Talk:List of presidents of the United States

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Frequently asked questions

This section is here to provide answers to some questions that have been previously discussed on this talk page.
Note: This FAQ is only here to let people know that these points have previously been addressed, not to prevent any further discussion of these issues.

To view an explanation to the answer, click the [show] link to the right of the question.

General Concerns and Questions

Q1: John Hanson was actually the first president.

A1: John Hanson was the first President of the Continental Congress to serve a term under the Articles of Confederation. This office is different from President of the United States, which was only created after the US Constitution took effect in 1789.

Related Talk discussions: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]

Q2: __________ was acting president for a short time, why isn't he on the list?

A2: A period during which a vice-president or other person temporarily becomes Acting President under the Twenty-fifth Amendment is not a presidency, because the president remains in office during such a period.

Related Talk discussions: [6], [7], [8]

Q3: Grover Cleveland is listed twice, William McKinley was actually the 24th president.

A3: Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms, so while McKinley was in fact the 24th person to serve as president, Cleveland was both the 22nd and 24th president. Or another way: the next president after Benjamin Harrison was the 24th president. It should also be noted that almost all reference materials enumerate Cleveland in this way.

Related Talk discussions: [9], [10], [11], [12]

Q4: Harry Truman's middle name was "S". Since it's not an initial, it should not have the period after it.

A4: Harry Truman's middle name was in fact S; however, most reference materials still use the period. Truman himself signed his own name as "Harry S. Truman". Both with or without the period may be regarded as correct.

Related Talk discussions: [13], [14], [15], [16]

Q5: Democratic is an adjective. Presidents of this party should be listed as the noun, "Democrat".

A5: The correct name of the political party is the Democratic Party. In this case, the adjective is used to describe the party, which is what the list is showing. Note that Democrat Party can be seen as an epithet - see Democrat Party (epithet).

Related Talk discussions: [17]

Q6: Please add another column to the list for ___________.

A6: Every effort was made to show the most sought-after information in a concise table. Those interested in president lists based on other criteria should see Template:Lists of US Presidents and Vice Presidents.

Related Talk discussions: [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24]

Q7: I have an issue with one of the pictures used.

A7: It is recommended that the same picture from the president's individual article infobox be used on this list by default. However, any clear view of the face will work since the pictures are so small. Keep in mind that some images on external sites may be subject to copyright, and therefore difficult to bring into Wikipedia. If you have a specific concern about an image, feel free to discuss it here.

Related Talk discussions: [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30], [31], [32], [33], [34], [35], [36], [37]

List of presidents of the United States is a featured list, which means it has been identified as one of the best lists produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do so.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
June 15, 2005	Featured list candidate	Promoted
October 30, 2008	Featured list removal candidate	Demoted
June 26, 2009	Featured list candidate	Not promoted
March 3, 2021	Peer review	Reviewed
September 9, 2022	Featured list candidate	Promoted
Current status: Featured list

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List of Presidents of the United States

Discussions:

RM, List of Presidents of the United States → List of presidents of the United States, No move, 23 July 2012, discussion
RM, List of Presidents of the United States → List of presidents of the United States, No consensus, 20 May 2018, discussion
- MRV, Overturn and relist, 10 June 2018, discussion
RM, List of Presidents of the United States → List of presidents of the United States, Moved, 27 July 2019, discussion

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Portraits

Pardon if this veers out of pure "discuss the article" territory, but ...

Why do y'all care so much about what portrait is used? I think at least 80% of the edit wars on this article are all about which picture to use for a dead famous guy. --Golbez (talk) 21:54, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Best course, is for any editor to propose an image on the talkpage. Rather then boldly adopt the new image. GoodDay (talk) 21:58, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Fine, but why do people care so much? Why are so many of the edits just drive-by changing of a pic? --Golbez (talk) 13:32, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What do you expect to achieve with this thread? It seems somewhat contradictory, either people casually change an image with a fly-by edit, which doesn't suggest they "care so much" (and are unlikely to respond), or you could try pinging specific editors who have made actual, concerted efforts to change an image (or images), with multiple attempts to make the same edit, as well as perhaps some fully engaged talk page debating to support their changes. Pinging said users is more likely to not only get a response, but one with actual answers, as opposed to some mind-reading type replies solicited by this kind of tossing a general question into the air approach. (jmho) - wolf 00:11, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not asking for mindreading but I wondered if any of yu had in the last many years done the same and enquired but I see y'all are just as incurious as I was. --Golbez (talk) 15:14, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking of portraits - why are they so big? Is there a particular reason for 160px? --Golbez (talk) 15:21, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What size are they on the veep list page? Would be best if they're consistent. GoodDay (talk) 15:22, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That doesn't answer my question, because it then goes to "why are they so big over there," and I strongly suspect the response to be "because they're that big over here." Consistency needs a reason. --Golbez (talk) 15:26, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm content with whatever size is agreed upon, if it's applied to both pages. GoodDay (talk) 15:29, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Veep page pictures are 150px. I see no good reason for those on this page to be larger. Drdpw (talk) 15:32, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There's a lot of formatting that's not applied to both pages. --Golbez (talk) 15:35, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

By all means, reduce the prez photos to 150px. GoodDay (talk) 15:38, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why not 75? --Golbez (talk) 15:41, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A microscope would be required to see portraits/photos at 75px size. GoodDay (talk) 15:47, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Not really. On my phone, at the current size, three rows and two columns are visible. At 75px that changes to 6 rows and 3 columns. And the best part, if I want to see a picture better, I can tap it! And that works on PC as well! Instead of forcing a particular large size, how about let people see the larger size if they so wish? This is a list, not a photo gallery. --Golbez (talk) 15:58, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Might be best to open an RFC on the size of portraits/photos for all the list pages of US officer holders, both federal & state/territory level. GoodDay (talk) 16:03, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Nah, I'm not opening that can of worms, lest the poor decisions from this article infect my work. I was merely curious why that's the size here, a question which remains unanswered, so it's starting to appear that was just done one day by someone. Which is fine. --Golbez (talk) 16:06, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why not just use the "thumb" parameter and leave fixed sizes out of it altogether? - wolf 22:53, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Washington’s Presidency Start Date

Washington’s Presidency started on March 4th yes he was sworn in on April 30th but alot of presidents have been sworn in on march 3rd/5th or january 19th/21st because of the sunday but they all still say that their Presidency started on March 4th or January 20th yet for Washington it’s different? Why is this? I would like to propose we change it to March 4th as that’s when the office of president started and the office/title of president has never been vacant unlike the office of vice president Lil Zadeh (talk) 12:27, 10 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm guessing historical sources use April 30, 1789 (swearing in date, instead of term starting date) for the first president, as it was during the formation of the federal government, under the US Constitution. Same reason why April 21, 1789 is used for the first vice president. GoodDay (talk) 15:14, 10 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oh okay thank you Lil Zadeh (talk) 16:33, 10 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Image changes, without consensus

We've got to do something about editors showing up (IP, mobile, etc) & changing images here & at List of vice presidents of the United States without a consensus & borderline edit-warring to keep those changes. GoodDay (talk) 02:26, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hatnote

@Drdpw: How is this a "DAB of little usefulness"? "Presidents of the United States" could refer to several other things, all documented at President of the United States (disambiguation), most notably to President of the United States itself, but also to 5 other "United States"es and The Presidents of the United States of America (band). (Presidents of the United States of America redirects here too, but I left it out of the "redirects here" clause to save space.) WP:HATNOTERULES is clear, if a notable topic X is commonly referred to as "Foo", but the article "Foo" is not about X, there must be a hatnote linking to the article on X or linking to a disambiguation page that contains a link to the article on X. This is widely followed in cases where the singular and plural form of a term diverge. To take three canonical examples from WP:PLURAL:

Windows redirects to Microsoft Windows, which hatnotes to Window; Window hatnotes to Windows (disambiguation).
Seahawks redirects to Seattle Seahawks, which hatnotes to Sea Hawk, to which Seahawk redirects.
Snicker redirects to Laughter, which hatnotes to Snickers; Snickers hatnotes to Snickers (disambiguation), which has an entry for Laughter.

That said, I don't have a strong preference as to whether the hatnote target should be President of the United States (disambiguation) or President of the United States. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 21:12, 21 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As long as Presidents of the United States of America and The Presidents of the USA redirect here (they shouldn't, and they didn't until recently), there must be a hatnote because of the band, if nothing else. Presidents of the United States is slightly less of an issue because president of the United States is linked in the first sentence. Station1 (talk) 07:39, 22 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Those articles should not redirect to this list article. Drdpw (talk) 01:21, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Then take them back to RfD. It's been 2 months since Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 October 11 § The Presidents of the United States of America, and since that closed as no consensus it's been long enough to renominate. Until then, though, a hatnote is required by WP:HATNOTERULES. Please self-revert and then, if you wish, start a new RfD. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 01:25, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Biden & Trump portrait crops

Why do the Biden and Trump entries use extremely close crops of their portraits, when all other recent presidents are represented by their uncropped official portraits? We should probably stick to the uncropped official portraits for Biden and Trump, or switch to super narrow crops for all the other recent presidents, rather than the current arbitrary switch. Unless there's some good reason for this inconsistency? ∴ ZX95 ^[discuss] 00:47, 8 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]