Talk:John Quincy Adams

RfC: Should the infobox portrait change?

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

A summary of the debate may be found at the bottom of the discussion.

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Which of the following images should be the portrait in the infobox? EarthDude (talk) 09:07, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

• Option 1
  Option 1
• Option 2
  Option 2
• Option 3 (Current Image)
  Option 3 (Current Image)

EarthDude (talk) 09:07, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Discussion

• Proposition: It is a common convention for presidential articles to include portraits from the president's tenure. This is consistent across basically all U.S. presidential articles. However, the image used for John Quincy Adams is from two decades after his presidency ended. I suggest we change the image to either of the first two options. EarthDude (talk) 13:34, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

  Comment: Articles on US Presidents appear to prefer photographs to paintings. Compare the image for Martin Van Buren, dated 1855, about the same length of time after his presidency as the current image on this page, and that's been a 'featured picture' and 'picture of the day' [1].

  John Quincy Adams is the earliest photographed president as far as we know [2], and the current image appears to be a touched-up reproduction of a photo from around that time.

  An exception would be Andrew Jackson, of whom there is a known photograph [3] from around the same time as the JQA photo.

  It also seems relevant that JQA's public life continued after his presidency, right up until his death. The article specifically about his presidency uses the image from which Option 2 is extracted[4], which depicts him as he would have looked during his presidency. The current image depicts him as he would have looked during his term in Congress after leaving the presidency. Carleas (talk) 20:45, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

  His presidency was by far the most exceptional and important time of his life, and I belive the infobox portrait used should capture him during that time as well EarthDude (talk) 15:11, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

• Comment: @EarthDude, I'd suggest rewriting your RFC question to be along the lines of "Template:Tq" and that you include the current image in the selection.
  

E.g.:

Which of the following images should be used for Adams' infobox?

• A
  A
• B (current)
  B (current)
• C
  C

At present this RFC questions isn't following the instructions given at WP:BADRFC. TarnishedPath^talk 10:36, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Alr done. Thanks for informing me about that EarthDude (talk) 10:49, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

@EarthDude, I've just fixed an image sizing problem but at present you'll probably get editors refusing to vote on this because the question is not neutral. TarnishedPath^talk 11:00, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

I made it neutral now. Also, there was a sizing issue for the images, so i fixed that too EarthDude (talk) 11:13, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

The statement "Template:Tq" is far from neutral. You state your position in the RFC question. Your position should not appear in the question. You can put your position in the discussion. TarnishedPath^talk 11:20, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Sure I guess. I did that, but could you add your position to the discussion? EarthDude (talk) 13:34, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

I haven't decided yet. I wanted to see what other editors commented. TarnishedPath^talk 05:14, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

very few of the 19c presidents were lived in black and white--they lived in color and the painters captured that key element much better than 19c photographers. Today a portrait photographer takes LOTS of shots with very elaborate lighting and very good film. They then discard 99% of the shots and use only the one that best captures the subject. In the 19th century they took very few shots with poor film and weak lighting and had little choice in picking the final result. Rjensen (talk) 05:21, 22 January 2025 (UTC).

Re-reading MOS:LEADIMAGE, I was reminded that the lead image should be "... the type of image used for similar purposes in high-quality reference works, and therefore what our readers will expect to see." So I went to Amazon.com and typed "John Quincy Adams", and got at least 10 different images of JQA, most of which were from the jackets of books. At least one of them is A (Option 1), and at least one of them is B (Option 3). So we're pretty safe with either of those two.

There were discussions of this lead image in this talk page from 2016 and before. It is none too soon to have another such discussion. I don't even think that A (Option 1) had been uploaded to commons yet in 2016. Also, a lot of the argumentation was based on primitive fallacies like "photos are better than paintings because they are more realistic" or "paintings are better than photos because they are in color". So even though they came up with B (now Option 3), which was a reasonable choice, it might be a good idea to start over.

To me, both A (Option 1) and B (Option 3) are appealing images. It is a plus for A (Option 1) that it shows JQA while he was president, but even for B (Option 3), he was still a Congressman, so he was careful about his appearance, and it makes a difference. Bruce leverett (talk) 06:02, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Personally, I think A is the best choice here EarthDude (talk) 15:05, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

C. For the reasons above. B should be used later in the article though. TansoShoshen (talk) 05:18, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

• Status quo A photo is better than a painting and given that John Quincy Adams is the earliest photographed president this image is quite notable. The other two options are not an improvement to the article. Nemov (talk) 19:41, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

  Agree. This RFC should probably be closed, @EarthDude. See WP:RFCBEFORE. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 23:43, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

  Seeing how there seems to have been no RFC before and the arguments for the status quo are convincing, I'd be inclined to agree. TarnishedPath^talk 23:50, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

  Ya, I'd also be inclined to end the rfc. It's barely getting any attention EarthDude (talk) 06:30, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

First sentence

Template:Ping I would expect you to give a justification for changing the first sentence from

... Adams was the sixth president of the United States ...

to

... Adams was an American politician and diplomat who was the sixth president of the United States ...

The former is the natural and usual way of introducing Adams; that is, if I were in conversation with someone, and the person asked me who Adams was, I would say something like "Adams was president of the United States in the early 19th century." Would you not say something like that? One would not interject "American politician" or "American politician and diplomat" -- that would be crazy, or at least silly. What is silly in conversation is at least as silly in writing.

MOS:FIRSTBIO has its own requirements for the first sentence, and so we include information about Adams's birth date and death date, and the dates of his service as president. We also include the ordinal number of his service (sixth), since this seems to be a tradition with U.S. presidents. But there is no requirement for redundant information like "American politician"; obviously every president of the U.S. is by definition an American politician, and it is unnecessary and self-defeating to say what does not need to be said.

Adams's career as a diplomat is also notable, and so it is a topic in each of the next two sentences. For that reason we should certainly leave it out of the first sentence. The first sentence is your chance to engage the reader, not to put him to sleep. We are not to stuff it with one-word references to different junctures in his career -- that is the point of MOS:LEADCLUTTER. Bruce leverett (talk) 20:07, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

The lede as it stands is CLUTTER - saying "was a politician and diplomat" is a succinct and accurate way of summarising "was the sixth president of the United States, serving from 1825 to 1829. He previously served as the eighth United States secretary of state from 1817 to 1825. During his long diplomatic and political career, Adams served as an ambassador and also as a member of the United States Congress representing Massachusetts in both chambers". GiantSnowman 09:13, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Maybe we could divide this into two arguments: over "diplomat" and over "American politician".

I argued above that throwing in "diplomat" made the sentence less effective. But if you think it is necessary as a summary of the next two sentences, I'll defer to your judgment.

I argue that "American politician" is not more succinct or more accurate than "president of the United States". Bruce leverett (talk) 21:04, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Minister, not Ambassador

JQA was never an ambassador (and the US did not have that diplomatic rank at the time): he carried the title of "minister." BioReviewer (talk) 22:16, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

How Quincy Died

John Quincy Adams passed away on February 23, 1848, after suffering a stroke inside the U.S. Capitol. He collapsed while speaking in the House of Representatives and was carried to a nearby room, where he remained unconscious for two days before passing away. His death was dramatic, marking the end of a long political career that spanned diplomacy, presidency, and congressional service. Adams was known as “Old Man Eloquent” for his passionate speeches, and his final moments reflected his dedication to public service. 12.221.168.226 (talk) 12:18, 6 June 2025 (UTC)