Talk:Hillary Clinton

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Frequently asked questions

Q1: Was there a dispute about what the article title should be?

A1: Yes. From the early days on it was "Hillary Rodham Clinton", but over the years there were many formal requests for moves to change it to "Hillary Clinton". Discussions found no consensus on the article name until June 2015, when one found consensus and the article was moved to its current title. See the "This page was previously nominated to be moved" box elsewhere on this page for full details and links to the discussions – note some have to be revealed under the "Older discussions" link. There are strong feelings on both sides and discussions get progressively longer and more heated.

Q2: The section on her 2016 presidential campaign leaves out some important things that have happened. What gives?

A2: The main article is tight on space and the presidential campaign section is intentionally brief and kept to what is biographically most relevant. The daughter article Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, 2016 has a much fuller treatment of the campaign and is where the greatest level of detail should go, especially anything describing the day-to-day, to-and-fro, ups-and-downs of a campaign.

Q3: This article is POV! It's biased {for, against} her! It reads like it was written by {her PR team, Republican hatchet men}!

A3: Complaints of bias are taken very seriously, but must be accompanied by specific areas of concern or suggestions for change. Vague, general statements do not help editors. Edits that add {{pov}} tags without providing a detailed explanation on the talk page will likely be reverted.

Q4: Where is the article or section that lists her controversies?

A4: There isn't one. All controversial material is included in the normal biographical sections they occur in, in this article (including sometimes in Notes or footnotes) and in the various daughter articles. Having a separate "controversies" or "criticisms" article or section is considered a violation of WP:NPOV, WP:Content forking, and WP:Criticism and also raises significant WP:BLP concerns. A special effort was undertaken to rid all 2008 presidential candidates' articles of such treatment – see here – and the same was done for other politicians' articles, including all the 2012 and 2016 candidates. This approach was also confirmed by the results of this AfD and this AfD.

Q5: Something in the lead section doesn't have a footnote. I'm going to put a {{citation needed}} tag on it.

A5: This article, like many others on Wikipedia, uses the approach of no citations in the lead section, as everything in the lead should be found in the body of the article, along with its citation. See guideline: MOS:LEADCITE.

This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Hillary Clinton is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed.

This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on August 21, 2019.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
May 9, 2007	Good article nominee	Listed
May 14, 2007	Good article reassessment	Delisted
June 7, 2007	Good article nominee	Listed
October 14, 2007	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
January 21, 2008	Good article reassessment	Kept
February 28, 2008	Good article reassessment	Kept
May 27, 2008	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
May 18, 2009	Good article reassessment	Kept
June 6, 2009	Good article reassessment	Kept
December 13, 2014	Featured article candidate	Promoted
September 24, 2022	Featured article review	Demoted
Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on November 7, 2015, November 7, 2018, and November 7, 2020.
Current status: Former featured article

This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard.

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This article has been mentioned by multiple media organizations:

Eve Fairbanks (2008-04-09). "Wiki Woman". The New Republic.
Alison Stewart, Rachel Martin (2008-04-03). "'Round the Clock: Obama, Clinton Wiki-Warfare". The Bryant Park Project, NPR.
Brooke Gladstone (2008-04-04). "Editors in Chief". On The Media, NPR.
John J. Miller (2008-04-21). "Liberal Web". National Review.
Pascal Harter (2008-04-08). The World Today, BBC World Service. {{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
Jesse Brown (2008-04-10). "Hillary's Wiki Defender". Search Engine, CBC Radio One.
Tom Foreman (2008-04-12). "Wikipedia Wars". This Week..., CNN.
. Jeopardy!. 2008-05-07. {{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
Kelly Heyboer (2008-05-28). "Clinton's entry in Wikipedia has a watchdog". The Star-Ledger.
Paul Murnane (2008-05-28). "one of two pieces aired". WCBS Newsradio 880.
Maxwell Tani (2015-05-15). "Meet the guy who has protected Hillary Clinton's Wikipedia page for almost a decade". Business Insider.
Elspeth Reeve (June 13, 2015). "The ladies who love Hillary". The New Republic.
Roudman, Sam (June 7, 2016). "Wikipedia Wars Over Clinton As Presumptive Nominee". Vocativ.
Wagner, Meg (October 13, 2016). "Hacker posts porn on Hillary Clinton's Wikipedia page". New York Daily News.
Alcantara, Chris (October 27, 2016). "The most challenging job of the 2016 race: Editing the candidates' Wikipedia pages". The Washington Post.

Text and/or other creative content from this version of Hillary Clinton was copied or moved into Legal career of Hillary Clinton with this edit. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists.

Warning: active arbitration remedies

The contentious topics procedure applies to this article. This article is related to post-1992 politics of the United States and closely related people, which is a contentious topic. Furthermore, the following rules apply when editing this article:

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If you are unsure if your edit is appropriate, discuss it here on this talk page first. Remember: When in doubt, don't revert!

This article has previously been nominated to be moved. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination.

Move logs: Hillary Rodham Clinton
Hillary Clinton

Discussions:

RM, Hillary Rodham Clinton → Hillary Clinton, Moved (panel closure), closed 8 May 2015, decision posted 11 June 2015

Older discussions:

RM, Hillary Rodham Clinton → Hillary Clinton, No consensus to move, closed 12 February 2007
RM, Hillary Rodham Clinton → Hillary Clinton, No consensus to move (malformed move request, non-admin closure), closed 21 December 2007
RM, Hillary Rodham Clinton → Hillary Clinton, No consensus to move, closed 18 June 2011
RM, Hillary Rodham Clinton → Hillary Clinton, No consensus to move, closed 20 November 2012
RM, Hillary Rodham Clinton → Hillary Clinton, Moved to Hillary Clinton (non-admin closure), closed 18 June 2013

MR, Closure as move of Hillary Rodham Clinton → Hillary Clinton, Moved back to Hillary Rodham Clinton (no clear consensus for the previous move), closed 28 June 2013

RM, Hillary Rodham Clinton → Hillary Clinton, Speedy close as no consensus (non-admin closure), closed 24 February 2014
RM, Hillary Rodham Clinton → Hillary Clinton, No consensus to move (admin panel closure), closed 21 April 2014

MR, Hillary Rodham Clinton → Hillary Clinton, No consensus, default to endorse, and procedural restrictions established: No further move request to be started until February 2015, and between February 2015 and February 2017, or the closure of the next valid move request, whichever is earlier, no move request to be made unless at least 5,000 characters in length, closed 31 May 2014

RM, Hillary Rodham Clinton → Secretary Clinton, Speedy close since another RM open (non-admin closure), closed 17 April 2014
RM, Hillary Rodham Clinton → Hillary (politician), Speedy close as unlikely and potentially disruptive (non-admin closure, rapidly endorsed by admin), closed 27 April 2014
RM, Hillary Rodham Clinton → Hillary Clinton, Summarily closed citing prior declaration that if an RM is submitted prior to February 2017 it must be at least 5,000 characters in length (non-admin closure), closed 9 April 2015

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This article has been viewed enough times in a single year to make it into the Top 50 Report annual list. This happened in 2016, when it received 17,801,991 views.

This article has been viewed enough times in a single week to appear in the Top 25 Report 11 times. The weeks in which this happened:

Section sizes

Section size for Hillary Clinton (52 sections)
Section name	Byte count	Section total
(Top)	8,178	8,178
Early life and education	29	28,444
Early life	9,927	9,927
Wellesley College years	9,986	9,986
Yale Law School and postgraduate studies	8,502	8,502
Marriage, family, legal career and first ladyship of Arkansas	213	30,785
From the East Coast to Arkansas	2,258	2,258
Early Arkansas years	8,159	8,159
Later Arkansas years	13,878	13,878
Bill Clinton 1992 presidential campaign	6,277	6,277
First Lady of the United States (1993–2001)	3,566	32,496
Health care and other policy initiatives	6,145	6,145
International diplomacy and promotion of women's rights	4,465	4,465
Scandals and investigations	6,762	6,762
It Takes a Village and other writings	5,256	5,256
Response to Lewinsky scandal	3,403	3,403
Save America's Treasures initiative	702	702
Traditional duties	2,197	2,197
U.S. Senate (2001–2009)	76	31,753
2000 U.S. Senate election	4,274	4,274
First term	16,982	16,982
2006 reelection campaign	3,201	3,201
Second term	7,220	7,220
2008 presidential campaign	17,255	17,255
Secretary of State (2009–2013)	689	60,600
Nomination and confirmation	5,604	5,604
Tenure	28,589	39,688
Overall themes	11,099	11,099
Benghazi attack and subsequent hearings	14,619	14,619
Email controversy	15,075	15,075
Clinton Foundation, Hard Choices, and speeches	7,179	7,179
2016 presidential campaign	21,600	21,600
Post–2016 election activities	15,768	15,768
Political positions	4,590	18,769
Economics	970	970
Domestic policy	3,281	3,281
LGBT rights	2,429	2,429
Immigration	2,328	2,328
Foreign policy	5,171	5,171
Religious views	1,256	1,256
Cultural and political image	11,156	11,156
Books	1,592	1,592
Ancestry	1,779	1,779
See also	248	248
Notes	24	24
References	15	4,785
Citations	34	34
Works cited	4,736	4,736
External links	108	8,544
Official	678	678
Media coverage	125	125
Other	7,633	7,633
Total	317,286	317,286

Tense correction

the very first sentence of this article begins, Hillary Clinton is a "politician and diplomat". Without detracting from her many accomplishments, she presently is an academic; she was a politician but is no longer; she was a diplomat, but is no longer. She is active with universities and her foundation, but not presently in public service. 96.20.111.52 (talk) 22:39, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

MOS:ROLEBIO: she is not notable as an academic. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:03, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

2016 election

Hillary Clinton called the 2016 election fraudulent claiming Russian interference. This claim was later proven false but her denial of the election results is omitted from her introduction. This is relevant because Donald Trump's introduction includes a lengthy paragraph about his claim that the 2020 election was fraudulent. 108.4.153.106 (talk) 18:55, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Your comment is not accurate. Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections is proven. Moreover, Hillary conceded the 2016 election the next day. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:02, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

your source that russian interference was proven? That has been debunked. 2600:1009:B12F:9F6F:A596:D146:6B11:7ADE (talk) 11:10, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The article about how it is proven that I linked above has 606 unique inline citations, a further reading section, and relevant external links. – Muboshgu (talk) 13:45, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"while winning the popular vote"

Just for the record, in case it comes up again – there's been a bit of back and forth in a sentence in the lead in the last few days:

Keeper of Albion changed "despite winning the popular vote" to "while winning the popular vote". Edit comment: There’s nothing ‘despite’ about it.
I changed it back to "despite". Edit comment: "despite" is clearer, especially for readers who may not know the details of the US presidential election system. It's been "despite" for years. Let's keep it that way.
KoA changed it back to "while". Edit comment: It reads as though the page is arguing that she should have been elected because she won the popular vote. "Despite" was removed from the lede section of the Donald Trump article this year in much the same way. She lost perfectly legitimately. There’s nothing "despite" about it.

I then looked at the Donald Trump talk archives and found the discussions Talk:Donald Trump/Archive 172#"despite_losing_the_popular_vote" (June 2024) and Talk:Donald Trump/Archive 158#Some issues with the lede (June 2023).

Many editors think "despite" simply expresses the fact that the result may be unexpected, especially for readers who are not familiar with the US electoral college. Many others think "despite" expresses some kind of illegitimacy and "while" is more neutral. In the end, a majority seemed to prefer "while". It's also been changed from "despite" to "while" in George W. Bush and Benjamin Harrison.

I think both iterpretations of "despite" are reasonable, but I'm not terribly opposed to "while". And in the interest of consistency and (as some argue) neutrality, I think we should now stick with "while" until a new consensus emerges. That's all for now. :-) — Chrisahn (talk) 22:40, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Photo for infobox

Should we update to any of the pics from the 2020s? The one from 2016 is... from 2016. That, and if you look at List of first ladies of the United States, there is another photo of Clinton being used.

Incumbent photo: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/Hillary_Clinton_by_Gage_Skidmore_4_%28cropped%29.jpg

Suggestions:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/Former_United_States_Secretary_of_State_Hillary_Rodham_Clinton_at_the_U.S._Department_of_State_on_September_26%2C_2023_in_Washington%2C_D.C._14_%28cropped%29.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Hillary_Clinton_53663388489_o_%281%29.jpg DougheGojiraMan (talk) 04:39, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on how recent you want to go. It's better to focus on a strong, high quality image with Clinton as the focus though, I think.

I also propose the first image:

File:Former United States Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at the U.S. Department of State on September 26, 2023 in Washington, D.C. 14 (cropped).jpg

But I also believe that crops of:

File:Official Portrait of Former Secretary Clinton Unveiled at the U.S. Department of State on September 26, 2023 in Washington, D.C. 22.jpg

&

File:Official Portrait of Former Secretary Clinton Unveiled at the U.S. Department of State on September 26, 2023 in Washington, D.C. 21.jpg

would work well.

I think the first or third image would work best, with a lean towards the third one in my own personal preference. TheodoresTomfooleries (talk) 02:11, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]