Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Health of Donald Trump


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was merge to Donald Trump. From reading the discussion it seems like we have some compelling arguments on either side. The "get rid of the article" camp says that the well-sourced content should be put into the Donald Trump article, much of the article appears to be speculation by people not necessarily medically qualified and/or in violation of professional standards (the Goldwater rule has been cited in this context, as well as concerns mentioned - although not undisputed - about the reliability of physicians which have evaluated Trump directly), that it has WP:BLP and WP:MEDRS issues due to e.g privacy violations, that it appears to be a WP:COATRACK to criticize Trump, there may be NPOV issues (I am interpreting Atsme's comments to bd2412 as being about criticism of the diagnoses not being properly relayed) and complaints about the article being unencyclopedic. The concerns about libel/BLP aren't limited to the article content but also apply to the page history, and some people are noted that it might be difficult to keep the history clean of them due to the effort needed at oversighting/revdeleting them.

The keep case is that there is evidence in favour of the claims/he's a public figure where WP:PUBLICFIGURE applies and they are thus not libel and that the Goldwater rule would not apply because it's not a Wikipedia policy or even a generally agreed-upon thing (Tataral's argument), that the whole topic meets WP:GNG - in fact, has received outsized coverage including from Trump himself - and that these considerations would require a dedicated article to discuss. There might be also some issues with the policies themselves, c.f the comments of bd2412. I've seen a sidesuggestion to make an article on Healtherism to cover discussions of the tendency of health claims to be thrown around in the political sphere or of repurposing this article into being about Trump's personality.

Now, onto the outcome itself. Headcount-wise we are 8 merges (I am counting Tryptofish as a merge as well as a delete and Milowent as ), 12+1 (I assume that the nominator wants a deletion) delete, 4+1 (I take that Dallbat wants to keep) keep and some unclear (I take that bd2412 might count as keep or merge). With respect of the arguments, the Goldwater rule is not a Wikipedia policy indeed but there is not so much clarity on whether it'd cast doubt on the validity of reliable sources used here; as noted in WP:MEDRS we apply extra strict standards to medical sources and some questions have been raised (in the discussion subthread under Tataral's post) about whether the sources here are reliable for this kind of information. The other important point would be BLP policy but it's often not clear from the arguments here which stuff supposedly violates it - or doesn't - although the point that it mandates stricter compliance with sourcing standards for biographical information on living people is well taken.

Getting down to it, there seems to be a consensus that some of the material should be covered somewhere (such as in Donald Trump) but that a dedicated standalone article is not appropriate. The main argument for keeping the whole article by Tataral hasn't gained much traction and many others are quite vague or do not make a clear statement "this must be a separate article". Many of the merge/delete arguments are a bit vague on policy statements ("pointless trivia" and the like) but some are grounded in policies like WP:NOTGOSSIP, potentially (potentially, because they are not unrebutted) valid WP:RS concerns and WP:CFORK or WP:ATTACK questions. There are also valid points that some of the content should be kept "somewhere". This strengthens the case for a merge. So with this in mind, merge into Donald Trump as the most commonly cited target seems to be the conclusion that represents consensus best. That does not rule out that content could be copied into other articles if need be, of course.

One last point is what to do with the page history. Merging content usually implies that we keep the history for copyright reasons (which are legal reasons so BLP does not automatically, er, trump them), and history mergers are probably hard/unfeasible owing to the complexity (per Masem). It's not so clear from comments here that the history has BLP violations so severe that a deletion would be required per BLP and Periculum in mora. I was thinking that maybe a redirect close (which immediately gets rid of the article contents and leaves the page history for people to copy stuff from) may be warranted here instead of "merge" (which only leaves a tag on the page before the actual merge), but there isn't enough here to justify that kind of "emergency" response. With these points in mind the history stays, although I could see a situation where a merger and redirect takes place and subsequent discussion concludes that a) no mergeable material exists because e.g it already is in Donald Trump and/or b) that the contents of the page history are too problematic to stay visible and that the history should thus be deleted. I think that WP:RFD would be the correct place for this discussion if it becomes necessary in the future. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 21:18, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
 * A small amendment per a request on my talk page: Given that many of the concerns here are about the reliability of medical information and whether "armchair diagnoses" by people who have not personally examined Trump are actually reliable, as well as more general gossip/unencyclopedicity concerns, the editors who carry out the merger should probably consider a very selective merge that only includes the good material supported by top-notch sources. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 08:35, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

Health of Donald Trump

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

This appears to be an unnecessary fork, and it's not clear why relevant well-sourced content cannot be included on the main article for the person. Having said that, a large amount of the article appears to be based on speculation, with an afterthought in the last section from the Alzheimer's Society and the American Psychiatric Association explicitly saying that it's unethical for practitioners to conduct armchair diagnosis and provide such information using their professional credentials to the public in any form. There's definitely somewhere in here where we bump up against MEDRS and BLP. The article does not seem to resoundingly meet either, and it's not clear that there would be very much left if all the content not meeting these standards were removed. G M G talk  20:10, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Merge appropriate material back into Donald Trump. WP:COATRACK seems to apply here. ~Anachronist (talk) 20:21, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Articles for deletion/Log/2019 June 6.  —cyberbot I   Talk to my owner :Online 20:28, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Health and fitness-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 20:30, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 20:30, 6 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete Merge - only the confirmed medical info 19:39, 10 June 2019 (UTC) - delete the rest as UNDUE & noncompliant with BLP & NPOV Atsme  Talk 📧 20:33, 6 June 2019 (UTC) Adding: I was further convinced after reading the following information in Vox provided by Jacob Appel, asst. prof. at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, which raises justifiable concerns of BLP vio: "...presidents are entitled to the same patient privacy rights as other Americans, and it’s up to them what gets reported to the public... There is also HIPAA which protects the privacy and security of one's health information. 20:43, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * , can you point to an example of a piece of information in this article that would be protected under HIPAA (and not waived as a prior public disclosure)? bd2412  T 21:18, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm no expert, bd2412, and I won't deny that at times I may be overly cautious about compliance with our core content policies, but when medical professionals are providing a medical evaluation of a patient they've never examined, it's downright unethical, and when a medical doctor breaches his patient's privacy, I'm of the mind that it's a vio of HIPAA, which tends to make it a bit more problematic for us to include, especially if the purpose is to denigrate, despite verifiable evidence to the contrary. Hope that answers your question. Atsme Talk 📧 22:50, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * In that case, don't we have a responsibility to inform the public of the breach? Otherwise, it makes it seem fine. bd2412  T 22:58, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * My 1st thought is WP:NOTINDISCRIMINATE, 2nd thought is Harold Bornstein, which would be the proper article for that material. Atsme Talk 📧 03:18, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I think that we can describe it that way only if a source actually says that, but not based on editor interpretation. It also seems to me that whatever news source reported the information is the one that is ethically responsible for publicizing a HIPAA breach, unless we cite a direct communication from the MD. But we still have a BLP-based obligation not to repeat it here if there are any such issues. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:55, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Merge - too much of a coatrack related to criticisms of Trump's mental state as a standalone article (it would be different if we were talking something akin to a clear physical problem lke FDR's polio.)  I am tempted to say that no redirect should b left behind, but that makes for a complicated history merge. --M asem  (t) 21:00, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Merge - what's salvageable. Not the mental stuff unless he starts wearing a tinfoil hat. O3000 (talk) 21:16, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete- 90% of this article is just pure speculation and allegations made by people who have never personally examined him. The actual factual information about his examinations are too trivial for inclusion. Who really cares if he gained 4 pounds in a year?--Rusf10 (talk) 22:03, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete- per user::Rusf10 comment, almost nothing worth merging to a BLP. Govindaharihari (talk) 06:13, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Merge - It's true that many of the comments are speculation by people who have never examined him, but the sheer amount of speculation is notable. The article as it stands is overly-detailed and disproportionate but there is plenty of material worth saving and moving to Donald Trump Hugsyrup (talk) 08:14, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete- speculative information and possible libel in the mental health section. Most of the infomation should not be merged due to libel reasons as well as speculation per WP:NOTSPECULATION and WP:LIBEL Abote2 (talk) 10:24, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Abote2 (talk) 10:26, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. Abote2 (talk) 10:26, 7 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment: The topic is notable, so this is really just a judgment call over whether a separate article is warranted, as we all know it is going to fill with every random op-ed and comment about Trump being a declining mental midget. I agree with Rusf10 that there is a dearth of concrete public information out there.  It is probably better covering what is legitimate within another Trump article.--Milowent • hasspoken  13:26, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
 * WP:Indiscriminate, WP:NOTGOSSIP and WP:PROPORTION all fit, particularly the latter, discussion of isolated events, criticisms, or news reports about a subject may be verifiable and impartial, but still disproportionate to their overall significance to the article topic. This is a concern especially in relation to recent events that may be in the news. I'm of the mind that the handling of the highly publicized health issues that plagued Hillary Clinton sets a good standard for us to follow. Atsme Talk 📧 14:28, 7 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Merge and go back to status quo - Given the WP:BLP issues, does anyone know if extra measures should be taken - perhaps changes to WP policy? FoxyGrampa75 (talk) 19:18, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Merge or Delete. The fact that there has been such speculation may be more noteworthy than is the content of that speculation, but Wikipedia should not be repeating medical allegations that have not been medically substantiated. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:50, 7 June 2019 (UTC) revised --Tryptofish (talk) 19:50, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete Information that is actually confirmed should go in his main article. This is an inappropriate WP:SPINOFF full of speculation and serious WP:BLP and libel concerns. funplussmart (talk) 22:03, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete The entirety of this article is either pointless trivia or baseless speculation in violation of professional standards (as well as wikipedia policies). Red Rock Canyon (talk) 23:30, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete The Goldwater rule prevents mental health professionals commenting on potential diagnoses of politicians and other people whom they have not personally examined, specifically the American Psychiatric Association, in the DSM V, describes such behaviour as unethical. So this clearly places this article into territory that quite substantially violates WP:LIBEL, WP:BLP, WP:NOTSPECULATION and WP:UNDUEWEIGHT. Little can be merged and particularly because of serious BLP and libel issues I think merging would fail to suppress the editing history, which is necessary when there are libel concerns, e.g., per WP:OVERSIGHT. For this reason I think merging with libellous editing history available for copy/reproduction is not an appropriate option, regardless of one’s opinion of Trump.-- Literaturegeek |  T@1k?  03:26, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Expand original - Libel does not apply where there is evidence to support the claim, and top mental health experts have now followed the procedure to give their analysis the status of fact. This analysis needs serious consideration, and in it they explain why the Goldwater rule does not apply and why a personal examination is not necessary. Also, the proposal for deletion was made precisely when the topic started heating up.--Dallbat (talk) 13:33, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I can list sources by many mental health experts who state Donald Trump does not have a mental health or personality disorder and others who say he has ADHD rather than a personality disorder, blah blah. Sources do not agree, but none of these experts have formally assessed him which includes interviewing family members about his childhood etc. It is all speculation and libellous. Finally, you cannot vote twice, especially with differing votes.-- Literaturegeek |  T@1k?  17:17, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
 * This kind of confusion is exactly why an expanded discussion is necessary. People are still talking about diagnosis, no matter how many times it is emphasized that diagnosis has nothing to do with dangerousness and ability to discharge the duties of office--which has always been a consensus (in fact, mental health professionals debate ethics because the medical part is not debatable; otherwise, why debate what you can and cannot talk about if there is nothing to talk about?).--Dallbat (talk) 21:21, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your point of view. You made two votes, please pick which one you are going with and strike the one you do not wish to keep, please. You cannot have two bolded votes.-- Literaturegeek |  T@1k?  21:50, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
 * - please decide which vote you would like to make.  starship .paint  (talk) 23:38, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pointing this out. I changed my vote to keeping the article but expanding it to include the complexity of the discussion, which I think is particularly important, not less, if psychiatrists' voice was significant enough for a professional organization to come out and exceptionally silence them in an extraordinary move.--Dallbat (talk) 13:11, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
 * - you still voted twice. You can strike your earlier comment by inserting Your comment at your above comment.  starship .paint  (talk) 13:50, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I suggest you move, from your reply to me, the “expand original” bolded vote to join it with your above/earlier bolded ‘keep’ vote and leave the rest of your message which was a reply to me here.-- Literaturegeek |  T@1k?  18:11, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Oh, I see what you mean by voting twice. I deleted my earlier one, for since learning more, I consider this article all the more vital.--Dallbat (talk) 23:45, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Please do not cast aspersions like you did with this edit. Even undirected accusations against others without evidence are still personal attacks.  Assume good faith on the part of other editors.--v/r - TP 00:04, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Understood! And apologies.--Dallbat (talk) 00:10, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment: I have no particular objection to merging this to Donald Trump, but we should take care to avoid losing reliably sourced content. Therefore, if merged, any merger should include all material that is reported in sources that Wikipedia generally considers reliable. If there are concerns that these sources are making defamatory claims, then the solution is to carefully state that this is the claim arising from the source, and not an assertion of fact on Wikipedia's part. We should also take care preserve the edit history of the resulting redirect; we can revdel any specific content in the edit history that is not properly attributed to a reliable source. bd2412  T 17:28, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Unless we have an oversight admin who is going to carefully read almost 200 diffs/edits/versions of the page to decide what content is libellous or otherwise violates our policies then this suggestion won’t fly. Also, who is to say the admin won’t have a political bias one way or the other. No, you rev delete a small number of diffs, not an article which is thoroughly problematic by countless edits and diff versions. Too much work that likely will not get done. If someone sees content that is salvageable then now is the time to copy it.-- Literaturegeek |  T@1k?  21:16, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Can you point to any specific edits introducing content that is not properly designated as having come from a specific reliable source? Having practiced intellectual property law for several years - including the defense of defamation cases - no violation occurs where a report by a third-party news organization is properly attributed to them. Otherwise, we would never be able to convey any information at all that any party could consider "negative". bd2412  T 21:25, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I am a volunteer, I am not going to dissect 200 diffs just to reply to you, unless you pay me — which is my point above that it is too much work to individually rev delete many many edits. The article content is what we are discussing, no need for diffs. Currently our article strongly suggests Donald Trump has dementia combined with a narcissistic-psychopathic personality disorder without any formal assessment being carried out. The physicians making these armchair diagnoses are violating professional ethics. He must have a funny type of dementia since there has been no deterioration towards dementia, but who cares just so long as it is reliably sourced, it is just Wikipedia after all, eh... The information is unreliable regardless of who published it, so no source can be considered reliable if giving unreliable information. You may have an understanding of law but not psychiatric diagnostic standards it seems since you are defending what you are defending.-- Literaturegeek |  T@1k?  21:37, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
 * 200 edits is actually not that much - I've gone through edit histories of articles with several times as many. I'm sure it will be possible to find an admin willing to do this. With respect to specific assertions in the article, as written it says, for example, " Vanity Fair reported the opinion of a number of mental health experts...", "Jeanne Suk Gerson wrote in The New Yorker...", "Bill Moyers interviewed psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton and said...", "Carlos Lozada, writing for The Washington Post, considered these conclusions..." The reader can determine the reliability of the information based on the source identified, and if there is a lack of clarity with respect to the assignment of these claims, we can clarify the relationship. Teach the controversy. bd2412  T 21:49, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
 * No they can not determine whether the diagnoses are reliable because Trump has not been formally assessed for these disorders, again you clearly have a very poor grasp of clinical ethics and diagnostic and professional psychiatric standards. Many reliable sources cite Goldwater rule to say these diagnoses should not be being applied to Trump, just google it. It is too controversial, nobody can agree anything about Trump so an admin would only get accused of being too lenient or too harsh in their Rev deletes, best delete the article. I have nothing more to add.-- Literaturegeek |  T@1k?  21:58, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Umm...I think most people probably get that we hold ourselves to a standard that is higher than the law. But...I'm not sure the "usual standard" of sourcing necessarily applies when we're dealing with medical information about a living person. That's really double trouble as far as sourcing goes, especially when long standing professional organizations are issuing public statements saying that such statements are unethical.  G M G  talk  22:25, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
 * GreenMeansGo, I hear you, and I even agree to some extent with FoxyGrampa75's suggestion that perhaps some changes are needed to Wikipedia's policies to clarify these situations. As it stands, WP:BLP prohibits contentious claims unless they are reported in reliable sources; these reliable sources are themselves not legally bound by the Goldwater rule. It may be worth discussing whether we should be. Merging some portion of this article into Donald Trump will not by itself answer those questions of policy, since, for example, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump continues to exist as an article despite being entirely about a source of armchair speculation on Trump's mental health. I think that if there are problems with the credibility of, for example, a psychiatrist highlighted by a reliable source, then the better solution is to provide the information that calls this credibility into question. However, to the extent that material from this article is merged into the parent article, I don't see a problem with keeping the edit history under the redirect for attribution. The existence of such a thicket is unlikely to influence anyone's perceptions. bd2412  T 23:09, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm still stuck on mobile, so I'm afraid I can't get into the depths of nuance. But the notability of a book doesn't necessarily pertain at all to the reliability of the information in said book.  G M G  talk  01:28, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Suppose we approach this question from the opposite direction. If, hypothetically, the existing article were blown up and a new article rewritten from scratch, is there an article that can be written on the health of Donald Trump, physical and otherwise? I think the fact that the topic has been addressed by so many news outlets that we consider to be reliable sources (including sources from all across the political spectrum, though these are not necessarily reflected in the current version) indicates that this is a notable topic, and that an appropriate article could be put together. I'm thinking about this in the long term - long after Trump and the rest of the politicians are dead, there will be interest in what the state of his health was during his presidency (for exactly the same reasons that we now have Health of Abraham Lincoln, and sections redirected from Health of Ronald Reagan and Health of Hillary Clinton). bd2412  T 01:53, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
 * bd2412, what you stated above is basically the reason for this AfD - the health sections for Reagan and Clinton were handled properly - they actual had serious health issues and were examined and diagnosed by medical professionals who provided reports that were published in RS, which is quite unlike what this article represents regarding the armchair doctors/psychoanalysts/psychiatrists who diagnosed Trump in violation of their professional code of ethics. If any of their opinions about Trump's mental health is included, then their misconduct should be as well, and a good RS to cite is this NPR article. If consensus says merge, a summary of the results of Trump's actual medical exams can be included in a section in the relevant Trump articles (if they aren't already). If consensus says to merge, then editors will determine what does and doesn't belong in the article via local consensus or an RfC on the article TP. If consensus says delete, discussion is over. <span style="text-shadow:#F8F8FF 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em,#F4BBFF -0.2em -0.3em 0.6em,#BFFF00 0.8em 0.8em 0.6em;color:#A2006D">Atsme Talk 📧 03:45, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I have absolutely no objection to the inclusion of balancing information. I think that the broader and more complete the picture we provide, the better we serve the reader. I think this is particularly true where there are well-reported matters of public controversy. We can say that we're not going to talk about the controversy at all, as if it doesn't exist, or we can say that we're going to explain what exactly the controversy is. bd2412  T 04:21, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
 * The more I read the discussions here, the more I am convinced now that this article is more important than any of the others, since there has never been a presidency that has been so controversial, health-wise, from the very start. In fact, more so even than the health of Ronald Reagan or Hillary Clinton: what other president has had dozens of the nation's most famous mental health professionals come forth warning against his "dangerous mental instability," a professional organization changing its ethical rules (most people do not know they instituted a new gag rule with this presidency), and mental health experts still insisting that it is their duty to speak out?  This seems historic to me.--Dallbat (talk) 13:21, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
 * STRONG delete this disarmingly irrelevant trivia. The standards of BLP have been under absolute siege lately. Ya hate to see it. Trillfendi (talk) 18:53, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I think you meant "alarmingly". --Tryptofish (talk) 21:32, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I said what I said, but both apply. Trillfendi (talk) 22:15, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
 * So, like stunningly unimportant? Or more like shockingly non-notable?  Or perhaps amazingly inconsequential?  --A&#8239;D&#8239;Monroe&#8239;III(talk)  21:15, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
 * User:Trillfendi has a good grasp of English it seems, I had to google that word: disarmingly...-- Literaturegeek |  T@1k?  06:54, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * "Alarmingly irrelevant" would make sense but it is not clear to me what "disarmingly irrelevant" would mean. Bus stop (talk) 07:18, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * What I’m saying is, from afar, like a Monet, one would likely look at this article and say, "wow, this is insightful." But when you actually see it for what it is, it’s Daily Mail-calibre horseshit dreck. The reader has been deceived! Politicians aren’t required to give their physicals. It’s purely trivial. If he did have Dick Cheney (God, how is that guy even still kicking...) problems then I would see something to actually write about. Other than that this "Trump is an obese, senile narcissist who can’t form coherent sentences" Twitter-grade psychobabble is antithetical to what this encyclopedia is supposed to be used for. Trillfendi (talk) 10:36, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

- notify those authorship > 20% and have not commented here yet.  starship .paint  (talk) 23:36, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
 * - there is an AfD template notice at the top of the article itself. Notice has also been sent to several relevant WP projects. Rather than ping a few editors from here which may be misconstrued as canvassing, just point to it in a neutral announcement on the article TP. <span style="text-shadow:#F8F8FF 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em,#F4BBFF -0.2em -0.3em 0.6em,#BFFF00 0.8em 0.8em 0.6em;color:#A2006D">Atsme Talk 📧 02:44, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
 * - I consider it a courtesy to inform major contributors to an article if their article is up for deletion. These two editors wrote 24% and 22% of this article. Are you saying (1) I should not have informed them at all? Or are you saying (2) I could have informed them differently? If (2), please show me how you would have done it.  starship .paint  (talk) 02:50, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
 * SP - I already explained how. Read the last sentence. <span style="text-shadow:#F8F8FF 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em,#F4BBFF -0.2em -0.3em 0.6em,#BFFF00 0.8em 0.8em 0.6em;color:#A2006D">Atsme Talk 📧 02:55, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
 * - okay, I've read it again, my conclusion is that you are advocating for option (1). I stand by my decision. Emir has been on-and-off from Wiki in recent months, and JFG has about 10 edits in 5 days - in light of that, I decided to inform them. My rationale is that if I were a major contributor to an article, I would want to be notified. Separately, I've now posted on the TP.  starship .paint  (talk) 03:01, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Reading WP:CANVASS, it is appropriate to inform Editors who have made substantial edits to the topic or article and also good practice to leave a note at the discussion itself about notifications which have been made, particularly if made to individual users.. What I didn't do is post On the user talk pages of concerned editors, I suppose that's moot if I pinged them.  starship .paint  (talk) 03:12, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
 * My underline: An inappropriate notification is  Soliciting support other than by posting direct messages...  You did not post a direct message - you pinged two editors to this AfD which is not neutral notification. You should have pinged them to your neutral announcement about the AfD that I suggested you post on the article TP, rather than pinging them from here. It was innocent enough on your part - I know you meant well - but in the future, notifications must be neutrally written and posted somewhere as a direct message per WP:APPNOTE. Happy editing!! <span style="text-shadow:#F8F8FF 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em,#F4BBFF -0.2em -0.3em 0.6em,#BFFF00 0.8em 0.8em 0.6em;color:#A2006D">Atsme  Talk 📧 04:20, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
 * FWIW, I appreciate the ping, as indeed I have been too busy IRL these days to edit regularly, so I would have missed this AfD. — JFG talk 07:37, 9 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete – Trump's main biography has enough information about the president's medical exams. A few words about speculation on his mental health would be due, because it has been a political tension point and received a lot of coverage, but definitely no more than a couple lines. This article is too far out. — JFG talk 07:34, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep per GNG. This is a notable subject, and the sourcing is good. Libel is not an issue here when we use published sources per WP:PUBLICFIGURE. For those interested in how libel laws work in these internet days, Barrett v. Rosenthal changed everything by providing immunity from liability for the republication (not original publication) of defamatory content on the internet. Only the original publisher can be held liable.
 * In short, our standard is BLP's WP:PUBLICFIGURE. If it's notable, we must cover it. -- BullRangifer (talk) 20:16, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Certainly Trump's health has been covered more than any other president's, but we have to keep this in perspective with the fact that Trump's has been covered more than any other president's. I believe that we are facing a case where WP:PAGEDECIDE leans towards inclusion of the health topic in the main biography. A lot of it is intimately linked to his age (covered in the biography), his way of speaking (covered in the biography) and political battles (covered in the biography). Ergo, the main biography alone provides the necessary context for readers to evaluate what has been said about Trump's physical and mental health. — JFG talk 21:04, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Certainly Trump's health has been covered more than any other president's Really? More than Wilson stroking out so badly his wife became acting president? More than FDR being an actual cripple? I find that hard to believe.  G M G  <sup style="color:#000;font-family:Impact">talk  16:38, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * In fairness, Wilson and FDR were two-term (or more) presidents. Trump's health has been covered more than any recent president, possibly more than Reagan's.  bd2412  T 17:35, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * You are right; I did mean "any recent president". Never heard about Wilson's wife before today; thanks! — JFG talk 07:01, 11 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I'll just add - WP:NOTNEWSPAPER: While news coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion. Allegations of Trump's mental issues do not rise above gossip and speculation attributed primarily to his detractors and political opposition. Liken it to Obama's birther detractors and see how much of that garbage was considered encyclopedic for inclusion and how it was presented. The same applies to Hillary Clinton's blood clot and fainting spells, and her overall state of health during the 2016 campaign - was any of that speculation and armchair diagnosis published in media reports included in her WP articles? Short answer - NO, it was not. WP should not include opinions by armchair medical pros who are violating their own professional code of ethics. <span style="text-shadow:#F8F8FF 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em,#F4BBFF -0.2em -0.3em 0.6em,#BFFF00 0.8em 0.8em 0.6em;color:#A2006D">Atsme Talk 📧 21:31, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I really don’t think you should compare the claims that Obama was an illegal alien -- pure racist nonsense -- with the large number of respected psychiatrists that have commented on Trump’s mental health. Having said that, I have always argued against inclusion of this material as I don’t like armchair analyses, even from respect medical professionals. O3000 (talk) 21:43, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
 * We have a complete article about birtherism and Obama. -- BullRangifer (talk) 22:06, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
 * How about staying on topic and not making this discussion about me - it's about the coatrack article subject of this AfD. Thank you. <span style="text-shadow:#F8F8FF 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em,#F4BBFF -0.2em -0.3em 0.6em,#BFFF00 0.8em 0.8em 0.6em;color:#A2006D">Atsme Talk 📧 22:22, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
 * We have an article on the movement, not an article about whether he is legally an American or not.--v/r - TP 23:14, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what "movement" you're referring to, but we do have this article, which documents a lot of nonsensical and libelous claims, "garbage [that] was considered encyclopedic for inclusion," with Trump being the most notable proponent: Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories. We followed WP:PUBLICFIGURE and created an article, just as we should in this situation. We also have this one: Barack Obama presidential eligibility litigation. -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:10, 10 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete – Article is largely just trivia and doesn't warrant being included in an encyclopedia due to quality concerns. 71.215.83.8 (talk) 22:45, 9 June 2019 (UTC) — 71.215.83.8 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Merge the content that is cited to physicians that have actually treated him to Donald Trump and delete the rest.--v/r - TP 23:12, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I would find such a limitation slightly problematic, given the history of Trump's physicians apparently falsifying medical information in his favor. bd2412  T 01:49, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * A perfect example of why this article is pointless and should be deleted. The only people qualified to discuss the subject routinely lie about it. In other words, there's no such thing as a reliable source on this topic. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 02:10, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I find it more problematic that we'd keep conjecture from people who have never had access to the man to properly diagnose him in an article about a living person. If you want to keep the sourced material, it should be in an article about the event.  Not from a Trump health perspective, but from an event perspective similar to Birtherism.--v/r - TP 23:25, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Something along the lines of Trump derangement syndrome? bd2412  T 23:30, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * No, that article appears to be about something else. I'd make it about the recent willingness of psychologists to ignore the goldwater rule.  Has that happened to this widespread level ever before?--v/r - TP 23:54, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * No, never before. The American Psychiatric Association never worked so hard in a public relations campaign, either, to silence mental health professionals.  Never were there hundreds and thousands of mental health professionals organizing against this silencing.  A book of just 27 of them became an instant bestseller--this is historic.  It seems to me we need an article covering all this and the reasons why "the Goldwater rule," which was considered obsolete the moment it entered the books, which has been scientifically refuted several times (mostly recently, the Lilienfeld article from 2018), and which even the APA was discussing eliminating before the Trump campaign, suddenly became the law of the land.  Numerous APA members resigned from the organization for its "trumping up" the rule against trends of science and practice, which has changed entirely to diagnosis based on observation (whereas in Goldwater's time it was based on introspection), while remote diagnosis has become routine with the prevalence of telepsychiatry.  The APA leadership itself admitted that it did so not to lose federal funding.  While the APA refused to do a poll, an informal poll by the American College of Psychiatrists showed that an overwhelming majority of psychiatrists believed the rule needed to be changed.  Some have pointed out that this ONE rule of ONE private association among many of ONE type of mental health profession among many (psychiatry), violates the Geneva Declaration of the World Psychiatric Association, which obligates speaking up against dangerous regimes.  All this ought to raise questions and mandate in-depth reflection.--Dallbat (talk) 10:13, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep I see nothing wrong with having this article, it's part of the Series of Donald Trump Aritcles, If we delete this article it's basically saying that we should delete all Donald Trump articles and only keep the Donald Trump article. Thegooduser   Life Begins With a Smile :)  🍁 02:53, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete. The article is unlikely to be compliant with WP:NPOV. It is inevitably an attack on Trump. Bus stop (talk) 04:45, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep Notable topic with good sourcing. Much better than the main article on Trump. Dimadick (talk) 10:28, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep. This is a highly notable topic, and a well written and well sourced article that is an established part of the Donald Trump article suite.
 * The health and personality of Donald Trump is probably the most widely covered issue related to Trump in reliable sources. There is an enormous body of expert commentary the world over, including entire books (The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President). Clearly countless reliable sources consider this topic to be very important for understanding Trump as a politician. Trump himself has commented on his health on many occasions. The topic clearly meets GNG.
 * The opinion of a private association in the US on whether it is "ethical" for individual psychiatrists in that country to comment on Trump's mental health is simply not relevant for our discussion of the notability of this topic. The problem with this fallacious "argument" is that


 * 1) it is presented as a pseudo-legal requirement that trumps the massive coverage of the topic in reliable sources, but is in reality based on a completely non-binding request from a private association within one particular profession within a single country
 * 2) it has been massively ignored and rejected by members of that profession even within their own country; as they have continued to comment on his mental health in newspapers, on television, in academic papers and books, conferences
 * 3) it never had any relevance at all outside of the US, and numerous experts from other countries in Europe and elsewhere have weighed in on Trump's personality/mental health, both in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019, and also made strong direct arguments for why it is appropriate to comment on his health and personality. We could even base our entire discussion of his personality on experts from other professions (such as psychologists) and other countries. Americans can't simply invoke opinions of private associations in the US and assume that this is binding on us Europeans and people from other continents.
 * 4) the request was related to the personal conduct of psychiatrists in the US, not public discourse. It does not follow from that request that Wikipedia shouldn't include such discussion when the sources out there already exist, that's just SYNTH/OR.
 * We have numerous other articles that cover the health and personality of prominent politicians – whether dead (Psychopathography of Adolf Hitler) or living (Kim Jong-un) – and I've only seen an attempt to argue that we "can't" cover it in the articles related to Donald Trump. No need to give Trump special treatment and ignore our usual policies just for the articles on him.
 * Also note that the main Donald Trump article is written in Summary style, so most of the coverage of this topic would belong in a separate article, with only a short summary in the main article. --Tataral (talk) 02:11, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
 * The problem with your analysis is that is ignores two basic core values of Wikipedia. This article isn't about "Health of Donald Trump" despite the title.  It's a coatrack.  What is really is, is about "Wild speculation of Donald Trump's mental health by psychologists who have not examined the subject".  If you want it to be about his health, we limit it to sources that cite his actual doctors.  So, WP:BLP and WP:COATRACK are the primary issues here and BLP is a core policy.  We don't ignore it just because the rest of the world has decided to do away with ethics.--v/r - TP 02:32, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
 * No, we don't have to base our articles on him on "his doctors". Wikipedia articles are based on reliable sources. The "who have not examined the subject" part is not something that is relevant for Wikipedia and our content policies. And one private association in one country, the US, doesn't get to dictate what is "ethics". A number of other experts have made strong arguments for why the ethical thing to do is to comment on his mental health. The "not examined the subject" crowd is clearly in the minority among the experts who have commented on this issue in reliable sources; outside the US this fallacious argument is not even taken seriously and mostly ignored. --Tataral (talk) 02:35, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
 * If they haven't examined him, then they are not a reliable source. If you think otherwise, then the next time you get sick, rather than going to see your doctor, ask him to diagnose you over the phone.--Rusf10 (talk) 02:49, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
 * That is not Wikipedia's definition of a reliable source. --Tataral (talk) 02:52, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
 * We have an obligation to use editorial judgement here per BLP. Just because there is an RS doesn't mean it should be covered.  There are multiple policies at play and we need to remember that we're not a gossip site.--v/r - TP 03:20, 11 June 2019 (UTC)−
 * Reliable sources have clearly demonstrated that countless experts and commentators consider this a very serious issue worthy of serious discussion, and not "gossip". This well developed and long-established article meticulously complies with BLP and other policies. --Tataral (talk) 05:54, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Gossip according to Google: "casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people, typically involving details that are not confirmed as being true." WP:GOSSIP: "Scandal mongering, promoting things "heard through the grapevine" or gossiping. Articles and content about living people are required to meet an especially high standard, as they may otherwise be libellous or infringe the subjects' right to privacy. Articles must not be written purely to attack the reputation of another person."  Both of these clearly apply to what is happening here.  Experts or not, none of them have examined him.  That they are experts doesn't matter because they haven't had access to his medical records or treated him.  They are gossiping.  And we don't cover that.--v/r - TP 23:33, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Strictly speaking, at least some of them are not claiming to have heard rumors through the grapevine. They are observing public patterns of behavior, just as a primatologist might observe the behavior of a group of monkeys and draw conclusions about their social structure. bd2412  T 00:21, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
 * 1) It's not "gossip", but expert opinions based on verifiable, public information, and reported by reliable sources. 2) Whether anyone "have examined him" (a completely arbitrary requirement of yours) is irrelevant. 3) We are covering this issue because it is a notable topic that meets GNG and because of an abundance of high-quality reliable sources. --Tataral (talk) 00:47, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
 * A primatologist would have direct access to the monkeys - these psychologists do not. They are gossipping.   1) The topic of psychologists making claims without examining him is notable and I've already suggested that BD2412 start an article on that very topic. 2) Apparently we aren't covering the issue because consensus is to merge everything but the mental health gossip to his biography article.  3) It is gossip and you're making an appeal to authority logical fallacy.--v/r - TP 01:00, 12 June 2019 (UTC)


 * So does psychopathography of Adolf Hitler need to be deleted in your opinion? Is it "gossip"? The experts cited didn't examine him, in fact they had far less access to him, and far less material to build their conclusions on, than the experts who have assessed Trump have. --Tataral (talk) 01:11, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
 * WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. If you want to delete that article, you march right over there and do it.  I'm at this AFD talking about the merits of this article.--v/r - TP 01:50, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure a primatologist, given many hours of a footage of a monkey boisterously marking its territory and otherwise engaging in behavior typical of monkeys with a certain state of mind, could draw valid conclusions about its state of mind. For example, our article on the killing of Harambe states, with reference to a citation, that "Primatologist Jane Goodall said that according to the video it seemed Harambe was trying to protect the child". bd2412  T 01:32, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I only entertained the primatologist argument briefly but if you want to continue down that track, I'm going to ask if you consider psychologist to be equal in discipline to primatology.--v/r - TP 01:50, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
 * It is important, I think, to distinguish psychologists from psychiatrists, who will have a medical degree in addition to their training in psychological analysis. At least two of the mental health professionals named in the article are specified in the sources to be psychiatrists. Of course, these people will have been required to receive substantially more training and education than a primatologist (Dian Fossey, for example, only had a bachelors degree in occupational therapy before becoming a renowned primatologist). Mental health professionals will generally have the added advantages of being able to observe not only body language, but the actual words people say, from which to form opinions of the mental state of the subject.  bd2412  T 02:10, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I thought we were coming to an agreement above, did you not like that suggestion?  The consensus seems to be leaning towards delete or selective merging without the conjecture/gossip.  I think if you wanted to save a lot of the material, an article called something similar to non-contact diagnosis of Donald Trump's mental health would be a good place but the title obviously needs work.  The article would be about the movement of thousands (according to Tataral) of psychologists that have diagnosed him without examining him. Obviously, their conclusions would be covered so I think it's a reasonable compromise.--v/r - TP 02:29, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Healtherism? Seriously, though, I think that would be a reasonable compromise. There is certainly a distinct phenomenon of mental health professionals forming opinions about Trump in a way they have not about previous presidents (there was also Bush on the Couch, but that was a single psychoanalyst, as far as I can recall). If GreenMeansGo is amenable to such a solution, I would be favorable to making this an article specifically on that movement (and the APA response to it) and moving it to an appropriate title. bd2412  T 02:46, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Healtherism is too broad a topic and could also cover the claims that Hillary was on her deathbed leading up to the 2016 elections. But, yeah, I think we're at a compromise as long as the change in article title comes with a change in article topic as well.  It wouldn't be the same article, but I see significant overlap.--v/r - TP 02:55, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I've not been able to follow  this super closely. Anyway, I don't see that my opinion is singularly important just because I was the nominator.  G M G  <sup style="color:#000;font-family:Impact">talk  03:30, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I just had a stray thought, and tell me if you're not interested, but what if we did do an article about Heatherism about medical professionals speculating on politicians health? It did happen to HRC during the 2016 campaign and that was notable too.--TP (alt) 17:09, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
 * If there are sources discussing this as a general concept, and we can put a name to it, I think that would be reasonable. The situation with numbers of mental health experts specifically commenting on Trump's state of mind, however, seems to be its own uniquely notable phenomenon, without historical precedent for a holder of this office. bd2412  T 21:04, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Alright, I'm not particularly attached to the idea. Just figured I'd throw it out there.  I have about zero interest in this topic overall and not even sure how I landed here.--v/r - TP 21:07, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Numerous other articles?  G M G  <sup style="color:#000;font-family:Impact">talk  03:35, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
 * This article is a giant HIPAA violation. That’s what it is. Trillfendi (talk) 04:36, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
 * , are you asserting that this article has been edited by Donald Trump's healthcare providers and their associated business, which constitute the entities covered under HIPAA per 45 CFR § 160.103? bd2412  T 22:04, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Who in their right mind would think that a Trump associate was writing this crap? Trillfendi (talk) 00:36, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I would assume, someone who thought there was a HIPAA violation here, since HIPAA only applies to institutions and entities that are actually treating a patient, and their associates. If you'd like, I can provide you with some HIPAA materials that I worked on while assisting professionals who were working in the field. bd2412  T 00:39, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
 * , I understand what your saying, but I wanted to clarify why I thought it best for us to exercise caution. Perhaps this article explains it best. It doesn't hurt to be cautious. <span style="text-shadow:#F8F8FF 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em,#F4BBFF -0.2em -0.3em 0.6em,#BFFF00 0.8em 0.8em 0.6em;color:#A2006D">Atsme Talk 📧 20:26, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Per that article, "a reporter relying on a public document or public official—is not liable for the any harm resulting from repeating a defamatory statement". Wikipedia exists for the purpose of documenting encyclopedic information and conveying this to the public. We are within the reporter's privilege. I haven't seen any kind of action being taken against the mental health personnel who have actually provided their medical opinions, much less against sources like the New York Times, BBC, or even Fox News, which have reported their claims. With as broad a body of reporting as there has been, we shouldn't proceed as if the claims don't exist, but I am amenable to the compromise proposal TParis has made above to convert this into an article specifically on the phenomenon of a substantial number of mental health professionals making claims about a specific patient that they have not examined, and the response of the APA and other governing bodies to that practice. bd2412  T 20:57, 13 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment. It is possible that this article should be titled "personality of Donald Trump" rather than "health of Donald Trump", and that its scope should be adjusted accordingly. The main issue in the coverage of this topic is how his personality affects his presidency, the United States and the world, and whether he poses a danger to his country or the world (many experts argue that he does). His personality is a broader issue than just his health; a person's personality doesn't necessarily have to be pathological in nature or described in the form of diagnoses. Psychologists and other experts can offer insight into the personality even of a person with no mental illness. While thousands of mental health professionals have weighed in on Trump's personality and mental health, the debate is broader and includes commentators from other fields too. --Tataral (talk) 01:05, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
 * You're trying to move the goalposts. The article before us is the health of Donald Trump. You're not only suggesting renaming it, but adding different content. The personality of Donald Trump is a completely different topic and we do not have to discuss it here.--Rusf10 (talk) 02:01, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
 * No, I'm not. I proposed personality as the primary focus weeks ago when discussing the inclusion of this material in the main biographical article, so this is what I always believed was the better focus. It's perfectly natural to discuss the improvement, scope and focus of the article here. It's not "a completely different topic", it's a somewhat broader perspective that also includes his mental health, but that isn't limited to it, and that also focuses on how his personality affects his actions as a politician. --Tataral (talk) 02:35, 12 June 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.