Talk:Ronald Reagan

Current consensus

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01. There is a consensus to call Ronald Reagan an American politician instead of an American statesman, in the first sentence of the lead section. (RfC December 2016)

02. Obsolete

There is a consensus against adding the proposed text to the Honoring German war dead at Bitburg, Germany section: In fact, some of Waffen-SS soldiers buried at Bitburg had been members of the 2nd SS Panzer Division, nicknamed "Das Reich," which had committed war crimes, although it has been estimated that none of the individual soldiers buried at Bitburg personally participated. (RfC April 2018) Since July 2020, the section no longer appears in the article.

03. There is a consensus to exclude Reagan's successful push for the United States Senate ratification of the Genocide Convention. (RfC July 2018)

04. There is a consensus to include in the Iran-Contra affair section, a very brief mention of the aspect of drug trafficking on the part of some Nicaraguan Contras. (RfC September 2019)

05. There is a consensus to add a subsection about Reagan addressing apartheid and a general consensus on the subsection's wording. (October 2019)

06. Superseded by #10

There is no consensus to include in the lead section, a clause in the sentence on Reagan's first term stating that during the said term, he largely ignored the burgeoning AIDS crisis. (RfC April 2020)

07. There is no consensus to include in the lead section, a sentence, immediately preceding the ones on the Soviet Union, stating Reagan resisting calls for stringent sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa and vetoed a sanctions bill but was overridden by Congress. (RfC April 2020)

08. Disputed

Beginning in July 2019, there was a discussion about the integration of Reagan's remarks in a 1971 audio recording with Richard Nixon in the narrative of the body, but the closure and outcome is disputed. A similar discussion beginning in June 2020 was archived without closure or a clear consensus. Furthermore, there was not enough discussion on specific wordings or placements for a consensus to emerge on those matters. (February 2020, RfC June 2020)

09. There is a consensus that File:Official Portrait of President Reagan 1981.jpg should remain as the lead image. (RfC May 2021)

010. Supersedes #6. There is a consensus to include in the lead section, a clause about Reagan's response to the AIDS epidemic. There is no consensus to include a full sentence there, including Reagan also headed a delayed governmental response to the AIDS epidemic during his tenure. (RfC May 2023)

Infobox linking to VP or Successor

Hey, so I already know that there was already a dissucussion above on whether if the president's vice president is his/her successor, then their wikipedia page should be linked at the successor section and not vice president. Now, I get people who supports linking the vice presidential section and not the successor's point, I really do. But then traditionally, we link the vp and presidential successors' page in the successor format and not vp.

Thus in my opinion, linking the vp amd successors' page in the vp section and not the successor one kind of ruins the presidential list, so what do you guys think? Should we keep the vp section of the infobox linked, or go back to the successor section being linked as again it should be in my opinion. Richie1509 (talk) 15:22, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

I still haven't heard an argument for linking the successor other than "that's how we do it elsewhere". And I haven't heard an argument for ignoring the MoS which says to link the first occurrence. –CWenger (^ • @) 16:05, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

Agreed - linking the first occurrence only makes the most sense. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:42, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

Okay, fair enough guys. But where can I find the MoS which says to link the first occurrence? Richie1509 (talk) 00:49, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

MOS:LINKONCE. –CWenger (^ • @) 02:05, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

There was a major discussion of this in 2015: Talk:Franklin_D._Roosevelt/Archive_9#Conformity_within_the_presidential_infoboxes. Some experienced editors came out in favor of duplicate linking in situations like this. Bruce leverett (talk) 03:40, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

I'm open to the idea of re-linking the successor even when they are already linked as vice president, though consensus could have shifted in the past 11 years. I'm less open to linking only the successor because I haven't heard a good argument for that yet. –CWenger (^ • @) 04:15, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Having watched this play out over a number of articles, I think trying to keep the second use in the infobox of a name to be unlinked is a losing battle, although I would consider it the better practice. Wehwalt (talk) 20:57, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Both should be linked. Reader might want to go down the succession path or just read about vice-president.

MOS:LINKONCE also says Do not re-link if not contextually important there, as both succession and vice-president are contextually important therefore both should be linked.

An idea, once there is a consensus, we should make this a policy or a general Rfc maybe as there are similar cases, we cant argue the same issue on all other presidential pages. As same issue was brought up by me on Richard Nixon talk page. Dr.TheHistorian✎ 22:46, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

That quote is not accurate; the correct quote is "Do not re-link in other sections if not contextually important there" (emphasis added). It doesn't provide for re-linking in the same section. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:03, 17 April 2026 (UTC)

In all honesty, it would be needlessly repetitive to link somebody more than once within the infobox. As for which of the two fields would be better for linking, that's another matter and could go in either direction. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 21:51, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

General Electric & General Electric Theater

add this:

When he was President of the Screen Actors’ Guild, he was also a feature on the GE Theatre, on both radio and television. General Electric had a contract with him for all of his time except for thirteen weeks. Thirteen weeks he was a free agent. The rest of the time, he worked for GE. He was the major actor in many of these radio and television shows. He also spent a lot of time traveling around the General Electric plants. He was an actor. He was President of the Screen Actors’ Guild at that time. He had in his mind that maybe he could do something as a governor, and he was forming his plans to become the Governor of California. Now as a GE employee, then, my department happened to be the one that was easiest for him to affiliate with, and therefore he was on my payroll. We became good friends. We built a house for him out in Pacific Palisades, an all-electric house. - Bruce Angwin - An Interview Conducted by John Vardalas, IEEE History Center, 11 February 2003 Engineering and Technology History Wiki

Xo4v (talk) 02:48, 18 May 2026 (UTC)