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Archive 1

Proposal

Well, basically I've made this proposal in a number of places but haven't received much feedback (although what little feedback I've received has been in support.) After the recent deletion discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of United States Presidents by longevity in which one of these lists barely survived I thought maybe it'd be good to take some preemptive steps to save this list and others. One of the things raised in the discussion was that there were just too many lists about us presidents and that users supported certain lists, but not others. I just spent some time learning how to use sortable lists and I came up with this. It combines all of the information from List of United States Presidents by longevity, List of United States presidents by age at ascension to office, List of United States Presidents by time as former president, it also includes dates of birth and death, although it would not be a good replacement for those lists, as they contain other information (place, cause, etc.). The list is fully sortable! So what do people think? If we implement this list I'm pretty sure we can prevent president lists from showing up at WP:AFD. If people like this design or would like to suggest improvements, that'd be great. --JayHenry 22:13, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm against either merging or removing these lists. They're ok and might be useful sometimes EPWA airport 06:14, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I think you've misunderstood my proposal. This list contains all the information in the other lists. It is simply a sortable list. So all the useful information will still be here! --JayHenry 06:18, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
With the ability to have sortable lists I think combining all into one table is ideal, and more useful. FancyPants 21:10, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Function

unfortunately, the multi-column sort is not working--it sorts only by the first column, no matter which column's sort button one presses. DGG 16:40, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
It doesn't independently number the new sort.... but the sort itself works fine. If your issue is the wort then I think the problem may be with your PC... it works fine for me.--Dr who1975 18:58, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Actually... I did find a problem... when you sort by Length of

retirement it sorts the number from left to right, so 110 fqlls above 1010 in the sort. Tis will not work.--Dr who1975 19:03, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Oppose he sort doesnlt work corretly for numeric values where there are 4 digit and 3 digit values being compared... such as "Length of retirement".... try it and you'll see what I mean.--Dr who1975 19:04, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Ah! I see what you mean on Length of retirement -- I didn't notice that but can get it fixed tomorrow. --JayHenry 05:29, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I just noticed that when sorting by date of death, James Monroe is out of place, ending up at the "top" (most recent) of the list. --Charlene 05:49, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Sort

Can everyone double check all the sort functions and take one last look at the other tables that were combined to form this one. If all is in order we can delete the redundant data and merge the text from the three other articles. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 17:40, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I just went through and fixed the mistakes pointed out by Dr who1975 and Charlene.fic. It looks to me like everything is sorting correctly at this point, but if there are other tweaks needed before merging, let me know! --JayHenry 21:59, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
The "length of retirement" column doesn't sort correctly. It goes like: 0, 0, 0, 104, 625, four 1000s, 189, and then the rest. -- Jokes Free4Me (talk) 20:32, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
It seems like George W. Bush's value is the only one that is misordered. -- Jokes Free4Me (talk) 20:35, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Okay, the reason is that for James K. Polk and Chester A. Arthur the value is static, and was manually padded with "00,", while for GWB it's dynamic and was padded only with a "0". I suggest adding "0," now, and removing it again after some 3 years, when his LoR will grow over 1k. -- Jokes Free4Me (talk) 12:44, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I think you should be in charge of redirecting the others into this one, and merging the text, since your the expert! --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 07:59, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh geez, I'm no expert on this, I just spent the time to figure out how to use sortable tables! I'll do this eventually, but have no particular expertise in presidential history. --JayHenry 02:03, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Exhibit

We've been working on a javascript tool called Exhibit for displaying structured information such as the list of presidents. Like the sortable table, used on this page, you just enter data. But Exhibit reads that data and offers a larger variety of presentations of the data, and also supports faceted browsing and sorting. You can see an example of what it looks like here. We are currently working on integrating it with mediawiki, so it can read a table out of a wiki page. Since you've worked hard on this table of presidents, I'd love your comments on the tool. Is it something you could imagine using here? Does it seem to offer benefits over the current sortable table? Does it contain any deal-breaking faults? I'd welcome comments on this page, or to karger@mit.edu --Drkarger 00:36, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the display is absolutely phenomenal! In reading through it, it's not clear to me exactly how it works. Could it take a data table like the one on this page and parse it like that? Or does it require better understanding of coding? On balance, even if it's a little more difficult to use, I'd say I'd support it because we definitely need better ways to display more complicated data sets. --JayHenry 04:44, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
No coding is required. Direct parsing of the wikitable is exactly the plan, and we are implementing it right now (we're also implementing a wysiwyg editor for the data in the table). And no coding is necessary---just placement of some tags similar to those you can see by looking at the html source of the example page I posted. One limitation is that a link to our rendering script has to be specified in the source page; this prevents our actually putting our demonstration inside wikipedia right now. But soon we'll have a demonstration wiki that you can visit to try editing exhibits. In the meantime, I'm happy to get any critiques of the tool or presentations.Drkarger 20:45, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorting errors

When the list is sorted by "age at ascension", Woodrow Wilson and Andrew Johnson appear in the wrong order. Hallpriest9 (Talk | Archive) 18:12, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I've fixed this. Andrew Johnson's age was given as "56y 3m 17d", Wilson's was "56y 05m 17d". Since 0 comes before 3, it was sorting Wilson's age first. I add a zero to Johnson's age and that seems to have fixed that issue. However, Wilson's age didn't seem to be correctly calculated (born 12/28/1856, took office 3/4/1913 comes out to an age at ascension of 56y 2m 4d), so I have corrected that error as well. It might be good for someone to double check the other ages as well.Cbvt (talk) 02:43, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

New problem: When sorted by "Length of retirement," Jimmy Carter appears to have a shorter retirement than Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, which is obviously nonsensical. -- JCaesar (talk) 05:58, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I believe this was fixed. -- Jokes Free4Me (talk) 12:44, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

George W. Bush days in retirement does not sort correctly from least to greatest..it has him close to the bottom —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.154.122.101 (talk) 15:25, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

See the "Sort" section above. -- 12:44, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Truman

Harry S Truman......

no period (.) after S because he had no middle name....only a middle initial.....a period is placed after the initial only when it is the first letter of the middle name. 66.27.48.50 (talk) 21:44, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Graphical Representation

Lifetimes of US Presidents

I have made this image to give people as chance to see the whole list of dates as an easy graph.. I would like to know what your opinion on this image is:

  • Is it appropriate, should it be used?
  • Is it to big? I know it is large but getting it smaller is difficult as there is a lot of information to put in it.
  • Have I made any mistakes? I know it is not holy accurate to each pixel, but if you spot any mistakes let me know.

I could do an improved version but I first would like to discuss it so I can do all improvements at once. Posted by User:Allard Friday 23 January 2009 16:56 Central European Time.

  • This is a very very good graph. The information to graphic ratio is very high, which is excellent. I have not checked it for accuracy.
The reason why I came here is because I was wondering what the green bar is for. It says "Presidents of the Continental Congress." But what does that mean?
Otherwise, this is wonderfully self explanatory. You should keep it that way. Don't dare add lables or boxes or legends to clutter stuff up.-71.174.108.130 (talk) 01:18, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

This chart is great. Very well done. I don't think Jefferson Davis should be included, though. Also, the lines for the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are a little confusing -- they look like they refer to spans of time as opposed to single dates.Tinmanic (talk) 16:56, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Length of Retirement... Reverse-sort is broken

Nitpick. Its a bit odd. Sort works fine, but reverse sort is misplacing GWB's location. DavidRF (talk) 02:44, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

On a similar note, why can't we just replace the N/A with 0 days? It'll fit more neatly if you ask me. KarstenO (talk) 17:16, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
I'd be fine with that. —ADavidB 10:15, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Graph from french version of the page

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:US_Presidents_Age_fr.svg?uselang=fr

Needs no real translation and is accurate until the next birthday of a living president.98.224.69.51 (talk) 10:11, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Constitutional requirements

I thought it would be good to mention the minimum age set by the Constitution. If the focus of this article is solely on people who actually hold or have held the office - as opposed to what is theoretically possible - then maybe that's not appropriate in this article. 24.2.11.101 (talk) 06:01, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

The "Oldest Living United States Presidents" table is a complete disaster.

The second table needs to be scrapped and redone. The columns are wrong. Every date is wrong. And it says George W. bush is th incumbent. Someone brought this up before but his revision was undone. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rhino79 (talk • contribs) 20:30, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

The second table is a list of (former) U.S. presidents who are, or have been, the oldest president alive. George H. W. Bush is still the oldest now-living (former) president. Thus, he is the incumbent oldest living U.S. president. —ADavidB 07:05, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I agree entirely. The title of the argument is not even remotely represented by what is actually on the page. You have a List of Presidents of the United States by age - but they are not in order. There is no sequence, not even a readable possibility unless you are planning to do brain exercises using Wikipedia lists. Neither sequence is organized, and the last list may be utterly useless. All that it appears to try and tell you is who are the oldest presidents to have served by length of lifetime (or at least that is its intention but it also doesn't have an order even for that claim) regardless of when they are president at what age, which is probably the most significant factor in a list of the power and influence of the presidencies over time. Is there a corollary between age and behavior? We can never know if we don't have the information... Stevenmitchell (talk) 23:27, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
Is anyone aware that history is probably chronological? Stevenmitchell (talk) 23:28, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
I'm confused by your comments. You're responding under a heading about the second table but you seem to be talking about both tables. Are you talking about the first table or the second table? Regarding the first table: it's true that this Wikipedia page should probably be entitled "List of Presidents of the United States" instead of "List of Presidents of the United States by age," since the first table is not default sorted by age. But you say "there is no sequence," which is not true -- the entries are in chronological sequence, and the table can be sorted along several different columns. As for the second table, I personally find it unnecessary, but it is properly organized. To explain, looking at the three last entries in the table: from 1981 to 2004, Ronald Reagan was the oldest living president or ex-president (he was older than Nixon, Ford, and Carter, the other living ex-presidents). When Reagan died on June 5, 2004, Gerald Ford became the oldest living ex-president. When Ford died on December 26, 2006, George H.W. Bush became the oldest living ex-president. So the table does make sense, But the word "incumbent" in George H.W. Bush's entry confuses readers. I don't really see the need for the second table because I don't see why anyone cares who the oldest living ex-president is, and I'd be happy to see it go. But that would probably require some discussion. Tinmanic (talk) 00:15, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
Jimmy Carter has been alive and 10 years older than GHWB this whole time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.91.9.115 (talk) 06:18, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
The dates of presidency are completely wrong: it says that John Adams was a president for more than 26 year, Reagan - for more than 23 years. I just looked at some of the dates. I am pretty sure there is more wrong dates. It needs double checking. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.223.155.30 (talk) 17:56, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
It seems you're misinterpreting the data provided. This article is about how long presidents continued to live (after becoming president), not how long each was in the White House. —ADavidB 04:34, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
Gerald Ford was absolutely not 90 years old when he assumed office. This table is a joke. 199.168.151.176 (talk) 18:47, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
Gerald Ford was 90 years old when he became the oldest living president. You're misinterpreting the table. This table used to be on a separate page, but now it's here, as it was merged here a couple years ago. Canuck89 (chat with me) 21:59, November 16, 2015 (UTC)
I think something needs to be done in order to clarify the meaning of what's presented in the table: the period during which each man was the oldest living President. Clearly, many people have misinterpreted it as simply a chart of each President's time in office. Ultimately, however, is this information important enough to lay out in this table format? Would it best to remove the table, and just write out some of its core details? TheMrP (talk) 20:53, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
TheMrP, are you aware that you've added a comment to a discusion that took place nearly 2½ years ago? Several hundred edits have been made to the article since then. I believe that those earlier concerns have been addressed. Cheers. Drdpw (talk) 21:41, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
I didn't realize how old the discussion was, but I came here as a result of my own confusion with respect to the table, so the problem doesn't seem to have been resolved. TheMrP (talk) 22:18, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
Fair enough TheMrP; please then, start a new discussion below by stating what you find confusing, and suggesting how things might be made more clear and concise. Thanks for your input. Drdpw (talk) 15:06, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Age at inauguration

The data for age at inauguration should be listed in days, not years and days. Presently, there is no account for leap years. For example, Ronald Reagan was '69 years and 349 days' old. Assuming 365 days in a year, that amounts to 25,534 days when it should be 25,511. Would be worth a fix if someone has time, or a script. 24.222.214.125 (talk) 21:25, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Leap days are part of the (leap) year in which they occur and are still thus "counted". Election years are generally leap years; the years 1800 and 1900 were not. Do you have any examples of why it is important to compare presidents' ages in days at this or another career milestone? Are you anticipating a tie-breaker situation? —ADavidB 04:39, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
Leap years will depend on the dates involved. There's less work for the reader if things are listed like they are for lifespan (e.g. 24,767 days (67 years, 295 days)). Basically if we're going to have an article on comparing presidents by age, we should present the data in the most useful way possible 24.222.214.125 (talk) 21:52, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
Pages which focus on ages like Oldest people rank people by years/days, not days. We should do the same here. I'll make the same points here I've made there on this issue. First, no one when talking of how old someone is says they are 30,000 days old or whatever, they say they are 30 years old. So to say a president lived 29,446 days is an utterly meaningless statistic to virtually any reader who may look at this page. Secondly, the stated reason for this, to account for leap years, implies an accuracy of a 24-hour day when comparing ages/time-spans. However, unless we know the time of birth and the time of death, there is in fact a margin of error of nearly TWO days for a president's age. Someone born the day before someone but who dies on the same day as that person may have in fact had a shorter life span if they were born just before midnight and died just after midnight if the other person was born just after midnight the next day and survived until near midnight on the day they both died. Canada Jack (talk) 02:16, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
As per the lede: "Two measures of longevity are given; this is to allow for the differing number of leap days occurring within the life of each President." I see no reason why this shouldn't be applied to all of the times given. As for your time of day comment, duh. (Edit: to clarify that beyond the glibness of just 'duh' obviously there is going to be inaccuracy when dealing with days, but that is true of all whole-unit data. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't present the information in the clearest way possible e.g. by using Y-M-D and days)24.222.214.125 (talk) 17:06, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
There is nothing "clear" about adding days here. It is in fact the exact opposite, it gives a number which is completely meaningless to just about every person who might look at this page. Year/day suffices. And, as I stated, there is no "issue" about the leap years - it is OR from an over-enthusiastic editor. If there is a reliable source who says it is an issue, affix the reference. To put it succinctly, it is inane to "clarify" something which changes the count by at most a single day when the margin of error in terms of births/deaths is already almost two days! It's within the margin of error, therefore the note - and the day count - is irrelevant and should be removed. This is beside the obvious point that none of the rankings here are affected by this non-issue. Canada Jack (talk) 17:59, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
That's an unduly low bar for OR. It is effectively base operations. Kind of like if you subtract the difference between the two numbers in the example above, you'll find that the value are off by a full 23 days -- or most of a month. So I supposed you could say that this is problematic as even the current information contains errors. Also, there is no margin of error in this -- that's a different kind of math, meaningless here. This is a question, effectively, of [significant figures]. 24.222.214.125 (talk) 22:59, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
You seem to miss the point. There is no "23 day" difference between year/day and day-count tabulations; there is at most a single day difference, owing to the presence or absence of a leap year. The presence of a day-count implies an accuracy which is not present - for the simple reason the margin of error when we measure by days is about 48 hours. i.e., the margin of error is greater than the supposed increase in "accuracy" by using the day-count method. Since virtually no person has a comprehension of what life span in days means, we should just stick to the year/day count as it is just as accurate given the margin of error using day-counts. Canada Jack (talk) 16:07, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
One single-day difference for each leap-year. That's 23 days for Reagan, Ford, Bush and Carter. Jack Rudd (talk) 00:58, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
That would be 23 days more not less as reg years have 365 days and leap years 366 AmYisroelChai (talk) 14:20, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Suggestion: Add age at leaving office

Since we already have date of birth and date when leaving office (due to death or completion of the term of office), it seems fairly simple to calculate the age when leaving office (due to death or completion of the term of office).

I think we should add the result of that calculation. A list of U.S. Presidents by age should include their ages for the entire time in office, e.g., served from age 41 years 3 days to 49 years 2 days. A person should, for example, be able to tell from the table the oldest that anyone was while in office (Reagan) and that JFK's death was the only time that a person left office as young as he was. 71.109.145.235 (talk) 00:41, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Though not in the same table, the "Age at end date" is included in the next section, for those presidents who were the oldest of their time. I don't think the content should be duplicated in the article. —ADavidB 23:15, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
Never mind. On looking closer, I see that is the age at which the presidents' being "oldest of their time" ended. —ADavidB 01:39, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
I went ahead and added the "age at retirement" column to the main table on the page. In most cases, it's simply the age at inauguration plus four or eight years, but there are eleven exceptions thus far. For those presidents who died before retirement, the lifespan column shows their age on their last day of service. —ADavidB 03:59, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Deleted sentences may someone find them useful

Below there are deleted sentences (some deleted for no good reason) may someone someday find them useful:

The oldest living president, George H. W. Bush, will tie Reagan if he lives to October 10, 2017, and tie Ford if he lives to November 24, 2017. The second-oldest living president, Jimmy Carter, will tie Reagan if he lives to January 29, 2018, and tie Ford if he lives to March 15, 2018. The four longest-lived presidents (Ford, Reagan, Bush and Carter) all held the office since 1974. When John Adams (90 years, 247 days) surpassed the first-ever president George Washington (aged 67 years, 295 days) as the longest-lived one on August 22, 1803, his record lasted to October 11, 2001, when Ronald Reagan surpassed him. Reagan's record was held only to November 12, 2006, when he was surpassed by Gerald Ford.

The president with the longest retirement is Jimmy Carter, at 16,011 days. Carter achieved this record on September 8, 2012, surpassing Herbert Hoover, who died 11,553 days after leaving the presidency. Hoover held the record for more than 54 years, from July 5, 1958, when he surpassed John Adams, until September 8, 2012, when Carter surpassed Hoover. Adams, only the second president to retire, had held the record for over 154 years, since December 14, 1803, when he surpassed George Washington. The president with the shortest retirement was James K. Polk, who died 103 days after leaving the presidency.--Maher27777 (talk) 13:42, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Trump age error

How can his date at inauguration (70 yrs 220 days) be less than his total lifespan (70 yrs 269 days) when the inauguration date is in the future? Please correct. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.253.128.9 (talk) 19:07, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

An IP user has already corrected Trump's birth date, used to calculate his age. —ADavidB 19:58, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Post Presidency Sort Error for Polk & Obama

Does anyone understand this? I'm guessing it is some quirk with the way the dates are inserted into the table. I tried playing around a bit but couldn't fix it. Do we just live with it until Obama is out for a full year and he gets the same format as the older living presidents? Thanks. DavidRF (talk) 20:43, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

I changed the hidden sort number. The same adjustment will be necessary to keep GW Bush sorting correctly in a few days when his post presidency surpasses Grant's. Cheers. Drdpw (talk) 21:45, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Youngest living president?

We have a table of the oldest living presidents. Could there also be one for the youngest living presidents? I think it looks like this:

1789-1797 Washington 1797-1801 J.Adams 1801-1809 Jefferson 1809-1817 Madison 1817-1825 Monroe 1825-1837 J.Q.Adams 1837-1841 van Buren 1841-1845 Tyler 1845-1849 Polk 1849-1850 Tyler (only one with nonconsecutive terms) 1850-1853 Fillmore 1853-1861 Pierce 1861-1865 Lincoln 1865-1869 A.Johnson 1869-1877 Grant 1877-1881 Hayes 1881-1881 Garfield 1881-1885 Arthur 1885-1897 Cleveland 1897-1901 McKinley 1901-1919 T.Roosevelt 1919-1921 Taft (became youngest living president *after* having been the oldest living president) 1921-1923 Harding 1923-1929 Coolidge 1929-1933 Hoover 1933-1945 F.Roosevelt 1945-1953 Truman 1953-1961 Eisenhower 1961-1963 Kennedy 1963-1969 L.Johnson 1969-1974 Nixon 1974-1977 Ford (last Republican to have this distinction) 1977-1993 Carter 1993-2009 Clinton 2009- Obama 80.229.81.191 (talk) 16:10, 25 February 2017 (UTC)Jack Rudd

Its a bit of a waste as the youngest usually would be the newest president who would lose that distinction when his successor is sworn in except for a few anomalies as when an older person succeeds a younger as when Reagan succeeded carter, Bush succeeded Clinton, and Trump succeeded Obama AmYisroelChai (talk) 14:26, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Ronald Reagan surpassing John Adams and Gerald Ford surpassing Ronald Reagan

The article says that Ronald Reagan surpassed John Adams on October 12, 2001 and Gerald Ford surpassed Ronald Reagan on November 11, 2006. But when I counted that I found out that Reagan tied Adams on October 10, 2001 and Ford tied Reagan on November 11, 2006, so this means that Reagan surpassed Adams on October 11, 2001 and Ford surpassed Reagan on November 12, 2006. Omitti86 (talk) 00:37, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for fact-checking the article. I've looked into the discrepancy and here's what I found –
  • When measuring lifespan by days, RR's lifespan surpassed JA's on October 11, 2001. However, when measuring by years & days, RR's lifespan did not surpass JA's until the following day, October 12.
  • GF's lifespan, when measuring by days and also by years & days, did indeed surpass RR's on November 12, 2006.
I can only speculate on the cause of the apparent "days"–"years & days" descrepancy when it comes to RR and JA. Perhaps it's leap year related, as the lifespan of both GF and RR included one more February 29th than did JA's. Cheers. Drdpw (talk) 17:57, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
1800 was not a leap year; that's probably the cause of it. 109.157.12.179 (talk) 12:17, 8 November 2017 (UTC)Jack Rudd
This discussion is moot given that the margin of error when measuring by days is just under two days. It's pointless to quibble about a difference of a day when that is within the margin of error. If we knew the time of birth and time of death, then we could determine the exact day that someone surpasses the age of someone else. Canada Jack (talk) 15:59, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

As mentioned on a recent radio talk show, this article gives the age of 55.5 as both the median and the mean. I is this accurate? Michaplot (talk) 15:39, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Using static text vs age-calculating template

Is there a reason for using the "age in years and days" template for numbers that will not change? For example, Theodore Roosevelt became president at the age of 42 years, 322 days. Obviously that number is never going to change, so wouldn't it be better to enter it exactly like that instead of using a template to calculate the difference between the dates of his birth and inauguration? Of course, the end result is the same, but isn't it better to limit calls to templates when we can? LarryJeff (talk) 15:46, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

No I think using a template is always better as that is what they're there for, it makes sure that the number is right, it makes it easier to check if its the right number , and it makes it harder to change AmYisroelChai (talk) 16:08, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
I can go along with it being a good way to know the number is right, but I'm not sure it's "what they're there for." I think what the template was designed for is to keep an ever-changing number updated without needing an editor to manually change the article every day. Also I don't understand how the template makes it harder to change--whether it's the template or not, it's equally easy to change. LarryJeff (talk) 16:41, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
These templates are used on most pages with lifespans its harder to change because you cant simply visual edit. AmYisroelChai (talk) 18:09, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Protection

i got this page the vp age page and the british pm age page semi protected for a month to stop the constant ip edits from upon accession to of or at accession. AmYisroelChai (talk) 14:39, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Thank you! Bkatcher (talk) 14:49, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Tables vs. Lists

Seems like one user is acting with WP:OWN motivations and not allowing the lists of time periods in which there was only one living president and 6 living presidents to be displayed as tables (with an astonishingly unconvincing edit summary "Information long-rendered as a bulleted list on this page" and therefore that's how it should remain). For reference, here are the two versions of

Not only can one better extract and visualize the information with the table format, the table format also shows time spans, which the list does not. Sometimes the sky is blue (talk) 09:19, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

I'm going to have to agree with the table format on this own it looks neater and you get the information you want. AmYisroelChai (talk) 14:31, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
As long as the information is included, I'm neutral here as to whether it's in bullet, table, or prose form. —ADavidB 13:50, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Revision of phrase "youngest person at the time of leaving office after serving a full four-year term"

I am revising the text "the youngest person at the time of leaving office after serving a full four-year term was Theodore Roosevelt" so that it states, "the youngest president to leave office in the course of standard transition was Theodore Roosevelt". The use of "full four-year term" leaves open the suggestion that presidents who did not serve a "full four-year term" such as John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson or Gerald Ford are not included in the calculation. —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 00:09, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Indeed; while TR is the 3rd youngest at the conclusion of his presidency, he is the youngest to leave office because his (partial or full) term ended, rather then by his death. However it's worded, the sentence needs to convay that the only two not included in the calculation are Kennedy and Garfield. Perhaps something like:
Aside from John Kennedy and James Garfield (who was also assassinated), the youngest person at the time of leaving office was Theodore Roosevelt.
—Drdpw (talk) 01:49, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Oldest living president

Some suggested additions and copy edits:...

Of the 44 persons who have served as president, 24 have become the oldest such individual of their time. Herbert Hoover held this distinction for the longest period of any, from the death of Calvin Coolidge in January 1933 until his own death 31 years later. Lyndon B. Johnson held it for the shortest, from the death of Harry S. Truman in December 1972 until his own death only 27 days later.

On three occasions the oldest living president lost this distinction not by death, but by succession. Theodore Roosevelt (born 1858) lost it when William Taft (born 1857) was inaugurated. Taft, in turn, lost it when Woodrow Wilson (born 1856) succeeded him. Consequently, Taft became (as the only person) the oldest living president twice: first during his presidency, and a second time after Wilson died. More recently, Richard Nixon (born 1913) ceased being the oldest living president when Ronald Reagan (born 1911) was inaugurated.

Theodore Roosevelt was not only the youngest president, he was also the youngest person to become the oldest (and only) living president (at age 50) and the youngest former president (at age 51). Gerald Ford, at the other end, was the oldest individual to acquire the distinction of being the oldest living president at the age of 90. Jimmy Carter (age 100) is the oldest president never to have become the oldest living president. He can lose this title to Thomas Jefferson (died age 83) if he dies after George H. W. Bush. Instead, he will then take Gerald Ford's title. Soerfm (talk) 17:48, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Fewest and most living presidents

Maybe the section Fewest and most living presidents should be merged with the article Living Presidents of the United States. It seems to belong better there. Soerfm (talk) 14:14, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

In fact, the information is already there, in that article's Statistics section. Also, the "Oldest living U.S. presidents" section here already includes a "See also" link pointing there. —ADavidB 14:56, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Support - The “fewest” and “most” lists are not a good fit for this page. As the information is on the Living Presidents page, it’s unnecessary and redundant to have the lists here as well. Drdpw (talk) 19:46, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
 Implemented - There being no further discussion, I have removed the fewest and most lists from the article. Drdpw (talk) 01:37, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Revision of phrase "oldest person to begin a new 4-year term"

I am revising the text [at the end of the 2nd paragraph] "The oldest person to begin a new 4-year term was Ronald Reagan, who was 73 years, 349 days at the time of his second inauguration" so that it states, "The oldest person to be sworn in was Ronald Reagan, who was 73 years, 349 days at the time of his second inauguration". The use of "begin a new 4-year term" leaves open the suggestion that presidents who did not begin a new 4-year term at the start of their presidency, such as John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson or Gerald Ford are not included in the calculation. Also, the solemn circumstances associated with the president being replaced by the vice-president result in the cancelation of inaugural ceremonies, thus indicating the use of the term "sworn in", rather than "inaugurated". —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 04:00, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Merge from List of Presidents of the United States by date and place of birth

User:Drdpw mentioned it surviving an AFD in reverting my merge but I do not see it linked in the talk page or history, can you please link it? These pages have also undergone changes since then. I fail to understand why List of Presidents of the United States by date and place of birth article exists. It is entirely redundant to List of Presidents of the United States by age and List of Presidents of the United States by home state. Adding a few tidbits of trivia does not warrant a separate article for this content that is already in other locations. Reywas92Talk 01:39, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

@Reywas92: I was mistaken, the afd discussion was about List of Presidents of the United States by date of death. This being the case, and given that it has been de facto carried out, I have no further objection to the merge/redirect, and will implement the change. Drdpw (talk) 23:16, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Length of Retirement Sort Function needs to be fixed

It shows that Trump has the longest retirement, when he's still in office. Can someone please fix that? It has been driving me crazy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.248.200.136 (talk) 06:13, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

It wasn't readily clear to me what you meant, but I've added a data-sort-value of zero to President Trump's "post-presidency timespan" table cell, so when the table is sorted by that column, his line is at the low end of the sort. Here's to your sanity. —ADavidB 08:17, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, I appreciate it. I meant when I would use the sort function on the table and have the longest retirement at the top, it would list Trump and then Carter, you're right I could have been clearer as to what the word 'it' meant in the first sentence of my comment. The Trump being ahead of Carter thing was there for awhile and I have no idea why, like maybe not many people use the sort function on length of retirement, so they didn't notice it. But thank you for fixing it. :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.248.200.136 (talk) 17:24, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 February 2018

2604:6000:E588:FD00:113:53E:4DE5:E954 (talk) 02:47, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Anon126 (notify me of responses! / talk / contribs) 02:59, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Theodore Roosevelt's age when he became oldest living President and when he retired

It says he became the oldest living president at the age of 50 in the the paragraph, but at age 49 in the table below. "Furthermore, although Theodore Roosevelt was the youngest ever to become both the oldest living president (at age 50) and a former president (at age 51), he was the only living president or former president by the end of his term. " "Theodore Roosevelt June 24, 1908 – March 4, 1909 49 years, 241 days 50 years, 128 days 253 days". Also, it says he become a former president at the age of 51 in the paragraph, but at age 50 in the table above. Could someone please at least make this article consistent? Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.248.142.193 (talk) 21:02, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Done. עם ישראל חי (talk) 21:59, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Slight expansion of information contained under "Age of U.S. presidents"

Within the last paragraph under section header "Age of U.S. presidents" is the text, "The second oldest, Jimmy Carter, has the distinction of having the longest post-presidency in U.S. history, currently at 43 years, 306 days. The youngest living president is Barack Obama, born August 4, 1961 (age 63 years, 109 days). On November 25, 2017, Bush also became the longest-lived president, surpassing the lifespan of Gerald Ford, who died at the age of 93 years, 165 days on December 26, 2006."

Since that portion of the paragraph explains who George H. W. Bush surpassed to become the longest-lived president, I added the green-marked text which specifies whose timespan Jimmy Carter surpassed for the distinction of having the longest post-presidency in U.S. history. "The second oldest, Jimmy Carter, has the distinction of having the longest post-presidency in U.S. history, currently at 43 years, 306 days, surpassing Herbert Hoover's post-presidency timespan of 31 years, 230 days on September 7, 2012." —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 11:54, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

The text can be actually expanded slightly further so that it indicates when the record was set, as in the form used for George H. W. Bush's surpassing of Gerald Ford's record: "surpassing Herbert Hoover's post-presidency timespan of 31 years, 230 days (set upon his death on October 20, 1964) on September 7, 2012." —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 16:01, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

Another possible form might be: "On September 7, 2012 he surpassed the previous record (31 years, 230 days) held by Herbert Hoover since his death on October 20, 1964." —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 23:04, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

That's an unnecesarily wordy and ambiguous statement. Did Hoover set the "longest post-presidency" record on 10/20/1964, or did he stopped adding days to a record he already held? Is it really important to note when he set the now-broken record or when he stopped adding to it? It seems a bit trivial to me. Drdpw (talk) 23:49, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
Two points: 1) Since all details are indicated with exactitude (Jimmy Carter's post-presidency is updated daily, with today's total specified as 37 years, 35 days), the start of his post-presidency should be probably also indicated with exactitude: January 20, 1981, not merely January 1981. Point 2) concerns the previous post-presidency record timespan. In the same manner that we have the exact date on which the previous record holder's lifespan ended: "...surpassing the lifespan of Gerald Ford, who died at the age of 93 years, 165 days on December 26, 2006", we should also analogously have, within the same paragraph, the exact date on which the previous record holder's post-presidency timespan ended: "...surpassing the previous record of 31 years, 230 days held by Herbert Hoover since his death on October 20, 1964". —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 01:05, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
Carter's post-presidency endurance is only updated daily because it lengthens daily; the precise start date doesn't change and isn't as relevant. I expect Ford's sentence has included more detail because it occurred more recently, but if all structure must be consistent, we can just as easily leave out the extra detail for both Ford and Hoover. It's not like readers can't get the info from the tabular data. —ADavidB 01:45, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
As I added the parenthetical note regarding Carter's post-presidency start-date, I'll remove it, along with Ford's date of death, as both are of secondary importance here. Drdpw (talk) 02:02, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

median age

the median age upon accession is the middle president or the 2 middle ones divided in two so 45 presidents makes the 23rd president by age the median עם ישראל חי (talk) 19:18, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

I am appending section header "See also" with the five links below which, among over a hundred entries at Category:Lists relating to the United States presidency, appear to be sufficiently relevant to the topic of this list:

Although those links appear somewhat relevant, I removed the added See also section, because it's redundant. The page already contains a navbox—Lists related to the Presidents and Vice Presidents of the United States—which contains those links plus many others. Cheers. Drdpw (talk) 01:13, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
Just want to point out to editors who may not know this, but templates (navboxes) don't appear on mobile. So half of our readers won't see those links unless they come up on See also. Other dropped information to mobile readers include categories and, if my understanding is correct, talk pages. So the See also additions to a small list of pertinent topics, such as some but not all of those added by Roman Spinner, seems to be adding good information to readers who wouldn't see them otherwise. Randy Kryn (talk) 08:42, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
Talk pages can be viewed on mobile, but they are accessed differently. There is a "Talk" button at the bottom of every page. For example look at this very page in mobile view and scroll to the bottom. By the way, you can see the mobile view of any page by scrolling to the bottom of the page and clicking the "mobile view" link; likewise, from mobile view, scroll to the bottom and click "desktop view" if you wish. YBG (talk) 14:41, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 31 May 2018

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Not moved. There is a clear absence of consensus for the proposed move, and a well-reasoned policy-based argument against it invoking MOS:JOBTITLES. For internal consistency, I am moving both "named after U.S. presidents/Presidents" titles to "named after presidents of the United States" titles. For purposes of this discussion I have discounted the opinion of one low-participation IP indicating support without a rationale. bd2412 T 19:02, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

– Talk:List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States#Requested_move_20_May_2018 and Talk:List_of_Vice_Presidents_of_the_United_States#Requested_move_21_May_2018 were both closed without a consensus to move the pages/leave it capitalized. These pages should be capitalized as well if the consensus is to capitalize the pages. 75.67.58.188 (talk) 22:51, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

  • Support, but create REDIRECTS for caps/un-caps NO MATTER WHAT - I mean, we have to keep it consistent somehow. Either NONE of them should be in caps or ALL of them should. They should all match up, in my opinion. But, NO MATTER WHAT happens, REDIRECTS should be CREATED for the capitalized/un-capitalized variant titles to all of these pages and the ones listed on Talk:List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States#Requested_move_20_May_2018 and Talk:List_of_Vice_Presidents_of_the_United_States#Requested_move_21_May_2018. Paintspot Infez (talk) 01:30, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Per WP:LOWERCASE, titles are written in sentence case, that is to say, the same way they would be written in a prose sentence in the middle of a paragraph. Per MOS:JOBTITLES
    Offices, titles, and positions such as president, king, emperor, grand duke, lord mayor, pope, bishop, abbot, chief financial officer, and executive director are common nouns and therefore should be in lower case when used generically.
    It goes on to say
    They are capitalized only in the following cases:
    • When followed by a person's name to form a title, i.e., when they can be considered to have become part of the name: President Nixon, not president Nixon
    • When a title is used to refer to a specific and obvious person as a substitute for their name, e.g., the Queen, not the queen, referring to Elizabeth II
    • When a formal title for a specific entity (or conventional translation thereof) is addressed as a title or position in and of itself, is not plural, is not preceded by a modifier (including a definite or indefinite article), and is not a reworded description
    As none of these exceptions applies, the titles 'president' and 'vice president' should be lower case. I do appreciate the desire for consistency, but just because a different discussion failed come to a consensus to make a change to be in compliance with the MOS, that is no reason to change these articles to be out of compliance with the manual of style. I would support this change only after a discussion results in a consensus to change the WP:MOS. YBG (talk) 02:11, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
  • As the closer of the linked discussions closer of one of the linked discussions, I'd like to point out that "no consensus to move to lowercase" does not mean that there was "consensus to capitalize the pages." It means that there was no agreement that a change would be preferable to the status quo. While consistency is encouraged, the old closes are not sufficient evidence that capitalized titles are preferred. Dekimasuよ! 05:39, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Support, per consistency with other similar pages and as the most familiar form (considered commonly as a proper noun). Randy Kryn (talk) 19:23, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Support per nomination and Randy Kryn.    Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 23:52, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Support- let's get these articles in line with List of Presidents of the United States & List of Vice Presidents of the United States articles. GoodDay (talk) 11:32, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
  • N-gram result, here is the n-gram showing the large majority use of upper-cased 'Presidents of the United States (consistent upper-casing since the early-1820s). Randy Kryn (talk) 12:46, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment – Premature request, because of an ongoing move review that discusses capitalization of "presidents" in the plural form. — JFG talk 21:46, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose, per WP:JOBTITLES. The word "presidents" is a common plural lower-cased noun, as you can see from this ngram. Does the phrase "of the United States" carry capitalization powers of some kind? Before anyone uses the result of some other RM as a basis to close this one, check this move review. BTW, thank you Dekimasu for disavowing the notion that your close should be used a precedent. Nine Zulu queens (talk) 01:15, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. - Just because the other RM ended in no consensus does not mean that MOS:JOBTITLES needs to be thrown out the window. -- Millionsandbillions (talk) 17:49, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose, per MOS:JOBTITLES. It should be our guideline, not a consistency with other titles. —ADavidB 01:57, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose per MOS:JOBTITLES which is absolutely crystal clear on this usage, with an actual example in lowercase, and especially per the excellent rationale expressed by User:YBG and the lack of consensus to capitalize in the other RM. Also per the comments from User:Nine Zulu queens and common English usage. As to comments about other articles using the capitalized word president; WP:OTHERSTUFF is the answer. - Becksguy (talk) 02:57, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Support per MOS:JOBTITLES. Titles of a job are capitalised and treated as a proper noun when they take the form "President of the United States". These articles all pertain to the parent topic President of the United States, which is capitalised as a proper noun. Also good to maintain WP:CONSISTENCY (which is a policy) with the other similar articles.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:24, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Support per nom. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:241:300:C930:28CC:F8A2:C31F:1A50 (talk) 16:52, 10 June 2018 (UTC) — 2601:241:300:C930:28CC:F8A2:C31F:1A50 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

RE:The 2 new tables

In addition to a few minor cosmetic tweaks to the recently added tables, I have (1) created and moved them to a separate section, as the information in them is (unlike the surrounding material (in prose & image gallary) not directly related to the subject of presidents' ages; (2) switched from Template:Number table sorting to Template:Age in days in the cells of the "length of time" column, for while sometimes useful in sortable tables, the nts-template isn't useful outside of sortable tables; and (3) removed the unnecessary top table titles, as they simply repeat what is stated in the sentence before each table. Drdpw (talk) 03:08, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

I don’t lnlw Isaiah Simon (talk) 15:49, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Proposal to overhaul table

I believe the table that lists all presidents has the potential to be improved. In its current state, it does not look as inviting as it could be. On first sight, instead of investing a short minute in it, I found myself quickly moving on. I could go into detail, but I'll spare you. Instead, I invite you to take a look at my version. Besides preventing unnecessary wrapping, you'll probably notice that I removed the total amount of post-presidency and lifespan days. Personally, I think showing the total amount of days adds nothing of value and that the number loses its meaning considering the fact we're frequently talking about tens of thousands of days. It's a meaningless number that only serves to distract. Anyways, I'm open to criticism and would like a consensus on whether to implement my table. Thank you. --Jay D'Easy (talk) 15:39, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

I agree. Let's get rid of the number of days. YBG (talk) 17:59, 6 August 2018 (UTC)
@Jay D'Easy: Your version is much cleaner thanks. We could gain some more space by using {{time interval}} instead of {{ayd}}, with instructions to display abbreviated units, e.g. for George Washington's age: {{time interval | Feb 22, 1732 | Apr 30, 1789 |show=yd |sep=space |abbr=on |sortable=on}}, which yields "57y 67d" and is sortable.
Agree remove number of days it should only come into play where the number of years and days are the same as another but one would be more by just the number of days. עם ישראל חי (talk) 19:42, 6 August 2018 (UTC)
Concur with cutting the measurements by days. YBG has done that in the VPs by age table, except for in the post-presidency and lifespan columns, which I subsequently did, but was reverted. I had also edited that table to remove the post-presidency column – for while interesting, it's a measurement of length, not of age, and thus beyond the scope of the table & page. For that reason (plus the fact that eliminating it saves vertical space and simplifies an already data-intense table slightly), I suggest that it be cut from this table as well. Regarding your proposal, I like the alignment of dates & numbers in the various columns, but don't care for the bold numbers or the shading in the left-hand columns, and suggest that YBG's combined "number • name" format be used in this table. I also find the small font objectionable, unnecessary and hard to read. Overall, I think it's a step in the right direction; thanks for your work. Drdpw (talk) 20:01, 6 August 2018 (UTC)
If we use "68y 22d" instead of "68 years, 22 days", we can probably get back to normal font size while keeping table width within "normal" screens. — JFG talk 20:40, 6 August 2018 (UTC)
I disagree the post presidency timeline column should be kept עם ישראל חי (talk) 20:53, 6 August 2018 (UTC)
I also think that the post-presidency time is interesting and related to the topic of this article. All else being equal, presidents with longer post-presidential timespans are older upon death. It also provides a useful sort that distinguishes those who died in office, which is certainly related to the topic of this article. But I will abide by whatever consensus arises.
I tentatively agree with eliminating the whole number of days. But keep in mind that 1 year 100 days is sometimes 466 days and sometimes 465 days do to the occurrence of leap years. We should look for ties and near-ties and see if there there would be any difference in ordering by years+days vs. by days only.
I'd also propose combining the headers for the last two columns into "Death // Date + Age" to make it parallel to the other column pairs. YBG (talk) 23:21, 6 August 2018 (UTC)
For example let us compare (1) Elbridge Gerry's age at death with Al Gore's age (2) yesterday, (3) today, and (4) tomorrow:
  1. {{ayd|1744|7|17|1814|11|23}}={{Age in days|1744|7|17|1814|11|23}} 70 years, 129 days=25695d
  2. {{ayd|1948|3|31|2018|08|06}}={{Age in days|1948|3|31|2018|08|06}} 70 years, 128 days=25695d
  3. {{ayd|1948|3|31|2018|08|07}}={{Age in days|1948|3|31|2018|08|07}} 70 years, 129 days=25696d
  4. {{ayd|1948|3|31|2018|08|08}}={{Age in days|1948|3|31|2018|08|08}} 70 years, 130 days=25697d
Notice that for {{ayd}}, (1)=(3), but for {{Age in days}}, (1)=(2). These sort of anomalies will come and go as the living officeholders occasionally surpass their deceased predecessors in age. YBG (talk) 00:54, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
Because of this very anomaly the table at List of Presidents of the United States by time in office includes this note: Of years evenly divisible by 100, only those evenly divisible by 400 are leap years. The years 1800 and 1900 are divisible by 100, but not by 400. Thus, John Adams's term and McKinley's first term did not include a 366-day leap year, so those terms were one day shorter than a normal full term. The year 2000 is divisible by 400 and so did include one, thus Clinton's second term was not shorter than his first. Something similar could be made to work here. It appears that (thus far) there would be no ordering problems in this table due to the leap year anomaly. Drdpw (talk) 01:32, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
I think such notes, while interesting to me, are unnecessary detail unless they actually affect something. YBG (talk) 06:29, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
Agree it would only make a difference if they end equal for example if gore died today if he continues living it will change tomorrow and there would be no problem so theres no point in having days or notes unless one dies equal to another where the days are actually different than years and days at that point it should be noted for that person עם ישראל חי (talk) 13:51, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Seems we have a consensus to remove the whole number of days. Less strong - but I believe also non-controversial - is the combining of the first two columns. YBG (talk) 08:10, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

@YBG: I disagree with combining the first two columns, because now we can't sort by president's name. — JFG talk 09:35, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
Alright everyone, thank you for your valuable input. I have taken it into account and wish to hear what you think of the updated version. We're back at regular font size and non-bold numbers. I had to tinker with the padding a bit until I was satisfied. --Jay D'Easy (talk) 11:53, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. I applied some tweaks to avoid line wraps and to sort the Grover Cleveland presidencies consistently.[1] Further changes I would suggest are:
  • state "living" in the "death date" entry of living presidents;
  • align all age cells to the right (that would also simplify the markup because the alignment can be specified on the full line).
Great job. — JFG talk 12:47, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
Thank you. Any feedback on my edit from just now? Same link as before, but updated. Jay D'Easy (talk) 14:34, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
Pretty good. I think the footnote about being alive "as of 7 August 2018" is not necessary. If one of the living presidents dies tomorrow, I'm pretty sure the article will be promptly updated. Otherwise, ready to go. — JFG talk 16:34, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
I have also added links to assassination articles where relevant. We could also add links to inauguration articles when they exist, but I'm not sure it's so compelling. — JFG talk 12:55, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
Agree it would only make a difference if they end equal for example if gore died today if he continues living it will change tomorrow and there would be no problem so theres no point in having days or notes unless one dies equal to another where the days are actually different than years and days at that point it should be noted for that person Since the leap year issue is only about a single day, and the margin of error when measuring by days is 48 hours - nearly two days - there is no need to make note of the leap year one-day difference as it is within the margin of error. Canada Jack (talk) 14:25, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
since at this point its not applicable when it happens we can debate it then עם ישראל חי (talk) 15:05, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

My thoughts:

  1. I really like using y and d instead of year and day
  2. The extra whitespace from |width=100% makes the whole table unsightly at large widths
  3. The padding-right:1.2em causes unsightly line breaks at narrow widths. When you depart from the default values, you run the risk of making it extra ugly in a browser other than your own. This is particularly apparent in the mobile view.
  4. The ages are best left justified - it keeps the years aligned except when it is less than a year.
  5. One option to consider would be to left justify ages >= 1y and to right justify ages < 1y, assuming of course that you have eliminated the |width=100%. Having not tried this, it may not be appealing, but I do think it worthy of consideration.
  6. When an abnormal value fills a cell - assinated, died in office, alive - it would look much better if those cells were center justified, no matter whether the column is generally left or right justified.
  7. I have elsewhere argued in favor of right justifying dates so that the comparable part (the year) is vertically aligned, but I yielded to consensus and agreed to left justify dates. Maybe it is because I have now become used to it, but in this case I really think it would be best if dates were left justified.
  8. My general rule for the esthetics of justification is to scan down a column both when it is sorted and when it is not.
  9. As for combining or separating the first two columns, using y and d makes this less necessary. But for me, I think it is better, and I cannot think of any particular reason why a reader would wish to view this table in alphabetical order by president name. Yes, it might be easier to find a particular president, but surely it would be easier to use the browser's search feature. Surely there is no benefit to sorting the two Johnson or the two Roosevelts together, much less viewing Garfield between Ford and Grant.

YBG (talk) 16:31, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Just to make things clear, I feel very strongly about 1(yd), 2(width), 3(padding); much less so about 9 (combining # & name) and am nearly ambivalent about 4-8 (alignment). YBG (talk) 19:55, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
Agree that 100% width should not be forced. Disagree that left-alignment would be better; columns look much easier to parse when right-aligned. Neutral on the padding. Must keep sorting by name and by number separate; I don't see any reason to merge those columns. — JFG talk 17:15, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
I really like the changes YBG implemented. Regarding the left-2 columns, I like the way they look when combined, and can see no compelling reason for the number-order of presidency and president's name to individually sort. Sorting by PsOTUS names is relatively unimportant, IMO, having the names do so adds little to the table. Also, whether one or two columns, I do not like them shaded differently from the other cells in the row. Drdpw (talk) 19:34, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
taking out years and days and replacing with y & d doesn't look good i think the way it is now is perfect עם ישראל חי (talk) 19:49, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Grover Cleveland Post-presidency timespan

The 15 years and 112 days shown as the Post-presidency timespan for both of Grover Cleveland's terms is both factually inaccurate, it is the post presidency timespan for neither, and by having been entered statically it breaks the list. I believe the end dates of each term should be entered normally resulting in the list working and sorting properly and more accurate information with his lifespan from the end of each term reported correctly. I don't think it is likely anyone is looking for the time after his first term but not including his second, which is what the calculation provides. Even if so, this number can easily be calculated if needed from the information provided. Unless there is a objection/consensus against I will eventually make the change to the normal calculation based on the end of each term, probably maintaining a slightly tweaked footnote explaining the unusual situation. Phil (talk) 01:26, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Making it possible to get an ordered list of oldest presidents ever

Of the people who have ever been president, the three who have lived to the oldest age are GHW Bush (94 now), Carter (94 now), and Ford (93 in 2006), and it is possible to sort the table into this order, because there is a single column that lists the age-at-death for dead people and age-at-present for the living.

However, the three people who have been president at the oldest age are Reagan (77 in 1989), Trump (72 now), and Eisenhower (70 in 1961), but there is no way to get the table sorted into this order, because there is no single column that lists the age-at-end-of-presidency for ex-presidents and age-at-present for the current president.

I think it's a pretty serious failure for a "List of presidents of the United States by age" page to be unable to show you a list of presidents of the United States sorted by oldest age as president. I made an edit that I thought fixed this problem nicely, but User:Drdpw reverted it without explanation.

I'm guessing the objection is that listing an age under the heading "End of Presidency / Age" implies that the presidency has ended, but: (1) I think any such confusion is adequately dispelled by the "still serving" in the adjacent column, and (2) if this is really a problem, then it's a much bigger problem that we're listing a "Death / Age" for half-a-dozen not-dead people, and no one seems to have any problem with that.

Birdfern (talk) 16:14, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

oldest president and vp

where can we add a line on this page and the corresponding vp page mentioning that nine of the oldest presidents were also the oldest vice-president Adams, Van Buren, Fillmore, Johnson, Truman, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Bush with 3 Johnson, Johnson, and Bush are the only ones to be oldest president and VP for the same amount of time עם ישראל חי (talk) 22:19, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and added a sentence about the nine who have been the oldest living president and also the oldest living vice president (J. Adams, M. Van Buren, M. Fillmore, A. Johnson, H. Truman, L. Johnson, R. Nixon, G. Ford, and G. H. W. Bush) on this page, and tweaked the mirror sentence on the VP-age page. Drdpw (talk) 23:36, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Former age records

@JFG, DatGuy, Gap9551, Oshwah, Denisarona, Birdfern, AmYisroelChai, and Drdpw:I prefer to refer in someway to the old age records. For example, John Adams' had lost his age distinctions, but he'd kept them more than any other president.

Longevity:Adams became the oldest-living president on August 23, 1803. Ronald Reagan surpassed him on October 11, 2001 (after 198 years, 49 days). Gerald Ford surpassed Reagan on November 12, 2006 (after 5 years, 32 days). George . H. W. Bush surpassed Ford on November 25, 2017 (after 11 years, 13 days)
Oldest living:The First president Washington had held the distinction of being the oldest-living president for 10 years, 228 days. John Adams surpassed him on July 31, 1810 (after 10 years, 229 days). Adams was only surpassed by Herbert Hoover on July 27, 1959 (after 148 years, 361 days).
Retirement:The First president Washington had held the distinction of being the longest retired president for 6 years, 286 days. John Adams surpassed him on December 15, 1803. Adams was surpassed by Herbert Hoover on July 5, 1958 (after 154 years, 202 days). Hoover was surpassed by Jimmy Carter on September 8, 2012 (after 54 years, 65 days).Maher27777 (talk) 22:09, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
I don't see any point in mentioning the durations of being a "record holder", or on what date which president "surpassed" another. That's all pointless trivia that readers can compute if they wish; not encyclopedic unless some WP:RS have mentioned those stats. — JFG talk 02:46, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

When did Carter become the longest lived US president?

This occurred during March 21, 2019. GoodDay (talk) 15:32, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

We don't do during, it goes by complete days so it occurred on March 22. SCAH (talk) 16:04, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
If we adopted that approach to death dates, we'd have GHW Bush's death date as December 1, 2018. GoodDay (talk) 16:28, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
We wouldn't have his death on that date as he died on November 30 but calculations are off because he died on the 172nd day of his 95th year. That is a problem with the ayd calculation as it counts his birthday as the 365 day of his 94th year when it should be the 1st day of his 95th year, for some reason ayd calculates day 1 as day 0 for example 364 days when December 31st is the 365th day of the year. SCAH (talk) 17:05, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
Bush died during November 30, 2018. These things should be approached by the exact time. Not as 24 hrs units. GoodDay (talk) 17:08, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
What time was he born ? SCAH (talk) 17:22, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
Bush41 was born during July 12, 1924. You don't seem to understand what I'm getting at. We're using two different methods for showing 'death dates' & 'dates, one's passed another in age'. GoodDay (talk) 17:26, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
The margin of error here is something close to 48 hours when we go by year and day count anyway. Which is why it is a moot point if someone has lived an extra day owing to an extra leap year compared to someone else - a single day by a day-count is within the margin of error. Of course, if we knew the time of day that each were born, and the time of death for Bush we could determine the hour, if not the minute, that Carter became oldest-ever. But that is beyond the scope of the page and would only be relevant if, say, Carter died on March 21st or thereabouts. But he didn't. Canada Jack (talk) 01:15, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Trump's Presidency end date

We should not list of date for the end of Trump's presidency per WP:CRYSTALBALL. He could die/resign sooner. I understand it is VERY likely he will leave office on that day, but the in the context of this list, only known facts should be used. GreatCaesarsGhost 12:44, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Biden's age records

@Drdpw, TheConflux, Samwalton9, Adavidb, Clarkcj12, Mikrobølgeovn, Jhn31, and Ishmam Farhad: Thanks to all want to update information, and those who protect the page, especially Mr.Drdpw. I want to refer that Biden, if inaugurated, would have two age records other than the oldest president at the time of inauguration. And those are:

  1. The oldest president at the time of leaving office, at any time after inauguration.
  2. The president born before the greatest number of his predecessors (along with Reagan), who are: Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama, Trump.Maher27777 (talk) 19:11, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
When Biden becomes President of the United States on January 20, 2021, but not before (as it's not a record yet), this article obviously note that he is oldest at the time of inauguration and born before the greatest number of predecessors, and when he leaves office, but not before (as it won't be a record until then), this article obviously note that he is oldest at time of leaving office. Drdpw (talk) 21:32, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
Yes, I agree. Why is Biden not mentioned at all on this page yet? It's still notable information even before Inauguration Day. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheConflux (talk • contribs) 19:43, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
Until Biden is president, he is not within the scope of this article. The oldest president entering office will usually be the oldest one leaving office, so I don't consider that overly notable on its own, and the information is easily obtained by using the sort feature with the "Age at end of presidency" column heading. Also, until the oldest leaves office, it'd be too soon to declare the fact. A 'birth before greatest predecessors' tie can certainly be added to the appropriate paragraph upon inauguration. —ADavidB 20:50, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
I will have to agree with Adavidb, until he is president he is not within the scope of the article, which depending on what happens between now and January we will have to see. Otherwise it won't be till January till he will be in scope. Then it will be only worth mentioning one age record of the oldest person to go into the office. --Clarkcj12 (talk) 03:03, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
"The oldest president entering office will usually be the oldest one leaving office" This is incorrect. It has only been the same briefly - John Adams during the presidency of Jefferson and Reagan from 1989-2017. You are correct that we shouldn't say Biden is the oldest at the time he left office. But we can certainly say (on 1/20) he is the oldest person to ever serve as president. GreatCaesarsGhost 13:14, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
Forget Jackson held both for 4 years. GreatCaesarsGhost 13:28, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
From the "graphical representation" at the end of the "Presidential age-related data" section, and looking at the blue highlights, we can see that Adams was the oldest to enter the presidency, and the oldest ever upon leaving. Jackson was the next to be oldest ever entering, and upon leaving. W.H. Harrison was even older at his start, but died quickly in office, an exception. The next president to be older than Harrison at inauguration was Reagan, who easily set the 'record' for oldest upon leaving. That brings us to the current president. So, we have three who were oldest both upon entering and leaving, and one who wasn't (with only a month-long presidency). —ADavidB 14:12, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
Nowadays, Trump was the oldest person to enter WH, but wouldn't be the oldest to leave.Maher27777 (talk) 15:06, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
He hasn't left yet. Until he does, it's not a concern for this article. —ADavidB 15:19, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
There are actually a few more who were oldest at leaving: Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Eisenhower, Reagan. GreatCaesarsGhost 15:08, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
My point is that those who are oldest to enter are usually next (unsurprisingly) the oldest to leave, so there's no need to mention the likelihood before it happens. —ADavidB 15:19, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
Joe Biden's own article (which gets much more traffic than this one) literally states that he is president-elect and "will be inaugurated." I understand that there's a possibility something happens to him before Jan 20. With that said, especially since his age is notable in its own right, a sentence stating "If and when Joe Biden is sworn in as president on January 20, 2021, he will be the oldest president in history." or similar feels like it provides good information that would be of interest to anyone curious about presidential age trivia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheConflux (talk • contribs) 01:20, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
I concur with Adavidb. When Biden becomes President of the United States on January 20, 2021, this article can accurately state that he was the oldest person ever to assume office. When Biden becomes President of the United States on January 20, 2021, this article can accurately state that Biden and Reagan were born before four of their predecessors. Whenever Biden leaves office the article can accurately state that Biden was the oldest at time of leaving office. Until these events happen they are not facts and should not be included in the encyclopedia. Drdpw (talk) 16:47, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
Remember that I've said in the first paragraph "...if inaugurated". That is, we should wait until January 20, 2021.Maher27777 (talk) 08:56, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Bell Curve Photo Needs Replaced

Now that a President that is over the age 74 has been Inaugurated, the image displaying a bell curve needs to be updated. -- Sleyece (talk) 19:04, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Agreed, a new column for the 75-79 demographic should be added. -- Millionsandbillions (talk) 19
34, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
Just came here to say this! I don't have the technical skill to do this, though. TheConflux (talk) 02:16, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
I've added an updated image, File:Presidential ages at inaguaration, United States, accurate up to Biden 2021.png.
SSSB (talk) 14:55, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
SSSB: Thanks for creating an updated graph. I do, however, have one modification to suggest. Please change the numbering at the bottom to read: ≤44; 45–49; 50–54; 55–59; 60–64; 65–69; 70–74; 75–79. This would be less confusing than the current numbering pattern (to me at least). Drdpw (talk) 15:33, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
 Done - I actually went one step further and it now matches much more accuratly the original.
SSSB (talk) 15:56, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
Even though I'm very OCD about bell curves, and that little bar off the the right makes me want to rip my hair out, thank you for the necessary update. -- Sleyece (talk) 19:25, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Outliving successors

@Drdpw: I like not to engage in an edit war, but I want to defend my trivial contribution. I think it's relevant to say that van Buren Outlived four successors, and Hamlin outlived six. It's not only related to the age issue, but also to the democracy. It's not possible to witness in a totalitarian regime, where officeholders supposed to die in it, men like them. I depended on Random House dictionary, although I'm not have to. The information is implicitly mentioned and sourced below.--Maher27777 (talk) 09:55, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

I fail to understand your text. Who is Hamlin? What does the simple fact of outliving a successor have to do with a lack of a totalitarian regime in the United States? Dimadick (talk) 12:29, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
This makes no sense. Firstly, outliving successors has nothing to do with democracy. If Biden dies before his term ends it does not make him a totalitarian leader. If Kim Jong Un decides he doesn't want to lead anymore, resigns and appoints a successor it doesn't make North Korea a democracy. Van Buren may have the distinction of outliving most of his successor's, but it's relevance is limited and not particulary noteworthy. I'm assuming the Hamlin to which you are refering it Hannibal Hamlin (vice-president under Abraham Lincoln). I'm sure why you mentioned him because a) he is irrelevant here and b) the fact he outlives six of his successors says even less about democracy than van Buren outliving his.
SSSB (talk) 14:56, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
@Dimadick and SSSB: Thank you all for replying. My text seems ambiguous because it was written primarily for Mr. Drdpw. I'd just written two similar paragraphs. One in this page, said: "Martin Van Buren outlived four of his successors, more than any other president: William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor." The other in the VPs page, said: "Hannibal Hamlin outlived six of his successors, more than any [other] vice president: Andrew Johnson, Schuyler Colfax, Henry Wilson, William A. Wheeler, Chester A. Arthur, and Thomas A. Hendricks." Both paragraphs have been reverted by Mr. Drdpw, so I've protested. If you see that those paragraphs are irrelevant, it's OK with me. But I like to speak more about my view. Any US president is supposed to serve the term for which he was elected, even he died before the end of his term. Only in the democratic system you can see, for example, six living presidents of vice presidents. So if you saw a man like van Buren who outlived four successors, this "distinction" is a fruit of Democracy. On the other side, North Korean leaders, for example, who are supposed to rule for life, may never get this distinction! How many successors Kim Il Sung or Kim Jung Il had outlived?!--Maher27777 (talk) 20:58, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
@Maher27777: Thanks for sharing your views. It doesn't, however, changes my initial assessment that the Van Buren and the Hamlin distinction of having outlived the most number their respective successors is rather tangential and not especially noteworthy. Drdpw (talk) 21:28, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Age of presidents when assuming office

The bar chart in this picture is oddly spaced by age. A more even and accurate spread based on the data would be 41-81 w/ bars separated in 5 year increments -- Sleyece (talk) 19:57, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

20 between 40–44 → 20 between 41–45
70 between 45–49 → 80 between 46–50
13 between 50–54 → 16 between 51–55
12 between 55–59 → 90 between 56–60
70 between 60–64 → 70 between 61–65
30 between 65–69 → 30between 66–70
10 between 70–74 → 00 between 71–75
10 between 75–79 → 10 between 76–80
How is that a more even and accurate spread? Drdpw (talk) 22:40, 1 August 2021 (UTC)
It's not, of course. I misspoke about the increments I meant. The most accurate spread is:
  • 41-46
  • 47-52
  • 53-58
  • 59-64
  • 65-70
  • 71-76
  • 77-82

Sleyece (talk) 17:19, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

One last adjustment above. This makes the Bell Curve less messy. Sleyece (talk) 19:50, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
So what you're proposing is to change the increments just to make the grapgh look nicer? I'm sorry but I don't see the point of this. I don't see any problem with the current increments, even if the bell curve isn't perfect.
SSSB (talk) 10:25, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
If you don't mind the content of this article not being good enough, then there is nothing more I can do. -- Sleyece (talk) 17:21, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
That's a complete misrepresentation of what I said. The current graph doesn't make the article "not good enough", so I don't see the point in changing anything. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
SSSB (talk) 19:04, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
Although the current increments do not result in a perfectly formed bell curve, the current graph accurately shows the age of all U.S. presidents when taking office for the first time, and it enhances the article nicely (the current graph certainly does not render the article "not good enough"). Also, neither the caption nor the surrounding prose say anything about the chart representing a bell curve. Drdpw (talk) 19:52, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
The chart is good enough for now. It's just not good enough forever. Any President younger or older that the current dataset is going to throw the whole thing into a tailspin, and it doesn't need to be that way. -- Sleyece (talk) 18:53, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
The only reason to change the increments would be if there are too many bars for the gragh to be easily interpreted. I think that we can get away with a least two more bars. There are two ways too exceed that
  1. A president under 40 (bearing a mind that minimum age is 35) and one in the 85-90 range.
  2. A president over 90.
Neither of these are likely for a long time yet.
SSSB (talk) 10:17, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Former vs Acting Presidents

Would anyone object to adding a photo of President Biden near the top of this page? There is a large photo collection of nonagenarian former presidents. This distinction seems less notable than the collection of oldest active presidents, who hold power etc. Bertie woo (talk) 04:55, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm going to go further than not "object" and actively support this proposal. Most of the article is about the age of presidents whilst in office/when they entered office - as opposed to statements that became true after their presidency ended (like being nonagenarian). The images should reflect this. SSSB (talk) 10:23, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
I could support removing the photos of nonagenarian former presidents and the last three sentences of that paragraph (beginning with 'Altogether, six U.S. presidents have ...') Years ago, when there were only a few of them, this distinction was unique and noteworthy, but now, not so much. I could also support adding some captioned photos of presidents mentioned earlier in the "Age of presidents" section. If we go in this direction, the question arises – which presidents? Drdpw (talk) 14:07, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
I would start with youngest and oldest in office - and go from there... SSSB (talk) 14:21, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan's age on taking office is wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.50.216.103 (talk) 14:06, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

– The table states that he was 69 years, 349 days of age on January 20, 1981, which is correct. Drdpw (talk) 15:48, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Age of presidents section trimmed

I removed the sentence about Kennedy being "born after the greatest number of his successors" and the one about Reagan being "born before four" of his predecessors. Both are built upon original research, and I can find no secondary source confirmation of these facts. I retained (but tweaked) the sentence about Biden being "born before four" of his predecessors, as it is backed by a secondary source. I also removed the photos of nonagenarian former presidents. As the primary focus of the article is about the age of presidents when entering / leaving office or while in office, the photo gallery gives undue weight to the distinction. I did leave a sentence stating that Carter is one of six U.S. presidents to have lived into their 90s. Cheers. Drdpw (talk) 20:31, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

- I’m quite late to the party here, but upon seeing this, I felt it was best to remove the part about Biden being born before his four immediate predecessors. I understand removing the parts about JFK and Reagan for being original research, but the end result is that the point is lost and the part about Biden is just random and incomplete. - GreenFlash411 20 September 2022 (UTC)
Alone, the distinction does seem to just hang there as an aside. Drdpw (talk) 22:22, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

All presidents alive who served during last 30 years

I believe this is unprecedented, but January 20th marked the 30th anniversary of Bill Clinton becoming president, and with he and all four of his successors still alive, that marks 30 unbroken years of living presidents. Of course, other ex-presidents have lived more than 30 years after taking office, but never have all presidents over such a long span been simultaneously alive! Not even sure if there is a category for this... Canada Jack (talk) 02:07, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Assume good faith before simply deleting my fucking post! It was placed for discussion, if editors believe the issue is not relevant, the correct action is to say so, not to delete the post, unless someone if clearly trolling. This entire subject - age of presidents - is the very definition of trivia in the first place! If my post has no place, the entire page has no place either. Canada Jack (talk) 04:01, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Removing post-presidency timespan and lifespan for those who are living

I don't think it makes sense to have a post-presidency timespan and lifespan for those who are living. For it to remain accurate, the page would require daily updates. I propose removing the dates for those who are still living and replacing it with "(living)" similar to the death dates. Jaredjjj (talk) 05:47, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Looking closer, I see that those times are actually automatically generated, but I still don't think they should be there. Having a time for the age in the lifespan column (for example) implies that they died at that age. I think it should be changed to "(living)" until they pass. Jaredjjj (talk) 05:53, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
Having a timespan in the post-presidency and lifespan columns shows how much time has passed from "then" until "now" for those who are living. Drdpw (talk) 04:19, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Errant "Notes"

Item (d) under "Notes" reads: "Cleveland was president for two non-consecutive terms; this is his post-presidential retirement, after his second term (1897–1908)." The Presidents in those years were William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. Cleveland's second term ran from 1893 to 1897. 192.34.130.214 (talk) 22:08, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

1897-1908 is the set of years of his post-presidential retirement, not his second term. 217.211.43.202 (talk) 09:47, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
I have modified the note to alleviate the confusion. Drdpw (talk) 17:54, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Removing post-presidency timespan and lifespan for those who are living

I don't think it makes sense to have a post-presidency timespan and lifespan for those who are living. For it to remain accurate, the page would require daily updates. I propose removing the dates for those who are still living and replacing it with "(living)" similar to the death dates. Jaredjjj (talk) 05:47, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Looking closer, I see that those times are actually automatically generated, but I still don't think they should be there. Having a time for the age in the lifespan column (for example) implies that they died at that age. I think it should be changed to "(living)" until they pass. Jaredjjj (talk) 05:53, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
Having a timespan in the post-presidency and lifespan columns shows how much time has passed from "then" until "now" for those who are living. Drdpw (talk) 04:19, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Errant "Notes"

Item (d) under "Notes" reads: "Cleveland was president for two non-consecutive terms; this is his post-presidential retirement, after his second term (1897–1908)." The Presidents in those years were William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. Cleveland's second term ran from 1893 to 1897. 192.34.130.214 (talk) 22:08, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

1897-1908 is the set of years of his post-presidential retirement, not his second term. 217.211.43.202 (talk) 09:47, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
I have modified the note to alleviate the confusion. Drdpw (talk) 17:54, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
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