Talk:2018 Russia–United States summit

David Gergen quotation
User:Soibangla: I see that you changed the theme sentence of this paragraph to be "television commentators" rather than "major television news media". You removed the comment by former president Obama. You added a comment from David Gergen, sourced only to his own Twitter feed. You did all of this without any comment here at the talk page. Would you care to chime in? In the meantime I am going to delete the Gergen quote, since he was not a television commentator, just a Twitter user talking to himself and his followers, and a Google search suggests that no reliable secondary source has chosen to repeat or report on his comment.--MelanieN (talk) 19:34, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Did I violate any policy? You chose to create this section to discuss a specific comment; did you intend to prevent anyone from making other edits without consensus? Gergen is a senior political analyst for CNN, the edit says "television commentators," not necessarily that they said it on-air. soibangla (talk) 20:11, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
 * OK, well, we will see what people here think. Does the fact that he sometimes appears on CNN mean that even his non-televised, non-reported tweets are worth quoting? For now I have deleted it, but I will restore it if that is consensus. And I am still waiting to see what people think about the Wine-Banks quote; the discussion hasn't been open long enough for consensus. --MelanieN (talk) 20:23, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
 * He frequently appears on CNN regarding matters such as this, because he has served under four presidents and thus can be considered a subject matter expert. You made a snap judgment. I'm restoring it. soibangla (talk) 20:29, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
 * No, MelanieN made an informed judgment by investigating whether the tweet had any notability at all. It didn't. A subject matter expert who makes a comment to himself and his followers isn't worth reporting here. Doing so goes into WP:INDISCRIMINATE territory. The case would be different if mainstream news services had picked it up, but until they do, I agree with removing the Gergen quote. For now. ~Anachronist (talk) 20:39, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict - and I see the two discussions have been separated which is good) Well, so now both of the edits I am disputing are in the article. They will stay there unless and until there is consensus to remove them. To summarize my objections: the Wine-Banks quote is too extreme, way far out of the mainstream of commentary, and I personally found her comparisons to things like 9/11, Pearl Harbor, and especially Kristallnacht to be offensive. The Gergen quote wasn't that bad, but I just don't see why a twitter post from him, unreported elsewhere and cited only to the primary source, is worth a mention here. JMO. YMMV. --MelanieN (talk) 20:42, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I'll remind you that what you personally find offensive has no bearing on Wikipedia's editorial decisions. The question is whether the quotations are relevant. If they have no other coverage beyond the source they originate from, I'd say no. ~Anachronist (talk) 20:45, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

OK, Soibangla added a pretty good source, although the context of the quotation, according to that source, seems to be more about Trump's commentary on Clinton's email than his failure to affirm US intelligence in Putin's behalf. Gotta think about this one, the source is there, but the context is wrong. ~Anachronist (talk) 21:00, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Tough room, tough room: soibangla (talk) 21:14, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

OK, well, that's an improvement. It's still the primary source, but at least it was on CNN and not Twitter. Waiting for further discussion. --MelanieN (talk) 21:50, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Not really an improvement. He's saying it on Twitter. He's saying it on CNN. Either way, it's coming from him (the primary source) and there is no actual coverage of it, unlike the Wine-Banks quote being discussed above. ~Anachronist (talk) 00:05, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I just provided The Hill as a secondary source that covered it. soibangla (talk) 01:18, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Why is this even being discussed? Just because someone gets 2 minutes on TV doesn't mean they are notable in the context of the commentary of highly notable people who have already expressed their opinion. If we quote every blurb from every political pundit, the article will be 1,000 pages long and no one will be better informed than they were from the commentary of senior government officials and politicians. 2600:1700:1111:5940:D9F6:63D1:857A:104 (talk) 00:07, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
 * It's really very simple. A certain editor created this paragraph specifically to portray all objections to Trump's performance as nothing more than a manifestation of "Trump Derangement Syndrome." The Gergen and Kilmeade inclusions dispel that notion, because the reality is that the criticism spread across the entire political spectrum and even included people on Trump's favorite morning show that typically fawns all over him. Now that the paragraph is balanced, we can move on. soibangla (talk) 01:13, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Two wrongs don't make a right, it makes for a really terrible article. Get the original material removed rather than trashing the article with tit for tat edits. I highly doubt editor consensus would agree that "all objections to Trump's performance are a manifestation of Trump Derangement Syndrome". I feel stupid even having to write that. 2600:1700:1111:5940:D9F6:63D1:857A:104 (talk) 02:12, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you have not been following the editing activity of our little Russian buddy as closely as I have in recent days. Nevertheless, TV reactions are appropriate because that's where idiots get all their news, and there's no shortage of idiots in America. soibangla (talk) 02:22, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Summary of opinions (discussion is above)

 * Remove it. --MelanieN (talk) 20:43, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Remove until actual secondary sources be found. At the moment we have two primary sources. ~Anachronist (talk) 00:05, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
 * The Hill isn't a secondary source? soibangla (talk) 01:15, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
 * As I already stated, it got the context all wrong. The Hill is normally a good source, but not when it's inaccurate. ~Anachronist (talk) 04:54, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Would you accept the transcript I previously posted here? http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1807/16/ath.02.html soibangla (talk) 18:44, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
 * As I already said in the section above, the CNN transcript is a primary source interview. Aside from The Hill which got the context wrong, all we have is Gergen tweeting or Gergen speaking, no actual coverage of what he said. ~Anachronist (talk) 19:13, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I suggest the original broadcast is the primary source, while the transcript is a secondary source reporting on the broadcast. soibangla (talk) 21:13, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
 * No, a transcript of a broadcast is just a transcript of a broadcast, it doesn't constitute "reporting" on a broadcast any more than an interview published in a magazine constitutes "reporting" on the live interview. As far as Wikipedia is concerned, an interview is a primary source regardless of the medium in which it is published. ~Anachronist (talk) 05:18, 25 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Remove it. 2600:1700:1111:5940:D9F6:63D1:857A:104 (talk) 00:08, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Remove: Wikipedia is not a opinion column. --K.e.coffman (talk) 01:11, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep: The Hill article is a secondary source that quotes Gergen's CNN appearance. This is no different from countless other edits on WP. soibangla (talk) 01:34, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

One talk show host getting an entire paragraph under "Reactions"?
I agree that it makes sense to include some response to the almost universally negative press reaction to the summit. But an entire paragraph devoted to one talk show host's criticism of the media reaction? Per WP:DUE, our coverage is supposed to be proportionate to the coverage by sources. "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." (bolding mine) The negative coverage of the summit was probably a hundredfold more widespread than the conservative response to it. In this article, we have a paragraph about the cover art of three magazine, and another paragraph with one-sentence summaries for each of four commentators and one panel. In other words, two paragraphs, eight sources, eight different reactions. That's DUE. But a whole paragraph - four sentences and a single source - about just Levin's reaction? That seems very much UNDUE to me. I think a single sentence would be more appropriate. --MelanieN (talk) 20:04, 28 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Followup: User:Neutrality removed the paragraph saying rvt; excessive weight every other commentator gets a half a sentence, or maybe a sentence at most, this is a bloated paragraph); also off-topic (this article is not about media criticism. User:Let us eat lettuce then restored about half of it  under the edit summary bloat editing. That gave us two very long sentences and still only one source. IMO it was still bloated and still too much attention to one person. So I rewrote it to include a second person (Sean Hannity), giving each of them a single sentence, and trimming the excessive quotes. That’s what is in the article now. --MelanieN (talk) 22:41, 28 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Lettuce added a sentence about Rush Limbaugh, but it is vague and cited only to a primary source (namely the archive of everything Limbaugh has said about anything). I removed it for lack of secondary sourcing, but it has been restored. --MelanieN (talk) 00:53, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
 * The whole paragraph is a critique by conservative commentators of media reaction to the summit, rather than a critique of the summit itself, so the whole thing should come out, as should the Sarah Sanders video. soibangla (talk) 03:26, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Two videos
To the reactions section, somebody added two videos of two of the remarks in the section (one a press briefing, the other a comment on MSNBC’s Morning Joe). I don’t think either video adds any additional insight or value for the reader and I have deleted them. I'm open to being overruled on this if some people think they add value. But I would hate to see us start cluttering up articles with video of everything that everybody says. (Maybe it’s just me but the videos don’t work anyhow - they are just still pictures.) --MelanieN (talk) 03:32, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Treason
In the aftermath of the summit there were a large number of reliable sources addressing the question of whether Trump committed treason. This issue should be addressed in our article. Here's a start on some research. R2 (bleep) 18:51, 18 December 2018 (UTC)