Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of United States Presidents by previous occupation


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.  

The result was no consensus to delete. W.marsh 15:07, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

List of United States Presidents by previous occupation

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Delete - Per reason of Otto4771 about AfD nomination of List of Philippine Presidents by previous occupation that it is in a series of arbitrarily broken-out biographical lists relating to the presidency and that these information should be in the individual articles, and not broken out as a list. Kevin Ray 08:38, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep -- Earl Andrew - talk 17:01, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * This AfD nomination was incomplete. It is listed now. DumbBOT 18:14, 8 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom and precedent. -- Bpmullins | Talk 18:46, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete per the excellent reasoning of the nom and that Otto fellow. Otto4711 22:30, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:NOT for this article. However, I'm not sure this applies to the rest of the List of United States Presidents by ... articles.  Black Falcon 23:53, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep WP:NOT doesn't seem to be applicable. I've been convinced by the many arguments below. -- Black Falcon 20:31, 13 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep It is no worse than any other Presidential trivia list. Biophys 23:24, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete. Its at least as bad as any other Presidential trivia list. A list on an arbritary topic; demonstrating the connections (if any) between these jobs does not demonstrate any connections between the presidents themselves. Also per nomination. -- saberwyn 11:13, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep it's a list on a clearly defined topic, not an WP:NOT. The topic would probably merit an article in addition to the list. -- User:Docu
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached  Please add new discussions below this notice. Thanks,


 * Delete per nom. and per precedent. --Folantin 08:20, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep, this list is well maintained and of specific scope and likely to be desired by those interested in Presidents. I don't think you can call it indiscriminate information when many people consider a candidate's occupational history when voting for them. So worth keeping. NoSeptember  13:48, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep. Amercians seem to make a fairly big deal about what their presidents did before they became president, so unlike general lists this one might actually be useful. I would have voted to keep the Phillipine presidents one if I'd seen it. Point me to a deletion review on that one and I'll support it. 23skidoo 14:30, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Me too. This tit for tat Phillipine/US thing should stop, and we should not overly restrict our article base to the most populous English speaking countries only. NoSeptember  15:25, 13 February 2007 (UTC)


 * delete per precedent & per president Cornell Rockey 15:15, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep. NoSeptember has a good point. Significant and verifiable enough information about the history of the US presidential office. Sjakkalle (Check!)  15:27, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep. per User:Docu. Mathmo Talk 15:50, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep per User:Docu, NoSeptember and 23skidoo. The list has clear bounds and it shouldn't bother us if every nation in the world had one.Noroton 18:00, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete We're not here to create index after index, which is what all these "Presidents (of any country) by XYZ" articles really are. This particular article is unnecessary and verges on being just a collection of facts unified by one factor; it also almost vergest on trivia taken outside of the context of a biography of an individual. It's enough to have the biographies of each of these presidents to contain their prior occupations. Agent 86 19:22, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. The precedent is significant. YechielMan 19:29, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep per reasons here and at the other half-dozen presidential lists that people are trying to delete.  I don't understand how anyone could even begin to argue that information about presidents like this is unencyclopedic?  If you're not interested in politics, fine, go read other parts of wikipedia -- but why try to destroy something that is so obviously interesting to so many people?--JayHenry 19:33, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment I agree with you that this is interesting, and I am interested in politics, but interesting is a matter of opinion and it is not a reason for inclusion (just as "boring" is not a reason for deletion). Agent 86 19:47, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, I know. But I'm tired of stating the case that I and others have made at here and here and several other places.  These lists are clearly encyclopedic, and I'm really struggling to assume good faith to editors who classify this sort of information as frivolous trivia, and are nominating all these lists for destruction.  "Notability" is a matter of opinion as well, and apparently the definition of the word "indiscriminate" is a matter of opinion on wikipedia.  I'm genuinely frustrated by these nominations.  The ability to index something in multiple ways makes wikipedia better than any other source of information.  These lists are notable by any standard, verifiable, relevant, useful, discriminate, more important than 95 percent of the content on wikipedia, etc., etc.  WP:NOT!!!  There's no good reason to destroy these indexes.--JayHenry 22:17, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * And there are those of us who are probably tired of stating our contrary case in these discussions. You're right, notability is largely a matter of opinion, and as such we're all entitled to our opinions. What you may see as "destruction" others, like me, may see as diminishing the overall value of this encyclopedia. Throwing around loaded terms like "destruction" doesn't really convince me that this list is "clearly encyclopedic". Saying so doesn't make it so. I see this list as clearly trivial, but likewise, saying so doesn't make it so, so I rely on the observation that this is simply a bunch of otherwise inconsequential facts strung together only by the fact that there happen to be "presidents" involved. I'm also not clear why anyone with a contrary opinion is being lumped into whatever spat is going on with Philippean-related topics. Some of us just browse AfD and comment on those articles that garner our attention. Agent 86 02:39, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * You honestly think that it's unimportant what presidents did before they were presidents? Even though it's incessantly covered and important to millions of people when they vote?  Even though a president's early career is covered in probably countless news articles before the election, and however many biographies after?  It's unimportant what sort of previous experience the people that lead countries have?--JayHenry 08:27, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment It shouldn't be too difficult to come up with guidelines or rules that could rope in the more serious "Presidents by XYZ" lists. Topics that are or were important to voters or to the lives of the presidents themselves could stay in and those that are not could stay out. IN would be height, military service, religion, basic information about their wives and family, reasons for dying; OUT would be things like taste in music, dental hygiene, what musical instruments they might have played. All the IN stuff would be potentially useful (very broadly defined) to people seriously studying history and of some interest to the rest of us, the OUT stuff would be totally useless to the historian. Them's my thoughts, anyway. Noroton 21:49, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete who the hell cares if President X used to clean toilets!? You wouldn't have a List of Monarchs of the United Kingdom by Previous Occupation (ie Prince of Wales, Princess Royal etc) and this is no different to my mind. Jcuk 22:34, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep I care if President X used to clean toilets! Isn't that opinion Jcuk?  Just because the Philippine lists aren't getting enough support doesn't mean Kevin Ray has to lash out at the related lists.  Being insulted is no reason to start a nominating frenzy.  The information can be merged and people interested in world politics can be given the heads up instead of this.  Many of these lists are good tools for research no matter what country's leaders they are about.  It can save a lot of time when trying to gather information.  Many people would find it interesting of informative to find out what world leaders did before and after rising to their status, like Governor-General of the Philippines, William Howard Taft.... Jjmillerhistorian 23:48, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment Well, thats your prerogative to care. But it's also a list of indiscriminate information held together by the single fact the people mentioned in it happened to be President of a country. Jcuk 00:04, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Um, which would mean it's not indiscriminate.Noroton 01:25, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * ...and opinion is not a reason to delete. Jjmillerhistorian 12:57, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep as prior occupation is very often used to identify Presidents and classify their styles (e.g. The Railsplitter, haberdasher) and is also frequently a campaign issue positive or negative (CEO President, actor President). In particular the number of Presidents who have been lawyers, Senators, or Governors is often of interest. --Dhartung | Talk 23:51, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * See also: Anyone interested in this discussion probably would also be interested in another discussion on this very similar topic: Articles for deletion/List of unsuccessful major-party United States presidential candidates' military service. I'm seeing some of the same arguments used in both. Noroton 20:01, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep per Dhartung and JayHenry. A president is notable, and his(/her?) past is also notable, given the huge amount of media coverage spent covering it.  I think it's very similar to List of United States Presidents by military service.  (Which may not convince you to keep this one...) Cedlaod 03:58, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep and to retain a neutral point of view, the Phillippines President's page should be undeleted. FrozenPurpleCube 21:53, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete or rename title is way too long, and I am not sure the article is encyclopediac.--Sefringle 04:48, 19 February 2007 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.