Wikipedia talk:Political endorsements

Guideline

@MrX: As much as I agree with this, of course, was there a WP:PROPOSAL to promote it to guideline level? AFAIK that discussion needs to be explicit. Seems like information page/explanatory supplement would be the best header. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:45, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Rfc on part 2

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

Speedy close per the Snowball Clause. A very well-attended RfC on this exact point less than a year ago established nearly unanimously that endorsements must be covered in reliable and independent sources. Running this through a full 30-day process 18 days before the election that is the target is pointless since there is no way a full RfC discussion would have any practical effect. Any possibility of claiming that the question was open until this RfC completed would ignore the previous consensus established at the VP. Any local consensus to remove the requirement for independent sources would likely be invalid as local consensus cannot override project-wide policies, especially ones that have legal ramifications such as WP:BLP. For all these reasons, a speedy close, as has been requested multiple times below, is appropriate. (non-admin closure) Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:02, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

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Should the guideline for a source being independent be removed? Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 21:39, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

• Strong Yes For many reasons. The main one is, an endorsement is an endorsement. For example, there is a list [1] of national security officials who endorsed Biden. I think most editors would agree that this is a reliable source as it has been covered widely. However, this is the only place where this full list is listed. We should not exclude members of this list because an article in an Independent source says “these are the names listed in the source”. If an endorsement is covered by a reliable source, it should be added. The title of the article is “List of Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign endorsements” not “List of Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign endorsements which have independent sources”. We don’t need to verify that each and every person on a list that is not independent actually endorsed. If the source is reliable, the endorsement should be added. Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 21:49, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
• No, of course not. For all the reasons that was included as a requirement in the very well-attended RfC that led to this page. In fact, someone should really just speedy close this unless we're prepared to advertise it to the same extent as the original RfC. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 22:03, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
  • Rhododendrites, what’s your reasoning? You say you want a speedy deletion but I don’t even see your reasoning for keeping it. Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 22:16, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
    • WP:ENDORSERFC - no need to rehash the same arguments about the same issue when nothing has changed. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 22:24, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
      • Rhododendrites, check out this page. There are thousands of unsourced contributions here. However, almost all of these are covered by sources which are reliable (such as the one above) but not independent. I don’t see a reason they shouldn’t be added. We are keeping a list on “endorsements” here, not “endorsements that have an article about them in the New York Times confirming them” Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 22:47, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
        • Lists on Wikipedia are rarely exhaustive. We set up "inclusion criteria" to determine which examples should be included, considering things like verifiability, due weight, reliability of sources, notability, etc. The RfC was about inclusion criteria for these endorsements lists. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 22:53, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
          • Rhododendrites, I oppose speedy deletion. I think many people would agree that the national security officials who signed that letter should stay. Anyway, let’s see what the consensus says. I think that being notable and having a source which would be deemed reliable is enough for an endorsement to be added. Let’s see what others say, there’s currently hundreds of unsourced additions at the Biden page and quite a few at the Trump page too. I posted on the talk pages of all four 2020 endorsement pages about this rfc, let’s see what happens. Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 23:03, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
            • Speedy deletion means something specific on Wikipedia (WP:CSD), which isn't relevant here. As for let's see what the consensus says, it is in that RfC. Until a similarly attended and advertised RfC overturns that, it's the working consensus we have, thus anyone would be justified to remove endorsements which don't fit that mold. If many people would agree, I'm sure some of them will write about it in a source we can cite. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:46, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
              • Rhododendrites, so then why are you bringing up speedy deletion? If it isn’t relevant here than why would you say this should be speedily deleted? As for a new consensus, please feel free to spread this new rfc far and wide. I already posted it at every 2020 endorsement page, I will post it at senate and house pages as well. This is how a new consensus is formed. The endorsements are under represented due to this constraint on how they can be added. As for “I'm sure some of them will write about it in a source we can cite”, I’m not sure what type of source Wikipedia editors will write in that we can cite. Do you mean talk pages? I have no idea what you mean by that. Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 00:04, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
                • (Non-administrator comment) @Lima Bean Farmer: I saw a link to this discussion posted at ANI. I believe you misread or misunderstood what Rhododendrites meant by In fact, someone should really just speedy close this unless we're prepared to advertise it to the same extent as the original RfC. A "speedy close" isn't the same as a "speedy deletion". Rhododentrites means (I believe) that the issue you're raising has already been discussed and resolved through a previous RfC, which means that the community has, in a sense, already spoken on the matter. While a consensus can change over time, there has to be a reason to do so that goes beyond simply not liking or agreeing with the current consensus. If the other RfC was recently held and there was a clear consensus reached, then it's not really proper to start another one so soon unless you believe there are technical reasons for doing so (e.g. an improper closing of the discussion which was a violation of relevant Wikipedia policies or guidelines). In such a case, you would be better off following WP:CLOSECHALLENGE than starting a new RfC because the latter might be seen as being more a case of WP:STICK than not.
                  Once a discussion has been properly closed, the close needs to be given time to breathe so that the community can assess whether it works; if you simply try to start a new RfC on something shortly after another RfC on the same subject has just been concluded, then nothing is ever going to be accomplished and everything will keep going around in circles. As I posted on your user talk page, you seem to mean well and want things to be sorted out before the 2020 US elections; Wikipedia, however, isn't bound by such time constraints and things need to be resolved at Wikipedia's pace, not that of the US electoral system.
                  FWIW, "speedy close" seems to be another way of saying "snow close" because there'ss no reason to discuss something so soon after it's recently just been resolved, particularly when it's a discussion that lasted several months and had quite a large number participants. — Marchjuly (talk) 11:36, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
                  • Marchjuly, more than that., the RfC was explicitly designed to resolve the question before the election cycle, and did so. Controlling the flood of unreliably-sourced claims of endorsement during the 2020 election cycle was the entire point of the RfC. Guy (help! - typo?) 12:19, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
                    • I'm not disputing that. Just from looking at the RfC is seems like the close was reasonable which means it's going to be hard to argue that it should be overturned or voided for some policy or guideline reason (i.e. a technicality). So, even if there was a massive change-of-heart of all those who participated in the prior RFC based upon some new arguments, it's highly unlikely that any new RfC could be sufficiently discussed and agreed upon before November 3 (i.e. Election Day).
                      In my opinion, this guideline should be set up to be effective over the long haul, not specifically geared to any one single upcoming election; moreover, it should be easily to apply to all elections written about on Wikipedia, not just US ones. The impetus for creating this guideline might've been the 2020 US elections, but the guideline needs to be more than that. Once things have settled down a bit and a little more time has passed with the guideline being applied to a broad range of articles, the previous RfC can be assessed and tweaked if necessary. Articles about the 2020 US elections can be revised later on to reflect any changes made as needed. There's no, at least in my opinion, real pressing need to try re-hash all of this before November 3 and trying to do so is only likely going to create more problems than it solves.
                      Anyway, that's all I've got to say on the matter. I came here via ANI and I only noticed the ANI because I'd previously posted a comment on Lima Bean Farmer's user talk; I noticed the ANI notification posted there because the page was still on my watchlist. I didn't participate in the previous RfC and am not really advocating for one side or the other. -- Marchjuly (talk) 13:03, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
• Hell no. There was a large RfC on this, and the outcome is exactly in line with Wikipedia policy: sources must be reliable AND independent AND secondary. Especially when both subject and object are living people. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:43, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RfC on Part 2

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Now that the 2020 election has concluded, can new discussion on Part 2 commence? In particular, endorsements from the personal verified Twitter account of clearly notable people (e.g. Sen. Bernie Sanders) are being removed en masse due to lack of outside media coverage. There seemed to be some amount of consensus in the last RfC that notability is inherent to the endorser, not the endorsement itself, and thus any reliable source of a notable person's endorsement should be included. However, the final language has ensured that this is not the case. It also brings into question why a tweet from an organization's official account can be included, but not for an individual. If, for example, the "People for Bernie Sanders" account tweets "Bernie Sanders endorses [X]" it is currently allowed for inclusion under current guidelines, however Bernie Sanders himself tweeting "I endorse [X]" is not allowed. In summary, it seems outrageous that clearly notable people (for which there are accepted definitions already) tweeting themselves "I endorse [X]" are having their endorsements excluded simply because no media outlet is then reporting on said tweet.

The above discussion indicates that the results of the previous RfC should stand until after the 2020 elections in the US and after widespread use. Both have occurred and in many instances many editors are finding the current guidelines unreasonable, particularly in Congressional elections, which do not receive as much news coverage mentioning endorsements as the US presidential election. In practice, people look to Wikipedia for endorsements and in the current system the lists can be very one-sided towards one candidate if the small number of media articles mentioning endorsements only focus on the ones received by that candidate. Note that I am not the person who last requested an RfC on this topic, but I have seen my edits removed as a result of this rule, as well as those of many others. --73.102.254.13 (talk) 21:21, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

What is your brief and neutral statement? At over 2,000 bytes, the statement above (from the {{rfc}} tag to the next timestamp) is far too long for Legobot (talk · contribs) to handle, and so it is not being shown correctly at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia policies and guidelines. The RfC may also not be publicised through WP:FRS until a shorter statement is provided. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:58, 19 February 2021 (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.

Fundraising page links

General question, is using ActBlue/WinRed or any direct fundraising page/link as a source for an endorsement OK? I've always assumed it wasn't preferred, on the basis of it being like spam or using a commercial site like Amazon or iTunes when a general source was elsewise available, but can't find a firm answer on this. Would the "about the candidate" type pages be OK, but not the direct event/contribution pages? And, can we also draw the line that hosting or appearing at a fundraiser is not an endorsement if it doesn't also include something like a pullquote for criterion 3? Thanks! JesseRafe (talk) 17:54, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Independently-sourced endorsements

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

Malformed RfC (non-admin closure) (t · c) buidhe 01:36, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

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I think this needs to be reviewed seriously. Verified social media accounts act as either individual or group stances, and as such there's functionally little difference between a verified endorsement tweet and a press release from an organization. Further, this policy stipulates that endorsement - could be a Tweet or Instagram post - be re-reported in a news source, with no stipulations on said reliable source's re-reporting. So a reliable news source could simply report an endorsement sourcing nothing but a Tweet, and this would be accepted. 2001:48F8:9023:67D:D971:57F6:5DF9:E7C6 (talk) 04:35, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

This is a malformed RfC. Please read our guidance on writing RfCs before creating another one. What exactly are you asking our opinion on? Is it our sourcing standards for political endorsements? I suggest withdrawing this RfC and creating a new one that is neutrally worded with two or three options. E.g., "When should be our standards for using a tweet as evidence of a political endorsement", then three options, "if the Tweet can be proven to be from the endorser", "if the Tweet has been covered in a reliable secondary sources as an endorsement" or "tweets are never acceptable even if they've been reported on". Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 06:43, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Tried to fix it, but the section was assigned two unique IDs... ~ Aseleste (t, e | c, l) 10:15, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

There are a lot of technical problems here, which are causing difficulties for Legobot. Some are fixed already, but for future ref: never put a {{rfc}} tag into a section heading; never open two RfCs simultaneously on the same page (if you need to hold two, don't open a second one until Legobot has visited the first); never put two {{rfc}} tags into the same section. All of this has caused Legobot to violate two more rules itself: never use |rfcid= twice in the same {{rfc}} tag; never use the same RfC category twice in the same {{rfc}} tag. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:28, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

• Suggestion: We should close this down and, if the originator feels like it, start anew. -The Gnome (talk) 20:25, 27 April 2021 (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.

Endorsements on YouTube

This is related to criterion 2 for endorsements by individuals: 2. Lists of endorsements should only include endorsements which have been covered by reliable independent sources. This means endorsements should not be sourced solely to a Tweet or Instagram post, for example.

Guidelines discourage (if not outright disallow) the use of Tweets and Instagram posts as the sole source of an individual's endorsement of a political candidate. In the guidance, there is no distinction made about whether an endorser's account is verified or how long the post is up (to diminish the likelihood that someone was 'hacked').

But what about endorsements from an endorser's YouTube account? I've seen a number of endorsements solely sourced using YouTube videos. 2021 New York City mayoral election currently has four to five YouTube videos cited as sources for multiple individuals. At least three of the videos come from the campaign themselves.

I would tend to think this is acceptable, but they don't truly meet criterion 2 above. They are not very different from Tweets, and I'm sure there was good reason to exclude Tweets from endorsements.

What guidance should we give regarding YouTube videos? I think as a starter, if they're used, accounts should be verified. I'm less enthusiastic about YouTube videos from the campaign's channel. Shoestringnomad (talk) 08:06, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

@Shoestringnomad: At minimum we need an independent reliable source covering the endorsement. That would exclude sources directly connected to either the endorser or the campaign, whether Twitter, Youtube, or anywhere else. Of course, if it's a clip of, say, CNN, on YouTube, then that may be fine. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:57, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Local elections

Might someone clarify for me, am I right (or wrong) to think these policies apply as much for local elections (e.g. 2021 Boston mayoral election) as statewide or national elections? Thanks for input one way or another. Innisfree987 (talk) 07:09, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

@Innisfree987: the scope of the original RfC was "lists of endorsements of political campaigns, whether stand-alone or part of another article" but only endorsements in a list. So yeah it should apply to any level of election, I would think. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:54, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Added to see also

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Politics
• Wikipedia:Candidates and elections
• Wikipedia:Political endorsements

add these to the talk page. blackbird (talk) 23:35, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Ranked Choice, approval, or multi candidate endorsements

Many nations, regions, and territories have adopted voting systems such as ranked choice, approval, or other systems where voters in some way, shape, or form vote for multiple candidates. As such, it is not uncommon for people to endorse multiple candidates in a certain race, including some of the people running in said race who procceed to endorse some of their own electoral rivals in said system to vote for in addition to themselves.

Have we at Wikipedia decided the procedure on how we show this? Like, do we add (second choice) to endorsement lists for ranked choice, and do we include instances where a candidate endorses another candidate while still running themselves? GreenDemonSquid (talk) 18:38, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Interpretation of endorsement guideline re: EMILY's List/Laphonza Butler

This comment serves as notice of a discussion that editors of this page may be interested in: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums#Interpretation of endorsement guideline re: EMILY's List/Laphonza Butler? 67.170.42.135 (talk) 01:38, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Change to specificity of part 2

I don't think this should be controversial, but I WP:BOLDly expanded the verbiage of part 2 to what I think makes sense within the context of the main bullet text and extant Wikipedia policy here to recognize that self-published social media posts are not categorically considered to be non-RS, but may be considered RS within limited contexts that apply to this guideline (specifically allowing journalists who write on local politics for sources considered to be reliable, but continuing to exclude social media posts by endorsers, endorsees, or other directly related individuals or organizations). 67.170.42.135 (talk) 18:00, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Different consideration of individual and group endorsements

In the RfC that this guideline is based on, it seems to be taken for granted that endorsements by notable individuals that are not covered by reliable and independent sources fail the inclusion criteria, but endorsements by notable organizations inherently merit inclusion. Somebody raised this important point in a prior RfC but received no meaningful answer. Here's a more airtight example:

• Geert Wilders tweets his endorsement of Christine Chandler for her reelection. No journalists cover it, so we do not mention it.
• The Party for Freedom, of whom Wilders is the sole member, endorses Chandler in a press release on their website. It is inherently reliable and therefore included because the PVV is a group.

So why the double standard? 97.155.100.43 (talk) 08:41, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

• If you have a specific proposal of changes you want to make to this guideline, then ask that, this question is too broad. I suggest you close this RfC and ask a specific question and/or proposal. Isaidnoway (talk) 00:00, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
• taken for granted that endorsements by notable individuals that are not covered by reliable and independent sources fail the inclusion criteria, but endorsements by notable organizations inherently merit inclusion - That is not what the RfC found. Individuals need coverage and there was no consensus as to whether organizations did. Effectively that means deal with organizations on a case-by-case basis. As the closer said, For organizations this is no consensus, as in unresolved consensus, and not a consensus against. This means that editors may reach a WP:LOCALCONSENUS about whether or not to include an endorsement when it meets criteria 1 & 3 but not 2. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 01:04, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

  I see. Rereading the RfC, the only organizations whose endorsements that users suggested including in spite of independent coverage were media outlets. Are there any reasons why endorsements by super PACs or labor unions that do not garner reliable and independent coverage should be included? I think it would be great if we can establish a global consensus here. 97.155.100.43 (talk) 04:32, 6 April 2024 (UTC)