This is an archive of past discussions about Gerald Ford. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
In the "Early Life" section of the article, there is a lot of detail on Ford's family - ie, his relationship with his stepfather, mentions of his half-siblings, etc. Would it not be more appropriate to have this in the Personal Life section? A lot of this didn't have much to do with Ford's early life specifically, so it feels odd having it there. – ExcellentWheatFarmer (talk) 00:30, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
Frankly, I find the concept of a "Personal life" section problematic. MOS:BIO says that the structure of bio articles should be basically chronological. This is, of course, generally disregarded in BLPs, and in my experience many editors can't understand the concept of chronology, let alone put it into practice. Also, the heading "Personal life" — which no doubt is popular in Wikipedia — is in my opinion illogical and open-ended. Isn't all life personal? What in particular would you include or exclude? Also, it conveys an outdated notion that there are public lives and private lives. This is a particular problem with people whose lives are very public. I think this is the case with Ford. When your wife is the First Lady, the personal is political.--Jack Upland (talk) 02:08, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
That's a valid perspective to have. I brought this issue up due to other POTUS articles of a higher standard (Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan for example) having sections dedicated to personal life and/or marriages and family, so it would only make sense to do the same for this article. Do you suggest keeping the aforementioned section the way it is? – ExcellentWheatFarmer (talk) 02:17, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
Look, if you feel it would be better that way, just change it. It sounds like it would be an improvement. We won't get perfection today. I would say the habit of putting anachronistic family information under "Early life" is worse than the habit of creating "Personal life" sections. Let's kick one bad habit at a time.--Jack Upland (talk) 05:15, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
