Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States Presidents

Proof read for draft article

Hello, I just was wondering if anyone could help me to improve an article that I am creating that is a table of US presidents heights and weights. It can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Heights_and_weights_of_US_presidents. If you could help me that would be greatly appreciated. Pickup Andropov (talk) 15:53, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Timeline of the Donald Trump presidency#Requested move 26 May 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Timeline of the Donald Trump presidency#Requested move 26 May 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 04:25, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Prosecution of Donald Trump in New York#Requested move 31 May 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Prosecution of Donald Trump in New York#Requested move 31 May 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. RodRabelo7 (talk) 18:49, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Presidency Navigation Templates vs. Biography Navigation Templates

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

My 2¢, by invitation

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

...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)

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)