United States: Presidents / Government Template‑class

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Fellow editors, There's been a few additions & reversions of 2016 Donald Trump Las Vegas rally incident over the past few months. I've removed it myself a few times, on the basis that Trump was not President at the time of the incident. Given that it's been regularly re-added, it's time to discuss. Thoughts? - Ryk72 ^talk 03:34, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We actually don't have any editorial say in this -- WP:BLP forbids us from claiming that an intellectually-disabled man attempted to assassinate someone when a court found otherwise. Remove it on sight, no matter how often it is added. If anyone editwars over it, immediately contact the admins at WP:ANI for assistance. In the unlikely event that didn't solve it immediately, we'd proceed to WP:OFFICE. Wikipedia cannot be libelous. Feoffer (talk) 03:45, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This approach is not applied consistently. For example, the Barack Obama assassination plot in Denver article is about "three men who were charged with drug and weapons charges, but did not face federal charges of threatening a presidential candidate." The Assassination attempts against George W. Bush article includes the case of Robert Pickett, who was only convicted of "a local firearms violation and an "Alford plea" (acknowledging there was enough evidence to convict him but not admitting he was entirely guilty) to assaulting a federal officer". If this is the policy, we should remove all articles where the person in question was not convicted of the specific crime of (attempted) assassination (or at least attempted murder), or rename the template. McPhail (talk) 08:15, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 Done. The 2001 shooting was indeed a BLPvio when included in an an article about presidential assassination attempts. I've removed it. Feoffer (talk) 22:30, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Trump was not president, and it remains uncertain how serious of the threat this actually was. This incident shouldn't be listed among US Presidential Assassination Attempts. --ZimZalaBim ^talk 14:17, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have a strong view on whether the Trump article is included or not. My point is that if an article is not being included in the "US Presidential Assassination Attempts" template given WP:BLP because there is no court conviction of an assassination, several of the articles already included should be removed on the same basis. McPhail (talk) 15:08, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• First, why would there need to be a conviction for assassination to be included in a list of attempted assassinations? Second, BLP is being misrepresented. If you were charged with attempted murder, but convicted of aggravated battery, that doesn't mean there was not a murder attempt. It means that either some elements weren't provable or that there was a plea to a lesser charge. It's not a BLP issue to say you'd been charged with attempted murder. Niteshift36 (talk) 19:11, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think you're misunderstanding me. We have an article titled Assassination attempts against George W. Bush which includes a man who was convicted of a firearms violation and assaulting a police officer. He was not convicted of attempted assassination. There's a clear BLP issue there. The same is true for multiple other articles. I have flagged this at the BLP discussion page. McPhail (talk) 19:24, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• I think you're misunderstanding me. The absence of a conviction for a specific offense doesn't mean there was no attempted assassination. Pleas to lesser offenses happen all the time, but they don't erase the fact that the original crime occured. Niteshift36 (talk) 19:54, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"We have an article titled Assassination attempts against George W. Bush which includes a man who was convicted of a firearms violation and assaulting a police officer." Not anymore. Feoffer (talk) 07:06, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That's an excellent start. McPhail (talk) 08:13, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Agree. He wasn't president, thus the incident lacks one very important criteria for inclusion. Niteshift36 (talk) 14:47, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]