Editorial Guidelines

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While the Onboarding Guide explains how to contribute to complicit.wiki, this page explains what to keep in mind when adding a contribution:

Just the facts

If you're here, you probably have strong opinions about the Trump era. We all do.

But the purpose of complicit.wiki is NOT to express strong opinions. Rather, we're trying to build an objective record that you can point to which will ground your strong opinions in facts and primary sources.

  • DON'T judge people or actions as 'bad', 'evil', etc.
example: "Emily Murphy is a bad person who stonewalled the Biden Transition for nearly three weeks". Don't do this. That is not helpful.
  • DO contextualize particular actions wherever you like, particularly by explaining why they broke norms or precedent.
example: "On Nov. 23rd Emily Murphy wrote a letter to initiate President Elect Biden's transition. This delay was a major break with precedent by (etc, etc).

All of this really boils down to:

Cite your sources! And let facts and context speak for themselves.

What we mean by "complicit":

com·plic·it adjective - involved with others in an illegal activity or wrongdoing.

Not every act of cooperation with Donald Trump was an act of complicity.

Example: President Obama invited President-elect Trump to the White House two days after the 2016 election.

There will be a lot of gray area here, but when we talk about complicity, think about actions and behavior that you can't imagine *any* prior president doing:

  • Brazen lying (i.e, "The Big Lie")
  • Breaking democratic norms (Refusing to pledge a peaceful transition of power)
  • Breaking social norms (personal attacks, or referring to fallen troops as "losers and suckers")
  • Undermining public health to avoid bad press (COVID-19 response)

You can expect this section to get fleshed out with more examples as complicit.wiki gains more content. But even if something isn't a particularly complicit act: It may still be useful background for other content in the wiki.

Use your best judgment, and feel free to ask for guidance in the Facebook Group

Which people belong in complicit.wiki?

This wiki is dedicated to public figures and newsworthy individuals from the Trump era.

Your crazy uncle probably doesn't count... but he might if he stormed the Capitol and was arrested.

The bar is: If they made the news, They can be included.

What about people who resisted Trump? Do they belong in complicit.wiki?

Sure! People who put country first deserve to be celebrated for their actions. Those actions can help provide contrast and context with actors who put their own interests first.

Many individual records are far from black and white: Complicit.wiki is a place to explore and dig into that nuance.

Link to Wikipedia articles where possible

Many events in this wiki may also correspond to pages in Wikipedia. We may still want to include those events in complicit.wiki, but link to the Wikipedia page whenever possible. It's fine and helpful to give a brief synopsis here, but let's focus our energies on building out the content that isn't as well covered by Wikipedia.