Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/United States Presidential trivia (2nd nomination)


 * 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. --Core desat  21:22, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

The closing decision on this AfD was contested at deletion review. Per that discussion, the contents of the article were merged with President of the United States and the article was made a redirect to preserve the edit history. Jerry lavoie 16:03, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

United States Presidential trivia

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

This article is a collection of trivia. All of the content is either already contained in the individual president articles, or it should be. Jerry lavoie 03:25, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * The first nomination for this article for deletion is available at Articles_for_deletion/United_States_Presidential_trivia
 * Please see the reasoning by editors on the current debate for a similar article for Philippine Presidential trivia: Articles for deletion/List of Philippine presidential trivia. We obviously have a double-standard problem here.  Please either vote for deletion of this article or keeping the other, or explain here why the duality.  Thanks, Jerry lavoie 03:27, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete. Grouping them all into one article doesn't make them any more worthy of being kept than they would be if sent to their respective articles. If they aren't good enough for those articles, they're not good enough for Wikipedia, period. Other concern is indiscriminate information; that the trivia happens to involve presidents is a very loose thread. '  (Feeling chatty? ) (Edits!) 03:52, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm going to say Strong Keep because this AfD seems to have sprung out of the other AfD. Perhaps this article is inapppropriate for Wikipedia, maybe not, but nominating articles for AfD in response to other articles being nominated for the AfD process goes against WP:INN and possibly WP:POINT. Shrumster 05:23, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I do not think you understand the WP's you cited. The first one says "If you think another article is of equal notability to one being considered for deletion, you are welcome to nominate that article as well".  And an example of disrupting wikipedia to make a point would be nominating an obviously notable article for deletion to try to leverage your vote AGAINST deleting another article.  Here, I am saying we should delete both, for the same valid deletion criteria. Jerry lavoie 06:44, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment. I'm going to let that first comment slide per WP:AGF. This AfD was most likely influenced by the other AfD. If you look at WP:INN, it clearly states that "If you think another article is of equal notability to one being considered for deletion, you are welcome to nominate that article as well, but please do not disrupt Wikipedia to make a point." Intent aside, it is clearly in WP's interest not to have this AfD while the other one is on-going as it may be interpreted as a spillover effect. Shrumster 07:15, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank-you for assuming good faith. My comment was indeed in good faith.  Above you say "clearly" as if it was clear.  It is not clear to me at all.  We often nominate several articles at the same time, sometimes in the same AfD... each article stands on its own merit, but reasoning used by the editors is often a spillover effect.  How is this counter to the best interests of the project?  For us to achive consistency and to have standards for inclusion that make sense, would be a good thing? No? Jerry lavoie 15:10, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep, obvious subarticle of President of the United States, could use more references. I'm being consistent and voting keep on the other article, which is splendidly referenced although I don't see the need for every section. It would have been better to wait until that AFD completed, perhaps. --Dhartung | Talk 05:32, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Merge with their respective presidents' articles. A list of common characteristics from a number of articles doesn't merit an article of its own. Flakeloaf 06:28, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep as per reasonings outlined in Articles for deletion/United States Presidential trivia. --Chris S. 08:36, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Hey Chris, if you wouldn't mind, could you outline a bullet point or two that you are speaking of? You did not vote in the previous AfD, and several reasonings were outlined in the AfD discussion, most of which were countered by other reasonings.  Which ones are you saying have merit?  I would be interested in seeing your point of view on this. Thanks. Jerry lavoie 05:09, 8 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Merge as per Flakeloaf Tuvok  ^ Talk 08:40, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep this is more than trivia about multiple presidents, this is trivia about the office of the president, with examples taken from particular presidents. It is therefore a valid subarticle of President of the United States, and while a merge would be obvious, the pages together are very long, so this should be kept separate.  (Edit) Note:  This is not just trivia as well, this is indeed notable information, organized for the context of the Office rather than the persons. (thereby failing to be considered trivia by Wikipedia)  &mdash;siro&chi;o 10:13, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, let me try to follow that... "this is more than trivia about multiple presidents, this is trivia about the office of the president, this is not just trivia... thereby failing to be considered trivia?" Is that it??? Jerry lavoie 15:24, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Weak keep Trivia lists are acceptable in rare cases, see Lists of trivia.--T. Anthony 12:10, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Please actually read the article you cited Lists of trivia. And read the talk page as well.  This seems to be an "inside joke" among some editors.  None Few of the lists on the page are actually trivia lists.  They Most of them are subject lists.  The person making the page move to "Lists of trivia" has a whole discussion about this on the talk page.  That aside, it is an article, and not a policy or guideline document.  Jerry lavoie 15:21, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Weak keep, to me, means I don't have particularly strong feelings on the matter. I think it's justifiable, but it's not something I'm going to think about if it's deleted.--T. Anthony 03:32, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
 * That said that list contains links to the following: List of Hot 100 (U.S.) chart achievements and trivia, Albuquerque Trivia, The Beatles trivia, and Pink Floyd trivia.--T. Anthony 08:14, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
 * That's why I revised my comment above (note the strikethrough text.) But the vast majority of the links in the article are to content lists, not trivia. Seems a strange article name, and even stranger to cite it, as if policy, in an AfD debate. Jerry lavoie 23:49, 5 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete - for the same reasons I nominated the Philippine presidential trivia article, although this one does seem better structured. There are a number of other list articles relating to the US presidency where this information would be better housed, making this list redundant IMHO. Otto4711 18:26, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete If there's any trivia about any American president that is honestly worth keeping, put it in his own article. Jcuk 19:10, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete Having a centralized list of trivia is not a good idea; not really helpful to anyone (I simply can't see someone searching for such an article) Hobbeslover talk/contribs 19:32, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete. This seems to be a classic example of WP:NOT. The very purpose of this article is to provide an indiscriminate collection of information about presidents rather than to provide meaningful summaries. --Shirahadasha 20:50, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Weak delete. Not a discriminate information. indeed. But I woudl also prefer several articles listed at the template "Lists of Presidents and Vice Presidents of the United States" deleted: like height, longetivity., etc. SYSS Mouse 22:38, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete Trivia is inherently unencyclopedic. Whatever is encyclopedic can be merged into the articles on the individual presidents. Agent 86 01:17, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Weak keep, these facts aren't entirely trivial, and they're probably worth putting somewhere, the problem is that this article is just a loose collection. I'd rather not lose them, but I'd prefer to disperse them to better places. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 01:47, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Would it be fair to say, then, that your vote is really Merge then Delete? That's what your comment seems to say, but you put weak keep as your vote. Jerry lavoie 23:49, 5 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Merge what is salvagable into the articles where they are supposed to be found, delete the rest -- Howard  the   Duck  08:25, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete/Merge - what Howard the Duck said. WP:NOT, and this is indiscriminate in the truest sense of the word, just a random collection of facts. Merge where necessary, but cruft collections are a bad idea and set a shocking precedent for the rest of Wikipedia. Moreschi Deletion! 16:28, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Merge salvageable material with the relevant articles then delete. --Folantin 17:48, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete Trivia is unencyclopediac.--Sefringle 23:17, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Merge what is useful, delete the rest. --- Tito Pao 05:04, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete. self-incriminating title, rather disorganized. Merge. --Vsion 06:41, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete per my comments at Articles for deletion/List of Philippine presidential trivia. It is okay to have trivia if we make some sort of attempt to explain why it is significant. Is there any assertion that these pieces of trivia are notable? I don't see one. Dekimasu が... 05:50, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep (as I "voted" keep in the companion AfD). While I have mostly supported the current push to delete subtrivial presidential lists (both American and Filipino) and have personally carried out some merges toward that end, I think that these particular articles should stay.  The articles on individual presidents contain their own facts but not the agregation of facts that this one provides.  Much of this info is interesting and/or encyclopedic but doesn't fit well in the basic President of the United States article and so splitting it out makes sense.  Eluchil404 09:18, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment Looking more closely at a couple of comments above, I see a few Merge then delete "votes". This is not common practice (merged articles are kept as redirects) becuase it destroys the edit history and thus is incompatible with the GDFL which requires that proper credit be given.  If sourced facts are incorporated into a plethora of individual articles or lists, it may be the only way forward, but if a significant amount of content is moved to a specific article (like the main president article) the history whould be kept behind a redirect.  Eluchil404 09:22, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * My understanding of the GFDL as it applies to Wikipedia is that the wikipedia editors who contribute the article text do not have a license, and do not have protections for being credited for sourcing on subsequent use of the text within wikipedia. The concern you mention would only be applicable if the original article cited external documents as sources, republished previously-sourced external GFDL information, and such source citation did not occur in the article into which the content is merged.  As long as the merging admin is privvy to the policies relating to merging content within wikipedai articles, I believe this concern will be addressed.  But as I said, and as you pointed out: if User: SallyJaneDoe contributed significantly to this article, and we merge the content into another article, Sally has no evidence that she ever worked on it, and the merging admin would get all the "credit".  But getting "credit" is not what wikipedia is all about, so its really a mute point. Jerry lavoie 20:47, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I am pretty sure that this is incorrect (see Copyright). I own the copyright on the material that I submit to Wikipedia as its author and I agree to lisence it under the GFDL when I upload it.  You agree to license your contributions under the GFDL. from the edit page.  Thus Wikipedia is required to give me credit (in a history section) for any page in which my contributions occur.  That this is a technical and pedantic requirement subject to de minimis exceptions is not in dispute, but it is still a requirement and should not be violated unnecessarily.  Eluchil404 08:47, 9 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete - move to Trivia section of each article where appropriate. Some of this info, like age, is already covered in the various List of... articles. &mdash; MrDolomite | Talk 15:55, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - the List of Philippine presidential trivia has been already deleted, so what are we waiting for? Delete United States Presidential trivia now! -- Kevin Ray 08:29, 9 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.