Template talk:US Presidents

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Previously unsectioned comments

I guarantee you the "8 Others" by tomorrow. - Wikipedia 23:18, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Hm, that was fast... - Wikipedia 23:25, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

This table is ridiculous. Footers are not replacements for lists. Now we can't easily navigate from president to president. I will revert if i find no good reason to keep. --Jiang 00:12, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

What exactly do you mean? If I can't make sense of a question, how can I answer? - Wikipedia 00:23, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Jiang, I don't really like it either, although I tried to clean it up. It's incredibly crowded, and it replaces the standard incumbent table. There's no real reason to leap from Eisenhower to John Quincy Adams, there is a reason to go from Eisenhower to Kennedy. Also, why is your username written as Wikipedia? That seems kind of sneaky. jengod 00:35, Mar 19, 2004 (UTC)

I'll write my name however I want! Is there a reason to jump from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets? Is there really a reason to jump from Arizona to the U.S. Virgin Islands? - Wikipedia 00:39, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Grover Cleveland should be put in once for each term to show chronological order. - Wikipedia 00:43, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

A fact that used to be indicated by the incumbent table. I think this should have been discussed on Talk:President of the United States before you unilaterally decided to "update" the president pages. jengod 00:46, Mar 19, 2004 (UTC)

Is this really such a big change? I'm adding information and that is all! I'm not removing or changing anything, I'm just linking each president to every other president! - Calmypal 01:01, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

You are making a stupid change. Harry Potter only has a few items. The Virgin Islands and Arizona have no clear chronological order. The presidents do. --Jiang

I think that for things which come in chronological order (like U.S. presidents), the succession box should be used. For relatively short, absolutely-set lists of items, the listbox is occasionally acceptable. - Seth Ilys 01:05, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Don't remove comments that were not your own or attributed to you, Jiang. "Absolutely-set"? Why is this? - Woodrow 01:09, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I reverted your edit becuase your name was made to create mass horizontal expansion. --Jiang

Whatever you believe, you do not have the right to erase my comments. Whatever happened to the page itself, it had no real effect on the chat. - Woodrow 01:14, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Hey, I reverted Timwi up to James Buchanan, but I have to go do another thing now. Could someone take over. I'm also adding this to VFD so it doesn't happen again. Thanks. jengod 19:27, Mar 20, 2004 (UTC)

What is wrong with this? There's reason to go from, say, John Adams to John Quincy Adams, or Abe Lincoln to James Garfield, and we can still go from Eisenhower to Kennedy. - Woodrow 20:04, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Where's Timwi to discuss and defend this? I guess I'll have to revert again. --Jiang 21:37, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Or not. - Woodrow 21:43, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Presidents of the Continental Congress were not U.S. Presidents, and the office of President of the Continental Congress was not a forerunner of the office of U.S. President. The two should not be mixed up in the same message. -- Nunh-huh 21:46, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Look, I think it's gratutious, clunky, overstuffed, superfluous and more, but I'm willing to compromise--how about we do both the incumbent tables and the msg:Uspresident? I think that the incumbent table is imperative, not least because several were also VP incumbents or other incumbents. The msg:Uspresidents is not just not an added-value. jengod 21:48, Mar 20, 2004 (UTC)

Whatever else happens, the predecessor/sucessor information should take precedence. I personally see no need for the larger box. If there is a meaningful link between James Buchanan and Woodrow Wilson, then it will appear in the text of the Buchanan article. Otherwise, it is link-bloat. The idea that a reader would have to wade through the the Continental Congress presidents to get to the successor of William Howard Taft is simply ridiculous. -- Decumanus | Talk 22:05, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

With the original version of this message, the Vice President incumbent tables were shown inside the box. If that would work now, I'd agree with this idea. The incumbent tables pretty much mirror information that's in the table at the top of the page anyway. - Woodrow 22:10, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

P.S. Please explain the meaning of that last sentence, Jengod...

You know what? I think I've started the largest edit war ever: one spanning about 51 articles. - Woodrow 22:16, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

From Calmypal's talk page:

Please stop adding the footer because it is a waste of time. I will revert it as long as you fail to convince us of its need and create a consensus to use it. --Jiang

As long as you can keep removing it, I can keep adding it. - Woodrow 22:05, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

What do you mean "who's responsible" (see page history)? - Woodrow 22:27, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I'm asking you to discuss this and you dont seem interested. --Jiang
I want to discuss this, but I'm losing patience. All evidence has been presented, all we can do is deliberate. It would be foolish of me to make a table of every company president, President of Georgia, President of Mexico, and so on, but the U.S. presidents are relevant to each other. - Woodrow 22:36, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The reason msg's like this are not encouraged is because there are some heads of state who are one in a list of hundreds. It would be completely unfeasible to have something like this for the Popes, for example. That is why there are little navigation tables with the previous and succeeding people, rather than a big list of everyone at the end. There is no reason to do it differently for US presidents. If you want to do something constructive, you could find a way to make the current tables more attractive. Adam Bishop 22:33, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Popes? No, completely unfeasible. U.S. Presidents? Feasible, obviously, for, as you can see, I have already done it. - Woodrow 22:36, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)
That's irrelevant. Adam Bishop 22:37, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

From John Kerry's talk page:
Normally, we count George Washington as the first President, and John Kerry will be the 44th. However, according to a rectangular box at the bottom of George Washington's article, I now see 8 Presidents of Continential Congress, making George Washington the ninth President and John Kerry the 52nd. User 66.32.68.243
First of all, John Kerry will have to be elected before he becomes any number president. Second, we do not count Presidents of the Continental Congress in the sequencing, since they were presidents of that Congress, and not the executive of the United States. Cecropia 21:16, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC) jengod 23:22, Mar 20, 2004 (UTC)

I'm not calling them Presidents of the United States, I'm calling them Presidents of the Continental Congress. - Woodrow 23:25, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Look, it doesn't matter, the US presidents don't get a MediaWiki message like this because no heads of states do. That's really all there is to it. Adam Bishop 23:39, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)
The Sandbox doesn't get to stay because no pages that lack useful content get to. That's all there really is to it. - Woodrow 23:47, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)
The sandbox doesnt stay - it keeps getting wiped, and someone keeps restoring it. :) I think this might work if it was a sidebar, and if the Continental Congress Presidents were excluded. -SV(talk) 00:04, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Bush I and Bush II? L.B.J.? T.R.? If I'm looking for Teddy Roosevelt, I think I'll overlook T.R. I disagree with your changes, and I feel you're being a bit too bold, but I want to know what others think of the presidents you've changed the names of. I refuse to give up the Presidents of the Continental Congress, however. They were the first leaders of our country, which I consider to have technically been in a state of anarchy preceding the ratification of the Articles. - Woodrow 00:23, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)
'"I feel you're being a bit too bold"' Snort. jengod 00:26, Mar 21, 2004 (UTC)
Huff. - Woodrow 00:28, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)
MediaWiki messages are not the place to impose your point of view. The presidents of the Continental Congress were not presidents of the US, a nation formed after they were in office. It's misleading to imply the office has any sort of historical continuity with the presidency. -- Nunh-huh 00:30, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I have not given that office continuity with the current one. The United States of America was established under the Articles of Confederation. but it was then decided that they didn't work well. Until that decision was made, the Presidency of the Continental Congress was the highest position in U.S. government. - Woodrow 00:36, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Give them their own message. This one has already confused one reader, and would confuse more if left as is. - Nunh-huh 00:38, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Was it confusion or a sarcastic comment? - Woodrow 00:42, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I took it at face value. - Nunh-huh 00:52, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Oh, I should mention the main reason I put the Presidents of the Continental Congress in in the first place; George Washington's incumbent table has it that he was preceded by "Previous government under the Articles of Confederation". Are we supposed to pretend that George Washington was the beginning of formal government in the United States? - Woodrow 01:20, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

  • No. Nor should we pretend that he succeeded Cyrus Griffin. - Nunh-huh 02:13, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Nor should we pretend that, alphabetically, American Samoa comes after Wyoming. - Woodrow 03:06, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

No we shouldn't, and that leaves us with the awkward situation of have two conflicting footers in the same article. --Jiang 00:15, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)
What do you mean "not really president" and why do you say they conflict? - Woodrow 00:36, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The President of the Continental Congress was no more "President of the United States" than the "President of the Senate". They conflict because the top one says "Countries of the World" and the bottom one says "insular area". --Jiang 00:40, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Not quite answering my question...

The Continental Congress was unicameral. The President of the Continental Congress was in charge of the country. - Woodrow 00:53, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

No, the president of the Continental Congress was in charge of the Continental Congress. - Nunh-huh 01:10, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Which WAS the country. The Articles were more like a treaty than a constitution. Read them. - Woodrow 01:24, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Now you're just being silly. - Nunh-huh 22:33, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Last week I was just being silly. - Woodrow 02:24, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

NGI (If you can figure out how I pronounce that)! It appears to me to mainly be Jiang and jengod going against this by themselves. How many others have aggressively campaigned against this? If anyone else was disturbed by this, they would be the ones removing the notice from every page. Personally, I consider it acceptance when it is allowed to remain on George W. Bush! - Woodrow 00:53, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Look, I think it's gratutious, clunky, overstuffed, superfluous and more, but I'm willing to compromise--how about we do both the incumbent tables and the msg:Uspresident? SANS the Continental Congress nonsense. jengod 01:06, Mar 24, 2004 (UTC)
I don't have anything to add, but I want to chime in. I like the box and think it should be kept but agree that the Continental Congress prezes need to stay removed. Tuf-Kat 01:27, Mar 24, 2004 (UTC)

From VfD

  • Being used to replace standard imcumbent navigation, unwieldly. jengod 19:30, Mar 20, 2004 (UTC)
  • VFD should not be used for editorial decisions! This element is currently linked to by all of the president articles; if you dislike the change (I have no opinion on it), be bold and change it back. It's irrational to bring up a vote on an element used in 40+ articles. — Sverdrup 20:25, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep this time. Please sort this out on the talk pages of the articles or the mediawiki message, not use VfD to short-circuit consensus-based discussions. If there's some agreement, list it here then. Jamesday 20:34, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  • delete, of those willing to discuss, consensus on MediaWiki talk:Uspresidents is for deletion. --Jiang 22:41, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)
    • I gladly delete unused MW elements. This one however, was pulled into vfd while still being used by every president article, and it is still used in 10+ of them. Any Wikipedian could make the editorial decision of reversing the change. Why don't do that first, then bring it to vfd?! While you are still unwilling to actually reverse the changes in the articles, it's just silly to argue pro/con deletion. — Sverdrup 11:47, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)
    • I'm looking for the consensus described above but all I see on that link is a vote to keep. ? - Texture 17:27, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)
    • editorial decisions reversing the change will create edit wars and have less community input. When I made that statement, Calmypal was trolling on this page and what I stated was the truth.--Jiang
  • Keep. I agree it shouldn't be used on every single President page, but that doesn't mean it might not prove useful for certain other pages. Anthony DiPierro 22:58, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep, but remove the Continental presidents. Use standard abbreviations T.Roosevelt, FDR, JFK, LBJ, Bush I and II. The problem with this is that it needs to be as compact as possible. -SV(talk) 03:33, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. There are many possible compromises (e.g. removing Contental presidents, or breaking up by era). Nonetheless, the current myopic (<-last POTUS next->) thing looks pretty klunky too. -- RobLa 07:20, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep, but don't necessarily link to every other president. e.g. to some of the lists instead. --User:Docu

Template not needed, redux

Now that we have categories, this is redundant. Some presidential articles are getting too long. This is one of the things we no longer need. --Jiang 01:44, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

  • Category pages sort alphabetically, not chronologically
  • The category has links on a separate page
- Calmypal 01:14, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)
I agree with Jiang. I still don't see the need. Johnleemk | Talk 14:23, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

One-year anniversary

We are now at the one-year anniversary of the beginning of the most interesting period of Wikipedia article history to study (How many of you Wikipedians can remember this time in Wikipedia history??):

On March 18, 2004, Calmypal brought up his President's template, taking all the President articles, removing the navigation tables, and replacing them with his template. Then, Jengod, finding the template, reverted them to the previous version with the navigation tables. and wrote a message on Calmypal's talk page. The argument went on for a while. Then came Timwi, who did the exact same thing; he took the President pages and replaced it with Calmypal's template. There was still no consensus to keep Calmypal's template. Then, several more times, Calmypal and Jengod argued on whether to use the navigation tables or Calmypal's template should be used. For a while after then, Calmypal's template remained absent. In April, it was finally a consensus; keep both the navigation tables and Calmypal's template. Georgia guy 02:20, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I've changed so much since then. For instance, I now know what "pecuniary" means. Having this argument today, I would definitely not have written some of the things I did, but I still like the box. What's funny is that today I look at it as some convenient thing that's just there. I've totally forgotten it's a personal accomplishment. - Calmypal 02:53, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

Succession box redundancy

Hi there:

I noticed that the template has a row whose members are {{{before}}}, {{{after}}}, and {{{years}}}, and I'm going to eliminate this row once I've posted this message. Here's why:

  • The succession row is redundant with the succession table which every President already has.
  • We could theoretically remove the entry succession table instead of the succession row, but the succession table reports the President's term to a finer level of accuracy. Moreover, the succession table handles Cleveland's nonconsecutive terms much more elegantly than the succession row can.
  • The {{{before}}} and {{{after}}} is redundant with the USpresidents template itself.

DLJessup 04:59, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Template fix

This template needs repair. (The image of the seal falls outside and under the box. It should be inside, on the far right.) I'm going to try to read up on templates, to see if I can figure it out. If someone who know how could repair it, that would be great. Thanks. --Evb-wiki 04:01, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Navbox layout feedback

Looking for feedback on the layout of the template. Please see the version here which uses {{Navigation with image}} and the other version there which uses the {{Dynamic navigation box with image}}. Thanks. — MrDolomite • Talk 06:42, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Acting Presidents

Though their terms as Acting President were extremely short, they were the interim and should be treated as such. Therequiembellishere 01:58, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Convention disagrees with you: can you produce a List of Presidents of the United States that includes Acting Presidents? Biruitorul 03:22, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
I don't need to, see Acting President of the United States#Invocations of 25th Amendment there were two official Acting Presidents: Bush (I) and Cheney. Therequiembellishere 04:04, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification. As I replied on my talk page, prior to editing the template, I saw no links/info around the template space that confirmed or explained the interim status of Cheney and Bush. Did I miss those somewhere?--Riurik(discuss) 04:55, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
I guess I haven't put up links, so I'll do that now. Therequiembellishere 05:00, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Last name only?

Is there any reason why only the last names are listed? If any list of people would deserve both first & last name, this would be one. Does anyone object to listing them by both first & last name, and an occasional middle initial?--Old Hoss 02:05, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I went ahead and reverted it back to full names; apparently when it was 1st created someone changed it to only last names because at the time (2004) footers were new and disliked, so last names were used to conserve space. However, currently it seems acceptable to list full names. If there is any objection, and a desire to revert it back to only last names, please discuss. Regards.--Old Hoss 21:48, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Adding of Clinton or Obama to the list

I happened to be reading about the presidents and noticed that Barack Obama's name had been added. I removed it, you may consider protecting this from editing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Txredcoat (talkcontribs) 23:43, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

maybe we should add Thomas E. Dewey and Al Gore to the list, on account of they OUGHT TO have won the elections that got stolen from under their feet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.52.215.107 (talk) 03:15, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Interwiki

Please add into the Template czech interwiki---> cs:Šablona:Prezidenti USA and the same step into the czech version. Thank you. --83.208.117.159 (talk) 04:38, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Seal in title bar

I really don't think there's any value in adding the seal to the title bar. For one thing, it's shown (legibly) in the expanded navbox. Secondly, even when it isn't visible when the box is collapsed, the seal is a completely illegible smudge at the resolution required to fit it into the title bar. This should be removed. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:57, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Disagree: I made this change to help distinguish this nav bar from others which use flags, logos, or symbology to ID what category they are in. For example, you can see at the bottom of the President of the United States article, this sets off this navbar category well from the Presidential Elections navbar and the others. Likewise, if you see how this sort of icon identifier sits when grouped with others, such as at the bottom of the United States Secretary of the Navy, it works quite well. While the details are of course lost, as a graphic designer by vocation, I will state professionally that this sort of icon helps to visually cue the viewer/reader that this is a differentiated navigational element that is a member of a distinct category. (FYI, my apologies for misreading the rv tag as suggesting this was a vandalism case in the edit summary.) Lestatdelc (talk) 19:29, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
Is there no more legible device which could be used, rather than the seal? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 20:15, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I thought it was kind of neat, despite the loss of graphic resolution... Foofighter20x (talk) 20:21, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Support removal. The seal adds nothing information-wise to the template, and seems to be essentially for decoration. I would support removing it. Kaldari (talk) 17:18, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Update

So this issue has come up again, and Gnevin (talk · contribs) brought up a relevant MoS entry: WP:ICONDECORATION. I think this supports the removal of these emblems in this case, as one is a duplicate of the right-hand image and one is a flag (always pretty contentious). Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:09, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I am in line with Lestatdelc in the sense they que the readers eye to the most important navboxes rather than the needless ones, and it makes them identifiable to a country or office. If you do delete them from the US ones then you would have to do the same for the European Union, Israel and Canada! Consensus has been established in part! Bluedogtn (talk) 17:15, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
I'm happy to argue that they should be deleted from other articles as well, but the existence of other things is not necessarily an indicator of a consensus - there may well be plenty of contraindicators on other templates. As for making the templates "identifiable", flags are only barely legible at 16px and Presidental seals are just blobs - they're not recognisable as anything. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:45, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
I am not happy b/c everything does not have to be bland and banal like you want it and the navboxs for each country can be unique and since I am an American I want to have the seal and the flag! I am proud of my homeland, do the same for yours thank you Stephen_Harper#External_links and Tzipi_Livni#External_links. I like their nationalistic pride and zeal for their offices and wanted to do the same for my country. I hope you do the same for your country of Great Britian!
by the way it says its up to the editer user to determine if comparables can be used in an argument defeating your own point! Bluedogtn (talk) 18:25, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(icons)#Do_not_emphasize_nationality_without_good_reason. First line Wikipedia is not a place for nationalistic pride. Gnevin (talk) 19:07, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
If a navbox is "needless", then why is it in the article in the first place? And who decides which are the "most important" navboxes? — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:11, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
Central discussion of flag and icon additions Gnevin (talk) 19:57, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Regardless of my comment above concerning the "neat" factor, I think the WP:ICONDECORATION is pretty clear cut: these icons are not necessary to the boxes content, and thus don't need to be included. Foofighter20x (talk) 20:37, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Not listing Obama

On this template, I wish for there to be a hidden comment at the top of the page stating the following:

Do NOT list president-elect Barack Obama until he is sworn in as president.

Is this useful?. —Mythdon (talkcontribs) 00:40, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Hidden comment has been added. Not sure how many people would look at it when they go in to vandalize, but it is worth a shot!! --Sweet Pea 1981 (talk) 03:42, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
"Un-hid" the comment. Put it in noinclude so that it isn't propogated out to pages displaying this template. Good idea with the comment, though. Foofighter20x (talk) 03:46, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
With the way it was added, it doesn't look too good, though it is straight to the point. —Mythdon (talkcontribs) 04:31, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

At what time should Barack Obama be added to the template? --AEMoreira042281 (talk) 15:30, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Noon, EST. That is, 1200pm in Washington D.C., some 43 minutes from now... Foofighter20x (talk) 16:18, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Succession numbers

The succession numbers are not "gaudy", they are "necessary". Without them, the list of names is practically meaningless. I have made those numbers less prominent. Also, the Readers of this encyclopedia should not be made to jump all over the place in order to obtain information. This template is made far more meaningful with these succession numbers. Those numbers represent the place in the succession that these presidents served their country. Please discuss here before taking action. – Paine Ellsworth ( CLIMAX )  03:57, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Cartoon Boy, this list is useless without the succession numbers, and part of being an editor is to make things better and easier for readers, not harder. Why would you want to make things harder for readers? – Paine Ellsworth ( CLIMAX )  08:57, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Why would it be meaningless without the numbering? Maybe I'm too familiar with the names, but shouldn't it be taken for granted that the 44 names are in succession of one another? No other template I'm aware of has numbers presented in such a way, and we should also strive for some consistency here. It's an easy-to-access list of Presidents so you can click from one name to another. We don't need succession numbers, term dates, birth/death dates, middle/birth names, height info, mother's maiden names, et cetera, crowding up the list. When it was just last names, it was fine. When they added first names, it was understandable. We should be wary of any more info creep on any more info-creep on a template who's sole purpose is to go from point A to point B, C, D, E, Z, or RR.--(unsigned)
Those of us who are familiar with the presidents are not the only ones who read Wikipedia. There are children who read who might want to know at a glance who the 16th president of the United States was. The consistency then should go in the right direction, not the wrong one. No one added any of that other info, so I have no idea what you're striving for with "height info". You're being facetious, of course, I know. But Wikipedia is also for those who are NOT so knowledgeable about things, and a list of presidents, without showing succession requires them to then HUNT for that info, which they should not be required to do. – Paine Ellsworth ( CLIMAX )  16:04, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
No, but the "height info" is about as important as the succession numbers. In that they have no bearing on the presidencies' themselves and in fact bring unnecessary debate and complexity to an otherwise simple template for getting from point A to point B, C, or D. At a glance, children might want to know who the tallest President is, or the ones who were in the Whig Party, or the ones who had different birth names or were born in the 18th century. But we can't provide all this info at a glance and the template should do what it was designed to do. List and link to the 44-ish United States Presidents. If we list numbers here, we should list them at Speakers of the US House, or Presidents pro tempore of the US Senate, or Prime Ministers of the UK, or Kings of Bhutan. Numbering these all are impossible, unnecessary and bring up debatable issues (Do nonconsecutive terms count seperate elsewhere? or only in America? or only in the Presidency?).--Tim Thomason 20:58, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
I think you are making all this much more complicated and "controversial" than it actually is or needs to be. The succession numbers in and of themselves may not seem very important to some, however, they are actually very important to others, and so, should be included. This list is in succession format with each president who follows in the list doing so in his unique succession location. This might be actually visualized by those who know the presidents and who know their succession location. However, to the untrained eye, their "obvious" succession format is unknown unless their succession is pointed out using numbers. Heavens man, if we're going to LIST them in succession, then we should also INCLUDE their succession numbers for those readers who may want to know them by their name AND by their succession number. If we don't include the numbers, then questions may arise, e.g., Why is Grover Cleveland's name shown two times? Who was the 3rd president? Was John F. Kennedy the 35th or 34th president? These and other similar questions ought to be answerable in ready fashion rather than making the reader hunt for them. You can add other info if you think it is needed. I happen to consider succession numbers to be needed on this template, and I consider the template to lack substantial meaning to readers if those succession numbers are not right there and readily available. – Paine Ellsworth ( CLIMAX )  21:50, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── I repeat my unanswered question to the editor who keeps reverting but who refuses to discuss it here:

  • Cartoon Boy, this list is useless without the succession numbers, and part of being an editor is to make things better and easier for readers, not harder. Why would you want to make things harder for readers? – Paine Ellsworth ( CLIMAX )  06:16, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Well, because of the apparent controversy (NOTE: I did not revert anything, despite my opinion on one side), we might need to list this somewhere. I'm not really familiar with Wikipedia enough to know if RFC or whatever is the best course of action.--Tim Thomason 14:05, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
As I've said when reverting, it is the number of editors who agree with the proposed change that allows that change to be permanent. If you're the only one who is in favor, it carries no weight. This is something I have come to learn when arguing for or proposing a change on talk pages. And I again ask, how is going to the other articles, or simply clicking on the president's article to find out which number they are, harder for readers? It only takes a few seconds. The list is linked in the template. And again, readers are capable of counting the names. It's not like three-year olds are coming on this site. - Cartoon Boy (talk) 08:29, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
No, Cartoon Boy, not three-year-olds, however there are many people in other countries who read Wikipedia with varying degrees of English reading ability and far less knowledge of America than someone brought up here. They may not quickly grasp that succession information is available at the links mentioned. However, if you want to maintain this template in its present meaningless form (virtually meaningless to all but those of us who firmly grasp English and how to find information readily using links), then so be it. I'll spar with you no longer. Thank you for discussing it. – Paine Ellsworth ( CLIMAX )  06:42, 20 October 2011 (UTC)







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