Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States Presidents/Archive 7

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Template talk:US Presidents

There is some discussion on Template talk:US Presidents about how the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt must be mentioned. That article is recently split and the gives multiple options and page owners. I would appreciate any opinions on Template_talk:US Presidents#FDR disambiguation. The Banner talk 19:45, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Clarify "page owners". GoodDay (talk) 20:04, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Gettysburg Address Featured article review

I have nominated Gettysburg Address for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:05, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Relevant discussion at Talk:Joe Biden

There is currently a discussion (which can be found here) at Talk:Joe Biden which could potentially impact several articles related to presidents. Input from this community would be appreciated. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 21:47, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

The proposal made there, to remove a sidebar, is entirely in line with Wikipedia:WikiProject United States Presidents/Series Boxes, so the potential impact may be overstated. Input is welcome, however. Surtsicna (talk) 21:52, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Good Article Reassessment for Second impeachment trial of Donald Trump

Second impeachment trial of Donald Trump, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 20:35, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Removal of all series boxes

Recently editor User:GoodDay has removed almost all the series boxes from U.S. president biographies; for example see Ulysses S. Grant. Was this as a result of a discussion in this project? Bruce leverett (talk) 19:53, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

There's no such 'series' boxes at President Joe Biden's & Vice President Kamala Harris's bio articles. Nor were there any at nearly all the other vice president bios. See discussion directly above. GoodDay (talk) 19:58, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Personally, I think this is ridiculously rash and, now that it has been challenged, should be swiftly reverted so this can be discussed in finality. I do, however, thank you for proving the point I made above that others were not keen to heed. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 20:17, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

My impression of the discussions at Talk:Joe Biden was that consensus was not achieved. Also, since all the presidential bios were affected, evidently the discussion should have been here, not at Talk:Joe Biden.

There are a couple of reasons why simply deleting the sidebars is less than ideal:

There really is an entity called a "series", and if you go to the other articles in the series, they have identical sidebars. Now with, for example, Ulysses S. Grant, the "series" of articles about Grant still exists, but it doesn't include the full-length bio of Grant, which otherwise might be considered the "flagship" of the series. This doesn't make sense and is likely to be confusing for casual readers.

The edit summary, "These 'series' boxes, crowd up the infobox", doesn't make sense. At Ulysses S. Grant, for example, there is now a big blank space where the sidebar used to be. I'm not sure the notion of "crowding" is even meaningful here. The infobox is no more difficult to read with the sidebar than without. What esthetic criterion are you trying to adhere to? I do not like big empty spaces at the beginning of articles.

I realize that there is (was) duplication between the sidebars and the navboxes at the bottom of the articles. It is not obvious to me that this is a fatal problem or, if it is, that it can be solved simply by blowing away the sidebars. Bruce leverett (talk) 20:38, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

The boxes/sidebars don't add anything to the bios articles, IMHO. Perhaps an RFC covering this topic should be opened. GoodDay (talk) 20:41, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

@Politicsfan4: has taken it upon himself, to unilaterally restore those useless boxes. GoodDay (talk) 01:28, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

@GoodDay: How are they useless? They direct the reader to related articles about the subject. I don’t understand why they were removed in the first place. — Politicsfan4 (talk) 13:32, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

Basically, the same the reason they were removed at Biden & Harris. @Surtsicna:'s correct, they should be deleted. GoodDay (talk) 13:46, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

You took it upon yourself to unilaterally delete them. Meet WP:BRD. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 18:27, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

There was inconsistency across the US presidents & vice presidents bios, concerning the inclusion/exclusion of the boxes-in-question. I had to be bold via deletions & make a few editors aware of it. GoodDay (talk) 23:23, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

A discussion parallel to this one is taking place at User Talk:GoodDay#President series boxes. Bruce leverett (talk) 20:46, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

It seems I had a similiar to discussion at User Talk:GoodDay#President series boxes, but essentially currently neutral on the matter of president series boxes, but looking to forumlate an RfC on the matter at hand if deemed necessary. However, we should restore the status quo of having the series boxes on the articles that had them already since there does not currently seem to consensus for removal at this current time. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 22:55, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

The sidebars are intrusive behemoths that wreck the layout of biographical articles and are entirely identical in content to the other navboxes that appear in the articles. The sidebars:

• regularly invade Early life sections, frequently even starting in them, which pushes images downwards into sections in which they do not belong (thus contravening MOS:IMAGELOCATION) or squeezes text between the navboxes and the images (contravening MOS:SANDWICH).
• lead to one image appearing twice in a row (as the sidebar almost always contains the infobox image) and often three times altogether (as the bottom navboxes also contain them)
• place images of subjects in their adulthood into sections discussing their childhoods
• place irrelevant links (e.g. to articles about their economic policies) in sections discussing the subject's infancy

And for what is the layout so utterly destroyed? All those links appear in the lead section or in the Table of Contents anyway. I cannot find any discussion that resulted in the consensus that these sidebars should be added; they just pop up one day, springing up like mushrooms. Surtsicna (talk) 19:04, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Well, tastes differ, I suppose.

The sidebar that got me into this discussion, the series box in Ulysses S. Grant, did not have the unfortunate qualities you describe. It was in some ways more useful than the navbox at the end of the article: it was more focused (e.g. it didn't have links to the articles about Grant's parents, children, and other family), and it was, well, up near the beginning of the article. I do not know exactly when it sprang up like a mushroom; it was already there when the article was brought to FA in 2015.

Anyway, article series have been around for a long time (see WP:Article series, and WP:Navigation template mentions both sidebars and navboxes, without giving much guidance as to when to prefer one or the other. Bruce leverett (talk) 19:39, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Reagan's article is good example of how 'out-of-control' these intrusive series boxes/side bars, have become. GoodDay (talk) 20:12, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

If you are reacting to the fact that the infobox + 2 series boxes together stretch from the top down well into the "Entertainment career" section, then I agree that we aren't getting our money's worth from all those boxes. Putting stuff into a box at the beginning of the article can be a helpful way to give it more emphasis, but if you emphasize everything, you end up emphasizing nothing.

Here are a few general recommendations:

• The infobox looks too long. A ruler is telling me this. It's only slightly longer than the infobox for Ulysses S. Grant, but that just means that they are both too long.
• The first series box could be more focused. It should link to popular articles, and not link to obscure articles. Then it would be shorter, but almost as useful.
• The first series box should not link to sections of the present article. For example it has links to "Early life" and "Career". The sidebar is being used as a table of contents. This is wrong.

WP:Navigation template has some suggestions about cutting the sidebar down to a reasonable size. I don't want to get specific here, because decisions about what to slice out in some cases are best made by people who are familiar with the topic, which I am not. But indeed, sidebars lose effectiveness when they get too big. By the way, WP:Navigation template also says, "Few articles have more than one sidebar". But I am definitely not unhappy about the Conservatism sidebar. Though I am not conservative, it makes perfect sense to me to have that set of conservative politicians in an easily navigable sidebar. Bruce leverett (talk) 02:00, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

I could not care less about the "series" when they stay put in the blank space between the infobox and the first section. I still see no need or use for them but I find it easy enough to ignore them. I oppose them when they affect the layout. I agree with Bruce leverett regarding the length of infoboxes; some common sense restraint vis-à-vis those would be very helpful too. Surtsicna (talk) 10:06, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

If you don't personally use some navigational aid, that doesn't give you license to just blow it away. This is Wikipedia, we're supposed to be collaborating here. Let's especially show a little restraint of our destructive impulses, when editing articles that have been Featured Articles or even just Good Articles in the near past.

No one has stepped forward to actually undo all the deletions of series boxes. Am I going to have to do this myself? I'll need about an hour, looks like that's how long it took to do the deletions originally. Bruce leverett (talk) 02:46, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Similarly if you personally do use it, it does not give you license to blow it all over Wikipedia. The addition of these was never discussed. And the addition of these is what I call destructive impulses because they destroy the layout. These sidebars were also added after the articles reached FA or GA status so their inclusion can in no way be held to have contributed. The points I raised cannot be dismissed as a difference in taste, not least because of the guidelines specifically addressing the issues resulting from the inclusion of these extraneous navboxes. Surtsicna (talk) 08:15, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

@Spy-cicle: I have restored the deleted series boxes (and some others that had been deleted in the same sweep).

I would appreciate if you would bother to respond to my arguments, specifically those citing guidelines violated by the inconsiderate use of these templates. Surtsicna (talk) 08:19, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

There never was a discussion to reach a consensus to add those 'series boxes' & 'side bars' to those bios, to begin with, AFAIK. GoodDay (talk)

A lot of these were added only last month, and indeed without any prior discussion or general consensus that biographies need sidebars. To restore them now when they are clearly contentious is not helpful. See WP:ONUS: "The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content." But since this creep has apparently extended to biographies of politicians worldwide, I have started a discussion at the more general politics wikiproject. If a discussion there does not produce a clear consensus, we can formulate an RfC question together. Right now I do not even know what I would ask. Surtsicna (talk) 12:00, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

One solution would be to allow series boxes on U.S presidential pages which do not have an individual navbox template. Many presidents are still without a navbox, including 20th century office holders McKinley and Harding and most of the 19th century presidents. If they don't have one (and their creation should be encouraged) then a series box seems appropriate. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:42, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

That still leaves the question of layout problems unanswered. Is it not possible to have navboxes instead of the series sidebars as the standard navigational templates? Surtsicna (talk) 12:46, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Footer navboxes seem standard already, or at least acceptable as the main navbox form. Non-footers such as the series being discussed don't have to be placed at the start of the article and can be appear anywhere on the page where room allows. I'm not a fan of series boxes, mainly because of the redundancy to navboxes and their outsized presentation (a related pet peeve: the size of the unneeded giant maps in infoboxes, which throw layouts off in a similar manner), yet when they are not redundant they have value even if they have to be awkwardly placed in See also or other low-on-the-page sections. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:58, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

It would be an interesting thing, if such a thing could be arranged, to see which are utilized/liked more by our customers/readership, the navboxes or the series boxes. Personally, I think most readers don't notice the navboxes, way down at the bottom of articles. Editors notice them, we put them there, we put the boxes together but I would bet that if a survey was done that most readers don't see the navboxes or the Categories, etc.. The series boxes, however they might mash up the content, however much some of us dislike them, for better or for worse are seen and are highly-visible. I think the idea to at least include the series boxes on the articles that don't have the bottom-dwelling navboxes is a practical and useful one. Shearonink (talk) 13:25, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

One drawback is that navboxes aren't seen on mobile views. Yes, I also doubt that many average or lead-only readers will find them, but I also assume that researchers, writers, historians and others will figure them out, utilize them, and even make correctional edits (the latter sounds good in theory but seldom occurs). Randy Kryn (talk) 13:35, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Seen and highly visible indeed, often at the expense of other content and general layout. Is repeating the links and images that are already found in the infobox, the table of content, and the lead section more important than having unique images in the right place? Surtsicna (talk) 13:59, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Surtsicna I think series boxes are useful, some might agree, others don't - if they go from the US Presidential articles I won't shed a tear, if that's the editorial consensus so be it. I was speaking mostly about our customers, Wikipedia readers in general, and what they see & read & notice & what they might find useful. A summary of other associated articles, presented in a visually appealing format is not necessarily a Bad Thing - is there any way to have the series boxes be hide-show and perhaps placed in See Also? I appreciate your points Surtsicna re: how the boxes can mash up the accepted layout. And Randy Kryn's point about the mobile view was interesting, I didn't know that. (Oh, and about outsized infoboxes...tangential to this discussion but hoo-boy, take a look at Syrian civil war...I tried once to get that trimmed to a more manageable size and just gave up...) Shearonink (talk) 14:55, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude, User:Surtsicna has raised some legitimate questions. When there is an RfC for this, the RfC will be the place to have this discussion, and everything we have said here will need to be transplanted there, so I thought it was a high priority to get the reverts done so that User:Spy-cicle could proceed. Also, Wikipedia is only a hobby for me -- I can't always find the time to make immediate responses.

I generally agree with what User:Randy Kryn and User:Shearonink have said, as well as with some earlier comments by User:AllegedlyHuman.

I see series boxes as valuable, not least because they are more prominent than end-of-article navboxes. Of course, it's the prominence that causes format issues. But if a user is learning about U.S. Grant, he/she wants to click back and forth between related articles easily, and top-of-article is better than bottom-of-article for that. Redundancy is not a fatal flaw -- an article with both a series box and a navbox is not the worse for it. However, due to the high price of top-of-article real estate, series boxes should be more "focused"; for instance, there is not room for links to all the articles about the president's family members.

I am annoyed by the formatting issues, but I don't see them as critical to deciding whether or not to include the sidebars. An encyclopedia article is not a work of visual art. Above all it has to be useful for readers. I don't like the idea of sacrificing valuable material because it must be placed next to material that is not clearly related.

For the presidents, there are in most cases quite a few "related" articles. So both series boxes and navboxes have the potential to be useful, and it makes sense to add them to articles that don't already have them.

Besides Ulysses S. Grant, which became a Featured Article when it already had a series box (2015), I noticed that Franklin D. Roosevelt became a Good Article when it already had a series box (2018). But, that is not a general pattern. Most of the Presidents that have been Featured Articles became so many years ago. Also, I won't dispute the claim that most of the series boxes are less than a year old, but as you can see, some of them are quite a bit older. I am sure that more than one editor has been involved in adding them. Bruce leverett (talk) 18:40, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

As mentioned earlier, these series boxes/side bars were added in to many politician bios, from different countries. All without any consensus for such additions. GoodDay (talk) 19:37, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Consensus isn't required to add to an article per WP:BOLD unless there was a discussion already saying there was no consensus, and in this case there definitely wasn't. -DJSasso (talk) 21:49, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

An info box is optional, but you don’t normally seek consensus before adding one (unless it already has one). Likewise for other useful tweaks. Bruce leverett (talk) 22:26, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

But consensus is required to restore it when challenged, right? The layout affects how information is perceived. In my opinion, formatting issues are critical because I do not think it is useful for readers to have two identical images in one section while valuable images are pushed where they are not relevant. Surtsicna (talk) 14:13, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Consensus is required when ... consensus is required. In editing some very high-profile pages (Presidents of the United States), in removing stuff from them that was substantial and was not outright vandalism, in editing 30 of them at once, common sense should have suggested checking with the Presidents project. But, it's not a capital crime, and we're past that stage now. We're back to the "status quo", give or take (I left Joe Biden alone, and the vice presidents). It's easier to have the conversation about changing something when it's not a fait accompli. Bruce leverett (talk) 18:24, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Those boxes should never have been put into these articles, without prior discussion. PS: When are we having an RFC on this topic, which actually cover many politician bio articles. GoodDay (talk) 19:23, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

RfC prep

Okay in preparation for this RfC, these are the possible options I have thought about listing. But before I start it, I am requesting feedback if we need greater or fewer options, or rewording. Thanks  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 17:53, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Question 1: On Presidental series boxes

• Option A: Add/Keep all US president series boxes on their main biographical article
• Option B: Remove all US president series boxes from their main biographical article
• Option C: Shift all US presidental series boxes from their biographical article to their dedicated 'presidency' article (suggested by GoodDay)
• Option D: Auto-collapse all the presidental series boxes on their main biographical article
• Option E: Do nothing/Decide on an article-by-article basis
• Option F: Something else.

Question 2: On Vice-presidental series boxes

• Option A: Add/Keep all US vice-presidental series boxes on their main biographical article
• Option B: Remove all US vice-presidental series boxes from their main biographical article
• Option C: Shift all US vice-presidental series boxes from their biographical article to their dedicated 'vice-presidency' or other related pages in the series box, like campaign articles (suggested by GoodDay; Only one dedicated vice-presidency article exists so would mostly have to be placed on related pages from the series box)
• Option D: Auto-collapse all the vice-presidental series boxes on their main biographical article
• Option E: Do nothing/Decide on an article-by-article basis
• Option F: Something else

Discussion (RfC prep)

• B (first), C (second), for both the presidential & vice presidential bios. GoodDay (talk) 18:54, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

  @GoodDay: I hope you did not miss my intial comment above, but this is just the preparation area to ensure we have all the options first before starting the formal RfC.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 01:39, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

  Oops, guess I was over eager :) GoodDay (talk) 01:41, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Are we supposed to agree on the options first here before starting the RfC? I would first like to discuss the possibility of collapsing the sidebars as an alternative to removal. Surtsicna (talk) 23:38, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

@Surtsicna: Well my intial idea here was make sure there are enough options, that were unambious/clear enough before starting so more options do not have to be added in later. I certainly can add an option about auto-collasping the series boxes, though MOS:DONTHIDE advises against that.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 00:59, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

MOS:DONTHIDE seems to make an exception for navigational templates, and quite a lot of sidebars I see are fully or partially collapsed (e.g. Template:Conservatism US, Template:British royal family). Surtsicna (talk) 01:17, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

@Surtsicna: Fair point, I have added the option above (now option D).  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 01:36, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

• I'll leave this 'Prep area' up for a few days to see if any more option should be added before starting formally. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 01:39, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

I hope someone will be able to show us how the sidebars would look collapsed. Surtsicna (talk) 01:39, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

@Surtsicna: Unfournately, I am not familiar enough with the template to know. Perhaps someone who does, will be able to assist once the full RfC starts.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 21:46, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

RFC

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

---

Survey (Question 1 - president series boxes)

Question 1: How should we handle US president series boxes on articles (Example series box, Category)?  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 22:02, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

• Option A: Add/Keep all US president series boxes on their main biographical article
• Option B: Remove all US president series boxes from their main biographical article
• Option C: Shift all US presidental series boxes from their biographical article to their dedicated 'presidency' article (suggested by GoodDay)
• Option D: Auto-collapse all the presidental series boxes on their main biographical article (suggested by Surtsicna)
• Option E: Do nothing/Decide on an article-by-article basis
• Option F: Something else.

Discussion (Question 1 - president series boxes)

• B is my first choice, C my second. GoodDay (talk) 22:19, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
• C then B ~ HAL333 00:02, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
• E, case by case. I was in favor of D for all, as it would seem the best solution and page-presentation option to keep them on the page, and would like to see how the templates linked in the questions look collapsed. But also noticed that there's more than enough room for it to stay expanded on VP Pence's page given the large Contents list. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:50, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
• B, C and D would all solve the greatest of the problems listed here, which is layout being compromised by huge stacked templates (leading to the contravention of either MOS:IMAGELOCATION or MOS:SANDWICH or the loss of valuable childhood images). Going with C and particularly B would mean that the articles we would no longer contain two navigational templates with identical content (navbox at the bottom and sidebar in the body). But D is, I think, a reasonable compromise that achieves keeping the template without sacrificing layout. Surtsicna (talk) 04:44, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
• E in general, as I'm sure it would fit fine on many articles, but D in cases where it would cause image placement issues or a stack of templates large enough to affect the rendering of the article. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:35, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
• D, then C - I definitely feel like the series boxes for presidents are useful enough to warrant being on the page, and it seems that autocollapsing them would make them easily accessible without messing up the formatting. I won't oppose transferring them to the presidency articles, but that would be in effect relegating them to lesser read articles. PraiseVivec (talk) 19:17, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
• E, then D. The sidebars currently do not have hide/show buttons, and it could be quite helpful to add such buttons. But I am not sure what the best setting of the buttons should be, or whether it should be decided case-by-case, since there seems to be a lot of variability among the President articles in things like the size and variety of articles in the series, the size of the infobox (which influences placement at the top of the article), and so on. I do not like C, transferring to the presidency articles, because it would be illogical and confusing for a series of articles about President XYZ to not include the main biographical article about XYZ. Bruce leverett (talk) 19:27, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
• D and then E. I think auto-collapsing all the series boxes would be a good move, so if a reader wants to read its contents just clicks on it and those who are not interested just bypass it. This also solves the layout issues when collapsed; when opened, it probably wouldn't be an issue for editors interested in its contents. Regarding duplication with navboxes, per WP:SIDEBAR I am understanding that it should be either a sidebar or navbox. The problem is that some editors are sensitive to some links that may be in one but not in the other. Ideally sidebars and navboxes should contain the same links, in which case one or the other can be removed, but if they don't contain the same links, then it is a showdown between duplication vs removing wanted content. Therefore, the removal of the sidebar (series box) should be discussed in a case by case basis, per WP:BIDIRECTIONAL. Thinker78 (talk) 19:42, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
• E and then D. Sea Ane (talk) 22:09, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
• D and then E- auto collapsing is a good idea and will make them easily accessible without interfering with the formatting, and as for the sidebars, to be discussed on a case to case basis. BristolTreeHouse (talk) 15:06, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
• F then D then E. Why not have each sub-section autocollapse, rather than the whole box? The fundamental issue here is that they take up waaay too much space, but at the same time autohiding them would make many users completely miss their contents. Hentheden (talk) 23:57, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
• D which stands for "keep the boxes but improve the formatting." -The Gnome (talk) 09:53, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
• D then E I think updating the formatting would go a long way to helping but I also thing this should be case by case. -DJSasso (talk) 19:52, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Survey (Question 2 - vice-president series boxes)

Question 2: How should we handle US vice-president series boxes on articles (Example series box, no specific US vice-president series Category found likely due to not many of them exist but perhaps some could be made depending on the outcome of RfC)?  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 22:02, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

• Option A: Add/Keep all US vice-presidental series boxes on their main biographical article
• Option B: Remove all US vice-presidental series boxes from their main biographical article
• Option C: Shift all US vice-presidental series boxes from their biographical article to their dedicated 'vice-presidency' or other related pages in the series box, like campaign articles (suggested by GoodDay; Only one dedicated vice-presidency article exists so would mostly have to be placed on related pages from the series box)
• Option D: Auto-collapse all the vice-presidental series boxes on their main biographical article (suggested by Surtsicna)
• Option E: Do nothing/Decide on an article-by-article basis
• Option F: Something else

Discussion (Question 2 - vice-president series boxes)

• B is my first choice. C is my second. GoodDay (talk) 22:20, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
• C then B ~ HAL333 00:03, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
• E, case by case. I was in favor of D for all, as it would seem the best solution and page-presentation option to keep them on the page, and would like to see how the template linked in the question looks collapsed. But noticed there's more than enough room for it to stay expanded on Pence's page given the large Contents list. I never saw Mike Pence's signature before, can't figure out what he's trying to draw. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:50, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
• B, C, and D all address layout issues described above. I am leaning more towards B and C because I dislike template creep and think sidebar use should be exceptional. But D is, I think, a fair compromise. Surtsicna (talk) 04:47, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
• E in general, as I'm sure it would fit fine on many articles, but D in cases where it would cause image placement issues or a stack of templates large enough to affect the rendering of the article. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:36, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
• D, then C - As mentioned above, autocollapsing would solve the formatting issue, while keeping the boxes easily available. PraiseVivec (talk) 19:19, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
• E, then D. I am copying my comment from Question 1 to Question 2, although I have not closely examined the vice-presidential articles, as I assume the same general considerations apply: The sidebars currently do not have hide/show buttons, and it could be quite helpful to add such buttons. But I am not sure what the best setting of the buttons should be, or whether it should be decided case-by-case, since there seems to be a lot of variability among the President articles in things like the size and variety of articles in the series, the size of the infobox (which influences placement at the top of the article), and so on. I do not like C, transferring to the vice-presidency articles, because it would be illogical and confusing for a series of articles about Vice-President XYZ to not include the main biographical article about XYZ.
• E and then D. Sea Ane (talk) 22:09, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
• D and then E- auto collapsing is a good idea and will make them easily accessible without interfering with the formatting, and as for the sidebars, to be discussed on a case to case basis. BristolTreeHouse (talk) 15:10, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
• F then E. Same as presidential boxes: why not have each sub-section autocollapse, rather than the whole box? The VP ones don't always take up as much space, and the risk of users missing their contents is therefore too great to just autocollapse all of them! Hentheden (talk) 23:59, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
• D then E I think fixing the formatting would go along way to fixing the issue, but I also think case by case works. -DJSasso (talk) 19:53, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Discussion (president series boxes overall)

@Randy Kryn, Shearonink, Djsasso, Politicsfan4, Surtsicna, AllegedlyHuman, GoodDay, and Bruce leverett: Ping users involved in the initial discussion that a formal RfC has been started above.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 22:07, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

[1] @Shearonink: you mentioned you could notify the affected articles' talkpages + the related WikiProjects, could you do so? Thanks :) Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 22:12, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

I have placed FYI templates on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics, and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States. There are other WikiProjects and sub-projects/Work Groups that might seem pertinent but many of them seem to be semi-active. Keeping WP:CANVAS in mind I am somewhat hesitant to place notices on all the associated individual Pres & VP articles...about 90 different articles I think. Shearonink (talk) 21:08, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

@Shearonink: Thank you for placing those WikiProject notifications. You make a fair point about WP:CANVAS. However, in this case per WP:APPNOTE third bullet point says: The talk page of one or more directly related articles.. The result of this RfC will directly affect the content on those President and VP articles so I feel it may be unfair to those editors who do not follow the WikiProjects and just some of the articles to voice their opinion here. In this case as long as the notification is brief and neutral I do not think it would be canvassing on this occassion.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 19:24, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Added to Template:Centralized discussion.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 22:16, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

• Spy-cicle What is going on here? Is there an RfC or not? You're causing damage to the RfC listings, and people are being informed of an RfC that doesn't actually exist. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:43, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

  @Redrose64: Apologies yes there is an RfC supposed to be 2 RfCs (1 for regular US presidents and a second for vice-presidents) however I tried listing both it did not properly transclude any text on the RfC subpages. It could be to do with simliar RfC IDs? I am not sure first time doing 2 on the same page. Could you advise as to how to fix it? Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 22:47, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

  Looking at the history of this page, you made two mistakes: one was to omit your signature from the RfC statements (see WP:RFCST); the second was to place a second {{rfc}} tag before Legobot had visited the first (see WP:RFC#Multiple simultaneous RfCs on one page). The thing to do is to restore the two lines with the DoNotArchiveUntil information and {{rfc}} tag to just one of the questions, exactly as it had been left by Legobot. Then on the other question, add one line
  {{rfc|bio|pol|tech}}
  exactly as it had been before Legobot's visit. At 00:01, 15 July 2021 (UTC), Legobot will visit the page again, and finish off the job correctly. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:09, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

  @Redrose64: Thank you very much for explaining it to me, seems to be working now. Hopefully I do not muck it up the next time I need to do multiple RfCs on one page.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 00:06, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

• Comment - With so many options, it would be ideal to narrow it gradually down to the top two choices. Then have an RFC on it. GoodDay (talk) 20:53, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

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

FAR notice

I have nominated William Henry Harrison for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Sahaib3005 (talk) 17:37, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Short description consistency

For the Wikipedia pages of U.S. presidents, the majority of the short descriptions follow this format: 50th president of the United States (2037-2041). A few omit the dates.

When I endeavored to add dates for two presidents where the dates were missing, editor @SNUGGUMS: reverted with the message This field is supposed to be concise, so adding years defeats the purpose.

I'd like to know the consensus of more editors.

For me, I think knowing that Theodore Roosevelt was president 1901-1909 is much more informative description than knowing he was number 26. I know a short description is to be concise, but it is also supposed to be useful. I don't think adding the dates harms concision very much, while adding a lot to descriptive power.

Anyway, having had two of these reverted, and in order to promote a consistent decision, I think a talk page discussion is in order. Wikiproject Presidents seemed like the logical population. -- M.boli (talk) 16:23, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

To be honest, I wouldn't recommend including years served for the short description of other Presidents either for the same reason I gave in that revert. It's not a field we should fill up with so much detail. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 20:48, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

I suggest omitting the "50th", but keeping the dates. The "50th" is not a very useful number. People only started using that number when the 2nd George Bush came along and they had to distinguish him from the 1st. Who knows the number for any president before the elder Bush? But the dates, they're instantly recognizable. Bruce leverett (talk) 02:08, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

I sampled some articles about English royalty, and they used dates, but I wouldn't claim that there was a uniform format. Bruce leverett (talk) 02:12, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

White House New Year's Reception

I created this article last year: White House New Year's Reception. Any help improving it would be appreciated! Thank you, Thriley (talk) 08:23, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

RfC notification

A request for comment that may interest members of this project has been opened at Talk:Donald Trump § RfC: Should the lead section have any citations?. ––FormalDude talk 19:51, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

User script to detect unreliable sources

Main page: User:Headbomb/unreliable

I have (with the help of others) made a small user script to detect and highlight various links to unreliable sources and predatory journals. Some of you may already be familiar with it, given it is currently the 39th most imported script on Wikipedia. The idea is that it takes something like

• John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14. (John Smith "[https://www.deprecated.com/article Article of things]" ''Deprecated.com''. Accessed 2020-02-14.)

and turns it into something like

• John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14.

It will work on a variety of links, including those from {{cite web}}, {{cite journal}} and {{doi}}.

The script is mostly based on WP:RSPSOURCES, WP:NPPSG and WP:CITEWATCH and a good dose of common sense. I'm always expanding coverage and tweaking the script's logic, so general feedback and suggestions to expand coverage to other unreliable sources are always welcomed.

Do note that this is not a script to be mindlessly used, and several caveats apply. Details and instructions are available at User:Headbomb/unreliable. Questions, comments and requests can be made at User talk:Headbomb/unreliable.

- Headbomb {t · c · p · b}

This is a one time notice and can't be unsubscribed from. Delivered by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:02, 29 April 2022 (UTC)