Talk:Endorsements in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries

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When a candidate does/does not have an endorsements article

When a candidate already has a main article for endorsements (i.e., List of Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign endorsements), I propose that we leave a "main article" link in that candidate's section as per Endorsements in the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries. In doing so, we avoid having to maintain two separate lists. -Tvc 15 (talk) 01:53, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

When a candidate does not have a main article for endorsements, should we transclude the endorsements as per Endorsements in the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries in order to avoid maintaining two separate lists with discrepancies between pages? Thanks, Tvc 15 (talk) 01:57, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

What I did for Beto's article, for instance, was add over the newer endorsements from his campaign article to the Endorsements in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries article, then left a link to Beto's specific section. David O. Johnson (talk) 04:24, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Tvc 15 Hi, I added links to the main endorsements article for each campaign, except for Sanders. That one has a link on the endorsements page with various endorsements: Endorsements in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries#Bernie Sanders, as well as a separate article here: List of Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign endorsements. I think I'll just add the endorsements from the Endorsements article to the Bernie endorsements article and leave a main article link here: Endorsements in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries#Bernie Sanders. David O. Johnson (talk) 04:14, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

David O. Johnson: Agreed, using the 'main article' link for candidates with stand-alone endorsement articles will help with consistency across the pages and will avoid having to maintain two separate lists and thank you for your edits. --Tvc 15 (talk) 05:34, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Which separate lists do you mean? I just went through all the candidates endorsement pages. Almost all of them link back to the endorsement article; Bernie has his own article for endorsements and a few candidates don't have an endorsement section yet (Messam, Ryan and Gravel). David O. Johnson (talk) 23:19, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks David O. Johnson, seeing your edits now. Edited my comment. --Tvc 15 (talk) 05:47, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Why show any disavowed "endorsements"? Why (now) show only Andrew Yang's rejected "endorsements"?

This is a great page! (I just found it).

But I was wondering: Why is denounced support for Yang listed at all?

Tulsi Gabbard has also received and rejected white supremacists:

   https://nypost.com/2019/02/05/rep-tulsi-gabbard-gets-2020-endorsement-from-david-duke/ 
   https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/tulsi-gabbard-rejects-david-duke-presidential-endorsement/ar-BBTdwcM

But none of that (which I think is right) appears under her "endorsements."

In short, I'd simply remove this comment: "Andrew Yang has received attention due to having gathered support from several white supremacists. However, he has denounced them."

"Attention" is not an endorsement, and Yang has denounced it. In fact, this was reported in the referenced article (The Verge):

"Yang unequivocally rejected it. “I denounce and disavow hatred, bigotry, racism, white nationalism, anti-Semitism and the alt-right in all its many forms. Full stop,” Yang said in a statement. “For anyone with this agenda, we do not want your support. We do not want your votes. You are not welcome in this campaign.”

Thanks! BCWikiP (talk) 00:09, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. --Tvc 15 (talk) 05:50, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Disagree: The reason Duke is not included is because he has explicitly state he didn't endorse her, not because she rejected or denounced him. The same is not true of Spencer and Yang. This is a (sourced) list of (notable) people who have endorsed the candidates, and there is no reason to exclude one of those people. --eduardog3000 (talk) 19:19, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Disagree - A candidate's reaction to an endorsement is not a factor for this list. However, any such endorsement must be impeccably sourced per WP:BLPSOURCES and not based on a social media post, per WP:BLPSPS. The New York Post is not a good source to use for any BLP content.- Mr X 🖋 12:21, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

A tweet of support is not an endorsement

Do we need to change the article title to "Famous people who tweeted anything about a 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries candidate? No endorsement should be included on this page on the basis of a single tweet. In fact, it technically violates WP:BLPSPS. The inclusion criteria should require at least one reliable third party source and wording that is clearly interpreted to mean "endorsement".- Mr X 🖋 12:18, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

I favor the reliable third-party source rule. And yes, we should get rid of anything cited to a mere supportive tweet. Neutrality 19:55, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Just copying what I wrote on the talk page of the main article here:

I agree with the general view that the endorsements sections are excessive, but
individual endorsements are often not reported in media reports given how numerous they are,
I think any expression of support specifically for their candidacy (over that of others) should be considered acceptable (e.g. expressions of support such as speaking on their behalf at a rally or saying that they are backing them, but excluding actions which are not an expression of support, such as hosting events/fundraisers, donating, introducing them at campaign events, saying that it's who they'll be voting for, or otherwise anything that doesn't explicitly reference their support for a candidate).

Given the sheer volume of potential endorsements, not every single expression of support is going to be reported on, so it's inevitable that tweets will sometimes be the only place they will be mentioned (in U.S. election articles, I frequently use {{cite tweet}} with reference to journalists at national/local newspapers in the absence/before the publication of complete stories). However, I mostly agree that almost all the tweets under the "individuals" sections cited here (whether currently or in the past) are not endorsements – simply agreeing with a candidate or indicating that one likes them is not an endorsement. Mélencron (talk) 22:47, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Obviously there will be exceptions as you mention, but we shouldn't try to exhaustively record every tweet that remotely resembles support. We should be documenting the noteworthy ones that have been noticed by the press, or that have been made by people who endorsements actual have weight.- Mr X 🖋 17:02, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Mr, a celebrity's personal account tweeting in support has been used frequently as a source for endorsement and it is often without another citation. When they specifically say they support the candidate, it's an endorsement. If not, then remove most of Bernie Sanders' endorsements. The criteria in 2016 was explicit support and/or the campaign hashtag. So keep Tulsi Gabbard's endorsements up. Capriaf

@Capriaf: As you may now see, I have tried to apply the same standard for all candidates, although Mélencron did find some obvious errors I made. Tweets are cheap and don't rise to the level of sourcing that we use for writing encyclopedic content. Most of the tweets I removed were not endorsements anyway. Secondary sources help us separate the trivial and mundane from the noteworthy and important. If secondary sources haven't reported about a celebrity tweet, one can assume that it is not important. Again, rare exceptions may apply, but probably not for celebrity tweets.- Mr X 🖋 14:21, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

- Mr, you removed tweets that have been consistent with Bernie 2016 endorsements and the endorsements for several candidates, including Andrew Yang, John Delaney, have been improperly removed. The sources and some tweets, made explicit endorsements. Explicit support for a candidate is an endorsement, and I encourage you to reinstate several endorsements, including Senator Mike Gravel endorsing Tulsi because it was a secondary source who interviewed him and he explicitly said he supports Tulsi Gabbard. Capriaf

Tulsi is not a reliable source, so she is unusable as a secondary source about someone else. Consistency with past campaigns is far less important that making our content meaningful for our readers, and compliant with our sourcing policies. Can you give a specific example or two of my removals that you disagree with and the policy-based reason for why?- Mr X 🖋 15:59, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

The inclusion criteria should require at least one reliable third party source and wording that is clearly interpreted to mean "endorsement". and Secondary sources help us separate the trivial and mundane from the noteworthy and important. (Mr) Twitter endorsements (here), but also tweets in general (see here for more info), are widely reported as primary sources across reliable media platforms. Proper secondary sources and tertiary sources (the latter which Misplaced Pages is) both utilize verifiable primary sources as vehicles for gathering data. If there is an explicit endorsement made on twitter, equivalent weight must be given to data that's explicit in its material and standalone from any interpretation. If the use of primary sources are not allowed in the context of data retrieval for tertiary sources, which you are claiming as it pertains to WP:BLP, then any such secondary source that is reliant an social media primary sources must also not be allowed, as this degree of separation is equivalent to that of the tertiary source in relation to the same primary source. In other words, secondary sources do very little to substantiate the importance of any political endorsement. In fact, media sources are widely subject to political bias in what they choose to report or not, which is contrary to what is encyclopedic in nature. Please review WP:SOCIALMEDIA/WP:TWITTER (below) -- Misplaced Pages is continuously evolving their encyclopedic methods to address changes in how information is gathered.

It states, "Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities, without the self-published source requirement that they be published experts in the field, so long as:

1) the material is neither unduly self-serving nor an exceptional claim; 2) it does not involve claims about third parties; 3) it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the source; 4) there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity; and 5) the article is not based primarily on such sources. This policy also applies to material published by the subject on social networking websites such as Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, and Facebook."

Secondly, a definition of political endorsement must be reached through consensus (WP:CON). You are free to propose guidelines and definitions, although are not allowed to drastically change the nature of an article before consensus has been reached. What "wording" are you suggesting to be required for an endorsement? There appears to be an ongoing discussion about said matters. --MrVenaCava (talk) 03:56, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

@MrVenaCava: I don't think your argument is entirely grounded in policy. For example, we would not avoid sources that themselves use primary sources. The reason is that our source have journalists, fact checkers, and editors to sort out what's important and factual. While there is an argument that social media could be used, it generally shouldn't because it's unfiltered. Obviously there are exceptions. Unfortunately, we have enthusiastic editors/(campaign workers?) adding all manner of tweet, most of which are not explicit endorsements. I have removed tweets about the weather that some editor were trying to pass off as an endorsement! If we allow an "anything goes" approach to what is included in this article, I think it diminishes the seriousness of the entire article and reflects poorly on Misplaced Pages as a tertiary source. It makes us look like an information junk yard.

Maybe we need an RfC to get broader input from other editors, but until it is decided, it up to the editors wishing to include these tweets to obtain consensus per WP:ONUS. All of this material has been added recently, so its removal is the 'R' in WP:BRD. Please let me know if you disagree, and why. I'm happy to justify any specific removals I've made.- Mr X 🖋 16:42, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

@MrX: I very much agree with you in regards with the necessity to remove tweets that are indeed not explicit endorsements (for which many have been added/have accumulated here); due to Misplaced Pages's primary source policies, it would be a violation to suggest anything other than an explicit endorsement as an endorsement. I'm only questioning the use of WP:BLPSPS as it relates to your justification for removing primary source content in general. My point is Misplaced Pages has understood that people and organizations widely use twitter as a vehicle for declaring information about themselves or their organization. In the context of political endorsements, so long as the statement does not contain an "exceptional claim", unverified claims about the campaign or candidate, and has been verified to be an authentic post, primary source material involving statements made about oneself is allowed. As a note, MSM and virtually every other secondary source generator utilize such ideal primary sources for their own reporting daily. Therefore, requiring secondary sources to publish already verified information in order to use said primary source material in tertiary sources is redundant, onerous and introduces another level of political bias due to the freedom of selection by journalists and editing boards. What this page is missing is set of guidelines in agreement with what Misplaced Pages has outlined as required for the use of primary sources generated on social media. Otherwise, perfectly sourced material and information becomes lost in the process of cleaning up. What if we adopt a rule that requires:

1) Social media account must be verified in order to ensure tweet is reliable and genuine.

2) Statement must be making a claim that user is 'endorsing'/'providing endorsement' for campaign/candidate.

3) Statement must not make unverifiable/exceptional claims about third parties.

MrVenaCava (talk) 01:58, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

I can't support that other than in exceptional cases. If it's important enough to include in an encyclopedia it should already be covered by an independent source. Anyone can tweet. It doesn't matter that secondary sources use tweets themselves since their job is to report what's newsworthy by applying their editorial guidelines. We have no such mechanism for filtering self-published sources ourselves.- Mr X 🖋 02:09, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Fowlers

For the record, the Fowlers have been opening up their home to host events/meet-and-greets for Democratic candidates, as described by this nice article in The Post and Courier, so while they might be mentioned in many past/future references in association with various candidates, they're not endorsing (yet). Mélencron (talk) 17:31, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Does donation equal endorsement?

I would like to get everyone else's thoughts about whether a campaign donation from a notable person should be construed as an endorsement, for purposes of this article.- Mr X 🖋 20:24, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

No, a donation is never an endorsement (usual conditions apply: if they publicly state they support a candidate or use the word "endorse", then it is, but as individuals can donate to multiple candidates, including amounts under $200, they generally should not be construed as one without further evidence). Mélencron (talk) 20:46, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Campaign employment

We seem to be agreeing that notable family members of candidates, such as Mike Gabbard who is Tulsi Gabbard's father, should have a parenthetical note stating the family relationship next to the endorsement. I think it would make sense to also do this for folks taking up campaign positions, such as Ruben Gallego who is the campaign manager of the Eric Swalwell campaign, or Ro Khanna who is a co-chair of the Bernie Sanders campaign (separate page, I know, but same principle.) What do y'all think? Airbornemihir (talk) 03:49, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't think we should list campaign workers as endorsements. Of course they endorse their candidates. An endorsement, for purposes of this article, should be from someone unconnected to the candidate, otherwise it's pretty meaningless.

@MrX: I agree with the principle, but there's more to it. As I mentioned above, people like Ro Khanna and Ruben Gallego are notable and therefore have good reason to appear in endorsement lists. My question was whether being the candidate's dad is sufficiently like being the candidate's campaign co-chair in that we should note these things as qualifiers for an endorsement. Airbornemihir (talk) 05:35, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

@Airbornemihir: OK, we disagree about campaign staff. I don't think a candidate's father should be listed because the default assumption should be that the father would endorse their own child. The occasional exception to that could be noted in the campaign article, provided that sources have covered it.- Mr X 🖋 11:47, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

As an aside, media organizations including Politico and FiveThirtyEight consider campaign staff who happen to hold an elected office or are DNC members (e.g. Gallego and Khanna) to be endorsements. (talk) 13:33, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Mélencron. Based on this discussion, I've added parenthetical notes to a few notable campaign employees' endorsements on the relevant pages. Airbornemihir (talk) 07:21, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Endorsers that fall under different categories (eg Don Beyer)

Don Beyer has endorsed Buttigieg and although he is a current US Representative, he is also a former ambassador and Lieutenant Governor of Virginia. As executive branch officials rank above members of the House, I am more inclined to place him there instead, but since he is a current congressman I am not too certain. Feel free to leave differing opinions

Sdrqaz (talk) 13:11, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I think placing them under their highest office category makes sense, while also noting other major offices held.- Mr X 🖋 19:38, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

No, precedence is given to their current position; reports refer to him as a U.S. Representative, not as a former ambassador or Lt. Gov. Mélencron (talk) 00:28, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Why are candidates ordered the way they are?

The ordering of candidates appears to be arbitrary and follows neither sensible ordering of alphabetical nor date of entry into the race. Why are they ordered this way? Should they be reordered into one of these formats? Shakesmcjunkie123 (talk) 17:35, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

They are alphabetical by last name, which is the most logical and neutral method of ordering.- Mr X 🖋 16:38, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Got it, thanks! - Shakesmcjunkie123 (talk) 00:31, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

23 Biden endorsements

I don't feel like spending the time to add these myself, so I'll drop these here: https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2019/05/02/biden-wins-endorsement-of-florida-democrats-in-early-show-of-force-1005334 Mélencron (talk) 15:59, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Endorsements have now been added Sdrqaz (talk) 17:41, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Deleted endorsements to Tulsi Gabbard

Mélencron: you deleted Mike Gravel, Jimmy Dore and Kim Iversen's endorsements to Tulsi Gabbard, saying "see talk". Where is it? Also, you say the sources are not reliable. The Hill| is not reliable?? Are you crazy?? I'll return you the same amount of time you gave my contribution to respond before undoing this vandalism (WP:DONTREVERT). Guarapiranga (talk) 03:51, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

No answer. Reinstated. Guarapiranga (talk) 01:01, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

See #A tweet of support is not an endorsement. Gravel's comments are not an endorsement. Tweets and YouTube videos are not suitable sources for endorsements. Kim Iversen is not a notable person.- Mr X 🖋 03:04, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

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