Talk:United States government group chat leak

Requested move 25 March 2025

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved - The consensus was heavily against the proposed move. There was a very weak consensus in favour of Signalgate, but not supported by enough of the !voters in this discussion for it not to require a further discussion to confirm it. FOARP (talk) 09:13, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

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United States government group chat leak → 2025 United States military plan leak – Why ...per the draft prepared. Adheres to Wikipedia policies, as well as exhibiting an appropriate amount of specificity. Studioyippy 👅 (talk) 21:45, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

Oppose per my argument above and per WP:NOYEAR. Worth noting the United States military group chat leak proposal here 𐩣𐩫𐩧𐩨 Abo Yemen (𓃵) 21:49, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

• Mostly support. Per WP:NCE, the year gives context and follows articles about chat leaks like 2024 J.E.W.I.S.H creatives and academics doxxing incident and 2022–2023 Pentagon document leaks. I don't believe WP:NOYEAR applies here since (1) there are always leaks in the US government (2) there is no guarantee that there will not be any group chat leaks in the future, and (3) as mentioned above the title as it stands is simply very generic and uninformative (and as the news cycle eventually moves on, users may not be able to find this article easily). My only caveat is that I would prefer having a mention of the group chat in the title but I'm sure we'll get the right title eventually. Citing (talk) 22:05, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

  Support. As above, disambiguation is not really done by the current title, and in addition, the current title could easily be construed as referring to the 2022-2023 Pentagon document leaks, potentially leading to confusion. Froglegseternal (talk) 20:16, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

• Support per Citing 's !vote above. Also courtesy-pinging @ElijahPepe who chose the proposed title for the earlier draft article. Funcrunch (talk) 22:30, 25 March 2025 (UTC)
• Support since this reflects how sources report on the leak. Cortador (talk) 22:43, 25 March 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose per Abo and because this incident was notable because it took place through the unorthodox manner of a group chat. The 2023 leaks were notable but not because they were shared through Discord or on the MC Earth Tiles server. Another group chat leak is highly unlikely IMO (and was impossible until yesterday) and we can always rename when the time comes. On finding the article, I don't see how "military plan" is a better keyword than "group chat". (Plus there was much more notable info leaked than military plans.) Aaron Liu (talk) 23:08, 25 March 2025 (UTC)
• Comment I'd support a move. But why use "military" instead of "Yemen"? The fact this was a chat about an attack on a foreign country is a huge party of the story. Bob drobbs (talk) 01:01, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  What would a "Yemen plan" be? Aaron Liu (talk) 01:05, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  "United States Yemen group chat leak" makes it sound like the two countries were in a long-distance relationship, and someone leaked their chats 𐩣𐩫𐩧𐩨 Abo Yemen (𓃵) 01:13, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose I think the existing name is the WP:COMMONNAME. I would support "2025 U.S. government Signal group chat leak" which I see in a lot of RSs - BBC, Reuters, NYT, Fox, NPR. Every headline I see describing it as a military leak also includes "Signal" or "groupchat" in the headline, eg Washington Post.

satkara❈talk 01:16, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

I would agree with that. Studioyippy 👅 (talk) 01:18, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Another alt: Trump administration Signal chat leak - short and to the point satkara❈talk 01:20, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

That would be confusing to the average reader in the future; a global audience may not know what the heck a "Trump administration" is and "Signal chat leak" is way less clear than "government Signal group chat leak" as to what happened and what was leaked. Aaron Liu (talk) 01:27, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Remove the dots to cut down on the number of characters and you have my support sat's alt1 (2025 US government Signal group chat leak), though I'd still prefer removing the year for brevity and easier search. Aaron Liu (talk) 01:27, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Support this alt proposal (oppose the original) - and I agree that "military leak" isn't the common name, or it isn't yet; maybe The Atlantic publishing the war plan will have changed that next week -- WikiFouf (talk) 17:09, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

I would support this option without the 2025 from all of the options so far (hence U.S. government Signal group chat leak), this mentions the US government, the fact that it was a group chat, a Signal group to boot, and once it is this specific the year is not necessary. If in the future a large amount of RS call it Signalgate I would support moving to that. Yeshivish613 (talk) 17:41, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Support this alt proposal Waleed (talk) 00:04, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

Oppose | I have only seen it referred to as the "group chat leak" - i Support the suggestion by satkara | GameCreepr (talk) 02:32, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

• Signalgate The current and proposed titles are too ponderous and difficult to remember. This is making it difficult for readers to find this article. You can see this by looking at the Top views which show spikes for relevant articles such as Michael Waltz, Pete Hegseth, Jeffrey Goldberg and Signal (software) while this article isn't in the same league. Something snappy is needed and respectable sources are already calling it Signalgate. This usage is already highlighted in bold as an alternative name in the lead. Andrew🐉(talk) 08:41, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  Semi-Support: I'd suggest renaming to 2025 United States government group chat leak to keep it within the relevant context of time, so it won't be confusing or difficult for readers to find Kala7992 (talk) 11:45, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  Most sources currently cited do not seem to feature the word "Signalgate". Aaron Liu (talk) 11:48, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  There are currently 2.260 newsarticles on the internet using the name in the last 24h, when searching broader with the term "Signal-gate" you get more than 12k results in the last 24h. ItsNyoty (talk) 13:26, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  I support Signalgate. I found:

  227 results for www.google.com/search?q=Signalgate

  167 results for www.google.com/search?q=United States government group chat leak

  how did you find 2.260 news articles?

  how did you get more than 12k results for "Signal-gate"

  69.181.17.113 (talk) 18:34, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

  There's a results count if you click on "tools". I see 171k for the current title and 111k for "Signalgate". Aaron Liu (talk) 19:17, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

  The number of results is not a way to determine the appropriate name. See Wikipedia:Search engine test#Neutrality Iknowyoureadog (talk) 08:24, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

  No, but it certainly isn't entirely irrelevant to the discussion. Wikipedia uses common names. Anyway, I do think that "Signal chat leak" and "Signal group chat leak" are clearly the common name in use by the media right now. 1101 (talk) 08:43, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

  It is specifically not to be used: Google is specifically not a source of neutral titles – only of popular ones. Neutrality is mandatory on Wikipedia (including deciding what things are called) even if not elsewhere, and specifically, neutrality trumps popularity. Iknowyoureadog (talk) 21:11, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

  that doesn't mean we shouldn't consider popularity, though i agree google search results are an unreliable metric. i'm not aware of any neutrality concerns by using this. oppose the proposal in favour of supporting signalgate if not the current article title.--Plifal (talk) 10:41, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

  There's no neutrality issue here. Aaron Liu (talk) 11:20, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

  Support It's Concise and seems to be the go to term as of now. Mkdasher64 (talk) 13:10, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

  Undecided myself, but what about 2025 Signal leak? Orchastrattor (talk) 17:58, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose proposed "2025 United States military plan leak", however, I would support Satkara's proposed "2025 U.S. government Signal group chat leak" as their use of Signal is an important clarifier and always mentioned when the story is covered by reliable sources. —  dainomite   15:49, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Oppose the words "group chat leak" is more specific than military plan leak. Rager7 (talk) 01:03, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose This was not commonly reported as a "military plan leak." Reliable sources consistently focus on the accidental adding of a journalist to the group chat as the focus of the situation. As GameCreepr said, this has been almost universally called the "group chat leak" in public discourse. OWA187 (talk) 12:30, 26 March 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose A more precise and accurate title would be Houthi PC Small Group Chat Leak. This was the name of the chat in countless pieces of reporting. I can also see the argument for adding the year to it so that it reads 2025 Houthi PC Small Group Chat Leak. Iknowyoureadog (talk) 15:49, 26 March 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose "military plan leak" looks vague and not covering the nature of the occurrence, "chat leak" would be more appropriate. -- @assanges ‧ ^{talk | cont | uploads} 10:37, 27 March 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose Group chat is far more distinctive in aspect and it covers more than just military plan issues. Also, I would support Signalgate as just looking up the title brings up articles from Forbes, Slate, the Hill, the Independent, et cetera. ✶Quxyz✶ 14:15, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

  So does looking up the current title. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:17, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

  While I don't think that Signalgate passes WP:COMMONNAME by leaps and bounds, I think it does have a slight edge over the current title. I would still prefer the current title as Signalgate is a neologism and this event is very new. If in a week or month from now, Signalgate is more prevalent, then I would suggest an RM specifically for Signalgate. ✶Quxyz✶ 14:23, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

  Titles are for recognizability, not edge. I doubt that someone would recognize "Signalgate" in ten years. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:35, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

  I agree with this worry. I am not sure if people remember either of the Sharpiegates (I only know one because of my involvement in WPTC). I think the current title for Dorian's article is better; I do not remember it being referred to as Sharpiegate at the time. The reason I gave Sharpiegate a higher rating(?) on the scale of common name than the current title is simply because its unwieldy and descriptive, which means that articles are less likely to list it as the title. ✶Quxyz✶ 14:42, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

• Do something else, but do something: "group chat leak" is laughably vague and fails to identify what is notable about the topic. But "military plan leak" also seems rather vague. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:10, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

  That's why including "Signal" is the way to go, it is not vague and included in most of the RS. Yeshivish613 (talk) 18:12, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

  No. Most people don't know what "Signal" is, and that would also fail to identify what is notable about the leak. As Wired put it in a headline, it "isn't about Signal". Including the phrase "war plans" might be helpful. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:22, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

  War plans is not less vague than the current title. Either add the year, the name of the group chat, or Signal. Those are the options. Otherwise we're just pontificating. Studioyippy 👅 (talk) 18:27, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

  Nobody recognizes the name of the group chat. Even doing all three of those things would result in a hopelessly unrecognizable title for most readers. Those are not the only options. The title should identify what is notable about the topic and should be something that readers will recognize as an identification of this topic. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:33, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

  +1 𐩣𐩫𐩧𐩨 Abo Yemen (𓃵) 18:36, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

  Are you saying to title it Houthi PC small group in regards to naming it off of the group chat? ✶Quxyz✶ 18:36, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

  Houthi PC small group scandal Studioyippy 👅 (talk) 18:40, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

  I could live with it. I think it is a bit specific, though. ✶Quxyz✶ 18:54, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

  What country is that personal computer scandal in? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:55, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

  Dude you could do this with anything. Teapot dome scandal sounds pretty esoteric, but what else are you going to refer to it as? Warren G Harding Teapot Dome Rock Formation Bribery Scandal? I mean this can get ridiculous. We can talk about it all day but there isn't a single title that will be deemed "recognizable" unless you want it to be long and ridiculous, which you have clearly spoken against. So what is your suggestion? Studioyippy 👅 (talk) 19:02, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

  The best I think I can come up with at the moment are

  1. 2025 United States military plan group chat leak
  2. 2025 Trump administration military plan group chat leak
  3. 2025 United States group chat leak of attack plans against Houthis in Yemen

  Or similar permutations. We've had about a full century to figure out a common name for the Teapot Dome scandal, but for now, I think a descriptive title may be necessary for this topic.

  —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 21:41, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

  1 and 2 are decent. 3 is nasty and I am not sure if it is really relavent to the article that the Houthis were targeted. The United States could have been attacking Listenbourg, the fact it was leaked and the aftershocks would still be the greater emphasis. ✶Quxyz✶ 21:44, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose (Similar arguments as User satkara) Existing name closer per WP:COMMONNAME. Would support "2025 US Govt Signal chat leak" per WP:RS - BBC, Reuters, NYT, Fox, NPR. Most headlines include "Signal" or "groupchat" in the headline, eg Washington Post. RogerYg (talk) 20:54, 27 March 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose original propsal, support the alternative "2025 US government Signal group chat leak". No dots in "US" per MOS:US. Toadspike [Talk] 08:01, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

That would be a highly unusual form of title. There are only two articles on the entire English Wikipedia that have "US government" in their titles. Both of them seem to be low-quality, neglected articles. Only one of them uses the term outside of disambiguation parentheses. The use of "U.S. government" is slightly more common but similarly rare – found in 8 article titles (4 outside of parentheses). There are clearly improper titles that are much more common (e.g., more than 800 that use a spaced hyphen). —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 15:03, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

I think US war plans leak would be both more concise and a more common name. 1101 (talk) 08:49, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

There's ton of war plans leaks. Plus this incident was notable for the group chat part. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:19, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

OPPOSE - while the main leak was military other things were involved. This would create the need for a subsection such as “Other findings” which would be useless and clutter the page. IEditPolitics (talk) 19:29, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose The most common and concise term is Signalgate. 2025 US Govt Signal chat leak doesn't pop. Augmented Seventh🎱 17:21, 30 March 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose Agree with prior users that existing name much closer, WP:COMMONNAME. Signalgate is not common. Would also support US Govt Signal chat leak, year can be added should there be a second one , -:)- Keep it simple folks. Dont add the ludicrous military plan controversy in the page name, WP:Do not feed the trolls.--Wuerzele (talk) 04:33, 1 April 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose this name change but I agree that the current title is suboptimal and does not reflect COMMONNAME. "2025 US government Signal group chat leak" is more on-target and comes far closer to common usage. Coretheapple (talk) 14:16, 1 April 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose this name change but... per Coretheapple. Signalgate would be much better. National Security group chat scandal would also work. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:54, 1 April 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose but support alternate Signalgate. Concise, recognisable and common enough. Andrewa (talk) 22:38, 2 April 2025 (UTC)
• Can we move it to "Signalgate" already? It's a less controversial, widely used, indisputable name for the controversy. —theMainLogan (t•c) 03:50, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Did you know nomination

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• Comment or view
• Article history

)

Group chat excerpt

• ... that Trump's vice president, defense secretary, state secretary, intelligence director, and security advisor leaked military plans to a journalist after accidentally adding him to their group chat (pictured)?
  • ALT1: ... that Trump's national security advisor, Michael Waltz, accidentally added a journalist to a group chat (pictured) in which he and other US national security leaders shared military attack plans?
  • Reviewed: Thin mouse shrew
  • Comment: I only named the top contributor as the author. The rest of the hard-working editors appear to have all contributed an equal amount, and it would not have been practical to name them all.

Created by Noble Attempt (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 220 past nominations.

Surtsicna (talk) 08:40, 28 March 2025 (UTC).

• The addition of the journalist to the group still seems unexplained. Various theories have been expressed and Musk has been asked to make a technical investigation. So, the suggested hooks (orig and ALT1) are premature in stating a definitive explanation in Wikipedia's voice. We need more ALTs. Andrew🐉(talk) 16:47, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

Could you be more specific, Andrew? The lead of the article unequivocally states that Goldberg was erroneously added by Waltz. Is that not an indisputable fact? What are the other 'theories'? Should the article mention them? Surtsicna (talk) 18:08, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a reliable source. The lead of the article does not provide a citation for its statement. WP:V is Wikipedia 101 and providing a clearly cited statement is a fundamental requirement per WP:DYKHOOK. For some theories, see Was Signal-gate a mistake, hack or knife in the back?. Andrew🐉(talk) 21:00, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

I am not citing Wikipedia as a source. The article cites its sources, obviously not in the lead. The 'analysis' you linked rests solely on the assumption that Waltz could not have been incompetent enough to do this, and that assumption is not shared by any significant portion of reliable sources. The 'theories' seem to be fringe. If you disagree and think they should be included in the article, I suggest starting a thread at the talk page. Surtsicna (talk) 21:31, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

No, the theories are not fringe; they all seem reasonably plausible and there's no solid evidence yet for any particular scenario. And pointing to an uncited portion of the lead is not the way that DYK works, "The facts of the hook in the article should be cited no later than the end of the sentence in which they appear". Andrew🐉(talk) 21:49, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Plausibility is not what determines whether a theory is fringe or not. The fact of the hook is indeed cited at the end of the sentence in which it appears. Should the citation be repeated in the lead section? DYK does not say, and if that is the issue you have with the nomination, it is very easily fixed. Surtsicna (talk) 06:48, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

• Comment: I feel like the answer in both these cases is, yes, I did know that. I feel like we ought to be able to find a hook that would actually be something most folks don't know. Valereee (talk) 13:57, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

Most people in the US probably, but Wikipedia is written for a wider audience. Of course you may suggest alternative hooks. Surtsicna (talk) 18:08, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

This has been international news for a week now. I've read the article, nothing jumps out at me other than the fact Signal allows deletion, which is against record-keeping laws. Maybe we could build a hook around that? I dunno...that gets into negative about a BLP. Valereee (talk) 17:11, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

It was Mike Waltz who added Goldberg to the chat, not Hegseth. Heythereimaguy (talk) 14:58, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

Oh my, even more embarrassing. Corrected. Thanks. Surtsicna (talk) 19:00, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

Can we lock this?

It’s a sensitive topic, and i feel like vandalism might be attempted on a highly politicized article like this. Just like the COVID-19 articles, this article should be locked and only authorized editors should be able to change it. 211.243.248.15 (talk) 14:41, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

See section above. Articles are not pre-emptively protected. If there is ongoing vandalism, protection can be requested at WP:RFPP. Mike Turnbull (talk) 22:44, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

"Whiskeyleaks"

References

Enix150 (talk) 04:27, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Hi, I'm the editor that reverted the "WhiskeyLeaks" edit originally three days ago. I'm realizing now that my edit message got messed up so I figured I'd clarify here since this topic seems to imply you want it re-added to the article (maybe I'm misinterpreting this).

TL;DR 3 of your sources do not even refer to the leak as "Whiskeyleak", 2 are short blogspam articles, and the final is an improperly cited livestream.

In my opinion, you're 6 sources (reference 2 and 7 are the same article from Distractify) do not qualify it as a significant enough name to be referred to as in the article lead. Reference 1 is an hour and a half long YouTube livestream with (as of April 6th) less than 30k views. No timestamp is provided, so I did not verify what was even said in regards to the name Whiskeyleaks. Reference 3 is a 2 paragraph article from a site that does not appear to be referenced anywhere else on Wikipedia and I can classify, at best, as blogspam. The only relevant quote from the article misspells Whiskyleaks ("Whiskileaks"), and primarily refers to the event as "SignalGate", the more common name already mentioned in the lead. Reference 4 is a list of tweets reacting to a different tweet, the only one that references "Whiskeyleaks" is a tweet asking for Signal to be renamed to "Whiskeyleaks" as a joke, it has ~10k views and ~400 likes. Reference 5 is another one paragraph article. Reference 6 is a political cartoon about Pete Hegseth in reference to "SignalGate". Reference 2/7 also is clearly referring to Pete Hegseth in reference to the name "Whiskeyleaks" not the actual event.

Now, I am not a frequent or (admittedly) very knowledgeable Wikipedia editor, so I may be entirely incorrect. If so, my bad. I could not find any Wikipedia policy or guideline for what qualifies as a common name of an event used by media, beside WP:COMMONNAME/WP:CRITERIA for article titles and your name definitely does not qualify. Skrueger2270 (talk) 02:36, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Requested move 7 April 2025

United States government group chat leak → Signalgate – 1) The name "Signalgate" is widely accepted and used by the media, including 10 sources in the article's intro alone. 2) There needs to be an end to the constant move requests. —theMainLogan (t•c) 02:00, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

I think "Signalgate scandal" would be better than just "Signalgate". CMBGAMER 2018 (talk) 06:59, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Oppose: far more sources do not call it "Signalgate". There's "10 sources in the article's intro alone" because someone bombed the "Signalgate" part of the lede—one claim—with 10 citations (which may be appropriate for a lede name, but still, that doesn't prove anything other than the fact that it is an alternative name) included for the sole reason of showing use of "Signalgate". Of the 9 normal citations in the lede, only 3 call it signalgate. There's 171k Google News results for the current title and only 111k results for "Signalgate", a neologism highly likely to become unrecognizable in 10 years. Remember, "WP:CommonName" stands for "Use commonly recognizable names": The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize.
And there is no "constant"-cy of move requests. This is only the 3rd one and the 2nd one to not need a procedural close. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:20, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Comment - Signalgate is something people probably won't recognize if they're just looking for this Wikipedia article. Besides, as a logged-out user pointed out, not every scandal needs a name that ends in "gate".

Will the proponent (@TheMainLogan) yield to a series? Algerbra (talk) 00:27, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

a series? Aaron Liu (talk) 01:48, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Can I ask you a question? Algerbra (talk) 18:56, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

you're asking one right now. What does "yield to a series" mean? Aaron Liu (talk) 21:16, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Oppose - It's too early to determine WP:COMMONNAME 𐩣𐩫𐩧𐩨 Abo Yemen (𓃵) 13:52, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

How is it too early to determine? —theMainLogan (t•c) 14:30, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Oppose - Many sources do not call it Signalgate, and they use terms like "Houthi PC group chat leak" or "government group chat leak." I also think the term "Signalgate" is slang-ish and I wouldn't use it outside of common conversation. This is a personal opinion, but I don't think it's a horrible thing to share. Cydw (talk) 02:57, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Comment Where did all this "...gate" stuff start? With the Watergate scandal. 12:51, 9 April 2025 (UTC)