This reason to disagree: “Formal appointment is what brings a relative inside the ethics rules; a bar pushes the same influence outside them, where nothing applies” addresses the most important interest at stake in the belief: “Barring the president and members of Congress from giving any official government function to a family member would reduce the use of public office for private gain” 0.50

This row is a: reason to disagree · Used on: Barring the president and members of Congress from giving any official government function to a family member would reduce the use of public office for private gain.

This row X	Formal appointment is what brings a relative inside the ethics rules; a bar pushes the same influence outside them, where nothing applies.	Truth 0.50
Belief Y	Barring the president and members of Congress from giving any official government function to a family member would reduce the use of public office for private gain.	Truth 0.50

Interests at stake in this rowImportance scores →

#	Interest	Validity	Bears	Effective	Relative	Value
1	Voters need enough information to judge whether an official is compromised. Measured by: Share of an official's income sources, debts and foreign ties visible in public filings	0.50	1.00	0.50	100%	Accountability

Who is affected by what this row says? List the interests it speaks to (up to five), each an Interest page from the belief's Interests table. Bears is presumed 1 until a bearing page argues it down. Effective = Validity x Bears; the row's importance is the largest Effective. Nothing here is typed: every number is read from the page that argues it.

Check table

1	The row, read from its page	Formal appointment is what brings a relative inside the ethics rules; a bar pushes the same influence outside them, where nothing applies.
2	The belief, read from its page	Barring the president and members of Congress from giving any official government function to a family member would reduce the use of public office for private gain.
3	Who is affected by what this row says	Voters, who would lose the disclosure that appointment triggers.
4	Most valid interest it really speaks to	Voters need enough information to judge whether an official is compromised. (effective 0.50)
5	Interests listed	1 of 5

The five steps, answered from the pages above. Only the one-sentence bridge and the bottom line are typed.

DefinitionsThe full explanation →

Importance asks: if this row is true, how much rides on it? It is answered through the interests the row speaks to, so one interest page serves every row that speaks to it and nobody argues importance twice.
To dispute a row's importance: argue on the interest page (is this need really that valid?), or open a bearing page for the listing (does the row really speak to that interest?). Both are argued pages; neither is a typed number.

Where This Page Is Used

Page	Table	As	Its truth
Barring the president and members of Congress from giving any official government function to a family member would reduce the use of public office for private gain.	reasons	the importance of a row	0.50

Every page that reads this one. One claim, one home, every use visible.

Scoring EngineTruth scores →

Quantity	Value	How
Interests listed	1	interest pages in the table above
Importance score	0.50	the largest Validity x Bears above, or the neutral constant when none is listed
ReasonRank	0.0000	how much of the site depends on this page: rank 1964 of 2173. The share of a walk that starts at the 162 beliefs and steps to the pages they read, with a 0.85 chance of stepping on each time
Work value	0.0000	ReasonRank x (1 - confidence): how much settling this page would be worth to everything above it
Completeness	yes	at least one scored reason on each side (an importance page: at least one interest; an interest page: both readings filled)

Cite this page This reason to disagree: “Formal appointment is what brings a relative inside the ethics rules; a bar pushes the same influence outside them, where nothing applies” addresses the most important interest at stake in the belief: “Barring the president and members of Congress from giving any official government function to a family member would reduce the use of public office for private gain”. Idea Stock Exchange, importance page imp-formal-appointment-what-barring-president, truth 0.50, confidence 16%, revision 42c8344 of 2026-10-04. The revision is what makes this quotable: these numbers move as the argument is worked on, and rebuilding that revision reproduces them exactly.

Every number on this page as data: imp-formal-appointment-what-barring-president.json. Constants: K = 1 · UNARG = 0.5 · DEFLINK = 1 · DEFIMP = 0.5 · DEFUNIQ = 1. A reason placed under a conclusion is presumed relevant until a linkage page says otherwise; the burden is on the challenger. The neutral start for importance, the wiki's own rule.

Every value here is computed from the tables above at build time. Nothing is typed.