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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Hillary Clinton (inactive)

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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.

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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.

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.

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Section sizes

Section size for Hillary Clinton (52 sections)
Section name	Byte count	Section total
(Top)	9,228	9,228
Early life and education	29	24,182
Early life	8,062	8,062
Wellesley College years	9,049	9,049
Yale Law School and postgraduate studies	7,042	7,042
Marriage, family, legal career and first ladyship of Arkansas	213	26,914
From the East Coast to Arkansas	2,258	2,258
Early Arkansas years	7,321	7,321
Later Arkansas years	11,537	11,537
Bill Clinton 1992 presidential campaign	5,585	5,585
First Lady of the United States (1993–2001)	2,987	27,174
Health care and other policy initiatives	5,319	5,319
International diplomacy and promotion of women's rights	3,884	3,884
Scandals and investigations	5,304	5,304
It Takes a Village and other writings	3,732	3,732
Response to Lewinsky scandal	3,256	3,256
Save America's Treasures initiative	702	702
Traditional duties	1,990	1,990
U.S. Senate (2001–2009)	76	25,911
2000 U.S. Senate election	3,739	3,739
First term	13,567	13,567
2006 reelection campaign	2,621	2,621
Second term	5,908	5,908
2008 presidential campaign	14,423	14,423
Secretary of State (2009–2013)	472	45,781
Nomination and confirmation	4,576	4,576
Tenure	22,737	30,562
Overall themes	7,825	7,825
Benghazi attack and subsequent hearings	10,171	10,171
Email controversy	12,110	12,110
Clinton Foundation, Hard Choices, and speeches	7,213	7,213
2016 presidential campaign	21,269	21,269
Post-2016 election activities	12,675	12,675
Political positions	4,555	19,300
Economics	965	965
Domestic policy	3,260	3,260
LGBT rights	3,030	3,030
Immigration	2,318	2,318
Foreign policy	5,172	5,172
Religious views	1,239	1,239
Cultural and political image	10,896	10,896
Books and recordings	2,990	2,990
Ancestry	1,779	1,779
See also	248	248
Notes	24	24
References	15	4,768
Citations	34	34
Works cited	4,719	4,719
External links	108	8,456
Official	678	678
Media coverage	125	125
Other	7,545	7,545
Total	276,580	276,580

Communication Style in Political Roles[edit]

Throughout her political career, Hillary Clinton's communication style exhibited significant adaptations in response to her changing roles and the political environment. During her time leading the administration’s Health Reform Task Force, Clinton adopted a notably masculine style of speech. This shift was strategically aimed at navigating the predominantly male-oriented political arena of health policy reform. Studies highlight that during this period, there was a marked decrease in her use of traditionally feminine linguistic markers and an increase in masculine markers, such as usage of words over six letters and first-person plural pronouns, reflecting a more authoritative and collective communication approach (Jones 2016). As she transitioned from the First Lady to U.S. Senator, and later as Secretary of State, Clinton's masculine communication style became more pronounced, particularly during public and high-stakes engagements. The evolution of her linguistic style from 1992 to 2013 supports the expectation that Clinton's language grew increasingly masculine as her political involvement and positions of power expanded. This change aligns with broader patterns observed among female politicians who adopt masculine communication styles when seeking influence in male-dominated settings (Jones 2016). These shifts were not only responsive to immediate political challenges but also strategic adaptations to the gender expectations within political communication. The evolution of Clinton's communication style underscores the complexities female politicians face in navigating male-dominated political spheres, reflecting both gender dynamics and strategic communication adjustments. Citations: Jones, Jennifer J. 2016. “Talk ‘Like a Man’: The Linguistic Styles of Hillary Clinton, 1992-2013.” Perspectives on Politics 14 (3): 625-642. This article provides an analysis of Clinton's linguistic style adjustments over her career, illustrating how her communication strategies were influenced by her roles and the expectations of her as a female politician in various political contexts. Walteraleksic1011 (talk) 20:03, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]