Edit: Stickying some relevant “war reporting” from the comments to the post body, in a hopefully somewhat chronological order. Thanks for diving into the trenches everybody!
So the “and convicted felon” part of the screenshot that is highlighted was in the first sentence of the article about Donald Trump. After the jury verdict it was added and then removed again pretty much immediately several times over.
Then the article got editing restrictions and a warning about them (warning has been removed again):
During these restrictions there is a “RfC” (Request for Comments) thread held on the talk page of the article where anybody can voice their opinion on the matter:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Donald_Trump#RfC_on_use_of_"convicted_felon"_in_first_sentence
Money quote:
There’s a weird argument for **slight support**. Specifically because if we don’t include it in the first paragraph somewhere, either the first sentence or in a new second sentence, there are going to be edit wars for the next 2-6 years. Guninvalid (talk) 22:01, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
There is a second battlefield going on in the infobox on the side (this has also been removed again at this point in time):
The article can apparently only be edited by certain more trusted users at the moment, and warnings about editing “contentious” parts have been added to the article source:
To summarise, here is a map of the status quo on the ground roughly a day after the jury verdict:
I am all for mentioning his conviction in the 1st sentence, but the crowd saying it should go into the 2nd sentence make some good points.
Barely anyone gets to have “convicted felon” in their lead sentence. Firstly, it is poor style unless the person is only known because they did a crime, secondly, convicted felon can mean a lot of thing and should be specified. “Convicted of falsifying business records” is just so much more specific, and can later be added with “and election interference”.
In any case, while the discussion is ongoing it has been included in a 2nd sentence, and the editors supporting to move it to first sentence seem to be the majority.
If only more of them would read the whole discussion, instead of just saying “Support due to being established fact”.Yeah, it’s in the third sentence of Richard Nixon’s wiki page where it’s stated he’s the only President to resign from office. First sentence was political positions he held, second sentence about events while he was President, third sentence about him resigning.
So maybe the wikipedia page should follow that pattern and the first sentence be about positions he’s held. The second sentence should be about his record as president… so something about Trump being President at the start of the Covid Pandemic (that killed over a million Americans), passed legislation to cut taxes for the wealthy, assassinated an Iranian General, tried to weaken NATO, was impeached for withholding military aid from Ukraine for personal gain, and was impeached again for trying to overthrow the government after losing the election. Then in the third sentence it would say he was later convicted on falsifying documents while covering up a scandal so he could be elected.
I feel like this would be fair.