Talk:Don Bacon

On the Issues and 538
The problem with including content sourced to On The Issues is that that website includes a lot of content about every elected official, and it seems to me the content we're including in this article from On The Issues was totally picked at random based on the subjective judgement of whoever added it. Ditto the content sourced to 538. That website lists literally dozens of votes taken by Bacon, why are we picking out two of them to highlight here? This is WP:CHERRYPICKING. We need secondary sourcing to show that content from these sources is notable. I'm not opposed to the content itself, it's just that we need a better system of deciding what is notable to include. For example, with On The Issues, look at the amount of content they have. Why have we highlighted some of the content, and not included some of the content? Well, if we included all of the content there, our page would be too long. Which is another reason for making sure we have a secondary source in addition to On The Issues to warrant including particular content. This isn't just an issue on this page, and I think it would be worth starting a discussion at Reliable sources/Noticeboard to get community input on how to treat On The Issues as a source. Marquardtika (talk) 03:00, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Removing RS text on the tax cuts
One editor removed RS text on Bacon's vote for the tax cuts and his rationale. The editor described PolitiFact's fact-check of Bacon's assertions about the law as "opposing viewpoints" and described PolitiFact as a "biased source". Then the editor MONGO made his first edit on this page, reverting the content again (five minutes after I restored it) with the edit summary "not helpful".

PolitiFact is obviously not a biased source nor does it present "opposing viewpoints" when it fact-checks someone. It's a RS. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 19:14, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for chiming in. This BLP does not need PolitiFact's opinions added.--MONGO (talk) 19:47, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
 * With, that's two editors who contested your insertion of PolitiFact's evaluation of the subject's position. The onus is on you to get consensus, instead of edit-warring your content into the article. — JFG talk 12:35, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Don Bacon (politician)
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Don Bacon (politician)'s orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference to Representative Bacon as anti-abortion as opposed to pro life
I believe that Representative Bacon as well as other pro-life politicians should be shown respect to their position on abortion by mentioning their position as such rather than anti-abortion. It shows mutual respect to both sides of the argument and believe as no pro-choice politician would want to labelled as anti-life. Some have suggested that the term pro-life is too nuanced to be used in reference to abortion alone. I believe that the vast majority of readers would understand what is meant by "pro-life" in this case and any potential confusion could be removed by putting the subheading of abortion under the section of Representative Bacon's political beliefs. As far as the term pro-life being a euphanism, it is not meant to be a replacement for anti-abortion because it is softer language but because it is a more accurate description of Representative Bacon's beliefs on the issue of abortion,focussing on the life of the unborn child being protected from a possible abortion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.51.237.201 (talk) 21:11, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Reference named "primaryresults": From Anthony G. Brown:  From 2018 United States House of Representatives elections in Nebraska:  From Adam Kinzinger:  From 2016 United States House of Representatives elections in Nebraska:  From Mike Pence:  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 03:15, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Turning the page into a photo gallery of his time in the military
The editor Mongo is really really intent on edit-warring a third picture of Bacon in military uniform into the article. This is not his campaign website or his facebook page. This is not a large Wikipedia page and 95% of it is devoted to his tenure in Congress (which is the sole reason why he has a Wikipedia page in the first place)... it is incomprehensible why it should be filled with pictures from his time in the military. One picture - fine. Two pictures, one of which is jammed into the 'political positions' - alright, sure, but pushing. But a third picture which is also jammed into the 'political positions' - enough is enough. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 23:50, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
 * MONGO is all caps. No, not a large wikipedia page but indeed 29 years of Bacon's 56 years on this planet he spent in the Military and roughly 3 plus of those in the US Congress...so is it not a surprise we have more usable images of him from his military years, no? The man was surely notable enough before he became a US Rep to have a page...he is a retired Br. Gen and was Director of ISR Strategy and prior to that commander, 55th Wing, Offutt AFB aka as STRATCOM. What fascinates me is you took down the image most recently placed, one where he is seen in a image where he and Barack Obama are looking to be having a cordial meeting rather than take the others? The other thing is your obnoxious claim that I am intent on edit warring when its you that is at the 3RR threshold..one you are constantly at, with you constantly pushing repeatedly across multiple articles on a near daily basis. You need a lengthy block.--MONGO (talk) 15:03, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Ordering of His Political Opinions and Activities
Seems like the issues listed aren't in a particular order. He is on the Armed Services and Agriculture Committees, so those are his primary focuses. Seems like an Agriculture section should be made and those two sections should be higher up than the other issues. Especially given that his first career was as a general, so that's what he did primarily for a long time. The alternative is sorting alphabetically, which while more maybe politically diplomatic doesn't highlight to the reader of a bulk of the congressman's primary work. The other option i presume would be sorting by hot button issue, which seems subjective and irresponsible. There's no reason I can think of climate and immigration are the first things people need to know about Bacon's thoughts and actions. Abovfold (talk) 04:59, 11 May 2020 (UTC)Abovfold

Tax scandal
The Intercept just reported that he used taxpayer dollars to pay a consultant. Maybe the Intercept is biased but we should mention this if other news outlets pick it up.KRed221 (talk) 20:51, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Don Bacon which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 03:21, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Abortion content is not reliably sourced
This content does not follow WP:RS. The first source is a PDF of a newsletter from the advocacy group Nebraska Right to Life. It is not clear from that newsletter what Bacon's positions are, as survey answers from him include asterisks that say more information was provided, but that information does not seem to be provided in the PDF itself. Moreover, it's an advocacy group publication that is 16 years old. Surely we can do better. He's a member of Congress, he should have a voting record on this issue. As for the second source, Nebraska Examiner, that's an advocacy source as well, published by States Newsroom. The source says that Bacon's election opponent "is now emphasizing Bacon's responses to a 2016 questionnaire from Nebraska Right to Life in which the congressman said he opposed abortion exceptions for rape, incest and a mother's life." So this is a talking point of his opponent. It's not encyclopedic. Are there newspaper sources about Bacon's record on abortion? That would be worth including, but not what's currently here. Marquardtika (talk) 03:07, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

There seems to be two issues here, one which is the questioning of a survey as a source and one which is the wording of that survey.

There is surely no more objective source for a survey than the survey itself. I fail to see how the age of an organization would change that—the candidate was asked a question and they answered that. You said that Bacon's opponent has mentioned this survey. This is a highly unusual disqualification for a source—are we supposed to delete every issue on a politician's page which is mentioned by their opponent? The very fact that the opponent is mentioning and it is being reported by outlets is evidence of and support for including it in the Wiki, not opposing it, especially when the Wiki is providing other information on the position. For instance, his statement about an exception for the life of the mother is not a voting record or a quote but a statement in a debate. How is it encyclopedic to state a candidate's stated abortion stance in a debate and not a survey?

It is not encyclopedic to purposefully skew an entry in the way you are proposing.

The second matter is for phrasing. I think we can better report the content of the survey responses. "A 2016 Nebraska Right to Life survey reports Don Bacon supported abortion being legal in no case, though with contextual comments not made available." is a good starting place. Grenvilledodge (talk) 04:31, 26 August 2022 (UTC)


 * It's just not a good source. We don't parrot advocacy groups, and your proposed wording borders on WP:OR. Why not include something about his actual voting record on abortion, like "In July 2022, Bacon voted against two measures aimed at protecting access to abortion at the federal level." Marquardtika (talk) 14:43, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Are you saying that this source was never answered by Don Bacon? We could include things about his actual voting record, I agree. In this case, I will delete the reference to his debate statement since there are better ways of demonstrating his abortion stance. Grenvilledodge (talk) 18:54, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Tenure section relevancy
The Tenure section for Bacon is odd. The 1st paragraph ("After this election...") is about committees, then voting alongside Donald Trump which seems useful, and then a bipartisanship statistic. But these seems to be better placed in the committee and political positions sections.

The 2nd paragraph ("Bacon was reelected") restates the same, and then talks about Trump's impeachment, which goes along with the 3rd paragraph ("In 2021..."). The 4th paragraph is solely about foreign policy.

I recommend removing the committee assignments since they are duplicative and creating at least an Impeachment section in political positions and perhaps a Bipartisanship section, but I have looked through other Congressmembers' Wikipedias and they do not have a dedicated section for bipartisanship ratings since those ratings are a secondary source which is based on votes. Because we can simply add votes, my recommendation would be to remove them altogether for not being relevantly encyclopedic. Grenvilledodge (talk) 03:01, 30 August 2022 (UTC)