User talk:Jimbo Wales

How do Endowment corporations spend their tax avoidance lobbying dollars?

Hi Jimbo, how has the Endowment been doing? How have you been doing? How have the other Endowment managers been doing? I hope you have all been well. I would like to know, of the companies in which the Endowment has been investing, the ratio of the money, if any, they spend to lobby on issues such as tax avoidance, the proportion spent on defending the accumulation of offshore cash haven accounts to the proportion of those spending on reducing regressive taxes, making them less regressive, or perhaps even reversing some of them? Am I wrong for hoping that you have been careful to only invest in companies who are invested in a reduction of economic inequality? I'm sorry I violated my topic ban about economics again but I would rather blow off steam here than file a formal appeal at WP:AN until the harassment RFC and/or working group concludes with a set of training materials for avoiding poor corporate performance. Please throw the peanut gallery a bone every once in a while so we can say you're transparent. EllenCT (talk) 07:29, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

We, the Endowment board, don't get involved in stock picking. To my knowledge, we have not had any conversations about investing the fund to deal with your pet issue, economic inequality, and I doubt very much whether we would be interested in doing that. I'm not aware of any investment funds that have such a goal. We do have some constraints on how the money is invested, and we do discuss exactly how we should do that. I would like us to be more transparent about that and so at the next endowment board meeting, I will discuss with them about how we might work with the WMF for transparent reporting and community input into those questions.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:11, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, Jimbo. First, I do not have just one pet issue. I am also very interested in mitigating 38 gigatons of tropospheric carbon and converting public transportation to hoist commuting (if they want you to wear a business suit, say that you are claustrophobic.) I know you will be the best Advocacy Working Group member that the Endowment Board has ever seen. EllenCT (talk) 05:32, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

"When we were fellows together at the Harvard Center for Ethics, I think we annoyed everyone else with our repeated insistence that reducing economic inequality was somehow always the appropriate solution to each of the many social ills the group identified." -- Aaron Swartz reviewing Hayes, Chris L. (2013). Twilight of the elites: America after meritocracy. ISBN 0307720462. 68.65.169.136 (talk) 23:16, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

"Clean coal"

Jimbo, you share my other pet issue of mitigating 38 gigatons of carbon, right? That's only 0.0075 grams per square centimeter of Earth's surface area, so I think we can do this by recycling used carbon into plastic building materials. As carbon sequestration goes, we're up against "putting it back in the ground" which is one of the "clean coal" projects abandoned as too expensive. Which reminds me of this section I am returning from your archives:

Since August; compare to the 3rd place Google hit from National Geographic (Wikipedia's article appears in 1st and 2nd places.) 184.96.140.48 (talk) 02:54, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, clean coal is an oxymoron. {{sofixit}}. Any decently written suggested change on Talk, I will happily review and make the edit. Guy (Help!) 10:28, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Talk:Clean coal#None of the US-funded projects are operating; are any? 184.96.140.48 (talk) 16:22, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

And... someone has edited it to say that one of the projects is operating because it's scheduled to go into operation in two days, violating WP:CRYSTAL. The vast majority of the 22 U.S. projects missed their deadlines far more often than they made them, but I guess it won't be long until we see. 184.96.140.48 (talk) 19:31, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

I invite you to judge the state of clean coal on Wikipedia these days, Jimbo. Have we given up opposing wealthy paid organized conflicted interest editing? EllenCT (talk) 05:09, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

You had me worried there. Fortunately it's still at Coal pollution mitigation. Guy (help!) 18:46, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

@JzG: My apologies; I was looking at Carbon capture and storage when I wrote that. But my point is, do we stand up to the only COI editors with more resources than the fossil fuel lobby or not? In a way -- and again I'm violating my topic ban here for which I'm not really sorry -- it's difficult because there are definitely easy ways to overheat the economy driving labor costs up. But why are we worried about hurting the richest who claim to need to amass cash to "keep their powder dry" for mergers and acquisitions when they never use more than 2-5% of their savings on such? It's like the charity advocates who admit they can at best achieve 6% of what transfers need to keep the working class from abject poverty. Imagine if Jimbo announced that the Endowment would be screening for firms that want to reverse the payroll tax (keeping the connection between earnings and e.g. US Social Security that Jimbo has said is essential through some kind of accounting methods for instance) paid for by whatever taxes on the top are in style. That's not going to raise labor costs for small businesses or inflate prices for fixed income pensioners, would it? EllenCT (talk) 15:21, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

What are you going to do with 80 gigatons of composite structural lumber? Seawalls? 107.242.121.11 (talk) 19:33, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

If it keeps enough wood timber off the market we might not need them. EllenCT (talk) 19:47, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

75,000 kg/km². What is that figure in proportion of coastline that gets seawall protection? 12.203.56.98 (talk) 06:11, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

It varies? EllenCT (talk) 08:54, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Why 38 gigatons? https://www.drawdown.org/solutions-summary-by-rank 107.242.121.4 (talk) 05:38, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

CO2 has more than three times the mass of a carbon atom. EllenCT (talk) 16:19, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Worn asphalt

When I was a kid, the rumour was that the moon was no more reflective than coal. To accept this, I imagined, some forms of coal have visible crystalline forms, this must be the norm for untreated coal and thus explain the phenomenon. Actually, coal is only about 1/3 as reflective, according to NASA. To me, the moon looks like it is similarly reflective to concrete, but concrete is 4 or 5 times as reflective. Even bare soil is more reflective however. Similar albedo to the moon is "worn asphalt". It's black, but it is a grey sort of a black. Now just tell me something Jimmy, and don't give us none of your nonsense neither, just be straight up. Would you consider using some of the endowment policy to paint a big up on the moon? It would be more decorative than anything. The only thing is, how dark would it have to be before it was really visible back down here on Earth? I think you should send WMF Katherine up there to check it out for possible landing spots. You'll just have to get her a new suit but, the weather is extreme so it makes sense. Know what else is similarly reflective to the moon? A forest here on earth.

Did you know a true forest takes many hundreds, if not thousands of years, to truly grow back? You ever heard the phrase "deepest, darkest, Africa"? If you were a kid you might think that meant the colour of somebodies skin, but a real forest is like a bunch of skyscrapers which blot out much of the light. They don't kill the sunshine for humans, because when they die they fall over and leave big gaps. Thousands of years to grow back? Well, when a gap comes in the forest, a race begins between the plants. First stuff like flowers and vines just sprout up over the floor of the place. These act like a shield, because underneath them grows the bushes and small shrubs which it takes longer to grow. They grow up after a few years and then they might last for a couple of decades but they too are acting as a shield because slower and slower, but longer and longer lasting plants are growing up from the floor. A shield is necessary because even in a temperate (colder) climate, direct sun all day will kill most plants in the summer. Leaves are dark and shield against burning, but they let through a certain amount of suns rays, such as the ones that stimulate vitamin D production in your blood. Almost like a true forest was our natural environment. Yeah but, if you cut them all down, what happens is, exposure to the wind and the animals gets the little trees and bushes that used to act as shields for the nurseries. Even if trees grow back and reconstitute what we consider a forest, the big trees never really grow back and form a natural forest, not for, it would seem, thousands of years.

Do you like to see the countryside Jimbo? I love to see the countryside and it is beautiful, but it can be a matter of perspective sometimes. Grass seems like a primitive plant form, but in fact, compared to trees, it isn't. It makes sense when you think about it. Once plants began to grow upward, in competition with each other, they didn't grow into grasses and wave around on the surface, but into the precursors for trees, and built a new world over the top of the main one. Grass came along x million of years, and do you know what grass is, Jimbo? Grass is the mortal enemy of the tree. Can you believe that? Grasses most fancy thing isn't its seed or its upward growth. The thing about grass is how it roots and catches fire. Fire does not simply catch the grass every year, but as life goes on forever, a year is only a heartbeat. Eventually, even in the coldest climates, the grass will catch fire and kill the trees. The trees leave seeds but the grass is fast and thick as it grows back from its fat belly roots. It tangles small trees and, well you can actually see it sometimes. Grass really is the enemy of trees. But you can tell, by the way trees let in the invisible light, to feed our blood, trees really are our friend. Hugging them is stupid, after a while. Cultivating them is more fun though. Thanks Jimbo o/ ~ R.T.G 09:13, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

I'll guess that Jimbo supports both grass and trees. Each is good in it's natural place. However putting KM on the moon to paint a big W on it would be out-of-place. Advertising by Wikipedia is for the most part out-of-place, and of course Katherine would be out of place - we need her down here. If you wanted to volunteer that would be cool. We might even try to set up a "go fund me" appeal somewhere! Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:21, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Regarding the claim "the grass will catch fire and kill the trees""

"Giant sequoias are in many ways adapted to forest fires... and their cones will normally open immediately after a fire... They therefore require periodic wildfire." --Source: Sequoiadendron giganteum

" Wildfire is a feature of the Australian landscape and many eucalypt species are adapted to fire, and resprout after fire or have seeds which survive fire." Source: Eucalyptus

"Phylogenetic studies indicated that fire adaptive traits have evolved for a long time (tens of millions of years) and these traits are associated with the environment. In habitats with regular surface fires, similar species developed traits such as thick bark and self-pruning branches. In crown fire regimes, pines have evolved into traits such as retaining dead branches in order to attract fires." Source: Fire adaptations

"Serotiny is an ecological adaptation exhibited by some seed plants, in which seed release occurs in response to an environmental trigger, rather than spontaneously at seed maturation. The most common and best studied trigger is fire, and the term serotiny is often used to refer to this specific case." Source: Serotiny

"Pyrogenic flowering is the fire-stimulated flowering of plants in heathland and other fire-prone habitats." Source: Pyrogenic flowering

I'm just saying. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:57, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

• 
  Woven
• 
  Natural
• 
  Bonsai
• 
  Rebirth
• 
  Cliffhanger
• 
  Pine for a forest

According to the sequoia article (giant redwoods), the 2nd largest tree in the world died owing to fire and ice in 2005. The problem is, only the very big ones tend to survive the fire. Humans are protecting the last redwoods from fire mostly. If grass entangles a tree, it is really untidy looking; it knits the edge of the tree to the ground. You'd fix it and never even realise you'd taken a side in a war. Sure, trees have survived grass for 60 million years. As Carlin was great at saying, the world isn't going anywhere (We are, is the mantra...) GrrlScientist for the Guardian says scientist are talking about forest and even jungle retaking grassy lands in Africa, owing to the extra carbon going around (I'm skeptical). However, even if grass loses the battle it wages from the underworld, it is still a belligerent in that war. It is the enemy of the tree. That is its nature. They say the opposite of love is an empty space, in emotion, more than any hate. But a tree can be lovely sometimes. ~ R.T.G 16:45, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Elsevier encourages COI

Recently I got an article accepted for publication in an Elsevier journal. I have published there before quite a few times, but that was a long time ago. In today's social media world SEO is far more important than a decade ago, and Elsevier has to participate with that too. I got an email about promoting my article, it contains SEO tips for authors who are still writing their articles and also about actions one can take after publication. A quote from the 20 page document they linked to:

"Other easy ways to improve SEO include:

• Writing captions with keywords for all photographs, images, graphs and tables.
• Adding clear titles or subheadings (with keywords) to each section of your article.
• Linking to your article from relevant websites e.g. your institute’s website, Wikipedia, LinkedIn, blogs and social media."

Suppose then that I had never edited Wikipedia before and if I had come here with the intention of promoting my research, then that would obviously not have gone down well here. Feedback that I would have gotten here would likely have caused me to engage in lengthy arguments where I would vigorously argue for at least the core of my published argument to be included here. I would see myself as far more expert in the topic area than the editors I would be engaging with here. It would then be difficult for me to accept that far less knowledgeable people would keep and article here in an inferior state, even after I had gone out of my way by to give up on any unduly promotion of my article and sticking 100% to the science. For me my engagement on Wikipedia would have become far more of a scientific engagement to explain my argument than about promoting my research. And not allowed to do that here would likely cause friction as I would see myself as having the same rights to edit as the other folks here.

Count Iblis (talk) 17:23, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

What exactly do you do here? The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:18, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

The Court Jester isn't expected to clean the stables. EllenCT (talk) 19:46, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

See page 5. Page 13 has the only other mentions in the document for Wikipedia:

"Wikipedia is the well-known, free, online encyclopedia where registered users can create and edit entries. Not everyone can have a Wikipedia page; once you’ve published several books and articles, and have gained a solid reputation in your field, you have a better chance of successfully obtaining one. Links to your article from a Wikipedia page will dramatically increase your SEO. You can try to include an entry with a link to your article on a relevant topic page. Wikipedia has many guidelines for writing an entry, so check its website for more details."

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 21:14, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't mind them encouraging academics to participate in Wikipedia, but this is not really ideal. It implies that an academics motive for joining our merry community should not be the love of sharing knowledge with the world and a part of what makes being an academic a morally worthy profession. Instead, it should be about "search engine optimization" and self-promotion. I hope some professors will take them to task for it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:08, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Most Popular Websites 1996 - 2019

(let's leave this in. I don't like seeing editors "edit warring" with themselves on this page - Smallbones_(smalltalk)) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Uj1A9AguFs

Wikipedia appears about two and a half minutes in. --Guy Macon (talkc 05:39, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

I watched the whole thing. I was like, AOL is more popular than Yahoo? No it... is it? ~ R.T.G 10:36, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

It is informative, but quite a bit too long. It would have been easy for them to have packed everything into about 3 minutes rather than 8ish. The website seems to specialize in dynamic bar charts, which can get a bit boring after a while. Maybe they should try dynamic pie charts for a change. The pie in this example could start small to reflect the early web traffic. Then it could grow over time with increasing traffic as the proportions change. Maybe as the websites come in and out, the whole pie could spin around. Then at the end, the pie could explode leaving behind a message perhaps "Happy Halloween" or "Just kidding, folks".

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:25, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

I see it pops up on all of our youtube recommendations. I suggest watching it at 2x speed. I was interested to realise that we actually fell out of the top 10 in 2007 before coming back in and rising up the ranks. Nosebagbear (talk) 17:11, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the link,quite informative indeed. I never heard of American Greetings before and was quite surprised that it once was a Top 10 website. Regards SoWhy 19:21, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Sorry for the first deletion in the edit war. I posted it and it just sit there, so I assumed that I had made a mistake and posted something nobody is interested in and self-reverted.

I think that one important aspect is that people assume that whoever is on top now simply must stay on top forever. I remember people telling me that nobody would ever break the dominance of Wordperfect and Lotus 123. Earlier it was the Apple II and Commodore 64 that would dominate forever, and before that it was IBM and DEC mainframes. It may very well turn out that in 20 years Wikipedia is a minor player at best and something else has become the place for people to go for answers. That's why I have been pushing (and being ignored) for years for the WMF to make it so that we have an endowment that will keep the servers running forever and which the WMF is legally unable to withdraw from to cover spending on Wikimanias or on large legal judgements. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:51, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Dropping attribution to US officials in our service In the News

Every day over 15 million people view our main page, and today those readers see us report that "...Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi kills himself during a US raid in Idlib..." Should any reader continue to the linked articles and read their underlying sources however, they'll find instead that Baghdadi "killed himself during a US military operation in north-west Syria, President Donald Trump has said" (taken directly from the BBC, [1]). Like all other news sources, the BBC is careful to attribute the claim of suicide to Donald Trump or US officials:

• ABC News [2] The president said al-Baghdadi, "went into a dead-end tunnel, whimpering and crying and screaming all the way," and died when he detonated a suicide vest.

• Agence France-Presse [3] As U.S. troops bore down on al-Baghdadi, he fled into a “dead-end” tunnel with three of his children, Trump said, and detonated a suicide vest.

• Associated Press [4] US media cited multiple government sources as saying Baghdadi may have killed himself with a suicide vest as US special operations forces descended.

• The Atlantic [5] like the Abbasids, he is dead—smashed to bits, according to Trump, by a self-detonated suicide vest.
• BBC [6] The fugitive leader of the Islamic State (IS) group killed himself during a US military operation in north-west Syria, President Donald Trump has said.

• The Guardian [7] US president says jihadist leader detonated suicide vest in US raid in north-west Syria.

• NBC News [8] Trump said the ISIS leader "died like a dog, he died like a coward. He was whimpering, screaming, and crying."

• Reuters [9] Baghdadi killed himself during the raid by detonating a suicide vest, Trump said in a televised address from the White House.

It is really egregious to report, without attribution, that a person has blown themselves alongside a number of small children (possibly their own), when no reputable newspaper will do the same. While El C [10] and Nil Einne [11] have expressed some concern, I must admit that most editors (e.g. Masem, Ad Orientem, The Wordsmith) do not agree with me. However, I think that we are veering into very dangerous territory if we begin accepting statements from political officials and leaders — only used with attribution in the media — as fact at ITN and on our main page. If WP:V no longer obtains for material receiving more readership and scrutiny than anywhere else on the site, we need a serious culture check. -Darouet (talk) 02:16, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Oooh. I think this is the first time my name has been mentioned in the sanctuary. -Ad Orientem (talk) 02:19, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

On a serious note and FTR, I have addressed this issue at WP:ITNC and have nothing to add to what I wrote there except that there is more than a whiff of Forum Shopping here. -Ad Orientem (talk) 02:28, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

I know the feeling, I haven't been dragged to Jimbotalk in years. I also don't have much to add that hasn't been discussed in any of the other fora.The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 02:32, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

I'll repeat what I said at ITNC: while everyone is quoting Trump or US military leaders, no high-quality RS is expressing any doubt of this. As others have said, it is very unlikely for any non-military person to verify this, and the reports stated they took DNA to confirm the identity. Could this be a lie? maaaaybe, but there's a lack of any doubt or counter-reporting to suggest this, and instead just the standard way that the press will report something like this when they cannot confirm first hand. --Masem (t) 03:25, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

And while we can’t confirm any more than the press can, we have dropped attribution, when the press has not. -Darouet (talk) 03:41, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

(EC) One thing which I sort of mentioned there but will elaborate more in here is that in reality a lot of this technically applies to many of the things we cover. For example, our article currently "Thirty-nine people are found dead in a refrigerated lorry in Grays, England". But this is basically based on what British officials have said. AFAIK the media haven't been shown the bodies or even photos of them. There have been photos of the lorry but that's about it.

To some extent with this particular story the various parties are more independent. E.g. I'm fairly sure the ambulance service for Essex or whatever probably has few legal media restrictions other than those that apply generally and I suspect their connection to the British government is complicated too. It's likely to be quite difficult to force them to report they found bodies when they didn't, no matter that technically (and even more if Brexit happens), there are actually limited legal restrictions on what the British government can do including cutting off any funding and maybe even jailing them if they can get the support of parliament. The possibility they could get the support of parliament, or that there wouldn't be a mass uprising if they tried may seem slim, but then again this basically requires a lot of OR on our part. There is good reason to believe the person charged knows there were at least some bodies, and if they believed there were none this is likely to come out in court probably even on the first appearance. However, I think almost no one doubts that 39 bodies were found in that lorry.

Anyway I only used this example because it was what's currently there. If you go back further I'm sure you will find plenty of better examples where we said something which was basically simply based on what a few government sources said with no real confirmation, but was like the Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi case, something which few doubt.

An additional point which isn't ITN related is that with these sort of case, even relying on the media is problematic since as we all know, they can be quite careless. For example, quite a few are reporting Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi killed three of his children and Trump did say this a few times. But in that same press conference he also said [12] "We don’t know if they were his children. They might have been." From what I can tell, there has been no real confirmation from anyone in the US that they were confident these were Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's children. I doubt they've already done a paternity DNA test, and since they also didn't capture anyone present AFAIWK, it may be difficult to be sure otherwise. It sounds like there were other non relatives present, so it seems entirely plausible that at least one of them was not Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's child. Perhaps stuff spoken gives some clue, or there's some clue from the context, but it also seems entirely possible he just grabbed three children who were there to use as human shields. The White House PR just says 3 children [13]. IMO this is a much more reasonable area of doubt than whether he actually killed himself. Yet if we go by RSS, technically we probably should say according to reports, he killed 3 of his children. Hopefully over time sources will pick this up as well or we will get some better confirmation, time will tell.

Nil Einne (talk) 03:46, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your post Nil Einne. There are some important differences in the Lorry case. For one, sources there (e.g. the first BBC source we cite in our Lorry article) treat the deaths as a fact, and don’t see the need to attribute them (whereas as shown above, the BBC does attribute Baghdadi’s death by suicide to a statement by Trump). That’s probably because unlike in the case of Baghdadi dying - where witnesses are military personnel on a classified mission and sworn to secrecy - hundreds of medical and other professionals are involved in the Lorry case. -Darouet (talk) 04:09, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

(EC) Actually I think I was wrong on no one being captured. Still I doubt that establishing who's children they were is high up on the list of questions the US is going to be asking although maybe they will be part of the interview technique. Also I just saw that Al-Jazeera specifically said three children not his children, so hopefully the tide is turning on that particular inaccuracy. Nil Einne (talk) 04:16, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure I would say the same in every circumstance, but I think it particularly true that when Trump says something, it should be clearly attributed to him, not to "the US government" or "government officials" or especially just given as if it were a fact. I think in general it's always good practice to be as specific as we can on who said or claimed something, but I think it particularly important when it is Donald Trump. It's a service to the readers because as we all know "Trump said..." can very often be very far from "It is true that...". There is no need to specifically doubt something for no reason in some non-neutral way - it's warning enough to readers that Trump is the one who said it. People know to take it with a grain of salt.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:57, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Masem asked "no high-quality RS is expressing any doubt of this?" -- Doubts over Donald Trump's dramatic account of Baghdadi raid. The whole claim from Trump smelled of tripe and that's why no respectable news outlet transformed his claim from "Trump said" to fact. It now seems very likely this "Trump said" will be widely mocked as the nonsense it clearly was. -- Colin°^Talk 12:32, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you @Jimbo Wales and Colin: I should note that while no newspaper has written that Baghdadi killed himself as fact, newspapers have variously attributed this statement to Trump, or US officials, or both.

However, given that there is an ongoing war between the United States and ISIS, both Trump and US officials are parties to this conflict, and cannot be neutral or unbiased sources of information, even if what they state may well be accurate. Especially given the nature of the narrative, many elements of which are now being questioned [14], it seems that we should be at least as conservative as other news sources. As of this morning in North America, we remain the only supposedly reputable source of information on the internet that has converted Baghdadi's death into a fact. -Darouet (talk) 12:58, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

• We don't accept official government statements as fact, except for the fact that the government has made the claim. Once a fact is verified by independent organizations and then reported as fact, we can also report it as fact. For the moment the suicide claim appears not to have been verified independently, so it has to be attributed as a claim made by somebody. I've corrected ITN because factual accuracy is urgent and non-negotiable. The burden is on those wishing to add the fact to substantiate it. At the moment the doubts are significant enough to mean that we need to report the suicide as a claim, not a fact. Jehochman ^Talk 13:05, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

There are three levels of claim made:

• Baghdadi is dead as a result of US military action
• Badhdadi killed himself and his children with a suicide vest when trapped in a tunnel
• Baghdadi was “whimpering, crying and screaming all the way”, and “spent his last moments in utter fear, in total panic and dread” as a US military dog pursued him and three of his children down a dead-end tunnel. Cornered, Baghdadi detonated his suicide vest, killing himself, his children and injuring the “beautiful” and “talented” dog

I think we can safely say Baghdadi is dead as a result of US military action. The second claim is quite likely but only the US Military would know, and so must remain an attributed claim. Most of the third lot of claims is fantasy from a known fantasist. While the journalists do add "Trump said" they are generally uncritically repeating these words. We get the same problem in the UK with "A Downing St source said ...." along with deliberate misinformation repeated. The problem is that the technique of attribution rather than factual statement is a subtlety where the only folk who pick up on it would already have been sceptical. -- Colin°^Talk 13:38, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Except the dog. All dogs are beautiful and talented. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:41, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Was a dog killed in this action? From the account repeated ad nauseum on the American tv news, I was under the impression that a known unreliable source alleged that al-Baghdadi died like a dog. No canines were reported injured or dead. (Glancing at the relevant articles, which might be fluid in their content, no dog(s) is said to have been injured or killed.) -- llywrch (talk) 16:32, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Trump Says 'Beautiful' and 'Talented' Dog Injured in al-Baghdadi Raid --Guy Macon (talk) 16:38, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Guy, you can rest easier: Injured military dog who chased down al-Baghdadi returned to full duty, Military Times - Bri.public (talk) 20:20, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

• I would not take a single goddamned word uttered by Donald Trump as factual without additional corroboration from reality-based sourcing. The man lies perpetually and nonstop. Carrite (talk) 19:41, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

• ...unlike all of the other politicians, who lie perpetually and nonstop. I'm just saying. The ability of politicians to deceive us far exceeds our ability to detect deception. The deception we see is completely real, but it is only the tip of the bullshitberg. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:23, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

  Guy Macon, Most politicians have at least sufficient acquaintance with the truth that their lies are either deliberate, or arguably true if you squint. Trump has a completely different style. Guy (help!) 21:37, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Privacy question

Jimbo, are the names and contact e.g. email and/or social media addresses of the set of humans who are stakeholders of the US citizens referred to in the 25th amendment to the Constitution of the United States notable or noteworthy or both or neither? 73.222.1.26 (talk) 21:57, 28 October 2019 (UTC)