I think it pretty clearly states the position of US intelligence, which seems to me to be your main concern. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:15, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
No, I haven't, and I've lost any desire to do much more here. It's fruitless and a waste of time. Nothing I say will make any difference. There are far too many threads rehashing the same issues. It's just too complicated. I'm not removing this from my watchlist, but I feel it's hopeless here. RS have documented what experts say, but when those experts are not given the weight they deserve, there isn't much point in continuing. Just retitle the article Rebuttal of the unfair charges that Vladimir Putin would ever have any desire to destabilize western democracies, and then sign it, since that's the opinion of a number of editors here. This was obviously the doing of some 15 year old kid, just to mess with us. It's not at all notable. Nothing happened. There's nothing to see here folks. -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:56, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
I admit that editing here is frustrating, but I think you have the completely wrong idea about what I'm proposing here. It's a fairly limited change to the article, and one that you previously wrote you thought was an improvement. But yes, it is frustrating to edit here, and the environment is far from collegial! -Thucydides411 (talk) 05:31, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
This version is inferior to both the current version and the amended version proposed by JFC above. The first sentence (basically "Interference refers to interference") is just poor writing because it is redundant. See Misplaced Pages:Manual_of_Style/Lead_section#Avoid_these_common_mistakes ("If the article's title does not lend itself to being used easily and naturally in the opening sentence, the wording should not be distorted in an effort to include it. Instead, simply describe the subject in normal English, avoiding redundancy."). Neutrality14:43, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
@Neutrality: No, the proposed first paragraph does not way "Interference refers to interference." It says, "Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections refers to the alleged role that the Russian government played in the 2016 US presidential election." The proposed first paragraph gives a concise description of the subject of the article, and properly refers to it as an allegation. It's vastly superior to the current first paragraph, which picks one random aspect of the subject to put in the first sentence, and doesn't give any background to the subject. The background is the publication of emails from the DNC and Podesta, which US intellgience alleges were given to Wikileaks by Russia through intermediaries. Any decent first paragraph would mention that. Instead, we have a jumbled lede that includes random elements of the subject, in a random order, and which gives far too much weight to the views of the spy agencies of one particular country. A lot of editors here seem not to be able to distinguish the difference between reliable sources and US intelligence any more, which is one of the reasons the lede is such a garbled mess. -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:54, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
I have high confidence that the sun will rise tomorrow and that the first sentence is unacceptable and would never fly in a formal RfC. Jytdog (talk) 15:42, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
I'll be honest JFG, I've read through the long thread above and it's unclear to me where we stand. Regarding your proposal at the very top, and considering N-HH's comment on the nature of intelligence organizations, I'd propose only to attribute the statement of confidence:
@Darouet: Thanks for your comment. The wording of the lead sentence was developed by compromise between very opposed positions of MrX, Geogene and Humanengr. Personally I would be fine with your variant "has stated it is highly confident" instead of "has concluded with high confidence" but we'd need those other editors to agree as well. Apart from this first sentence, do you think the rest of the proposed text is an improvement compared to the current lead? — JFG06:06, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
@JFG: Yes, generally I support other aspects of your revision. I had done a bunch of legwork earlier on this topic - reviewing editorial policies about how this topic is presented in the media - but just haven't had the time to come back here, with real life work (teaching, research). I apologize for that, and hope to be more involved at some point. -Darouet (talk) 13:43, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
No, we would need consensus among all the editors who are active on this page or who come to this page to discuss. We can't make progress by using the consent of a few editors as if it were the consensus of the larger group here. SPECIFICOtalk15:04, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
The RfC puts a comprehensive text forward and specifically asks editors to suggest changes which could gain their support, as part of a consensus-building effort. You are obviously free to oppose, and other editors are free to support the outcome of this collective work towards article improvement. — JFG15:58, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
JFG - Thucydides411 is correct that alleged is the more prominent sources and majority of all sources. Google count for '"russian interference" us elections' is 1,250,000 with alleged vs 721,000 without. The with list firstpage is aol, cnbc, bbc, foxnews, nbc, and dni.gov; the without list firstpage is indivisibleguide, talkingpoints, resistencemanual, usnews, euractiv, and cbc. Also, those top 8 'with' all seem factual reporting, while the 'without' snippets seem only 2 are factual reporting (resistencemanual and euractiv) and the rest opinionating (cbc opinionating there will never be a smoking gun for this). Going several more pages in you do see some flakes in the 'with' and a few bigger names in the 'without', but it looks like 'alleged' retains a clear quality of RS and quantity lead.
Otherwise, I'll agree the RFC process looks a bit broken/confused by now, and largely rejecting the text as proposed -- 'prior version was better' crowd plus the 'only part A' crowd seem a majority. It might be better to tackle it para by para or individual points to avoid overwhelming size because 'alleged' goes on a bit. Concerns I can see with the top text here is is that a couple of the cites I tried are funky, and that the narrative is rather skipping about (2017, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2016, 2017, 2016, 2016, 2016, 2017, 2016..) and not a linked or overall picture -- even parts of the same para may be a puzzle. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:15, 26 April 2017 (UTC)
@Markbassett: Thanks for your comments. The discussion about using the word "alleged" has wasted enough editor time and we will never get consensus on it one way or the other. This perennial conundrum can be solved elegantly with the proper attribution of the "Russia interfered" statement to the intelligence community, as implemented in the proposed text. We don't need to choose between "A did B" or "A allegedly did B" when we simply write "C said that A did B".
For the rest of the lead, I agree that it does skip back and forth in dates, because it is rather arranged by themes: US intelligence statements (Russia meddled in the US presidential election), how Russia interfered (email hacks and online propaganda), political investigations, and finally diplomatic retaliation. I'm open to re-arranging the narrative in chronological order, but I think we should first de-clutter the current lead. Do you think the proposed text in an overall improvement compared to the current version? Do you have specific suggestions for further improvement? — JFG06:23, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
Template
I just added a POV template to the top of this article until this RfC is closed. THE DIAZ18:58, 10 June 2017 (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.
Should information from Jeffrey Carr that conflicts with the CrowdStrike report and US government intelligence assessment that Russia was responsible for hacking the DNC (as detailed in the Miami Herald , Harper's , and Fortune ) be included in this article's section on "Cybersecurity analysis", and should information from the International Institute for Strategic Studies corroborating on CrowdStrike's credibility problems (described to Voice of America: ) be included as well? Adlerschloß (talk) 12:49, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Survey
Conditional support - I would support a shorter version of this, without direct quotes, provided that someone can find at least one or two solid additional sources. The Miami Herald and VOA are reliable, but I'm concerned about the story being promoted in Breitbart, The Daily Mail, fringe blogs, and RT. Carr seems to dismiss CrowdStrike's findings on rather flimsy reasoning, in my opinion. Regardless, his expert view should be represented once it passes WP:DUEWEIGHT.- MrX14:00, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Based on the two additional sources presented (Harpers and Forbes), I now believe that a couple of sentences discussing Carr's criticism of CrowdStrike's findings should be included per WP:NPOV. Softlavender, did you really just reject a reputable source because of it's geographic proximity to Trump's other White House?- MrX15:07, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Conditional oppose It is (as I say below) not exactly accurate as to what the sources say. It needs rewording, not just shortening. There is also as issue with Undue, CrowdStrike are not the only IT security firm to claim Russian interference, so it rejects just one piece of evidence, the article is not about them.Slatersteven (talk) 14:07, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Oppose use of Voice of America material, since that is simply Trump's mouthpiece. Also Oppose use of Miami Herald as a source, as that regional newspaper is way too close to Trump's Mar-a-Lago. If there is a major reliable unbiased national newspaper that says the same thing, then I would be open to reviewing that. Softlavender (talk) 14:23, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
What a bizarre rationale to exclude mainstream sources! Who said VOA is "Trump's mouthpiece"? If the Miami Herald is too close to Mar-a-Lago for comfort, then would the New York Times be way too close to Trump Tower?? Where does this end??? This argument makes no sense at all, sorry. Focus on the contents rather than the messenger. — JFG15:04, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
"would the New York Times be way too close to Trump Tower??" No, because New Yorkers hate Trump. That's why he goes to Mar-a-Lago every weekend. Plus the New York Times is a highly respected national and international newspaper, and is the newspaper of record for the U.S. Softlavender (talk) 15:13, 17 April 2017 (UTC); edited Softlavender (talk) 15:23, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
@Softlavender: the Miami Herald endorsed Clinton for President , brag that they don't indulge in "alternative facts" , and the VoA has numerous articles critical of the Administration: . What is your take on this? -Darouet (talk) 22:55, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
Support These are reliable sources and coverage in various sources establishes weight. I agree that coverage in unreliable sources does not establish weight, but that is a red herring since none have been presented. TFD (talk) 15:15, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Generally Oppose The problems with the text are manyfold. First, there’s too much speculation. Carr admits he doesn’t have all the evidence known to the agencies that have reported Russian influence in the election. He criticizes one of the sources based on a belief that they were incorrect in another case, while ignoring other sources. He argues that a report does not prove a case; but that report cannot include classified info. He was not a part of any of the deliberations behind the report. He is a private consultant with no direct connection. I’m also bothered by the statement growing doubt in the computer security industry. He does not speak for the industry and provides scant evidence for such a general statement. Pronouncements like this reflect poorly on his testimony. I also am troubled by Carr’s statements that he knows what investigations the FBI did and did not perform. I’m also bothered by the attack on CrowdStrike in a different case. CrowdStrike and Carr may be competitors and Carr has made strong statements about CrowdStrike in the past. (Apparently he detests McAfee whose execs funded CrowdStrike .) As an aside, Carr’s comments in Harpers are sarcastic in nature and comments elsewhere are dismissive. It just sounds like someone on the outside upset he isn’t on the inside. I’m not casting any aspersions, it just doesn’t sound like a good source. BTW, I think he is no longer associated with Taia Global Inc. Possibly a one or two sentence mention with a better source is acceptable. Objective3000 (talk) 15:47, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
OpposeJeffrey Carr is barely notable, and this opinion column by the former TV columnist of a lesser-tier newspaper doesn't elevate JC's expertise to anything near significant enough to publish in Misplaced Pages. And how reliable is the source when the columnist refers to Carr as being CEO of this defunct wannabe cyberstartup that apparently raised a total of $80,000 venture capital funding before its demise? Talk is cheap, but WP is not. Lesser opinion columnists will smile-and-dial until they get some fodder for an op-ed, but consider the source. And the biases that (however unfortunately) select against the best expert comment appearing in the least expert publications. SPECIFICOtalk16:31, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Support - per WP:NPOV, but agree with MrX that a couple of sentences is sufficient. Other sources that quote Carr include: Associated Press, PBS Newshour, McClatchy and Arstechnica, not in depth coverage from these particular sources mentioned, but still enough to indicate that Carr's opinion was given some weight, and with the additional sources listed above I believe that a couple of sentences is warranted per WP:DUEWEIGHT. Prior to this (in 2014 and 2015), Carr's opinion has also been featured in Newsweek and CNN.Isaidnoway(talk)16:54, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Support – Carr was not the only one pointing out that the incriminated hacking tools were freely available to anybody, and not exclusive to people connected to Russian intelligence services; a bunch of cybersecurity experts have cast legitimate doubt on the inferences attributing the DNC hacks to Russian sources, e.g. John McAfee and Kevin Poulsen come to mind. However I think we can do with shorter prose, and we don't need to repeat Carr's statements about CrowdStrike's reputation. Here's proposed text with other sources: — JFG16:59, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Cybersecurity analyst Jeffrey Carr stated that CrowdStrike's inferences pointing at the Russian intelligence services were baseless because the incriminated X-Agent tool was freely available for anyone to download. Wordfence and Errata Security noted that the PHP malware referenced in the JAR was an out-of-date version "used by hundreds if not thousands of hackers, mostly associated with Russia, but also throughout the rest of the world."
Um, gee. This RfC is about Carr. Let's try to stay focused here. RfC should be closed, since nobody really seems to think Carr is a notable cyberexpert security guy. SPECIFICOtalk17:07, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Oppose undue weight, marginal notability of Carr, and doubtful relevance of Ukrainian howitzers to DNC hacking. Geogene (talk) 17:11, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Support: Carr has been cited by a number of newspapers, as well as the wire agency AP (). In connection with another cybersecurity story, he's recently been cited by the New York Times as well (), so he's clearly regarded as an expert commentator by at least several newspapers. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:05, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Support per TFD. Anyone who doubts he's notable should check out his bio and mentions here, here (there are more) and of course the Miami Herald. He is on of the more notable and knowledgeable voices on the issue. Keep in mind however that the malware fingerprint was not the only evidence found. So Carr can cast doubt on some of Crowdstrike's findings, but the he never said that the evidence was nonexistent, only that it is less conclusive than some think. Editors who are afraid that readers might misinterpret the proposed text as saying that no evidence exists, should actually take a moment to learn something topic and summarize the existing evidence for the readers — instead of trying to keep notable minority view points out. Guccisamsclub (talk) 19:44, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Oppose. Here is text under discussion. It tells, among other things, that CrowdStrike itself was found by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in 2017 to have used data erroneously to falsely accuse Russia of being responsible for hacking a Ukrainian military artillery app. (ref). First of all, that is irrelevant to the subject of this page. Second, after reading the source, it appears that a report by CrowdStrike (on a different subject!) was disputed and needed some corrections, but was not actually wrong. This suggestion looks like a poisoning the well. My very best wishes (talk) 20:25, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
@My very best wishes: My proposed shorter text addresses your objections, nothing to do with Ukraine indeed, and no undue criticism of CrowdStrike; would you support that? — JFG05:43, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
Oppose as proposed per several editors above. Yes, per MVBW, this is just a thinly veiled attempt at a POV poisoning the well. Yes, per Geogene, the person is not really notable. On the other hand if this can be properly worded - perhaps the way that Guccisamsclub suggest with the "less conclusive" conclusion actually in the text then maybe.Volunteer Marek (talk) 06:14, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
Minor include - google is showing me reports about these on VOA, PBS, Politifact, Harpers, Wired, Ars Technica, Slate, Mother Jones, Daily Mail, News Day, .... so has some mainstream presence. But the quantity of mentions is much smaller and the ones I looked at had him as a brief bit, more of a side remark about a dissenting voice in a larger article. So I'd say shoot for a minor include is OK, but kind of optional and not to be done if there is something else giving doubts with larger prominence. Markbassett (talk) 00:08, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
User:SPECIFICO Yes, as I recall basically Google turned them up from '"Jeffrey Carr" russia hacking', and then I paged thru and noted the URLs of places that seemed notable, and read the google snippet and clicked thru to read detail sometimes. (If you want a specific one then make it '"Jeffrey Carr" russia hacking VOA' or whatever.) Again, those seemed mostly to give him just a brief mention -- but that he is noted by them seemed some WP:WEIGHT. Markbassett (talk) 19:35, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
Support including Carr's claims given his reputation and coverage of the claim (Miami Herald, Fortune and particularly Harper's.) Wait for additional sourcing on International Institute for Strategic Studies report – VOA is borderline. James J. Lambden (talk) 20:27, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
Oppose This isn't even mentioned in our article on Carr. If this fringey opinion is mentioned at all in WP it should be there, not here. See WP:ONEWAY. Jytdog (talk) 20:43, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
@K.e.coffman: What the article really needs is balance. While the article should be substantially shortened (it's become a coatrack for everything Russia-related in US politics), we shouldn't be excluding only material which is critical of the allegations made by US intelligence agencies. The significant criticism of US intelligence reports should be noted in the article. The article is chock-full of lengthy quotes from US intelligence, and has a separate section for nearly every single allegation that some person is connected to Russia. Until that bloat is addressed, I don't think we should be paring down the underrepresented dissenting viewpoints. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:14, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
I would support JFG's text proposal as well-sourced and one of a number of other critical commentaries that should likely appear in the article. -Darouet (talk) 23:02, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
SUPPORT if it's weighted appropriately with other sources. I'm not persuaded that the Miami Herald isn't sufficiently a reliable source for this information, and somewhat surprised that came up as an issue. Voice of America is definitely a WP:RS. If we use Crowdstrike as a source to document facts in this article, their credibility is an issue. It's really important for our readers to get a balanced presentation of facts on contentious issues. It deserves brief mention with reliable sources cited so readers can read the stuff that doesn't fit in a summary weighted with the other information. loupgarous (talk) 23:40, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
Mostly oppose I don't have strong opinions about whether or not Carr's opinion is included, but I'm opposed to attacking CrowdStrike because of an updated report to "corroborate" someone's opinion per WP:SYNTH. It's akin to attacking a source because it issued a correction on an unrelated story, which is actually a signal of fact-checking per WP:RS. Gravity22:50, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
If we have one bunch of "industry outsiders" opinions I see no reason why we should not have another.Slatersteven (talk) 12:55, 17 April 2017 (UTC):However your text, I think, does not reflect very well what the source says.Slatersteven (talk) 12:59, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Carr was not really "speculating" about anything at all but describing problems with CrowdStrike's report and how it does not amount to proof. And we already include citations from several "industry outsiders" expressing degrees of agreement with the CrowdStrike report. Adlerschloß (talk) 13:37, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Objective3000, indeed it is opinion not fact. But so is the entire story. And weight requires us to report opinions. TFD (talk) 15:47, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Note: Adlerschloß, you need to indicate in your OP what "information from Carr" you are talking about, who "Carr" is, what "CrowdStrike report" you are talking about, and what "information from IISS" you are talking about. Otherwise, this RfC is completely incomprehenible and invalid. Softlavender (talk) 14:04, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Regarding additional reliable sources requested by MrX, Carr's viewpoints were also discussed in Harper's and Fortune . These discuss more than just the CrowdStrike report but would be appropriate to include in the same section (Cybersecurity analysis). Adlerschloß (talk) 14:21, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Regarding Softlavender's remarks alleging the Miami Herald to be unreliable for reasons of geography, I will point out that Mar-a-Lago is 90 miles away from Miami, and that the Miami Herald endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in the 2016 election: Adlerschloß (talk) 14:54, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
That doesn't matter. Trump won the election and is in power, and that regional newspaper is his regional newspaper. Carr lives in Seattle. The fact that only the Miami Herald would interview him is telling, as is the fact that he is the founder of a failed cybersecurity startup, and the fact that he only posts on Medium (a blogsite) and LinkedIn. Softlavender (talk) 15:10, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
MMfA has mentioned the coverage. I note that no other papers have picked up the story from the Miami Herald, so we need to be sure that we be clear the story has had limited mainstream coverage, but was widely reported in right-wing sources, the Daily Mail and RT. TFD (talk) 16:30, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
It's disruptive to jump from one bad edit to a month-long RfC struggling to shoehorn Carr back into the article. It's already well-established consensus on this talk page that JC is not RS this stuff. SPECIFICOtalk16:33, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
We are not using Carr as a source, we are using the Miami Herald. Note that reliability relates to facts, while the issue is whether to include his opinion, which is an issue of weight alone. Whether or not his opinion should be mentioned is decision of reliable secondary sources, such as the Miami Herald.TFD (talk) 17:35, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
The Miami Herald opinion columnist's references to Carr's bio read like out-of-date material from Carr's LinkedIn page. "International cybersecurity expert" etc. Entrepreneur etc. Grey Goose etc. All defunct. From the best available information, JC appears to be a retiree who may be available to answer the phone for a journalist but is hardly in the loop these days. SPECIFICOtalk00:50, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
The Miami Herald article referenced is not a column, but a news article appearing in their national section. And as other references in above discussion and survey indicate, Carr's analysis on this subject is considered noteworthy by many reliable sources. Adlerschloß (talk) 05:43, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
Regarding remarks by Myverybestwishes accusing me of bad faith edits -- it is potentially valid to argue that the erroneous CrowdStrike report on Ukraine is irrelevant to this specific article (although I disagree, as VOA in two separate articles linked these errors to CrowdStrike's narrative on election interference), but you are not accurate in flatly stating that CrowdStrike's report "wasn't wrong" in some objective sense. CrowdStrike retracted their allegations of combat losses caused by a military artillery app hack (their false reading of IISS data was the premise behind their overall narrative) while not retracting their larger claim that a hack occurred (although per their corrections it would seem they argue a hack occurred that was meaningless or had no tangible effect); but the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense argues that neither the combat losses nor the hack occurred at all, see: Adlerschloß (talk) 09:41, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
I do believe you misinterpreted these sources, possibly because you did not read them carefully. Here is your link, and here is "retraction" by CrowdStrike your source refers to. This "retraction" tells, According to an update ... the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost between 15% and 20% of their pre-war D–30 inventory in combat operations and This previously unseen variant of X-Agent represents FANCY BEAR’s expansion in mobile malware ... reveals one more component of the broad spectrum approach to cyber operations taken by Russia-based actors in the war in Ukraine. It further tells (as relates to the subject of this page): The collection of such tactical artillery force positioning intelligence by FANCY BEAR further supports CrowdStrike’s previous assessments that FANCY BEAR is likely affiliated with the Russian military intelligence (GRU), and works closely with Russian military forces operating in Eastern Ukraine and its border regions in Russia. This is not retraction, as also clear from reading your link/source completely, instead of indiscriminately citing only the first phrase. My very best wishes (talk) 16:33, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
My Very Best Wishes mentions that the IISS criticizes CrowdStrike for another analysis supposedly unrelated to the current one and therefore we cannot mention it. But it is a reasonable assumption that if a CrowdStrike has been wrong in the past they are less likely to be right now. Not something we can say, but a conclusion in a reliable source that we can report. Unless one subscribes to the gambler's fallacy. TFD (talk) 04:23, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
Also a tiny minority viewpoint, far out of line with coverage in the bulk of sources. I don't see how the alleged hacking in Ukraine relates to the DNC hacks, and I also don't see how CrowdStrike's choice of sources for Ukrainian battlefield casualty rates are related to its competency (or lack of it) in regards to cybersecurity. As far as I know, they aren't in the kind of business that Stratfor or Jane's Defence Weekly are in. So all of this seems like a tremendous stretch on both counts. Geogene (talk) 23:07, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
I hope you were joking about mean reversion. Our article on that topic clearly defines it as "the assumption that a stock's price will tend to move to the average price over time". Mean reversion depends on sound inferences drawn from huge amounts of financial data. Crowdstrike's record of accuracy vs. inaccuracy is a very small data set compared to that. In evaluating the record of an intelligence analysis firm (or any other source or processor of intelligence) you have to rely on their record. I don't think that Crowdstrike's inaccuracies in one field are irrelevant to their overall reliability as a source of information, either. loupgarous (talk) 02:09, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
Not exactly joking, just trying to point out how preposterous was the reference to "gambler's fallacy" in a content/sourcing discussion here. SPECIFICOtalk02:18, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
Strange closure
Ok. How the hell was this closed with "consensus to include". I count 10 opposes and 9 supports. Maybe I'm off by one or two, but it's pretty clear that's not consensus. Will people who have no idea what they're doing, who are NOT admins, and whose accounts are less than barely one year old PLEASE stop closing RfCs. It's sort of ridiculous. @Music1201:.Volunteer Marek (talk) 17:08, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
RfCs are determined not just by vote count, but also by the strength of the arguments. The arguments that Carr is not an expert, or that his view is too fringe to be mentioned are contradicted by the fact that he has been cited as an expert by several reliable sources. One of the objections to including Carr's criticism was literally that he doesn't have access to classified info - an argument that would prevent any criticism that does not come from within the US intelligence agencies from being included in this article. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:25, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
No, I'm calling total bunk on this closure. You have an account which was started only in March 2016. Its first edits were to "Government of Russia" and "Russian Federation". It then ran up its edit count by doing mindless automated edits (deletion relistings) to get autoconfirmed. It then starts making controversial closures for RfC on these topics (the one on Murder of Seth Rich is another one). It's not an admin. It's not an established account. The charitable interpretation is that it doesn't know what it's doing.
And we have had extensive discussion both in the RfC and in several other places about Carr. How anyone could get out of that that there's "consensus to include" is beyond me. I don't particularly care to rehash all the arguments - yes, obviously you think your own arguments have more merit than those of those who disagree with you. That's sort of what happens when people disagree. But don't sit there and try to tell me that this RfC was closed "on the strength of arguments". Like I said, bunk.
"Strange" is a very polite way to put it. There's not a shred of consensus to include this random nonsense in an article so rich with real, well-sourced material vying for inclusion. Quick Henry, the Flit. SPECIFICOtalk19:09, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
"Obstruction of justice investigation" subsection
IMO the current subsection titled "Obstruction of justice investigation" includes way too much detail. The first paragraph, about the investigation itself, is appropriately straightforward and to the point. But the remaining four paragraphs spell out the entire scenario in excruciating detail; I think that material could be trimmed by at least half for purposes of this article. All the detail is spelled out at "Dismissal of James Comey" and "Comey memos". I think some of the minutiae could be removed, leaving something like this:
Comey has accused Trump of suggesting, in a private conversation on February 14, that Comey drop the investigation into Mike Flynn. Comey discussed the incident with other FBI leaders and wrote a detailed contemporary memo about it.. Comey created similar memos about every phone call and meeting he had with the president.
Earlier, senior White House officials had reportedly asked intelligence officials to intervene to stop the FBI investigation into Michael Flynn. In March, Trump is reported to have personally discussed the FBI's Russia investigation with Coats and CIA DirectorMike Pompeo, asking if they could intervene with Comey to limit or stop it. Coats later said "I have never felt pressured to intervene in the Russia investigation in any way."
White House officials reportedly asked the FBI in February to issue a statement that there had been no contact between Trump associates and Russian intelligence sources during the 2016 campaign. Trump himself reportedly asked both Rogers and Coats in March to speak out publicly if they had seen no evidence of collusion. Both Coats and Rogers believed that the request was inappropriate, though not illegal, and did not make the requested statement. The two exchanged notes about the incident, and Rogers made a contemporary memo to document the request.
I think this should be a separate page. If it was recently deleted (I am not sure), it should be recreated. Otherwise we should keep everything on this page, which is probably not the best solution. My very best wishes (talk) 17:40, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
Yes, the concept of a separate page was opposed at AfD: Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Obstruction of justice investigation of Donald Trump. Looking more at the history here, I now see the reason there is so much detail is because all that material was moved here from the previous subsection, "White House attempts to infuence the investigation". In that case maybe we do need to keep most of the detail. In any case I think we can eliminate the paragraph about how Comey arranged for the memo to be publicized. Irrelevant to this page and this subsection. --MelanieN (talk) 17:53, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
We very well may need such a page at some point. I personally don't think we have reached that point yet; we really know very little about what the special counsel is doing. But you could always try creating one and see if it receives the same reception as the "obstruction of justice" page did. There are probably others here who would help you with it. Before you do, I suggest you investigate how previous special counsel investigations have been handled - and if they had separate articles, how they were titled. --MelanieN (talk) 18:27, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
As I said above: if you are thinking about creating such an article, I suggest you investigate how previous special counsel investigations have been handled - whether they had separate articles, and if so, how they were titled. (I very much doubt that such a title would sound like the one you suggested.) Once someone has decided to do it and selected an appropriate title, they could create it either as a new article or by expanding and renaming the "team" article - which would probably be preferable. My personal opinion is that this subject is not yet mature enough for an article, but anyone who thinks we need one is free to create it. --MelanieN (talk) 02:45, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
If it's not "mature enough for an article", then it's not mature enough for deletion of any of its content. Per PRESERVE, we should continue to develop the content until it creates an undue weight situation, whereupon the normal procedure is to WP:SPINOFF that content into a sub-article. If we keep deleting, rather than preserving, we are acting in bad faith toward the hard work of editors and failing in our mission to document "the sum of all human knowledge" ("Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." - Jimmy Wales) -- BullRangifer (talk) 07:07, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
The deleted article "Obstruction of justice investigation of Donald Trump" was originally called "Donald Trump's Attempted Russian Investigation Interference" and the name was changed after the investigation became public. The objection was with the article as originally conceived. Although the creator tried to save it by changing the title and topic, it was better to start again. So there is nothing to prevent an article about the investigation. TFD (talk) 03:26, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
As I state above, we should keep on developing the content here until a need for a sub-article becomes obvious, literally until we are forced to do it. It's already a large subject, and can get much larger. The subject, as such, is already considered much more significant than the Watergate scandal, and we have an article (probably several) about that debacle and its consequences. We can get ideas from that article when creating a sub-article here. -- BullRangifer (talk) 07:07, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
Clapper's comments are really strange: one day he says all the agencies he supervised found no evidence of collusion between Trump or his people with Russians, another day he says this situation is worse than Watergate. Does he realize how hard he makes the work of lowly wikipedians? — JFG08:00, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
Yes, all this can be confusing. We must keep in mind that part of investigators' job is to not reveal everything to a suspect. They keep their cards close. The last sentence below is very telling:
SECULOW: .... The president is not and has not been under investigation.
DICKERSON: How do you know?
SEKULOW: Because we've received no notice of investigation. There has been no notification from the special counsel's office that the president is under investigation. In fact, to the contrary. What we know is what James Comey said, the last thing we know is when he testified just a couple weeks back. That the President was not and is not a target of investigation.
DICKERSON: Of course, there have been events since James Comey told them that. But is it your view and just to educate viewers that- that if you were under investigation, there would be an obligation for the special counsel to let you know. Couldn't you be under investigation and they're just not letting you know yet? (Emphasis added)
Yeah, that was fun to watch… Bottom line, if we stick to facts, we have leaks to the WaPo saying "Trump is on the hook bigly" on one side, and Trump's lawyer saying "I'm not aware of anything new" on the other side. This was adequately summarized at Talk:Donald Trump#Quick survey on obstruction of justice investigation, with the wording ''The Washington Post later reported that within days of Comey's dismissal, the FBI started investigating whether Trump had obstructed justice. Trump's lawyer Jay Sekulow stated that he had not been notified of any such investigation. I suggest we use the same wording here. — JFG09:36, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
Sekulow, Jay (June 18, 2017). "Transcript: Jay Sekulow on "Face the Nation," June 18, 2017". Face the Nation (Interview). Interviewed by John Dickerson. CBS News. Retrieved June 19, 2017. SEKULOW: The president is not and has not been under investigation. DICKERSON: How do you know? SEKULOW: Because we've received no notice of investigation. There has been no notification from the special counsel's office that the president is under investigation.
December 2016 FBI / DHS Joint Analysis Report
I have removed the cherry-picked quote here that implies that no evidence exists, rather than correctly representing the source's contention that evidence may exist but there are reasons why it might not have been given, and that this has also happened in the North Korea hack. Yes, I remember that we did discuss this. We did not agree to Thucydides' version. If we're going to re-negotiate, that source is now six months old and is probably WP:UNDUE at this point. Geogene (talk) 23:01, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
Whether a particular analysis of the intelligence report is DUE or UNDUE does not depend on its age. The intelligence reports themselves have the exact same age, and no new evidence has been presented so far. Ergo, neither the reports nor the contemporary viewpoints about them are obsolete. — JFG03:40, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
The quote is representative of Goodin's article, and so in no way "cherry-picked." The article itself is a summary of what various cybersecurity experts wrote about the JAR. In short, it's a very good summary of how experts viewed the JAR.
"We did not agree to Thucydides' version." I don't know who that "We" refers to, but a majority of editors were in favor of inclusion. "If we're going to re-negotiate, " What's this talk of re-negotiation? A whole number of editors gave their opinions on whether to include the Goodin article, and the result was in favor of inclusion. There wasn't then, and isn't now a logical rationale for excluding it. We cite all sorts of sources that are more than six months old in this article - age doesn't disqualify a source.
I'm astonished at how much opposition there is to including a single sentence describing how experts generally viewed the JAR. It's a symptom of a wider problem here - against any sort of cautious language or doubt. -Thucydides411 (talk) 08:37, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
Because he's a journalist who's written on these issues for many years for reputable news organizations. His article summarizes what a number of cybersecurity experts have written about the JAR. Why do you keep questioning this particular journalist's credentials? -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:33, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
A non-notable writer who works for a website that reviews the latest video card for geeks and gamers. How many editors have challenged this cherry-picked, misrepresented, undue nonsense? 5? 7? 12? I've lost count. Don't put it back w/o consensus -- which was clearly NOT achieved in any previous discussion. SPECIFICOtalk21:40, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
WP:NOTABILITY has nothing to do with whether or not we cite a specific source. The relevant policies are WP:RS and WP:WEIGHT. Ars Technica is a reliable source. The Goodin article reviews the mainstream view of experts about the JAR. Briefly presenting this mainstream view in a section specifically about the JAR is not only in line with WP:WEIGHT, but is actually demanded by the policy.
Finally, there was a discussion with many editors, in which the majority favored inclusion. Yes, there are editors who object strongly to citing the Goodin article, but there are more editors who agree with its inclusion. More importantly, there haven't been any good reasons articulated for not citing the article: WP:NOTABILITY has nothing to do with whether or not we cite a reliable source, the fact that a journalist working for a WP:RS has never been employed (as far as we know) by a US intelligence service doesn't mean we can't cite them when they cover criticism of a US intelligence report, and the accusations about misrepresenting the source are simply false - the source is represented accurately.
There was a majority in favor of including this source. Removing it over and over again, despite that, is simply disruptive. -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:00, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
"Majority" is not the same as WP:CONSENSUS. It is perfectly appropriate to remove it until there is a clear determination of consensus for inclusion. If you are aware of any such determination of consensus, kindly provide a link to it.- MrX23:18, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
There was an extensive discussion of this issue. Unless there's some compelling reason you can present to disregard the majority opinion, it's disruptive at this point to delete the content at issue. Otherwise, the implication is that anyone can delete anything they'd like, regardless of what most editors think, and claim that majority doesn't mean consensus. We had a discussion, and people here should respect it.
You're welcome to continue arguing against citing Goodin, if you can present some reasonable policy-based argument, but simply deleting the material, against the majority opinion, would be disruptive.
Again, I simply don't understand the vehement opposition to citing Goodin. Everyone here acknowledges that the Ars Technica article represents the mainstream view of experts on the JAR, right? And everyone here acknowledges that the JAR section should mention the mainstream view of the report, right? What's the argument about? -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:39, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
Oh no, the time of publication is very much relevant, especially if something has been disproved by later publications. And it does not matter if it was an intelligence report, a scientific publication or whatever. The outdated materials can be undue. My very best wishes (talk) 00:07, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
@My very best wishes: Could you kindly point us to those "later publications"? I have read this argument "it's old and irrelevant" many times, but I haven't seen actual new information published since January, either on the IC analysis or from the IT community. If there is indeed something new, let's cover it, and readers would be enlightened. — JFG04:42, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
Sorry, are you actually claiming that: Everyone here acknowledges that the Ars Technica article represents the mainstream view of experts on the JAR, right? There is no way I would agree with that and it would shock me if the majority, much less ALL, agree with this. It’s absurd on its face. Objective3000 (talk) 00:17, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
I'm telling you that I don't understand the extreme opposition to citing Goodin, and I'm trying to figure out why this opposition exists. The problem is that the reasons given simply make no sense:
the source is too old - since when does being 6 months old disqualify a source from being used on Misplaced Pages, let alone this page?
Goodin isn't a former US intelligence employee - neither are most journalists, and Misplaced Pages isn't obliged to give only US gov't views
unspecified later publications contradict the source - I don't think such sources exist, because nobody's ever linked them here
So given your response, I take it you don't think the Ars Technica aritcle represents the mainstream view of experts. Goodin cites three cybersecurity experts. The Süddeutsche Zeitung article cited in our JAR section says similar things to what Goodin's article says, and cites one of the same experts as Ars Technica, in addition to two further experts. Even the Daily Beast writer, who's obviously sympathetic to the view that Russia interfered in the US election, says that the JAR failed to make the case. In other words, the Ars Technica article seems to represent a mainstream view of the JAR. What alternative sources suggest that this is a fringe view? -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:49, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
Try finding mainstream sources that doubt the Russian interference. Mainstream views needn't be cited to marginal sources. SPECIFICOtalk16:05, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
Ars Technica isn't a marginal source. It's a reliable source. If you think otherwise, bring the issue to WP:RSN. I don't understand how your first sentence is relevant to the discussion here regarding the Ars Technica article. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:46, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
Why did you leave out that Goodin gave possible reasons for that evidence being withheld. Further, the article said that the US intelligence also declined to give evidence of NK's involvement in the Sony hacks. This is part of a pattern: the US government apparently does not see giving hackers a master class in how to avoid their scrutiny as part of its mandate. And that specific quote uses "analysis" where it should say "report", which makes it appear that the government does not actually have evidence, as opposed to not publishing it in that unclassified report. Geogene (talk) 16:06, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
"Why did you leave out that Goodin gave possible reasons for that evidence being withheld." Because that was a minor point in the Ars Technica article, which spends most of its space arguing that the JAR does not convincingly make the case, and which is titled, "White House fails to make case that Russian hackers tampered with election." With a single sentence to spare, including a minor point in the article would be undue. In any case, this possibility is mentioned already in our section on the JAR, in the paragraph directly above.
"And that specific quote uses "analysis" where it should say "report". I think it's clear that Ars Technica is reporting on the published analysis. What impression readers get from the lack of evidence in the JAR is up to them. I wouldn't modify a direct quote from Ars Technica in order to give the impression that the classified report contains stronger evidence of Russian interference. We don't know if the classified report does contain stronger evidence, and Ars Technica wrote the article the way it did. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:44, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
Proposing a section for Criticism
I am tired of the back and forth, as I'm sure most of us are. I think a helpful solution might be to include a section (in the main article) for those that have RS' that do not follow the mainstream narrative. Feel free to ignore this suggestion if you feel it is not merited, but I think it would be better to discuss why you disagree here. DN (talk) 23:27, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
@Geogene: I meant talking about it in this section of the talk page, and creating a Criticism section in the article. Thanks for reminding me to clarify. DN (talk) 01:07, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
I appreciate your attempt to put an end to the repetitive and insistent complaints, but I think this is not a good idea. WP tries to represent viewpoints according to the weight of RS accounts. We should not make a separate area for fringe POV's that do not warrant such weight here. SPECIFICOtalk00:31, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
Can you make a clear statement of what you are suggesting? Or, define what you mean by “mainstream narrative”? I don’t think that’s really a meaningful term. Objective3000 (talk) 00:41, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
I think there may be reliable sources that have notable content relevant to the article that disagrees with the evidence. Take Putin's stance for example. I realize there is already a section for his rebukes, and although I have not seen much else worth mentioning, that isn't to say it doesn't exist. The "mainstream narrative" is more or less from an US POV. I'm not saying it's necessarily WP:DUE, I'm just trying to find a compromise, by creating a space for RS sources that "don't agree", which would probably include mainly non-US sources. I realize I'm probably stretching, but it's all in the name of trying to create consensus, and thus a more cohesive editing environment. Thanks for the questions! DN (talk) 01:07, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
The biggest problem, in my opinion, is that what the "mainstream narrative" is has never been determined. There are editors here who insist that the mainstream describes Russian interference as an established fact, but they haven't shown that most reliable sources treat it this way, or been able to explain why we should present the issue in a different manner than major news agencies like BBC, Reuters, Associated Press, Le Monde and Süddeutsche Zeitung. I don't think this article represents the mainstream narrative, but rather the most strident possible narrative.
In general, however, rather than a separate "Criticism" section, we should have a proper balance and appropriately cautious treatment of the subject within each section. -Thucydides411 (talk) 08:44, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
Actually I prefer to have "criticism" sections, it makes it easier to find it. But I am not sure it is that big an issueSlatersteven (talk) 09:38, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
We don't need a separate "Criticism" section; we just need to acknowledge that there are two diametrically opposed viewpoints about this whole affair, and we must represent both fairly. For example, I just added a summary of somewhat virulent denials by Russian officials, because the "Vladimir Putin" section was only putting forward the US accusations, while the Russian response was relegated to the very last section of the article. This is NPOV 101, especially in international politics, it's not a question of mainstream vs fringe. I also added Putin's recent admission that "patriotic hackers" may have done the deed. Simple, really: A said X, B said Y; dear readers, make up your own mind. — JFG09:46, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
I am sure the proposer does not want to create section Criticism of Russian interference. Of course the "interference" was bad and it was criticized a lot. They probably want to create section Denials of Russian interference. This is not unreasonable given other notable denials. The denials are already included on the page (e.g. here), but there is no separate section. If it will be created (I am not sure) it must include denials by the Trump administration, along with denials by Putin. My very best wishes (talk) 21:07, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
Last sentence of lede
@Volunteer Marek: You added this sentence at the end of the lede section: After the firing of James Comey, in addition to investigations into possible financial crimes by Trump associates, the special counsel reportedly started an investigation into whether Trump engaged in obstruction of justice. I have a couple of problems with this. First, it's not an investigation, it's a preliminary inquiry. ("Investigation" and "inquiry" may seem like a distinction without a difference to most of us, but it's highly significant to the FBI). Second, the special counsel didn't start it; there wasn't even a special counsel at the time; the FBI started it. Third and most important, do either of these things - obstruction of justice and financial crimes by Trump associates - really belong in an article about Russian interference in the election, much less in the lede? Are they really part of this subject? What do others think? --MelanieN (talk) 20:20, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
Are you talking about this edit? I can not answer for VM and do not watch these events very closely, but (a) that was just a minor clarification of "obstruction" alredy included in the lead, and (b) here is the source used in the edit, and it tells in the title "Mueller investigating Trump for obstruction of justice, Washington Post reports". So, the edit does not strike me as something really POVish. Yes, it can be probably refined as you suggested. My very best wishes (talk) 21:19, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
The majority of sources seem to refer to it as an "investigation". Some also use the words "examining" or "inquiry". Yes, our sources (including congressional committees and various government agencies) routinely connect the obstruction of justice, the financial ties, and the Russia election interference. You are correct that the special counsel did not start the investigation. - MrX22:45, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
My main point was not "investigation", we can fix that by simple editing. And we can fix who started the inquiry. My real question is, does this sentence belong in this article at all? Are "obstruction of justice" and "financial crimes by associates" relevant tl "Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections"? They arose out of the same investigation, but they strike me as outside the parameters of this subject. --MelanieN (talk) 00:35, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
Yes, I believe that material falls within the scope of this article. It should be covered briefly here and expanded as more details emerge. At the same time, much of the material in this article is way too detailed, for example, the 'Commentary and reactions' section could be summarized in a couple of paragraphs and the rest of it spun-off into a new article.The 'James Comey testimony, June 8, 2017' could be condensed to a one sentence summary. 'Putin payroll conversation' has turned out to be nothing, so it could go entirely. When this is all over the article will no doubt look very different from how it does now. For now, I think we should trim content as we add more, but not necessarily reduce the overall scope.- MrX02:55, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
Yes, it is relevant to this article, albeit tangential. This is why I had reduced it to a shorter sentence for the lead. VM restored the earlier long version but said he's open to a different wording; we can discuss. Another option would be to spin off everything about investigation details into a new article, but this option gathered little support when it was proposed by me and others. — JFG04:52, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
For reference, my shortened wording was (talking about Mueller): He is reportedly considering whether to investigate Trump for potential obstruction of justice. I'm happy to discuss amendments. — JFG05:05, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
@MelanieN and Volunteer Marek: How about trimming VM's proposal down to the essentials? He reportedly started an investigation into whether Trump engaged in obstruction of justice. We already mention the dismissal and the investigations on Trump campaign associates earlier. — JFG07:25, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
Well, no actually that would be wrong. The assertions that such an investigation started have been watered down. I still believe my wording is the most accurate, but we could ditch the "reportedly" and "potential" because it seems well-established now that Mueller is considering an obstruction investigation (not actually started it), so here we go: He is considering whether to investigate Trump for obstruction of justice. — JFG07:30, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
Not encyclopoedic. It would save a lot of time and trouble not to write an article as a news flash bulletin for web surfers. I thought this was about an earlier last sentence in the lede. This one is on topic, but shorter is better. Like "After the firing of James Comey, numerous sources reported that Special Counsel Mueller launched an investigation into whether Trump's actions constituted obstruction of justice. SPECIFICOtalk 11:50, 23 June 2017 (UTC) revised SPECIFICOtalk17:29, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
I still think we should leave it out of the lede. It is only peripherally related to the subject of this article, which is Russian interference in the election. Obstruction of justice is briefly mentioned in the article text; it is not relevant enough for the lede IMO. If consensus is to add a sentence, which it appears to be, I will leave the wording to others. (Except that it is false to say that he started an investigation. Doubly false. He didn't start it, and it isn't an "investigation" as the FBI uses the word.) --MelanieN (talk) 15:25, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
Absolutely disagree. The obstruction of justice is over the firing of Comey which was ... "over the Russia thing". It's very much related to this article. And indeed, we have a whole section on it. Gonna restore it.Volunteer Marek (talk) 17:02, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
@Volunteer Marek: Why did you restore your original sentence from days ago - After the firing of James Comey, in addition to investigations into possible financial crimes by Trump associates, the special counsel started an investigation into whether Trump engaged in obstruction of justice - when there has been extensive discussion here of better wording? There does appear to be consensus to add a sentence, but not this sentence. As I have pointed out several times, this sentence contains two falsehoods - there is not an investigation, there is a preliminary inquiry into whether to start an investigation - and the special counsel did not start it, they continued an inquiry which was begun by the FBI before there even was a special counsel. And nobody here has endorsed the first couple of clauses in your sentence. I am going to remove it until we have consensus here what to say, and I caution you to pay more attention to discussion. --MelanieN (talk) 17:37, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
Well, partly because of your comment above "Looks like consensus is to keep VM's sentence, or at least a sentence which includes these elements.". If not this sentence, which sentence? Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:35, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
Duty to PRESERVE properly sourced content and BUILD, not break down, the encyclopedia
A couple of my comments above seem to have been ignored, so now we are seeing large amounts of content being deleted, especially by MelanieN. That's not right. While my comments were about one section, the principle applies to all content. This is a HUGE subject, and as we learn more and document it, we will need to spin-off content into sub-articles. If we delete it, we will not know if such sub-articles are needed because we have been discarding valuable information and sources, thus creating holes in our coverage of "the sum of all human knowledge". We're writing history, and it must be complete, not sketchy.
Here's what I wrote:
Per WP:PRESERVE, we should not delete, but move it (per WP:SPINOFF), either to a more appropriate article or its own sub-article....
If it's not "mature enough for an article", then it's not mature enough for deletion of any of its content. Per PRESERVE, we should continue to develop the content until it creates an undue weight situation, whereupon the normal procedure is to WP:SPINOFF that content into a sub-article. If we keep deleting, rather than preserving, we are acting in bad faith toward the hard work of editors and failing in our mission to document "the sum of all human knowledge" ("Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." - Jimmy Wales) -- BullRangifer (talk) 07:07, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
The good faith efforts of editors must not be trashed, and properly sourced content should not be deleted. We want to build content and not lose RS which have been found. Our duty is to follow normal procedure and spin-off excess material, not delete it. -- BullRangifer (talk) 02:48, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
We are also not obliged to replicate the sum of human knowledge, rather we must distill key facts to make them intelligible and useful: Misplaced Pages is a good-quality human-curated filter. In this particular instance, it looks to me like the things removed by MelanieN and myself are perfectly preserved in several other articles. Duplication of content is a waste of editor time, and can be confusing to readers. See WP:SUMMARY, WP:OVERCITE and WP:Readers first.
Due to size and scope, I would support spinning off a new article that would be focused on the investigations while this one would remain focused on the Russian interference proper. I proposed this a few weeks back but it was rejected. Sagecandor proposed the same thing, and MelanieN said we should rather shorten this article than create spinoffs. Meanwhile, a few sections have been indeed shortened, and I created the spinoff Links between Trump associates and Russian officials which is stable. The day-to-day details of the investigations and media saga have been growing, though; I believe it's a good time to spin them off. But I also believe the same stories should not be repeated in Donald Trump, Presidency of Donald Trump, Dismissal of James Comey, Comey memos, etc. We need a global view where each article focuses on one thing well and connects to the other articles appropriately. — JFG04:33, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
Agree with everything stated above by BullRangifer. This is noteworthy. This is historic. This is encyclopedic. Whole books are already being written and ready for publication in the coming weeks about many of each of these individual topics. Sagecandor (talk) 04:42, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
We need to preserve what is RELEVANT to this article, yes. But the material I deleted was material which IMO has nothing to do with the subject, which need I remind you is "Russian interference in the election". And the material I deleted was not "discarded" or "trashed" or "lost". All of it is still present in the encyclopedia in at least one other article, in most cases two or three. We don't have to "preserve" every little detail redundantly in multiple articles, especially where those details are of little or no relevance to a particular article. To make clear what I am talking about: what I deleted from this article today, as unnecessary for any valid coverage of this subject, was: 1) the names of the attorneys hired by the special counsel (reported as of a particular date in time, and outdated almost as soon as posted, unless we are going to assign someone to keep the list up to date both here and on the dedicated article about them which is linked from the section); 2) the detailed story of how Comey arranged to have his memos made public (detailed in at least three other articles, and not in any way advancing the story about the Russian interference in the election); and 3) a quote from Preet Bharara about whether there is, or maybe is, or at least we can't say for sure there is not, evidence of obstruction of justice (IMO adding nothing of value to the section about obstruction of justice). I will put them back if there is consensus, but I want to see some kind of rationale for why that specific item needs to be in our article, besides just "we need to preserve" (every detail that anyone has ever inserted into any article?) As for a proposal to "spin off", there is no need to "spin off" material which is already present in several other articles here. In effect it has been "pre-spun off". --MelanieN (talk) 05:17, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
BTW I agree with what Mr. X said above: McCarthy's joke about Putin having Trump and Flynn on his payroll is a nothingburger and IMO could be deleted in its entirety. --MelanieN (talk) 05:24, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
And I thank JFG for saying it better than I did: But I also believe the same stories should not be repeated in Donald Trump, Presidency of Donald Trump, Dismissal of James Comey, Comey memos, etc. We need a global view where each article focuses on one thing well and connects to the other articles appropriately.. --MelanieN (talk) 05:35, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
Why remove it? It's good grammar. If we say just "concluded", that would beg for a definite timestamp, which we can't give in the lead sentence because the IC conclusions have been published in October 2016, December 2016 and January 2017 with various levels of detail. Not even counting what the press and politicians have said about those conclusions. 04:36, 22 June 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by JFG (talk • contribs)
The Clapper sentence in the lead section was removed by VM, re-added by me, then removed again by Sagecandor. This phrase was part of the consensus RfC about the lead, so it should not be removed without prior discussion; the RfC closer even made a note about this in the wikitext. Right now I can't restore it due to 1RR. Sagecandor, please self-revert, then let's all discuss the merits here. — JFG04:58, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
The RfC was posted on April 12. Yes, that was good version of lede for April 12 (agree with others). However, a lot of things had happen later. One should not use old RfCs to freeze content for dynamic subjects, such as that one. My very best wishes (talk) 20:15, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
Right. And the Clapper thing wasn't really part of the RfC it was just left in there for "one thing at a time" reasons. Elsewhere in discussions there was no consensus for its inclusion. Regardless it's outdated now.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:48, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
Clapper not knowing about the classified FBI investigation is being touted as something it's not -- exculpatory. Which it isn't. Clapper would not know the inner workings of an FBI investigation. Sagecandor (talk) 05:05, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
As DNI, Clapper supervised the FBI, CIA, NSA and others. He explicitly said that while he was in office (i.e. until January), none of the agencies he supervised had found any evidence of collusion. If you look at the detailed transcripts, he also said that he would have known; no need to know the "inner workings" for that, it was his job to get reports and assess the overall picture, and he did exactly that, forcefully confirming Russian interference while clearly negating Trump collusion. Of course, that doesn't disculp anything that may have surfaced after Clapper left, but we have other witnesses for that part (Comey, Feinstein, Burr, Nunes, Schiff etc.), and they are drifting off-topic from the Russian interference proper, so undue for this lead. — JFG05:10, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
The Director of National Intelligence does NOT supervise the FBI. The Department of Justice supervises the FBI. There is no reason to expect the DNI to know what the FBI is doing. --MelanieN (talk) 05:31, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
According to the FBI, "Within the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI is responsible to the attorney general, and it reports its findings to U.S. Attorneys across the country. The FBI’s intelligence activities are overseen by the Director of National Intelligence." Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:47, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
Sure, Clapper does not "supervise" the agencies, he "coordinates" them, that's why the ODNI was created in the first place after the 9/11 inquiries revealed lack of communications between various intelligence agencies. In this particular instance, Clapper, Brennan and Comey have met and coordinated their findings. Clapper then reported on this understanding. We have no credible reason to suppose that the FBI or another agency would be hiding some evidence from Clapper, so when he says they did not find evidence of Trump collusion while they found plenty of evidence of Russian meddling, we can only take his word. The journalist did push him to clarify both issues at that time. — JFG05:51, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
There is no theory and there is no edit-warring. There was some RfC-approved text; VM removed it, I restored it, now we discuss. During the discussion, the text should stay. — JFG14:21, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
Repetition is not engagement. WP:WEIGHT. The reason not to restore it is not only the DS restriction. It's that numerous editors have challenged the edit and it has no consensus. SPECIFICOtalk14:48, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
Verbatim from the interview transcript, after Todd asks about the evidence of collusion:
– Todd: But does it exist?
– Clapper: Not to my knowledge.
– Todd: If it existed, it would have been in this report?
– Clapper: This could have unfolded or become available in the time since I left the government. But at the time, we had no evidence of such collusion.
and later, speaking about the January report:
– Todd: So you feel like your report does not get to the bottom-- you admit your report that you released in January doesn't get to the bottom of this?
– Clapper: It did-- well, it got to the bottom of the evidence to the extent of the evidence we had at the time. Whether there is more evidence that's become available since then, whether ongoing investigations will be revelatory, I don't know.
Seems pretty clear-cut and supports the text that was removed: Clapper said that as of January 2017 the agencies he supervised had found no evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia. — JFG14:21, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
Amazing that Trump's self-same arguments end up appearing on Misplaced Pages, without attribution to Trump and his associates. Sagecandor (talk) 15:30, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
This quotation of Clapper contradicts other statements by the same Clapper and other summary in the lead. No wonder because this is a "mostly false claim" (as the source tells). This is not anything unusual. Politicians make a lot of various statements, and their statements change a lot depending on new data or other factors. This should be taken into account to produce a good summary in the lead. As written, this is contradictory and misleading. I would suggest to simply remove the phrase as something contradicting other statements by the same person and facts. My very best wishes (talk) 16:12, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
This is a case-in-point illustrating why WP must not cherrypick from the thousands of public snippets by government and political officials. SPECIFICOtalk17:59, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
Just to reply to JFG's claim that "Clapper would have known" if the FBI had any evidence: actually the transcripts say the opposite. Per the PolitiFact citation, Asked about Trump’s tweet in a May 12 interview on MSNBC, Clapper explained that the director of national intelligence position would not necessarily offer a vantage point into FBI evidence. Clapper said that in his more than six years as DNI, he regularly deferred to the FBI when a counterintelligence investigation could possibly morph into a criminal investigation. "That was certainly the practice I followed here," he said of the FBI’s ongoing Russia investigation. "So it’s not surprising or abnormal that I would not have known about the investigation, or even more importantly, the content of that investigation." "So I don’t know if there was collusion or not," added Clapper, who resigned at the end of President Barack Obama’s term.
I think we should leave in a Clapper statement, but modify it to be more accurate. The proposed statement, Clapper said that as of January 2017 the agencies he supervised had found no evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia., is not entirely accurate. .How about Clapper stated that as of January 2017 he was not aware of any evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia. That's accurate, without getting into the weeds about his various statements. --MelanieN (talk) 21:10, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
What difference does it make what one man knew as of 6 months ago? What is the significance of that? We must not write in play-by-play mode. History will not record what Clapper knew in Jan 2017. I think its unencyclopedic to include news snippets that detract from the core narrative. SPECIFICOtalk01:36, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
People are still quoting him (and misquoting him) months later. Reliable sources think it's still relevant. Part of our job is not just to include notable information (as judged by volume and persistence of coverage) but to make it as accurate as possible. --MelanieN (talk) 04:14, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
Accuracy also means not overemphasizing cherry-picked quotes just because it's pushed out by an interested party with a conflict of interest who happens to be the chief executive of the U.S. Sagecandor (talk) 05:00, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
I would agree with MelanieN's proposed rephrasing: Clapper stated that as of January 2017 he was not aware of any evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia. — JFG07:22, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
Slightly outdated and misleading sources. There's also this recent fact-check though it's not about Clapper:
Trump has a point in that none of the investigations have made public any hard proof that Trump colluded with Russia during the presidential election – if there is any hard proof. – politifact.com, 2017-06-16
Yes, that seems to be an accurate summary of the findings in various investigations: nothing. — JFG22:57, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
I've restored consensus wording again. I used the specific wording per RFC but I would not oppose alternative wording or adding content similar to what was here if the content is properly sourced – using secondary sources – and if WP:WEIGHT is established. Politrukki (talk) 20:28, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
There obviously is not a consensus to include this - calling domething the "consensus version" because you favor it doesn't make it so. Personally, I oppose including this in the lede since Clapper has since said quite clearly that the meaning of the remark should not be over-stated. He was talking about what he knew at a specific moment, some time ago. Something that needs that many caveats is just not lede material imo. People have just seized on this quote because it appears to suggest something that Clapper has quite clearly said he didn't mean to say. Maybe it's ok for Fox news to misuse the quote that way but we should not be doing so. Fyddlestix (talk) 20:50, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
@Fyddlestix: Not quite correct: Clapper clearly said "we had no evidence of such collusion", including FBI, CIA and NSA in the "we". He somehow backtracked in May, saying there were perhaps things he didn't know, but in January Clapper, Brennan and Comey had insisted that they were coordinating their efforts closely and they all agreed on the reports' conclusions. Those conclusions purposely omitted any hint of collusion because, news flash from Clapper in March, they had no evidence. What a mess, these master spies… — JFG23:04, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
We should leave January-Clapper material out of the lead. We are not writing a play-by-play account. The article lead should reflect significant points, base on current knowledge. The Clapper material just distracts from the more important points. It's not noteworthy.- MrX21:39, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
OK, but if we leave this quote out, we need to give some update on the state of all these investigations: what is a good summary of "current knowledge" on their findings so far? — JFG22:57, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
By quote, I assume you mean this outdated snippet: "Clapper said that as of January 2017 the agencies he supervised had found no evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia." The fourth paragraph should include a summary of reports that Trump is being investigated for obstruction of justice (and why) and that he has lawyered up (and so has Pence).- MrX23:23, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
Yes, I mean that snippet, and I was asking what else can we say about the multiple investigations that have been underway for a year now? (6 months for the congressional ones) By the way, Trump is not being investigated for obstruction of justice, and even if he was, that is off-topic for the lead of Russian intervention. — JFG23:34, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
@MrX: I'm not sure, because all sources are anonymous, but the latest reports clarify that Mueller is merely considering whether to pursue the obstruction of justice track. I bet this particular source is a high-powered lawyer, given the lawyeresque cover-your-ass wording of their quote… — JFG20:11, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
Sources
Thomas, Pierre (June 19, 2017). "Where Things Stand with Special Counsel Mueller's Russia Probe". ABC News. According to sources familiar with the process ... n assessment of evidence and circumstances will be completed before a final decision is made to launch an investigation of the president of the United States regarding potential obstruction of justice.
I suggest a one word change which makes it clear it's not an exact quote:
Clapper stated clarified that as of January 2017 he was not aware of any evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia.
The RFC was held and closed a while ago, and new information/sources have surfaced since then (see sage's links above, for example). We should be guided by the most up to date sources, not by an outdated rfc. Fyddlestix (talk) 20:36, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
Looks like someone is attempting to order people to push out this so-called "NO COLLUSION! NO COLLUSION !" idea ... Sagecandor (talk) 13:48, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
The article specifically states they did not take it as him giving them a order. Seems like nothing, at least at the moment. PackMecEng (talk) 14:30, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
This is old news, and already covered at length in the article, in section "Allegations of pressure on investigators".— JFG14:37, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
This is new in that it has better sourcing now than previously. Worth a modification of the existing paragraph on the subject. I'll work on it. --MelanieN (talk) 14:59, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
Appears to reinforce that the president wants his underlings to push out the idea of no "collusion", as much as they possibly can. Sagecandor (talk) 15:01, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
Sagecandor, let's not speculate about who is releasing information or why. Let's just follow the sources. --MelanieN (talk) 17:20, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
I realize that people are struggling to write this as accurate and objective as possible. But it is difficult because a number of politicians are making a lot of partially contradictory and "politically correct" statements, such as "yes, but...". I would try to minimize their commentary. For example, "president asked them to deny that ...". OK, that is really important. We include that. Saying more is not necessary. After all, here is the title of the source: "Trump-Russia: U.S. Intelligence Chiefs Say President Told Them to Deny Campaign Collusion". My very best wishes (talk) 05:41, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
Election Hackers Altered Voter Rolls, Stole Private Data
Yes, we are going to want to put this in the article. Let's wait a day or two for sources to digest it; some reports are coming up with slightly different facts or a slightly different slant than others. Let's collect sources here. --MelanieN (talk) 04:10, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
Not much new here: testimony and article says that hackers were scanning for vulnerabilities. This happens millions of times every day on millions of servers. Article also says that no election system was actually affected. — JFG07:03, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
"The hacking of state and local election databases in 2016 was more extensive than previously reported"
"In one case, investigators found there had been a manipulation of voter data in a county database"
"nearly 90,000 records stolen by Russian state actors"
"the number of actual successful intrusions, where Russian agents gained sufficient access to attempt to alter, delete or download any information, was "less than a dozen""
The article does not say that no election system was actually affected. A voter database is obviously part of an election system.- MrX11:32, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
All fine and dandy. If that's the maximum extent of what the Russians have been able to do, their strike capabilities are greatly disappointing for a world power with many highly skilled programmers and networking specialists. Real hackers routinely steal millions of credit card records from supposedly well-secured payment infrastructures… For any humour-impaired colleagues reading this, I am NOT advocating placing anything like this in the article. — JFG15:48, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
This is something new and very serious. According to the publication, the hacking included "at least one successful attempt to alter voter information, and the theft of thousands of voter records that contain private information like partial Social Security numbers..." A malicious altering of voter information is a serious crime, and the personal information could be used to influence voters through social internet networks (as was debated in connection to these elections). However, we can not make any WP:SYN here and can only use something that RS explicitly say. My very best wishes (talk) 16:12, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
Obama’s secret struggle to punish Russia for Putin’s election assault
Wow, Nakashima / Entous strike again! If this report is accurate, why did Obama remain silent between August and election day? Oh, I see, the journalists explain: "Clinton held comfortable leads in major polls, and Obama expected that he would be transferring power to someone who had served in his Cabinet." We already knew Brennan pushed the whole story most aggressively, his name is not sufficiently mentioned in the article, imho. — JFG15:56, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
Well, on the silent part, this is more accurate to what the article says:
“The Dems were, ‘Hey, we have to tell the public,’ ” recalled one participant. But Republicans resisted, arguing that to warn the public that the election was under attack would further Russia’s aim of sapping confidence in the system.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) went further, officials said, voicing skepticism that the underlying intelligence truly supported the White House’s claims. Through a spokeswoman, McConnell declined to comment, citing the secrecy of that meeting.
Key Democrats were stunned by the GOP response and exasperated that the White House seemed willing to let Republican opposition block any pre-election move.
The lead section is a sea of blue, which makes it hard to read, compare WP:LEADLINK, and which also devalues the interesting links that a reader might actually want to follow (in contrast to terms like "Russian government" or "hacked" or "U.S. Senators"). I've removed eight links. Personally I feel we could do without a few more, though I know words can look "ordinary" but have an important special meaning, such as "high confidence" (usefully piped to "Analytic confidence"). Please see what you think. Bishonen | talk16:40, 23 June 2017 (UTC).
No, it says That report "captured Putin's specific instructions on the operation's audacious objectives - defeat or at least damage the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton." That is different than trying to elect Trump. It is widely reported and known that the Russians did not like Hillary and their work was to discredit her. Exposing the DNC was more appoint helping Bernie than Trump but fits the desire to damage Clinton. --DHeyward (talk) 02:21, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
The very first sentence of the source literally says: "A report Friday morning claims Russian President Vladimir Putin gave direct instructions to help elect Donald Trump president." This is not that difficult...- MrX
Which isn't in the report. It's obviously inference and if you read what they quoted, the report doesn't mention Trump and wording it that way here would be undue weight to a single view that is not widely held. There is nothing new here, which is easy to see as it's the same report from December. To quote it again as it's reported by the vast majority of sources as well as the intelligence agencies: That report "captured Putin's specific instructions on the operation's audacious objectives - defeat or at least damage the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton." It isn't hard and this single source that isn't pointing to anything new doesn't warrant changing the narrative from harming Clinton to helping Trump. The Russians were attempting to harm Clinton and that is not disputed or new. --DHeyward (talk) 05:47, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
The reliable source says it is. Feel free to contact CBS News to request a correction if you believe otherwise. You're analysis of the facts doesn't trump that of a reputable news organization.- MrX11:51, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
That report "captured Putin's specific instructions on the operation's audacious objectives - defeat or at least damage the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton." is a direct quote from the CBS article. Feel free to ask them to clarify what they meant. In the meantime, the vast majority of sources say the intent was to damage Clinton and it would be UNDUE and SYNTH to use this single source to override all the other reliale sources. Stop acting obtusely solely to argue for a single, minority viewpoint unsupported by any other sources, including their own. --DHeyward (talk) 17:55, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
Huh? I directly quoted the very first sentence of the article, which happens to reflect the title of the source and the first sentence in the video. It's also what several other sources report:
"A new report indicates that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally ordered election hacking to help elect Donald Trump." — The Independent
"But it went further. The intelligence captured Putin’s specific instructions on the operation’s audacious objectives — defeat or at least damage the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, and help elect her opponent, Donald Trump." — The Washington Post
"Early last August, President Obama was handed an ”eyes only” memo from the CIA that described how evidence clearly showed Russian President Vladimir Putin was personally and directly involved in a cyber campaign to not only disrupt the U.S. presidential race, but to help throw the victory to Donald Trump." — The Mercury News
"Barack Obama received an “intelligence bombshell” from the CIA last August warning him that Russian president Vladimir Putin was directing a hacking campaign to tip the presidential election in Donald Trump’s favor, the Washington Post reported on Friday." — The Guardian
"An investigative report by The Washington Post (WaPo) has revealed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was directly involved in the election of Donald Trump as the US President." — The Indian Express
"Barack Obama received an “intelligence bombshell” from the CIA last August warning him that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was directing a hacking campaign to tip the presidential election in Donald Trump’s favour, the Washington Post reported on Friday." — The Irish Times
" It also stated the Russian president's instructions: To cause the defeat of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton or at least harm her chances of winning, and to aid the election of now-President Donald Trump." — Haaretz
Now, perhaps you could explain how exactly I am "acting obtusely solely to argue for a single, minority viewpoint unsupported by any other sources"?- MrX18:40, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, sorry Dheyward but this can be extremely well sourced, and your argument against it appears to me to be OR (ie, "sure, multiple RS say it, but I reject what the RS say based on my own independent analysis of the situation"). Also, I'm not sure there's a really meaningful distinction between "harm clinton" and "help trump" - it was a two way race so any action by the Russians obviously did both. Fyddlestix (talk) 19:54, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
I think the important fallout from this is that Trump has finally admitted that Russia interfered with the election (or at least did something naughty). I think this may be the first time he has done so, and he tweeted it multiple times. Of course he appears to have done this for the purpose of attack. And, he may reverse himself tomorrow; so we shouldn’t yet use this in such a manner. But, at least, I hope this stops some editors from demanding that we use the word alleged. Objective3000 (talk) 00:16, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
This is not news: the "direct orders from Putin" assertion was already spelled out in the January ODNI report. The only news is that somebody has now leaked the briefing document that Brennan provided to Obama and Congress "Gang of Eight" in August. — JFG10:39, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
Already added to the lead: However, the CIA cited intelligence sources inside the Russian government that identified Putin giving instructions to disparage Clinton and help Trump. The August briefing part was already in the body: Concerned, Brennan gave classified briefings to the Gang of Eight (the leaders of the House and Senate, and the leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees) during late August and September 2016. Referring only to intelligence allies and not to specific sources, Brennan told the Gang of Eight that he had received evidence that Russia might be trying to help Trump win the U.S. election. Might be worth editing slightly with this more precise information, mentioning this Kremlin insider source revealed in the WaPo piece; I'll have a go at it. — JFG11:46, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
RfC: Should the lead include James Clapper's comment that as of January 2017, the agencies he supervised had found no evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia?
When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the lists. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.
Should the lead include James Clapper's comment that "as of January 2017, the agencies he supervised had found no evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia," or some variation of that? - MrX12:12, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
Oppose the proposed sentence, or any that says "the agencies he supervised had found no evidence", because that is inaccurate. It's not what he said. He said "he was not aware" of any evidence. He also said specifically that if the FBI (an agency he nominally supervises) had any such evidence, he would not have known about it. I am neutral about including an accurate sentence in the lede, such as "In May Clapper stated that as of January 2017 he was not aware of any evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia." I'm not convinced it is lede-worthy, although it should definitely be in the article. --MelanieN (talk) 18:17, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
Oppose because it is inaccurate and not what Clapper said, per MelanieN. I also oppose the "not aware of" rephrasing because it is outdated and because it doesn't really help the reader. We already say that the current, ongoing investigation is into whether there was collusion. Neutrality19:19, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
Oppose. Undue to state in the lead that someone didn’t know something some months ago. I wouldn’t add it in the body myself as it sounds odd to say someone that used to supervise some of the investigative bodies hadn’t seen any evidence as of an earlier date. But I wouldn’t spend time arguing about it in the body in an accurate form. Although, I suspect it would eventually be removed when more is known. Objective3000 (talk) 19:28, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Oppose - I agree with MelanieN that it is not accurate, but would go further and say that when reworded to be accurate, it becomes unworthy of inclusion in the lede. No objection to an accurate, properly contextualized discussion of this in the article body, but in the lede it is misleading and undue. Fyddlestix (talk) 19:30, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
Oppose any mention of Clapper's January statement in any form and with any wording. The January statement is dated, has repeatedly been cited out of context to insinuate exculpation of Trump and his coterie, and which is now superceded by statements of current knowledge not then available to Clapper. Even if accurately worded, it is now WP:UNDUE. SPECIFICOtalk19:35, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
Oppose as outdated BUT we should give some information about the findings of all the investigations mentioned thus far. When the Clapper–Todd interview emerged in March 2017, his statements clarified the findings of the agencies as of January (Russia did lots of bad stuff, and we don't know if anyone around Trump was linked to this). Now it's June, and several people involved with the investigations have come forward to say various things. It may be hard to summarize in the lead but I believe we need to address the issue, for the benefit of readers who legitimately want a quick overview of "where are we standing now?" — JFG20:05, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
Oppose Inaccurate as to what he said, and also leaves out the fact he only claims this until Feb 2017. Thus it says nothing about anything really beyond being used as a piece of evidence there was no evidence at one time. It might be relevant if it turns out there is no evidence now (or whenever the investigation ends) in order to show this was a witch hunt, until them this is just flummery.Slatersteven (talk) 09:47, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
Oppose. Out of date and now known to be inaccurate, so misleading to include it. He spoke from his admittedly incomplete POV at the time. Since then we know that other agencies were dealing with this. He was not privy to that info. -- BullRangifer (talk) 00:17, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
Oppose. For reasons given by MelanieN, Fyddlestix and Sagecandor. As Fyddlestix observes, when accurately reported, it becomes not lead-worthy. Neutral as to later inclusion tending toward include as part of the narrative journey. Pincrete (talk) 18:15, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
Comment – Looks like a WP:SNOW close is warranted. The sentence has been removed already. Can some uninvolved soul kindly close the RfC? — JFG04:08, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
What is this sentence in the third paragraph trying to say: "The statement went on to say that Russia would take work on Russian-American relations under the administration of President D. Trump." Is that a translation from one of the Russian references? Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 09:03, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
I was going to ask about that myself. The Russian source was very confusing, and I'm guessing it's a result of an earlier, and equally confusing RfC. -- There were better sources for it in English, but I didn't feel like getting involved in yet another dispute. DN (talk) 09:51, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
RfC was only about the lead section; this confusing sentence is elsewhere. Some good Russian speaker should provide a better translation indeed, and we probably don't need to quote three sources for that. — JFG10:37, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
About the "Russia did not retaliate" statement, I believe it is justified to mention it because the norm in international relations is quid-pro-quo: every time country A expels diplomats or spies from country B, the latter responds by expelling an equal number of diplomats or spies from country A. The fact that Putin said in effect "I'll wait and see until Trump is in office" is a very peculiar attitude… No matter how it's interpreted, it is on-topic for the whole Russia / Trump story. — JFG19:48, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
"Russia did not retaliate" belongs in the article, but not the lead. I don't think it's significant in the context of an already extensively complex subject.- MrX19:59, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
That is OR deluxe. If he said that not in OR effect but in fact, and RS link it to the topic of this article, then properly worded text might be appropriate. SPECIFICOtalk20:11, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
Many reliable sources noted that Russia did not retaliate against the expulsion of its diplomats. There was a source already describing it. Here's another: --DHeyward (talk) 21:15, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
Heyward, please review WP:SYNTH. You're not responding to the given problem here. We all know about sourcing. Lots of stuff is sourced. Nobody has said otherwise. SPECIFICOtalk22:34, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
The response from Russia when their diplomats were expelled is due for the lead if we keep that they were kicked out in it. Which is why it has consensus for inclusion here . @MrX: With talks on going and previous consensus to include it, why did you remove that part?PackMecEng (talk) 23:33, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
LMAO! MelanieN, of course it is, if taken alone and totally seriously. No serious Wikipedian who knows my history here would do that. Some people are very concerned about the size of the lead, so it was only for them. There are much more substantive arguments for and against including it. -- BullRangifer (talk) 15:23, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
OK, I've self-reverted. I still believe it would be better to leave this out of the lead, but consensus is apparently not on my side.- MrX00:26, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
This needs to be stated in context, in the terms that RS discussed it at the time. The cryptic and synthy non-sequitur snippet in the lede, conveys no encyclopedic information. And the aggressive edit-warring to reinsert it while it's still under discussion is just sad. SPECIFICOtalk00:49, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
@PackMecEng: It's a bit hollow to cite an old RfC that lists a long-extinct version of the lede. Editing continued fast and furious throughout the RfC and since the RfC. What's your view of all the other changes? The RfC was not about that little appendage. SPECIFICOtalk00:57, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I would leave it out of the lede. It has no context and it's not an important enough detail for the lede. If it someday turns out to be significant (as it might - for example, suppose it turns out that they refrained from retaliating as part of some kind of bargain with a Trump advisor) we can reconsider then. --MelanieN (talk) 01:00, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
The RFC was closed just two weeks ago, so I disagree with it being old. While it was not specifically about that little part, it was also not disputed at all during the discussion. That may just be because there were bigger fish to fry in that lengthy debate but it should be noted.
I personally agree that it is not very clear in it's placement or wording but I would say that the response from Russia or lack there of is notable. Since it is very unusual that there was almost no retaliation and little response. As MelanieN notes some context for it would be helpful. PackMecEng (talk) 01:11, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
If you have RS stating that this is very unusual, etc. perhaps you can write some informative text to replace the snippet, most likely in the corpus but perhaps in the lede depending on what your RS has to say. SPECIFICOtalk02:33, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
NY Times Looks decent on it. Perhaps expanding the statement to something like "Russia's foreign minister recommended expelling American diplomats in a tit-for-tat response, but President Putin announced he would not retaliate. PackMecEng (talk) 02:49, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
How about "Putin instructed his foreign minister to pretend he was urging X but surprisingly, Putin disregarded his pleadings and generated several days' cable tv fodder by inviting American diplomats to his holiday kiddie show at the Kremlin." -- But in any event this stuff doesn't belong in the lede. SPECIFICOtalk12:56, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
FWIW, my position is basically the same as MelanieN. This is a minor detail that is not a significant or properly contextualized enough to bear including in the lede. Fyddlestix (talk) 01:40, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
I agree that it has no context and should not be in the lede. It's not "a plain statement of what happened", to quote the editor who reinserted it, it's "a plain statement of what NOT happened". It doesn't "identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points", it merely leaves the reader wondering what it's trying to imply. The consensus here seems to be for deletion from the lede. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 04:36, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
It seems to me that most editors simply don't want anything except for American government claims and actions in the article. We say that Russian diplomats were expelled, and that Russia did not retaliate. Both are equally significant. Why are we removing the second half of that story from the lede? Because this article is meant to state American intelligence agencies' views in Misplaced Pages's encyclopedic voice. -Thucydides411 (talk) 05:16, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
I am not sure that Russia not retaliating is as significant, and no nations do not always retaliate. What is more important is they said they would, and then did not after the election (and taking into account Donnys actions ]).Slatersteven (talk) 09:38, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
The phrase could be used in proper context, i.e. Putin did not respond because he expected favors from Trump (that is what Russian language sources I read were telling). However, as written this sounds strange. My very best wishes (talk) 20:00, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
What about rewording to "Russia's foreign minister recommended expelling American diplomats in a tit-for-tat response, but President Putin announced he would not retaliate." That should add some context to why it was unusual. Also given the number of RS writing about it at the time I feel it qualifies as notable. Thoughts?PackMecEng (talk) 17:50, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
The lack of reaction is the notable part, which is why it needs an explanation. Specifically everyone was expecting them to react and Putin was advised by high ranking officials to react but choose not to for unknown reasons. PackMecEng (talk) 13:00, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
Like I says, "carefully stage-managed" propaganda BS is what RS describe. This article is not about BS, it's about the Russian attack. SPECIFICOtalk17:12, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
Good point, we should point out the propaganda related to this as well. Do you have a suggestion for adding that info? The rest of the sources don't really mention that though. I'm also not sure I agree that parts of this article are not about BS. PackMecEng (talk) 21:32, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
Perhaps but the Ars Technica (I think you made a typo with the name) adds some much needed expert balance to the article. I was thinking more along the lines of the Fox Vox sources. PackMecEng (talk) 03:19, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
Update: I see there was an attempt to remove the sentence, per "majority opinion in talk", and it was then restored. Personally I do not yet see a clear majority in this discussion. This is how I read it:
It might become clearer if the people I have listed as "unclear" - people who have commented without specifically saying "include" or "don't include" - would clarify where they stand. And if I have misinterpreted anyone's stand, please correct me. --MelanieN (talk) 19:22, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
That is because I do not think it is quite that black and white. The bare statement "Russia did not retaliate" should not be in the lead without it also saying that they had planned to and then decided against it.Slatersteven (talk) 20:01, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
Against lede. I doubt that any RS ultimately consider it of lasting significance. And we have no idea what any Russian thinks or recommends because RS tell us Putin routinely has folks disappeared when they disappoint him. SPECIFICOtalk21:23, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
Yes, I am against including "Russia did not retaliate" for two reasons: (1) Actually, Putin is going to retaliate right now , (2) he already retaliated in a number of ways, such as this. My very best wishes (talk) 23:14, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
I moved to "not include". Without better context (which would be too much detail for the lead), it doesn't warrant inclusion in the lead, BUT it should be included in the body, with context, and this latest USA Today ref about planned retaliation. -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:15, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
When I deleted the sentence the last time, I had counted seven editors against including it in the lede (that's a 58.3% majority), four for inclusion, and one undecided which seems to be the exact tally we're at right now. The sentence wasn't even discussed in the RfC, and I still don't know how that ended. It kind of fizzled out after a month, and after another month an editor closed it based on a "consensus favor(ing) the proposed" version. How did the closer even manage to count editors supporting para 1+3 but not 2+4, etc.? Putin's statements are cited ad nauseam in the "Russia" commentary and reaction section, they don't belong in the lede. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 17:44, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
Updating my update, it appears we DO have consensus to remove it from the lede, and SpaceTime has removed it. Context or new information can be added to the article. --MelanieN (talk) 19:24, 30 June 2017 (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.
And so the cleansing of the article proceeds. At least when an article becomes skewed enough, it's no longer harmful - readers can see it for what it is. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:44, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
I'm not certain how it's viewed here, but it should be possible to verify each person in more known RS, which can be used as references. This gives a basis for investigation/confirmation. -- BullRangifer (talk) 23:54, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
We should be covering this. It should be under the "Investigation by special counsel" section, and that section still needs to be enlarged to the bursting point and then spun off into a sub-article devoted to the investigation. (All content deleted from that section should be restored.) We talked about it, but has it happened? There should only be a few summary paragraphs there and a "main" link. -- BullRangifer (talk) 14:44, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
Commentary and reactions - Russia (again)
For lack of a better opinion, I ended up Google-translating the Russian references. The first one (current ref. number 322) is Putin’s official statement as "Russian President", i.e., primary source. The second one (#323) is a rehash that same statement (consisting mostly of direct quotes) by the Russian government’s newspaper of record, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, i.e., also a primary source. I’ve deleted both and, instead, added the NY Times article editor DHeyward mentioned in the "Russia did not retaliate" discussion above. The text of the section needs some rewriting; right now it reads like the official statement. I'll tackle it tomorrow unless someone else gets to it first. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 18:11, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
Yes, good fix. It tells correctly "The statement went on to say that further steps for restoring Russian-American relations would be built on the basis of the policies developed by the Trump administration". My very best wishes (talk) 19:13, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
If it's possible to find RS.... . For our purposes here, Trump's favored sources (Fox News, FSB, RT, Sputnick, Breitbart, Infowars, Drudge Report, and The Daily Caller) would probably qualify per WP:PARITY, which allows fringe and unreliable sources in the absence of commentary from RS, the ones Trump hates (Washington Post, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, The Guardian, BBC, CNN, FBI, CIA, etc.), IOW, the "Mainstream Media". We clearly have two sides, with Trump and Putin on one side, supported by their fringe media, and the rest of the world's media on the other. Trump's side should be documented. -- BullRangifer (talk) 16:02, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
'Russian interference' has not been proven in either a scientific or legal sense. False on the false equivalence. Humanengr (talk) 20:29, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
Nicely put, there are indeed three readings of this affair. All should be represented. — JFG05:30, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
In a certain sense, the question is irrelevant. We just document what RS state, and most RS consider the interference to have happened, and it being performed by Russia and directed by Putin, all to harm Clinton, disrupt the American voting and democratic processes, and to help Trump win. (Isn't it a strange and unexplainable coincidence how it actually worked so well? That's what's happened! ) Whether that's actually true is doubted and debated by fringe and unreliable sources.
You want to document that doubt? We already do that (Trump's and Putin's views are clearly described), abundantly, but go ahead and propose some actual edits, with the sources you'd like to use. Maybe this will work. -- BullRangifer (talk) 05:40, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
Thx BullRangifer. Note however that RS does not proven fact make. There have been no proceedings in a court of governing jurisdiction. Ergo, your statement "That's what's happened!" has not been proven. Humanengr (talk) 06:00, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
Further, BullRangifer: The entire article, starting with couching by the title "Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections" and the title of the first section "Russian involvement", present as proven fact. That makes Misplaced Pages a lie -— i.e., an unproven allegation that the controlling editors here take as fact — Is that what you, we, everyone here wants? Humanengr (talk) 06:18, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
We document what RS say. Only fringe and unreliable sources dispute that POV. The article states some things as fact because RS do it, and other things are stated as unproven allegations because RS do that. Our job as editors is to present it that way. What may "actually be true" is somewhat irrelevant. We fight for "verifiability, not truth", because "truth" is a slippery bugger, often subject to one's POV. Those who are blessed are those who consistently change their opinions and bring them into line with what RS say. -- BullRangifer (talk) 06:36, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
What is indisputable is that these allegations have not been adjudicated in a court of jurisdiction. Do you or any RS claim it has been adjudicated? Humanengr (talk) 07:11, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
In the meantime, WP parrots and presents mainstream drivel as fact. (It's drivel if only on the count that it has not been proven in a court of jurisdiction.) Again, is that what you want? The fact that the controlling WP editors here take allegations as proven fact should be cause for alarm, not defense of 'policy'. Humanengr (talk) 07:30, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
As others have said, we use RS. If RS have said it's real so do we. And no, not being proven in a court of law does not make it drivel, it makes it legally unproven).Slatersteven (talk) 08:24, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
No, but we cannot say what RS do not say, and we do say what RS say. So if RS say it is a fact (even if it is not) so do we. So are thre any RS that actually say that Russia did not interfere with the US elections?Slatersteven (talk) 11:55, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
@Slatersteven, re "not being proven in a court of law does not make it drivel, it makes it legally unproven).": It's drivel because it's legally unproven AND they don't say it's unproven. If this were a murder case, they would take care to always say 'alleged'. But they don't. They lie, they deceive, they mislead all. Humanengr (talk) 12:24, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
@Slatersteven, re "As others have said, we use RS. If RS have said it's real so do we.": Listen to yourself. Why make WP accomplice to this fraud upon the public?
Re "we cannot say what RS do not say, and we do say what RS say.": Repeating: "WE DO WHAT RS SAY". LISTEN TO YOURSELF. You are human being, not robot. You can choose not to commit fraud. Humanengr (talk) 12:32, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
You are right I am not a robot. But what we are are people who (by being here) have a greed to Misplaced Pages's terms and conditions. If you are not happy with them either leave or take it to the right noticeboard. If Misplaced Pages HAS A SET OF RULES WE EITHER OBEY THEM OR WE LEAVE (EITHER VOLUNTARILY OR INVOLUNTARILY). Also who is misleading, Donny, THE MEDIA!!!!, Putin? Now do you accept what I think happened as evidence, and do you agree that we can include it in this article?Slatersteven (talk) 12:54, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
I support including diverse views points, but articles should not be organized according to our perception of sources' points of view. Any opinions that we include should be noteworthy (they should come from people who are widely regarded as experts) or the opinions should be cited in other third party sources. Humanengr, please propose specific copy with citations and we can work from there. - MrX12:38, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, MrX. Re "they should come from people who are widely regarded as experts)": Not when THEY LIE, DECEIVE, MISLEAD ALL.That makes them criminal. That makes the editors who repeat this drivel, citing all sorts of WP policy as justification, effectively complicit.
Which is a Shame.
Because I think the vast majority of you, if you realized what you are doing — and the fact that it only benefits those you would normally oppose — the MIC, Neocons, and Neolibs — would stop and fight for changes in WP policy and beyond. Humanengr (talk) 13:08, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
Can we please close this as this does not seem to be about the article, but Misplaced Pages in general (and attacking it's editors) and thus is just waiting time.Slatersteven (talk) 13:14, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
This article is prima facie. I am not attacking, I am appealing. Re your "If Misplaced Pages HAS A SET OF RULES WE EITHER OBEY THEM OR WE LEAVE (EITHER VOLUNTARILY OR INVOLUNTARILY).": Choice 3, as I wrote to MrX — stop and fight for changes. Humanengr (talk) 13:27, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
I don't know what you mean by "Not when THEY LIE, DECEIVE, MISLEAD ALL.That makes them criminal.". That's a very vague assertion and doesn't seem to reflect the body of available sources. You opened this section to propose a new subsection in the article. What specific content do you propose putting there, noting that we don't create empty sections in published articles?- MrX13:37, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
The media (and the politicians, 'experts', etc., they cite) lie, deceive, mislead each and every time they report unproven allegations as facts without the qualifier 'alleged'. Is that clear? Humanengr (talk) 13:57, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
Humanengr: … stop and fight for changes. Talk pages are not the correct place to argue about changing Misplaced Pages policy. Continuing with such here is WP:DE. Time to collapse this. Objective3000 (talk) 19:50, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
Most of those sources fail rs, hence coverage of their views is limited and mostly should be sourced to reliable news sources reporting on them. However, note that mainstream media is not treating Russian interference as a fact, although it is giving more weight to observers who treat it as fact. It's like the war in Iraq. Mainstream media did not actually say Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was behind the 9/11 attacks, it just gave more coverage to observers who believed the intelligence was accurate. Incidentally, the conservative media was even more biased than mainstream media. TFD (talk) 22:03, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
It certainly could be something to add - after sources have a little time to chew on it and determine what it all means. --MelanieN (talk) 22:09, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
Look at item 2 on WP:NOTNEWS. "While including information on recent developments is sometimes appropriate, breaking news should not be emphasized or otherwise treated differently from other information." WP:FART is also an apt essay on the subject. Best bet would be wait for more sources to come in to collaborate and add to the WSJ story. PackMecEng (talk) 03:42, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
The point is that it should not be treated differently. Treating this the same as other information from other WP:RSes means that it should go in the article. The only reason, I would argue, to keep it out is that it is an extraordinary claim and such a claim may need other independent sources. That says, we have other independent reporting in an hour, we should not continue to wait. Misplaced Pages should be up to date. Additionally, given the quaility of the WSJ andthe sourcing in the article, I think there is a pretty good argument to go ahead and add.Casprings (talk) 03:55, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
I would also rather wait, it's not as if this is going to go away. But have no strong objection (but see the thread below).Slatersteven (talk) 08:49, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
There is one source for your "extraordinary claim" and you think it must be rushed into the article? What I meant by citing item 2 was that yes it should be treated like other pieces of information. Which would mean that one source is not enough to make a big claim like that. Like everyone else is saying, it should be left out until more report on it. PackMecEng (talk) 13:13, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
I don't see a place for this in this article. This story is about the personal potential culpability of an American seeking Clinton emails, not "Russian Interference". And although it might add to the cloud surrounding the Trump regime, it is only tangentially related to the article subject of "Russian interferance" in that it pertains to Clinton emails. And it does not sound like he succeeded in obtaining Clinton emails, only that he was poking about. Beyond the fact this individual was not Russian it does not sound like this individual HAD any actual influence on the election or participated in any way, and that he completely failed at even his attempt... there is simply no basis for inclusion in the article of this latest revelation based on the subject title of the article itself of "Russian" "interference" in the "election". Marteau (talk) 10:01, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
I can't prove a negative, i.e. I can't prove that they don't. That would be a question for any editor supporting inclusion, which is not me. Marteau (talk) 11:11, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
I don't have a subscription to the Wall Street Journal, who broke this story. But I saw nothing in the Newsweek article which cited the Wall Street Journal investigation which supports including this matter in this article about "Russian" "interference" in the "election" (and I quote those words for emphasis, because that's what this article is about... I find nothing about this latest story relating to the election, Russia, and interference except tangentially. Marteau (talk) 11:51, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
OK, looking a little more deeply at this report, I don't find there is much to it, as far as this article is concerned: An American who SAYS he was working with Mike Flynn ATTEMPTED to contact the Russians to see if he could get Clinton's deleted emails. (You know, the ones Trump publicly invited the Russians to find.) Several groups of hackers, including some Russian hackers, claimed to have Clinton's emails. But the operative was not convinced what they gave him was authentic and he did nothing with it. There is no indication that he actually connected with anyone associated with the Russian government, or obtained any valid information, or passed any information to the campaign. Looking at all the ifs and maybes and nothing-theres, I don't find anything worth including in this article. --MelanieN (talk) 19:11, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
The fact you have an alley of Mike Flynn, a long time GOP operative, seeking to work with the Russians and break the law is hugely important. Casprings (talk) 13:52, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
As far as I can tell not they do not link the election interference with this. What we have is someone who worked for the GOP,m claiming to work for Flynn unsuccessfully contacting the Russians (off his own back). Sorry this is not a link..Slatersteven (talk) 14:03, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
Oh come on! Russia hackers discussed getting Clinton emails to Michael Flynn – report"Intelligence agency findings describe hackers seeking to obtain messages and send them to intermediary who also had deep ties to Trump backer Newt Gingrich" and "The Journal said investigators looking into Russian meddling in the election had examined intelligence agency reports about how hackers wanted to get emails from Clinton’s server to an intermediary and then to Flynn, a retired lieutenant general and senior adviser to Trump who went on to serve briefly as his national security adviser." <---- there's your source making an explicit connection. Let's get more:
Also this"Most of the commentary surrounding the Russia scandal has treated the possibility that Donald Trump’s campaign deliberately colluded with Moscow as remote, unfounded speculation. The new reporting that has broken this weekend suggests instead that this collusion likely did take place."
Pretty obvious connection. Flynn was working for Trump, and no one under Trump dares act without direct orders from him. Trump is known to punish independent action very severely. Trump always expressed public admiration and defense of Flynn, even after he was removed from his position. Trump never showed any discontent for Flynn's actions. -- BullRangifer (talk) 23:37, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
The report that Russian hackers were trying to get hold of information they had been asked to get for a Flynn intermediary - that's very interesting. If true it confirms - from the other side of the transaction - that someone was asking known hackers for those emails and dropping Flynn's name. Of course the hackers would have been looking for those emails anyhow - Trump publicly asked them to! None of the reporting suggests that they actually did get into the server, or did get any emails (although Smith's report suggests that they tried to give him some stuff he didn't regard as valid). It's very tempting to take these reports and extend them and make connections and fill in blanks and jump to conclusions - I was about to do some of that myself but caught myself before hitting "save". We have to avoid that temptation and stick to the exact details of what has been reported. Let's continue to collect info and not put anything in the article just yet. I am a little troubled if the ONLY source is WSJ. We normally look for two sources. Are any other publications getting independent leaks? Has anyone confirmed a relationship between Smith and Flynn? --MelanieN (talk) 02:34, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
It is worth noting that the WSJ is a very WP:RS source with an extremely impressive record. The story has muliple sources, including ones on the record. Finally, if the WSJ is thought to have a bias, it is to the right. Seems pretty likely that this is simply a "scope", but one that seems of high quality enough to include.Casprings (talk) 04:21, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
It probably is time to put something about this in the article. In the meantime I have written an article about the principal, Peter W. Smith, who is notable for multiple reasons. --MelanieN (talk) 01:04, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
Correction: June 29, 2017
A White House Memo article on Monday about President Trump’s deflections and denials about Russia referred incorrectly to the source of an intelligence assessment that said Russia orchestrated hacking attacks during last year’s presidential election. The assessment was made by four intelligence agencies — the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency. The assessment was not approved by all 17 organizations in the American intelligence community.
Do you have a source for the original article? It would be nice to check what it said. Also, have we cited or used this in the article or discussed it here? -- BullRangifer (talk) 15:24, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
… The latest presidential tweets were proof to dismayed members of Mr. Trump’s party that he still refuses to acknowledge a basic fact agreed upon by 17 American intelligence agencies that he now oversees: Russia orchestrated the attacks, and did it to help get him elected.
As far as I can tell, this article does not make the "17 agencies" claim anywhere, so I'm not sure what this has to do with this article at all. Fyddlestix (talk) 17:21, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
Humanengr, thanks for finding that. Unless there is some other reason, I have to agree with Fyddlestix that there doesn't seem to be any relevance here at this point. Otherwise it just means that "The latest presidential tweets were proof to dismayed members of Mr. Trump’s party that he still refuses to acknowledge a basic fact agreed upon by four American intelligence agencies: Russia orchestrated the attacks, and did it to help get him elected." (revised version from June 30) That much is still certain. -- BullRangifer (talk) 02:27, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
The title of the article, "Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections," implies that the alleged interference is a fact, and a number of editors have argued that we should accept the opinions of U.S. security police regardless of how mainstream media reports their findings. TFD (talk) 03:39, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
So, iiuc, 13 agencies decline to approve, 4 do and, as you say, "a number of editors have argued that we should accept the opinions of U.S. security police regardless of how mainstream media reports their findings." Do I have that right? Humanengr (talk) 04:54, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
Do you have an RS that says that 13 agencies "declined to to approve"? I don't remember even one agency declining. 13 agencies not contributing towards the assessment does not mean that they agree or disagree with the findings, it just means that they were not involved, hardly surprising for agencies such as Coast Guard Intelligence or National Geospatial Intelligence. The sentence that used the phrase "representing 17 intelligence agencies" to explain who the ODNI is - and not to claim that all 17 agencies came to any conclusion - was removed from the article. It was the conclusion of ODNI, FBI, CIA, and NSA. And 6 months later a journalist made an error, and the newspaper corrected it (badly, IMO, they should have said who the agencies were, but I'm editorializing). It's not relevant to this article. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 06:56, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
@BullRangifer, re 'a basic fact' per the quote you included above: may I ask if you take 'Russian interference' as 'fact' because, in your view, 1) reliable sources report it as fact or 2) primary sources claim it as fact or ?? Thx
What BullRangifer, you or I consider "facts" is irrelevant. This is not a forum. It is an encyclopedia based on reliable sources. Objective3000 (talk)
Objective3000 is correct, but, FYI, I base my opinions and editing on what RS "report as fact" (which is the same as what they "claim as fact", "allege as fact", whatever). They know more than I do. That RS confirm what primary sources say is an added plus. -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:58, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
Thx. Iiuc, we part in that I see an RS "report as fact" as substantially different from "claim as fact" or "allege as fact". The former present as 'fact', the latter an allegation. E.g., refs 1, 3, 4 quote the ODNI-DHS joint statement: "The U.S. Intelligence Community is confident that …" and "We believe … that …". Ref 2, the ODNI presents their conclusions as "We have high confidence in these judgments …". The lede sentence says 'high confidence'. I take these primary sources, the RS's citing those primary sources, and the lede sentence as presenting allegations not facts. Humanengr (talk) 09:44, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
Does this source cxontradictvthat, does it say the other intelligence agencies have not concluded this, or just they were not part of the process (when it is not part of their job)?Slatersteven (talk) 12:00, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
Re 4 out of 17: agree that's not worth pursuing as there is insufficient public data re agency roles and positions. Interesting though that the claim of all 17 has been repeated elsewhere by 'experts'. Humanengr (talk) 03:55, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
Is this sworn testimony under oath clear enough?:
SEN. MARTIN HEINRICH (D-NM): The president has repeatedly talked about ... Russia's involvement in the U.S. election cycle as "a hoax" and as "fake news." ...
JAMES COMEY: Yes, sir. There should be no fuzz on this whatsoever. The Russians interfered in our election during the 2016 cycle. They did it with purpose. They did it with sophistication. They did it with overwhelming technical efforts. And it was an active measures campaign driven from the top of that government. There is no fuzz on that. It is a high-confidence judgment of the entire intelligence community, and the members of this committee have seen the intelligence. It's not a close call. That happened. That's about as unfake as you can possibly get and is very, very serious, which is why it's so refreshing to see a bipartisan focus on that because this is about America, not about any particular party.
HEINRICH: So that was a hostile act by the Russian government against this country?
Do any of the 17 current (e.g., not fired) agency heads concur? Also, per DNI.gov:
High confidence generally indicates that our judgments are based on high-quality information, and/or that the nature of the issue makes it possible to render a solid judgment. A “high confidence” judgment is not a fact or a certainty, however, and such judgments still carry a risk of being wrong.
Instead of asking about the current agency heads opinions here, maybe you should look it up and find some sources on the subject, then see whether there's any information worth adding to this article . -- Red Rock Canyon (talk) 12:07, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.
Nominator's note: I feel that having a stand-alone article for this is WP:UNDUE, and do not expect people on the talk page to be interested in merge proposals. Power~enwiki (talk) 00:15, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
Referencing and citation: not checked
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Thanks; I have incorporated all your suggestions except Kushner who is not named in the cited sources, and the word "stolen" which is redundant with "hacked"; replaced "provided" with "forwarded"; used "stop interfering" per source, to avoid repeating "cyberattacks". Hope this addresses your objections so you can move to a full Support !vote. — JFG 06:20, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
-- BullRangifer (talk) 06:49, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
— JFG 08:00, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections#RfC: Should the lead include James Clapper's comment that as of January 2017, the agencies he supervised had found no evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia?. - MrX 12:13, 24 June 2017 (UTC)Template:Z48
