Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States Presidents

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Hello to contributors to WikiProject:United States Presidents! I am hoping that this talk page is the appropriate place for a discussion over a content policy disagreement that I've had with other editors over navigation templates for articles related to U.S. presidential administrations and their policies.

The discussions were held on my talk page this past January, then at the Presidential Succession Act article talk page this past February, and again at my talk page this month. The disagreement in the first discussion was over including legislation that was signed into law by specific Presidents in their respective navigation templates. While the first disagreement led to a resolution that this could be permitted, the second disagreement did not on the basis that the templates were primarily for articles that were related to the president's biography and that laws enacted by the Presidents generally did not belong in their biography templates. This month, I created separate templates for the presidential administrations of Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush. The templates include the laws along with other policies and speeches given while the individuals served as President, and only include a link to the main biography article of the Presidents and none of the other articles related to the President as a person.

I believe that these templates meet the criteria of the WP:NAV and WP:NAVBOX policies for good navigation templates, and I do not believe that these templates would violate the WP:NENAT or WP:ATC policies. To reiterate some of the arguments I made at the previous discussions in reference to the new templates, I believe that they provide value to casual readers skimming articles while browsing the website because that is what navigation templates were created to help facilitate, and that articles related to U.S. public policy need to kept easily navigable partially so that content issues with the articles get more readily addressed due to increased attention to the articles (which they do not generally receive if they are only included on categories and lists). As a side note, while WikiProject United States Government appears to still be active, WikiProject United States Public Policy and WikiProject U.S. Congress are not. As such, I would hope that the contributors to this WikiProject might have more to contribute to this disagreement in order build a larger consensus about an appropriate application of the content policies I've cited than between myself and three other editors. Thanks! -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 03:04, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The duplicated information is already on the navboxes, there is no separating Ronald Reagan's biography from Ronald Reagan's presidency. They include the same things and the stand-along "presidency" navbox is a duplicate, and are bloated because CKCreator added every bill that crossed the Resolute desk, even if Reagan had nothing to do with it aside from signing or vetoing. Because of this bloat the main items that Reagan and the others mentioned are known for are mixed in with dozens of minor bills almost tangential to anything to do with Reagan. Then the main navbox has been removed from the articles by CKCreator, thus harming and not improving Wikipedia's collection of maps to the topic. Please leave U.S. president's navboxes as they are, and put the main navboxes back on the pages. Nothing is broken and much information is lost to page readers when a lesser navbox replaces the full navbox. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 22:43, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I fully concur with Randy Kryn that one navbox is sufficient and that creating multiple leads to unnecessary duplication as well as bloating. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 23:08, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for contributing to this discussion, but as I've noted, there was no duplication in the templates until User:Randy Kryn reverted the biography navigation templates after I'd split the links into presidency navigation templates. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 22:27, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The duplicated information is already on the navboxes, there is no separating Ronald Reagan's biography from Ronald Reagan's presidency. They include the same things and the stand-along "presidency" navbox is a duplicate... First of all, the links are not duplicated. The presidential administration navboxes only include links to articles related to the presidential administrations and not to articles about other periods or topics related to each president's life, and the biography templates as I modified them still include a single link to the main article about their presidency and no other articles about their presidency. As such, they follow the non-overlapping requirements of the WP:NENAT and WP:ATC policies. Each presidential administration has a well-defined start date and a well-defined end date, and as such, it is quite easy to separate the articles related to a president's biography that are not related to their presidency from articles that are related to their presidency; the former are a broad set, while the latter are a well-defined subset. As per the discussion on my talk page in January, I noted that while the templates may be longer than some editors might prefer, the templates can be separated into smaller ones about specific areas of public policy of the administration. I would note a similar issue has been raised about navigation templates for U.S. Supreme Court cases by clause and section of the U.S. Constitution and other topics and those templates are still actively used and updated.

[The navboxes] are bloated because CKCreator added every bill that crossed the Resolute desk, even if Reagan had nothing to do with it aside from signing or vetoing. Because of this bloat the main items that Reagan and the others mentioned are known for are mixed in with dozens of minor bills almost tangential to anything to do with Reagan. Then the main navbox has been removed from the articles by CKCreator, thus harming and not improving Wikipedia's collection of maps to the topic. Nothing is broken and much information is lost to page readers when a lesser navbox replaces the full navbox. The biography templates as User:Randy Kryn has proposed do not have a well-defined scope of which articles related to a presidential administration should be included in the biography template and what articles should not be included except for ones that are considered to be "accomplishments" of the administration. As I noted in the discussion on my talk page in January, what qualifies as an "accomplishment" does not and cannot have objective criteria and attempting to only include certain presidential actions as "accomplishments" qualifies or should qualify as a violation of WP:NPOV since many decisions by presidents are actively debated by historians, social scientists, public policy scholars, and political commentators. The only inclusion criteria that is objective is which administration made the policy decision, while deciding whether any decision is an "accomplishment" is or should be beyond the scope of Wikipedia per the WP:FORUM and WP:NOR policies.

The editors that opposed the inclusion of the biography templates in the Presidential Succession Act article objected on the grounds that legislation should not be included in biography templates in general. Which is fine, because as I have already noted in this discussion, articles related to a president's biography and ones related to their presidency do fall into well-defined categories, and a simpler rule would be that if legislation enacted by a specific presidential administration is not to be included in the biography templates of the respective president in general then no policies or initiatives of a presidential administration should be included in a biography template and a separate template for a presidential administration should be created. Otherwise, what is supposed to be included and what is not supposed to be included becomes blurry and subjective, the former of which violates the first criteria for a good navigation template per the WP:NAVBOX policy while the latter is required prohibited by the WP:NPOV policy and involves making the types of judgments that Wikipedia content the WP:UNDUE policy explicitly requires us as editors to not make. Following the WP:NAVBOX policy, the biography templates as User:RandyKryn argues they should be restored to are the templates that are actually inferior due to the poorly defined scope.

Lastly, RandyKryn, please stop personalizing this discussion and engaging in what appear to me to be personal attacks against myself. Please focus on the content policy issues that I have raised with the biography templates as you are proposing reverting them to rather than focusing on your assertions that I am damaging the Wikipedia project. From our previous discussion in January, your comments suggested that you created these templates. However, you do not own them and other editors are permitted to modify them per WP:OWN, and especially if they do not clearly follow content policy. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 00:47, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not going to wall of text the same points over and over. No, I've worked on but did not create any of the navboxes that you've edited out the individual's presidencies (some of those were reverted). Haven't checked all the navboxes after asking you to please stop removing viable information from them and then from the pages themselves. If it feels personal maybe because I've asked you many times to stop adding every bill that crossed a president's desk to the navboxes, but you kept doing so. This next step of actually emptying president's navboxes of their presidencies is one I'm glad that you're at least stopping to consider what other editor's think, I've given my opinion, thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:13, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If it feels personal maybe because I've asked you many times to stop adding every bill that crossed a president's desk to the navboxes, but you kept doing so. This next step of actually emptying president's navboxes of their presidencies is one I'm glad that you're at least stopping to consider what other editor's think, I've given my opinion, thanks. See what I already said about WP:UNDUE. You seem not to appreciate that the way the biography templates violates that policy, and I don't need to consider other editors opinions when content on the website does violates content policy. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 03:36, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So, I come at this a a "Template" guy and not heavily involved in the Presidential Project.

There are TWO templates in question.

Template 1 - "Presidential Nav" - named simply for the president.

Template 2 - "Presidency Nav" - to contain things occurring during the presidency.

I (personal opinion) do NOT believe that they are mutually exclusive. I can clearly see a separation, but not from ANY of the current templates.

1. I believe there is too much in some of the "Presidential" nav - See Obama
2. There is a pretty clear split between article content for "Barak Obama" and the "Presidency of Barak Obama"
3. But to split out the "Presidency" or "Policies", including "Major" legislation (needs criteria for Major versus Minor) - I think is totally justifiable. With the Navbox order being "Barak Obama" then "{Presidency|Policies} of Barak Obama". See Gerald Ford, but with "Gerald Ford" nav First, then Presidency. He was the man, before he was the President. And the things HE DID as president, are NOT the same as; "Things that occurred while he was president".

I mean, it's why we often have TWO (2) Pages. The "Person" and the "Presidency" See Presidency of Gerald Ford. Are there some duplications/redundancies when talking about the man and the "Presidency" of the man...Sure. But the entire POINT to a Wiki, is to link to an article...from a place where a user might want more information...about that topic. AND to "centralize" the ONE (1) location of the text of that topic.

Would I like the Presidency of Joe Biden sectioned off on his page...yes (with Timeline at the top, and Policies split out by "category")... I prefer the legislation by year style also... Do I want standards and uniformity? Desperately!

It seems that basic question is: "Is the presidency worth a separate nav from the man?" - I believe the answer is Yes

So, why don't we allow both? -- Mjquinn_id (talk) 13:45, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I (personal opinion) do NOT believe that they are mutually exclusive. I can clearly see a separation, but not from ANY of the current templates. I completely agree. I noted in this discussion before your comment that they are not mutually exclusive, and that the topics related to the presidency is a well-defined subset of articles related to a president. While there is not separation for most of the current templates, I would argue that it is the case for the Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush templates and the Presidency of Richard Nixon, Presidency of Gerald Ford, Presidency of George H. W. Bush, and Presidency of George W. Bush templates, and was before User:Randy Kryn reverted the Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan templates back to how they were before I split the links into the Presidency of Jimmy Carter and Presidency of Ronald Reagan templates.

3. But to split out the "Presidency" or "Policies", including "Major" legislation (needs criteria for Major versus Minor) - I think is totally justifiable. With the Navbox order being "Barak Obama" then "{Presidency I broadly agree with a few qualifications. As I've argued in this discussion, WP:NAVBOX and WP:UNDUE preclude creating criteria that suggests subjects that have Wikipedia articles and are within a broader topic are of more or less importance than others.

With respect to your concerns about standards and uniformity, while there are subject-specific notability guidelines for events (WP:EVENT) and organizations (WP:ORG), there are no subject-specific notability guidelines for laws, executive orders, regulations, treaties, court opinions, or public policies at present. Perhaps there should be, but in the absence of such guidelines, if a law, executive order, regulation, treaty, court opinion, or public policy does not meet the requirements of the general notability policy (WP:N), it is not supposed to have a Wikipedia article in the first place. Similarly, if a speech or foreign policy summit does not meet the requirements of WP:EVENT, it is also not supposed to have a Wikipedia article since they are events under the terms of the guideline. Among other reasons, the notability policies exist to prevent Wikipedia from becoming an indiscriminate collection of information (WP:INDISCRIMINATE), a dictionary (WP:NOTDICTIONARY), a directory (WP:NOTDIRECTORY), or some sort of manual (WP:NOTHOWTO). However, while Wikipedia is not the United States Statutes at Large, the United States Code, the Congressional Record, the Federal Register, or the United States Reports, if an entry into one of those official U.S. government publications has a Wikipedia article that meets the requirements of WP:N and is related to a particular presidential administration, then that should be major enough for inclusion in a navigation template about the presidential administration.

Under the Presentment Clause of Article I, Section VII of the U.S. Constitution, bills only become laws if the President signs it into law, if Congress overrides a presidential veto of the bill, or the President takes no action on the bill within 10 days of passage. In the absence of explicit constitutional authorization, regulations and executive orders promulgated by the executive branch of the U.S. federal government likewise have to made pursuant to a law passed by Congress and signed into law by a President. Similarly, cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and lower federal courts, and in turn the opinions issued in the cases, are only adjudicated if the controversy presented is related to a specific clause in the U.S. Constitution or a federal statute or regulation to satisfy subject-matter jurisdiction requirements. Contrary to the comments made by User:Randy Kryn, I am not including every bill signed into law by a president during a presidential administration and only the ones that have Wikipedia articles. Among the other maintenance issues that do not typically get addressed when articles are not included in navigation templates, articles that should be deleted for failing to meet the notability guidelines often do not get deleted if they are not included in a navigation template because editors are not even aware that the article even exists.

I agree with your concern about differentiating events that occurred during a presidency from topics related to official presidential actions or policies. Wars, recessions, financial crises, energy crises, pandemics, natural disasters, scandals, and other events happen during a presidency but are not necessarily related to a presidency unless there is an official government response or involves actions of the president or members of the presidential administration. While the 1979 oil crisis happened during the Presidency of Jimmy Carter, Carter and his administration were not the cause of the 1979 oil crisis and the administration's policy responses to the crisis were the various energy bills passed by Congress and that Carter signed into law. As such, it makes less sense for the 1979 oil crisis article to be included in any navigation template about Jimmy Carter rather than the laws that he signed in response to it since the crisis itself is less directly related to him or his presidency. If there is no separate Wikipedia article or articles about the policy responses to a recession, a financial crisis, energy crisis, pandemic, natural disaster, and other events (which usually come in form of laws, executive orders, and regulations), then there is little reason why the article about the larger event should be included.

Similarly, while the United States was a belligerent in World War I and World War II, there were multiple bills signed into law by Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt officially declaring the United States to be at war with multiple countries in those military conflicts. This occurred because while Article I, Section VIII of the U.S. Constitution vests Congress with the authority to declare war rather than the President, the declarations took the form of bills passed by Congress and signed into law by the President. While the United States Senate ratified the Charter of the United Nations in 1945 with the United States as permanent voting member of the United Nations Security Council and U.S. involvement in multiple conflicts have been authorized under United Nations Security Council resolutions, funding for U.S. involvement in those conflicts came in the form of appropriations bills passed by Congress and signed into law by the President and the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations that casts the U.S. vote on UN Security Council resolutions is an appointee of the President.

While U.S. involvement in other military conflicts has occurred without a formal declaration of war, all U.S. government funding for such military operations come in the form of appropriations bills passed by Congress and signed into law by the President under Article I, Section VII, Article I, Section VIII, and Article I, Section IX of the U.S. Constitution, and the War Powers Resolution only authorizes the President to commit the U.S. armed forces to a military conflict for 90 days without subsequent congressional authorization. I would add that including a link to articles about declarations of war for international military conflicts with multiple state belligerents (and other articles focusing specifically on the military history of the United States during the conflict) would be preferable to links to articles about international conflicts themselves (like the World War I and World War II articles) since the articles about the U.S. declarations of war are more directly related to the presidencies than the conflicts as a whole typically are and are the policy response of the administration to the conflict.

Additionally, while the President of the United States is the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces under Article II, Section II of the U.S. Constitution, the President is not typically involved in each battle, campaign, and theater of a war, and as such, those articles should not be included in a presidential administration template because it is too removed from the decision-making President unless there is a Wikipedia article about the official order the President gave for those specific engagements. With respect to the American Civil War, the American Indian Wars, and incidents of civil unrest in the United States, the President has the authority to designate an event under the Militia Acts and the Insurrection Act as an insurrection or a rebellion and the President did so in many of these events so those should be included.

With respect to your concerns about the Presidency sections of president biography articles, I completely agree; these sections became substantial enough such that separate Wikipedia articles were created for the presidencies and presumably were split under the WP:SIZE policy. In my opinion, the only content that be really should included in these sections is an excerpt of the lede section of the presidency article and nothing else, because otherwise the biography articles will simply get too long.

Other than that, I broadly agree with your sentiments. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 04:53, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If Wikipedia is better with these I’m all for it, that’s what Wikipedia should be about, but people always jump into everything with a predetermined answer without even knowing the question… V.B.Speranza (talk) 21:32, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I'm here at CKCreator's invitation.

Wow, CKCreator, I appreciate all the time and effort you and/or Randy Kryn put into these, but I don't see how they're helpful here at Wikipedia. Where do you propose placing them in the biographies? They would take up a large amount of article space and be distracting, imho. They're not very easy to read. Finding a particular item is difficult. To use George W. Bush's as an example, I'm overwhelmed. Shoeing incident? (Actually, I remember that, but why is it in the template?) Space policy? Clean Boating Act of 2008?

The only use I can imagine for such templates would be in a collection of presidential templates, similar in idea to our list articles. Best wishes, YoPienso (talk) 01:59, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So maybe I don't understand what your project is here. But if I do, it's redundant because we already have templates like this one on George W. Bush.

Let me add that I fully support the use of biographical templates. I love them!

I've heard there's a movement to get rid of series templates (sidebar).

Obama's collapsible series template is better.

I wish all our presidential bios were uniform. I think uniformity in layout and templates, etc., helps readers find information more easily.

I wish I could be more helpful. Cheers! YoPienso (talk) 02:22, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't looked at the changes at the Bush navboxes, they are not ones I've focused my work on presidential navboxes on. And no, the Clean Boating Act of 2008 is very tangential. Bush's name isn't mentioned on it, I don't think he initiated or lobbied for it. Hundreds of bills that CKCreator added to these navboxes are similarly tangential. I kept asking him not to do it but have been ignored. Yet, take the shoeing incident. If it has a Wikipedia page then of course it's relevant to the map (navboxes are maps to Wikipedia's collection of topic-relevant pages). Presidential navboxes do have pretty set template styles, look at the well-organized ones for examples. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:20, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And no, the Clean Boating Act of 2008 is very tangential. As I said, the WP:UNDUE and WP:NAVBOX policies require that topics in a navigation template are not given greater weight than others. Your recommendations about what should be done do not conform to content policy. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 03:37, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You've bloated the navboxes with tangential articles after being asked to stop doing so, many times. Now it's come to this, creating additional bloated navboxes while removing relevant information from the existing navboxes. I'm glad you haven't yet brought this bloating to many of the presidential navboxes that I actually have created and maintained. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:42, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And you've violated core content policies (i.e. WP:UNDUE and WP:NPOV) by restoring the biography templates with subjective judgments about what topics related to a presidency are more important than others, while WP:NAVBOX does not preclude long templates. You may believe they are bloated, but WP:NAVBOX does not have a maximum requirement for the length of a navigation template. My editing is within the bounds of the content policies; yours is not. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 03:49, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sigh. No, I restored the navboxes exactly as they were before you made the deletions. Have removed nothing, so what are you talking about? Randy Kryn (talk) 04:08, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the links to articles related to the presidential administrations from the biography templates after I created the separate presidential administration navboxes and you restored them. All I did initially was expand the templates with additional articles about the president's administration. Before I added the article links there were only a selection of topics related to a presidential administration in the biography template with a greater focus of foreign policy, state of the union addresses and other speeches, presidential inaugurations and transition, judicial appointments rather than domestic and economic policies. You restored them to how they were before and have consistently insisted that certain topics about a presidential administration are more important than others, despite the fact that WP:UNDUE and WP:NAVBOX requires that certain subjects within a broader topic are not given more importance to others by their inclusion in a navigation template. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 04:25, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Let's review a relevant part of WP:NAVBOX:

Navigation templates are particularly useful for a small, well-defined group of articles; templates with a large number of links are not forbidden, but can appear overly busy and be hard to read and use. Good navboxes generally follow most or all of these guidelines:

1. All articles within a template relate to a single, coherent subject.
2. The subject of the template should be mentioned in every article.
3. The articles should refer to each other, to a reasonable extent.
4. There should be a Wikipedia article on the subject of the template.
5. If not for the navigation template, an editor would be inclined to link many of these articles in the See also sections of the articles.

If the collection of articles does not meet these criteria, the articles are likely loosely related. A list, category, or neither, may accordingly be more appropriate.

Criterion #2 is not fulfilled by Clean Boating Act of 2008, that is, that article does not mention George W. Bush. Unless this is an aberration, it means that that article and the presidency of George W. Bush are not related to each other, and the article should not be in the template. Of course, Bush must have signed the act, but if our reliable sources do not mention this, we must assume that it is not important or not relevant; it is WP:SYNTH to claim otherwise.

By comparison, look at Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, which is also in the template. That article mentions Bush, and cites a reliable source that specifically mentions Bush signing the article. We can confidently include this article in the template.

This illustrates a criterion that can be used to exclude some items from the templates. What if we applied this criterion to all the items? Would the "bloat" to which Randy Kryn refers be substantially reduced? I do not know. But bloat is a genuine problem. The navbox template, as stated above, is supposed to have a "small, well-defined group of article" -- we aren't passing the "small" test. This template "appears overly busy" and may be "hard to read and use". Do you disagree with this? What do you propose to ameliorate the problem? Bruce leverett (talk) 02:17, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

First, I think you need to pay closer attention to the examples that you've cited.

Criterion #2 is not fulfilled by Clean Boating Act of 2008, that is, that article does not mention George W. Bush. Unless this is an aberration, it means that that article and the presidency of George W. Bush are not related to each other, and the article should not be in the template. This assertion is incorrect; Bush is mentioned in the infobox of the article.

Of course, Bush must have signed the [Clean Boating Act of 2008], but if our reliable sources do not mention this, we must assume that it is not important or not relevant; it is WP:SYNTH to claim otherwise. By comparison, look at Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, which is also in the template. That article mentions Bush, and cites a reliable source that specifically mentions Bush signing the article. We can confidently include this article in the template. While the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act article does cite independent sources (although not secondary sources) that mentioned that Bush signed the bill into law, the article itself only mentions that Bush signed the bill into law twice: in the infobox and the first sentence of the lead section, and the lead section reference to Bush uses the United States Statutes at Large entry for referencing that Bush signed the bill into law–which is a self-source because it is the law itself and the United States Statutes at Large entry does not explicitly mention that Bush signed the bill into law.

However, per WP:NOTBUREAU, while Wikipedia policies and guidelines should be taken seriously, editors are not supposed to follow a strict word-for-word interpretation of the letter of the policies without considering the principles of the policy. Since the material is neither unduly self-serving nor being used to make an exceptional claim, it should be fine as a reference per WP:SELFSOURCE. With respect to WP:SYNTH, let's review some relevant sections of the WP:NOTSYNTH explanatory essay. WP:SYNTH is not a rigid rule and is not itself a policy but part of the WP:NOR policy per the WP:NOTSYNTH sections "SYNTH is not a rigid rule" and "SYNTH is not a policy". To help clarify, the WP:NOTSYNTH section "SYNTH is not unpublishably unoriginal" recommends the following:

When you look at a case of putative SYNTH, apply the following test. Suppose you took this claim to a journal that does publish original research. Would they (A) vet your article for correctness, documentation, and style, and publish it if it met their standards in those areas? Or would they (B) laugh in your face because your "original research" is utterly devoid of both originality and research, having been common knowledge in the field since ten years before you were born? If you chose (B), it's not original research -- even if it violates the letter of WP:SYNTH. (emphasis added)

While WP:SYNTH requires that material from one or more sources not be combined to state or imply conclusions not explicitly stated by any of the sources because that is necessary for original research, doing so in every case would prevent all summarization and explanation of sources in articles if taken to its logical extreme (see WP:SYNTHNOTSUMMARY, WP:NOTJUSTANYSYNTH, and the WP:NOTSYNTH section "SYNTH is not explanation"). As you yourself suggested, it is obvious which Presidents sign which bills into law because the time period of when each president has been in office is well-known and documented. As such, it is not original research or SYNTH to look up a law in the United States Statutes at Large and state by inference which President signed the bill into law in its Wikipedia article because it is not an original claim or thesis.

Also, most articles about U.S. federal laws note when the law was enacted so knowing which president signed the bill into law is not irrelevant or out of scope because, as I've noted throughout this discussion and on the discussions at my talk page in January of this year and this month, under the Presentment Clause of Article I, Section VII, bills do not become laws unless they are signed into law by the President, Congress overrides a presidential veto, or the President takes no action on the bill within 10 days of passage by Congress.

This illustrates a criterion that can be used to exclude some items from the templates. What if we applied this criterion to all the items? Would the "bloat" to which Randy Kryn refers be substantially reduced? I do not know. But bloat is a genuine problem. The navbox template, as stated above, is supposed to have a "small, well-defined group of article" -- we aren't passing the "small" test. This template "appears overly busy" and may be "hard to read and use". Do you disagree with this? What do you propose to ameliorate the problem?

Another editor has expressed this concern–and I myself have raised a similar concern about U.S. Supreme Court case law navboxes–so I do not wish to be dismissive of it. However, I'm really only willing to concede this if you are willing to concede that the excerpt of the WP:NAVBOX policy that you've cited also explicitly states that "templates with a large number of links are not forbidden" which implies that there is no "small test" and only a small preference (see the U.S. Supreme Court 1st Amendment case law navbox), and more importantly, that the president biography articles and presidency articles themselves are longer in general than the WP:SIZE policy recommends that articles should be.

While the first goal of the United States Presidents Wikipedia project (which I've now joined) is to improve all president biography articles up to featured article status, Criterion 4 of the WP:FACR policy requires that featured articles not be overly long and stay focused on their main topics without going into unnecessary detail. The article word count rules of thumb for splitting under the WP:SIZE policy are "almost certainly" if longer than 15,000 words, "probably should be" if longer than 9,000 words, and "may need to be" if longer than 8,000 words. Last weekend, I examined each president biography article and presidency article using the Page Size tool and here is what I found:

• Only 3 presidents do not have a separate Wikipedia article about their presidency (William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, James A. Garfield).
• Of the 45 biography articles, only 3 biography articles (William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Calvin Coolidge) have word counts less than 9,000 words, only 2 biography articles have word counts less than 8,000 words (Zachary Taylor and Calvin Coolidge), and 2 biography articles have words counts greater than 15,000 words (Theodore Roosevelt and Donald Trump).
• Of the 21 biography articles with featured article status, only the Calvin Coolidge article is less than 8,000 words and all others are greater than 9,000 words.
• Despite the fact that only 3 presidents do not have a separate Wikipedia article about their presidency, the word counts of only 2 presidency sections of a biography article account for less than 20% of the word counts of the entire biography article (William Henry Harrison and James A. Garfield), 33 presidency sections account for more than 30% of the biography article word count, and 5 presidency sections account for more than 50% of the biography article word count (Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson, and George W. Bush).
• If the word counts of the presidency sections had a maximum length of 1,000 words, 30 articles would be greater than 8,000 words, 18 articles would be greater than 9,000 words, and none would be greater than 15,000 words. If presidency sections had a maximum word count of 500 words, only 24 articles would be greater than 8,000 words and only 12 articles would be greater than 9,000 words.
• Of the 43 presidency articles, 3 presidency articles are greater than 15,000 words (Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant, Presidency of Joe Biden, and Presidency of Donald Trump), 22 presidency articles are greater than 9,000 words, and 26 presidency articles are greater than 8,000 words.

What I would recommend to address the navigation template bloat issue is to address the article bloat issue by (1) merging all content in the presidency sections of the biography articles into the presidency articles and only including an excerpt of the lead section of the presidency article in the presidency section of the biography article; (2) splitting content in the presidency articles into separate articles about the foreign policy, domestic policy, and economic policy of the presidential administration. Criterion 4 of WP:NAVBOX for good navigation templates recommends that "There should be a Wikipedia article on the subject of the template", and I've suggested in this discussion while that the templates should can be split by the broad policy areas (i.e. foreign policy, domestic policy, economic policy). Additionally, I've also suggested in this discussion that perhaps there should be subject-specific notability guidelines for laws, executive orders, regulations, treaties, court opinions, and public policies, and that many articles about those topics very often do not appear to satisfy the general notability policy in the first place.

I believe that these recommendations would address the bloating issue. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 19:29, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comments.

Your suggestion that there might be subject-specific notability guidelines for laws, executive orders, etc., is constructive, in that it directly addresses the bloat issue. I can guess, however, that the Clean Boating Act of 2008 might be sufficiently notable to warrant an article but might be quite tangential to the presidency of George W. Bush. I don't have a solution for this, but I mainly wanted to know if you consider the general problem to be serious, and I have gotten the answer that I hoped for.

I am by no means certain how the sizes of biographical articles and the sizes of presidency articles are related to the size of navigational templates. Recently I had the good fortune to watch another editor reduce the size of Ulysses S. Grant from about 19,000 words to less than 15,000, a process that took several months, but did not involve any additional splitting of the content into sub-articles. Because the article was not substantially reorganized, such things as navboxes were unaffected. It was a surprise to me that the size could be reduced this way, but I reluctantly conclude that perhaps the sizes of the articles do not have a direct bearing on the problems of unwieldy navboxes, unwieldy infoboxes, and so on. Bruce leverett (talk) 04:49, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

...but I reluctantly conclude that perhaps the sizes of the articles do not have a direct bearing on the problems of unwieldy navboxes, unwieldy infoboxes, and so on. Well, I'm not claiming that there is a direct relationship between them. All I'm suggesting is that since Criterion 4 of WP:NAVBOX for good navigation templates recommends that there are supposed to be Wikipedia articles about their subjects, that the biography and presidency articles themselves are longer than the WP:SIZE policy recommends, and could be split into articles at least encompassing the three broad policy areas (i.e. foreign policy, domestic policy, economic policy), one consequence could be smaller navigation templates by policy area. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 22:20, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

...we already have templates like this one on George W. Bush. The template you linked is the biography template of George W. Bush that has had all of the other articles related to his presidential administration removed by myself, and I agree that the biography template is preferable this way. The presidential administration templates would be created to trim all of the biography templates down in this way, which User:Randy Kryn opposes. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 12:23, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is no such thing as a "biographical navbox" and "administrative navbox", there are navboxes about an individual and their accomplishments. U.S. presidents include among their life accomplishments their major actions as president. You overwhelmed a few of the navboxes, but most navboxes of U.S. presidents don't need to be segmented like this, although the ones since the first Bush have more entries. Using these most extreme examples, the Bush navboxes, does not reflect the rest of the collection of U.S. presidents' navboxes. And please consider not wall-of-texting if replying to this, just a "Yeah, you're right, I did go overboard" would do. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:06, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is no such thing as a "biographical navbox" and "administrative navbox", there are navboxes about an individual and their accomplishments. U.S. presidents include among their life accomplishments their major actions as president. … And please consider not wall-of-texting if replying to this, just a "Yeah, you're right, I did go overboard" would do. There are separate biography and presidency articles, and Criterion 4 of WP:NAVBOX for good navigation templates recommends that there is a Wikipedia article on the subject of the template. Criterion 1 of WP:NAVBOX for good navigation templates recommends that all articles within a navbox relate to a single and coherent subject, and as I've noted throughout this discussion a presidency has a well-defined start date and a well-defined end date. So, no, there absolutely can be a biography navbox and a presidency navbox. As I've also said repeatedly throughout this discussion and at our discussions at my talk page, WP:NAVBOX and WP:UNDUE explicitly preclude editors from making judgments about whether topics that have Wikipedia articles and that satisfy the notability policies and are related to a larger topic are more important than other related topics, such as deeming a topic related to a person as an accomplishment–which is an evaluation that may only be made by reliable sources per WP:NPOV.

It would be no different than Wikipedia editors deciding which works by an artist, musician, writer, poet, or playwright that have Wikipedia articles and that satisfy the notability policies belong in the artist's, musician's, writer's, poet's, or playwright's navigation templates because the editors judge specific ones to be better or worse. Just as an example, would you say that Titus Andronicus and Romeo and Juliet should be excluded from the tragedies included in William Shakespeare's navigation template if there was a consensus among Wikipedia editors, like many literary critics, that they are among Shakespeare's juvenilia and that only Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, and Macbeth should be included since they are considered to be his greatest and most important tragedies (i.e. the masterpieces)? It appears to me that by your reasoning this would be acceptable, whether such efforts to reach such "consensus" may actually violate other core content policies per WP:NOTDEMOCRACY.

Clearly, like many long-time editors who act like they own this project, you clearly neither care about what the letter of Wikipedia policies say nor care what their principles are. As far as I can tell, I have not gone overboard, I am still right and you are still wrong, and you are the one who has consistently chosen to be impolite and not take my content policy concerns with your editing seriously. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 19:33, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Where do you propose placing them in the biographies? They would take up a large amount of article space and be distracting, imho. Generally, navboxes are included at the bottom of the page in a collapsed state and is where these would be included. I would prefer that the presidential administration navboxes not even be included in the biography articles and only in the presidency articles and the articles related to the presidency, but User:Randy Kryn objected to excluding links to the biography articles in the presidential administration templates at the discussion on my talk page this month.

I don't see how the [templates are] helpful here at Wikipedia. ... They're not very easy to read. Finding a particular item is difficult. To use George W. Bush's as an example, I'm overwhelmed. Shoeing incident? (Actually, I remember that, but why is it in the template?) Space policy? Clean Boating Act of 2008? WP:NAVBOX lists the advantages of such templates, but principally they keep related articles easily navigable for casual readers browsing the website and provide links to articles with limited numbers of links to them. The shoeing incident, space policy, and Clean Boating Act of 2008 are in the Presidency of George W. Bush navbox because they are articles related to Bush's presidency. While WP:NAVBOX also does not place a restrictions on the length of templates, if smaller navigation templates could be separated from a larger ones following the criteria for good navigation templates, then the policy appears to imply that's preferable. I've suggested that the templates I created can be split by the broad policy categories (e.g. foreign, domestic, economic), but I think that should only be done after all of the articles have been collected first since many of these articles have limited numbers of links to them. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 12:43, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I was in invited by CommonKnowledgeCreator to join this discussion. As far as the Presidential Templates (PTs) go, I see no POV issues with including them, on their own merit, in their own respective Presidential articles, but not the Presidential bio articles. The PTs should just be a summary list, not a list of every speech, executive orders, or legislation passed. In my opinion, it is not necessary to link the PTs together, but rather, the PTs can just stand alone in their own Presidental Articles. To save space the PTs could be hidden in the Presidential article. The reader, then, just clicks a PTs title bar to expand or open the PTs information. I hope I am understanding the situation correctly. I am not taking sides with anyone in this discussion, just giving my own opinions on the matter. Hope this helped. Thank you. Cmguy777 (talk) 19:15, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As far as the Presidential Templates (PTs) go, I see no POV issues with including them, on their own merit, in their own respective Presidential articles, but not the Presidential bio articles. The PTs should just be a summary list, not a list of every speech, executive orders, or legislation passed. ... I hope I am understanding the situation correctly. Thank you for your contribution to this discussion. At the discussion at my talk page this month, User:Randy Kryn requested that I include the biography article in the presidency template and would not have done so otherwise. As I've also noted throughout this discussion, to not include articles that satisfy the notability policies in a navigation template about a broader topic of which it is a sub-topic would violate the WP:NAVBOX and WP:UNDUE policies. Accordingly, as I noted in my last comment in this discussion, the only speeches, executive orders, or laws passed that have been included in the presidency navigation templates are the ones that already have Wikipedia articles, and I noted that there are no subject-specific notability guidelines for laws, executive orders, regulations, treaties, court opinions, or public policies and as such fall under the scope of the general notability policy (WP:N) while speeches and foreign policy summits fall under the scope of the subject-specific notability guideline for events (WP:EVENT). If a topic does not meet the notability policies, it is not supposed to have a Wikipedia article at all, and I created the templates at least in part because maintenance issues—such as articles failing to meet the notability policies and the minimum requirements of the WP:SIZE policy—do not typically get addressed if articles are not included in navigation templates because editors are not even aware that the articles even exist. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 22:26, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Where are these templates found? Have the templates been put in any bio and presidency articles? Cmguy777 (talk) 05:31, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know why CKC kept canvassing, but here we are. The long-time existing navboxes for U.S. presidents are usually under their names and on their articles. {{Richard Nixon}} for example, a long-time navbox, includes all of the presidency pages as well as the rest of Nixon's Wikipedia articles. See my "logical solution" below, collapsing the presidency section on a few presidential navboxes (i.e. no need to deploy a limited-topic box). Randy Kryn (talk) 06:56, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I went to the Richard Nixon Wikipedia page. I could not find any link to get to the template Richard Nixon page. Finding that link would give me better understanding on this issue. I see the "tl|" format above. Cmguy777 (talk) 02:05, 1 August 2024 (UTC) Cmguy777 (talk) 02:09, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Where is the Nixon navigation box link in the main Richard Nixon article? Cmguy777 (talk) 19:18, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Randy Kryn: Under WP:CANVASS, editors are permitted to notify uninvolved editors at their user talk pages of a discussion that may be of interest to them at the talk page of a WikiProject, especially if it is being done to build a broader consensus about the topic under discussion. Additionally, the notifications I sent to the editors listed as active members of WikiProject United States Presidents were limited, neutral, nonpartisan, and open in compliance with WP:CANVASS. None of the comments I have left in the discussion here are off-topic, and other than the original post, are only replies to comments left by other editors where there was disagreement or confusion on the part of the editor over the topic of discussion. Insofar as I can tell, I am not in violation of WP:CANVASS. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 20:08, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Cmguy777: The templates have been included in the biography and presidency articles at the bottom of the page. In the biography articles, they are sometimes included in an "Articles related to" navboxes list. Each template has a standard piped link in the left corner of its title to view the template as "v". As I've stated in this discussion, I would have preferred to not include a link to the biography articles in the presidency templates but did so at User:Randy Kryn's request. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 19:53, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Presidency of Richard Nixon template itself looks fine to me. I don't think it should be deleted. But I still can't find direct links to the template in the Bio or Presidency articles, other than to discuss the template for deletion. Cmguy777 (talk) 07:20, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Cmguy777, yes, it "looks fine" when viewed, but the problem is that the long-time entries were removed from the main {{Richard Nixon}} navbox and separated from all of the other items in Wikipedia's Nixon collection and, inexplicably, from his life achievements as chronicled in the Richard Nixon navbox. At a minimum the section on his presidency can be included in a collapsed section, but there is no need for, and much lost, in providing a separate navbox (which, by the way, does not include Nixon's first lady and family, his books about the presidency, the campaigns which created the presidency, and other entries which arguably are directly related to the presidency). Randy Kryn (talk) 13:20, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So is the matter in question to return the Nixon template page/link back to the Nixon bio? I would have no problem with readding the Nixon template to the Nixon bio in a collapsed manner. Am I getting this right? Cmguy777 (talk) 20:53, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure, but I don't think so. The template is not linked in the text of the article but in the template itself, and the template is included at the bottom of the article as I mentioned before. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 21:05, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

... there is no need for, and much lost, in providing a separate navbox (which... does not include Nixon's first lady and family, his books about the presidency, the campaigns which created the presidency, and other entries which arguably are directly related to the presidency). Nope. Nixon's family, memoirs about the presidency, and election campaigns that brought him to the presidency are not directly related to the presidency. Nixon had family before and after the presidency, and are thus unrelated to the Nixon presidency. His memoirs about the presidency were written during his post-presidency and are his account of his presidency rather than ones written by a historian, biographer, or journalist (see WP:SELFSOURCE). Books written by historians, biographers, journalists, or others would be related to his public image and historical reputation, not the presidency itself.

While elections bring candidates to the presidency, the presidency itself does not officially begin until the president takes the oath of office on Inauguration Day and presidents are not constitutionally required to seek re-election, and as such, elections are not directly part of the presidency. Also, Nixon ran for president in 1960 and lost, and is not the only president who led losing election campaigns for the presidency. Meanwhile, Nixon's successor, Gerald Ford, was never elected President or Vice President and succeeded to the presidency after being appointed Vice President under the appointment procedure of the 25th Amendment, and Nixon's predecessor, Lyndon Johnson, was elected Vice President in 1960 and did not become President until he took the oath office after the John F. Kennedy assassination and so the 1960 presidential election is not directly related LBJ's presidency. U.S. presidential elections also typically have navigation templates of their own, and so per WP:ATC, all of these facts would recommend keeping presidential elections out of navigation templates related to a presidency as a general rule, even though they are related to the person who served as President. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 21:23, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I finally got to the Nixon template in the article. It was hidden. Is this just a matter of removing some of the information from the template, like elections, family, and memiors? I would have no problem removing that information from the template. I would keep the reduced information template in the article, but hidden. Hope this helped. Thank you. Cmguy777 (talk) 21:38, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Am I getting this right? ... I finally got to the Nixon template in the article. It was hidden. Apologies. I misunderstood what you meant by it being "hidden". Yes, it was collapsed.

I would have no problem with readding the Nixon template to the Nixon bio in a collapsed manner. ... Is this just a matter of removing some of the information from the template, like elections, family, and memiors? I would have no problem removing that information from the template. Which Nixon template are you referring to? The biography template or the presidency template? The presidency template already excludes the those topics, but they are included in the biography template. The presidency template would be included in the presidency article but not necessarily in the biography article, while the the biography template would be included in both the presidency article and the biography article since it would retain a link to the presidency article but no other topics related to the presidency. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 23:24, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is no separate Richard Nixon 'biographical' template, it is the principal navbox for the article and topic Richard Nixon. Is that the problem, that you believe that Richard Nixon's presidency is somehow separate from Richard Nixon? Randy Kryn (talk) 23:33, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is no separate Richard Nixon 'biographical' template, it is the principal navbox for the article and topic Richard Nixon. There are currently two templates: Template:Richard Nixon and Template:Presidency of Richard Nixon. I refer to them as the biography template and the presidency template respectively for the sake of brevity and clarity.

Is that the problem, that you believe that Richard Nixon's presidency is somehow separate from Richard Nixon? No. As I have stated repeatedly throughout this discussion, the topic of the Presidency of Richard Nixon is a well-defined subset of the topic of Richard Nixon's biography. However, the subset appears to have more elements (i.e. articles) directly related to it than the rest of non-overlapping entries elements in the broader set superset, and WP:NAVBOX has an explicit preference for smaller templates such that if a larger template can be split into smaller templates that still satisfy the criteria for good navigation templates then that should probably be done. One of those criteria is that navigation templates should have Wikipedia articles about their subjects, and except for the Presidencies of William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, and James A. Garfield, all presidencies have Wikipedia articles separate from the biography articles about the president. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 00:34, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I looked at the bio and presidency templates of Richard Nixon. I do not see much differences accept the bio template has non presidency bio information. Are you saying the presidency information in the bio template should be reduced, but keep the presidency template? Cmguy777 (talk) 18:00, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Are you saying the presidency information in the bio template should be reduced, but keep the presidency template? Keep both templates but eliminate the entries in the biography template related to the presidency except the link to the main article about the presidency per WP:NAVBOX, WP:UNDUE, WP:NAV-WITHIN, and WP:ATC. This is because (1) Navigation templates need to have objective criteria for inclusion to prevent undue weight being given to arbitrarily selected topics related to a larger subject; (2) navigation templates should be mostly or almost entirely non-overlapping because templates that mostly overlap with other templates only minimally enhance navigation while increasing the total number of templates on the articles included and lead to clutter; and (3) navigation templates should be kept smaller such that where large templates can be split into smaller templates that still satisfy most or all of the criteria for good navigation templates that the split should probably be done. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 23:59, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I see what you are saying. Is there a bio template on a President that you find acceptable that I could look at? Can you link me to that template please? So then, you don't want any information on the presidency in the Bio template, but just a link to the President's presidency template? Cmguy777 (talk) 04:56, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not a link to the President's presidency template; a link to the presidency article. The current revisions as of this writing of the {{Gerald Ford}}, {{George H. W. Bush}}, {{George W. Bush}}, {{Donald Trump}}, {{Joe Biden}}, and the following pre-reversion revisions of the Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. Additionally, following reason (3) from my previous comment, I'd argue for splitting the Public image of Barack Obama into a separate template as well. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 22:34, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Cmguy777, the existing long-term navboxes include their long-term links to the individual's presidency. Many of these navboxes have been involved in edit conflicts, and keep getting reverted. Please see the long-term navboxes such as {{Richard Nixon}}, {{Harry S. Truman}}, {{Dwight D. Eisenhower}} and all of the others except a few mixed into the group. By long-term I mean there has never been a question of dividing presidents and their accomplishments until these recent exhaustive discussions. The public image portion of the {{Barack Obama}} navbox shows the normality of including collapsed navbox sections, which is used on hundreds of navboxes without concern. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:19, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Many of these navboxes have been involved in edit conflicts, and keep getting reverted. Cmguy777, User:Randy Kryn has been engaged in ownership behavior with respect to these templates. He just reverted the Gerald Ford template; here is the link to the pre-reversion revision. Here are the revisions to the Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, LBJ, Nixon, Ford Carter, Reagan, GHW Bush, Clinton, and GW Bush templates before I made any edits to them. As you can see, they only include a selection of topics related to their presidencies and have a greater focus on foreign policy, speeches, inaugurations and transitions, and judicial appointments and to exclusion of a fair amount of domestic and economic policy in violation of WP:UNDUE.

Peculiarly absent in the George W. Bush navbox is the administration's response to the 2007–2008 financial crisis and the various articles about the immediate and domestic policy response to the September 11 attacks, as well as the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War which were the two main military conflicts of the War on terror during his administration. The Eisenhower template only included Civil Rights Act of 1957 and not also the Civil Rights Act of 1960 or the U.S. Civil Rights Commission and the U.S. Justice Department Civil Rights Division that were created under the 1957 law, that the last two states admitted to the Union (Alaska and Hawaii) occurred by legislation that Eisenhower signed into law, or that the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was created during his administration.

The other templates have similar arbitrary exclusions. There is no reason to return the biography templates to revisions that only include a selection of topics related to the presidency or to include all topics related to the presidency in the biography templates. It would be far simpler to do what I suggested in my previous comment. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 00:56, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I don't want to get involved in any edit warring. I hope there can be some compromise. But this is my view of the Presidency. It is a 24 hour job. Similar to being a King. It is your life. You get no days off. What you do affects the whole nation. So, in that sense, I don't oppose a brief summary of the President's presidency in the President's Bio template. The Presidency is part of the President's life and in my opinion should be in bio template. Cmguy777 (talk) 06:53, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

But this is my view of the Presidency. It is a 24 hour job. Similar to being a King. It is your life. You get no days off. What you do affects the whole nation. So, in that sense, I don't oppose a brief summary of the President's presidency in the President's Bio template. The Presidency is part of the President's life and in my opinion should be in bio template. Well, I am not saying that a link to the presidency articles should not be included in the biography templates, but it should be limited to the presidency article since the presidency is only part of the president's life. While I agree that the Presidency is a 24-hour job and what the President does affects the whole nation, the President of the United States is not similar to being a King as the term of office of President is not a lifetime appointment and subject to regularly scheduled elections with a limitation of terms an individual may be elected to serve, holders of the position do not acquire it by birthright or a system of legally-sanctioned hereditary peerage, and there is an extensive system of separated powers and checks-and-balances with legislative and judicial branches that inherently limit the President's power. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 21:44, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Like a King, only in the sense a King is King 24 hours a day lifetime. A President's term is 4 years, but is President 24 hours a day, even when on vacation. That was my only comparison. Of course, there are the differences between a King and President as you mentioned. My apologies. The sentence has been struck. Being the President is the President's life for a four year term. A brief summary in the Bio template article of the Presidency is fine by me. I think there should be more than just a link to the Presidency. Thank you for inviting me in this discussion. Cmguy777 (talk) 09:37, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Even though I disagree, thanks for sticking with the discussion. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 22:25, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. A brief summary would list the highlights of the Presidency in the bio template. The Presidency template would be more in depth. Cmguy777 (talk) 15:33, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I still disagree because I don't believe there is objective criteria for what qualifies as a highlight of a presidency, and the WP:UNDUE policy requires that undue weight not be given to certain subjects by prominence of placement and which WP:NAVBOX notes as Disadvantage Number 5. Considering the general notability guideline and subject-specific guidelines, all Wikipedia articles are supposed to be "highlights" in some sense. But again, thank you for sticking with the discussion, and by the way, the presidency templates have been proposed for deletion if you were unaware and support keeping them. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 22:05, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally, there could concerns about template clutter by including the same article in multiple templates. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 22:06, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Another thing I'd add is that summarizing key facts about the subject of an article is the function and purpose of infoboxes per MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE, rather than facilitating and enhancing navigation which is the function and purpose of navboxes and sidebars per WP:NAVBOX and WP:NAV. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 01:11, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To me the Info boxes give information on the subject of the article, such as the person being a President and years in office, not all the acts passed by the President. A few of the key acts passed by the president, could be put in the Navigation boxes. For example, the Info Box in the George W. Bush article does not list the Acts passed by the President. A navigation box could list a few of the Acts by the President. Information would not be repeated. Again, I am only giving my views and opinions. You are entitled to have your views. I hope you can work out this issue. Thank you. Cmguy777 (talk) 21:36, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

After briefly skimming through this discussion, I thank CommonKnowledgeCreator for thinking highly enough of my skills and abilities to give an informed response. However, I do not have anything new to bring to the discussion because I have been away from Wikipedia for awhile and I have never done much work on navboxes. Sorry for the non-response! ❤HistoryTheorist❤ 18:39, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for contributing to this discussion even if it was a non-response! :) -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 22:28, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As I've said at the navbox deletion nomination, all that needs to be done for the several navboxes which have a large amount of entries concerning a person's presidency, collapse the section. Hundreds of navboxes have at least one collapsed section. They are not rare or otherwise unusual. The point is to contain an individual's Wikipedia map in one navbox, not to divide the map to the collection into a series of related but distinct navboxes. Randy Kryn (talk) 00:45, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Per the discussion at the Presidential Succession Act article talk page this past February that I've referred to in this discussion, the other editors there stated that biography templates should not be included in legislation articles in general. This is part of what motivated me to create separate navigation templates for each presidency separate from the biography template. However, while there may be long templates that use collapsed sections, I've noted throughout this discussion that size concerns have still been raised about U.S. Supreme Court case law navboxes that use such collapsed sections. WP:NAVBOX says nothing about creating containing a contain[ing] an individual's Wikipedia map in one navbox, not to divide the map to the collection into a series of related but distinct navboxes.

As I've noted throughout the discussion, while Criterion 1 for good navigation templates under WP:NAVBOX recommends "All articles within a template relate to a single, coherent subject", Criterion 4 for good navigation templates "There should be a Wikipedia article on the subject of the template", that WP:NAVBOX expresses a preference for smaller navigation templates, and except for the Presidencies of William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, and James A. Garfield, each presidency has an article separate from the biography article about the President. While I would have no problem adding collapsed sections to the presidency templates that I created since presidencies themselves are a well-defined and a broad topic, and a presidential administration involves thousands of people beyond the individual that served as its President, if there are separate articles about the broad policy area of an administration (i.e. foreign policy, domestic policy, economic policy)—which some presidencies do and more could given that the length of the biography and presidency articles are mostly longer than WP:SIZE recommends—that would be sufficient for creating separate templates as well.

Given the concerns raised by the other editors at the Presidential Succession Act article talk page discussion in February, and that other editors in this discussion have expressed a preference for the biography templates as I had modified them before your reversions, I do not believe that their there is consensus for what you propose as "the obvious solution". -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 16:05, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Can you please summarize your points into a short paragraph or two? TLTR (especially going place to place having to debate the same points). The obvious solution is to place any long presidential sections (there are maybe four or five navboxes where this would be done) into collapsible sections on the individuals long-term navbox, as has been done with hundreds of other navbox topics. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 00:34, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nope. WP:NAVBOX states "Navigation templates are particularly useful for a small, well-defined group of articles; templates with a large number of links are not forbidden, but can appear overly busy and be hard to read and use", and WP:NAV-WITHIN recommends that "[Navigation templates] should be kept small in size as a large template has limited navigation value. For navigating among many articles, consider... [splitting] them into multiple, smaller templates on each sub-topic." Splitting the templates is what existing content policy, guidelines, and explanatory essays recommend, and WP:NOTBUREAU states that content policies and guidelines "document already-existing community consensus regarding what should be accepted and what should be rejected." Additionally, prior to any edits I made to the biography templates, only an arbitrarily selected group of articles related to the presidency were included in violation of WP:NAVBOX and WP:UNDUE. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 01:32, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"templates with a large number of links are not forbidden, but can appear overly busy and be hard to read and use." ....'not forbidden" and "...be hard to read and use" are the key wordings, as a navbox is only hard to read if it is not arranged well, in understandable sections and usually in good chronological order. A good navbox tells a story. The map of the person's articles on Wikipedia should reflect the encyclopedia's contents and topic collection, and tell that story in one place. That's why the larger ones often use collapsed sections, a very common tool to keep the topic map in one place for readers and researchers. And please, once again, over many venues and pages, understand that essays are not guidelines. Essays are not policy. They are opinion. Even IAR doesn't mention essays. Because there is nothing wrong with a well arranged navbox, large or small, and never has been. The fact that you bloated a few of the navboxes by adding inappropriate articles is secondary to this discussion, but an important thing to keep in mind. Randy Kryn (talk) 01:55, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A good navbox tells a story. The map of the person's articles on Wikipedia should reflect the encyclopedia's contents and topic collection, and tell that story in one place. Nope. Wikipedia is not a storybook. It is an encyclopedia that is supposed to be written in encyclopedic, summary style. This applies to both articles and templates. And not all related topics have a chronology (e.g. Evolutionary biology, Narrative). And please, once again, over many venues and pages, understand that essays are not guidelines. Essays are not policy. They are opinion. Please, once again, understand that there is no clear difference between policies, guidelines, or essays because policies and guidelines cannot cover all circumstances. Because there is nothing wrong with a well arranged navbox, large or small, and never has been. The language of WP:NAVBOX is explicit; smaller templates are preferred regardless of how they are organized. WP:NAV-WITHIN more fully explains why. The fact that you bloated a few of the navboxes by adding inappropriate articles is secondary to this discussion... Nope. The biography templates as you insist on reverting them to do not have objective criteria for article inclusion as required by WP:NAVBOX. The articles I had added were related to each individual's presidency, and after finding that there were many more articles related to the presidency than related to the individual outside of the presidency, I created the separate templates for the presidencies. Just give up and acknowledge that I'm correct, especially since most of the other editors in the discussion here generally agree with me and not you. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 15:25, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also, there would not be fragmented discussions on multiple pages if you had not engaged in ownership behavior per WP:OWNBEHAVIOR. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 19:15, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

First sentences of most of the presidential biography articles are gratuitously clunky. For example,

Franklin Pierce (November 23, 1804 – October 8, 1869) was an American politician who served as the 14th president of the United States from 1853 to 1857.

Since he was president of the United States, it is redundant at best to say that he was a "politician". Moreover it starts arguments among editors: was he a "politician" or a "statesman" or both? Just recently there was an argument at George Washington over whether he was a "planter", a "farmer", or what. The right way to start the article is modeled by Harry S. Truman:

Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953.

Unfortunately only Millard Fillmore, William Howard Taft, and Harry S. Truman start this way.

This is a peculiar situation. I could boldly go through and fix all these articles, but I suspect that someone likes them the way they are, and I would like to argue it out with them, whoever they are, before I start moving.

Note that in some cases "fixing" the sentence may require some thought. For example at George Washington, we are saying,

George Washington (February 22, 1732 – December 14, 1799) was an American Founding Father, military officer, farmer, and first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797.

Since the following sentence describes Washington's service as a commander in the American Revolution, I could trivially omit "military officer". I would put a link to Founding Fathers of the United States in a subsequent sentence. But there is no other reference in the lead section to the fact that Washington was a planter/farmer, although this is importantly relevant to his notability. So I would have to add something. It won't happen overnight.

Comments welcome. Bruce leverett (talk) 00:29, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Your stance ignores how these men served other political roles prior to Presidency. It therefore isn't redundant to have "politician" in opening sentence when that helps encompass other offices (sometimes including VP). Using "military officer" is NOT trivial for guys like Washington or Ulysses S. Grant whose military careers were quite important to their fame before serving as President. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 01:59, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The president of the United States is a politician, by definition. That is why it is redundant to throw in the word "politician". Likewise the commander of the Continental Army was a military official by definition.

Saying the same thing twice in the same paragraph, or even in the same sentence, does not give it more emphasis. Saying the same important thing twice makes the article look disorganized, carelessly assembled, and less than coherent. Bruce leverett (talk) 15:17, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The truly careless part is disregarding all other positions solely to focus on one role. Giving a general description before naming specific offices isn't "less than coherent", though you seem to think only Presidential roles are important enough to highlight when one is elected that. Furthermore, being a president shouldn't be treated as an excuse to omit nationality from opening sentence. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 17:43, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding "omit nationality from opening sentence", the example I gave, from Harry Truman, gives the nationality in what looks like an appropriate way, and I would generally follow that pattern.

In Franklin Pierce, I would only change "was an American politician who served as the 14th president of the United States" to "served as the 14th president of the United States". Perhaps the majority of the articles about presidents start this way. This should be an uncontroversial change from verbosity to conciseness.

How should I go from there, to handle articles where the first paragraph is not so simple? As I said above, these will require some thought. You have already mentioned presidents that were notable military men (Washington and Grant; and I would add Jackson, Eisenhower, and others). One article that may serve as a model is William Howard Taft, because he also had a non-presidential career (chief justice of the Supreme Court) that was notable. My focus will be changing from verbosity to conciseness. As always in Wikipedia, I will expect that other editors will tweak my work, and I will not be alarmed by it. Bruce leverett (talk) 03:35, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I support Bruce everett's position . For the ten FAs that I was a nominator for, I invariably wrote them that way, per MOS:REDUNDANCY. Unhappily, I was worn down over time. I support what they say.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:53, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You're misusing MOS:REDUNDANCY here, Wehwalt, and on Truman's talk page also wrongfully disregarded the how use of "politician" helps encompass non-Presidential roles for those who served other political offices. That thread (Talk:Harry S. Truman/Archive 7#"an American politician") and what you've written here give the impression that you only care about focusing on that one title for anybody who gets elected President. As for what Bruce asks on non-political careers, we could use things like "actor and politician" for Ronald Reagan, "businessman, media personality, and politician" for Donald Trump, taking into consideration non-political endeavors. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 01:57, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, Reagan was notable as an actor, and this is mentioned in the second paragraph of his article. If there is consensus that his acting career should be mentioned in the first paragraph, the best way would be to add a whole sentence. I am old enough to remember what a novelty it was that an actor got elected president.

I have refrained from editing articles about living persons (including Trump). It struck me that the etiquette for summarizing the career of a living person may well be different, and I left the articles about Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump unchanged. Bruce leverett (talk) 04:05, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Being in the second paragraph doesn't justify putting emphasis only on Presidency, and the consensus at Talk:Ronald Reagan/Archive 18#RfC about whether Reagan is a statesman in the lead section to use "politician" in opening sentence is something you shouldn't have been so quick to defy. For what it's worth, I do think its first paragraph is rather short and could be merged with other text from the lead. Either way, please refrain from further removals of non-Presidential roles when this thread hasn't concluded yet. Doing so as soon as you did comes off as a premature attempt to impose desires on emphasizing Presidency above all else, even when it was only a brief part of their lives (James A. Garfield and William Henry Harrison died after less than a year in office and had other political roles that lasted much longer). SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 05:52, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The thing is, a large number of people could tell you that Garfield was a president, many fewer could tell you he served nine terms in Congress or was a Civil War general. He is known for being president, and really, for being shot while president. Wehwalt (talk) 09:56, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I take issue with the phrase "removals of non-Presidential roles". For example, when you reverted my change to Franklin Pierce, your edit summary was, "Don't downplay congress or Senator roles just because you want to put more emphasis on presidency." But the text that I removed, "... American politician ...", does not mention his congress or Senator roles. In fact, it is too vague and unspecific to contribute anything. Removing it did not downplay anything. There is text in the following paragraph that describes Pierce's political career. It says specifically that he served in the House, served in the Senate, and was appointed U.S. Attorney. I did not modify that text or remove any of it.

Generally speaking, I did not deliberately change emphasis, or downplay anything, anywhere. If I inadvertently did so, I would be interested in fixing it, while still adhering to my goal of removing unnecessary clutter. Bruce leverett (talk) 03:47, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's unfairly dismissive to suggest that non-Presidential offices are "unnecessary clutter". Try telling that to anybody who's worked in politics. Regarding Pierce, I thought it was obvious that "politician" also encompassed time served as Congressman and Senator, and you showed no concern for those when making Presidency the sentence's main topic. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 21:58, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Politician "encompasses" all his political activity, but it does not describe his political activity, nor does it help the reader in any other way.

You seem to want to summarize his whole career in the first sentence. This is not what MOS:LEADCLUTTER tells us to do:

Do not overload the first sentence by describing everything notable about the subject. Instead, spread the relevant information out over the entire lead.

I am only trying to adhere to Wikipedia policy here. Is there some reason why Wikipedia policy is inapplicable in these presidential biography articles? Bruce leverett (talk) 22:23, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't say I advocated for "whole career" so much as general descriptions. For someone like Reagan, calling "politician" redundant for Governor and President terms sounded akin to suggesting it would be redundant to say "actor" before other sentences listed his films. One could potentially make a case for using encompassing bits only before listing Presidency or any other office in subsequent sentences. To use other examples of men with non-political occupations before inauguration with for how this format would work, one could end a sentence with "academic and politician" for Woodrow Wilson (with "professor", "teacher", or "educator" being other options to note academic career) and "journalist and politician" for Warren Harding. After this, their offices would be listed out in subsequent sentences. How does that sound? SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 22:54, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I like the direction you are going here. Reagan's path to the presidency, via Hollywood acting, was notable, and I approve of drawing attention to it, even in the first sentence, or at least in the first paragraph. Likewise for Wilson's path to the presidency via the presidency of Princeton, and, I think, Harding's path via journalism.

Getting into politics from the ground up, or via the law, or diplomacy, are more conventional paths. If we don't say that Pierce was a politician and a lawyer in the first sentence, who cares? It's fine to mention those activities somewhere else in the lead section. In any case I think that the formulaic "ABC was an American politician [and lawyer] who served as Xth president of the United States" is close to a direct violation of various parts of MOS:LEAD.

Getting to the presidency by winning a war is an interesting case. For instance, with Grant, his military career is, if not more notable, at least more fun to write about and read about than his political career. This might also be true for Eisenhower. For a while (a few years ago), if I remember correctly, we tried mentioning Grant's military career in the first sentence, and his presidency in the second sentence. That might work. But again, it violates policy to jam them both into the first sentence. Bruce leverett (talk) 02:44, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Truman would be forgotten today if he hadn't become president. We're leading with what the person is known for. President of the United States implies both "politician" and "American". Wehwalt (talk) 09:59, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds like a cop-out, and bold of you to assume nobody would remember Vice Presidency or time spent as a Senator. They weren't completely unknown aspects. It confirms my suspicions that you're willing to sideline any non-Presidential title (no matter how prominent such tenures were) for the sake of prioritizing Presidency mentions above all else. Let's not downplay the possibility that not every reader (especially when factoring in non-Americans) would be familiar with how President is a political office held (something you did in the linked Truman thread). SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 13:52, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wehwalt wasn't "misusing" MOS:REDUNDANCY; the topic of that paragraph of policy is precisely this situation, i.e. the first sentence of the article.

MOS:REDUNDANCY and MOS:LEADCLUTTER aren't rocket science. This is more like Expository Writing 101. In a sentence that says, "Chester Alan Arthur (October 5, 1829 – November 18, 1886) served as the 21st president of the United States from 1881 to 1885", there is just no excuse for throwing in "... was an American politician who ...". Most of us, probably including yourself, routinely excise this bloviation from our own writing. Bruce leverett (talk) 18:31, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you on the Pierce change, that should be uncontroversial. But agree with SNUGGUMS on most of the rest, most of these men achieved much more in politics than just the presidency. Starting the George Washington page off with his designation as an American Founding Father seems both necessary and appropriately descriptive, and removing his military service from the first sentence is, of course, omitting something determinative, as is the case with Grant and Eishenhower. Any changes in Washington's page probably should be left to the discussion there. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:10, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It seemed correct to me to describe Grant's career in two sentences, the first one mentioning his presidency and the second one mentioning his military career. The former text, "... military officer and politician who served ...", still requires two sentences, and the addition of "military officer" to the first sentence doesn't help the reader.

I reasoned similarly regarding Eisenhower. I noticed that I was removing a link from military officer to his military career page, but this link is a WP:EASTEREGG. There is a link to the same page in the infobox, but I recognize that this is an obscure place for it to be. The "normal" place to link to articles like this is in hatnotes at the beginning of sections. There are, of course, several section about Eisenhower's military activities. I would be happy to link to that article from any or all of those sections. Do you recommend just the first one, or all of them? Bruce leverett (talk) 03:43, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm opposed to a "rule." These are biography of whole lives, not presidential portraits. In any given case, it depends. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:52, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am missing some context. This topic (#First sentences) does not mention the word "rule". To what are you referring? Bruce leverett (talk) 03:28, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to be promoting a rule on first sentences. And its this rule that appears to ignore context, the context of the subject in the article. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:59, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure how to respond to this. As I said above, Generally speaking, I did not deliberately change emphasis, or downplay anything, anywhere. If I inadvertently did so, I would be interested in fixing it, while still adhering to my goal of removing unnecessary clutter. Bruce leverett (talk) 19:46, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, your rule appears to be, to declutter focus on just one specific aspect of these subjects. That is not the only way to declutter. Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:22, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't realize it until recently, but I was indeed following a published rule. From MOS:LEADCLUTTER:

Do not overload the first sentence by describing everything notable about the subject. Instead, spread the relevant information out over the entire lead.

I could have saved us all a lot of pontificating, if I had boned up on that area of policy, and cited it, before going on the warpath. Bruce leverett (talk) 17:08, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That rule is still not force one thing, regardless of context. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:39, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I really do not know what you have in mind here. There are three presidents for which the first sentence (and the first paragraph) was already done the way I have in mind, before I came along: Millard Fillmore, William Howard Taft, and Harry Truman. Would you say that in some way "force one thing, regardless of context" was followed for these articles, and if so, how do they look differently from how they should look? Bruce leverett (talk) 01:16, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I became aware of your rule's application on your now reverted edit to U.S. Grant. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:22, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ulysses S. Grant was promoted to FA in early 2015. Here is what its first paragraph looked like then:

Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant; April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885) was the 18th President of the United States (1869–77). As Commanding General, Grant worked closely with President Abraham Lincoln to lead the Union Army to victory over the Confederacy in the American Civil War. He implemented Congressional Reconstruction, often at odds with President Andrew Johnson. Twice elected president, Grant led the Republicans in their effort to remove the vestiges of Confederate nationalism and slavery, protect African American citizenship, and support economic prosperity nationwide. His presidency has often come under criticism for tolerating corruption and in his second term leading the nation into a severe economic depression.

There is emphasis on both Grant's Civil War military career and his presidential terms, but there is no "list of occupations." By 10 April 2021, the first paragraph looked like this:

Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant; /ˈhaɪrəm juːˈlɪsiːz/ HAHY-rəm yoo-LIS-eez; April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885) was the 18th president of the United States, serving from 1869 to 1877. As president, Grant was an effective civil rights executive who created the Justice Department and worked with the Radical Republicans during Reconstruction to protect African Americans. As Commanding General, he led the Union Army to victory in the American Civil War in 1865 and thereafter briefly served as Secretary of War.

It had been trimmed quite a bit, but there was still no "list of occupations". On 11 April 2021, an editor added "... an American military leader who ...". There was no edit summary, and this was that editor's last edit on Wikipedia (under that account). It was obviously redundant to add "American", and equally redundant to add "military leader". In the next few years, there was some haggling over "occupations", and so by the time I made my edit on 24 August 2024, the paragraph looked like this:

Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant;[b] April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885) was an American military officer and politician who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. As commanding general, Grant led the Union Army to victory in the American Civil War in 1865 and briefly served as U.S. secretary of war. An effective civil rights executive, Grant signed a bill to create the United States Department of Justice and worked with Radical Republicans to protect African Americans during Reconstruction.

The redundant phrase "military leader" had been replaced by the equally redundant "military officer and politician". My edit removed that and the other redundant stuff. The paragraph after my edit was identical (I think) to what it had been on 10 April 2021.

It doesn't appear to me that I modified focus or ignored context. The versions of the paragraph from 2015 and from 10 April 2021 look exemplary in their balanced treatment of the two main phases of Grant's career. The first paragraph doesn't mention all of the things he is notable for, for example, his Mexican War service and his world tour. They appear in later paragraphs in the lead section. That is normal for articles like this. Bruce leverett (talk) 20:12, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Eisenhower link seems fine to me, and relevant to the topic. It shouldn't surprise anyone who clicks on it, so not an easter egg as much as a fuller reading experience. Just a personal take on its usefulness. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:35, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for this clarification. I will defer to your judgment that it isn't an easter egg. But if and when I get back to this, I will carry out the idea of linking to Military career of Dwight D. Eisenhower with hatnotes in various sections of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Bruce leverett (talk) 03:51, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This question doesn't seem like it's that tricky, and I'm surprised to see a level of intensity above. MOS:FIRSTBIO says that the first sentence should convey "the main reason the person is notable". I would note that the wording there is singular, not plural, and the "main reason" each president is notable is their presidency. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 06:15, 12 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I will resume trying to improve the first sentences (and other parts of the lead paragraphs, when necessary) of the president articles, inasmuch as the conversation has largely died down.

There are two cases where the "main reason" the president is notable is not necessarily his presidency: Grant and Eisenhower. (I might even include some of the Founding Fathers in this.) I will respect the decisions of earlier editors as to which part of their careers to mention first. But one can adhere to MOS:REDUNDANCY and MOS:LEADCLUTTER regardless of these decisions. Bruce leverett (talk) 19:04, 12 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Let's not overlook Zachary Taylor's military career. Much like Dwight Eisenhower and Ulysses S. Grant, he was largely (if not entirely) known for that prior to Presidency. The Founding Fathers regardless were known for that role roughly as well as their Presidential terms of office. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 21:39, 12 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Saying 'X was an American politician' is not clutter. It sets basic yet important context for readers, and matches literally every other biography there. GiantSnowman 19:17, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Since this was a long and multi-threaded discussion, I'll repeat some of the highlights:

• 'X was an American politician' is not clutter, but it is redundant (MOS:REDUNDANCY), given that we are going to say 'X was the Nth president of the United States.' The presidency is a political office -- have ya noticed? -- and the president of the United States must be an American.
• Clutter arises in some of the articles, where we say something like 'X was an American politician, lawyer, and diplomat who ...'. MOS:LEADCLUTTER specifically warns us not to try to summarize the guy's whole career in the first sentence.

You have correctly observed that many of our presidential biographies have this kind of sludge in their first sentences. I have also seen it in other biographies, e.g. Winston Churchill, Otto von Bismarck. But neither MOS:LEAD nor MOS:FIRSTBIO instructs us to write this way. We are not filling out a form; we are writing an encyclopedia article. Bruce leverett (talk) 19:36, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

GA Andrew Fisher says otherwise. GiantSnowman 21:10, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Two things to say about this. I re-examined the one article that I have pushed to GA, Paul Morphy, and the one article that I have reviewed for GA, Vera Menchik. These both have the MOS:REDUNDANCY problem, in that they mention chess once to establish context, and again to describe notability. But it's not easy to solve the problem there, whereas it's easy and fun to get both context and notability in one succinct sentence, as in these presidential articles.

The second thing is that article history is worth examining. In the edit summary of this edit, an editor states that the vast majority of articles on U.S. presidents open by directly stating subject was president, not saying 'politician who was president', so that editor makes the kind of edit that I am proposing to make. Evidently, in the 13 years since then, somehow we went from the "vast majority" being concise, to only three being concise. I haven't found any obvious indication of why this happened. Some articles, such as Ulysses S. Grant and Chester A. Arthur, were using the concise style when they were promoted to FA, but were later modified to use the redundant style, not always with an edit summary to explain why. I suspect that there will always be editors who want to use the redundant style, and it's just one more item to add to the list of things I look for in my watch list every evening. Bruce leverett (talk) 01:19, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

...except it's not redundant. It only seems to be you pushing the change? GiantSnowman 13:59, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Take a closer look. At least one experienced editor has agreed with me in this discussion, and in actual edits to presidential articles, several editors have done reverts that I myself refrained from.

Can you explain what you have in mind with "not redundant"? I can't imagine that "American politician" would not be redundant next to "president of the United States". What am I missing? Bruce leverett (talk) 15:11, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• I agree 100% with User:Bruce leverett. There are way too many articles, even supposedly peer-reviewed ones, which try to cram everything into the first sentence, and there are way too many editors, even experienced ones, who think that repeating the same information several times adds emphasis. It does not, it merely looks bad, and we should all have let go of this thinking around the age of three or four. Repeating information does not make it more compelling; quite the contrary. John (talk) 18:02, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• I see that one of the examples in MOS:LEAD#Biographies' first sentences was written in the redundant style about which I am complaining. Accordingly, I have started a discussion at the talk page, Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section#Biographies' first sentences, to try to get some eyes on this. Bruce leverett (talk) 03:19, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Attempted assassination of Donald Trump#Requested move 15 September 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. RodRabelo7 (talk) 02:05, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Jimmy Carter turns 100 tomorrow! I hope it's not too late to submit for a mention of this on the Wikipedia home page somewhere. He's the first president to become a centenarian! TomCat4680 (talk) 10:05, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would fully support this! Just not sure whether it's currently possible. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 13:10, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

He made the "On this date in history" section at least. TomCat4680 (talk) 09:13, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No surprise at all, and I couldn't fathom why anybody would opt against doing so. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 12:02, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I still think the lead sentences of the articles about US presidential elections are clunky for no good reason.

The 1968 United States presidential election was the 46th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 5, 1968.

Half the information in this single sentence is provided twice. This is due to the insistence on starting the article with the article title in bold, despite that practice being against the Manual of Style (WP:AVOIDBOLD).

Then there is the "46th quadrennial". The ordinal number does not appear anywhere in the article body; nor ever in the lists of elections or in the texts of other articles. Thus I have to wonder: to whom does it matter? Same for the word quadrennial: not only is it not the most efficient way to convey that information, the information itself seems misplaced. Finally, I would do away with the day of the week, but that is the least of my concerns. The end result would be something like:

A presidential election was held in the United States on November 5, 1968.

or, alternatively:

In the United States presidential election held on November 5, 1968, the Republican nominee Richard Nixon defeated the Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey and the American Independent Party nominee George Wallace.

The shorter version contains much the same information as the current sentences minus the fluff, whereas the longer version summarizes the entire topic. I know that the clunky version has been in place for well over a decade but I believe we can do much better. Other suggestions would be much appreciated. Surtsicna (talk) 01:00, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In the second version, does it make sense for United States presidential election to be in bold?

In any case, I prefer the second version. Once you have removed the "fluff", the sentence does not stand very well on its own; combining it with the second sentence looks natural. Bruce leverett (talk) 02:00, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I concur with Bruce, and bolding is not reasonable or necessary here. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 03:29, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would not have boldface in the second sentence either because a prompt link to an essential article (United States presidential election) is far more useful to readers than boldface ever is. This is even addressed by MOS:BOLDLINKAVOID and MOS:TITLEABSENTBOLD. Surtsicna (talk) 07:26, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I also prefer the longer option and agree with the characterization of the status quo as clunky. GreatCaesarsGhost 19:50, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I oppose the unbolding of those pages. GoodDay (talk) 17:15, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

MOS:BOLDLEAD says that if the title is widely accepted for the subject and can be naturally included in the sentence, which I think both are true. I don't think BOLDAVOID is a reason to unbold them; the prior sentences read perfectly fine to me. SWinxy (talk) 20:44, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

MOS:BOLDLEAD links also to Wikipedia:Superfluous bolding explained, which tells us "how to avoid awkward, superfluous cramming of an article's title in bold into its first sentence". That is exactly what those sentences were. I would be much surprised if defining the 1968 presidential election as a presidential election that took place in 1968 were helpful to anyone. Surtsicna (talk) 21:32, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe this whole 'remove the bold title' from election pages, should be brought up at Wikipedia:WikiProject Elections and Referendums. For a bigger audiences, perhaps Village Pump would be better. It would (at least) avoid an inconsistency across all such pages, be it with the USA & other countries. GoodDay (talk) 13:26, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• I agree with Surtsicna's point about intros being clunky and that using the article title (and bolding it) in the opening sentence is unnecessary duplication (IMO election article titles don't really work properly with MOS:BOLDLEAD, probably because they are a formulaic construction rather than an actual name). Of the two options presented above, I would prefer the first, although I don't see what is wrong with the current intro ("Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 5, 1968"). Number 57 14:44, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm considering bringing this to Village Pump. Perhaps Surtsicna's idea, can be adopted for all election pages. GoodDay (talk) 15:36, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think this is something significant enough to need a village pump discussion. WT:E&R would be a more approrpriat venue if another were needed, but I'm not really convinced it is? Number 57 16:16, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am afraid that you do not understand. That is exactly what I would expect GoodDay to do. He is not happy with the consensus reached here so he will start a discussion elsewhere in hopes of undermining this one. Peak GoodDay, in fact, is starting an RfC without consulting anyone, framing the question in a way that (deliberately?) misses the core of the problem, and so ensuring the return to status quo (ante). Surtsicna (talk) 21:00, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't planning a RFC or trying to overturn anything. If you want, remove the bolded titles from all election pages. Seeing as nobody has reverted the changes on the 1788 to 2028 US prez election pages' intros? One would have to consider it as a sign of consensus for your changes. I just thought there could be a way to 'speed up' the process. GoodDay (talk) 21:58, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure if Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Congress and Wikipedia:WikiProject United States governors need to be notified. But, it would be best to remove the bold titling from all the US Senate, US House, stat/territory gubernatorial & lieutenant gubernatorial elections, too. Re-establishing consistency (at least) within the US election pages, is something to consider. GoodDay (talk) 22:16, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Evidently, the scope of Trump-related articles will drastically grow in the coming years. A previous attempt to establish a WikiProject for Trump himself failed, though the work of maintaining these articles remains. Thus, I am proposing a Trump task force within WikiProject United States Presidents to expand Second presidency of Donald Trump, update any articles that reference the current president by name e.g. List of current heads of state and government, and generally prevent vandalism or non-constructive edits through Inauguration Day and potentially beyond that. elijahpepe@wikipedia (he/him) 22:54, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

CC: Soibangla SecretName101 Valjean, as frequent AMPOL editors. elijahpepe@wikipedia (he/him) 06:48, 9 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I was actually just about to propose restoring WikiProject Donald Trump at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals, until I saw "Please do not create any new proposals until the new process is in place." My plan was to ping WP Donald Trump members to see if they would sign on as an interested participant, with the hope that enough signatures could override the vote to redirect. I don't see how having a Trump task force is better than having a Trump WikiProject. @ElijahPepe: Thoughts on redirecting Wikipedia:WikiProject United States Presidents/Donald Trump task force to Wikipedia:WikiProject Donald Trump? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 16:23, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, a move/update is already in progress per Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Donald_Trump#Task_force ---Another Believer _(Talk) 16:42, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm against establishing a WikiProject because the number of WikiProjects is quite large already and the scope of the Trump articles does not suggest we need one yet, but if consensus leans towards one, I suppose that's fine. elijahpepe@wikipedia (he/him) 16:47, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@ElijahPepe I couldn't care less if we call the project a WikiProject or a task force. Makes no difference, but here we go!

• Wikipedia:WikiProject United States Presidents/Donald Trump task force

---Another Believer _(Talk) 20:28, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Economic policy of the Joe Biden administration#Requested move 10 November 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. 𝚈𝚘𝚟𝚝 (𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚔𝚟𝚝) 00:04, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is a redirect discussion at Talk:Kai Trump#Proposed redirect that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. - Ratnahastin (talk) 04:38, 15 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]