This article has had his full name for nearly three years. All of a sudden it became a problem when Obama was elected, and there was a discussion about using his full name in the info box. A consensus was reached on that page, but the consensus here was to keep Nixon's full name. I still agree with that. I do not want to see a precedent of making decisions about all articles on a single talk page. This page is independant of Obama's and it always will be.--Jojhutton (talk) 20:14, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

True, Joj, but do you not agree that this article deserves to be like every other article on a U.S. president and should be treated the same when it comes to details such as these? What makes this article special and exempt from all the others? There wasn't any consensus on whether to keep Nixon's middle name or not for the past three years, rather someone added it and it stayed because the middle names of all the other presidents were present atop theirs. Now, consensus was reached to change that; consensus can change. So I say remove the name in accordance with all the other U.S. Presidential articles. Happyme22 (talk) 22:09, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I see your point on consistancy, but there is no policy that says that they need to be the same, nor would I want one. This article is not exempt from policy, but it is its own article and should treated as such. Any consensus reached for this page, should be reached on this talk page, and not on Obama's. Wikipedia policy states that if someone makes an edit and it is not changed, then there is consensus. The longer the edit remains, the stronger the consensus. 3 years sounds like a pretty long time for a consensus to form.--Jojhutton (talk) 01:12, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The article should have the full name in the title. It sounds truncated without it.--Fizbin (talk) 01:22, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I reiterate: there wasn't any consensus on whether to use the middle name. Someone added it and it stuck three years ago. Then Obama was elected and the consensus changed; I don't necessarily share the viewpoint of the consensus, but I am willing to abide by it because I have a real problem with this one article standing alone from all the others.

We also have to take into account what policy has to say: the use guideline at Template:Infobox_person#Parameters, the section on the name, reads: "Common name of person (defaults to article name if left blank; provide birth_name (below) if different from name)." His common name was Richard Nixon, not Richard Milhous Nixon. How it sounds carries no weight here. Happyme22 (talk) 05:16, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

At a minimum the article should be titled Richard M. Nixon. This is in keeping with many other Presidential bio pages, including Grant, Arthur, FDR, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson and others.--Fizbin (talk) 12:43, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(Break)That template that you are describing is not policy and was changed a while back ago, without discussion.--Jojhutton (talk) 12:50, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well it's there and because it's there we have to adhere to it. If you truly disagree so much with what it says, you should start a discussion at Template talk:Infobox person. Until then, we have to go by what it says. Happyme22 (talk) 22:52, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To use current Presidential articles as a standard for inclusion/exclusion of middle names or initials in the title is ludicrous. There are 14 Presidential bios which use the middle initial in the title and three more that use the full middle name. As I said earlier, at a minimum the Nixon article should be titled Richard M. Nixon.--Fizbin (talk) 23:20, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm fine with Richard M. Nixon, which is common, and I'm willing to put that up. But for those who are very much concerned about middle name vs. not-middle name, I would still start a discussion thread at the template talk page. Happyme22 (talk) 23:33, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There are two different conversations going on here. This section started out talking about the title of the article, while the subject of the info box got inserted later. My comments have been geared towards the title of the article. I think the info box should have his full name, while the middle initial is appropriate for the title of the article.--Fizbin (talk) 23:41, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As for as I know, there is one thing being discussed here. The title of the article is good and should not change, period -- I'm sorry that you got the wrong impression. Richard Nixon is what he was known as, occasionally Richard M. Nixon and rarely if ever Richard Milhous Nixon (except at his funeral). I am not in any way supporting changing the title of the article. As for the infobox, I support using the common name, which is what Template:Infobox person says to do. His common name was Richard Nixon; Richard M. Nixon was less common. I'm trying to reach a compromise here and that's why I am not fully objecting to Richard M. Nixon, though I do object to using the middle name. Happyme22 (talk) 23:55, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Jojhutton, you seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what consensus is. It has nothing to do with the length of time that an edit stays in an article. Earlier on my talk page you claimed that there was consensus for using the full name, yet looking through the discussion archives, I find nothing of the sort (and no discussion of it at all, much less a consensus). Perhaps I missed it, can you point me to the earlier consensus discussion? --Loonymonkey (talk) 00:00, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you need to go back and reread the policy on consensus. One paragraph says Silence implies consent if there is adequate exposure to the community. That means silence=consensus. Nearly three years of it. Go back and take a look. There is and never was consensus to change it to just Richard Nixon. If no consensus forms to change it, it must stay as the full name, and any discussion on the Obama page is not binding on any other page. If there is a new consensus (Which there is not at this time), then by all means lets do what is right, but until then, there should be no changes. See WP:BRD for how this is actually suppose to work.--Jojhutton (talk) 01:00, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Per template guidelines: "common name". That would not be "Richard Milhous Nixon"...probably not even "Richard M. Nixon", though that was a compromise solution. Hence my reverting. Now, please watch WP:3RR. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 01:50, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with TheEd. Happyme22 (talk) 01:53, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The template is not policy and it was changed without consensus to what it says now. It needs to stop being used as an argument, becuase it doesn't hold water.--Jojhutton (talk) 03:08, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Jojhutton, I have great respect for you and for all your work on this article, so please respect what I am about to say: Let us stop complaining, whining about what we perceive to be correct, and let's do something about it. All this bickering isn't getting us anywhere. I am not going to repeat myself again so read my above posts if you don't understand where I am coming from. Start a discussion at Template talk:Infobox person but we can longer sit here and argue about who is right and who is wrong. This goes for all of us.

That said, I don't see a reason why we shouldn't adhere to what the policy/guideline says to do. It is the guideline, after-all. Happyme22 (talk) 04:14, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You know Happyme22, I was thinking the same thing about you too. It is difficult for me to disagree with you because you too have done so much for this article that you are one of the few who I think can really chime in on this article, and I know that you really care about what happens here. I understand what the template says, but my problem with the template is that it was created and changed with absolutly no discussion. One person decided to change the name in the infobox information. In fact the template was changed against the policy at the time. Policy at the time of the change said full name. Please see the current wording of the policy here Wikipedia:Manual of Style (infoboxes). A previous consensus was reached on that page to make the common name optional. That discussion is still available to view and has not yet been archived. The previous version was to have the full name, but we decided to make it optional to accomadate everyone. I still don't think that a consensus has been reached here, yet I do see that a compromise was proposed, but I do not agree with it. That being said, although I will not change it from its current wording of Richard M. Nixon, at this time, I want to be on record that I still prefer the full name. My reasons are many, but I will not go into too much detail at this time. I will again try and track down the changes that were made to the template and show everyone the pattern that was created by just one editor who made a change to the template. (Who by the way I don't think even edits any more, at least not under the same name.) Thanks and I hope that you have a chance to look at the infobox policy.--Jojhutton (talk) 04:53, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the compliments, Jojhutton. The same most definitely goes for you, too. Your point is a good one -- a very good one, in fact. If you want to bring up the discussion again regarding names and such, I would do so on a much broader scale than simply this article. I suggest taking to the template talk page. For now, I'll check out what you were saying about the naming. Thanks, Happyme22 (talk) 05:11, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]