Talk:List of former United States senators

Untitled
Obviously this will temporarily be just a list until myself or someone else puts in an appropriate introduction of some sort. Another one for the House should probably also be made. Katagelophobia —Preceding undated comment added by Katagelophobia (talk • contribs) 02:56, 24 April 2003 (UTC)
 * I see potential problems with this regarding NPOV; that is, determining which senators are and which aren't "historic" is necessarily a subjective decision. We ran into a similar problem with former students of the University of Oxford, details of which can still be seen (I think) on the talk page for that article. - Hephaestos 03:01 Apr 24, 2003 (UTC)
 * How about the critia being: 1)The were in the US Senate, but now are not 2)There is an article on them already existing in Wikipedia, or the person who adds them to the list plans to create one soon. Sugestively, -- Infrogmation 05:14 Apr 24, 2003 (UTC)
 * Works for me. :-) Hephaestos 05:21 Apr 24, 2003 (UTC)
 * Yes. I noticed that while there was a section for the current senate, there should also be something for the more notable figures from the senate over history. Since current senators already have a forum, Infrogmation's criteria works well for me. Katagelophobia —Preceding undated comment added by Katagelophobia (talk • contribs) 16:58, 24 April 2003 (UTC)
 * Or maybe it should just be retitled Past Members of the U.S. Senate. Katagelophobia —Preceding undated comment added by Katagelophobia (talk • contribs) 20:51, 27 April 2003 (UTC)

Should we perhaps make 2 lists?
I was thinking... what if we make two lists: one with the more notable members and the other that just lists every single member of the Senate, past and present. Why would the latter list be useful? I figure if at a later point we try to make an article for every senator, having one centralized list of each one will facilitate the process. Now, I have a computer program that I used for compliing lists of senators for each congressional session that could easily develop the list for every senator. Should I go ahead and do this? Cmdrbond 19:12, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Use of "former"
Once a person is dead, they are not a "former" anything. Bill Clinton is a former President, but George Washington is not. Adam 09:11, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Rename article proposed
This article should be titled List of United States Senators 1789-2006 Adam 09:11, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose. No, the title is, I think, quite accurate.  This is a list of people who were formerly, meaning at one time or another, in the United States Senate.  Changing the title to List of United States Senators 1789-2006 would require a change in title every year, and that's just not going to work.  Valadius 22:13, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Support. I'm sorry but it is simply incorrect to refer to a dead person as a "former" something. Dead people cannot be referred to in the present tense. Make it List of United States Senators since 1789, or anything, but "former" must go. I will wait a decent interval then move it myself. Adam 23:08, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Not just for the practical reasons stated above by Valadius.
 * 1) Can you, Adam, find a source for "Former" not meaning dead people? You may be right, I just want to know for sure.
 * 2) I think a better word other than "Former" is greatly preferable to "List of United States Senators since 1789." Something like "List of all United States Senators."  Or "Non-incumbent"? "Previous"? "Past"? But I think putting the year in the title is a big mistake. Maybe "Previous" is the best word.—Markles 00:54, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Too long (split request)
This is too long and needs to be split - to an A-M and N-Z arrangement, perhaps? Thoughts welcome. Buckshot06 02:55, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I disagree. Article size states that lists may be exceptions to the "too long" rule.  In fact, Special:Longpages, shows that most of the long pages are lists.—Markles 03:20, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I disagree as well. This is a list, after all, and lists ought to be displayed in full, no matter how long they are. Valadius 21:58, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Length reduction
This article is currently listed as the 3rd longest Wikipedia article (in terms of byte size) on Special:Longpages. When I removed redundant "List of United States Senators from State XYZ" type links from this article, I was able to reduce the article size by 70 KB, eliminating 1,408 redundant links.

This raises a question about how much redundant links we want in this article. As mentioned in Article size, large pages can potentially cause technical problems. WP:CONTEXT also has some mention on redundant links. I agree with what others have mentioned above, that splitting an article up can have drawbacks and I am not recommending that. —Tokek 01:23, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

What if we broke out the large letters of the alphabet? Mbisanz (talk) 05:21, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It should be split alphabetically - that's the most logical way, as splits by century or other chronology would necessitate excessive overlap. Cut into five or six pieces. bd2412  T 14:14, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Category
Is there any reason why this article is in Category:Lists of current office-holders, rather than [Category:Lists of former office-holders]? DH85868993 (talk) 11:11, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Total number?
Anyone know of a source for the total number of former senators? Putting that in the lead paragraph would be helpful. Or the percentage of African American senators ((former+100)/5)? -- Jeandré, 2008-09-22t13:59z

New former Senators
Just a short question: when will the newly defeated or retired Senators (like Obama, Stevens or J. Warner) be listed? Cassandro (talk) 14:19, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

112th Congress changes
If you look at the history, all of the scheduled outgoing senators have already been entered; if someone gets to this before I do after January 3 noon, please remove the cloak of invisibility from them; no need to delete Sen.(E) Coats, just hide the data. 75.202.98.159 (talk) 17:19, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Is alphabetical splitting worthwhile?
I get that it makes the page look nicer, especially for such a long page. However, it practically eliminates the sorting functionality? If someone wants to sort the Senators chronologically, then it's pretty much useless to get a sorted list of only those Senators whose surname starts with, for example, A. 65.35.190.94 (talk) 05:32, 11 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Alphabetical splitting from a data standpoint is a truly awful way to categorize these senators. I assumed when I visited this page that it would be easy to get a chronological list, but no, I can only get a chronological list of the F's, which makes no sense at all in our data-driven world of today.  This approach is not a good one at all.  Wikipedia is getting better and better with data, and I know that it can do much better than this arbitrary and unhelpful approach that this page is currently using. --100.4.151.64 (talk) 13:37, 23 September 2020 (UTC)