Talk:Impeachment/Archive 3

Trump Picture
Given that the picture provides no clarification of the topic, its caption repeats information already available in the article, and does not in any way visually represent the process of impeachment, or impeachment in general, it is my opinion that this image should be removed to reduce visual clutter on the page. As it currently is, it pushes the far more relevant picture of Bill Clinton's impeachment trial. I cannot imagine a purpose accomplished by the inclusion of this image beyond political grandstanding, which should not be the purpose of Wikipedia. I could certainly understand if the picture represented something specific and relevant, but I don't think we'd want every political leader who is impeached to have a photo added. 66.102.84.93 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 05:36, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
 * wait, you mean wikipedia is not supposed to be a propaganda arm of the left wing? who knew. somebody should let them know Xv929182 (talk) 15:20, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree with 66.102.84.93. This article is about impeachment: the general concept and its application in different countries. The specific ongoing impeachment proceedings against Trump are covered in several other articles. Adding his photo here adds no value to the article. As the IP says, we don't include the photo of every impeached political person. Schazjmd   (talk)  16:10, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree too. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 16:33, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
 * ✅ I have removed the picture as per this discussion. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 16:36, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree. Magil8216 (talk) 16:38, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 December 2019
Reason for edit: Donald trump has not officially been impeached yet. Only his articles of impeachment were passed. Impeachment is a process, not a vote. Only if and when the House sends the Articles of Impeachment to Congress, is Donald Trump actually impeached.

Change: "Three United States Presidents have been impeached: Andrew Johnson in 1868, Bill Clinton in 1998 and Donald Trump in 2019.[30][31] Neither Johnson nor Clinton were convicted by the Senate, while Trump still awaits a Senate trial. Additionally, there were efforts to impeach John Tyler and Richard Nixon (Nixon resigned before proceedings began).[32]

To:

"Two United States Presidents have been impeached: Andrew Johnson in 1868, Bill Clinton in 1998. Neither Johnson nor Clinton were convicted by the Senate.

Articles of Impeachment were passed for Donald Trump, however the House of Representative have not sent them to the Senate to complete the Impeachment process. Once the Articles of Impeachment are sent to the Senate, Donald Trump will await a Senate trial.

Additionally, there were efforts to impeach John Tyler and Richard Nixon (Nixon resigned before proceedings began).[32]"

Source: Bamiculka (talk) 17:44, 20 December 2019 (UTC)


 * I am not content with that change, for several reasons. (1) the house of representatives has conducted an impeachment vote and the decision is made. Plenty of reliable sources are calling this impeachment. (2) This is a live political issue. Wikipedia should not weigh in on an argument being made by the Trump administration. Only if there is some kind of ruling clarifying that impeachment occurs when articles are passed rather than when the decision is made, should wikipedia then report it. (3) In either case, the article will be correct, and Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a newswire. We go with what the reliable sources say. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 18:07, 20 December 2019 (UTC)


 * ETA, and then I saw the Bloomberg source. So my (3) is null and void. However, I think an edit should be careful to say only that there is an opinion that the impeachment does not take effect until the articles are passed. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 18:10, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 05:24, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Discussion on whether impeachment has occurred yet
A discussion on whether Trump is officially impeached or not is taking place at Talk:Impeachment_of_Donald_Trump. Interested parties should discuss there. Schazjmd  (talk)  19:38, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I propose to merge the article Articles of impeachment into the article Impeachment. I think that the content in the Articles of impeachment article can be easily explained in the context of the Impeachment article, and that the Articles of impeachment article is small enough to fit into the Impeachment article without causing any size issues. Minecrafter0271 (talk) 00:43, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * , what's in Articles of impeachment seems specific to the U.S.; I don't see any indication that anyone researched whether other countries use "articles of impeachment". My recommendation would be to merge what's in Articles of impeachment to Impeachment in the United States. Schazjmd   (talk)  00:52, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Schazjmd, I never thought of it that way. Yeah, I think I'll close this discussion and do that. Thanks. Minecrafter0271 (talk) 01:02, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Date Format
This may be a can of worms... sorry!

In March 2017 an editor, NewYorkActuary, changed all the date formats on the page to MDY and added the usemdy template that remains there now. At the time there were six dates in the article, split exactly 3-3 between mdy and dmy, so there is no doubt that his intentions were just to gain consistency. In the references section, however, there were 6 dmy, and only 1 mdy and a number of ISO format dates, making dmy the majority usage at the time. So the question I am asking is whether he used the right one.

The change was not discussed at the time, but neither was it challenged. Arguments based on page history could go either way, so all I would like to focus on is whether the date format should be mdy or dmy going forward. If there is no consensus to change, the status quo should apply.

My reason for suggesting a change, however, is that this page is about impeachment across the world, and we have a separate article Impeachment in the United States spun out from a section in this article a long time ago. There should be no doubt that strong national ties apply to the United States article which suggest mdy dates be used there. Yet similarly in this article, this is not about impeachment in the US but across the world. Only the US uses mdy dates (although they are recognised in Britain as a valid alternate form). Every other country of the world uses either dmy or ymd (and ymd is not an option. Also Kenya and Ghana allow mdy alongside the other two). See: Date format by country.

Although impeachment in the US is in the news and thus everyone's thoughts, I think the existence of the US article mitigates against strong bias towards a US centric article for this article.

To reflect the international nature of this page, I propose we change to dmy. Thoughts? -- Sirfurboy (talk) 10:26, 30 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Per WP:SILENCE I will now make the change. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 19:13, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

this article should be semi-protected
It's been vandalized several times before, and is fairly essential to protect, with an influx of readers likely incoming on account of Trump's second impeachment. - TorpedoFahrt — Preceding unsigned comment added by TorpedoFahrt (talk • contribs) 21:55, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Under United States Impeachment, Language Describing Previous Presidents as Having Been Acquitted and Not Removed, Implies that the Standard Result of Impeachment Is Removal
In the United States, a President is impeached when the H.O.R. votes do impeach him or her. It is then up to the Senate to uphold that impeachment and decide on a punishment, or disagree with the House' verdict and instill no punishment. Describing it as purely an acquittal suggests that the president was not impeached, and mentioning not being removed in the same sentence implies that removal is the only/standard punishment. Perhaps a different wording would highlight the importance of the house vote and the multiple options the Senate has upon conviction, beyond just removal. SpareKeyboard81 (talk) 21:59, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Vote to block Donald Trump on article
I here to suggest to not allow any picture related to promoting Donald Trump in articles. Kent Bargo (talk) 08:16, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
 * We should not allow ourselves to be swayed one way or another by the idea that a picture is promoting the subject. Reverting for discussion. BD2412  T 16:14, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't see how this is "promoting" Trump. To be impeached even once, much less more than once, is far from a mark of honor - Ramzuiv (talk) 19:43, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The lower page already details Donald Trump been impeached twice. The giant picture is not needed of Donald Trump. Seems to absurd and abrupt too. Kent Bargo (talk) 23:39, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Actually, I think the best thing would be a collage at the top of notable impeached figures. BD2412  T 23:49, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps something laid out like the above. BD2412 T 18:50, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I think that would be a good compromise while at the same time allowing the article to be unhindered clean text... Another option would be no pictures, of course.  I also don't subscribe to the idea that this promotes Trump.  — Paleo  Neonate  – 19:49, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
 * During day when Trump supporter riot..these obvious pro trump edits were disruptive storming into these related page. Wikipedia allows anyone edit, but there should be less edit about trump for awhile until it cools down. Kent Bargo (talk) 02:13, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia can be neither pro-Trump nor anti-Trump, and if one of Trump's most significant biographical facts is having been impeached twice, then it would be improper to deny his inclusion in this article merely because it may be seen as promoting him. BD2412  T 02:46, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

I disagree with politicizing the topic. There are articles on Adolph Hitler which include pictures. It is not a promotion. Pictures are factual content and are relevant. Using Wikipedia to push opinions in one direction or another is always a bad policy. People may like or dislike a President as they see fit, a picture in an encyclopedia is not an endorsement. Britannica does this also, and they are not endorsing him. Frobozz1 (talk) 20:53, 6 February 2021 (UTC)