Talk:Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Was wholly deleted. While I agree with the editor that many of the honors are trivial, I think the removal warrants more discussion and justification.

The editors argument that the honors can be addressed in prose may have the weakness that the prose is too lengthy. List of awards and honors are common in biographic articles. What is the minimum number of notable awards needed to justify a list?

It would be useful to know this history of the list. Also, I do not want to list honors for a charlatan. trysten (talk) 02:11, 23 December 2024 (UTC)Reply

A list of awards should only contains ones that are noteworthy, those that have seen coverage by reliable sources. In skimming the deleted content, they appear to be largely if not wholly sourced to primary and/or not-reliable sources. Zaathras (talk) 03:00, 23 December 2024 (UTC)Reply

I think there should be improvements to the summary of this article to better represent the body of the article.

The summary says that RFK jr "is an American politician, environmental lawyer, anti-vaccine activist, and conspiracy theorist.". To better represent the content in the body of the article, I recommend changing this to:

"...is an American politician, environmental lawyer, venture capitalist, startup founder, and activist. Kennedy holds several beliefs outside of mainstream opinion."

Reasoning as follows: The existing summary focuses on his professions, his activities and his beliefs. The summary comments leave out from his profession the significant work he did for the Venture Capital firm that he co-founded, including a notable early investment in Tesla Inc. It also leaves of the multiple start up companies that he founded. These are important aspects of his career, representing multi-year committments.

For activism, the summary specifies only the anti-vaccine activism, and leaves out the other actism that is specified in the body of the article. This includes activism in public health, public safety, indigenous rights and renewable energy. It would be much more representative to just say he is an "activist" instead of an "anti-vaccine activist".

The summary specifies only his belief in conspiracy theories, and leaves out various other beliefs specified in the body of the article. The article body describes a wide range of beliefs, some of them conventional, and some of them unconventional. For the summary to only list his conspiracy theory belief is not representative, and possibly violates the NPOV policy. MensaGlobetrotter (talk) 03:44, 2 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

No objection to adding "venture capitalist". But his antivax activism is the most important and most part of his anti-public-health activism, given his main job in the last 20 years. Yes, he not only wants to protect the measles virus from vaccination, but also caries bacteria from fluoridation, but that was only a small part of his output. And outside of mainstream opinion is far too milquetoast for a guy experts call "an extinction-level threat to federal public health programs and science-based health policy". --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:27, 2 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for your reply and for engaging me in this discussion. I agree with much of what you say. However when I read the body of the article, I also see 20+ years of indigenous rights activism, and 20+ years of environmental activism that goes beyond his job as a lawyer. Further, the Encyclopedia Britannica summary section for this person refers to him only as "activist", without specifying any one kind of activism.

My goal here is only to raise the level of quality of the article to better meet encyclopedic standards, by ensuring NPOV and that the summary section of this article represents the body. I don't have a problem with the details in the body of the article.

So how about if we add "venture capitalist", and change to "activist" instead of an "anti-vaccine activist"?

Thanks for your time and consideration. MensaGlobetrotter (talk) 16:53, 4 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm not seeing where RFK Jr. has notability as a venture capitalist. Jr. did some work for a VC firm, VantagePoint, which is documented in this article. But the articles describing that relationship do not say that Jr. invested his own money in new ventures, only that he provided advice and served on boards and was made a partner and earned a salary. I saw no mention of notable early investment in Tesla, or any investment at all. If this famous person indeed had notability as a venture capitalist, it wouldn't be hard to find reliable sources documenting that.

The history seems to be that instead of investing his money in startups, other people shower money on RFK Jr.^[1] Other people give him lucrative board positions for his connections, give him gifts, even bought his house and paid for his vacations. It seems that RFK Jr. is the opposite of a capitalist investor, he sucks money from startups and troubled ventures that want to use his name and connections. -- M.boli (talk) 18:15, 4 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for your reply, and thanks for sharing the article. So yes, based on what is in the article, it would be a stretch to put venture capitalist in the summary. I will note that your article does confirm that VantagePoint was an early investor in Tesla and provides expanded context for what he was doing there. So your article should probably be an inline citation for the existing content on VantagePoint, which is not as well sourced otherwise.

Additionally, your article does document a significant amount of activism beyond what is in the Wikipedia article. So I think this really aligns with my earlier recommendation to put "activist" instead of an "anti-vaccine activist" in the summary, much as Encyclopedia Britannica does.

Finally, I missed this earlier because I was focused on his career, but the 14 books he authored in the Selected Works section suggest that "author" should also be included in the summary section. It appears that at least one of his books made the New York Times bestseller list, which is notable enough that the Selected Works section should probably mention that. Given the subject matter, it is probably also appropriate for the Selected Works section to say that some works are controversial if there is an easy reference to support that. Thoughts? MensaGlobetrotter (talk) 07:10, 5 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

No. The subject's more recent activities and antics in the antivaxxer circles dwarf his prior business ventures. Zaathras (talk) 18:16, 4 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I 100% agree, but Wikipedia's policy on Wikipedia:Truth and Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth basically say that if mainstream media outlets generally refer to a person as one thing, then the site's article on that person must reflect that. If you want to draw an independent conclusion that journalism may be biased, skewed, or even organized propaganda, you, as an editor, will get labeled as a conspiracy theorist. Bourne Ballin (talk) 17:46, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I believe this picture of him is more clearer and more high quality. I will leave it up to you guys if you think it should replace the current info-box image. CMBGAMER 2018 (talk) 09:23, 6 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

It's one Gage Skidmore photo vs. another, don't really see one as better. Zaathras (talk) 23:08, 8 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

In the article, the term proof is used once for compelling evidence, or simply evidence. Proof should not be used without a expert's judgment that the evidence is sufficient to meet a stated standard of proof. Recommending that the article be edited accordingly. John (talk) 20:38, 10 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

When one floats false conspiracy theories, one tends to do that without proof. That is the nature of being, well, a conspiracy theorist. Zaathras (talk) 01:42, 11 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Bourne Ballin: And anyone else. Why do you oppose this in the lead? "Over 75 Nobel Laureates, and seventeen thousand doctors have urged the U.S. Senate to reject Kennedy for the cabinet position.^[1][2][3][4]" DolyaIskrina (talk) 17:43, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Well, it follows the content in the main body of the article. Esowteric + Talk + Breadcrumbs 17:50, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section and Wikipedia:neutral point of view. It belongs in the article's body section, but is too far from why Kennedy is notable to the public. The article's neutrality has already been disputed (just look at this talk page), and online petitions or high-profile individuals opposing the subject at a government post is not that significant. He was nominated by a Republican candidate, which means it will be polarizing on half of the U.S. voting population regardless. If this were significant, the site would suggest adding to a presidential candidate’s article that “50 U.S. Senators opposed [the subject] for the presidency,” “100 Medal of Freedom Recipients,” “50 Nobel Prize Winners,” etc. Interesting, but not why the subject is deserving of an article.

Additionally, the petition is online, and anyone falsely claim they're a physician (by checking a few boxes) and sign it — irresponsible on behalf of the petition's creator, but still something of concern.^[5] Bourne Ballin (talk) 18:07, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

This isn't your average political squabbling, as shown by all the RS that comment on this. Nobel Laureates have never opposed a cabinet appointment before, let alone 77 of them. Kennedy is a NOTABLY controversial appointment. The body of the article make this clear. So per WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY, there is no good reason to keep it out of the lead. DolyaIskrina (talk) 18:14, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Leads are supposed to be concise. Putting that in the lead is too much detail from pure WP:RECENTISM. What will matter for the lead is whether he is confirmed or not, not who supports or opposes the nomination. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:23, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Do you think the fact that he went to Harvard, which is in the lead, is more or less notable than the fact that nearly one out of ten living Nobel Laureates oppose his appointment? DolyaIskrina (talk) 19:15, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

At this point, I'd say that for his total bio, his education is more relevant than opposition to his cabinet nomination. Though I would not be opposed to cutting that. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:47, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Not lead worthy.... this type of criticism happens to every appointee. Moxy🍁 19:55, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply