Talk:George Santos/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

"lying politician" - true perhaps, but reads like an editorial

Just relating what he said that is false would be better. 99.99.65.141 (talk) 08:01, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Was not able to edit article

I was going to add a Wiktionary link to this article, but was prevented from doing so because it appears to be locked from editing. Please fix this ridiculous situation! 173.88.246.138 (talk) 01:49, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

This article is currently protected due to vandalism. Please feel free to make an edit request. Bowler the Carmine | talk 01:55, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

As the admin who put the article on semi-protection, I would also add that we generally discourage interwiki links from articles except in limited situations. Daniel Case (talk) 04:19, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Much of the information on this page may be inaccurate

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/19/nyregion/george-santos-ny-republicans.html - The media is now having trouble confirming his background 74.71.245.107 (talk) 12:26, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

I'll add this NYT piece to my reading list. I imagine there will be follow ups. – Muboshgu (talk) 12:44, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:

• Congressman Elect George Santos (cropped).jpg

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 14:23, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Parents personal names

CNN gives the parents' names as Paolo and Rosalina Devolder. Yet: no reason to trust any claims at all without multiple sources. One source here: CNN. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 14:56, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Multiple "reliable" sources turned out to be unreliable now.--2601:C4:C300:A210:DDD9:BFCF:1D0:9532 (talk) 01:50, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

anti semitic

saying youre a jew in order to get a job is the last straw.. jews paid the price to be the only ones to say that. after 6 million died they came back strong. and have a reputation as great doctors lawyers accountants actors athletes..to say george is jew ish is to lie ...like saying i went to harvard but nt hte truth maybe going to a lesser school.jews are right to attack him now .and aipac is right to go after him...this is the ultimate anti semitism.. its not a compliment ..but an insult.real jews should be insulted by his remark.. and nonjews should gdt rid of him. i dont know what party he is in rep or dem.. i dont know. but his lie is the last straw the ultimate anti semitic remark.. 88.20.34.235 (talk) 09:30, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 31 December 2022

"T" is missing from the sentence. Original: Ten days after breaking its original story, the Times took a closer look at his campaign's financial disclosures. It noted that a company called "Cleaner 123" had received $11,000 over four months as rent for campaign staff housing in the distric. Edited: It noted that a company called "Cleaner 123" had received $11,000 over four months as rent for campaign staff housing in the district. Pmarlowe29807 (talk) 07:19, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

 Done thank you! ser! ^{(chat to me - see my edits)} 08:01, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Not Sworn In

George Santos is still a representative-elect. There is currently no Speaker to swear in the members of the House. 209.50.10.212 (talk) 22:21, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

I might be wrong, but I believe the 20th Amendment sets the dates of congressional terms, so the failure to swear in members has no bearing on whether they are incumbents or not. I believe they are all Members of Congress, there's just no speaker nor is there an organizing rule of the House (which impedes House business but doesn't prevent members from officially serving).

The 20th Amendment, in relevant part, states "The terms of the President and the Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin." Mr.dooley (talk) 04:40, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

You're correct about the date, but technically the Speaker has to swear in the members. Since no Speaker has been elected, none of the members have been officially sworn in. It seems like incumbent members are still considered to be members, so it's not like the entire House of Representatives is vacant, but the new members are still being referred to as "representative-elect" by the major news organizations, and I have heard at least one member refer to himself as such during an interview after the House adjourned. I can't point to any rule or statute at the moment, and I probably wouldn't be aware of it myself if it weren't for that new member saying "At this point, I am still just a representative-elect" which then led to the discussion why. This point has been reiterated throughout the afternoon and evening all over the news.

I don't attempt to edit Wikipedia articles myself, I just know that those who do like for it to be as technically correct as possible. For instance, for as long as I've been a reader, any given president-elect doesn't have their page updated to show them actually being president until they have been sworn in at noon. Biden's page didn't say he was the president at 10 AM on 1/20/21 just because that is the date specified in the 20th Amendment. The new members haven't actually been sworn in, so they technically aren't members, and even they would tell you so at this moment in time. I just thought I'd point it out.

A few references I found with a quick Google search:

https://thehill.com/homenews/3797219-speaker-chaos-delays-swearing-in-of-new-house-members/

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/live-updates/long-island-republican-george-santos-to-be-sworn-into-118th-congress/

https://www.npr.org/2023/01/03/1146600160/mccarthy-scrambles-for-votes-to-be-elected-speaker-of-the-house 209.50.10.212 (talk) 05:00, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Right, I appreciate this. I just think there's a very good chance that the member who called himself a "representative-elect" and the news outlets are in fact incorrect in their understanding. The Constitution seems to be pretty clear here, though it has never been litigated nor clarified by precedent (there has never been a reason; no speaker vote post-ratification of the 20th Amendment has ever, until today, gone past the first ballot). Most reporters, even most Members of Congress, aren't constitutional scholars.

In your presidential example, presidents-elect are referred to as such until noon on 1/20 because the 20th Amendment makes clear noon is when the term begins. I believe that the president would be president at 12:00 p.m. on 1/20 regardless of whether they take an oath or not. President Biden wasn't president at 10:00 a.m. on 1/20, per the Constitution. I believe the oath is, at the end of the day, ceremonial (for example, LBJ became president immediately upon the death of JFK; the later oath wasn't controlling), but I don't think this has ever been litigated. Like most things in our system, it's just based on extensive precedent and tradition but hazy law. Mr.dooley (talk) 06:25, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Also if it turns out I am wrong about this, apologies, I'll happily concede. I just think the language of the 20th Amendment is both clear and obviously controlling, and have seen no rule or law today that would explain why they aren't members once it is noon on 1/3. And I searched for some explanation! I too was curious about the repeated use of the term "representative-elect" post-12:00 p.m. It just appears (to me) it is erroneous. Mr.dooley (talk) 06:32, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

^the above is correct. Unsworn members of the House are still members, in the same way that e.g. the vice-president succeeds automatically to the presidency regardless of whether they have taken the oath of office as president. ITBF (talk) 06:47, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

That last comment is correct, but Jesus Tapdancing Christ, can everyone put a lid on all this amateur lawyering? EEng 07:30, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

lol does it count as amateur lawyering if you're an actual lawyer? Mr.dooley (talk) 15:34, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

More WP:OR having no application to improving this article

Found the House rule on the matter, finally. Here's some key passages.

"Until a Member-elect has subscribed to the oath, he does not enjoy

all the rights and prerogatives of a Member of Congress."

"A Member-elect may be permitted to defer his taking of the oath, without

declining his seat, until such time as questions regarding his

qualifications are resolved. Deschler Ch 2 Sec. 5. However, where a

Member-elect fails to appear to take the oath, the House may provide

by resolution that, if he fails to appear to take the oath by a

certain date, the seat will be declared vacant. Deschler Ch 2

Sec. 5.7."

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-HPRACTICE-108/html/GPO-HPRACTICE-108-34.htm 209.50.10.212 (talk) 07:30, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

• Great. If only we knew what "not enjoy the rights and prerogatives" means, we'd be all set. This is a complete waste of time. EEng 09:09, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 January 2023

George Santos birthdate, according to his 2017 Florida driver's license and Florida Voter Registration, is JULY 22, 1988 2601:586:4B03:9C40:3D1A:B520:742A:48DB (talk) 06:38, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Do you have a source for this? Like, one you can link to? We can't just take your say-so ... Daniel Case (talk) 07:51, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 02:41, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Silly spinoff

FYI, we've got an editor trying to spin off a separate article, George Santos lying scandal [1]. As I've noted over there, it's a silly idea, because essentially everything known about Santos, at the present and for the foreseeable future, is about his compulsive lying, and the name George Santos is synonymous with this scandal. EEng 03:46, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

@ElijahPepe: - I endorse EEng's rationale. starship.paint (exalt) 04:08, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

+1 Daniel Case (talk) 04:30, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

You're inviting me to a wedding??? EEng 04:32, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Daniel Case (talk) 06:06, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

I'll let the redirect stay but half of this article is about the scandal. The title is "George Santos", not "George Santos lying scandal". elijahpepe@wikipedia (he/him) 05:35, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

We certainly appreciate your magnanimity in allowing the redirect to remain. Most generous of you indeed. EEng 16:37, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

George Santos, if that is his real name, is about to become a U.S. Congressman. This is a biography, he is the scandal. – Muboshgu (talk) 05:38, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Precisely! Activist (talk) 09:45, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Agreed in some ways, but the article is clearly written from that POV so either have a strictly historical document, without falling on either side, or, call it what it is... The George Santos Scandal. (Having one of each really is more ethical in my thoughts). 142.118.165.136 (talk) 20:46, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

I concur. There's no need for a separate article right now. ser! ^{(chat to me - see my edits)} 09:48, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

I think what it boils down to is that if you take away the "lying scandal", there won't be much left. If "Santos" actually takes office and eventually gets involved in other newsworthy things, that may change, and at that point we might reconsider a spin-off. For now there's no real point. TheScotch (talk) 21:57, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 December 2022

His father = Gercino Santos His mother = Fatima Devolder (d. 2016) Sister = Tiffany Devolder Santos (she went to Baruch College) Dreed503 (talk) 01:39, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Please provide a source for this information. Bowler the Carmine | talk 02:50, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Daily Beast source deleted twice

There is a Daily Beast source, "MAGA House Candidate Haunted by Gig at Reputed Ponzi Scheme", that was deleted twice (by User:Marquardtika and User:GeorgeBailey) with edit summaries that I found to have been a bit misleading (though not necessarily intentionally so):

• Edit summary: (→‎Early life and career: if he's not mentioned...why are we mentioning? also WP:DAILYBEAST) (made me think at first that Santos was not mentioned in the Daily Beast article, which is in fact all about Santos; the edit summary refers instead to a sentence in the deleted paragraph saying that Santos is not mentioned personally in the federal complaint)
• Edit summary: (NPOV, removal of "sources" like Twitter and YouTube, dividing into sections, other neutrality goals)

There may be a case for restoring that source. At present, Santos' involvement in Harbor City Capital (also touched on in the abovementioned New York Times article) is not mentioned at all in the biography. --Andreas JN466 13:33, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

The Daily Beast is considered a WP:MREL source, per WP:RSP. You can read more at WP:DAILYBEAST. While the article does have good information, editors could have a case for not including it based on its RSP rating. I would see if the article info could be sourced to a more RS. I'm sure many agencies are digging into the candidate's claims. --Kbabej (talk) 19:36, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

There is plenty of well-sourced controversy surrounding Santos, but the Harbor City involvement to me seems fairly marginal. The NYT says "Neither Mr. Santos nor other colleagues were named in the lawsuit, and Mr. Santos has publicly denied having any knowledge of the scheme..." and the Daily Beast, a lesser source, has the same gist. I don't see why we should include this when we have many reliable sources reporting on how Santos lied about his entire resume/background. Marquardtika (talk) 16:08, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

For what it's worth—

• The Daily Beast article is quoted and linked by The Guardian: The Daily Beast reported in April that Santos, who has identified as a member of the LGBTQ+ community and presented himself as a “walking, living, breathing contradiction”, had served as a director of a Florida investment firm, Harbor City Capital, that the SEC accused of running a $17m (£14m) Ponzi – or pyramid – scheme. Santos was not named in the lawsuit and has denied knowledge of the alleged fraud.
• Yahoo News (actually a syndicated Insider piece) similarly quotes and links the Daily Beast: Santos incorporated the Devolder Organization in May with the assistance of a former accountant from Harbor City Capital, a business Santos spent time at as a regional director, according to The Daily Beast. The Securities and Exchange Commission accused Harbor City Capital of running as a Ponzi Scheme — Santos was not named in the SEC's lawsuit.
• New York Magazine also quotes and links The Daily Beast: The DCCC highlighted Santos’s ties to Harbor City Capital, a firm the SEC has charged with perpetrating a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme. The Daily Beast reported in April that Santos, who worked as a regional director for the company, wasn’t named in the lawsuit.
• Newsweek says: Shortly after Santos won his primary, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) released an 87-page opposition memo detailing a number of unsavory facts about Santos' beliefs and record which it, then, published online. Included among them was a Daily Beast report detailing his close ties to Harbor City Capital, a Wall Street firm that was accused of "operating as a ponzi scheme that ripped off investors to the tune of $6 million" shortly after Santos announced his congressional bid.
• Forbes has: SURPRISING FACT During his congressional campaign, Santos was employed as the regional director of Florida-based investment company Harbor City Capital, which was accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of running a $17 million Ponzi scheme. Santos was not named in the lawsuit and denied knowledge of the alleged fraud.
• Vanity Fair says: At one point, Santos’s résumé listed that he served as regional director of Harbor City Capital, a Florida-based investment company. But after the firm drew the ire of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which accused the company of running a $17 million Ponzi scheme, Santos insisted he was a mere foot soldier in the operation who knew nothing of any wrongdoing. (Santos was not named in the lawsuit and has publicly denied knowledge of the scheme. Jonathan Maroney, the founder of the company, denied wrongdoing.)
• Rolling Stone says: Santos claimed to work for multiple companies, including Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, who were unable to verify his employment to the Times. His confirmed employment at Harbor City Capital coincided with a time in which the company was accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of operating a $6 million Ponzi scheme. Santos, then regional director, was not directly named in the complaint, and denied knowledge of the fraud.

And so on; this is by no means an exhaustive list. A mention of this aspect (also mentioned by the New York Times of course) seems to be a staple of current reporting and thus to my mind seems WP:DUE. The fact that the DCCC picked up on this and sought to broadcast it (see New York Magazine and Newsweek quotes above) also seems relevant. Regards, Andreas JN466 18:03, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

@Jayen466, sources quoting the Daily Beast still fall under the WP:DAILYBEAST section on WP:RSP. Those sources using Daily Beast reporting/info are just regurgitating the same info; it's not a new report from, say, The Guardian. --Kbabej (talk) 20:41, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

@Kbabej: Well, what about the articles that don't mention the Daily Beast? Forbes (staff-written articles like the one linked above), Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair and the New York Times are all classed as top-quality, "green" sources at WP:RSP (with the New York Times considered a newspaper of record). And there is also WP:USEBYOTHERS to consider when assessing an individual article's reliability. Regards, Andreas JN466 21:36, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

If multiple green-level RSP sources cover the information without it being a Daily Beast regurgitation, I'm for including the information! --Kbabej (talk) 22:27, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

I see no reason to think Daily Beast is unreliable here. If all these RSes quote them, we should be able to as well. The RSP summary says to use caution, not that the source is banned and neither it nor other sites that reference it may be used. The RSP summary establishes that we need to be cognizant of potential liberal bias and sensationalism, not that that specific facts that references it should be excluded. Since this job is one which he apparently did in fact hold, it shouldn't be left out because of who reported it. Reywas92^Talk 04:19, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

There is no reason to doubt that he is gay when the NYT lists [2] multiple neighbors who saw his husband so the fact that he divorced a woman is entirely irrelevant, the article is just a homophobic smear about how some straight writer doubts that a gay man is actually gay. Bill Williams 14:20, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Of course the other controversies are completely fine to discuss, but the part about him allegedly not being gay is absurd as if someone needs to provide evidence about their sexuality. Bill Williams 14:23, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Your statement makes no sense. He has lied about every aspect of his life. Should talking about whether he's actually Jewish be off-limits? Hikeddeck (talk) 01:01, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Of course the question is whether Santos and this man were married. Haven't some of the other sources found no evidence of any other marriage besides the one that ended in divorce in 2019? Daniel Case (talk) 20:38, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

That wasn't my point, someone had added the sentence "Santos said in 2022 that he is openly gay and had no issues with his sexual identity in the past decade; New York City marriage records indicate he married a woman in 2012 and divorced her shortly before declaring his candidacy in 2020" to the lead which is absurdly misleading and connecting two separate things, him knowing his sexuality doesn't conflict with him being married to a woman as that sentence suggests, Elton John had sex with men days before he married a woman and he knew his sexuality perfectly well. The Daily Beast article was a pathetic hit piece trying to claim that he isn't gay, as if he's lying about his sexuality when the New York Times discusses numerous witnesses seeing him and his husband. You can utilize more reliable sources to cover the matter in the body, which has already been done anyway, but putting two separate things in one sentence (that he knows his sexuality and that he married a woman) to create a narrative is not NPOV. Bill Williams 14:31, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

My issue is purely with referring to him as a spouse. The Times has referred to the other man only as Santos's "boyfriend" because no one's found any record of a marriage other than the 2012-2019 one where it seems he never lived with the woman or went to social events with her (Green Card marriage, anyone?). In the absence of that evidence we ought not to call him Santos's "husband". Daniel Case (talk) 17:56, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

If you have no issues with your sexual identity, then you aren't married to someone incompatible with your sexual identity. Elton John would obviously have said he had issues with his sexual identity. The conflict between the statements is obvious and in the light of that fact your vehemency is strange and suspect. Hikeddeck (talk) 00:58, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

"the article is just a homophobic smear about how some straight writer doubts that a gay man is actually gay."

I think it's called bisexual when you like both boys and girls. Stop being biphobic. We have rights too you now. Or is it time to drop the B? 71.184.94.206 (talk) 05:39, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

... and why do we have to refer to a person's sexual preferences anyhow. That's a personal matter, really (a comment from a person who likes the opposite gender, in case that is of any concern). 142.118.165.136 (talk) 19:48, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

In as much as there are major concerns about George Santos, the article is very biased, and become more and more so towards it's conclusion. The article likely should be redone from scratch by a non-partisan person instead of someone who is obviously trying to smear Republicans (likely to take away attention from "one of" the worst politicians in US history. 142.118.165.136 (talk) 19:41, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

... "becomes more and more so" (sorry for my typo). 142.118.165.136 (talk) 19:42, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

The reference to the scandal seems to be redundant, early on in the article and at the end seem duplicative. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.181.192.29 (talk) 19:50, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

see also suggestion

I'm reminded of Dan Johnson (Kentucky politician), another US legislator whose many autobiographical claims were refuted in a journalistic exposé. I considered adding {{annotated link|Dan Johnson (Kentucky politician)}} to the "See also" section, but worried about two contextual differences between the two men what could be considered relatively sensitive: (a) Johnson was accused of child sexual abuse, and (b) committed suicide soon after said exposé. I leave this suggestion to the tender mercies of editors here. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 01:08, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

I was thinking more The Talented Mr. Ripley. EEng 22:45, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

You laugh. He's already been compared to that character, and Anna Delvey as well. Daniel Case (talk) 01:56, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

We might refer (as this is obviously a biased article) to the claims of a prominent government individual that they; "passingly said in a voting rights speech last week that he had been “arrested” in the context of the civil rights movement – even suggesting this had happened more than once – it was a classic Biden false claim: an anecdote about his past for which there is no evidence" [CNN Thu January 20, 2022], “...used to drive a tractor-trailer,” though only for “part of a summer.” This was similar to something he had said at a Mack Trucks facility in July, when he claimed, “I used to drive an 18-wheeler, man,” adding, “I got to.” There is no evidence Biden ever drove a big truck;" [CNN ibid], "that [Golda Meir] had wanted him to be “the liaison between she and the Egyptians about the Suez, and so on and so forth.” There is zero evidence Meir ever wanted to use a 30-year-old rookie US senator as a “liaison” with a major adversary." [CNN ibid] and the list goes on. 142.118.165.136 (talk) 20:01, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

As irrelevant as your existence apparently. 2601:204:E080:C230:3168:6E89:75D4:34E8 (talk) 13:23, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

The above paragraph is entirely off-topic nonsensical blather. I don't think, in any case, we should have a "see also" section that lists other politicians who have lied about their lives (or have lied about other things, or have been accused of lying). That would not be relevant to the article. The article is about George Santos. TheScotch (talk) 21:30, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

In many other articles the See Also section links to, in addition to lists and broad topical articles, articles about similar subjects: similar disasters, fictional narratives with similar plot elements, similar crimes etc. Readers would be interested in other cases of fabulistic politicians (assuming, of course, that we don't find any need to link to those articles from the main text) which certainly fall under the definition of "subjects of tangential interest". Note that WP:SEEALSO has, as one of its examples, fajita being OK as a see-also link from taco. Daniel Case (talk) 04:03, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Typo, I cannot edit

Hey, there is a typo (errant ‘e’) in the last paragraph before the ‘continuing fallout’ subsection. I do not have an account that would allow me to make the edit. 2601:285:8000:420:E5C2:D1FD:80E:E318 (talk) 02:50, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

The "e" is now removed Scoutguy138 (talk) 02:55, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Date of birth

Why is no DOB included? Yodabyte (talk) 22:23, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

We have not found an independent source for it other than information provided to political parties or media outlets by Santos himself, who can obviously at this point no longer be considered a reliable source. Daniel Case (talk) 23:00, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Has it been confirmed he is 34 years old or is that a lie too? I know this isn't supposed to be funny (widespread corruption in US political parties) but I can't help chuckle when asking this. Yodabyte (talk) 23:23, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps more to the point, where was he born, and is he a U.S. citizen? Ann Teak (talk) 00:45, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ – Muboshgu (talk) 00:52, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

He has never shown anyone his birth certificate ... Daniel Case (talk) 01:43, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Brazilian Embezzlement case, early boyfriend

Brazil reportedly plans to revive embezzlement charges on the guy after he's sworn in because now they know his whereabouts. The article also interestingly mentions a boyfriend he had all the way back in 2008 in the following quote:

Using the pseudonym “Delio,” Santos allegedly bought $700 worth of clothes and shoes for his then-boyfriend, “Thiago,” according to the cashier.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/brazilian-authorities-will-revive-santos-fraud-case-after-not-knowing-his-whereabouts-for-14-years WynnAurelium (talk) 23:39, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Santos' former female spouse

I've blanked her name per WP:BLPNAME, which says that a non-Wikinotable spouse's name may be included "subject to editorial discretion that such information is relevant to a reader's complete understanding of the subject". I don't think that including her name here contributes to the understanding of the topic at all, as there is little or no debate that she exists and that George Santos was formerly married to her (he has publicly admitted so), yet her direct involvement in recent events and his political activities seems to be nil. Per the policy that Wikipedia's "presumption in favor of privacy is strong", I think we should respect her privacy and leave her name out. Carguychris (talk) 02:47, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

I disagree. While her right to privacy is important, Santos is also a member of Congress whose biography is littered with lies. There is evidence that George Santos was married to this woman, and considering who he is and the circumstances of this situation, I think his article needs a seedling of truth to paint a more accurate picture of his past.

Your reasoning for blanking her name, while rational, is enitrely subjective. I think the fact that George Santos was married to a woman is 100% relevant considering he claims to be gay.

I'll be adding her name back to his infobox. Please revert the edit if there is a Wikipedia rule that objectively states her right to privacy trumps the importance of keeping Wikipedia pages accurate and inclusive of all relevant information. Hayden64 (talk) 08:13, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

And I've removed it per WP:BLPNAME. The fact that he was married is relevant; the name of his spouse is not. EEng 09:11, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Again, +1. The woman IIRC declined to talk to the Times through an intermediary when they reached her. She has not spoken out about this and, indeed, I think she might even have stronger reasons than him not to. If she ever does, then her identity becomes relevant. Daniel Case (talk) 19:52, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Not Sworn In

It matters quite a bit if the goal is for Wikipedia to be as correct as possible at any given time. So much for not "biting the newcomers." 209.50.10.212 (talk) 17:02, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Per the 20th Amendment of the Constitution the terms of all those elected to the 118th Congress began at noon on January 3. That has historically been the deciding factor on Wikipedia for determining terms of office. However, it is true that House rules prevent them from carrying out their official duties until sworn in. The swearing-in date only applies to legislative activity, and not their term of office, which started January 3 regardless of when they are sworn in.DCmacnut<> 19:09, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Then why does the House Clerk keep calling them "members-elect" rather than members? Ann Teak (talk) 19:40, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

The House website lists them as representatives. https://www.house.gov/representatives#state-new-york. So you have a primary source calling him a representative.

OTOH, it does seem like secondary sources are still using Congresmman-elect: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/04/politics/george-santos-stolen-checks-brazil/index.html https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/george-santos-congress-swearing-in-2nd-day/.

I think maybe add a footnote? The thing is you would need to do this for all 434 members (remember, the House is not a continuing body). It would be inane. Kas1234567 (talk) 01:20, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

• I have removed the incorrect statement that Santos is not yet a member of the House, which was based on a misunderstanding of the source provided. A member of the House who has not been sworn in is simply an unsworn member - this occurs relatively frequently e.g. in the event that the member cannot be immediately sworn in due to ill health. The Twentieth Amendment is unambiguous. ITBF (talk) 05:52, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

  And I've changed the lead to vanilla wording avoiding the question, so that you bunch can stop arguing about it. EEng 06:45, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Sources:

1. Associated Press - Republican Rep.-elect George Santos of New York, who is accused of lying about large swaths of his background and accomplishments, will have to wait to add one thing with certainty to his resume: U.S. congressman.
2. PolitiFact The unusually drawn-out voting for House speaker has overshadowed the tale of Rep.-elect George Santos, R-N.Y., during the first days of the 118th Congress. [...] Can Congress stop Santos from taking office given the reports about his misleading background? Until the House elects a speaker, there are technically no sitting House members. By long-standing practice, a speaker must be chosen before newly elected members are sworn into office. And the previous Congress’ term ended Jan. 3. Santos is poised to be sworn in to office once the speakership vote is resolved. He has not said he plans to resign.
3. Washington Post But if the House of Representatives has no members who have taken the oath of office, does it exist? “I know our capacity to do basic legislation doesn’t really exist,” said Rep.-elect Derek Kilmer ... Members-elect and their staffers kept asking one another, “Do you know anything?” [...] “I’m a member-elect,” Pence (R-Ind.) explained. [...] After at least six rounds of painstaking voice votes that resulted in stalemates, the 434 members-elect could not decide on a speaker of the House — which means they cannot be sworn in [...] Rep.-elect Troy E. Nehls (R-Tex.), a Freedom Caucus guy who is nevertheless voting for Rep.-elect Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) [...] the House technically has no members and cannot proceed with the business of the American people
4. New York Times George Santos, Republican representative-elect of New York, spent his first day in Congress as an outcast [...] Anthony D’Esposito, another incoming Republican representative-elect from Long Island
5. BBC congressman-elect George Santos sitting by himself, surrounded only by children and seemingly shunned by his new colleagues in the Congress.
6. Wall Street Journal Embattled Rep.-elect George Santos (R, N.Y.) spent his first day in Congress dodging reporters
7. Barrons - Executives who work in the ultrahigh-net-worth and family office markets say the consulting company owned by George Santos would face significant challenges to realize the kind of deal-making success the Republican representative-elect has reported.
8. NBC - Rep.-elect George Santos, a gay New York Republican who sparked widespread condemnation
9. CBS - Republican Congressman-elect George Santos continued casting votes for speaker of the House
10. PIX11 - New York news - Rep.-elect George Santos — the man who said that he “embellished” his resume and life story, is set to take his seat in Congress once there’s a house speaker to swear him in

The reliable sources are clear. They even quote Greg Pence, who says he is a member-elect. Seriously, these include AP, NYT, WaPo and WSJ. That should be enough for anyone. starship.paint (exalt) 14:29, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Let it never be said that pedantry isn't alive and well at WP, and SP, I'm surprised that you're wasting your time on this. In a few days he'll be sworn in and it won't matter. In the meantime, I devised wording that avoids the issue [3], but now you've changed it back to wording that just invites further dispute for no ultimate purpose. EEng 16:12, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Impostor

@JDDJS: regarding your revert. please elaborate why you think he is a liar but not an imposter. if you think naming him imposter is not fitting and the actual situation is far more complex than him being an imposter then you can contribute to the article by setting forth the complexity you see in this biography. it certainly doesnt do any good to delete such a precise formulation, without contributing anything that makes the complexity - as you call it - more understandable. LennBr (talk) 00:55, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Imposters pretend to be someone they're not. He lied about what type of person he is, but never pretended he wasn't George Santos. You might be able to convince that he belongs in the category for imposters (even though none of the people in that article seem to be of a similar case) but there is simply no way that it can be in the opening sentence. That would be a major BLP violation. Just like we don't include sexual assault claims in the opening sentence for articles like Bill Cosby and Kevin Spacey, it would be extremely inappropriate to do so here. JDDJS (talk to me • see what I've done) 02:31, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Your construction of imposter is over-strict, but the bottom line is it doesn't belong in the lead -- not yet, anyway. EEng 03:29, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

He lied about nearly everything but his name, what else but impostor are those people usually called? And that's his main treat currently, his unique feature. Grüße vom Sänger ♫ ^(talk) 10:16, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

EEng is correct. When Christian Gerhartsreiter gulled a lot of people into believing he was "Clark Rockefeller", one of the Rockefellers, he was a genuine impostor (ironically).

I would also commend you to how we ourselves define the term at Wiktionary: "Someone who attempts to deceive by using an assumed name or identity". While Santos may have used permutations of his own name, or in one case an outright alias, to further his schemes (as what I believe to be his sockpuppetry here (see section above) shows, he was trying to obfuscate this), he has never claimed long-term to be anyone other than George Santos. Daniel Case (talk) 18:50, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Of course I'm correct. Didn't you get the memo? EEng 19:31, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

He has claimed to be completely different George Santos then the real one. Even if you stick to your name, just invent every single aspect of your life, you are an impostor. Or is there another word for such liars? Grüße vom Sänger ♫ ^(talk) 17:48, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

If there was another George Santos who had degrees from Baruch and Stern and had worked at Goldman and Citi, then we could call this guy an impostor. Only in one instance documented in the article—the Brazilian check scheme—did he use another person's identity, and that's forgery (and also most jurisdictions have a law criminalizing the possession of forged documents and claiming to be someone else in order to further a crime, which he also did in the course of that). But that amounts to too small a portion of his misdeeds to categorize him as an impostor, IMO.

Compare to a genuine impostor (ahem) like Anna Anderson, who claimed her whole life to be someone who had actually died years before, or David Hampton, who claimed to be the son Sidney Poitier never had, a completely invented yet entirely separate identity. Claiming a fake version of yourself does not meet, in any way, the definition of impostor I helpfully posted in my reply to you that you seem not to have noticed.

What would I call him? I think grifter is the best overall term: he has shown a pattern of sponging off others by claiming he would soon come into money, of walking away from debts, of diverting monies for personal purposes, of spending lavishly on himself, of associating himself with tragic events he was not associated with in order to generate sympathy and deflect criticism and scrutiny, and, yes, trading on his claimed credentials and background to get jobs. Daniel Case (talk) 18:47, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Reliable, polite media sources have referred to Santos as a "fabulist".

George Santos: Brazil reactivates fraud case against fabulist congressman-elect — The Guardian

"As the fabulist New York Republican representative-elect George Santos prepares to be sworn in on Tuesday, Brazilian prosecutors say they are reopening a criminal fraud case against him."

George Santos and How Opposition Research Really Works — The New York Times

"In the end, many people missed the biggest story about him: that he may be a serial fabulist."

I've also heard him referred to as a fabulist and a serial fabricator on the the NY Times' podcast show called The Daily.

The Life and Lies of George Santos — The Daily podcast by The New York Times

Hopefully some of that is helpful, and I'm sure there are more similar sources out there (I only just did a quick search). Cheers! 98.155.8.5 (talk) 20:26, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

RFC

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.

Per WP:SNOW, it is clear that there is consensus to not include Santos in Category:Impostors,. 100.36.106.199 (talk) 01:46, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

---

In order to get more input on whether or not it would be appropriate to include him in the Category:Impostors, I'm starting a RFC here. I also think that this article would benefit from more input in general, as it seems there are a lot of disagreements on how to handle all of his lies here. JDDJS (talk to me • see what I've done) 18:27, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

• Strong oppose I incorporate fully by reference everything I've already said just above this RFC. Daniel Case (talk) 18:48, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
• Strong oppose because (a) I'm sick and tired of people opening RfCs out of the blue without making more than a token effort to resolve the question locally or frame it properly for wider participation; and (b) this is a particularly stupid and trivial point to waste community time on. Oh, and (c) "I also think that this article would benefit from more input in general" is not an appropriate reason to open an RfC on some random thing. Plus there's (d): No one cares about categories anyway. EEng 19:07, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

  @User:EEng you might not care about categories, but clearly other people do, otherwise this conflict wouldn't be happening in the first place. There is clearly a lot of discord throughout this whole article and talk page, so I don't know why you're so offended by attempts to open these disagreements to more more opinions. JDDJS (talk to me • see what I've done) 19:25, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

  OK then, putting aside the manifest triviality of categories, that still leaves (a), (b), and (c). And I don't see much "discord" on this page at all. It's been quite quiet for a current-events BLP, actually. EEng 19:30, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. (I came here from the RfC notice.) It seems to me that an imposter pretends to be someone other than themselves, whereas Santos pretends to be a much more impressive version of himself. Under WP:BLP, we have to be precise in the way that we characterize living persons, even those who have behaved badly. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:09, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
• Comment ― Please see my post above in the Impostor thread. Polite, reliable media have referred to Santos as a "fabulist". Cheers! 98.155.8.5 (talk) 20:35, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

  I wouldn't have a problem with referring to him as a fabulist, which is not the same thing as an imposter. We actually have Category:Fabulists, but it's reserved for the authors of fables. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:48, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

  He is in Category:People who fabricated academic degrees, although I think that category's misnamed. Fabricating an academic degree would mean making up bogus paperwork, like a transcript and diploma, to support the claim. Or making up an entire institution to claim you graduated from it. It would be better titled "People who falsely claimed an academic degree".

  Also, that category includes people who did, in fact, get the degrees, just not in the subjects they claimed to have gotten them in. Daniel Case (talk) 22:23, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

• Strong oppose what Santos did was bad enough, there is no need to lie about it and turn it into something that it's not. He never pretended to be a different person, he simply lied about who he was. Bill Williams 23:08, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
• Strong oppose. There is a MAJOR difference in lying about yourself and pretending to be someone else. Grahaml35 (talk) 23:50, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose While he lied about almost everything, he did not lie about his identity (that we know of anyway...) Bowler the Carmine | talk 01:46, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose Zero evidence has been provided that he is not really George Santos. He has used aliases but so do many people, from Samuel Clemens to most Wikipedia editors. As far as I know, no reliable sources are calling him an "imposter" at this time, because the definition of that word is narrowly defined. He is certainly exposed as a liar. There is no need to go beyond that. Cullen328 (talk) 07:24, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose It seems to me that an imposter pretends to be someone other than themselves, whereas Santos pretends to be a much more impressive version of himself. Under WP:BLP, we have to be precise in the way that we characterize living persons, even those who have behaved badly. per Tryptofish. I doubt if RS use the term - even though they use far more 'cutting' descriptors. Pincrete (talk) 12:16, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose This is likely a candidate for a WP:SNOW close. Nemov (talk) 18:20, 8 January 2023 (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.

There is no "allegedly" about it

The introductory section contains this sentence:

"Santos has attracted scrutiny for allegedly making false claims about his biography, work history and financial status."

There is no "allegedly" about it. Wikipedia should not be afraid to print the truth that has been checked and rechecked by leading newspapers. (Including The New York Times and The Washington Post.)

Oh yeah: Also, false claims about a crime he admitted committing in Brazil, and about his ethnic family background.

AND, George Santos himself has publicly acknowledged many of his lies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:200:c000:1a0:80d8:6b79:c0af:2203 (talk) 02:16, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

I think someone was being overly cautious ... a lot of people don't know that Santos has acknowledged never attending either college he claimed to, nor working at Citi or Goldman. Will amend. Daniel Case (talk) 04:42, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Was not able to edit article

I was going to add a Wiktionary link to this article, but was prevented from doing so because it appears to be locked from editing. Please fix this ridiculous situation! 76.190.213.189 (talk) 14:07, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

As I noted last week when you asked this, we generally discourage this sort of link anyway. Daniel Case (talk) 18:41, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

If you want to edit, create an account. This article is a high target for vandalism, and policy dictates locking the article from edits from unregistered users. JDDJS (talk to me • see what I've done) 17:15, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Please use reliable sources - follow WP:RSP

There's too much information for me to clean up... please avoid red-highlighted and yellow-highlighted sources listed at WP:RSP ... avoid The Daily Beast, New York Post, Mediaite, Business Insider, Rolling Stone... We can use reliable sources that quote these sources (not wholesale republishing the same article), but not these sources themselves, please. starship.paint (exalt) 14:53, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

@Pennsylvania2: - please see above, Newsweek per RSP post-2013 Newsweek articles are not generally reliable. starship.paint (exalt) 04:14, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Trying to clean up the article right now is like cleaning up after a hurricane with only a roll of paper towels. - BlueboyLINY (talk) 08:06, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

• Iandaandi - please avoid citing a Wordpress blog when WaPo already covers the content. [4] We don’t need to overcite the lede, the body of the article already has a link to the October 2022 NSLeader article endorsing Zimmerman, which wasn’t even the first article they wrote on Santos’ finances, that was in September 2022 as WaPo notes. starship.paint (exalt) 03:25, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

  My apologies if another editor's Wordpress link inadvertently appeared when I restored an older version with the original citation, which included the October article. If you look at what I've edited, you'll see I've been trying to pare down the area, unify and clarify. I try to not completely erase others' contributions as an acknowledgement of their effort, but I missed the Wordpress link. Thank you for the input. Best wishes and good luck with the page. Iandaandi (talk) 05:02, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

lying about mothers death in 9/11

Unsure how to include this since this isn't an area I'm familiar with so I'll let others include:

• https://www.newsweek.com/george-santos-claims-his-mom-was-world-trade-center-9-11-1769298
• https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/george-santos-mother-9-11-death-new-york-b2252986.html
• https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/29/george-santos-mother-911-death/

John Cummings (talk) 16:04, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

He's not said his mother died on 9/11 so much as suggested that she died a few years later as a result of complications from that day. Daniel Case (talk) 23:01, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Just quote him verbatim and let people interpret it however they want. WaPo covers it adequately and other sources are not needed. starship.paint (exalt) 02:52, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Daniel Case: That's a really pathetic weasel maneuver. TheScotch (talk)

@TheScotch: Me, or him? Daniel Case (talk) 22:25, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

I haven't read anywhere else that "Santos" tried to spin his obvious lie in this manner. If he really did, then that would be a really pathetic weasel maneuver on his part--at least. If it's something you invented yourself in an attempt to defend "Santos", then it would be a really pathetic weasel maneuver on your part alone. TheScotch (talk) 00:53, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

I didn't ... it was on his campaign website earlier this year (the one where he also claimed she had been one of the first women to get some high-ranking position at a financial firm). Daniel Case (talk) 19:02, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Addendum: It's here: "George’s work ethic comes from his mother, who came from nothing, but worked her way up to be the first female executive at a major financial institution. On September 11, 2001, George’s mother was in her office in the South Tower. She survived the horrific events of that day, but unfortunately passed away a few years later." A reasonable reader could infer from that phrasing that his mother died due to the long-term effects of being at the site of 9/11 (as some people did), even though it is not stated directly. It's "literally truthful but technically misleading". Daniel Case (talk) 19:11, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

gay

There are multiple unqualified statements that Santos is gay in the article. At the least they should say he "claimed" to be gay. Hikeddeck (talk) 00:52, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

We discussed this (sort of) a few sections up. I get the feeling the consensus is that sexuality is a complicated enough thing to say that it's really up to how someone describes themselves. It's not like the way we can now say he pretended to be Jewish when he was not.

Yes, we are at the point where we don't trust Santos to tell us when and where he was born. But questioning his sexuality is probably not somewhere we need to go right now. Daniel Case (talk) 02:34, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Maybe he's gay-ish. EEng 02:41, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

OK, I think this question just got settled. The New York Times ran this article today in which a former boyfriend is quoted on the record in a way that leaves no doubt:

One who was close to Mr. Santos was Pedro Vilarva. Mr. Vilarva met Mr. Santos in 2014, when he was 18 and Mr. Santos was 26. Mr. Vilarva found him charming and sweet. They dated for a few months before Mr. Santos suggested they move in together. Mr. Vilarva said he felt on top of the world — even if he said he did find himself footing many of the bills.

It also has yet more material which doesn't make Santos look good. Will add to article. Daniel Case (talk) 03:18, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

His Instagram post depicted the Obamas as chimpanzees

See [5]. The caption from his original post is somewhat vague and it’s possible he wasn’t actually endorsing the sentiment of the image (which was apparently taken from a Belgian newspaper). But he did still share it to IG and a lot of people might find that troubling. 2604:2D80:6984:3800:0:0:0:7F3C (talk) 05:18, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

This lead is terribly written

sealioning, false balance, baseless complaints without sources, same user (now blocked indefinitely) did same thing at Joe Biden Dronebogus (talk) 04:57, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

In a BLP, the lead should provide a relevant overview of the individual in question. Instead, amazingly, this lead actually mentions nothing about him whatsoever, other than that he's a liar and a Congressman. This isn't news, folks. Most politicians are liars, and statements such as "Santos has made numerous dubious and false claims about his biography, work history, and financial status in public and private" could just as naturally be made in reference to Joe Biden, or numerous other Congressmen and Senators, both Republican and Democrat. Even if you think Santos' lies are "worse" somehow, this kind of language isn't appropriate for a lead/intro in an encyclopedia. The lead should consist primarily of a short summary of what *is* known about Santos' life. A sentence mentioning coverage of his untruths would be (arguably) appropriate, but not a multi-paragraph, rambling essay about it, to the complete exclusion anything else. His BS artistry should be elaborated on in its own section, later in the article. Otherwise, we, the editors at this article, are setting the standard for political articles. While 100% consistency across all of Wikipedia is practically impossible, it is an ideal for which to strive, and at the very least, we should expect that all articles on controversial topics reflect the standards and ideals of Wikipedia, not the feelings of the sub-community of editors who edit articles in these areas. If this is truly an "encyclopedic" way to write this lead, there are a lot of articles to revise. Scores of U.S Congressmen, Senators, former and current Presidents, diplomats, press secretaries, directors of intelligence agencies, as well as foreign heads of state, so on and so on, have lied on the record numerous times. This is the norm, not the exception. George Santos is the ultimate expression of the absurd within a political culture drowning in dishonesty and absurdity. He's not exceptional, he's just a demonstration of the logical extension of what American politics (or all politics) is. Someone should do some serious housecleaning on this lead. Don't take out any of the relevant information, just put the BS artistry and lying in a different section and make the lead much (much!) shorter. If anyone has any comment about this, we can talk it out here and figure out what a good lead might look like. Otherwise, I will be willing do it myself. Philomathes2357 (talk) 02:51, 8 January 2023 (UTC) In a BLP, the lead should provide a relevant overview of the individual in question. Instead, amazingly, this lead actually mentions nothing about him whatsoever, other than that he's a liar and a Congressman. See, that's the thing: he seems to have lied about his entire biography. So what has he said that is true? Scores of U.S Congressmen, Senators, former and current Presidents, diplomats, press secretaries, directors of intelligence agencies, as well as foreign heads of state, so on and so on, have lied on the record numerous times. Yes, but they don't create their biographies out of whole cloth. You're understating the situation here, which is why the lead is what it is at present. The lead summarizes the key points of the body and his lying is as key a point as his being in Congress. – Muboshgu (talk) 02:57, 8 January 2023 (UTC) The fact that he lies about his background doesn't mean he doesn't have one, that's silly. I'm aware that Santos is even more brazen in his public deception than most politicians, although not by very much. Even if you think his lies are "worse" or "more all-encompassing", this lead is so terribly written that anyone who thinks a neutral point of view is important on Wikipedia should either laugh out loud or be ashamed when they see it. Philomathes2357 (talk) 03:06, 8 January 2023 (UTC) Again, he has lied so much that we don't know what his true background is. And yes, it's way more than the standard politician lies. I'm not going to rehash every lie he's told here and now. Do you have any specific, actionable suggestions for improvement? – Muboshgu (talk) 03:15, 8 January 2023 (UTC) Which is why the lead should be short, because he's basically an unknown figure. Yes. The lead should be brief, containing a very short factual summary of what *is* known about his biography. His 2020 and 2022 campaigns should be noted. Possibly, but arguably, one sentence should mention that numerous sources have found that he fabricated much of his public record, which, as should be noted, brings the nature of his biography into question. The details of his documented BS artistry still belong in the article, they should just be removed from the lead and put in their own section later in the body. That's my view. Philomathes2357 (talk) 03:48, 8 January 2023 (UTC) Lead size is supposed to be commensurate to the article size. – Muboshgu (talk) 03:59, 8 January 2023 (UTC) First, this reflects a lot of different editors taking things in and putting things out over time in an article that was moved to mainspace less than three months ago, and has only been expanded seriously in the last three weeks. Take a look at what it was just before all this broke. Very little had been known about Santos at the time and (as you can see from the "Early life and career" section) much of it that we did know has turned to be a large helping of lies sandwiched between thin slices of truth. Second, anyone who has been working on this article (as opposed to just making a few talk page comments every couple of days on other articles' talk pages) will tell you that his actual background isn't known for certain and most of the sources (which one would imagine a real Wikipedian would be going out and looking for before indulging themselves in this kind of tirade) out there have largely devoted themselves to unpacking things he's lied about. Since much of what we thought we knew, what reliable sources had reported, turned out to have been Santos's own falsifications they accepted at face value, there is now nothing about his background, even innocuous information like his date of birth, that we can consider reliable unless it comes from a reliable source completely independent of him (like, yes, his birthdate, which was in Brazilian court documents). We still do not know where he was born. We do know for sure a few things about his background that aren't evidence of bad character. We know that he got a GED. We know that in the early 2010s he worked as a customer service rep for Dish Network. We know that after 2015 he worked for LinkBridge Partners, including in Florida for a year, and then five years later left during the pandemic to work for Harbor City Capital. That's about it. I agree we should mention more of that in the intro. But even so the independent reliable sources on which we have always relied have, as I have said, reported primarily on "what he said about himself that has turned out not to be true". If you don't like that, I suggest you roll down your window and scream at the top of your lungs out of it at the real world for not generating events and facts that make for Wikipedia articles that neatly comply with our policies, or can be brought into such compliance. I would also point out that, as you would have seen if you had taken the time to read this talk page, we have not reported some things that would look even worse for Santos because of concerns about the sources (The Daily Beast, the New York Post and Fox News). And when Santos has spoken, admitting his educational background was entirely made up or offering defenses, or when Marjorie Taylor Greene has defended him (will she continue now that he helped get McCarthy to the Speaker's chair?), we have put that in the article. To suggest that since "all politicians lie" we shouldn't make much more of Santos's self-misrepresentations than we do any other politicians's is to embrace the kind of shoddy logic and false equivalence that has been the preferred talking point these last three weeks among Santos's apologists: "Biden said he graduated at the top of his law school class! Richard Blumenthal said he was in Vietnam!" The difference here is one of scale. Regardless of his academic standing, Biden incontrovertibly went to law school. Blumenthal incontrovertibly was in the Marines. Santos, OTOH, never went to either Baruch or NYU, never worked at either Goldman or Citi and his grandparents were neither Jewish nor anywhere near Europe when World War II started. Among other things (and the truths he didn't tell are as damaging as the lies he did). Daniel Case (talk) 03:52, 8 January 2023 (UTC) The other thing about the lede is that it would be a disservice to simply state, for example, that Santos' parents are from so and so, when Santos himself has made other claims about his heritage and background. For Wikipedia to "correct" his lies and paper over them seems odd. This is a BLP of course, and I therefore think it very important to recognize what Santos himself has claimed and said, because that's almost as important as the actual facts of the matter. Similar to how we have handled articles about Trump as well. What these folks say is an important part of who they are. In case I haven't been clear enough, I agree with the framing of the lede, for example this sentence is spot on, because it balances the claims of Santos with the actual reality of what reliable sources have been able to verify: "Santos claimed that his mother's parents were Ukrainian Jews who fled from the Holocaust to Brazil, but records obtained by several sources showed that his mother's parents were born in Brazil and none of her ancestors was Ukrainian or Jewish." That to me is really well done, and so I say to continue on with more of that. Cheers! 98.155.8.5 (talk) 04:01, 8 January 2023 (UTC) @User:Philomathes2357 He has received national media attention due to his extensive lies, and it has way exceeded the normal amount of media attention a new member of the House of Representatives receives. He obviously has no legislative achievements as he hasn't even been a member for 24 hours yet. The only notable he did before being elected to Congress was running for Congress. His lies are one of the most notable things about him. To not include in the lead would not be neutral at all. Also, the idea that his amount of lies are "the norm, not the exception" is completely untrue. Multiple sources have pointed how his lies have far exceeded the normal level of lies of politicians, and honestly the very suggestion that they don't makes think that you're either not fully up to date about the level of his lies, or you're simply not editing with a neutral point of view here. JDDJS (talk to me • see what I've done) 03:40, 8 January 2023 (UTC) @User:Philomathes2357 I agree that the lede is poorly written, and moved some of it to the body, including a "early career" section. It could potentially use more editing. It's cleaner but could potentially use more editing.Samp4ngeles (talk) 16:59, 8 January 2023 (UTC) There is so much in the comments above that it would take a multi-paragraph essay to address all of the points made. So I won't do that. The main point here still stands: this is a crappy article. It's poorly written and formatted to the point of absurdity. I've just edited it myself to reflect some of what I discussed in my opening comment. I won't say that my edit is the "best", but it's a start, and definitely an improvement over what was there before. Please discuss if you feel differently. Philomathes2357 (talk) 20:55, 9 January 2023 (UTC) Please see MOS:PSEUDOHEAD. --JBL (talk) 21:14, 9 January 2023 (UTC) Ahh, thanks, that's handy. Will apply this now. Philomathes2357 (talk) 21:20, 9 January 2023 (UTC) Well, what you did to the article wasn't as bad as I was afraid it was going to be, given that your original post left me, as I noted (and as I'm not the only one to note) suspicious that you had some kind of agenda. But still ... I'm glad EEng reverted some of it; you took it from some excesses to what could arguably give rise to claims in external media that "Wikipedia is covering up for George Santos!" I am now wondering if I semi-protected the article for long enough; if it remains largely in the state you left it (OK, it won't) through January 28, I'm pretty sure no RFPP will be necessary and this time we'll have to greylock it into the spring. I would also ask that you reflect on your tone in your edits here and your edit summaries. You find no end of derogatory terms to use in making your points, starting with the hed of this section: "terrible", "atrocious", "garbage" etc. I know you probably tell yourself over and over as you type things like that that "I am commenting on the content, not the contributors ... I am commenting on the content, not the contributors!" But that alone should not be seen as safe harbor, as contributors who have put a good deal of effort into actually creating article content, not just on a particular article but generally, tend, unsurprisingly (or perhaps not, to some people, it seems), to take such characterizations of their work personally. Consider that during the days in recent weeks between when you have dropped in to make comments on article talk pages and make edits to articles only to make sure everyone who hasn't read your user page knows that you "strongly dislike bias on Wikipedia", many of the people whose work you had such a low opinion of were actually going back and forth working on the article, putting things in, taking things out, changing wording, and having intense yet generally civil discussions here and in the edit summaries about those edits, only for someone who has never themselves created an article (at least not with your present account; since you claim to have been on Wikipedia almost as long as I have you may have done so under one of your previous accounts ... of course, since we don't know what those are we can't say) and who thus I am unsure understands what the article creation and development process is like. There are editors I would accept that tone from (even though we shouldn't), some of whom have been active on this article and this very talk page ... because I know firsthand that they have done the work and have the greasy elbows to show for it. But to come in here like you have and then act all taken aback that there is some pushback, some resistance? I suspect that your comments about not wanting to get into edit wars come from bitter personal experience with your unknown previous accounts. If so, you might want to consider how you approached the problem you saw and whether that had anything to do with how things turned out. I'm certainly not saying that you shouldn't have pointed out what you saw—I do think you had some points, at least. But maybe keeping in mind that you haven't been deep in the muck here when you pointed this out might have gotten you more cooperation. As it was, you will forgive us if we got the impression you weren't assuming good faith in the rest of us. And as I have heard others say and repeated a few times myself as an admin on various noticeboards, good faith is the grease in Wikipedia's gears. I would commend this to your attention if you haven't reread it in a long time. Maintaining civility is not just about the words you choose to use. Daniel Case (talk) 03:08, 10 January 2023 (UTC) Ouch!. EEng 04:56, 10 January 2023 (UTC) While some of Philomathes2357's edits were OK, the lead edits were not. The rant here trying to dismiss the lead by saying everyone lies is a False equivalence fallacy, and the attempted edit is contrary to Wikipedia NPOV policy. The lead is required to accurately summarize the body, and the body is required to accurately summarize what Reliable Sources say about a subject. That last sentence should not be remotely disputable by anyone. More than 2/3rds of the article is dedicated to Santos' near Guinness-world-record level of absurd and pathological lying because that constitutes about 99% of anything anyone has ever written about him. The only bias in this article is that (in accordance with policy) we devote so much as 1/3 of the article to routine biographical content - content which represents an utterly unrepresentative 0% of what has been written about him - but which belongs in any encyclopedic biography nonetheless. Alsee (talk) 10:42, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Removing The North Shore Leader from the early part of the article creates later references to the publication that make less clear sense

It would be easiest to leave the first mention of The North Shore Leader in the first mention of reports about Santos' credibility. Mxbndr (talk) 20:49, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

To add to article

To add to this article: mention of Santos's campaign treasurer Nancy Marks (who also served as treasurer for the campaign of Lee Zeldin), who controls many big-money bank accounts and may have helped provide massive funding for Santos, whose source is as yet unknown. 76.190.213.189 (talk) 05:08, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

The Times took care of giving us a reliable source for some of this yesterday.

On a meta level, I will note that for the first time since the story broke (and oh boy, did it break) on December 19, we just got through 24 hours (and a few minutes in change) without any posts to this page. Daniel Case (talk) 18:41, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Add Category:American Catholics or similar category/subcategory?

What do other editors think about allowing Santos to have a religion category again? I was going to add it and noticed there was a note not to. He currently claims to be Catholic and we have a source from a priest who's services he and his family attended. I understand if we don't want to add a religion category still, but wanted to see what other editors thought. TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 23:01, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Do it. "The family, including George Santos, was Catholic"[6] Samp4ngeles (talk) 02:18, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Done. TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 19:28, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

white power symbol during 10th round of voting for House Speaker?

This seems notable. According to Yahoo! News:

"Congressman-elect George Santos has put himself front and center in photos from the floor of the House of Representatives, including one in which he appears to flash a white power symbol ... With his right hand raised and his left hand across his midsection, he made a sideways 'OK' gesture by making his index finger and thumb meet. 'McCarthy,' Santos said, revealing the gesture briefly as he waved his other hand before turning around, walking away, and moving both hands back down to his sides. C-SPAN video of the incident shows that Santos had pre-positioned his hand along his body in an unusual way to create the gesture. Far-right extremists, mainly white supremacists, have coopted the gesture to symbolize a 'W' and 'P' for white power, according to the Anti-Defamation League."

George Santos Appears to Flash White Power Symbol on House Floor ― Yahoo! News, Jan. 6, 2023
George Santos Hand Gesture ― Truth or Fiction, Jan. 6, 2023
Did George Santos flash a white nationalist sign on the floor of Congress? ― LGBTQ Nation, Jan. 7, 2023
George Santos accused of flashing white-power symbol during House speaker vote ― Insider, Jan. 8, 2022
Did Rep. George Santos Flash the White Power Symbol in the House Chamber? ― Vanity Fair, Jan. 8, 2023
Did George Santos Flash the White Power Sign When Voting for McCarthy? ― Snopes, Jan. 9, 2023

From The New York Times: "Mr. Santos's views became the subject of further speculation after photographs of his voting for Mr. McCarthy appeared to show him making a symbol that the Southern Poverty Law Center associated with alt-right movements. Mr. Santos's intent was unclear: A video of his vote on C-SPAN did not show a clear angle of his hands, and Ms. Woomer, his communications director, did not respond to an email seeking clarity. But the photo prompted an outcry on social media and condemnations from fellow politicians. One fellow first-term Republican congressman, Nick LaLota of Long Island, cited the gesture — which he labeled a 'white power' sign — in his statement calling on Mr. Santos to resign this week."

Will update this thread with more sources as they become available. Cheers. 98.155.8.5 (talk) 22:34, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

References

Were don't need to report every time some one in the opposition news media claims they see a white power symbol. Springee (talk) 11:59, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

What does this mean: "the opposition news media"? Thanks. 98.155.8.5 (talk) 12:14, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Please stop spamming this incidental claim. Springee (talk) 14:20, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Certainly not incidental if there are solid sources on it. At the moment they're borderline. And cut it out with the "opposition media" bullshit. EEng 19:27, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Instead of getting aggressive for zero reason, use some basic common sense and note that every single person in Congress has flashed the "'white power symbol" numerous times in their life, because it's simply an OK sign or a made-you-look game. Only pathetic media would obsess over something so minor and fall for a made up extremist symbol created by 4chan to troll them. Bill Williams

The media sources that made the claim are not high quality. We shouldn't be reporting every time someone thinks someone else made the OK symbol and even worse, suggesting that a symbol that has been used for decades to mean "OK" is now a true white power symbol. Springee (talk) 21:04, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

I just said that the sources available at this point are borderline (though I probably should have said "borderline at best"). When (if) solid sources report on the issue, then we will too, whether you think we should or not. EEng 07:08, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you are being so agressive about this. I agree, if we have a sufficient number of quality sources talking about it then that helps make the weight argument. However, we do need to consider things like NOTNEWS and 10YEAR test when deciding on inclusion. Still, it currently seems like we don't have solid sourcing. Springee (talk) 12:52, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm nopt sure why you are not sure why I'm being so aggressive about this, since I'm not being aggressive about this. But it's nice to hear you agree with what I've been saying all along. EEng 07:17, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, I guess it was one of those internet things where tone can be misjudged. Thanks for clarifying! Springee (talk) 12:25, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

@Springee: Interesting that you minimize it as a "claim" by the news media. There are photos and video. This was done on the House floor in plain view of the public, live on C-SPAN! It isn't some fringe journalist just making up a false "claim" about a Republican "because they are opposition media" (opposed to what? your world view?). We need to follow WP:RS, not an WP:OR opinion about how credible "the opposition media" are or are not (whatever that term even means?). Cheers! 98.155.8.5 (talk) 19:59, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

It is a claim. The problem is there is a big leap from "we captured still images from a video file and it looks like the OK symbol which, thanks to a gag on 4chan, some people now assume to be a dog whistle to "white power". Yes, there are some low quality sources that make the claim that he was making the sign (was it deliberate or incidental?) Was there any intent behind it? If we don't know then we shouldn't be suggesting he may be making white power dog whistles with such poor evidence. This is a BLP after all. Springee (talk) 21:10, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Well then do you care to further elaborate on your reversions here at the OK gesture#White power symbol article, in regards to why you believe Kyle Rittenhouse posing with some Proud Boys for photos, and making this same white power gesture, isn't notable or worthy of inclusion? It is already described in relation to the Kenosha unrest shooting. I want to assume good faith, but when you talk about "opposition media" and removing well-sourced content on the subject of cultural usage of white power symbols, I'm not sure what to think. Thanks. 98.155.8.5 (talk) 21:40, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

I gotta agree that this is undue for inclusion. There's a reason reliable sources aren't touching it - the only big sources reporting it are the unreliable NY Post and the deprecated Daily Mail. ser! ^{(chat to me - see my edits)} 23:34, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Probably best not to treat the ADL as a reliable source either. DavidFarmbrough (talk) 03:45, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Except that the perennial sources board says otherwise: "There is consensus that ADL is a generally reliable source, including for topics related to hate groups and extremism in the U.S." Cheers! 98.155.8.5 (talk) 04:08, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

• Useful background: https://www.adl.org/resources/hate-symbol/okay-hand-gesture . EEng 07:08, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
• Note This story is starting to be picked up in more mainstream media sources. [7][8][9]. I'm overall neutral on whether or not to include it, just sharing an update. JDDJS (talk to me • see what I've done) 16:29, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

  Looks something like need a quick story journalism. Writers paid by the article of click need to fill digital columns so the come up with something off the twittersphere from which to create a short article. You can tell the opinion of the author just by looking at how they frame things. Vanity Fair (linked further up the thread) is clearly anti as they misleadingly/dishonestly summarize what the ADL says about the OK symbol, "OK gesture, a symbol that the Anti-Defamation League calls “a sincere expression of white supremacy.”" They seem to have left out that the majority of uses are not expressions of white power. Credit to LBGQ nation for having some form of reality check on this noting it's not clear this was an intentional action and quoting a former Media Matters reporter, "Some of your brains are so absolutely rotted by Twitter I don’t think you should legally be allowed to drive cars.” .... “George Santos is not doing a secret white power sign on the floor of the House. Please join reality… Yes the New York Latino lied his way into Congress because he’s actually a closet white supremacist – something he wanted to signal on national television but only in a subtle, coded way. These [are] the normal thoughts of a person with a very normal relationship with the world… Yes the guy representing a Biden +8 district found it imperative to ‘signal to his base’ with a symbol that is known by..." (not sure why the source ended the quote was there). Wikipedia is NOTNEWS. This is the very definition of a NOTNEWS story. A fake controversy that is as much about people talking about others talking about the controversy and second tier (or lower) news sites trying to get in on some clicks. This is the sort of thing that shouldn't be in a BLP... even one about a politician. Springee (talk) 12:30, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

@Springee While I'm still overall neutral about whether or not to include it in the article, you seemed to be mislabeling the sources. Newsday is primarily a print newspaper, that also puts its stories online. It is considered reliable and does not have any reputation for sensationalism. The article about Santos is written neutrally where they just state the facts and do not at all make their opinion known. You might have not heard of Newsday because it's a Long Island newspaper, but it is reliable. JDDJS (talk to me • see what I've done) 16:10, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Newsday has a paywall so I don't know what they specifically said. If it's primarily a print paper did this make it to a print edition or was it just online? Springee (talk) 17:40, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

While I really don't see how this belongs in any way in the article yet, I must nevertheless reply to say that RS does not allow us to base our inclusion judgements on assumptions about what the editors or reporters at a source were thinking when they decided to report a story. In any other context that's original research or speculation. Daniel Case (talk) 20:22, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

How much weight we give something has quite a bit of editor opinion/view. What we can't do is claim something the source doesn't claim. However, WP:V explicitly says, just because it's verifiable doesn't mean it needs to be included. Consensus is the ultimate arbiter of what has weight for inclusion (or more accurately PROPORTION even though most editors say WEIGHT when we mean the other). We are allowed to judge sources and if we think something will pass the 10YEAR test etc. Stories that appear to be fleeting and written because they are quick and easy to write for the clicks should be discounted vs once that have clear substance and research behind their author's words. We constantly discount factually accurate information from sources that RSP has deemed lower quality saying, in effect, "it doesn't matter if the facts are accurate, what is important is why it that it was written in a source that promotes things for questionable reasons". That shouldn't be any different when the sources are somewhat better yet have similar motives. BTW, I do understand that you are not arguing for inclusion, just disagreeing with one of my arguments. I mean this to be respectful reply to that point. Springee (talk) 20:53, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Thank you ... I have taken this that way.

There are certainly plenty of reasons within our own policies to not include material reported by reliable sources, not even limited to those you cite. Those obviate the need to make judgements of the kind I was criticizing. Daniel Case (talk) 23:17, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

• This is never going to be due for inclusion for obvious reasons: (1) it is incredibly stupid, and (2) it is incredibly stupid. --JBL (talk) 18:11, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
• Considering how high-profile Santos is right now, the available coverage is extremely marginal. The available sources also phrase it as a question, or merely as an accusation floating around out there. Unless more significant coverage shows up I believe this would be an unhelpful dilution/distraction from the much more significant article content. p.s. Original research doesn't mean much here, from the video it was incredibly fleeting and it looks like a genuine fluke from the way he was holding his arms crossed just before raising his hand. Not that I would be surprised if he did do something this stupid. Alsee (talk) 09:37, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

which bank?

The bank later told CNN that Harbor City had never been a client, and the SEC said the company had never received any SBLC. 2603:8001:7407:5879:4CA2:A136:D091:81AF (talk) 20:39, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Deutsche Bank, mentioned a couple of sentences earlier. Daniel Case (talk) 20:58, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 January 2023

In his campaign biography from his 2019 congressional run, George Santos claimed to attend Horace Mann but a spokesperson for the school stated there was no evidence he ever attended. https://nypost.com/2022/12/28/george-santos-also-lied-about-attending-prestigious-horace-mann/amp/ 24.189.110.70 (talk) 03:28, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Some form of this is already included under the George Santos#False statements about education section. What are you requesting be changed? Cannolis (talk) 04:18, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Plus this is already mentioned in the article in the false statements about education section TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 19:29, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Cannolis already said that ... no need to repeat it. Daniel Case (talk) 21:29, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes, Cannolis already said that, and there's no need to repeat it. EEng 01:44, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Tough crowd. EEng 22:35, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

It was funny. CharredShorthand (talk) 07:19, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

FOPU and veteran's service dog

I added a sentence to the "charity" section and the FOPU paragraph, detailing the story of how FOPU raised funds for surgery for a veteran's service dog, only to never come through with the funds. A link to the story was added. Jmkstrat (talk) 02:07, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

And now we've got our own dead dog story. At least it's not going into a *($%ing uptempo song! . Daniel Case (talk) 03:43, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

New York Times: Mystery Deepens Around George Santos’s $700,000 in Campaign Loans

An update on campign loans

• https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/24/nyregion/george-santos-loan-campaign-finances.html

John Cummings (talk) 17:20, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

I have already added the relevant material from this story to the article. Daniel Case (talk) 19:19, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks :). John Cummings (talk) 21:33, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Early Schooling

I added information about his primary and secondary schooling. A 2019 article in the Brazilian Times said his campaign website claimed he went to I.S. 125 and P.S. 122 in Queens. No idea whether this is actually true, though. Classmates.com indicates that an Ashley Devolder went to I.S. 125. She and a Bryan Devolder appear in public records at the same address in Phipps Garden Apartments and could be the children of Sebastian Devolder, who could be Santos' uncle. The address is close to I.S. 125 and in its district.Samp4ngeles (talk) 19:31, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

In "Campaign of Deceit: The Election of George Santos | CBS Reports". CBS News. (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Santos#External_links ) we have an interview with an I.S. 125 friend about Santo's time at I.S. 125. Also shows a yearbook photo of a young George Santos (under another name) Lent (talk) 07:42, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

"For the seven years before his election, Santos worked in finance in New York and Florida"

Not sure if this is being added back into the article intentionally or unintentionally, but please get consensus on it and sources before adding it (or anything similar). It's not factually correct, and it's unclear what he did for some of the companies described in the early career section.Samp4ngeles (talk) 21:43, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

I have been adding it back in because Philomathes2357 insists (or as he would write it, *insists*) that we have some neutral material in the intro about Santos's career because otherwise we are in egregious violation of his high standards for Wikipedia and he will start up another section about how the lead is "atrociously" written. So if you continue to take it out, I'm warning you, Phil might consider that a BLP violation and report you.

As for "not factually correct", well, it's in the article. No one denies that the two companies are financial-services companies (I would be amenable to changing the wording thusly if you like that more).

It is also far from "unclear" what Santos did, at least for Harbor City, as their press release announcing his hiring specifically states that he will be "regional director". Now, we have not cited this in the article and perhaps we should. But the Times and other sources we've cited have also reported this; apparently it was naive of me to assume everyone working on the article was aware of this at this point.

As far as it not being cited in the intro, I don't feel that it needs to be. While the wording of MOS:LEADCITE goes out of its way to say it shouldn't be read one way or another, in practice it has been strongly read to discourage cluttering up the intro with footnotes, especially where the information is stated more vaguely than it is in the body text as long as it's cited there. The only exception, of course, is "Any statements about living persons that are challenged or likely to be challenged must have an inline citation every time they are mentioned, including within the lead." In this case this information about Santos is about the only aspect of his employment history that has been independently confirmed. I do not consider it, therefore, to be contentious. Daniel Case (talk) 22:10, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Um, I don't think we're going to take a press release on face value for anything about this particular article subject. EEng 23:34, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Harbor City's press release is, per ABOUTSELF, reliable for the position it hired Santos for. Daniel Case (talk) 02:09, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

You'll recall that ABOUTSELF requires that there be no reasonable doubt about the material, and since this same source also recites that "George Devolder" had worked for Citi and Goldman Sachs -- both of which deny that he worked for them -- I think we've got that reasonable doubt. EEng 02:48, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

I think we can reasonably differentiate between Harbor City swallowing Santos's lies about that whole, like almost everyone else did, and Harbor City saying that it was hiring Santos as a regional manager. That is the statement I apply ABOUTSELF too ... the company is talking about itself there.

The press release is not a reliable source for Santos's employment history prior to his tenure there, agreed (save, of course, for his time at LinkBridge, which that company has verified when asked about it). But that does not mean it can't be a reliable source for what the company itself hired Santos at the time to do, as its USEBYOTHERS, whom we have cited, attests. Daniel Case (talk) 03:31, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

I personally was a bystander to a high-profile corporate appointment that was announced publicly and then, on what would have been the guy's first day on the job, rescinded because (drumroll) it was found he'd falsified a key part of his resume. Given Santos's talent for making fools of people, I don't think we should rely on anything about him that isn't filtered through a secondary source at arm's length from him. EEng 05:03, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

But was the company lying about what job it intended for him to take? Did his yet-undiscovered falsehoods about his past on his resume automatically make the company's statements about his future duties and responsibilities there false as well? And not in the sense that he never fulfilled them because he got found out.

And as far as secondary sources go, the Times, in one article we're already citing, says: "The Times was able to confirm Mr. Santos's employment at LinkBridge"" Daniel Case (talk) 05:20, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

ABOUTSELF stuff is to be used with caution, and this is one place where extreme caution is needed. At most we should be reporting that "On [date] a press release from [company] reported that [George Santos, or Devolder, or whatever name he was using at the time] would be appointed [position]." But really we should stick to what secondary sources (like the Times, as you mention) report. 19:23, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

As it is paywalled I have to ask, dos it say what his role was? Slatersteven (talk) 17:36, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Hi Daniel. You'll notice all of my harsh criticisms have been of the article itself, not of any individual editor. Your comments, on the other hand, show that I've personally taken up quite a bit of free real estate in your head. You scold me for being uncivil, yet repeatedly mock me (a person with autism) for my idiosyncratic way of using words. You suggest that I'm assuming bad faith, but you also say that you are "suspicious" that I have an "agenda", which is a pretty clear cut example of assuming bad faith. It's not very nice to be talked down to about the rules by someone who isn't following them. I think that, instead of sanctimoniously lecturing other editors about the proper way to behave, you should lead by example.

I hope that we can both keep in mind the tenets of civility and assuming good faith, and that we can move forward and discuss narrow, specific improvements that can me made to the article. If we can't reach a consensus on any of my points, an RFC or two might be appropriate here. Philomathes2357 (talk) 23:50, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm glad you finally reached out. I do wish you had disclosed you were on-spectrum earlier ... knowing that, I can be much more forgiving. Daniel Case (talk) 02:11, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

I shouldn't have to mention that I'm on the spectrum to get you to follow the same rules that you want me to follow. We shouldn't assume bad faith or accuse people of allegiance to some nebulous unspecified "agenda", even if the person in question isn't autistic. But I'm not one to hold a grudge, and we've taken up enough space on this talk page with personal stuff, so let's drop it. Philomathes2357 (talk) 02:20, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

See Tamzin's fourth rule to try to follow. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 18:46, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Philomathes2357 Daniel Case EEng Very little about his prior work experience is WP:V. We know what is stated in the section about his career, but we don't, for example, know whether he had seven continuous years of work experience. We don't know the exact nature of his work. We don't, for example, know if it was full time or contract work or part-time. We know that he worked for MetGlobal in 2016, but we don't know for how long. We know that he worked for LinkBridge in 2019, but we don't know for how long. MetGlobal is not finance. It's a "wholesaler of technological tools for hospitality and travel services." LinkBridge is also not actual finance. It "hosts closed-door conferences that bring together the world's leading managers, institutional allocators and private wealth investors." We know that he worked for Harbor City beginning in July 2020 and claims to have worked there until a leave of absence in August 2022. Harbor City described itself as "alternative investment," but it wasn't even registered as a financial services company. It's more accurate to summarize his pre-Congress career by saying, "Prior to serving in Congress, Santos worked for a variety of businesses in New York and Florida, including one accused of running a Ponzi scheme." Samp4ngeles (talk) 00:53, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

I could live with that wording. Daniel Case (talk) 02:11, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Addendum: "[H]ost[ing] closed-door conferences that bring together the world's leading managers, institutional allocators and private wealth investors" is what is meant by capital introduction (the personal meetings are to get around what are otherwise pretty strict SEC limits on the ability of hedge funds to advertise themselves). In his comments about this, particular the Gabbard interview, Santos implies that that's what he did. Our article categorizes that as "banking", hedge funds" and "institutional investors".

Now perhaps those are misapplied (certainly under "Hedge funds", one would expect to find only articles about specific hedge funds, and likewise with II's), but it suggests to me that whoever developed that article considered capital introduction to be a part of the finance industry, and indeed it's on the worklist of WikiProject Finance & Investment.

It seems we are working with different definitions of "finance" here. You seem to see it as applying only to, say, banking and securities trading; my experience, living and working adjacent to finance most of my life, is that no one in that sector would get all huffy over someone in capital introduction saying they worked in finance. Maybe it's more properly defined as falling under "financial services", but most people don't draw that line. Daniel Case (talk) 03:48, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Whatever the wording, I just think it needs to be much much more specific, otherwise readers might assume we are talking about one of the major international banking institutions that he never did actually work for. I was very confused when I read this sentence in the lede, to be honest. If we don't clarify or aren't offering more details, then I think it deserves a citation, to avoid any confusion with some of his other false claims about work history in finance. Cheers! 98.155.8.5 (talk) 03:55, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

That said, I like the language offered by Samp4ngeles above: "Prior to serving in Congress, Santos worked for a variety of businesses in New York and Florida, including one accused of running a Ponzi scheme." That covers the topic, and is less vague and much more clear cut. I'd support such a change, thanks. 98.155.8.5 (talk) 05:15, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

I like the language @Samp4ngeles provided, too. Of course, if the wording is changed, we should take care to note, as the article currently does, that there's currently no evidence that Santos had any involvement in or knowledge of the Ponzi scheme. Granted, that could change... Philomathes2357 (talk) 06:11, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

@Daniel Case That's an interesting line of argument about capital introduction being finance -- or at least describing his career as such based on that. Let's look at how it applies to LinkBridge investors. Here's the definition from capital introduction; note the bolded areas: "Capital introduction is a term that describes the introductions that a prime brokerage firm makes on behalf of its money managers by introducing hedge fund clients to hedge fund investors. Capital introduction works as a form of "quasi-marketing" whereby clients are introduced to investors without violating SEC rules regarding fund marketing." LinkBridge Investors isn't a prime brokerage firm and doesn't have money managers. So, as with many things, we need to take Santos's description of the work as capital introduction with a grain of salt.

@Philomathes2357 Here's a version that distances him from the scheme, which adds detail you prefer: Prior to serving in Congress, Santos worked for a variety of businesses in New York and Florida. Most recently, he worked for a Florida-based alternative investment firm accused of running a Ponzi scheme, although Santos was not named in any charges and has denied any knowledge of the fraud. Samp4ngeles (talk) 17:27, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Seems fair, after all fraud is working in "finance". Slatersteven (talk) 17:35, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

We can call it "financial services", maybe. Daniel Case (talk) 19:13, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Has roughly the equivalent mean of finance (see financial services), and unfortunately doesn't encompass his work for MetGlobal (non-finance) Samp4ngeles (talk) 20:53, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

What does "alternative investment firm" mean? Thanks. 98.155.8.5 (talk) 19:29, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Maybe just link it? Dronebogus (talk) 20:46, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes, easy solution: Prior to serving in Congress, Santos worked for a variety of businesses in New York and Florida. Most recently, he worked for a Florida-based alternative investment firm accused of running a Ponzi scheme, although Santos was not named in any charges and has denied any knowledge of the fraud. Samp4ngeles (talk) 20:56, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

@Samp4ngeles Looks encyclopedic, concise, and accurate. I like it. Philomathes2357 (talk) 23:18, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

I actually think it would be useful to tweak this a bit further to mention the Devolder Organization, as his employment at Harbor City was not immediately prior but there is conflicting information about the nature of his work at the Devolder Organization. Here is a further iteration, and I would welcome any input: Prior to serving in Congress, Santos worked for a variety of businesses in New York and Florida. Most recently, he worked for a Florida-based alternative investment firm accused of running a Ponzi scheme, although Santos was not named in any charges and has denied any knowledge of the fraud. After a Securities and Exchange Commission complaint against the company, Santos formed a company called Devolder Organization LLC. Samp4ngeles (talk) 02:48, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

I like this! Cheers. 98.155.8.5 (talk) 08:38, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

+1 Daniel Case (talk) 18:33, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

American Con Artists category?

Thoughts on adding the American con artists category to this article? Samp4ngeles (talk) 02:13, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Do sources call him a "con artist"? – Muboshgu (talk) 02:18, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes, sources like these use con/conned/con man to describe him:

• https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/george-santos-congressional-con-man/
• https://www.newsweek.com/trump-con-man-grifter-like-george-santos-ex-gop-congressman-1773904
• https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/04/george-santos-scandal-tom-suozzi-con-man
• https://news.yahoo.com/george-santoss-alleged-lying-might-191734561.html
• https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/george-santos-rocky-first-day-congress-1234655332/

Samp4ngeles (talk) 18:07, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Strong oppose. Does not at all come off as neutral, and he has yet to be convicted of any crime. JDDJS (talk to me • see what I've done) 02:20, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Conviction of a crime is by no means a standard. See, for example, these other people on the list of American con artists:

• William Rockefeller Sr.
• Lord Gordon Gordon
• Eduardo de Valfierno
• Bernard Cornfeld
• Harry Jelinek
• Jerry Tarbot
• Alessandro Zarrelli

Samp4ngeles (talk) 18:15, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

None of those people are a similar case to Santos. Con artist generally implies something a lot more complicated and elaborate then simply lying about your qualifications to get hired. Just like there wasn't any support to add him to Imposters category, I extremely doubt you'll find support for this. It's simply not neutral enough. JDDJS (talk to me • see what I've done) 20:47, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

With regard to the election specifically, it took George Santos three years to successfully execute the scheme (including obtaining money to campaign), so it's hardly just an issue of simply lying about his qualifications and is much closer to the definition of a "long con." Regardless, the term con artist does not necessarily "imply something a lot more complicated and elaborate" (see "short cons," which can take minutes). From a completely neutral POV, Santos meets either of this definition of a con artist: "a person who cheats or tricks others by persuading them to believe something that is not true," and carried out this definition of a con job: "the process of establishing trust between the con artist and the "mark" in order to allow the fraud to occur." For more reading, see confidence tricks.

This is also different from the question of whether he is an imposter. Samp4ngeles (talk) 22:30, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

If there are reliable sources that call him a con artist, then I don't think it can be refuted based on an argument of "neutrality"; we follow the sources. Cheers! 98.155.8.5 (talk) 06:11, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

My own view: an impostor is a person who pretends to be another actual person. Santos isn't stepping into the shoes of some other extant dude. He created a (disjointed) false identity off the top of his head. That's a con artist, not an impostor. Example: if I pretend to be Julia Roberts, I am an impostor. If I pretend to be her nonexistent twin Schmulia Roberts, I am a con artist. Succubus MacAstaroth (talk) 15:57, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

People have called a lot of politicians con artist. You can find a lot more sources referring to Donald Trump as one, but there's a reason he's not categorized as one. Categories by nature don't allow for context or nuance. Therefore, we have to be extremely careful about how we use them to stay neutral. JDDJS (talk to me • see what I've done) 16:22, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

• Note American con artist is a redirect. The correct category is Category:American confidence tricksters. JDDJS (talk to me • see what I've done) 16:22, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

In fairness (and neutrality), and as indicated by multiple RS, both Santos and Trump should probably be in this category. There has been some discussion, and I believe one previous attempt to add Trump, but this question hasn't received thorough attention. I would also maintain that, even weighing things like Trump University, it is much more easy to put Santos in this category. Samp4ngeles (talk) 22:33, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

The sources are either from editorials or quotes from other people (generally political rivals) calling him one. Like I said before, categories offer no level of nuance or context, and we need to steer on the side of caution with such a contentious BLP. Can you even explain how categorizing him as a con artist would be helpful to anyone? People looking into con artists who only claim to fame are pulling elaborate and interesting cons, not people like Santos. You're not going to be able to convince me otherwise. Feel free to post about this topic on an appropriate WikiPorject page or start an RFC on the topic to get more people to participate in this conversation; however, something this contentious cannot be added to a BLP until/unless there is a clear consensus to do so. JDDJS (talk to me • see what I've done) 23:00, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Comments like Sam's actually, for me, argue most strongly against adding this cat. Yes, like Santos, Trump has pulled schemes that have left others holding the bag, as any of the small contractors driven into bankruptcy by his dogged refusal to pay them for services rendered on his casinos and other projects can attest. But does that qualify him as a con artist? Neither Trump nor Santos has yet been prosecuted, and I think at minimum this category would require something like that, or some strong proof that the individual in question never intended to repay their mark.

That usually comes after a conviction, which is why contemporary figures like Elizabeth Holmes and Billy McFarland are in it (However, there are subtypes of con games, one of which is securities fraud, where Martin Shkreli is, and so if Santos is ultimately proven to have committed one of those subtypes, he should properly be categorized at the appropriate time). Daniel Case (talk) 23:30, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Allegedly stole money from a GoFundMe intended to help a disabled veteran’s dying dog

This story seems almost too horrifying to be true, but it does match an already-known detail about Santos. Namely, that he ran a shady “pet charity” called Friends Of Pets, which the accuser said Santos/Devolder was claiming to represent. Other sources like Newsweek and Rolling Stone have since picked it up. It’s certainly a textbook example of con artist behavior. 2604:2D80:6984:3800:0:0:0:7F3C (talk) 03:53, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

The stuff about the pet charity has been in the article now for a month, since the Times first reported it. Someone else also added the more recent reporting about the dog (see top of this talk page, where it really shouldn't have gone). Daniel Case (talk) 06:25, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Addendum: It's now been moved to the section just above this, in proper chronological order. Daniel Case (talk) 19:07, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

I don’t mean to be a “drag”, but...

Shouldn’t the article say that he was _allegedly_ a drag queen in Brazil? I agree from looking at the photos that it most likely was him. But he himself hasn’t admitted (or denied) being “Kitara”, and all the sources acknowledge that it hasn’t actually been confirmed yet. So, WP: BLP should still apply here, methinks. 2604:2D80:6984:3800:0:0:0:7F3C (talk) 11:38, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

I am dubious about this, it is an allegation, but a very very unconfirmed one. Yes BLP should apply. Slatersteven (talk) 11:40, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Even if it does get confirmed, I would question the relevancy of it. JDDJS (talk to me • see what I've done) 14:08, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

His party has made a big issue out of it in the last year or so. Did he say anything about it during the campaign? I imagine reporters will dig through and find it if he did. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:40, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

@JDDJS Are you serious? Do you follow American politics or culture? Samp4ngeles (talk) 19:51, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

The article shouldn't say "allegedly," because being drag queen isn't a crime and suggests this information is inherently negative. On the contrary, many people view such information quiet positively, and it is both WP:NP and biographical. Multiple WP:RS have reported it. It adheres to all (NPOV, V, and NOR) and is complies with WP:BLP, particularly WP:PUBLICFIGURE. It needs to be included. Also, *very* low likelihood of him admitting anything on the basis that he is a Republican congressman. And as noted before, everything he says about his biography needs to be verified independently. His denial today on Twitter, however, must be noted in the article in accordance with WP:PUBLICFIGURE. Samp4ngeles (talk) 20:03, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

@Samp4ngeles It's trivial at best. You must remember that we're not news, and this boils down to just gossip. We simply do not include every time there's something reported about a politician in the news. If this somehow remains a significant story in the coming weeks, then an argument can be made to include it, but that does not seen likely. And even if it is included, it absolutely has to say allegedly or reportedly as he has denied it. JDDJS (talk to me • see what I've done) 20:13, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

@JDDJS Again, not trivial at all, nor gossip, and leaving this out omits a notable aspect of his biography. Unless you can point to an actual WP:BLP violation, please reinsert the information. I do not object inserting language about indicating that the information comes from RS rather than Santos himself, documents, etc. A statement like this is neutral, balanced, and sourced:

• Santos was a drag queen in Brazil between 2005 and 2008, according to multiple sources, participating in competitions using the drag name Kitara Ravache.(Hidden references) Santos has denied this, saying, "The most recent obsession from the media claiming that I am a drag Queen or 'performed' as a drag Queen is categorically false".

Samp4ngeles (talk) 22:43, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

@Samp4ngeles, I'm not sure it's free of WP:V problems if we don't qualify it. Snopes says We were unable to determine with certainty whether the person photographed with Rochard was indeed Santos — he denied the accusations, describing them as "categorically false." NBC says NBC News has not independently verified the images posted on Rochard’s social media accounts, which she said originally appeared in a Brazilian newspaper in 2008. Even Reuters attributes their claims to two alleged former acquaintances. Remember when evaluating sources to look at their attribution for their reporting. Saying multiple sources and linking 5 articles that all cite the same person is not 5 independent sources. It's 5 outlets reporting the same story with minor differences. I think the Snopes article is honestly the best summary I've seen so far and it's telling they explicitly say they can't determine the allegation with certainty. TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 22:52, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

@TulsaPoliticsFan The WP:V standard is essentially, "verifiability means other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source." Snopes isn't the standard, nor is "certainty" (referencing Snopes's statement that, "We were unable to determine with certainty whether the person photographed with Rochard was indeed Santos"). RS do not disagree on the draft statement I posted above. Samp4ngeles (talk) 23:02, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Saying "multiple sources" when everything is based on just two former acquaintances is misleading at best. JDDJS (talk to me • see what I've done) 23:15, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

You are twisting facts and either not understanding the sources or selectively ignoring parts of it. The reports, based in WP:RS, are based on interviews, photos, and videos. Are you calling outlets like Reuters "misleading at best?" Samp4ngeles (talk) 23:31, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

We're not just dealing with WP:V, we're dealing with WP:V in a WP:BLP when the subject of the article has denied the allegation. WP:ECREE is probably in play too: Reports of a statement by someone that seems ... against an interest they had previously defended. The sources that were linked above may be WP:RS, but in this context we need to be cautious and practice our media literacy. There is a mountain of articles from WP:RS on this story, yes. But they're mostly citing the same one person saying he did this with a photo a lot of the WP:RS are not willing to say is definitely him. Reuters has a second anonymous source and Snopes published a video, but they stop short of saying it's definitely him in the video. And just to be clear I think the story is probably true after looking at all the sourcing I've seen, I'm just not sure there is enough facts right now to declare it in Wikivoice in this specific context. TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 23:49, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

@TulsaPoliticsFan It's not WP:ECREE. There are multiple sources quoting multiple people. There is also this new story from Politico that substantiates all previous stories. With respect to WP:ECREE, the sources here and my proposed text involve none of the red flags, namely:

• Surprising or apparently important claims not covered by multiple mainstream sources;
• Challenged claims that are supported purely by primary or self-published sources or those with an apparent conflict of interest;
• Reports of a statement by someone that seems out of character or against an interest they had previously defended;
• Claims contradicted by the prevailing view within the relevant community or that would significantly alter mainstream assumptions—especially in science, medicine, history, politics, and biographies of living and recently dead people. This is especially true when proponents say there is a conspiracy to silence them.

Please also refer to WP:SOURCEGOODFAITH, which describes tendentious editing as when:

You find yourself engaging in discussions about the reliability of sources that substantially meet the criteria for reliable sources.

There is nothing wrong with questioning the reliability of sources, to a point. But there is a limit to how far one may reasonably go in an effort to discredit the validity of what most other contributors consider to be reliable sources, especially when multiple sources are being questioned in this manner. This may take the form of arguing about the number of or validity of the information cited by the sources. The danger here is in judging the reliability of sources by how well they support the desired viewpoint.

Samp4ngeles (talk) 23:14, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

@Samp4ngeles please see WP:ECREE specifically Reports of a statement by someone that seems out of character or against an interest they had previously defended. Specifically or against an interest they had previously defended is about as applicable as possible in this scenario since he has denied the claim and advocated politically against drag performances. How is the claim he performed in drag not "against an interest previously defended" when he has advocated against drag performances? TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 23:54, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

@Samp4ngeles Did you even read the Reuters article? The article itself makes it clear that it's based entirely on the interviews of two people. They do not at all report on it as a fact, but make it clear that everything is according to the two acquaintances. You are clearly the one who is twisting facts here. JDDJS (talk to me • see what I've done) 23:41, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

@JDDJS Of course I read it. The Reuters article is just one of just five sources listed (and I could list more RS). In any case, Reuters is WP:RS, so how can you possibly say that it's not good enough? No twisting of facts from me at all -- just summarizing information from multiple WP:RS. Samp4ngeles (talk) 23:45, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

I'd say the writers are running out of ideas, but unfortunately this is real life ... Daniel Case (talk) 22:51, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I have cited a policy. WP:NOTNEWS. Just because it's being reported on does not mean we have to include it. You have yet to provide an argument to why this is particular relevant. If this remains a significant part of the media story about him in a week or two, or if there any major further developments in this part of the story, I might change my mind on the matter. However, as it stands now, you're simply not going to convince me otherwise, and it cannot be added without a consensus. Feel free to start an RFC or let relevant WikiProjects know about this discussion. JDDJS (talk to me • see what I've done) 22:57, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

I agree that this is WP:NOTNEWS and probably doesn't need to be added to the scandal section. But, if this story is verified better I think @Samp4ngeles is right that this is general biographical information that would be normal to mention in his early life section. TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 23:02, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

It is already, by definition of its sources, WP:V. I do, however, agree that there could be a place for it either in Early Life or Early Career, rather than Personal Life. There is essentially a section in early career that misses his time in Brazil and doesn't explain what he was doing there (he was listed in police documents as a "teacher," but there has been no RS that has explained that). Good chance he worked as an English teacher, but at this point that would just be conjecture. Samp4ngeles (talk) 23:12, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

@JDDJS Has anyone here said that this information should be included just because it has been reported? No. The reason it demands inclusion is because it is and will remain WP:N (unless, for example, you can come up with another Republican congressman who has competed as a drag queen). This doesn't need an RFC. It obviously meets the requirements of WP:BLP, but I see you arguing against it based on straw man fallacies. Samp4ngeles (talk) 23:08, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

You're basically saying that it's notable because it's notable right now. That isn't even an argument. You're right that this doesn't need an RFC, but it does need consensus. And there clearly is no consensus to include it right now. JDDJS (talk to me • see what I've done) 23:15, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

That's not at all what I'm saying (or have said). Please familiarize yourself with WP:NTEMP. If this turns out to be temporary (it won't be), it can be reassessed in the future. If it has multiple RS currently and is WP:V, then it goes in the article.

Rather than wielding "consensus" as a weapon, please also familiarize yourself with WP:EDITCON, such as, "most disputes over content may be resolved through minor changes rather than taking an all-or-nothing position. If your first edit is reverted, try to think of a compromise edit that addresses the other editor's concerns." I have proposed text above. If you think there is an issue with it, go ahead and suggest compromise text. Samp4ngeles (talk) 23:40, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

My issue with it is that it's trivial and just not really relevant. There is simply no compromise to be had here. I absolutely might be the one who is wrong here, and if there is consensus to back it up, I will gladly concede. However, you're not going to change my mind. And so far, you simply haven't gotten any support to include it in the article. Arguing with me about this is simply a waste of time. You're not going to convince me. Your options here are to drop it, wait this discussion out and hope either more people participate in the conversation or there's a new development in this story that makes it more relevant in my opinion, or to ask for more community input on the matter. I don't care which one you choose. JDDJS (talk to me • see what I've done) 23:52, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

If true, it is absolutely relevant given the positions of the modern Republican party. Notable enough for inclusion here, anyway. Cheers! 98.155.8.5 (talk) 00:58, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

@JDDJS If there is "simply no compromise to be had here," then we will establish consensus through edits to text included in the article supported by multiple RS. There is, as you suggest above, a new development in this story from Politico with a different angle that you really need to read that substantiates all previous sources.

Unless you can point to a Wikipedia standard for this issue being trivia and justify specifically why it does not meet the standard for inclusion, I would suggest that continuing to maintain your stance would lead to tendentious editing. Samp4ngeles (talk) 23:29, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

As far as I know no RS has said this is true in their words, so it is an unverified claim, not made by the RS reporting it. So yes, the rests on the accusation of two people. Until this is actually confirmed by an RS to my mind it fails BLP criteria for inclusion. This is gossip. Slatersteven (talk) 13:49, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

If we can write about what Richard Osthoff experienced with Santos, we can also write about what Eula Rochard experienced with Santos.

Eula Rochard (José Manuel Antiqueira) is a popular drag queen from Rio de Janeiro, member of GDN (Grupo Diversidade Niterói https://www.gdn.org.br/conselho-consultivo), and one of the oldest and most respected drag queens in the state (mapacultural + Semana da Diversidade - Victor de Wolf | Eula Rochard, Theatro Municipal de Niterói) Rochard is a resident of the Boa Viagem neighbourhood in the city of Niterói, and has helped organise LGBT Pride Parade for decades (O globo). The LGBT Pride Parades are today the largest public manifestation of the social movement in Brazil. In Niterói, it gathers more than 100,000 people to fight for rights. Rochard a icon of Rio's LGBT community!

Rochard was Santos friend for many years. Rochard says she finds it strange that Santos supports conservative and transphobic agendas.

Bruna Benevides, who responded to the New York Times, is a LGBTIQ+ activist and the first trans woman in the Brazilian navy! She is Second Sergeant in the Brazilian Navy.

• https://f5.folha.uol.com.br/colunistas/tonygoes/2023/01/george-santos-foi-drag-queen-no-brasil-afirma-drag-queen-eula-rochard.shtml], Folha de S. Paulo
• https://veja.abril.com.br/mundo/mais-uma-polemica-de-george-santos-deputado-foi-drag-queen-no-rio/], Veja
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xNkGnSDXcw Brazilian drag performer speaks about Santos connection, PIX11 News

• The photo of Kitara Ravache in the red dress is from the newspaper Grito Gay 2008 abcnews

• Primeira parada Gay de Niterói (João Fraga Entrevista) - First Gay Parade of Niterói, for local TV, Eula Rochard was interviewed at 2:03, Santos (in a black dress) at the 4:19 mark. Santos responding: "I do presentations at 1940 in Jacarepagua, I do Cascadura, I also did Cabaret Casanova in Gloria and I did one at Le Boy," Santos says refering to some of the citiy's well-known drag bars." (Translation here marca)--87.170.202.100 (talk) 19:49, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Bruna Benevides is also the president of GDN (Grupo Diversidade Niterói). Benevides said 2022: this year's parade will "affirm our struggles and resistance, but also celebrate the resumption after this harsher period of the pandemic and prepare our community for the electoral period where we aim to defeat the authoritarianism, fascism and lack of commitment to democracy of the current government"(terra.com.br). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.170.202.100 (talk) 20:19, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

@Slatersteven: Some new sources, but still nothing definitive.

From The Daily Beast: "George Santos' claim that he was never a drag queen appears to have a hole in it. In fact, the notorious fabulist seems to have confirmed his alter-ego himself in a Wikipedia bio ... The person who made the edits went by username 'anthonydevolder,' implying Santos wrote the bio himself."

From Politico: "... nearly a dozen years ago, Santos himself appears to have confirmed that he participated in drag shows while he was a teenager living in Brazil. A Wikipedia page accessed by POLITICO shows a user named Anthony Devolder — a Santos alias — writing that he 'startted [sp] his stage life at age 17 as an gay night club [sp] DRAG QUEEN and with that won sevral [sp] GAY BEAUTY PAGENTS [sp].' The Wiki biography was last edited on April 29, 2011. It contains basic information that matches up with the newly sworn-in congressman, including Devolder being born on July 22, 1988, to a Brazilian family with a European background ... His office referred calls for comment to an outside aide, who did not immediately respond. But if the person who created the Anthony Devolder Wiki bio was anyone other than Santos, it would mean someone used the same alias and same biographical details as him a dozen years ago, all for a user page no one else would see. It was, it appears, just the first in several attempts by Santos to edit his bio on the internet encyclopedia — steps that further show the degree to which he has gone to curate his life story. In November, a Wiki user named Devmaster88 edited the Wikipedia page for then congressman-elect George Santos (a page separate from the Wiki bio for Anthony Devolder). The user changed the section about Santos' personal life and made edits to his middle name. Around that time another account, georgedevolder22, also made edits to Santos' public Wikipedia page, removing the entire middle name, Anthony Devolder, so that the biography was shortened to George Santos. The identity of the users is not revealed by Wikipedia. But both accounts have subsequently been blocked from the site. Moderators, as part of the ban, wrote that Devmaster88 was 'abusing multiple accounts' and that it was likely an extension of Georgedevolder22."

Hmmm. We'll see what happens next. Cheers! 98.155.8.5 (talk) 22:09, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I just saw the Politico one. Interestingly, there are a couple more accounts I found with similar names: Georgedevolder, created in 2019, Devmaster31, created in 2017, and Devmaster, created in 2013, none of which ever edited. There's no guarantee that they're related, but...

Also, @Doug Weller blocked Anthonydevolder and deleted the userpage about 40 minutes ago for violating username policy. Heavy Water (talk) 22:30, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

If you look in the history for this page you'll see where I found this out and posted here early this month (it was deleted a week later).

I find it interesting that both Georgedevolder and Georgedevolder22 were created almost four years ago (before he'd even announced he was seeking the seat, when he was still legally married to his wife). I wonder if he was planning long-term for last year to be his year?

I emailed the account asking if they were indeed Santos but have not heard back (I doubt I ever will).

The socks hit the article hard in mid-November ... the article had been moved from draftspace, where it had been for two years in the event he won in 2020, just two weeks before. You can go look in the history, see what edits were being made, and draw your own conclusions. Daniel Case (talk) 23:09, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

I've undone both actions. Did them late at night just before going to sleep, missed the fact it was old and thought it was new. Also the Disney stuff convinced me it was an attack on Santos, and whatever you think of him (needless to say I'm not a supporter) no attack pages means just that. Doug Weller talk 09:52, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

@Slatersteven What does "actually confirmed by an RS" even mean? Seems like you're making up a standard. Please refer to WP:SOURCEGOODFAITH, specifically:

There is nothing wrong with questioning the reliability of sources, to a point. But there is a limit to how far one may reasonably go in an effort to discredit the validity of what most other contributors consider to be reliable sources, especially when multiple sources are being questioned in this manner. This may take the form of arguing about the number of or validity of the information cited by the sources. The danger here is in judging the reliability of sources by how well they support the desired viewpoint.

Samp4ngeles (talk) 23:33, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Based on the new sources we have, here is an updated version to include in the article:

• Santos lived in Brazil from July 2008 to 2011, as maintained by Brazilian authorities. Multiple sources indicate he competed in pageants as a drag queen in 2008, and as early as 2005, using the name Kitara Ravache. Santos has denied this, saying, "The most recent obsession from the media claiming that I am a drag Queen or 'performed' as a drag Queen is categorically false".

Samp4ngeles (talk) 01:14, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

What do you think about changing the sentence to something more like Santos lived in Brazil from July 2008 to 2011, as maintained by Brazilian authorities.(CNN Cite) Multiple Brazilian drag queens have claimed they met Santos when he was competing in Brazilian drag shows between 2005 and 2008.(Reuters & Handbasket Cite) Santos has denied this, saying, "The most recent obsession from the media claiming that I am a drag Queen or 'performed' as a drag Queen is categorically false."(The Hill Cite) Salon.com reported that Amazon Rekognition found a photo that alleged to be Santos in drag was a 98% match when compared to a verified photo of Santos.(Salon Cite)

Keep the additions, but attribute the claims a little more instead of just "multiple sources" TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 02:55, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Per CNN, it appears he doesn't even dispute that the man in the photo is him, so I don't think the facial recognition analysis tells us much. Endwise (talk) 15:35, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

References

WP:PUBLICFIGURE" In the case of public figures, there will be a multitude of reliable published sources, and BLPs should simply document what these sources say. If an allegation or incident is noteworthy, relevant, and well documented, it belongs in the article—even if it is negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it. Reuters. [10] Snopes. [11] NBC News. [12] ABC News. [13] CNN. [14] Politico. [15] Buzzfeed News. [16]. Guardian. [17] NewsNation. [18] The Hill. [19] Slam dunk WP:DUE. starship.paint (exalt) 02:35, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Linkbridge

I have no idea how to edit anything, but I think it's worth noting that in federal court records, Linkbridge Investors President/owner stated Santo's role as a "freelancer" and sold sponsorships for conferences and events. He helped him build Excel lists of potential sponsors and was only paid on commission.

Once Santos was discovered to be lying about his experience with Goldman and Citi, he started saying in his FOX interview, his work through Linkbridge is how he worked "with" them, not "for" them, which is also a lie.

https://www.newsday.com/long-island/politics/santos-linkbridge-lawsuit-hf4e6kjq 99.104.71.3 (talk) 23:09, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

I think you're saying that Newsday says Santos sold sponsorships and helped the president of LinkBridge build Excel lists of potential sponsors?

Yes, it's been reported already ... Santos claims that him working with those two companies and later representing it as "working for" them by virtue of getting them to sponsor those events was just a "poor choice of words" and that "I will be clearer" in the future (as if he was standing in front of the principal's desk). It's in the article. Daniel Case (talk) 23:17, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Not exactly what I'm getting at. He inflated his role. As if somehow this Linkbridge Investors "Vice President" was extremely important and made big moves on wallstreet. Santos stated in his resume under Linkbridge "*Capital introductory service from LP to GP services. * 3x on sales growth of 24xm(450k to 11M) in revoloving sales. * Client Development. * Investor Relations- 15k LP database Account management." He was merely a "freelancer" who sold sponsorships, paid only commissions. I don't know ny vice presidents that enter data into Excel sheets on their own when they're managing 11M. 99.104.71.3 (talk) 01:14, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

I put that into the article last night ... Daniel Case (talk) 03:07, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Pseudonyms

Opinions on how to deal with his pseudonyms? I think that a section for pseudonyms would be best, but there is precedence for a forking: Pseudonyms of Donald Trump. The list might include:

• Andres dos Santos
• Anthony Dee
• Anthony Devolder
• Anthony Santos
• Anthony Zabrovsky
• George A.D. Santos
• GADS
• George Anthony Santos-Devolder
• George Devolder
• Kitara Ravache Samp4ngeles (talk) 20:23, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure all of his pseudonyms are even relevant to list. The inclusion of his drag identity is a seperate, ongoing, discussion. George A.D. Santos, George Anthony Santos-Devolder, and GADS are all just variations of his actual name. Even Anthony Devolder, George Devolder and Anthony Santos are still parts of his legal name. Anthony Zabrovsky seems to be the only completely fake name he has used. We already have a line under "Other false claims related to employment and charity" saying "Throughout his career, Santos has used various aliases, including Anthony Zabrovsky and Anthony Devolder." I think that's enough. I could see the argument for moving that sentence to somewhere in the opening section though. JDDJS (talk to me • see what I've done) 20:40, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

GADS doesn't count; it's just his initials (as far as we know) and he has only used it for the name of his PAC. Daniel Case (talk) 22:49, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

News stories about Wikipedia userpage which cite oversighted material

What are we going to do about this? There is an entire paragraph of text in the article referenced to news stories (from credible sources) which were previously oversighted when they were linked from User talk:Anthonydevolder. It doesn't really make sense to me why these were OS'd in the first place, and it definitely doesn't make sense to me that they could possibly stay that way: I am relatively certain that the OS will be reversed, but for the meantime I've commented out the section while we figure out what the hell is going on here. jp×g 06:51, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Right, this would seem to go against WP:NOTCENSORED, especially since it's being reported on by reliable sources. Cheers! 98.155.8.5 (talk) 07:00, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

This is really a question of first impression policywise, AFAIK ... I don't think we've ever had a situation where reliable sources have included screenshots of relevant material from Wikipedia that we ourselves have not just RevDel'ed but oversighted.

Having had the OS flag once, I can see why this was applied (we cannot say for dead certain that the account in question was started by Santos, although I think it's only slightly less likely that it's him than the three socks that he (very probably) used to edit this article back in mid-November (all of which have been blocked), so there are possible privacy concerns). Daniel Case (talk) 07:11, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the history of talk:Ketanji Brown Jackson contains oversighted edits that linked to a Politico report that outed a particular editor as a former law clerk of KBJ. I'm not sure which way oversight is going to come down on this, but it would be a lot better to have a clear and consistent guideline for when Oversight is going to oversight links to Politico when the news organization reports on the identity of an editor. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 07:15, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

I simply do not see the privacy concerns here. That editor 12 years ago freely chose to select a username that corresponds to a portion of their presumed full legal name. They freely chose to disclose their date of birth, their residency at that time in Brazil, their European ancestry, their LGBTQ identity, and their yearning for fame in the US. Why should this lead to a hard block just because the person became famous a dozen years later? Why the heck should this content be suppressed? I simply do not get it. Perhaps someone much smarter than me can explain it to me. Cullen328 (talk) 08:06, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Ok, this is the 4th place I've posted about this, one more to go. :) Last night, literally just before going to sleep, I was on my iPad and saw the userpage. I went and looked and somehow didn't see the date and thought was current, maybe a joke, maybe malicious, who knows. Anyway, I did what I did. It was a mistake. My take is that if it had been current it would be suppressible, but 2011? No. It's clearly not someone picking this up from the news, creating an account and a user page for fun. Was it actually Santos? Who knows. Anyway, I've already unsuppressed and will unblock next. OK? Doug Weller talk 09:20, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Is this that thing again where we have a generally WP:RS WP:OUTING someone, per policy-text at WP:OUTING? We can follow the policy, redact "This article has been mentioned by a media organization:", talkpage comments, edit summaries etc, or say "screw all that" per IAR-ish local consensus on this talkpage (and perhaps elsewhere). And we can rewrite WP:OUTING to say "doesn't count if editors think the source is good." It's in NYP too, btw. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:03, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

"A Wikipedia page accessed by POLITICO..." That's some impressive journalism, right there. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:11, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

My guess is that when WP:OUTING was written, the idea that major newspapers would participate in Wikidrama would have been an interesting piece of science fiction, rather than a realistic possibility that needed to be dealt with. Perhaps some reconsideration to the policy is in order (preferably now, during something that isn't too big of a deal, rather than at some later date, when there is a big nasty event that everyone is mad about). jp×g 12:03, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: Thanks; I have uncommented the section. I apologize if I wrote my initial comment in kind of a douchey way (I think it was probably reasonable to OS the edit at the time out of an abundance of caution). jp×g 12:03, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

@JPxG Thank you. Don't worry about it, it's all water under the bridge now I think - and hope. Doug Weller talk 13:17, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Shouldn't this also be mentioned at List of Wikipedia controversies, Vandalism on Wikipedia#Political vandalism or Wikipedia:Congressional staffer edits? Not sure which is most appropriate (have there been confirmed edits by actual Congresspeople before, not their staffers?) --jonas (talk) 04:52, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Well, if the kerfuffle about this over the last 24 hours or so gets media coverage on its own, maybe. It doesn't count for the other two ... it wasn't vandalism, and Santos has never been a staffer and wasn't in Congress at the time the userpage was created. Daniel Case (talk) 05:00, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Politico's article - propagating misunderstandings etc

May I suggest a wiki editor ("editor" used generically) with PR experience respond to Politico not necessarily about this particular situation, but *how* we edit pages, format, who can/can't edit which pages, etc?

WHY: (Disclosure: I have 2 decades of corporate PR experience & now work in politics)

1. Politico is a trusted source - to a point. If they need a great lede for their next "Politico Playbook" edition, they verify they do - or locate one. Unfortunately, a user (with a username extremely close to that of a politician under fire) chose to edit that user's page. So, they're running with that, the edits that user made & what occurred next (or what they think). 2. Our standard process is: create, have more advanced editor review then publish a "final" version of their page - leaving questions to be discussed here on their talk page. 3. I am aware of other "trusted sources" publishing information from Mr Santos' wiki page WITH the removed matl - and simply referring to another company's story ("as first reported by Politico, wiki chose to" etc) 4. The stories are incorrect regarding Wikipedia, moreover they don't correctly explain what a wiki editor can/can't do on a page (!!) 5. Are we simply ignoring all? Apologies but as someone who must walk in both worlds (understands Wikipedia very well & knows MANY use it - more would return if we could clear the smoke) this isn't helpful to anyone. 6. I have no idea who Mr Santos is but - this is also not helpful to our wiki subjects either. It's like editing Ted Cruz's page regarding the Cancun trip WITHOUT stating after he left Texas during Snopocalypse he did return.

I've read through everything on this talk page - including all the different ways to say this or that 😎 It's a challenge.

Why are we not addressing THIS page, the correct use of Wikipedia? (re the username - a sysop must verify that was just a coincidence. This sysop - me believes a user changed one username to a convenient one).

I know most of the reporters at Politico: please, let's stop what we can.

Please advise, thx.

Stemgal92 (talk) 12:18, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

In general WP is a complex thing for media (and Wikipedians) to grasp, and even WP:RS coverage will often be to some extent incomplete or even wrong. Medias purpose is to tell a good story. Coverage of this specific issue will be what it will be, so my take is "Don't worry about it and keep editing." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:29, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Well, here is the basic deal of it. While it obviously seems like a joe-job (it aligns very heavily with current political issues), the page that the user created was made in 2011. There are no entries in the rename log for this user, or in the move log for this page. This means that in April 2011, an account named "Anthonydevolder" created a page titled User:Anthonydevolder with this text in it. These logs, generally speaking, cannot be faked. This would require some sort of bizarre political conspiracy to compromise the Wikimedia Foundation (who has shell access to the server) and manually edit the database; if someone really wants to sleuth this out forensically, there are en.wp database dumps going back many years which would be impossible to modify after the fact (you could easily confirm this article's existence in past database dumps, and if it were somehow retroactively added, there are still torrented versions of the dumps distributed among many places online, and you could compare the md5 hashes to easily spot these edits).

At any rate: it's a user page, not a "Wikipedia profile" or a "bio" or an "article" as many sources have claimed. This is not an article that was edited by anyone, and indeed, it's likely that it was never looked at by anyone in the 12 years prior to yesterday (there are millions of personal user pages with short bits of text on them, and this account had only two edits, so it's unlikely anyone would have stumbled across this, or cared). I am also not familiar with the twists and turns of the political drama surrounding this guy, but if he indeed used this alias during that time, it's hard for me to imagine it not being him.

As for why the article disappeared for a few hours (i.e. why every article was just saying "as claimed by Politico" instead of verifying and linking to it themselves) -- Doug saw it yesterday, and did the reasonable thing for what looked like the most obvious political hitjob in history, which was to delete and OS the page, making it completely impossible for anyone to confirm directly from on-wiki logs (which he since reversed after realizing it was from 2011, a solid decade before anyone had ever heard of this guy in a political sense). jp×g 15:52, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

As a side note, people say ludicrous shit about Wikipedia in the news all the time, with administrators referred to as "moderators" or "employees", random editors referred to as "administrators", and the like. I was, myself, quoted in a New York Post article a few weeks ago, where they attributed the quote to an "unsigned comment" -- come on, my signature was right there -- and they never responded when I sent a correction. Such is life. jp×g 15:56, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

That's just part of why we don't consider the Post a reliable source ... Daniel Case (talk) 17:39, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Don't forget how they call it "Wiki". Heavy Water (talk) 17:51, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Date of birth?

This is going to be a bit speculative, forgive me, but I still think it's worth bringing up.

Santos' recently discovered Wikipedia account from 2011, Anthonydevolder, has exactly two contributions. Both were changes to his user page. This is the entirety of the first revision:

"Born into a Brazilian family with european backround on july 7th 1988,Anthony Devolder first startted his "stage" life as an gay night club DRAG QUEEN!"

In his second edit, he adds on to this with lies about starring in The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, Hannah Montana, and The Invasion. The sentence above is mostly unchanged, except that he changes his date of birth:

"Born into a Brazilian family with european backround on july 22nd 1988,Anthony Devolder first startted his "stage" life at age 17 as an gay night club DRAG QUEEN..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User%3AAnthonydevolder&diff=prev&oldid=426494196&diffmode=visual

That date, July 22nd, is what is currently listed on this page as his date of birth. But why did he have it as July 7th in the first revision? It couldn't have just been the fixing of a typo. For one, it would be pretty much impossible to write "7th" instead of "22nd" by complete accident. And regardless, the sentence is still riddled with typos even after the edit ("backround", "startted", etc.)

In my opinion, this completely calls into question whether he was actually born on July 22nd, 1988. As @User:Daniel_Case brought up in the place of birth discussion above, we cannot trust Santos alone as a source, even regarding simple biographical information.

Now, currently the source for the July 22nd date of birth is the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress:

"SANTOS, George, a Representative from New York; born on July 22, 1988..."

https://bioguide.congress.gov/search/bio/S001222

I may be wrong here, but I highly doubt that these pages are fact-checked beyond asking the member of Congress their date of birth and reporting it as such. I will reach out to the Office of the House Historian to see if they can provide any insight.

I'm not sure if there's precedent for dealing with BLP subjects who may be lying about their own date of birth, but personally I am uncomfortable with simply keeping the date as July 22nd without some sort of reliable outside confirmation. Internetronic (talk) 10:13, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Or this is not the same person. Or its a fake?. Slatersteven (talk) 10:40, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

I believe his date of birth is also listed as July 22nd in Brazilian Court docs. I replaced that cite with the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress because we typically avoid citing court docs on WP:BLP when other sources exist. TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 16:41, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

In this case I might trust the Brazilian court summons more. I think it highly plausible that his DoB came from the associated police records, and I can imagine the police actually asking for some form of ID when he came in to (ultimately) confess. Whereas the BDUSC probably takes everything on faith; after all they have probably had no reason to assume someone is lying about their birthday. Daniel Case (talk) 18:56, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

"To be elected, a representative must be at least 25 years old, a United States citizen for at least seven years and an inhabitant of the state he or she represents." (https://www.house.gov/the-house-explained) Does anybody, at some point, check on any of this, i.e., birth certificate, naturalization certificate, address? Nobody seems to verify candidates' claims on their FEC statements, so probably not? After reading the 2011 User:AnthonyDevolder page, I'm starting to wonder about the alleged GED, too. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 16:46, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

I think the Times verified the GED. Daniel Case (talk) 18:57, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

No. I corrected the WP text earlier, per the cited NY Times article which doesn't mention whether or not they verified the GED. They merely say that Santos said he got a GED. "His apparent fabrications about his own life begin with his claims about his high school. He said he attended Horace Mann School, a prestigious private institution in the Bronx, and said he dropped out in 2006 before graduating and earning an equivalency diploma. A spokesman for Horace Mann said that the school had no record of his attending at all." Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 19:43, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Later in that article (NYT January 1st, "As His Life of Fantasy Comes Into Focus, George Santos Goes to Washington") they say and records examined by The Times appeared to corroborate his claim that he received his high school equivalency degree in New York in 2006. TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 20:27, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, I overlooked that sentence. "Appear to corroborate his claim" isn't the same as saying that the NYT verified it. The present sentence is more about his claim that he attended Horace Mann. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 21:05, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Did you all consider that July is 7th month of the year? He may have used his birth at 7.7.88 as a joke. I noticed that cause I was also born in July. 2A00:1370:8184:9B6:9368:1F5A:CEB5:1CD (talk) 00:33, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Santos said he plans to donate his entire salary

Should the article mention that Santos told Brazilian news cite Piaui, cited in "Early life", that he would donate his salary as a representative to four NGOs he did not wish to name and that he would be living comfortably off dividends and distribution of investments? Google translation: he decided to donate his entire salary as a deputy, of 174 thousand dollars (about 890 thousand reais) per year, to four NGOs ... He assures that he will maintain himself during the mandate of “dividends and distribution of investments” and credits his financial bonanza to the fact that he studied economics and business administration at Baruch College, a public university in New York, in addition to having served as an executive at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, two of Wall Street's brightest financial groups. In the interview, I am not satisfied with the resume and ask for more details about the dividends and the origin of his wealth. “Indiscreet question,” he says. “Let’s say we live a comfortable life today.” Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 14:39, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

I think in this case self serving applies, no we should not mention any of his claims, until RS have delcared them true. Slatersteven (talk) 14:45, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

No, I think this something we can use, per ABOUTSELF, as long as it's attributed and treated like every other sourced claim Santos has made. It applies to a future event, not a past one. Daniel Case (talk) 04:42, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Maybe we can include if he does donate his salary, as in with proof that it has happened. – Muboshgu (talk) 04:46, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

But he may not, so I fail to see why we need to ad something that is self-serving (and from a totally unreliable source for even information about themselves) and may never happen. When it doers then we can revisit the idea. Slatersteven (talk) 12:28, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

References

Article far too long and too trivial

This article has expanded like topsy. The subject, whose notability does justify an article, is relatively minor and much of the detail incuded here is far too trivial. In a year, when presumably the subject will be an ex-representative and long forgotten, the size of the article will look absurd. A serious edit is required. I imagine this would meet with disagreement from the many editors who are adding detail right now, but someone should take a look in 6 months or so. All the best, Emmentalist (talk) 09:26, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

YOu may well be right, and it often happens with Newsy articles. Any suggestions what to trim? Slatersteven (talk) 09:34, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Hi, Slatersteven (talk)The subject is a US rep, so he's notable by definition. But most of the detail is superfluous, IMHO. I think a length guide would be useful in determining what school be trimmed (i.e. most of it). The references provide additional detail for anyone who wants it. My view would be that the lead should note that Santos is a present (in future, likely former) US rep. There should be the same sort of 'early life and education' type para any minor US rep would have. Then there should be a couple of paragraphs on the story of his election, which justifies that much because it is a worldwide story. In the (unlikely, I think) event that he remains a rep for the longer term, then other details about his career would be appropriate. I'm not in the US nor knowledgable about the day to day politics, but I imagine there are plenty of minor US reps (no disrespect intended to any reps, I simply mean that they've not yet achieved major prominence however one might judge that) and any one could serve as a template (apart from the big story part of Santos's career). My instinct is that if you try to cut so much out at this point, however, other editors who have taken the time and effort to put all the detail in with object. I could be wrong..... My own instinct is to leave it a few months but to make a marker here. Emmentalist (talk) 14:39, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

What detail are you talking about? Slatersteven (talk) 14:45, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

As to the "early life and education" section, the problem there is that there's very little about that part of his life we do know for certain. All the previous information about that came largely from Santos himself to the sources in question, and obviously it's at the point where if he tells the world two and two make four, we're going to seriously entertain the idea that it's actually three or five. We don't even have a birthplace because no information about it other than Santos's claim that it was in Queens has come out.

I do agree that over time this article will take care of itself ... I suspect more through forks than trimming. I am beginning to wonder if, given that more reporting is focusing on the election in the 3rd district last fall, and the article is swelling because of it, it might not be a bad idea to fork off something like 2022 New York's 3rd congressional district election at some point soon. And if the campaign finance scandal that just seems to keep brewing hotter and hotter each day grows (there's now some indications of his campaign engaging in out-and-out credit card fraud, not (or not just) in its expenditures but in terms of defrauding donors, which is just unheard of), it is starting to touch other congressional campaigns that haven't gotten as much scrutiny (like Tina Forte, the 2020 Republican candidate against AOC, whose campaign treasurer was one of Santos's coworkers at Harbor Hill and also reports a lot of questionable activity (i.e., a lot of high-value "anonymous" donations, and $14,000 in "personal reimbursements" to the candidate herself without any detailed, itemized breakdown)). So that might eventually lead to a separate article as well, and maybe one on Harbor Hill, the way things are going. Daniel Case (talk) 18:48, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Seems premature for either of these courses of action, although the more likely outcome would seem to be a trimming at some point, as the dust settles. Here are sizes of some comparable articles, none of which have forked yet:

Maxwell Frost 26,757 bytes

Dan Goldman 37,192 bytes

J.D. Vance 43,707 bytes

Ryan Zinke 95,624 bytes

George Santos 123,695 bytes

John Fetterman 139,077 bytes

Ilhan Omar 142,287 bytes

Lauren Boebert 142,691 bytes

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez 252,190 bytes

Marjorie Taylor Greene 252,745 bytes Samp4ngeles (talk) 19:52, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

How many of those have outright lied on the "CV", are being ignored by their local part and may even be about to be prosecuted not only in the USA but even in another country? There is a lot to Santos that we have to include. Slatersteven (talk) 21:01, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. A lot of new information still to come out. Samp4ngeles (talk) 22:11, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Well, MTG has greatly overrepresented her past business experience (says she was CFO of the company her father started and sold to her and her soon-to-be-ex-husband, but was only listed as such for three of eight years she could have been and then only on filings with the state, never on the company website). However, only one sentence in the article references that, probably because a) it's not as bad as what Santos did, b) she had no real opponent in the 2020 general election so no one brought it up as a campaign issue after the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in depth on this (see article) and c) her district isn't just outside New York City. Daniel Case (talk) 03:17, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Goldman, Vance, Zinke and Fetterman have obvious notability outside being elected to and serving in Congress. Cullen328 (talk) 20:44, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

That is very true Cullen! Good points! BetsyRMadison (talk) 22:10, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

In a few months, I suspect it will be easier for everyone to see the historical significance. While some of the details may be superfluous at that point, others that are related to Santos's legal troubles will in all likelihood become more significant. Santos is not an ordinary member of congress. Samp4ngeles (talk) 17:45, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Starting a discussion like this without mentioning specifics is pointless in my opinion. What exactly do you want to trim? What do you find trivial? There really isn't any standard for article length. There are tons of featured BLPs that are way longer than this article. It's ridiculous to suggest that it needs to be trimmed because of its length and no other reason. If you want to point to specific sections that you feel are too long or too trivial, then I absolutely welcome a conversation on that. But this is way too broad right now to be a useful conversation in my opinion. JDDJS (talk to me • see what I've done) 00:33, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for this, JDDJS (talk to me • see what I've done). I disagree, though. The article is full of silly trivia which in due course will fall far below notability. This means it does not need trimming but wholesale re-engineering. Aspects of the article fail WP:Not (news) in my opinion. As I say above, attempts to re-enginner it (i.e. cut it greatly to make it much better) would be resisted by some editors at the moment; this is why I think it is appropriate to make the note now and return to the article when the story has passed it's news sell-by date. I agree with Daniel Case that forking might be a good way ahead. The episode around the subject seems more important for what it says about various US institutions (e.g. The Republican Party) rather than any signficance of the subject himself. All the best, Emmentalist (talk) 09:37, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

@Emmentalist Again, can you be more specific about your complaints about the article and what exactly you want to change? This vauge conversion remains pointless in my opinion. I can't even disagree with anything you're saying here because I'm completely unclear what exactly you want done to the article. JDDJS (talk to me • see what I've done) 01:31, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Tivial

Do really need every trivial little lie he had made?

Even if we must, must we have once sentence sections?10:38, 28 January 2023 (UTC) Slatersteven (talk) 10:38, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Maybe there needs to be a List of lies told by George Santos article? Hmm. Cheers! 98.155.8.5 (talk) 05:38, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

I think this would be a good idea, given he seems to be the gift that keeps on giving. Coasterghost (talk) 16:11, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

See Also Category - Political Bias?

With only two direct links in the “See Also” Category to former, known Republican politicians exposed for public lies, it appears to have a political slant, if not a political bias. One of the direct links currently provided is for a politician exposed for lies nearly seventy years ago. Whilst it is beneficial to provide readers the historical perspective of politicians, lies and the fact this is not a new problem, there are many well known liars in both major United States political parties of more recent times without direct links, including former United States President Bill Clinton, Gary Hart, Anthony Weiner, etc. Please consider providing a fair, balanced and/or comprehensive list of known political liars in the “See All” Category. 24.4.85.132 (talk) 21:21, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

All politicians lie, but Clinton, Hart, and Weiner did not lie about their backgrounds. Santos, Johnson, and Stringfellow did. That they are Republicans is coincidence, not bias. Got any Democrats in mind who lied about their background? Name them and we'll add them. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:27, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Couldn't have said it better myself (but I'll do it again anyway ) Stringfellow, Johnson and Santos stand out from other politicians as they did not just exaggerate some aspect of their background, they made it up completely to a shocking degree. Johnson claimed a whole history of employment and contacts that he had never had (and shot himself the day after being exposed). Stringfellow not only greatly exaggerated his military service, he pretended to have been paralyzed from the waist down. Santos ... well, when I first read that Times story I couldn't believe he'd been claimed degrees from two institutions of higher learning whose doors he never darkened, and employment at two banks that are ... well, the Wall Street equivalent of Harvard and Yale. And on top of that his mother supposedly being a finance executive at the World Trade Center on 9/11 and dying of the dust inhalation "several years" later. And his company losing four employees in the Pulse shooting.

Compounded further by the truths he didn't tell: the Brazilian check fraud charges, the seven-year marriage.

As I have said before, I'd be happy to work on developing, at some point in the future I think, a list, or better yet lists, of elected officials who have misrepresented some aspect of their background, probably broken down by nationality and things like military service, education and employment. Daniel Case (talk) 04:17, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

It seems relevant to put him into a historical context. But to be balanced we have to have comparable examples. Slatersteven (talk) 11:59, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Times

Hello @Daniel Case: In that case I have [[]] the first occurrence in stead of that occurrence in a lower section. Note however that we do cite the Brazilian Times.

And in any event, there can be only one :-)

You want me to discuss that? You want to live lives of danger? Abjectly hilarious. You mop people always do bring me the best games. Invasive Spices (talk) 16:22, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

What? Slatersteven (talk) 16:24, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Thus endeth the longest period of inactivity on this talk page since December 19. We almost made it a complete 72 hours Daniel Case (talk) 19:52, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

How is this objective?

How is this objective?? In any way?? This whole page is a hatchet job. I have no love for the man, but it's kind of scary to see how politically leaning this page is, here in particular. 2600:1008:B14A:BA71:9D16:95F3:76F7:9CD1 (talk) 13:01, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Can you give a specific example, we can't deal in generalities. Slatersteven (talk) 13:05, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

This is largely reflective of the reporting about Santos over the last two and a half months. No one has defended him (other than one writer in The American Spectator whose comments I had added back in December but someone else took out), and most of the coverage has been about finding new things he lied about or grifted, or expanding on previous coverage of same. Daniel Case (talk) 19:22, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

We must of course work to make sure we don't have undue POV, and to this end it would be helpful if you identify particular areas you think don't meet that standard. That said, I feel this page will always read in a way which is not positive for Santos, because we have to describe his actions - as reported in reliable sources - and said actions do in fact, IMO, reflect badly on him. NPOV doesn't mean that the article should try to make readers feel as neutral as possible about the subject - that would be its own form of manipulation. CharredShorthand.talk; 19:40, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

It might be nice to balance the coverage of his lies with some examples of when he was completely truthful. Can you think of any? Ann Teak (talk) 20:34, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

That's the problem. Look at the archives of this page and see how long it was before we felt we could comfortably state his date of birth. And we haven't given a place because the only such information—that he was born in Queens—has come impliedly from Santos himself, who is 180 degrees opposite "reliable source", especially as regarding statements about himself. In fact, the question of whether he actually is a U.S. citizen has never been answered explicitly. If he said two and two made four, at this point, I'd pick up two objects in either hand, drop them into a group and count them just to make sure.

Paradoxically the only times he has been accepted as being truthful are those when he has admitted to being untruthful, i.e. regarding his education. But more often his attempt to revise his previous statements have led to smaller versions of the same lie (Horace Mann) or ridiculous attempts to qualify previous claims (such as, since he was involved in nebulous "joint ventures" with Citigroup and Goldman while at LinkBridge, he can say he worked there. Or, most memorably, that he's "Jew-ish" so he can wear a kippa and celebrate Hanukkah with all the other RJC people).

That doesn't even get into the "my story and I'm sticking to it" stuff, like saying that he believes the DNA tests will prove him right about his heritage, that his mother was working at a finance firm at the World Trade Center on 9/11, and that he's not responsible for the homeless vet's dead dog.

OK, one thing he does seem to have been truthful about: that he's gay. That's almost about it. Daniel Case (talk) 01:33, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Why? what would this tell us about him, even a broken clock is right twice a day. Slatersteven (talk) 11:47, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Exactly ... Daniel Case (talk) 19:29, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 February 2023

2601:189:4400:D490:184B:C8E7:6582:75D (talk) 15:19, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

this article does not mention his support for the maga movement(donald trump) he is also a part of a political movement in the u.s under the name maga or supporters of donald trump

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. M.Bitton (talk) 15:24, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

I would also point out that this is dealt with in one sentence—"Santos has aligned himself with former president Donald Trump."—in the "Political positions" section.

Also, per the section above, we now have a new record for longest period of inactivity on this page since Dec. 19, 2022: 10 days. Daniel Case (talk) 18:57, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

His marriage to a woman

This article suggests that his marriage to a woman may have been a sham. He doesn’t seem to have ever identified as anything other than gay during that time, and he often referred to her as a friend rather than as his wife. Santos also reportedly encouraged his gay male friend to legally marry a different Brazilian woman so she could get US citizenship and he could get money. 2600:1014:B011:D504:AD14:E27D:80FA:AD84 (talk) 11:44, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

See above. We didn't consider The Daily Beast a reliable source based on the yellow flag for contentious issues about living people a month ago and I don't see what's changed now. Daniel Case (talk) 17:37, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

@Daniel Case @Starship.paint DB is the best source we have to explain an important aspect of his marriage to Uadla Vieira, and it's possible to include it and be compliant with WP:RSP because it's incontroversial content. This article says that she filed for divorce in 2013, before he started a relationship with Pedro Vilarva. The divorce was not, however, finalized until 2019. Without the DB source, the article suggests nothing about the marriage and currently reads:

• Despite having previously come out as gay, Santos was married to a woman from 2012 to 2019. He began dating a man, Pedro Vilarva, in 2014, and they lived together until Vilarva moved out in early 2015.

But it's improved with the inclusion of the DB reference:

• Despite having previously come out as gay, Santos was married to a woman from 2012 to 2019. The Daily Beast says she filed for divorce from Santos in May 2013, with the case being discontinued in December 2013. He began dating a man, Pedro Vilarva, in 2014, and they lived together until Vilarva moved out in early 2015. Santos and his wife ultimately divorced in 2019, 12 days before he officially filed paperwork for his first congressional campaign.

Samp4ngeles (talk) 23:14, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

@Samp4ngeles: - I disagree. I do think it is controversial content that requires a generally reliable source. starship.paint (exalt) 01:10, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

+1 Daniel Case (talk) 03:06, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

@Starship.paint @Daniel Case Can you be specific about what you think is controversial? It's factual reporting based on court documents. Samp4ngeles (talk) 22:16, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

That only The Daily Beast has reported. If and when other outlets we have less questions about report this, then we can certainly include it.

Yes, it's controversial because Santos didn't mention it to anyone until the documentary evidence was discovered, and with what we do know to be true about where Santos was living, and with whom, during those years (i.e., not his wife) it becomes curiouser and curiouser.

Now, we can speculate among ourselves about why these things are so, and a lot of people (including myself, in a section about this above that may well have been archived by now) have said this seems like it was a Green Card marriage. Very little of this speculation has yet made its way to reliable sources; the Times broached it last week in that story I have slugged in the sourcing as "Times GOP-knew story" (But I did not think when I read it that what the Times had—three unnamed staffers saying that the marriage appeared to them to have been for immigration purposes—when they learned of the marriage during the 2021 internal campaign vulnerability study—was strong enough to support inclusion). And to me that makes any of the marriage details controversial enough that I think we should demand wider sourcing than one source already flagged as questionable on contentious matters involving BLPs. Daniel Case (talk) 22:35, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Plenty of details in this article rely on a single source. WP:RSP doesn't require corroborating sources for DB -- only that "Some editors advise particular caution when using this source for controversial statements of fact related to living persons." I agree that there is potentially controversy about the marriage itself, but multiple other RS have already reported on it. Adding information about when his wife filed for divorce and when the divorce ultimately ended -- which is straightforward information supported by court documents -- is not controversial. This is independent of the question of whether this was a green card marriage. Samp4ngeles (talk) 02:08, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Details that rely on a single source in this article always rely on one about which there have been no doubts as to reliability, like the Times, CNN etc.

There are interesting details I'd love for the article to have—like Santos's blaming all the $199.99 campaign expenses on a data base error at the FEC (which the FEC says is ridiculous)—that aren't in it yet because they've only been reported by the New York Post, Fox News, or some other such source.

If you're interested, the original Daily Beast discussion is here. I don't think it reached a consensus. Daniel Case (talk) 03:16, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

@Samp4ngeles and Daniel Case: - if the only source to report on a detail is questionable, then certainly it can be questioned on whether that detail is WP:DUE for inclusion (Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. Our article does not include every single detail about George Santos. We rely on reliable sources to separate the important from the less important. If reliable sources begin re-reporting what the Daily Beast said, then you would have a case. starship.paint (exalt) 06:09, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

It's not questionable, and it is WP:DUE, providing a fuller picture of the story and providing context for why Santos was dating a man in 2014, shortly after his wife filed for divorce. WP:RSP says only that we need to exercise "particular caution." We can cautiously say that this excerpt from the article is WP:NPOV/WP:DUE: "Court records in Queens County show that Santos’ ex-wife first filed for divorce in May 2013, and requested judicial intervention a month later. The case was discontinued that December, according to the records, but about six years later, in September 2019, the divorce went through uncontested". Samp4ngeles (talk) 23:54, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

@Samp4ngeles: - you misunderstand WP:DUE, it has nothing to do with providing a fuller picture of the story and providing context. It has everything to do with how many reliable sources report this context/detail. Notify Daniel Case. starship.paint (exalt) 12:15, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

The NYT has an article on it [20] Best regards~ BetsyRMadison (talk) 22:16, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I added a lot from that article to this one already yesterday. Daniel Case (talk) 01:44, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

References

Edit request

At the end of the Tenure section, please add:

In January 2023, Politico reporter Olivia Beavers wrote that Mazi Melesa Pilip, an Ethiopian-born, former Israeli paratrooper, Orthodox Jewish mother of seven was being discussed by the Nassau County Republican Party as a possible replacement if Santos steps down.

Not really about Santos, and he might not step down anyway. Slatersteven (talk) 18:46, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Agree, very CRYSTAL. And in any case if he were to either step down or be forced out of Congress, a special election would be held within 70-80 days, and we'd have an article on that, and that's where this would go. Daniel Case (talk) 20:09, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Daniel, this actually isn't CRYSTAL. As wp:crystal clarifies, there is an important distinction between a) predicting the future, and b) instead, reflecting on properly referenced discussion as to prospects. "Crystal" consists of: "unverifiable speculation, rumors, or presumptions. Wikipedia does not predict the future... It is appropriate to report discussion ... about ... whether some development will occur, if discussion is properly referenced." 2603:7000:2143:8500:BC63:ED51:C05C:8001 (talk) 00:12, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

I think this is WP:UNDUE as long as Santos maintains he won't step down. If he suddenly resigns or starts saying he might resign then it might be worth including. But why speculate on a successor as replacement when he current has no plans of resigning and we don't even list him as retiring on the 2024 United States House of Representatives elections page? TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 00:31, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

I disagree ... you'd have more of a case for your argument if Santos had already stepped down or whatever and a special election were now likely, but your argument is, well, she might be the nominee if such an election were to happen (and frankly I suspect this is the Nassau County GOP's way of trying to put pressure on Santos to step down, which I doubt will work). But at the present moment, this is more relevant to Pilip, and it's appropriately there in her article. Daniel Case (talk) 02:11, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

References

Groping accusations

A male staffer who briefly worked for Santos claimed the Congressman groped his groin. A bit different from the Santos scandals we’ve gotten used to, but still a serious accusation. [21] 2604:2D80:6984:3800:0:0:0:7094 (talk) 22:29, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

The Times has covered this as well, and I've added it to the article. Daniel Case (talk) 04:22, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Resolved

TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 22:31, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Comment characterized as "overtly racist"

His description of the alleged assault included a comment that has been characterized as an "overtly racist" stereotype about Black people being likely to commit crimes.

I think there's value in providing the comment itself - "Before asking any questions, they weren’t Black, they were even white, but they robbed me" - when characterizing it as overtly racist, because of the complicated nature of George Santos' relationship with race, the apparent attempt in his comment to disprove a racist stereotype, and the unknown way the comment fits into the original author's own idea of racism.

On the other hand, it's easy to find the comment in the cited article, so it might not be worth it. But on the third hand, how many readers follow the citations?

(This is my first time adding a topic, so I'm sorry if I'm doing it wrong.) Pillarofsmoke (talk) 04:57, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

That is an opinion posted in blog. I am not certain that source should be allowed atall. Note also that this specific blog post is unambiguously incorrect on one part. Invasive Spices (talk) 19:37, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

References

Alleged credit card fraud

This accusation is a pretty big deal, and if true, it might help explain why he always seemed to have lots of money. It would certainly have major legal consequences for him if it ends up proven. 2604:2D80:6984:3800:0:0:0:EBA2 (talk) 02:42, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

It's already in the article ... has been for a couple of weeks (Nor is it the only credit-card-fraud scheme that Santos seems connected to. Daniel Case (talk) 03:55, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Actually, wait ... I didn't read the source because I thought it was just repeating information reported earlier. So Ribeira says Santos was the ringleader now? OK, that's new. Daniel Case (talk) 03:57, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Resolved

TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 22:33, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 April 2023

George Santos' full name is George Anthony Devolder Santos, as said in his birth name on this page. The start of this page calls him just George Santos, not George Anthony Devolder Santos, which is what his birth name is, but I realize I really can't trust the credibility of his name because of how much bullshit he says. 38.81.150.237 (talk) 02:13, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. The previous section is a discussion of this very subject. Given the concerns, I think we'll need reliable independent sources for supporting this change. For others following this Talk, there might be a need to consider the "Born" name in this page's infobox. --Pinchme123 (talk) 03:15, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

I removed it from the infobox. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:33, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

As you can see in thread just above, some editors agree with you. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:34, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

"George Anthony Devolder Santos"

Do we have a source for this actually being his full name, beyond "George Santos said so"? If not, we need to bear in mind that Santos is pretty much the most unreliable possible source, especially when it comes to the claims he makes about his own background. So we have no idea if he's telling the truth about his "middle names" or if that was just a flimsy excuse he made up for operating under the alias "Anthony Devolder". And if there aren't any reliable sources verifying his full name, should we really be saying it's his full name in the article? — Red XIV ^(talk) 04:49, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

You may have a point: "However, his full legal name cannot be confirmed as his birth certificate has not been made public, and it is not clear why he has gone by multiple variations of that name." That's from January. Not a perfect source, but there may be others. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:54, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

So then this may well not be true, OK, lets not use his full name. Slatersteven (talk) 12:01, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

I have added this to the article as an implicit explanation for why we're not using his supposed full name in the lede anymore. Daniel Case (talk) 22:28, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Looks reasonable. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:07, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Resolved

TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 22:34, 9 May 2023 (UTC)