Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Donald Trump speech to joint session of Congress, February 2017

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus.  Sandstein  21:29, 28 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Donald Trump speech to joint session of Congress, February 2017 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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This article fails WP:NOTNEWS and WP:LASTING. It was one speech, and while it was his "first" there is zero lasting impact. There was zero follow-up past the standard "let's talk about this for a few days" news cycle. Is there really any information in here that is so vital it has to be on its own page? When Trump gives a speech, there are fact-checkers. When any president gives a speech, there are responses from the opposition party. In other words, there is nothing special about this particular speech, and so there's no reason to have an article on it.

In the media age that we live in, there should be zero question that this meets WP:GNG. However, that's not what I'm arguing, so please save your breath clamouring that GNG is met and so it must be kept. Primefac (talk) 21:20, 12 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep or redirect to Wikisource. Despite the article title, this should be considered a State of the Union speech. Recent ones have articles, many older ones of similar notability are only at Wikisource. Power~enwiki (talk) 22:47, 12 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep SOTU equivalent; a lot of SOTU's and first presidential joint sessions have their impact fade out within the week, but that doesn't mean an automatic deletion. We're an encyclopedia of permanence, not the 24-hour news cycle removing topics because we're bored with them. Nate • (chatter) 00:56, 13 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, we indeed are an encyclopedia of permanence, and I don't see there's a lasting significance to this speech. Of course what the president says gets some news buzz, but not every speech, not every tweet that's widely reported on is notable enough for an encyclopedia article. Huon (talk) 01:16, 13 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Events-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 01:20, 13 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 01:20, 13 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 01:20, 13 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete: I concur with Primefac and Huon here, I feel they make the case quite eloquently.. This speech is clearly not notable in and of itself, and therefore should not have it's own article. There's perhaps a little material here for the main Trump article, but not much. Waggie (talk) 02:14, 13 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - as per Primefac. The speech was noteworthy for being the first speech he gave to the joint session but was not so noteworthy as to have any content worth including in this article which has a "Reception" section and a "Democratic responses" section but practically no information on what was said. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:37, 13 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Smerge and section-redirect to First 100 days of Donald Trump's presidency. bd2412 T 14:11, 13 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, essentially per the nominator's rationale. Everything Trump says or writes is subjected to extensive fact-checking and Democratic heckling, and since these responses comprise nearly the entire article's content, there's no evidence of significance or lasting impact here. The fact that commentary "fade[d] out within the week" strengthens the WP:NOTNEWS, I would think. – Juliancolton | ^Talk 15:27, 13 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete No lasting significance. Every utterance of this man does not deserve a whole article. Merge anything useful to the already ridiculously in-depth First 100 days of Donald Trump's presidency and Timeline of the Trump presidency, 2017 Q1. AusLondonder (talk) 10:08, 15 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as per NOTNEWS. With 3 months hindsight, it is clear that this was one of a series of the Trump-related things that have had their own news cycle without having lasting significance.E.M.Gregory (talk) 20:09, 16 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment The speech is at [1], Template:State_of_the_Union and Template:Donald_Trump could be updated to point to that. Power~enwiki (talk) 20:18, 16 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. This was Trump's first presidential address to Congress, on par with a SOTU address. The speech was notable for its departure from the dark themes of the inauguration address, for Trump generally sticking to the teleprompter (never saying "fake news"), and for the policy positions that were put forth. This is the speech where Democratic Congresswomen wore white to the speech in a nod to the suffrage movement. This is the speech where Trump called for an end to "trivial fights", even as his social media nemesis Rosie O'Donnell was outside leading a protest. This is also the speech where Trump singled out Carryn Owens, the widow of the SEAL who was killed in Yemen, and Megan Crowley, whose father found a cure for Pompe disease. While the speech was criticized for its claims, that is not a reason to delete. Many news stories praised the speech, saying that it was the most presidential that Trump has ever sounded or that it was "the best speech of his political career".

I find it puzzling that a nominator would acknowledge that an article meets WP:GNG, our most basic gauge of notability, and then ask that we ignore it. The arguments presented for deletion seem to rely on an overly narrow interpretation of WP:NOTNEWS#2, ignoring that this speech easily meets WP:EVENTCRITERIA. The coverage is both significant and in-depth. The speech was widely covered in diverse sources, receiving international coverage (Guardian) and thus meeting GEOSCOPE. The speech has also received continued coverage in the past couple of months, as demonstrated by the sources that continue to make reference to it (Forbes, The New York Review of Books, Scientific American). gobonobo ^{+ c} 23:34, 16 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I find it puzzling that a nominator would acknowledge that an article meets WP:GNG, our most basic gauge of notability, and then ask that we ignore it. Not puzzling at all; notability is just one criterion for inclusion in Wikipedia, as discussed extensively at WP:N. Even obviously notable topics must still fall inside our scope, and you'll note that while GNG is a guideline, WP:NOT is policy. It is entirely possible for a topic to handily meet GNG but still fail NOTNEWS, which I believe is the nominator's contention regarding this particular article. – Juliancolton | ^Talk 02:42, 17 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Meets WP:GNG, clearly. Even nominator admits that. It's equivalent to a State of the Union, which are notable. What argument is for deletion other than WP:IDONTLIKEIT? Smartyllama (talk) 16:55, 18 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Um... WP:NOTNEWS and WP:LASTING? Did you even read the nomination? Primefac (talk) 17:00, 18 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, notability demonstrated by sources. Everyking (talk) 23:35, 19 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Everyking, what are your thoughts on WP:NOTNEWS as it relates to this article? Primefac (talk) 02:09, 20 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't think this article resembles the "routine news reporting on things like announcements, sports, or celebrities" referenced by NOTNEWS. Everyking (talk) 07:20, 20 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete: Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events (WP:NOTNEWS point 2). WIth this subject, it received lots of publicity at the time of the address, as was to be expected. But Most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion, as there is no lasting coverage. I can find no articles, 3 months on, focusing on this speech or anything hinting at how this speech has shaped Trump's presidency. As such, it fails WP:NOTNEWS, and I can't see any particular reason why this would be a special case. TheMagikCow (T) (C) 09:12, 20 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - as above, not noteworthy WP:NOTNEWS and WP:LASTING - Deathlibrarian (talk) 11:55, 20 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. WP:NOTNEWS excludes the vast majority of news from Wikipedia because it's simply not encyclopedic, routine news, filler stories, public interest stories, etc. This hardly applies to the first major speech of an American president, and one that gets wide news coverage and thorough analysis from academics. As for the claims that there has been nothing about the speech since the few days after it happened, they only appear true if you don't follow American politics too closely. The speech was repeatedly mentioned in sources summing up Trump's first 100 days at the end of April, many of which took different takes on it from noting that it was a major Trump speech which did not mention conservatism at all , to how the momentum for the well-received speech was derailed by Sessions's dealings with the Russians, to it being ranked as the single best moment in Trump's first 100 days, to descriptions of the legislative agenda it envisioned. It came up again for his foreign trip this week in the context of whether or not he would use "radical Islamic terrorism" in his speech on Islam in Saudi Arabia. [2], [3] If consensus is not to keep, it should be, merged to First_100_days_of_Donald_Trump's_presidency#Speech_to_joint_session_of_Congress, where it would fit in appropriately at that section, which has never been long because this article has existed. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 05:50, 21 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete and merge to Wikisource I agree with Primefac and Huon, this speech was of transient significance and as such fails WP:LASTING. --Varavour (talk) 15:33, 23 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete -- run-of-the-mill speech; no lasting significance or societal impact. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:35, 25 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong keep. Speech received unusually positive reception, and is thus more than mere WP:MILL. Also, I honestly think we should have more articles on political speeches. — Mr. Guye (talk) (contribs) 19:20, 27 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.