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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 delete‎. Jake Wartenberg (talk) 14:29, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

List of United States vice presidential firsts

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List of United States vice presidential firsts (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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Does not meet WP:LISTN, seems to fall afoul of WP:NOTTRIVIA as well. I'm not seeing any corresponding content at Vice President of the United States that would make retarget or merge appropriate. signed, Rosguill talk 18:49, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep per the significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources.

    The subject passes Wikipedia:Notability#Stand-alone lists, which says, "One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources, per the above guidelines; notable list topics are appropriate for a stand-alone list." I will show below that "United States vice presidential firsts" has been treated as "a group or set by independent reliable sources".

    Sources

    1. Kane, Joseph Nathan; Podell, Janet (2009). Facts About the Presidents: A Compilation of Biographical and Historical Information (8 ed.). New York: H. W. Wilson Company. ISBN 978-0-8242-1087-8. Retrieved 2024-06-05 – via Internet Archive.

      The book notes on page 789:

      1. "The first Vice President to be appointed rather than elected to office was Gerald Rudolph Ford"
      2. "Alben William Barkley, Vice President to Harry S. Truman, was the first Vice President to marry in office."
      3. Alben William Barkley was the first Vice President to be called (and to call himself) "The Veep.""
      4. "Lyndon Baines Johnson was sworn in as Vice President of the United States on January 20, 1961, at 12:41 P.M., by Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn. This was the first time that a Vice President was sworn in by a Speaker of the House."
      5. "For some 40 minutes on January 10, 2000, Vice President Al Gore presided over a Security Council session on the AIDS epidemic. ... This was the first time that an American Vice President had been invited to chair a meeting of the U.N. Security Council."
      Additional information from the book:
      1. The book notes on page 31: "John Adams, the first Vice President to be elevated to the presidency ..."
      2. The book notes on page 48: "Thomas Jefferson was the first and last Vice President to defeat a President."
      3. The book notes on page 61: "Apr. 20, 1812, death of George Clinton, first Vice President to die in office"
      4. The book notes on page 91: "John Caldwell Calhoun, Vice President under John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, was the first Vice President not born a British subject."
      5. The book notes on page 103 about Richard Mentor Johnson: "First vice president elected by the senate."
      6. The book notes on page 124: "John Tyler was the first Vice President to succeed to the presidency through the death of a President."
      7. The book notes on page 164 about William Rufus Devane King: "Of all the Presidents and Vice Presidents, King was the first and only one to take the oath in a foreign country."
      8. The book notes on page 220: "Schuyler Colfax was the first officer to preside over both houses of Congress. He was Speaker of the House of Representatives ... As Vice President under President Grant, he presided over the Senate ..."
      9. The book notes on page 439: "The first Speaker of the House of Representatives to administer the oath of office to a Vice President of the United States was Sam Rayburn, who on January 20, 1961, administered the oath of office to Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson."
      10. The book notes on page 455: Lyndon Baines Johnson "was the first Vice President to witness the assassination of the President whom he succeeded in office."
      11. The book notes on page 487: Gerald Rudolph Ford "was the first Vice President to succeed to the presidency upon the resignation of a President" and "was the first Vice President chosen under the Twenty-fifth Amendment".
      12. The book notes on page 488: "The first President and Vice President to serve together without being elected to their respective offices were President Gerald Rudolph Ford and Vice President Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller. Both reached office under the provisions of the Twenty-fifth Amendment."
      13. The book notes on page 588 of Richard "Dick" Cheney: "As the President’s chief liaison with Congress, the Vice President was the first Vice President to have an office on the House side of Congress as well as the Senate side."
      14. The book notes on page 709: "The first Catholic to be elected Vice President was Joseph Robinette Biden, nominated by the Democratic Pary in 2008."
      15. The book notes on page 780: "Richard Milhous Nixon was the first Vice President to be elected President several years after his vice presidential term."
    2. Romansky, Jerry (2020-08-23). "Ask Jerry: The firsts among U.S. vice presidents". Foster's Daily Democrat. Archived from the original on 2024-06-05. Retrieved 2024-06-05.

      The article notes: "As for firsts among our vice presidents (VPs), here is a partial list that might interest you. These are just the random firsts that float chronologically into my mind. 1. The first VP to become president was John Adams. He served with the first president George Washington. 2. The first VP to serve under two different U.S. presidents was George Clinton. He served with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. 3. The first VP to resign from office was John Calhoun. His resignation was based on political differences with Andrew Jackson."

    3. Bunis, Dena (2004-06-24). "Strategy of VP picks - Vice presidential firsts - Vice presidents who became president". The Orange County Register. Archived from the original on 2024-06-05. Retrieved 2024-06-05.

      The article notes: "Vice presidential firsts. First female VP candidate for a major party -- Geraldine Ferraro (also first Italian-American). First VP appointed under the rules of the 25th amendment -- Gerald Ford. First VP to become president after the death of a sitting president -- John Tyler. First VP to die in office, first to serve under two presidents (Jefferson and Madison) -- George Clinton. First VP to serve as "acting president" (during surgery of sitting president) -- George H.W. Bush."

    4. Tullai, Martin (1997-01-18). "Vice presidency is no party". The Washington Times. Archived from the original on 2024-06-05. Retrieved 2024-06-05.

      The article notes: "The first vice president to become president on the death of a chief executive was John Tyler. ... The first vice president to be nominated specifically for that office was George Clinton, who ran with Thomas Jefferson in 1804. ... Richard Mentor Johnson was the only vice president selected by the Senate. ... [Alben] Barkley was also the first vice president to marry in office. ... Coolidge was the first vice president to sit in regularly on Cabinet meetings. (Nixon was the first in 1953 to preside at a National Security Council meeting. The first vice president to be appointed - not elected - was Gerald R. Ford. George Bush was the first vice president to serve officially as acting president ... The only vice president of American Indian extraction was Charles Curtis ... Henry Wallace was the first veep assigned administrative duties by the president. ... William Rufus King was the only vice president to take the oath while in another country"

    5. Southwick, Albert B. (2008-09-18). "Insignificant vice presidency's pendulum is swinging back". Telegram & Gazette. Archived from the original on 2024-06-05. Retrieved 2024-06-05.

      The article notes: "John Adams, the first vice president, called it “the most insignificant position ever devised by man.” ... Only one other man — John C. Calhoun — has served as vice president under presidents of different political parties. ... Only one other vice president — George Clinton of New York — ever served under two presidents. ... So he continued on as vice president until he died in 1811, the first vice president to die in office. ... The first vice president to inherit the office from a dead president was John Tyler in 1841, when old William Henry Harrison expired after only a few weeks in office. ... Henry Wilson of Massachusetts was the only vice president to die in his office at the Capitol. ... Franklin D. Roosevelt is perhaps the only man in history to make a political comeback after losing a vice presidential race."

    WP:NOTTRIVIA

    WP:NOTTRIVIA says "Wikipedia articles should not be" and lists "Summary-only descriptions of works", "Lyrics databases", "Excessive listings of unexplained statistics", and "Exhaustive logs of software updates". A list of United States vice presidential firsts is none of these.

    Wikipedia:No original research

    The list can be written so that there is no violation of the Wikipedia:No original research policy. Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists#Selection criteria notes:

    Selection criteria (also known as inclusion criteria or membership criteria) should be unambiguous, objective, and supported by reliable sources. Avoid original or arbitrary criteria that would synthesize a list that is not plainly verifiable in reliable sources. In cases where the membership criteria are subjective or likely to be disputed, it is especially important that inclusion be based on reliable sources given with inline citations for each item.

    As long as each entry in the list is cited to one or more reliable sources confirming that the vice presidential first, the list would comply with the Wikipedia:No original research policy.

    Perfection is not required

    The policies say that articles containing flaws should not be deleted if they can be improved. Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Alternatives to deletion says, If editing can address all relevant reasons for deletion, this should be done rather than deleting the page. Wikipedia:Editing policy#Wikipedia is a work in progress: perfection is not required says, Perfection is not required: Wikipedia is a work in progress. Collaborative editing means that incomplete or poorly written first drafts can evolve over time into excellent articles. Even poor articles, if they can be improved, are welcome.

    There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow the subject to pass Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject".

    Cunard (talk) 10:17, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete I appreciate that there are sources for some of the information and some sourcing about the firsts in aggregate, but this page still fails WP:NLIST and WP:NOTTRIVIA. Any information in this list could be added to the pages of the vice presidents if it is not already there. --Enos733 (talk) 22:28, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete the list is too arbitrary. Some of the information is in other articles (home state, religion). Other parts are useless trivia. Walsh90210 (talk) 23:34, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: some sourcing about the firsts in aggregate, but this page still fails WP:NLIST and WP:NOTTRIVIA – the existence of "sourcing about the firsts in aggregate" means the topic meets WP:NLIST. WP:NOTTRIVIA is not violated because a list of United States vice presidential firsts is not "Summary-only descriptions of works", "Lyrics databases", "Excessive listings of unexplained statistics", and "Exhaustive logs of software updates".

    the list is too arbitrary – the list is not arbitrary because it "has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources" (WP:NLIST).

    Some of the information is in other articles (home state, religion). – this list is complementary to the other lists but not duplicative. That some of the information is covered in other lists is not a policy-based reason to delete this list. Cunard (talk) 23:56, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    NOTTRIVIA very much does apply here, which you're taking a too-narrow view of. This is a list of random little factoids, i.e., statistics without context. None of these firsts have any context about why such a first was in any way meaningful. In other words, it's just a list of trivia, of little to no encyclopedic value. In your disruptively formatted, disruptively verbose !vote above, you stated "The book notes on page 164 about William Rufus Devane King: 'Of all the Presidents and Vice Presidents, King was the first and only one to take the oath in a foreign country.'" So what? Why does this matter? WP:TRIVIA advises against sections of trivia in articles because they become cruft magnets, among other reasons. But that's all this list is. 35.139.154.158 (talk) 03:44, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:NOTTRIVIA says "Excessive listings of unexplained statistics". The statistics article says "any quantity computed from values in a sample which is considered for a statistical purpose". None of the information in the article is "computed from values in a sample". None of the information in the article is being "considered for a statistical purpose". This article does not violate that section of the policy. Cunard (talk) 05:25, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    You're Wikilawyering, arguing the semantics of "statistics"; I could counter that "firsts" are inherently numerical and so qualify. But that's really all beside the point. This is contextless trivia, which Wikipedia is WP:NOT for. If everyone is appealing to the spirit of NOTTRIVIA, then that's good enough. 35.139.154.158 (talk) 06:20, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:NOTTRIVIA is a shortcut that in 2021 was retargeted from Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Trivia sections to WP:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. No community consensus was established for the shortcut. "Firsts" are not "computed from values in a sample". There is nothing in the text or spirit of the policy to support deleting an article that meets Wikipedia:Notability#Stand-alone lists. No one has refuted the reliable sources showing that the topic "has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources". To expand the policy to include articles like this one would require an RfC to change the policy. Cunard (talk) 08:26, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per my response immediately above. 35.139.154.158 (talk) 03:44, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per WP:LC items 2, 5, 7, and 10. Stifle (talk) 08:03, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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