Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of presidents of the United States by time in office


 * 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. While the content forking argument is a strong one, those arguing for deletion have not been able to demonstrate that WP:CFORK does not apply in this case, especially considering the issues raised that the list that is currently included in List of Presidents of the United States does not convey the same information in the same clear way. Possibly the information can be merged to the latter article at a later time but currently there is no consensus to prefer one such list over the other.  So Why  13:27, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

List of presidents of the United States by time in office

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Taking this to AFD since PROD was contested. Aside from specific day counts (which are overall superfluous), this is a repetitive content fork that needlessly rehashes the terms of office mentioned on List of Presidents of the United States. William Henry Harrison's month in office and Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 12 years in office are already included on that page along with everyone else's date ranges serving as president. This should therefore not have its own page per WP:Content forking when all of the non-trivial content is already included in the main list of presidents article. Snuggums (talk / edits) 00:42, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. No, there is no other page with the same content in an easily displayed format. Please don't delete this. Earthscent (talk) 00:49, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
 * If you look at the tables within the main presidents list (which I linked above), then you'll see there's a column with their full terms of office. That part is what's truly important. Snuggums (talk / edits) 02:32, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
 * What are you talking about? It doesn't show that at all. There's no column that shows the number of days in office. It shows the dates they were in office. And that table isn't sortable, so it is not at all the same thing.Earthscent (talk) 03:54, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
 * As I said before, the numbers of days are superfluous. The focus should be on years and perhaps months. As for the table, maybe someone could alter that to make it sortable. Snuggums (talk</b> / <b style="color:#454545">edits</b>) 04:19, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
 * That's only your opinion. Earthscent (talk) 13:17, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
 * comment, not a vote yet This list may have some use as the BBC had an article about US presidential length. They concluded that Bill Clinton had the second longest time in office after FDR, albeit only a few minutes longer than many other 2 term presidents. Lakeshake (talk) 00:50, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Do you mean this? It actually says just 5 seconds over 8 years, but far too trivial of a detail regardless. <b style="color:#454545">Snuggums</b> (<b style="color:#454545">talk</b> / <b style="color:#454545">edits</b>) 02:32, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
 * <small class="delsort-notice">Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. North America1000 09:42, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
 * <small class="delsort-notice">Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. North America1000 09:42, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
 * <small class="delsort-notice">Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. North America1000 09:42, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
 * <small class="delsort-notice">Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. North America1000 09:43, 5 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep. The fact that this list has been maintained and developed since 2004 and has been completely unchallenged until now gives me pause. On inauguration day, page views spiked to over 15,000, despite not even showing up in the first page of likely search results,, suggesting a lot of readers have found this separate list useful. And before WP:ITSUSEFUL is raised, utility is key to determining whether to present lists on the same topic, organized in different formats and focusing on different facts; the nominator's argument is also essentially "it's not useful" and so they apparently agree that this is how we should analyze it. As pointed out above, the parent list of U.S. presidents does not present this information in this level of detail or in a manner that allows this ranking to be made easily. Given the attention that every aspect of the lives and service of U.S. presidents receives, length of service is hardly minor trivia. postdlf (talk) 17:59, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Page views and duration of existence are entirely moot points per the WP:POPULARPAGE and WP:ARTICLEAGE sections of WP:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions, especially when the article doesn't offer any new significant detail. The WP:ITSUSEFUL section says to give a reason why something is or is not useful rather than simply saying "it's useful" or "it's not useful". I've noted that it isn't useful because the exact durations served in office are already included in the main list of presidents article. The days when one entered and left office are what's important, not the exact day count. <b style="color:#454545">Snuggums</b> (<b style="color:#454545">talk</b> / <b style="color:#454545">edits</b>) 18:39, 5 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Comment -- I am far from sure this is useful. It is mostly about whether they served one term or two.  Peterkingiron (talk) 18:50, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete. I share Peterkingiron's doubts about whether this is really useful or not. More than half of the presidents involved here are clustered in two 10+-way ties at "exactly one full term" (rank #22) and "exactly two full terms" (rank 2), and each of those clusters also has one additional quirky situation under it, where another president who also served exactly the same number of terms happened to serve for marginally fewer days due to some insignificant technicality. The fact that the leap year of his term didn't contain a leap day, because of the 100/400 thing, is not an important distinction between John Adams and the eleven other presidents clustered at the 22nd rank — the fact that he served for one fewer day than the other one-full-term presidents did is not a significant enough detail to warrant ranking him below the others. There is some value to the overall information, given that there are numerous presidents who have served incomplete first or second terms in office, as well as one who served more than two terms in office because term limits hadn't been implemented yet — but enumerating the terms in days, as a separate standalone list, isn't the most useful way to present it. Snuggums is correct that what's important here is the number of years and months in office, not the number of days, and so it is effectively a content fork from the main list. Bearcat (talk) 19:03, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete It's interesting but it's another OR-fest list. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 01:28, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Keeping in mind WP:CALC, what do you think is OR? postdlf (talk) 01:31, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Honestly, I never read CALC. I had been firm in saying that "2+2=4" is OR if you don't have a source for it. I guess I'm wrong. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 01:48, 6 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep. This is a kind of traditional, children-oriented encyclopedia article that would be appropriate in World Book Encyclopedia or Childcraft or other tried-and-true encyclopedias.  It is factual, it is not disputed.  It makes certain information salient/sortable, and it does not matter that the same information is technically available in another list-article if one went through a lot of effort to compute the number of days in various date-ranges and compose this again from scratch. -- do  ncr  am  18:52, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
 * It actually DOES matter that the exact time ranges for terms of office are included per WP:Content forking since the page creates needless repetition. Effort (or lack thereof) is irrelevant per the WP:MERCY and WP:EFFORT sections of WP:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions. <b style="color:#454545">Snuggums</b> (<b style="color:#454545">talk</b> / <b style="color:#454545">edits</b>) 21:39, 6 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep The existence of a sortable table elsewhere doesn't make this article useless. It's near impossible to sort tables on mobile devices. 阝工巳几千凹父工氐 (talk) 11:30, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete - everything that isn't trivial is already at List of Presidents of the United States. Redundant content fork. Flat Out (talk) 06:00, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep - The List of Presidents of the United States only lists the presidents in chronological order. This article lists the presidents in order of total time served. If a reader wanted to know the order of the American presidents by time in office they would first have to decipher it out of the other article; whereas in comparison, this list is more convenient and easier to search for that information. The List of Presidents of the United States article also does not list the lengths of the presidents' terms in days like this article does so information would actually be lost if this list is deleted. -- Millionsandbillions (talk) 19:26, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Again, exact day count is superfluous compared to years and (in the cases of James A. Garfield and William Henry Harrison) months. I also doubt anybody would look for such an order, plus the main article already noted how Harrison's term was the shortest and FDR's was the longest anyway. <b style="color:#454545">Snuggums</b> (<b style="color:#454545">talk</b> / <b style="color:#454545">edits</b>) 19:47, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
 * The counting of the length of the presidents' terms by days is not irrelevant as their were many presidents that did not serve a full term. For example, General Zachary Taylor served 1 year 4 months and 5 days (or 492 days) of his term. The List of Presidents of the United States only gives the start and end dates for the presidents' terms so if a reader desires to know the precise date they would have to decipher it. Again, it is easier to find this information with this article. The other article may state that Franklin Roosevelt had the longest term and William Harrison the shortest, but it does not state the order in between. The List of Presidents of the United States is also not sortable so even if the other article stated the exact length in the Presidency column it it would be impossible to get the order as displayed in this article. As for whether someone would look for such an order, I did, which is how I arrived at this AfD. -- Millionsandbillions (talk) 20:20, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
 * What's truly important for people like Taylor is years and months in office, not day count, and main list already does an adequate job of providing ranges served. As for lengths in between FDR and Harrison's terms, Garfield is the only possible instance where "duration rank" (for a lack of a better term) was really a prominent trait as he was the one other president aside from Harrison to serve for less than a year when he died six months after his inauguration. Remember that Wikipedia isn't supposed to have excessive listings (which this page is) per WP:What Wikipedia is not. <b style="color:#454545">Snuggums</b> (<b style="color:#454545">talk</b> / <b style="color:#454545">edits</b>) 20:42, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
 * The List of Presidents of the United States does not do "an adequate job of providing ranges served" because all that is provided are the start and end date of a presidency, not the specific length of time that they occupied the office. It is not necessary that this list counts by day, it could alternatively count by year and day such as in List of Prime Ministers of Canada by time in office or List of Chancellors of Germany by time in office, or by year, month and day such as in List of Joint Premiers of the Province of Canada by time in office. What is important is that the specific duration of the presidents' terms in office remains. The current consensus would appear to be that lists of office holders by time in office are not considered "indiscriminate collections of information" seeing as there is an entire category for them. -- Millionsandbillions (talk) 21:07, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

First of all, start and end dates are the truly important facts, and people can calculate months/years on their own anyway. We shouldn't go into minute details. Secondly, other similar articles existing (or not existing) is irrelevant per WP:OTHERSTUFF, which states you cannot make a convincing argument based solely on whether other articles do or do not exist. Whether other pages are warranted is a separate discussion. <b style="color:#454545">Snuggums</b> (<b style="color:#454545">talk</b> / <b style="color:#454545">edits</b>) 21:28, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I did not argue OTHERSTUFF, I noted that consensus seems to have been reached regarding whether lists of office holders by time in office violates WP:INDISCRIMINATE. These lists clearly present a very specific, not indiscriminate, collection of valuable information. This list is a ranking of the American presidents by time in office. It is not a rubbish listing like List of Asian golfers or List of outdoor speeches where the weather was sunny. That people can calculate length on their own is irrelevant as it is much easier to read the data from a table than to process 44 different time periods through one's head; some readers, be they children or developmentally disabled people, can't do calculations on their own so they would lose access to such information if this page is removed. -- Millionsandbillions (talk) 21:55, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Noting other pages' existence (or lack thereof) is literally the definition of an WP:OTHERSTUFF argument, which is what you quite clearly just did. Don't try to pretend otherwise. Ranking of such durations is indiscriminate trivia for everyone except Harrison, FDR, and maybe Garfield because none of the other presidents are prominently noted for such traits. Such a "loss" isn't so detrimental when it lacks overall significance. <b style="color:#454545">Snuggums</b> (<b style="color:#454545">talk</b> / <b style="color:#454545">edits</b>) 22:20, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
 * This list is not "indiscriminate trivia" but rather an acceptable WP:SUBARTICLE and WP:SPLITLIST of List of Presidents of the United States. My reasoning was not as WP:OTHERSTUFF says "based solely on whether other articles exist." I was pointing out that we do not delete so-called "lists of office holders by time in office" articles because they are indiscriminate stockpiles of data and that WP:Some stuff exists for a reason. That such data is only "indiscriminate trivia" except for "Harrison, FDR, and ... Garfield" is really only your opinion. It has often been mentioned that Ford only served half of a term and being the only president not to be elected the office or the vice-presidency. It has also been noted of Lincoln dying very early into his second term and thus being unable to fulfill his goals for that term. Of all of these it is easier to glean this information from this article than it is from the parent article. Once again, this article is not a collection of insignificant data, but a ranking of very specific information. Information that exists no where else on this wiki, hence it is clearly not a content fork of List of Presidents of the United States.. -- Millionsandbillions (talk) 23:02, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
 * On the contrary, I'm certainly not alone in deeming this trivial given the other "delete votes". If we took out day counts, then this would be a thinly veiled duplicate of the main list. As for Lincoln, while his second term might be noted for only lasting one month before his assassination, I'm certain that the amount of people who really bother to go into day count is quite minimal (if even existent). Same thing with Ford, who might be known for only serving between 2 and 3 years in office, but his lack of election isn't the focus either way. <b style="color:#454545">Snuggums</b> (<b style="color:#454545">talk</b> / <b style="color:#454545">edits</b>) 23:32, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

But if the day counts remain it is clearly not a duplicate. As a subarticle of course it is similar to the main article but only if you remove its defining characteristics. If the bar for articles being content forks is that high, that pretty much bars the creation of any WP:SPLITLIST entirely. The information this article presents is not present at the parent article, nor at any other article in this wiki, thus it is most definitely not a WP:REDUNDANTFORK. -- Millionsandbillions (talk) 00:25, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I already stated before the article was a duplicate aside from day counts, and superfluous additions like that are nowhere near enough to make up for it. Such a count is by no means worth including anywhere at all. <b style="color:#454545">Snuggums</b> (<b style="color:#454545">talk</b> / <b style="color:#454545">edits</b>) 00:41, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Keep - This page is as valid WP:SUBARTICLE and WP:SPLITLIST of List of Presidents of the United States, and provides clear and and concise information. Drdpw (talk) 03:07, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Not when the only additions that aren't repeated from main list are minute trivia <b style="color:#454545">Snuggums</b> (<b style="color:#454545">talk</b> / <b style="color:#454545">edits</b>) 05:02, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep - As we've got List of Vice Presidents of the United States by time in office, as so it would be strange to delete this article. GoodDay (talk) 03:43, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
 * See WP:OTHERSTUFF, which says you cannot make a convincing argument based solely on whether other articles do or do not exist. That other article's existence is a separate matter. <b style="color:#454545">Snuggums</b> (<b style="color:#454545">talk</b> / <b style="color:#454545">edits</b>) 05:02, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
 * By nominating this article for deletion, you should've also nominated the related Veep article. GoodDay (talk) 17:06, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I hadn't noticed that article at the time, but now THAT IS FOR A SEPARATE DISCUSSION. WP:OTHERSTUFF isn't relevant here. <b style="color:#454545">Snuggums</b> (<b style="color:#454545">talk</b> / <b style="color:#454545">edits</b>) 17:45, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I believe it is relevant. This article is a part of a series of articles, as well. Therefore, I shall continue to support keeping this article. GoodDay (talk) 04:45, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Your reasoning is flawed, and you haven't even tried to give any real rationale as how its existence has any merit, though there aren't any good reasons for keeping it regardless. <b style="color:#454545">Snuggums</b> (<b style="color:#454545">talk</b> / <b style="color:#454545">edits</b>) 06:44, 12 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep mostly per my comments on th r article's talk page. While OTHERSTUFF is generally an argument to avoid, I think it has more relevance than usual here given the existence of a set of closely linked lists of Presidents of the United States by various features.  Removing this list, especially while the main list is not sortable by length of term makes the set less coherent, not more.  Eluchil404 (talk) 03:53, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
 * No, WP:OTHERSTUFF doesn't actually carry any more weight here than other cases. While someone might be able to make some type of sortable parameter on the main list, length of term isn't overall a defining trait for most presidents to begin with, and you've even admitted yourself that day count is trivia. The points on supposed popularity and article existing for a while are also entirely moot per the WP:ARTICLEAGE and WP:POPULARPAGE sections of WP:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions. <b style="color:#454545">Snuggums</b> (<b style="color:#454545">talk</b> / <b style="color:#454545">edits</b>) 06:44, 12 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep This is useful for highlighting presidents who have served unusual term lengths. &mdash;Mulad (talk) 23:12, 12 February 2017 (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.