Talk:2020 United States presidential election: Difference between revisions

Semi-protected edit request on 21 June 2020

Please add information on the Libertarian Candidate, Jo Jorgensen. This would be very helpful and also better represent the 2020 election cycle. Thank you! 172.4.121.154 (talk) 00:57, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

•  Not done There is already information about her in this article. 331dot (talk) 00:59, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

@331dot: Bloody f*. This page was protected just for this and as soon as the protection goes off this starts again... Obviously we can't semi-protect a talk page for the nearly 5 months remaining until the elections (and going with repeated short protections as has been the case so far due to perfectly understandable reasons, is of course an inefficient waste of time) but still... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:46, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian: Should we ask for protection at RFPP again? Maybe a long-term solution would be best; this would prove it, I think. David O. Johnson (talk) 05:03, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

It would be wise for us to set a guideline for what would qualify the Libertarians (or others) to be included. We had been applying the standard of eligible for 270 electoral college votes (ie ballot access). We now have a consensus against that but no other standard has replaced it. We are just saying NO, not explaining what it would take. I find it disappointing that we tend to make the rules up every election as we go along, regularly discarding past consensus whenever we feel like it without even bothering to explain why we are deviating from what we have done before. We have made a habit of moving the goalposts. This may be a response.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk)

I think there is at the very least an implicit consensus that it should be reliable sources that should be taken as reference for candidate inclusion. In fact, as the heading templates specify, it looks that the criteria for infobox inclusion as of currently are either of these: a) that the party representing the candidate secured at least 1 electoral vote at the preceding election; b) that the party representing the candidate secured at least 5% of the vote at the preceding election, with a note stating that Further discussion is needed to determine if third party candidates should be included based on polling numbers, and if so what level of polling they should reach. In my view, opinion polling could constitute a decent criterion for candidate inclusion (for instance and based on polling numbers, Johnson and Stein would have made it to the infobox in 2016, as they frequently polled around the 5-10% mark), since it is based on actual sources. As far as I see, the 270-EV ballot access was more of an ad hoc criterion artificially built to justify the inclusion of Libertarian/Green in 2012 and 2016, at a time when they were growing in notability and could have merited inclusion anyway. But such criterion has fallen apart in the extremely-polarised 2020 scenario, where Lib/Green are not even reported by most polls.

Nonetheless, I wouldn't take the recent edit requests seriously. Most, if not all of them, are part of a political party's propaganda campaign. Canvassing and meatpuppetry are not allowed in Wikipedia, so in these cases saying No may just be enough. Impru20^talk 09:18, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Strictly speaking this was a different question, not mentioning the infobox('add information'). Perhaps they didn't read the article carefully enough or at all. 331dot (talk) 09:52, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

@David O. Johnson: We can certainly ask, though as I said admins are usually reluctant to protect talk pages, which are anyway not seen by most readers, for long periods of time. Regarding "candidate inclusion in the infobox"; I thought it a bit of WP:COMMONSENSE that only parties which had a reasonable amount of votes (and were not completely immaterial to the results, unless you're of course criticising FPTP for vote-splitting...) and media coverage (so as not to fall foul of WP:UNDUE) should be included. So far, as in most recent elections, it does appear to be only the Republicans and the Democrats; which does fit with the observation that most of US politics, including polling numbers, is reported on the "blue to red" scale (PVI, and of course the individual predictions from pollsters)... Of course, if polling averages (not just indivdual polls) start indicating that one of the minor parties is above the 5% mark (which seems quite reasonable threshold for being note-worthy, given that in the recent past no 3rd parties have reached it), and there is media coverage to match this supposed new level of note-worthiness, this is subject to change. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:55, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Suggested new section - National Forecasts

This page has a very good summary table with various models predictions of each state. Can I propose another table, probably just before this section, which compiles the overall % probability of each candidate winning on a daily basis? As forecasts are increasingly sophisticated and prominent I feel this would be valuable information to include. But I want to hold off for a few days to see if people have reasons to disagree. Prokhorovka (talk) 21:52, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Daily probability of winning falls afoul of WP:NOTSTATS... (and given that national forecasts are not usually done daily, this would probably involve some WP:OR). Forecasts of each individual state also don't tend to change daily either and in any case if somebody is really interested the various projections are summarised at the bottom of the table. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:07, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Polls are more neutral than forecasts, because the conditions governing each are markedly different. Plus, forecasts can be manipulated more easily than polls to portray the data as something it isn't. lAnd unless there was a way to automatically update such forecasts every time any of those predictions changed, it would get more than a little difficult to accurately maintain. Regardless of the current president's (incorrect) assertions to the contrary, national or state-by-state polling is a very effective way to measure the voice of the people in the United States as far as their political preferences and leanings. I'd therefore recommend keeping polls as the status-quo determining factor here. --Jgstokes (talk) 01:34, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I see your points, but other election pages have had both and I think the context for the forecasts would prevent NOTSTATS from being violated. See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_United_Kingdom_general_election#Opinion_polling. Perhaps if the table was updated less frequently than daily. Prokhorovka (talk) 08:44, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

"2020 United States pandelection" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect 2020 United States pandelection. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 June 23#2020 United States pandelection until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Hog Farm (talk) 00:21, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 June 2020

Howie hawkins is also a presidential candidate. 2605:A000:161E:53A:E595:54:6BC7:7C64 (talk) 16:05, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

 Not done You did not specify the edits that you wish to be made. Hawkins is already on this page in the lead, nomination, and endorsement sections. --Spiffy sperry (talk) 16:13, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Please see the note at the top of this page regarding the criteria to be listed in the infobox, agreed to by community consensus; 5% of the vote or getting at least one electoral vote. 331dot (talk) 16:30, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Your assertion is partially wrong, the RFC and subsequent discussion undertaken due a defect in the RFC are more or less in favor of a polling test in addition to the aforementioned, although there was no consensus on what that number should be its clear from the discussions that a candidate that got 5% in a poll would qualify. Thus if someone can show a poll where Hawkins or Jorgensen or anyone else gets 5% of the vote they can be added to the infobox. If they got less, the discussion would need to be reopened regarding what that polling standard should be.XavierGreen (talk) 19:43, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

This is a pretty rough standard, because most media outlets this cycle are routinely excluding "minority" candidates for inclusion in polls. Most media outlets are biased in one direction or the other, and in this hyper-polarized era, they seem largely keen to keep minority candidates out of the discussion. The polls, therefore, are inaccurate and not reflective of actual sentiment in the country. This is why I think the prior requirement of ballot access to 270 electoral votes is a far superior metric. You can't achieve that without real popular support across the nation - it is more reliable than "poll results" that don't include notable and popular candidates as an option. I do think that there is bias against giving fair exposure to what some may see as "spoiler" candidates, and when Wikipedia moves the goalposts to achieve a pre-determined result of excluding "minority" party candidates, Wikipedia is demonstrating clear bias. Prior standards should be kept, not changed on the eve of an election, and perhaps it would be wiser to discuss what the requirements should be changed to *after* the election, so as to minimize personal biases clouding fair judgement. I still see no rational reason why ballot access to 270 electoral votes is not a worthy metric, or why it should be changed, outside of a desire and intentional effort to minimize the visibility of perceived "spoiler" candidates when the prior standards didn't meet that objective. HeroofTime55 (talk) 21:28, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

I mostly agree with HeroofTime55. What is particularly troubling is that we don't actually even have a consensus to include them if they poll over 5% (or some other number). We are excluding any third party or independent without the intellectual honesty to even say definitively what standard they would have to meet to be included. We moved the goal posts by abandoning the ballot access standard used in past elections, and have failed to come up with another one, besides "we don't like third parties or independents". I have said it before and will say it again. Our refusal to set a new standard leaves us open to reasonable allegations of bias, and that we are not acting in a truly WP:NPOV manner.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 21:44, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

The standard should be sufficient coverage in independent sources, which is clearly not the case here as what I can find does not mention any "3rd party candidate" by name, if they even mention them: the British Independent has a single mention of 3rd party candidates, which is in the first sentence: "unlike the late Republican he is not dogged by a third-party candidate."... I'll let you judge that one but clearly that source is making the judgement that 3rd parties are a non-factor (as usual) in this election. USAToday (reporting on a poll) has all 3rd parties together at 11% but does not mention anyone by name but Biden and Trump. Coverage in poll aggregators, such as 538, is also very overwhelmingly Trump v Biden. Unless this changes dramatically, I don't think there's any good reason to mention anybody but Biden and Trump in the infobox. Wikipedia is not here to right the great wrongs of the first past the post system, anyway. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:25, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

If one of the third parties (or independent candidates) was polling consistently at say 5%, it is fair to say they would most likely have to be receiving "sufficient coverage". It is also fair to say if 1/20 Americans say they are going to vote for a specific third party or independent that is enough of a issue in the election that we should not be erasing it. But always saying you need more coverage is not helpful. "More coverage" is not measurable and thus highly subjective. In certain facets of the media there is a lot of coverage of the Green and Libertarian candidates. So what? The reason we have used ballot access, polling, or previous election results before is that they are objective (or mostly objective in the case of polling). Using "sufficient coverage" as the standard, is no standard at all. The subjectivity it invites will lead to editors knowingly or unknowingly deploying their own biases. A party does not have to win or even come in second to have a significant effect on an election and warrant inclusion in an infobox. It may be that neither the Greens nor Libertarians are there yet, but our refusal to set an objective standard is not helping to lay this issue to rest.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 01:41, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

AFAICS, there is already a standard for this, which is listed in the three "consensus" talk page headers. "Sufficient coverage" would of course imply mainstream and reliable sources, not the "Third Party Official Herald" and closely affiliated groups... Needless to say, if a candidate has 5% of the polling, but there's no mention of him in either the NYT or CNN or Fox or [other well known news organisation of your choice]/international newspapers/poll aggregators, they probably don't deserve a mention. Same as (if I compare with deletion discussions) the WP:SNGs, those are presumptions, and if there's no actual coverage, then we shouldn't have an article on it: same thing here, if there's no actual significant coverage, we shouldn't be covering it in a prominent fashion (the infobox) in the article. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:09, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

And there is the rub, some editors don't care if a third party is consistently polling at 3%, 5%, 10%, or 20%. They just don't like third parties or independents. So they will find a way to say, "well the candidate doesn't have significant coverage in [my reliable source of preference] so we have no choice but to exclude them". We have not articulated an objective standard. We keep coming back to insisting on subjective and poorly defined ones. Previously, we had an objective standard (ballot access to 270 electoral college votes), but we changed it. When we did, we didn't bother to set a new objective standard. In the discussion several weeks ago (about maybe setting a new standard), one editor suggested maybe we should include parties that received 3% in the last election. That idea was quickly forgotten when it was pointed out that the Libertarians received 3% in 2016. We have moved the goal posts several times. Now we are refusing to even put any in place. By insisting on a subjective standard, we are reserving the right to place the goal posts after the ball/puck crosses the goal-line. Until we set an objective black and white standard, this issue is going to keep coming up, as it should.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 02:43, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Those editors are tendentious and will get brushed aside by an RfC if need be. As for the "subjective" standard I am describing, that is nothing else but WP:NPOV, which is well accepted, and has a tendency to be applied consistently and coherently (especially in a topic so well attended as US politics) when more editors are involved in the matter (such, again, as in an RfC if there are particularly stubborn editors about not including them). I will also note that even seemingly objective standards (such as many of the WP:SNGs, which are often matters of fact or not - such as "subject won a significant award" or "held a significant (state-wide, usually) political office") can be manipulated by sufficiently stubborn editors (whether such manipulations holds up to scrutiny is another topic). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:15, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

I am by no means a regular Wikipedia editor, but I have deep respect for the process that is intended to weed out biases. I don't know all the wiki law that is being cited by seasoned editors here. But I can make the observation that, by changing the standards on the eve of the election, you are 100% of the time going to let your biases seep into the process. If you think the standards need to be changed, which is fair enough an argument on its own, I think that discussion has to be made after the election, so as to avoid biases of the political moment. Because right now, everyone wants to either suppress or promote certain candidates, and when you open up the process to decide criteria in such a time as this, you're going to let biases take over the process. Go back to the old standard and discuss changing it after the election has taken place. I am in agreement with Darryl Kerrigan that the new criteria are also way too vague, and wide open to the insertion of personal biases. They should not have been changed on the eve of an election just because they were returning a result that was deemed undesirable to some. HeroofTime55 (talk) 16:37, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

I just noticed that RandomCanadian has been blocked for sock-puppetry. RandomCanadian was the one who (I think, correct me if I am wrong, but it looks like it) declared that a consensus was reached (in Archive 10) but I do not believe consensus was actually reached (consensus is not a majority vote), and certainly not a strong enough consensus to overturn the prior longstanding consensus used for several past Presidential contests. People arguing for "5%" never really specified why this is more ideal than ballot access to 270 electoral votes, whereas ballot access to 270 EVs has a pretty strong case, as it encompasses all candidates that are eligible to win the office (which I believe is a total of four candidates, Trump, Biden, Jorgensen, and Hawkins, and I believe this list cannot expand further as deadlines for ballot access are now past). My central belief remains that the criteria should not be changed regardless until after the election takes place, so as to avoid the accidental or purposeful insertion of political bias (and that a discussion should certainly take place sometime after the election on November 3, so as to establish ground rules well in advance of 2024 and beyond), and therefore, that the prior effort to change the criteria was highly suspect and vulnerable to bias. I am a bit new to this, is there any way to address this situation?HeroofTime55 (talk) 22:42, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

It is problematic that RandomCanadian closed the recent discussion about this. We must take into account that he has been banned as a sockpuppet.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 03:02, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes, that in itself is enough of a reason to have another RFC on the issue.XavierGreen (talk) 16:05, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

On the RandomCanadian issue, he didn't participate in that discussion as far as I can see. Anyway, a RfC is already going so that should be fine. I was just interested in replying here to refute the statement that People arguing for "5%" never really specified why this is more ideal than ballot access to 270 electoral votes. Yes, people did, myself included, and it was a very obvious case since having access to 270 EVs has nothing to do with a candidate's notability ahead of an election (and could, indeed, give undue weight to a candidate securing access to just 270 EVs over those who have access to the full 538 college. Why?). Not going to repeat my whole argument again, but it's just untrue that this was not specified. Impru20^talk 16:17, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Where is the current RfC discussion taking place? Sorry, I am new to this dimension of Wikipedia! I would like to address the 270 vs 5% thing but probably it would be better suited for the proper discussion, which I cannot seem to find. Thank you! HeroofTime55 (talk) 22:37, 7 July 2020 (UTC) EDIT: Nevermind, I scrolled down, lol HeroofTime55 (talk) 22:38, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Biden's home state isn't Delaware

It's Pennsylvania, see for example this site this Guardian article also metions Pennsylvania as Biden's home state. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.208.116.15 (talk) 23:44, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Well, Biden was born in PA, but to my knowledge currently resides in Delaware (which he represented in the Senate for decades). Much like Trump was born in NY and officially resided there until recently when he changed his residence to Florida. Mdewman6 (talk) 00:13, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Biden's home state is Delaware. His state of birth is Pennsylvania. Biden has lived in Delaware for a long time. This is the same as how Obama is from Illinois though his birth state is Hawaii. Also keep in mind, The Gateway Pundit is not a reliable source. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:21, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Early voting

Early voting in the 2020 United States presidential election is decided per state. Early voting starts earliest on September 19th, and latest on October 29th, based on the state. <https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/early-voting-in-state-elections.aspx A> The state can also limit the rigth to vote early based on terms like "Out of County on Election Day", "Illness or Disability", "Persons Older Than a Certain Age", "Work Shift is During all Voting Hours", "Student living Outside of County", "Election Worker or Poll Watcher", "Religious Belief or Practice", "Incarcerated (but Still Qualified to Vote)" or "Juror Duty" <https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/absentee-and-early-voting.aspx B>

In some countries early voting is very common, in the US election this is a debated issue. Therefore could you consider to bring in a small chapter or a reference to information on early voting in this article? Hogne (talk) 08:53, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Because early voting is so widely different from state to state, such information would be better suited on the pages covering the presidential election in each state.XavierGreen (talk) 15:43, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 July 2020

Add Jo Jorgensen and Howie Hawkins as they are both on the polls and viable options for the presidency. Both are doing well in unbiased polls on Twitter/Facebook and other social media platforms and in the interest of unbiased and fair presentation of information it would help many understand and see that there are more and in many ways better options. Thank you. 2600:1011:B115:D361:C81:DDE8:5E0F:25F1 (talk) 22:19, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

 Not done - These candidates are already included in the article, but not in its infobox. There is currently a consensus against including any third parties or independents in the infobox. Perhaps, in the future we will set a standard for what would qualify them to be included in the infobox. Thank you.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 22:23, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia actually does not claim to be free of bias. Wikipedia presents the sources so readers can evaluate them and judge them for themselves as to any bias or viewpoint. Social media platforms might conduct unscientific surveys, they don't usually (if ever) conduct scientific polling of their own. 331dot (talk) 01:30, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Social media polls are worth exactly nothing in support of anything. The only polls and coverage we should be caring about is that reported in reliable sources such as independent newspapers and poll aggregators, which as I explained in my previous edit currently assess that 3rd party candidates are a non-factor as usual. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:42, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Your assertion that 3rd parties are a non-factor is woefully inaccurate. One needs only look at the 2016 and 2000 presidential elections to see the impact third party candidacies can have on an election. In both instances the margin of victory in many key states was less than the vote totals of third party candidates running in those states.XavierGreen (talk) 15:35, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

So the guy that shot me down originally, and has shot down every single person that has requested this edit, has been banned as an editor for apparently creating multiple accounts and arguing his side of edits using those accounts. RandomCanadian I think is their name. So in light of that information, can someone please revisit this topic and have a fair and unbiased discussion? I think most actual Americans have common knowledge that there are two “main” parties, but there are also 2 smaller parties. I really don’t see the problem with including pictures /info for all four candidates in the info box. Boogiesmommy2004 (talk) 02:36, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

I believe we used to have the Libertarians and Green Party candidates at the top on Wikipedia presidential Candidate pages. Greendogo (talk) 09:39, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Add Kanye

He is a presidential candidate, so theres nothing wrong with adding him — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:D8:9F4E:8200:389D:DF64:AE68:832D (talk) 15:45, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Kanye hasn't filed with the FEC yet, so it not an official candidate, as of right now. CH7i5 (talk) 16:05, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Also, even if he does run, I don't think he'll be in the infobox unless he does well in polls.—Naddruf (talk ~ contribs) 18:25, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Filing deadlines in some states have passed, as well, and others are coming up. West has also made no moves to build a campaign apparatus. 331dot (talk) 18:48, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

If you add Kanye you have to add Libertarian and Green Party candidates or there will be a riot. Greendogo (talk) 09:35, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

I think the same criteria that we set in the RfC below, would also apply to independents like Kanye if he actually makes an effort to get on the ballot and run. That said, while the Greens and Librarians are already going to be on the ballot in most states, Kayne has already missed a number of deadlines, so we might have to consider that even if he was polling at 5% (if that is the standard we set), he might not be able to get anywhere near that in terms of votes if many of those who tell posters they are going to vote for him are from states where he is not even on the ballot. I just say this to bring some reality to the situation, even if he runs it is highly unlikely he will be in in the infobox, he would probably need to be polling above 5% and even then we might not include him if he is only on the ballot in a few states.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 20:25, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Jorgensen will be on every ballot, so are we just waiting to see if she is polling at 5%? Billbrandy (talk) 17:17, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Rfc on inclusion for the infobox

We already established that we are not going to add the Libertarian or the Green party in the infobox. This means that the "access to 270 electoral votes" criteria is not in use anymore.
Question: What should qualify for a candidate's inclusion in the infobox?
Options:
A. Must be a major political party
B. above 5% average in polls
C. Access to 270 electoral votes (old)
D. other

Thanks, Nojus R (talk) 01:25, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

---

• Comment - just to clarify, we are talking about before the election, not after the election. Nojus R (talk) 21:21, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Survey

• B - Post election, a candidate must have 5% or more to be in the infobox, so it would make sense to include candidates polling over 5%. Nojus R (talk) 01:25, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

• A - Third party figures are not (automatically) notable, relevant, or legitimate. KidAd (talk) 01:34, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

• B - Per the reasoning of Nojus R above. A. Randomdude0000 (talk) 01:52, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

• B If you want consistency, here it is, consistent pre- and post-election. However, polling averages change over time so I would expect 5% to be at least reasonably maintained, not adding (or removing) someone the moment they poll above (below) that, noting that pollsters have consistently observed third parties underperform their polls. While A is decent starting point, it is not tenable in all cases. Ballot access has negligible relationship to RS coverage (WP:UNDUE), voter interest, or actual results so C is preposterous. Reywas92^Talk 05:13, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

• C - Tying it to polling averages, which are constantly in flux throughout an election campaign seems arbitrary and ultimately not a good idea. It's also possible many if not a majority of polling firms would not include the third-parties (as they seem to be doing this year) which would make it impossible for the third-parties regardless. I also anticipate there would be a lot of arguing over which polls to include and not include in the average. I think the previous consensus on access to 270 was fine. It feels like to go beyond that in judging inclusion or exclusion from the infobox is unfair. Basil the Bat Lord (talk) 07:13, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

• B This is the criterion that would be most respectful with WP:V, WP:NPOV and avoid WP:UNDUE issues. We should be giving candidates as much prominence as sources do award them, not attempt to have Wikipedia lead the way by artificially awarding such prominence ourselves. Criterion A is problematic because there may be sometimes where candidates outside any major party may attain prominence on their own, whereas C was a very tricky criterion which had nothing to do with actual notability (plus, it was unfair: it meant that a candidate having access to 270 EVs would be given equal prominence to one having access to the full 538 college. On which basis?). B is the most coherent one and the most respectful of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, so by all means go for it. Impru20^talk 10:18, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

If a political party has over a million registered voters, ballot access to enough electoral college votes to win, and its running a candidate for office, how is it WP:UNDUE to include them in the article, but not the infobox? Likewise, how is it not a WP:CBALL violation to not include them in the page when we in fact have no idea as to how they will preform in the actual election?XavierGreen (talk) 17:30, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

A million registered voters in a country of over a hundred million registered voters is very insignificant, if what you suggest is to count that as some sort of qualifier. The infobox is meant as a summary depicting the most notable candidacies, not as a representation of every minor candidate running for election. Precisely, putting a candidate with just one million registered voters at par with those with tens of millions of registered voters is what constitutes UNDUE. Wikipedia is limited to representing sources. It cannot "right" any perceived injustice nor serve as a platform to raise the notability of minor candidacies.

Likewise, how is it not a WP:CBALL violation to not include them in the page when we in fact have no idea as to how they will preform in the actual election? Can you explain how would that be a CBALL violation, please? I can't see the point at all. Specially when they are included elsewhere in the article: we do not exclude information from candidates in the article, but there is a misconception of the infobox having to show every candidate and that not doing so is unfair. That's not the case at all. Impru20^talk 22:33, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

• B, I think B is fair enough, if a candidate is averaging (emphasis on averaging) 5% in polling, then clearly they are of some significance to the race, since that is a reasonably high bar. For example, Gary Johnson, assuming we are taking the step of averaging out poll aggregators, did not reach that bar on election night 2016. If a third party candidate ever has legitimate traction in the vein of Ross Perot or early-mid 2016 Gary Johnson they will be in the infobox, if they are just a random nobody they will get excluded. Devonian Wombat (talk) 13:51, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

• B I agree that 5% polling average seems a decent indicator of notablity for wikipedia encyclopedic purposes. Though I do have concerns about a candidate who is right on the line and people coming and adding and removing said candidate based upon the day's average polling. Perhaps if they reach 5% average, they have earned their spot for the rest of the election?Tchouppy (talk) 16:43, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
• Soft B - After the election, as usual, we should include anyone who receives Electoral College delegates (and was actually running) or who receives >5% of the vote. That said, this RfC seems to be about what to do before the election has occurred. In the past, I have been in support of some kind of polling criteria (if it can be fairly applied) but as Basil the Bat Lord there can be problems with this criteria if the third parties (and any serious independent) are not included in the polls. I think this criteria would have to be based on these four-way polls. Perhaps, it would be appropriate for it to be slightly lower, say 4% (but I can live with 5%). While it doesn't affect things this time around, I also think any party (or independent) who received 5% of the vote or won a state/DC in the previous election should be included in the infobox of the following election if they are running or running a party candidate (the previous election rule). Furthermore, if any candidate is consistently polling over 5% in state/DC polls (or had received 5% in the last election in that state/DC), I think they should be included in the infobox for the particular state/DC race (but not in the infobox for this main page, unless they meet the other criteria). This perhaps should be called the Evan McMullin rule. I think it is clear that he should be in the 2016 United States presidential election in Utah infobox and should have been before the 2016 election as well, because he was garnering significant coverage and polling above 5%. If he runs again, though I haven't seen anything to say he will be, I think we should automatically include him in the Utah infobox (because he received over 20% last time).--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 18:06, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
• 'D' 5% of actual votes cast in the election - no polls. Polls often overstate how many people vote for the third party candidate. Let them actually reach 5% on Election Day before putting them in the infobox. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:51, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Muboshgu, unless I am mistaken, we are talking about the standard for before the election has occurred. After the election, the usual standard of 5% (or perhaps alternatively winning electoral college votes) would apply. What do you think the standard should be for inclusion before the election? Before we know how people will vote?--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 21:19, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Darryl Kerrigan, didn't notice that. Then I guess I'm with you on the Soft B in that most third party candidates aren't relevant even if they do get to 5%, but there are some cases where it may be worth mentioning on a case by case basis. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:58, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

• 2%'. I agree with the sentiment in B. No need for low-polling (before elections) or low-result (after elections) candidates. 5% is however high, above 2% is more inclusive. 11Fox11 (talk) 06:17, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
• C The old ballot access standard worked fine, I would argue it should be changed to eliminate write in access though. It is highly unlikely that more than 5 or 6 candidates at most will actually get more than 270 electoral votes worth of ballot access. Its a fair objective standard that is not subject to any Wiki:Crystal violations. Most other countries election pages have in excess of 2 candidates listed, so any arguement about cluttering the infobox is void. There are no wiki:Weight issues because as the election has not happened yet, we don't know which candidates will in fact meet the 5% threshold to remain on the page and it has already been determined that the Green and Libertarian parties have enough notability to be mentioned in the lead and other parts of the article already.XavierGreen (talk) 17:26, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
• Comment I'd wish to supplement my !vote earlier, but wish to put this separately since I think this could be an important addition. Aside of the 5%-nationwide polling criterion, we should be able to add a candidate to the infobox, even if they fall the 5% criterion, whenever they poll, on average, as the most voted candidate in any given state. This is rare nowadays, but take for example the situation of the 1948 United States presidential election: Thurmond was not polling near 5%, neither qualified for running in at least 50%+1 of EVs (266 back then), yet he won with 70-80% of the vote in several states and is shown in the infobox because of winning electoral votes. And I said "rare" and not "impossible" because back in 2016 Evan McMullin was speculated to be close to win Utah, and thus, being able to secure some EVs despite him hardly polling above 1% on average nationally (and he only had access to 84 EVs as well, so C wouldn't work in situations like these either). This was my clarification. Impru20^talk 19:40, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
• C Ballot access standard should be the norm. Relying on polling stats is not sufficient, as polls have historically not included 3rd party candidates, simply listing them as "Independent" or "Other," which is not an accurate representation. Simply stating they aren't important enough is a Crystal Ball (I'm sorry, I don't know how to make those cool links, still learning how to edit things), as we have no way of knowing if this is the year a 3rd party actually is relevant, which has been the case in other elections around the world. By changing the consensus from previous years ballot access to 5%, the bar is being raised seemingly on purpose to exclude 3rd party candidates, when they may have met the previous standards. If they poll at 5%, theoretically the bar could be raised next election to 7%, or to having so many electoral votes in previous elections etc, which could then be interpreted as editors using the I don't like it (again, sorry, I don't know how to add the link), to avoid adding the candidate no matter what consensus was reached, simply because they don't want to. By common logic, if I can walk into my polling place and click the button for a third party candidate by name, they should be listed in the infobox, as they are a viable option. Ballots don't put third party candidates that qualify on the last page at the bottom in smaller print. --Boogiesmommy2004 (talk) 22:20, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia relies on verifiability. If polls and reliable sources do not give enough notability to third party candidates, it is not the work of Wikipedia to "right" that. Impru20^talk 22:23, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

It is verifiable that when I go to vote in the United States election as a United States citizen, she will be listed by name on the ballot with the other three candidates, not tucked into the bottom somewhere out of sight. And polls are arguably not verifiable information, as evidenced by the 2016 election where Hillary polled higher than Trump and ended up losing, and it would depend on which polls used; as the numbers would vary and some wouldn't include certain candidates at all, then there would be a whole new debate over why the polls should or should not count.*edited to add my signature--Boogiesmommy2004 (talk) 23:09, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

That's not what WP:V means. V, together with WP:NPOV, means that information (and notability) must be verifiable, and that hose must be presented fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias. Note that it says "proportionally": i.e. fairness is not determined by giving equal prominence to all candidates, as that would mean outweighting some candidates compared to others with respect to what sources told us about them.

The infobox is meant as a summary of the election, not as your "ballot paper"; all information pertaining to all election candidates is already present in the article, and this is something that should be reminded again and again and again and as many times as it's needed. It's just not true that they're ommited. But the infobox only summarizes those bits of information which are more relevant or more notable. As you yourself point out, the 2016 election can be used as an example of many things: it can also be used as an example of how Libertarian and Green candidates ended up in a much lower place than what initial expectations predicted, so as to not being able to even reach the 5% threshold that is typically used to add candidates in US election infoboxes. Expectations for those candidates as of 2020 are much, much lower, according to currently published, reliable sources. And we, as Wikipedia, cannot help further or create an illusion of such expectations when sources do not provide for them. Impru20^talk 23:27, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

• C - Not that I think it will happen, I'm sure another fire brigade would be called in should it seem that the original consensus might be restored. --Ariostos (talk) 22:25, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
• Comment, I’m going to ping everyone who participated in the previous discussion who has not yet commented here, since this has turned into yet another discussion over the old criteria. Why must we insist on having these spats every couple of weeks. JLMadrigal, Casprings, Cards84664, Jgstokes, SharabSalam, Nice4What, DemonDays64, Shivertimbers433, Yeah 93, Antony-22, User:JayCoop, Benjamin.P.L, Rami R, Jp16103, Governor123987. Devonian Wombat (talk) 22:49, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

I would suggest this is because consensus is not actually being reached. HeroofTime55 (talk) 23:08, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

It was. Twice. Tallies of 18-8 and 16-7 in favour of exclusion are about as clear a consensus as you can get. Devonian Wombat (talk) 23:36, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

At least one of those was inappropriately closed by a sockpuppet, and at any rate, "Consensus is not a Majority Vote" (I don't know how to make pretty links or I would include one here) HeroofTime55 (talk) 00:05, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

The fact that a sockpuppet closed the discussion does not make The discussion illegitimate, it just means it should be relisted and closed by someone else. WP:NOTAVOTE applies in a situation where a discussion is home to people who clearly do not know what they are doing, like say, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kim Iversen. This is a situation where two groups of editors are disagreeing, both citing different policies and what they believe is the right thing to do. It is kind of hard to claim that your position is the consensus option when your are outnumbered two to one by editors in good standing arguing legitimate points. Devonian Wombat (talk) 03:04, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

I am not arguing that my position is a consensus, I am arguing that it is questionable if we have one, or had one, and whether or not it is strong enough to override prior long-established consensus. HeroofTime55 (talk) 03:01, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

• D - Case by case consensus basis to include or not include. I realize that's not what the goal is here, but I don't see any reasonable way around it. I would support a polling cutoff, but as some have discussed above, there are many details to deal with. Need there be just one poll at 5% or above? Three polls? Only polls from selected pollsters? A polling average? Which polling average? I think in any case, we will still be back here discussing whether some candidate has reached some threshold or not. Another factor to consider is performance of a particular party in the past election. In my opinion (just my opinion!), the third-party candidates are weaker than those in 2016. Past consensus is not wrong in my view. Third parties will have a role in this election just as any other, but will not rise to the level of Ross Perot or John Anderson, and it is clear to me that this is an election of Trump versus Biden. The infobox should reflect that, with the article discussing all the nuances such as third-party candidates in appropriate sections. Mdewman6 (talk) 22:51, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
• B, per WP:UNDUE. Cards84664 22:57, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
• A and if another candidate increases, consensus to add based on WP:RS and polls.Casprings (talk) 23:05, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
• C - First of all, above all else, I believe changing the metric on the eve of an election is dangerous and invites bias; if there is a cause to change the criteria, I believe that the consensus must be overwhelming. I believe a 'lower standard for consensus,' for lack of a better phrasing, is acceptable to discuss the criteria for 2024 and beyond, but on the eve of the 2020 election, it is almost unavoidable that our biases don't influence our opinions. Therefore, I consider it the best route to tend to stick with prior consensus unless there is an overwhelming consensus to change, which I do not believe we have. To the question of which criteria is best, I do also believe ballot access to 270 electoral votes is the best criteria to use. 270 electoral votes being the number necessary to win the election, this essentially provides a list of all persons qualified to win the election, of which to my best knowledge, there are four (Trump, Biden, Jorgensen, and Hawkins), and there will only be four as deadlines for qualification have passed (so no Kanye, for example). This is not an overly excessive number so as to cause clutter, and despite some arguments that the LP and Greens are not notable enough, I believe that is merely the insertion of political opinion. They are notable in that they have qualified to win, regardless of anyone's perceptions of their chances. There is no undue weight whatsoever in fully listing the very tiny number of people who have actually qualified to win office. There is no undue weight whatsoever to listing candidates that have managed the very difficult task of mustering 270-EV ballot access. The leading counter-proposal seems to be 5% average in polls, which I will state flatly is a deeply flawed mechanism, if for no other reason than that the LP and Greens are routinely excluded from reliable polling, by media organizations that, frankly, are more interested in the polarized Trump vs Biden debate right now than in polling for all candidates. 5% polling average is deeply flawed as it relies on media sources rather than the National Popular Vote, which is used to determine the post-election infobox. These numbers are NOT the same, and media polling simply cannot be treated as a reliable or accurate figure. The Popular Vote rules for post-election infobox are fine, but media polls are not the equivalent of actual votes. HeroofTime55 (talk) 23:06, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Extended discussion between HeroofTime55 and Impru20. Closer and others may wish to read, but collapsed for convenience.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 22:37, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Being qualified to win the election does not make a candidate any more likely to win any EV nor, for instance, more notable. Strom Thurmond was a notable candidate in the 1948 United States presidential election, won 39 electoral votes and four states (securing >70% of the votes in three of them) yet he was not "qualified to win the election" (he only had ballot access to 194 EVs, far below the 266 then required to win). It's common for many candidates "qualifying to win the election" to have lackluster performances (there's plenty of historical evidence for that, the latest of which you can find in the 2016 election itself), so that by itself is not an useful standard. UNDUE is typically brought because arguing that media and polling cannot be regarded as reliable sources and that we should judge ourselves on a candidate's notability is outrightly contrary to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines (and, in essence, to its second pillar). Impru20talk 23:37, 7 July 2020 (UTC) Firstly, judging the likelihood of them winning an actual EV is WP:CRYSTAL. The election is 4 months away, and things can change, people are firing up their campaigns, a lot is in flux. Likewise, prior performance means nothing related to future performance. This isn't about the 2016 election, it's about 2020 and beyond. Media polling most often does not even include LP or Green as options. There are, strictly speaking, biased reasons for that. Excluding qualified candidates, strictly speaking, is a bias unto itself. I am not "judging for myself" a candidate's notability, and in fact, it seems that you are the one doing so, in judging a candidate's lack of notability. The Strom Thurmond case is an interesting one, as clearly he had the potential to influence the outcome of that election. In a hypothetical upcoming election with similar circumstances, I would not consider the 270-EV rule to be exclusionary to someone who is significantly notable on other metrics. It's an inclusive rule rather than an exclusive rule. Secondary standards could and should be devised. Perhaps if Kanye starts polling above a threshold in certain states with open write-in ballots, the argument could start to be made that he may win some EVs and upset the balance of the election. But as it stands, we KNOW that the LP and the Greens have a consistent track record of upsetting the balance, their vote totals each routinely significantly exceeding the margin of difference between the D and R in prior elections. I've already accused you of predicting the future and I am dangerously close to being a hypocrite on that - I don't believe that argument should be the one that is used, it's merely a different counter-argument than the one I rely on, which is that 270-EV access is a clear marker of qualification to win, and it is bias to make the assumption that one cannot based on media performance or past party performance. HeroofTime55 (talk) 23:59, 7 July 2020 (UTC) No one is excluding them from the infobox based on any likelihood of them winning an actual EV; factually, one could also argue that pushing to have them in the infobox by assuming they have any reasonable chance of securing any EV, despite this not being provided for in any source, would be equally (or more) CRYSTALBALLish. Their likelihood (or lack thereof) of securing any EV is not an element of decision-making here. Nor should be. It's sources that should guide the way for us, and these are very overwhelming on this issue. Pretending to set a 270 EV-ballot access criterion which means nothing in terms of notability (remember: being qualified to win an election does not make a candidate any more likely to win any EV) is a false pretense: hundreds of candidates being qualified for 50%+1 of EVs have historically and utterly failed in winning any single EV. Only a handful of those have done so, and an even lesser number have went on to subsequently become POTUS. Concurrently, we've seen examples of candidates "unqualified for winning" becoming notable on their own right. Thus, the ballot access criterion clearly misses the point entirely, fails its alleged function and only helps raise WP:UNDUE concerns. It's fairly obvious we should move on and stick to some criteria that not only is more respectful of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, but also is more helpful in achieving its aim to fairly and proportionately represent notable candidates in the infobox. Opinion polling would be a fairly good register at that. Otherwise, and picking up a reply from you to another comment below, why 270? Why not the full 538 college? Or 400? Or 200? Setting the focus of argument on the alleged arbitrariness of one value will only raise questions on the arbitrariness of the other value. No source establishes 270 as a criterion under which a candidate automatically becomes notable, and we shouldn't be determining ourselves such notability based on our own pre-judged and unsourced criteria. Remember, every information posted in Wikipedia must be verifiable. Anything beyond that falls in the category of original research. Impru20talk 00:45, 8 July 2020 (UTC) Why 270? Because 270 is currently the required number of EVs that a candidate needs to win the Electoral College (barring it getting kicked to the House of Representatives for nobody meeting that threshold). Simple as that. Having ballot access to 270 EVs determines whether or not it is in the realm of possibility of winning the Electoral College. Obviously, this number should change when the Census comes in and if any other States are admitted to the Union, to consistently be equal to the number needed to win the EC outright. This makes absolutely perfect sense, and the requirements to gain ballot access to this many EVs are quite significant, and certainly noteworthy - I flatly reject the claim that this falls under UNDUE. It does not. The Green and LP, again, routinely collect a significant amount of votes that exceed the margin between candidates in various states, and therefore routinely influence the outcome of the election. That is anything but undue weight. I will make the suggestion that the motive to change the requirements in this hyper-partisan era largely rests with a desire to limit the exposure of "spoiler" candidates. That is why, at the core of my suggestion, is that prior consensus should be kept (having been improperly overruled by questionable voting) and this should be decided AFTER the 2020 election, well in advance of 2024, so as to avoid the influence of personal biases - and yes, the bias to exclude perceived "spoiler" candidates is absolutely a bias. 270 is a clear line, either you are qualified to win or you are not. The Consensus from 2012 and 2016 should be upheld and this discussion should take place after the election and WELL in advance of 2024. There is far too much potential for the injection of bias right now, and and I feel an absolutely overwhelming level of consensus would be necessary to change prior rules now, on the eve of the election. I do strongly believe that this change has been pushed to exclude legitimate candidates from their very much DUE placement in the infobox. They're qualified, they're running; erasing them, based on their performance in polls they are not even presented in, is biased and wrong. The decision cannot be made until after the election without being called into question for bias, and that is why prior efforts to achieve consensus have failed repeatedly. The timing is extremely poor. The 270 threshold means something - it means that they are qualified to win. 5% in media polls means nothing and is arbitrary, and choosing a number such as 5% instead of 4% or 6% means that you are judging their notability in ways that simply using a qualification standard (270 EVs) does not judge. The prior standard is clear and consistent and not subject to shifting winds. HeroofTime55 (talk) 01:27, 8 July 2020 (UTC) Why 270? Because 270 is currently the required number of EVs that a candidate needs to win the Electoral College And once again, this has no relevance whatsover on a candidate's notability or chances ahead of an election, nor do sources use it as a value for acknowledging a candidate's notability. This is why it's problematic. Taking my previous arguments for reproduced since this is a mere reiteration of previous reasonings and I don't want to be circular in here. Impru20talk 08:42, 8 July 2020 (UTC) You are straight up wrong about sources declaring candidates not notable. I'm personally a fan of Ballotpedia as a pretty unbiased and fair source, and their page literally states that 4 candidates have met their standards for notability. Their metric is different (capturing ballot access in 15 states, rather than 270 EVs which is a higher standard) but has the same outcome in the case of the 2020 election. Notability is inherent in qualifying, and is not arbitrary, like 5% is. HeroofTime55 (talk) 14:47, 8 July 2020 (UTC) Doublepost, but any argument from "chances" is WP:CRYSTAL so "notability" is the only concern, and qualifying is notable. You have also failed to address the concern of heavy bias to making these changes on the eve of an election as opposed to years in advance, when the changes SHOULD be made. The new threshold being promoted is arbitrary, poorly-timed, and improperly implemented without the level of consensus needed. Revert to old standard and discuss after the election when bias can be removed from the situation. 5% was chosen with the predetermined goal of removing the LP and Green parties - you're crafting a standard to meet political objectives. HeroofTime55 (talk) 14:57, 8 July 2020 (UTC) Neither articles on Wikipedia nor websites that mirror Wikipedia can be used as sources. Ballotpedia may do as they please, but that's not of our concern nor can they be regarded as a reliable source. No one is making any argument from "chances". What we say is that the infobox is not intended to reflect a ballot paper. All information about candidates is already included in the article, but information in the infobox is limited to the most notable candidates, because it's intended as a summary and not as an include-all template. Once again, if sources do not give such notability, it's not Wikipedia's job to give it ourselves. On the "heavy bias" issue: firstly, it's not biased just because the consensus is happening before the election. I find that troubling. Discussions about this issue already took place earlier in the year, yet despite the consensus for change being clear it was delayed because of several intermediating issues. Reaching consensus is by no means a matter of "heavy bias". If that was the case, you should know that the previous consensus for 2016 was established in an (albeit somewhat chaotic) discussion that spanned from October 2016 (this is, barely one month before the election) to election day itself. I don't think anyone thought back then than doing so implied a "heavy bias". Impru20talk 15:48, 8 July 2020 (UTC) First Ballotpedia is NOT a mirror of Wikipedia - a mirror means a clone. Just because they use a wiki format does not render them a clone, fork, or sister project of Wikipedia, and they unequivocally are none of those things. Ballotpedia is privately edited by a hired staff, and is lauded as a reliable and neutral source. WP:NOTSOURCE does not apply here. Secondly, you have literally used the word "chances" multiple times now in describing why you think certain candidates should be excluded, and in in the very post I was replying to, don't gaslight me. You have struggled to come up with a rationale for why achieving 270 EV ballot access is not sufficient notability for the infobox. As it stands, the current infobox (with only 2 candidates) fails to represent the election accurately. The argument for 270 EV is crystal clear - it includes by definition all candidates that are qualified to win the Electoral College. For 2020, that is four candidates, no more, no less. There is plenty of DUE cause and weight to have the infobox properly reflect the actual election, rather than for it to be a canvas for certain persons to erase candidates that they would rather not have visible. That's an accusation, but I have yet to hear any rational reason for why 5% in media polls is better than 3% or 8% or any other arbitrary number, let alone why it is superior to 270 EV ballot access, and further, even at the top of this very RfC, it is stated that "it was decided that the LP and Green won't be included" - No decision of any standard, but rather, a decision targeting parties, and a discussion to craft a standard around meeting that objective. The bias here is crystal clear. The 2012 and 2016 standard should be kept, and this article should be immediately reverted to the prior consensus. Erasure of "third parties" is a real thing, it's a biased thing, and you're doing it. There's zero rational reason why 5% polling average should be used, except that it happens to exclude candidates you want excluded. As to the bias, it is inescapable at this point in the cycle. People who want to see their "big party" candidate elected have a vested and strong interest in erasing the visibility of what they perceive as "spoiler" candidates they think are a threat to their chances. And yes, proponents of those candidates naturally are upset when they see this bias implemented, which is in itself another bias. It is impossible to separate that, and that is why the best course would be to maintain the prior 8 years of consensus and then discuss future changes for 2024 and beyond AFTER this election has taken place, when biases will no longer be running on overdrive in the midst of an intense electoral season. That is why I believe the required level of consensus to override the established criteria must be truly overwhelming and with very good and rational cause - say, in your Strom Thurmond example, where there would have been good cause to make an adjustment. There is no such cause here, only (an openly stated) motivation to erase the LP and Greens and come up with a reason for it after you've already decided that desired outcome. HeroofTime55 (talk) 18:37, 8 July 2020 (UTC) Ballotpedia was originally was a "community-contributed web site, modeled after Wikipedia" which is now edited by paid staff. It "contains volumes of information about initiatives, referenda, and recalls." It's not the exact same as Wikipedia, in the sense that it's now edited by paid staff, but the point still upholds. You wouldn't use another wiki or enclosed-contribution site as a reliable source (and definitely not about their own made-up criteria for determining relevancy, which so far no other source seems to back up), but even in the case you would, you'd still have to weight Ballotpedia together with all other sources in the larger picture. The fact is that the overwhelming majority of sources do not support your claim, so you cherry-picking of one source and sticking on to it only increases the UNDUE concerns at stake here. Too long, I won't read a repetition of the same 270-EV arguments/foundless accusations for the eleventh time. What you say about what I said is simply not true, and I've already explained myself countless times. Again, previous discussions in 2012 and 2016 took place up until election day. If you insist on your absurd "heavy bias" accusation, then you yourself would have to acknowledge than the previous ballot access criterion was "heavily biased", because it was established right before the actual elections. Absurd, right? No serious discussion about infobox criteria for inclusion has ever taken place after an election (nor would do, because literally no one cares for it three years before it's of any concern LOL), and that you insist on demanding people to wait until after the election to replace a dead consensus is just as unreasonable as your logic here. Impru20talk 18:51, 8 July 2020 (UTC) Well, I did see that you only used the argument from "chances" once, I was going to go back and edit my comment to reflect that but it's too late now. I apologize for accusing you of doing it more than once. Ballotpedia is an "enclosed contribution" site much like... any other source in the world? It's a source. Sources typically have people contributing to them. Otherwise it wouldn't exist. This is an absurd argument for its exclusion, while promoting a criteria based on biased media polling that doesn't even include LP and Green as options, thus rendering these polls explicitly inaccurate. I didn't cherry pick it, though it may look that way I suppose if you want to stack it side by side with MSNBC and Fox News polling that seeks to present a biased view of who is running. It's a site I use frequently because it is unbiased and informative. It's a site that has been itself lauded by media outlets as a valuable resource for elections. Your desire to tune out and ignore the rational case for 270 EV and replace it with an ill explained 5% standard doesn't make the issue go away. I do insist that the discussion of standards should take place outside of a moment of highly charged political bias, so as to eliminate said bias, and doing so will not be possible until after the election. I intend to be present for any such discussion, where I will again argue for the 270 EV case (or whatever number becomes required to win the EC after the Census or if a new State is admitted). That is the best time to hold such a discussion, unequivocally. The argument that "nobody cares..." exactly. Nobody will care, the political bias will be gone, and a fair and solid standard can be crafted by those with a vested interest in the Wikipedia project rather than those interested in using Wikipedia as a tool for political propaganda. That's the point, to do it when people don't care about their political motivations. Right now, people are motivated, on both sides of this discussion, to use the infobox as a political tool. That is why prior, longstanding consensus, which has rational reasons for being the old consensus, should be maintained, and certainly should not be altered without very good justifiable cause, of which there is currently little to none - arguments from UNDUE have been refuted and boil down to personal opinion. HeroofTime55 (talk) 19:17, 8 July 2020 (UTC) Ballotpedia is an "enclosed contribution" site much like... any other source in the world? Which started out as a community-contributed web site modeled after Wikipedia, so not like "any source in the world" (except other wiki sites). But yes, there are a whole lot of other sources in the world and I commend you for acknowledging that; now weight them in and you'd still find yourself without a verifiable basis to back up your plan (unless you still want to stick to Ballotpedia for some unknown reason I can't grasp, but that would by itself constitute a perfect example of giving undue weight to a specific viewpoint). I have explicitly explained (and not one, but several times) that the rationale for the 270 EV ballot access criterion is entirely unrelated to the issue of whether a candidate has notability or not, making such criterion useless. That's different than "ignoring the rationale". I haven't ignored it, I've taken on it and explained how and why it has nothing to do with a candidate being notable in an election. You are not explaining why reaching a consensus now constitutes "bias" other than you simply not liking that we get rid of an already dead criterion right away, and entirely ignoring the fact that your preferred 270 ballot access criterion was established precisely much closer in time to the election at hand. If you are only going to keep text-walling the same mantras over and over and over again, then we may very well end the discussion here. Impru20talk 19:34, 8 July 2020 (UTC) Ballotpedia being modeled after Wikipedia once upon a time does not make it a clone of Wikipedia. WP:NOTSOURCE does not apply, full stop. A clone of Wikipedia is one that copied articles from Wikipedia. Please stop trying to imply a source is invalid because it demonstrates something not to your liking. This article is about the 2020 Presidential Election. There are 4 notable candidates running in this election. The crafting of a standard around the goal of intentionally removing two of them is a biased process. There are 4 candidates qualified to win the EC (via ballot access to 270 or more EVs), this is verified information. The infobox should represent the qualified candidates, not just ones deemed important enough to then construct a standard around, with no rational reason why it is set at 5% and not 3% or 8% or any other %. You have yet to answer that, your only response was to "no u" me and ask "why 270 EVs" to which I gave you a simple and coherent reply. You have not indicated why 5% in media polling is a good or reasonable number. Given that most polls are interested in presenting a biased picture (I have seen lists of candidates, from major outlets, that list true fringe candidates like Mark Cuban before they will list candidates from LP or Green who have actual ballot access), simply citing that there are more biased outlets out there is no basis to change prior consensus. The infobox is being used now for political propaganda purposes instead of presenting an accurate picture of the 2020 race. You have cited UNDUE but you are making a value judgement. They have ballot access, there are 4 and only 4 people who have ballot access in the 2020 election. These are, essentially, by any reasonable metric, the "real" candidates. Media polling is totally irrelevant and indeed unreliable, especially when those polls intentionally fail to include candidates in an act of bias by those outlets. I have provided sources to show that the LP and Green candidates are notable, and those sources are hand-waived away as "invalid." I will note that Ballotpedia is the second Google result for "2020 presidential candidates" and various other related search phrases - hardly a cherrypicked fringe. It is a major source for unbiased coverage, it is lauded as an important resource, and it deserves significant weight as a source, certainly more than media outlets that have a political agenda when they construct their polls that you rely on with your arbitrary 5% metric. And yes, I tend to write a lot. You have as well. I'm not going to attack the size of the responses you've put forth in dodging my request to explain why 5% is better than 2% or 6%, would appreciate if you granted me the same respect. HeroofTime55 (talk) 21:08, 8 July 2020 (UTC) Here is another source, 6th from the same Google search (5th if you exclude this very Wikipedia page which ranked 4th). It's not a poll, it's an actual source. So 2 of the top 5 search results (not counting Wikipedia because WP:NOTSOURCE) list these top 4 candidates. HeroofTime55 (talk) 21:28, 8 July 2020 (UTC) Actually, you keep pushing Ballotpedia here because it says something loosely resembling what you like to hear. The point is clear. As for the other source you bring, it's not clear what does it demonstrates (from the very beginning, it already states Democratic and Republican nominees are at an higher level of notability. It then goes on to mention Jorgensen and Hawkins, yes... and also Kanye West, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Buttigieg and so on. And I'm sure you are not pushing for Sanders and Harris to be in the infobox, yes?). The infobox should represent the qualified candidates Yes, and we are seeing you explain to all of us who the qualified candidates are and how wrongly everyone else of us seemingly are. not just ones deemed important enough to then construct a standard around Wait wait wait. Isn't this exactly what you're doing here as well? Isn't the 270 EV-ballot access criterion a standard constructed to deem any given candidate as... important enough? Lol. The difference between the 270-EV ballot access criterion and the 5% opinion polling one is that the latter one does have something to do with a candidate's relevance, and foremost of all it is based on sources. It brings zero UNDUE issues. Do you think it's arbitrary? Just as picking up 270 as the number to go for ballot access. Firstly, the ballot access criterion pretends to construct notability out of the false assumption than having access to 270 EVs makes a candidate relevant. That's untrue, and you can see that such a view is unsupported both by sources and by all the historical examples of candidates utterly failing despite having access to 50%+1 of EVs. You can have access to the full 538-college and be entirely irrelevant. You can have access to 10 EVs and be a very relevant candidate. I have put this forward like a thousand times yet you always respond with the same "it's all biased, unreliable and arbitrary"-mantra, when you have not been able to justify for a single time how does having ballot access to 270s EVs makes a candidate notable nor how it's unbiased, reliable and unarbitray. And here comes my second point (once again) that "being qualified for winning the election" means nothing and constitutes a false dilemma. What does "win the election" mean for you? Every single candidate having access to at least the EVs of one state can potentially win the EVs of that state and, thus, become notable. Because if there's something set into stone is that winning EVs makes a candidate eligible to be in the infobox after the election, so we'd have to find for ways that better reflect the best positioned candidates to secure any EVs. It all comes down to this. So again, your rationale does not hold, unless you actually defend to add every candidate to the infobox, but I think you won't find much support for that around here. It's the 5% threshold perfect? Surely not. It's way better than the 270 EV-ballot access criterion? Definitely. (I would write much less myself if I was not required to reply to such massive text walls nor was forced to explain such obvious things, btw). Impru20talk 21:59, 8 July 2020 (UTC) You continue to do an amazing job ignoring the rationale behind 270EV and continue to suggest that this was somehow an arbitrary number pulled out of the aether (like 5%). 270 has an exact rationale for why that is the specific number, and not 269 or 271. Perhaps I wouldn't need to explain this over and over if you were not so intent on ignoring it and telling me how 5% is such a better criteria while consistently failing to mention how you got 5%, and not 2%, 8%, 3.14159%, or any other number. One of us is being arbitrary, and it is not me. You are making a value judgement to draw the line at 5% (in polls where these candidates are not even presented as options, but "Other" is polling at give or take 10%). The polls are, very clearly and obviously, a deeply flawed metric to go by. But that doesn't matter at all, because the objective is not to be.... objective. It's to design an impossible criteria to intentionally exclude candidates you have already determined you want excluded. If these candidates started being shown in polls and you saw them getting 5%, I am sure the arbitrary line would be raised to 8% or 10%, or maybe you would follow the CPD and put it all the way at 15%. Does it matter? You're crafting a standard in pursuit of an outcome goal which has been explicitly stated. There's nothing to stop the goalposts being moved again, and that's why this debate is going to pop up time and time again, because there is no consensus for what you are doing, there never was. Not only have I proved how the polling metric is flawed (no representation alongside ~10% "Other" in polls), but I even gave you sources to demonstrate notability and that doesn't count either. I have answered your concerns, you have yet to address mine. HeroofTime55 (talk) 22:24, 8 July 2020 (UTC) (edit conflict) Again, that you don't like what I said about 270EV does not mean that I ignore its rationale (much to the contrary, as explained). Once the election is held, candidates winning as low as one EV could get into the infobox by that virtue. Being qualified for access to 270 EV does not make a candidate any more likely to secure one EV; once again, ballot access does not determine notability. I've never given my opinion about the 5% value itself, so it's curious how you say I'm making a "value judgement" on that. I said 5% is not perfect. Yet I said it's much better than 270EV. The polls are, very clearly and obviously, a deeply flawed metric to go by. That's a value judgement you make about valid source information, but I'd rather stick to source information rather than to your personal opinion or preferences. It's to design an impossible criteria to intentionally exclude candidates you have already determined you want excluded. This is outrightly false. The 5% metric would have allowed Johnson (and probably Stein) to be included in the 2016 election infobox. That Jorgensen and Hawkins are polling miserably in comparison is not our fault, nor does it mean that any one of us want them excluded. So far, it's you who seem intent on designing an extremely favourable criterion so as to intentionally include candidates who have very little relevance in comparison to the Republican and Democratic nominees, and that in this election cycle are remarkably unnotable as compared to previous cycles. And that's what WP:UNDUE is all about. In your last sentence you make a false assumption (you do know that the chunk for "Others" does include Undecided in many opinion polls, right?), then go on to repeat the same sources which I've already commented and refuted. Nothing new, again. Impru20talk 22:43, 8 July 2020 (UTC) Your rationale against 270EV was that in and of itself being one of the 4 people qualified to win the Electoral College is not notable enough (by what standard?). Despite it taking considerable effort and broad support to get ballot access to that many EVs, this is not enough for you to consider notability. So you have turned to the Wikipedia standard of sourcing notability, which is quite fair! I have thus provided sources to demonstrate that these candidates have broad popular support. This was also not enough, and you attempted to discredit one of these sources by first citing a rule (WP:NOTSOURCE) that does not apply to it (calling it a Wikipedia clone when it is not), and then by saying that I had "cherry-picked" one source (the second google result) and so I provided another (the 5th ranked google result, excluding the result for this very page). If that does not meet notability standards, then I don't know what does. You also seem to be conflating post-election infoboxes with pre-election infoboxes. The former are based on actual results, and using 5% of the National Popular Vote after and election has taken place is perfectly fine. That has been the going standard. The going standard for pre-election infoboxes had been ballot access to 270 EVs. So yes,Sorry, I got mixed up in this complicated topic, others were doing this and I projected it onto you Johnson and Stein would have been included in the pre-election infobox, and then removed post-election when they failed to get 5% NPV. That's fine! The error is in trying to draw a congruence between the NPV (which is a real electoral result that means something) and media polls (which are biased and do not represent the full ballot, while "Other" polls at 10% or more in these polls). It amounts to WP:CRYSTAL and trying to, to use your words, predict how "likely to secure one EV" any one candidate is. You do have a point with cases like Strom Thurmond, and if a candidate was polling well above 50% in any particular State, there would be good cause to include that candidate, regardless of ballot access, in addition to the 270 EV rule. I don't propose 270 EV (which is not a standard I am "designing" as you have accused, but instead is the prior consensus from 2012 and 2016) to the exclusion of other criteria that may make a candidate otherwise notable without gaining 270 EV ballot access. I still await an explanation of why you believe precisely 5% is the % to go with, notwithstanding the multitude of other flaws that go with using media polling as a stand in for predicting future results. It's hard to know what "Others" contains when it is not broken down. I dug through at least one 300+ page polling report and did see that there was about 5% "undecided" and 5% "other" but this is never broken down in anything remotely resembling a convenient and digestible manner HeroofTime55 (talk) 23:10, 8 July 2020 (UTC) Your rationale against 270EV was that in and of itself being one of the 4 people qualified to win the Electoral College is not notable enough (by what standard?). I have never explicitly said this, so this can't be "my" rationale. I stand by my argument that "being qualified to win the EC" is irrelevant to a candidate's notability in an election. Many historical candidates qualifying for such have never reached any notability of sorts. Many historical candidates not being qualified to win the EC have attained notability on their won. I have thus provided sources to demonstrate that these candidates have broad popular support (...). One source out of a million telling you that Jorgensen is relevant only means that there are 999,999 telling you the opposite. That's what WP:UNDUE is all about. You also seem to be conflating post-election infoboxes with pre-election infoboxes (...). No. My comments on the likeness of securing EVs are remarks aimed at refuting 270EV, in the sense that it's ultimately as useful (or useless) for a candidate to qualify for 270 EVs than to do so for 10 EVs. Doing that only means they have access to X number of EVs. No more, no less. It's not any implication about their future chances on winning the election, and indeed, your insistence on 270EV only makes it appear that you are doing such an interpretation yourself: i.e. that a candidate having access to 270 EVs is somehow more relevant than one having access 10 EVs... on which standard? media polls (which are biased and do not represent the full ballot (...)/notwithstanding the multitude of other flaws that go with using media polling Stop it already. You won't convince me that opinion polls are more biased than your particular opinion. Polls = sources. Wikipedia bases itself on sources. If you do think it's unfair, think that Wikipedia's aim is not to right unfairness in the world. I'm sorry. I dug through at least one 300+ page polling report and did see that there was about 5% "undecided" and 5% "other" but this is never broken down in anything remotely resembling a convenient and digestible manner It's not Wikipedia's job to dig into that and re-interpret it in any "convenient and digestible" way. 5% for "Others" means 5% for "Others". No more, no less. I still await an explanation of why you believe precisely 5% is the % to go with I'd have thought that this would be obvious to you by now since you should have been able to read all arguments from everyone up to this point. 5% is the threshold for inclusion after the election. It only seems consistent and logical to maintain it before the election. Because doing otherwise (and not, as you say, sticking to it) would be the arbitrary choice right here. Plus, it's the one value garnering the most consensus right now, so it's ironic that you find it as controversial. You do have a point with cases like Strom Thurmond, and if a candidate was polling well above 50% in any particular State, there would be good cause to include that candidate So you have criticized the 5% threshold, then go on to set your own arbitrary 50% threshold yourself (you're aware that many swing states in 2016 were won with less than 50%, right? You now that, historically, there have been states that have been won with as low as high 30s/low 40s, right?). This only demonstrates once again that 270EV is useless for its aimed purpose. (...) but instead is the prior consensus from 2012 and 2016 (...) Oh yes, you still have not replied about why you said that reaching a consensus for infobox inclusion criteria four months before the election could spark suspicions of "heavy bias" and political motivation, despite the consensus from 2012 and 2016 having discussion on the eve of election itself. Also note that from now on, and for the sake of everyone's mental sanity, I'll just reply to those arguments to which I have not replied already. This is becoming too circular by now. Impru20talk 00:08, 9 July 2020 (UTC) Going to copy your response style at this point because there are so many different angles to this... I have never explicitly said this, so this can't be "my" rationale. I stand by my argument that "being qualified to win the EC" is irrelevant to a candidate's notability in an election. So it's not your rationale, because your rationale is [same thing stated in a different way]. One source out of a million telling you that Jorgensen is relevant only means that there are 999,999 telling you the opposite. That's what WP:UNDUE is all about. Colorful characterization here, it's 2 sources out of the top 5, not 1 out of 1,000,000. At some point, it's not cherry-picking. Also, this is not about Jorgensen specifically. No. My comments on the likeness of securing EVs are remarks aimed at refuting 270EV, in the sense that it's ultimately as useful (or useless) for a candidate to qualify for 270 EVs than to do so for 10 EVs. (...) your insistence on 270EV only makes it appear that you are doing such an interpretation yourself: i.e. that a candidate having access to 270 EVs is somehow more relevant than one having access 10 EVs... on which standard? On two standards: Firstly, and most importantly, one cannot win the Electoral College with fewer than 270 EVs, but secondly, the more EVs one has access to, the more broad support they have and therefore the more notable they are. A candidate with ballot access to only 10 EVs (say, an Evan McMullen in Utah) is far less notable and could reasonably be excluded from the infobox, where it is far less reasonable to exclude someone who has qualified in enough races to actually win the Electoral College Example text I have provided sources which have gone ignored or falsely "refuted." You are using a metric to judge them when the metric is not actually judging them, lumping them together in "other," etc. According to a different page on Wikipedia with a link I could not decipher, at least Jorgensen did attain 5% in one 4 way poll. Are you advocating that we use only 4 way polls or that you assign 0% to candidates that are not represented in binary polls? Binary polls are highly problematic. Your refusal to admit that they are does not change that they are. It's not Wikipedia's job to dig into that and re-interpret it in any "convenient and digestible" way. 5% for "Others" means 5% for "Others". No more, no less. This was not a commentary on what Wikipedia should be, it was a commentary on the difficulty I had trying to dig deep into polling data, in trying to decipher what the 10% "other" meant in some of these aggregated reports. 5% is the threshold for inclusion after the election. It only seems consistent and logical to maintain it before the election. That's 5% national popular vote after the election, a number which can be verified and which is an official tally. Media polls are not that. Media polls are not even close to that, and subject to significant (for these purposes) statistical error in the neighborhood of ~3%. When you're aiming for 5%, plus or minus 3% is quite significant. Coupled with the fact that it's all blended together in an "Other" category, independents aren't being represented as options, etc. It is beyond messy where the National Popular Vote standard post-election is not. 5% of NPV is also an important legal threshold for automatic ballot access, so there's a good reason that makes it non-arbitrary as opposed to media polling, which is not a legal standard for anything. So you have criticized the 5% threshold, then go on to set your own arbitrary 50% threshold yourself (you're aware that many swing states in 2016 were won with less than 50%, right? Good lord, nothing like setting up one hell of a straw man like that. I was not making an official proposal there, I was addressing a prior example of yours where he was getting 70% popular vote in a few states. You know, to illustrate that the 270EV proposal is not exclusionary, as that has been one of your arguments against it. Oh yes, you still have not replied about why you said that reaching a consensus for infobox inclusion criteria four months before the election could spark suspicions of "heavy bias" and political motivation, despite the consensus from 2012 and 2016 having discussion on the eve of election itself. I don't think it is appropriate to decide these things on the eve of an election, and possibly there were issues with that. However, those elections were less hyper-polarized as this one. All the more cause to not, in this moment, change a consensus which was good enough for 8 years. Yes, consensus can change, but the timing here is subject to heavy bias, and many of the comments in favor of changing it were very brief votes, not arguments. In the first, you can practically pick out the moment in time when the "fire brigade" was called in to alter the "consensus." The second RfC was closed by a sockpuppet. Those are highly questionable circumstances that were used to install a new "consensus" which we are now working from, instead of the old consensus. Perhaps we need a higher level of resolution to this process, because to me it smells suspect (not addressed at you specifically). Also note that from now on, and for the sake of everyone's mental sanity, I'll just reply to those arguments to which I have not replied already. This comment was....cute. I also want to address a prior complaint about my second source - you state It then goes on to mention Jorgensen and Hawkins, yes... and also Kanye West, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Buttigieg and so on. - It lists Trump, Biden, Jorgensen, Hawkins, and West, as "candidates," and all of the other names are listed below a large box that reads "Out of the running". So the other names are no longer running and obviously should not be included in the infobox, and with regards to West, he has not filed with the FEC and does not (and will not, due to filing deadlines) qualify for ballot access, and so his name can be discarded (as the publicity stunt that it is) HeroofTime55 (talk) 01:25, 9 July 2020 (UTC) 6 Kb in a single reply. Wow. Just wow. About the colorful characterization, you should probably get the point of examples when they are examples. About the point where you say that one cannot win the Electoral College with fewer than 270 EVs, well, one can win EVs even without being able to win the EC. Considering that winning EVs is one of the criteria allowing candidates/parties to be included in US infoboxes after the election, you cannot pretend to move the focus for notability before the election away from that as if it was suddenly unimportant. If being able to win the EC was the determining factor, then the logical step would be for us to only show in post-election infoboxes those candidates winning the EC. Not what is done, right? the more EVs one has access to, the more broad support they have and therefore the more notable they are This, again, is just your synthesized opinion, not a verifiable (neither by sources nor by historical examples) fact. [Complaining about opinion polls again] It's fairly simple: when a third-party candidate becomes more notable, they do get mentioned in opinion polls (see examples for 2016 (Johnson/Stein), 2000 (Nader) 1996/1992 (Perot) etc). The fact that almost all current polls only show results for Trump/Biden is a proof that other candidates are not notable enough, not the other way around. If you think this is unfair, fill a legal complaint or bring polling companies to court. Wikipedia is not the place to do this. Also, about statistical error in the neighborhood of ~3%, an opinion poll's MOE applies to the whole sample. It does not mean that a candidate at 2% can get anywhere between 5% and -1%. Typically, the MOE for choices polling either very lowly (close to 0%) or very highly (close to 100%) is much lower than those polling in-between (40-50-60%) and the MOE for the whole sample. 5% Excuse me but your argument against 5% is just idiotic. 5% after the election is as random a value as before the election. You complained about how bad it was to "draw the line at 5%", you got the reasoning for it, and now you just utterly ignore it. That's your problem, not mine. to illustrate that the 270EV proposal is not exclusionary Setting up as a criteria for candidates to wear suits wouldn't be exclusionary either. But just as 270EV, it has nothing to do with a candidate's notability. The point couldn't be made clearer, yet you keep refusing to get it. I don't think it is appropriate to decide these things on the eve of an election [then goes on to justify previous actions because this election is "special" and because those were for setting up the criterion he likes]. There's absolutely no issue, neither in terms of bias nor in terms of Wikipedia policies and guidelines, in reaching a consensus before an election takes place. None at all. Proof of it is that this has happened many times before and will surely happen many times in the future. prior complaint about my second source (...) You again cherry-pick the part of the source you like the most. That same source literally starts out saying that For good reason, the candidates named by American's main two parties—Democrat and Republican—receive the lion's share of attention. And then goes on to say that Here, a list of everyone that's thrown their hat in the ring for president in 2020, from the two heavyweights, Donald Trump and Joe Biden, to the lesser-known candidates. This source contradicts your own view. It's specific in highlighting the importance of Trump/Biden over other candidates, but then mentions the other candidates as well. Exactly-what-this-Wikipedia-article-is-already-doing: i.e. reporting on all candidates, but highlighting the two getting the most attention in the infobox. I can't see nothing wrong with that. Impru20talk 12:38, 9 July 2020 (UTC) You want to talk about WP:SYNTH, that's exactly what you are doing by playing with media polling averages instead of a hard objective standard such as "did they qualify to win, yes or no." And using polls to justify your desired outcome, while ignoring sources that have declared the notability of these candidates. You are nowhere near NPOV on any of this. I intend to reply further but... I need to take a break today from this. HeroofTime55 (talk) 15:32, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

• B Candidates with no support from the electorate shouldn't be featured in the infobox. The 5% threshold seems like a good starting point if we were to include other candidates. --yeah_93 (talk) 23:13, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

May I ask, why 5%? Why not 7%? 2%? It seems arbitrary. 5% in polling means nothing. 270 EV ballot access has a very clear reasoning behind the standard - it produces an exact list of every person who has qualified to actually win the election outright (not considering the election getting kicked to the House of Representatives if nobody meets the 270-EV threshold, in which case a wider array of persons could potentially win). The 5% in media polling seems quite arbitrary. And what is to stop people from shifting this % to include or exclude candidates as they see fit? Anyone who has reached ballot access to 270 or more electoral votes is very much notable and worthy of inclusion in the infobox. Besides, both the Greens and the LP routinely win enough votes to "spoil" elections, their totals each frequently exceeding the margin of difference between the "Big" parties, and so they absolutely have a huge impact on elections. I strongly feel that "5% in media polling" is both arbitrary and unreliable. HeroofTime55 (talk) 23:36, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

• B - For a candidate to be considered of being included in the infobox, it would be more realistic if the candidates polling is no less than 5% as per earlier discussions above. Idealigic (talk) 13:46, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
• B and C They obviously should be on the ballot in enough states to make it to 270, because why include them if it's physically impossible for them to win. They should be polling above(Or at an average.) of %5 in two or more polls to be included in the info-box, 2% is to low of a threshold while 5% is practical. Benjamin.P.L (talk) 18:49 , 8 July 2020 (UTC)
• B Per WP:UNDUE. It's the only fair way to give independents a chance of appearing, and 5% seems to be a reasonable threshold for notability. Would it be a minimum 5% average from one source, or all three major polling sources (270, RCP, 538)? Nice4What (talk · contribs) – (Thanks ♥) 19:24, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

How are independents supposed to get 5% in "Trump vs Biden" polls where they are not an option? This hardly seems fair. Post election, when you have a National Popular Vote to look at, it seems absolutely fair to continue to use 5% of NPV for post-election infobox, but media polls are not the same as actual voting tallies. They aren't even close. HeroofTime55 (talk) 21:34, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Or, where independents are only counted as "Other" (which incidentally "Other" is polling in the neighborhood of 10% - so how do you split that up? HeroofTime55 (talk) 21:38, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

• C Changing the previous consensus rule during an election year is clearly problematic. We should definitely discuss whether criteria should be updated for future elections. Alternatively, include candidates who meet any one of A, B, or C. For future years, I'd suggest including candidates that appear in short lists from reliable sources. --Eliyak T·C 16:02, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

RandomCanadian blocked for sockpuppetry

Every edit request has been shot down, primarily by RandomCanadian, and I feel like this Topic should be revisited And an actual unbiased decision made, seeing as how the sockpuppetry could have played into this, and they were trying to get the account locked so no more requests could be made (I think. I’m not sure about how edits work on here but that’s what I understood was happening).

There have been numerous threads asking to add Howie and Jo Jorgensen to the info box. Almost every American knows there is a Libertarian and Green Party in addition to the Republicans and Democrats. They’ve been around for years, and there are registered voters for those parties.

Personally, this doesn’t seem like such a big deal, to simply add two pictures and a brief bio to the info box, and it would probably stop a lot of people from coming here and putting in requests daily for the next 4 months. Thanks! Boogiesmommy2004 (talk) 02:50, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't see how that changes anything. Neither the Greens nor the Libertarians will be added to the infobox; it's the existing consensus. David O. Johnson (talk) 02:48, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

I feel we are reaching a new consensus. Greendogo (talk) 09:40, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

RandomCanadian had nothing to do with most of the edit requests. Also please note that canvassing and meatpuppetry are as discouraged as sockpuppetry in Wikipedia. Impru20^talk 10:24, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

RandomCanadian had long detailed rebuttals on nearly every single request, some bordering on rude and went to the trouble to dig up an ancient tweet long deleted from an account with like 5 followers as a basis for his canvassing and meat puppetry argument. How do I know you aren’t RandomCanadian under another name? I just don’t understand why this is the hill you all have chosen to die on regarding edits. It’s so bizarre. I understand not letting me say my picture should be up there Because I woke up and decided to run for President, no one knows who I am, but these are legit political parties. Boogiesmommy2004 (talk) 12:03, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

It wasn't RandomCanadian who brought up the Twitter evidence for canvassing. It was me. And it wasn't "ancient tweets", considering that they were concurrent with the discussions taking place in this talk page in mid-June.

How do I know you aren’t RandomCanadian under another name? This is a very serious accusation, and I'll please ask you to bring this to WP:ANI or WP:SPI and back it up with actual evidence if you are willing to hold on your accusation. However, once such an attempt eventually fails, I may very well ask for an investigation on you as a clear single-purpose account which has been created solely for the purpose of raising these issues to this talk page. Your call. Impru20^talk 12:11, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

It’s not an accusation. It was an observation that it could be possible. I was simply stating that an account that was very influential in contributing to the decision was determined to be a sock puppet. I’m not going to open an investigation. I have used Wikipedia for years, but I’ve never created an account to edit because I haven’t ever felt the need to edit something...I was researching something else and clicked through to this page and noticed she wasn’t in the info box, decided to request an edit, and got shut down immediately by RandomCanadian. I seriously do not understand why this simple edit is such a big deal. No one is spamming you all...obviously it’s a change that a lot of people would like to see, but it’s instantly negated as spamming because more than one request came in. I’m going to drop it at this point, it’s not worth getting banned over simply because I’ve never seen anything that needs editing, or that I felt qualified to edit, and I’ve been using Wikipedia since it was created. Just curious though, how many people are ACTUALLY allowed to edit the account and make decisions? I’m not trying to be a jerk. I’m genuinely curious. Boogiesmommy2004 (talk) 18:36, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

It was a coordinated spam effort about a month ago. You just have to go to the talk page history and see the repetitive edit requests.— Preceding unsigned comment added by David O. Johnson (talk • contribs) 19:07, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It was an observation that it could be possible. No, it's not an observation, it's called casting aspersions and it's egregious. Unless you can actually demonstrate your accusation, it must come to a stop and you should probably withdraw it, rather than throwing the stone, then hiding the hand. Just because someone tells you something you don't like doesn't mean it's cool to cast aspersions on them.

No one is spamming you all... This talk page's history during the last month does not agree with you. Impru20^talk 19:27, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

The contributions of RandomCanadian on this topic were similar to quite a number of editors here over last last few months, so I wouldn't characterize their contribution as influential. There was significant spamming on this topic, particularly about two dozen similar/identical requests on June 13. (They were mostly removed, not archived, but can be viewed in the talk page history.) Currently, there is no protection on this [talk] page, so any editor is allowed to participate in the discussion. --Spiffy sperry (talk) 19:17, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Now that we have the RfC going on above, I suspect you are right that we can likely sidestep this issue. His closure of this discussion was highly problematic, because it attempted to close down the conversation we are having now about what the standard should be. But now that we are having that discussion, I think we are fine to disregard this and move forward with the RfC.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 20:30, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you Darryl. I hope it was ok to vote on the RfC, and that it wasn't only open to those that actually have access to page edits. If I made a mistake, please feel free to delete it or I can. Thanks. --Boogiesmommy2004 (talk) 22:41, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 July 2020

Please add Jo Jorgensen to the list of Candidates for President of the United States at the top right (with a picture). The Libertarian is the 3rd largest party in the United States (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_parties_in_the_United_States). Gary Johnson achieved voting access in 50+ and Jo Jorgensen recently beat his 'same time period' fund raising, indicating she is likely to also be on 50+. While admittedly a long shot for winning, she is running and technically has enough ballot access to win (https://www.lp.org/ballotaccess/) and will likely have 'total' ballot access. As such please ensure Wikipedia remains unbiased, and does not show favoritism to the two party system. Thank you! Eomar2828 (talk) 03:25, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Not done. The existing consensus is that the Libertarians do not qualify for the infobox. David O. Johnson (talk) 03:46, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Political Manipulation through "Existing Consensus"

"Existing Consensus" is being used to argue that Libertarians and Green Party do not qualify for the Info Box.

This is political manipulation. Any modern adult knows of the existence of the multi-party state. There is no reason to lock this information box for just the Democrat Party and the Republican Party based on the polling or effects of the election. Historically these other two parties are participatory, not non-existent.

The election should have no bearing on the placement of these pieces of information in a box. The only possible reason is the desire for political manipulation. Greendogo (talk) 09:46, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Any objections to just removing this constant spam? Devonian Wombat (talk) 13:44, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Not from me. I wonder whether these new/sleeper accounts should be denounced at WP:ANI, it's fairly obvious they're appearing out of nowhere here just for one purpose. Impru20^talk 13:48, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

I have no issue with removing it. I was hopeful that the spamming had ended a few weeks ago, though. David O. Johnson (talk) 16:46, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

You should not be removing others comments on the talk page, you've been around long enough to know that. And this issue is going to continue until election day, no matter who ends up in the infobox, like it does every presidential election year.XavierGreen (talk)

I don't think there is any perfect way to deal with this. There clearly has been canvasing, meatpuppetry, and possibly sock-puppetry in some of these repetitive edit requests. But perhaps it would be better to just immediately archive it (after inviting folks to participate in the RfC, and taking the usual SPA, and canvasing precautions). That said, archiving all of these edit requests will make a bit of a mess of the archives, and if the RfC becomes a target of canvasing, puppetry it will be a real mess. At the same time, I am always reluctant to completely delete talk page discussions, as opposed to labeling SPAs, striking out sock comments, and archiving unproductive ones when appropriate.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 20:43, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Sorry for being annoying but your arguments make no sense to me. I'll stick around to argue my point if necessary, I would prefer not to be labelled "canvasing, meatpuppetry, and possibly sock-puppetry". I came across this page and saw the info box, thinking I would find this argument going on in the talk section. Well, I was right, there are people arguing against expanding the info box.

What is even the point of an encyclopedia article about the presidential election when it is editorialized for the purposes of the election?

Why don't you remove the Libertarian and Green Party candidates from the info box AFTER the election? It should be important enough before hand to give people as much direct information about the available candidates. Greendogo (talk) 08:36, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Greendogo, you were not the person being referred to; there has been a clear issue with meatpuppetry. Take a look at this diff here:[1]. There was a coordinated effort. David O. Johnson (talk)

Addition of Jorgensen next to Biden/Trump

What criteria need to be met for Jorgensen's image to be added to the page?

Are the criteria for her image to be added achievable within a specific timeframe?

Gary Johnson's 2016 statistics seem to be a large reason why Jorgensen isn't being added, (per GoodDay), perhaps even the sole reason: is there anything that could override this in the near future?

Is the decision to keep Jorgensen's photograph away from Biden/Trump something that may change under certain circumstances?

I understand that Kanye has been added a few times and then taken down, and I appreciate the consistency shown by keeping his image off especially when his announcement was likely trolling to promote merchandise. Billbrandy (talk) 17:15, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

There is an ongoing discussion on this very topic in the RFC discussion above, I suggest you voice your opinion there if you like. It does no good to create a second thread on the same topic as one that's already being discussed.XavierGreen (talk) 17:35, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Geoffrey Lane from Wikimedia advised me to create my own discussion. I'm not sure why my questions cannot be answered. Billbrandy (talk) 18:31, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Your question can't be answered, because the criteria have not yet been established, the RFC is the process that is currently establishing the criteria for inclusion in the infobox (the pictures of the candidates at the top of the page). There were two prior discussions to create these criteria, but they were both tainted (and thus suspect) for various technical reasons. Thus there is a new RFC discussion above that I encourage you to participate in.XavierGreen (talk) 18:58, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

User:XavierGreen, those discussions were not tainted, you disagreeing with the outcome does not taint it. Devonian Wombat (talk) 22:00, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

The previous process being shut down prematurely by a sockpuppet account does taint it, however. HeroofTime55 (talk) 22:42, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Will do and thank you for gently re-explaining this Billbrandy (talk) 19:46, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 July 2020

Jo Jorgensen is running for president in 2020 and is the Libertarian Party Nominee. (Insert her picture) Give the Facts2020 (talk) 02:33, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

 Not done Jorgensen's photo is already in the article here. It is just not in the infobox. There is an ongoing discussion called a Request for Comment (RfC) about this issue above. It is about setting the what the cut off should be for including third party candidates and independents in the infobox. You may wish to comment there.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 03:00, 9 July 2020 (UTC)