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Possible vandalism???

Dudes, I question the authenticity of the record for "second equal lowest" approval rating that apparently the Great Bush holds with 20% approval. It would appear to be from a batch of vandalous (sp?) edits which also gave President Clinton the record for highest approval rating (95%). Someone should roll that back. I'd do it myself but I like seeing it there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.41.39.31 (talk) 02:57, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Lowest Ever

It appears that the 19% approval rating for Bush is an error. I cannot find a poll anywhere that lists him as being that low. 28% looks like the lowest from a bipartisan polling firm. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.62.143.191 (talk) 16:20, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

The page for Truman also says that he had the lowest ever with 28%... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Loncaros (talk • contribs) 15:49, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

It comes from an "American Research Group" poll. These are the same guys who had Huckabee ahead in the Virginia primary. RealClearPolitics used to list them with an asterisk; now they don't even list them anymore. Pretty much every ARG result is way out in left field. In February Bush didn't poll below 28 in any other poll, but ARG had him at 19. I think someone with an anti-Bush agenda added the number to make him look especially bad. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.104.224.142 (talk) 16:40, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Graph legends?

It appears most of the graphs are using the same green/yellow/red color-coding scheme but nowhere in the article (nor in the image description pages themselves) is it explained... Pimlottc (talk) 23:03, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Order of presidential graphs

I think it would make sense to put the presidential graphs in chronological order rather than reverse chronological order. Also possibly to stretch them to match the length of their terms.--Natcase (talk) 13:51, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Article name

Recommend renaming to "Ratings of the President of the United States"; article includes both approval and disapproval ratings and the syntax conforms to the MOS. --—— Gadget850 (Ed)  - 14:15, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Consistency

Shouldn't all the polls on this page be Gallup? Or at least an aggregate of all available polls? It's cherry-picking otherwise. 210.215.140.180 (talk) 05:11, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I fully agree

I was looking for an accurate comparison of some of our past presidents, their highest and lowest numbers. But you cannot cherry-pick any poll and expect it to be directly comparable to other polls. I am pretty sure Gallup never tracked the current president at 19. That's a huge swing, and for the purpose of fairness and consistency, they should all be Gallup. So, where do we go about getting the exact numbers to fix the page?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.163.102.84 (talk) 02:02, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Lowest maximum approval rating during the president term in office

Should Obama not be ranked third seeing as he has never exceeded 69%? Or are we only showing data based on a complete 4 year term? 206.108.31.36 (talk) 19:13, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

People, Obama's only been in office for 59 days. It's hardly rational to show him as the highest low approval rating -- his approval hasn't had time to have high lows or low highs. I'm removing it. Jsharpminor (talk) 17:54, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

== Highest Maximum Approval Rating During the President Term in Office "" I'm removing this whole section (how is Highest Maximum Approval different from Highest Approval Rating) Also FDR can't be #1 and tied for #3. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.234.218.143 (talk) 23:58, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Shouldn't there be consistency in how many are list in the Highest/Lowest sections? Four or Five seems good. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.234.218.143 (talk) 00:16, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm changing the way these are worded, because it seems to be ridiculous. If you have 5 people competing and 1 wins but it was a 3-way tie for 2nd, then you say that there was a 1st place, a 3-way tie for 2nd, but you know exactly who was in 5th: the last runner. He didn't come in 3rd. So, for example, we might have the following:

Alfred Smith holds the record with 48%

Bart Doe is second-equal lowest with 51%

Charlie Brown is second-equal lowest with 51%

Dave Miller is fourth-equal lowest with 52%

Edward Brown is fourth-equal lowest with 52%

This is in contrast to how it is currently stated: on some sections, they would say that Dave Miller and Edward Brown are third-equal lowest, which is clearly incorrect. Also, when there's a reference to Henry Ford who is fifth lowest, I'll remove that and put it on the talk page for reference. Four is good enough for some sections, it should be good enough for all. This should improve consistency in the article. Jsharpminor (talk) 02:28, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Following is the data removed from the page in making the preceding edit:

Highest Minimum:

Gerald Ford is tied for fifth place with 37% (3/28-31/1975)

Bill Clinton is tied for fifth place with 37% (5/26-27/1993)

Biggest difference:

Lyndon B. Johnson is fifth highest with 43 percentage points.

Current President

George W Bush seems to take up an inordinate amount of space with graphs and data tables. This made some sense while he was President, but now that he is out of office, isn't it time to replace this section with the current President? If not today, there should be a point that can be agreed upon some time in the near future. I think that time is now, but I don't want to start some kind of edit war with the anti-Bush/anti-Obama folks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.234.218.143 (talk) 19:13, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

George Bush will probably take up most of the graph and data table space until Barack Obama's out of office. Bush's chart covers his entire time as president, and Obama's only been in for 6 months. These charts cover entire terms, not month intervals. 76.205.68.15 (talk) 22:52, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I actually think to be fair only Obama should be referenced in this article with the graphs because he is our current president. We should have sub-articles available to click to this information for all other presidents. David1982m (talk) 17:42, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I think all the historic graphs and polling data should stay as it is what the article is all about. However, it is time to replace Bush with Obama in the current data. 70.234.217.129 (talk) 16:37, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Check this out. http://en.wikipedia.org/File:Obama_Approval.png Go ahead and update the page. Jsharpminor (talk) 18:48, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Okay, it's done. I've given this page a major overhaul. All of the information as far as I can see is current, correct, and cited. I've also removed some original research and unsourced data, and changed the page to only reflect actual data on past Presidents since FDR (or in some cases, since Truman). Jsharpminor (talk) 19:39, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you!!! 70.234.217.129 (talk) 23:40, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Updating Obama's High and Lows

I notice a lot of changes have been happening to his Lows. I saw 59, then 58. I checked Gallup and the 58 was right, but now changed again to 57. I understand this will change, but so information is verifiable, I really think we are going to change the highs and lows, we should include the reference article. The average I'm not so worried about because that is simply mathematical (High plus Low divided 2) everything you should show have a link to a reference article. David1982m (talk) 15:38, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Someone did it again. If you have a Gallup Poll article that shows 57 for Obama, add it and reference the article. If you don't then stop changing it until you have a source. Diamond Dave (talk) 15:38, 22 June 2009 (UTC) 11:53, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I have never familiarized myself with Wikifying references, but here it is: http://www.gallup.com/poll/113980/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Job-Approval.aspx . Anyone who cares to add the reference may do so. This URL doesn't change; I have it bookmarked in Firefox. Jsharpminor (talk) 02:23, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

What is the source for Obama's Average Approval Rating? Average approval isn't simply 'High plus Low divided by 2'. 70.234.217.129 (talk) 17:24, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Data and Reference source

David1982m undid several changes and put back many inaccuracies. The source listed in references is http://www.gallup.com/poll/116677/Presidential-Approval-Ratings-Gallup-Historical-Statistics-Trends.aspx That is what was used for the data. If you want to use other data, please add a reference for it. I thought that there was a consensus that Gallup data should be used for consistency and for the historical perspective of previous administrations. 70.234.217.129 (talk) 18:50, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

And then went in and changed them back to what I had in there in the first place. I'm not sure what you were trying to do or why you question the source. You also put back dates in the AVERAGE section. What do they have to do with the average? What is the source for the dates? 70.234.217.129 (talk) 19:34, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Maybe someone else changed your changes and I got confused, but the numbers I saw on the article weren't matching the source, but seems ok now. Diamond Dave 17:52, 23 July 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by David1982m (talk • contribs)

Average approval is NOT 'High plus Low divided by 2'

Even the Microsoft page that you reference doesn't say that. It says the sum of ALL then data points divided by the NUMBER of data points is the average. Bush 43 would be several points higher if you just took the High and Low and divided by 2. Bush 41 would be lower. Unless you can find a source (preferably, Gallup) for these averages, they should be set back to '--' or 'N/A'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.234.217.129 (talk) 18:27, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

There are 2 DATA POINTS. The High and Low Approval Ratings are the 2 data points, so add them and then since there are only 2 data points divide them by 2. I put the asterisk there, indicating it is not entirely accurate. It is only based upon those source, so the page can be consist. Because if we have averages for the other and not for them it doesn't seem accurate. We need to either remove Obama and FDR entirely or remove the average approval ratings or both. --Diamond Dave 20:33, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

The point is there are not just 2 data points. You are selecting 2 (the highest and the lowest), there many others in each series that you are choosing to ignore. What you are using is not sourced to anything (because that isn't how averages are figured) and is inconsistent with the other presidents which have actual averages. As for removing Obama and FDR, I don't see the need for that as we have the data available for everything except the average. Approximations don't belong in this article. 70.234.217.129 (talk) 23:12, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

DavidM, you're wrong. I've spent enough time fixing your mistakes, I would appreciate it if you would stop conflicting with what the consensus is saying. I've reverted your edits twice now, and I'm not doing it a third time because I don't want to be accused of getting into an edit war. Any Wikians with more experience in these matters, please advise me on what to do! This is the first time that I've been contradicted when editing an article, and while I think I'm right, I don't want to go to war over it and start being seen as a disruptive editor. I will continue to update the article, but I disagree strongly with the latest rash of edits and I think they should all be undone, but not by me any more. Jsharpminor (talk) 01:47, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Also, in response to 70.234.217.129 : I can agree with including Obama and FDR's incomplete statistics. That, at least, is based on available data. Some of these other edits clearly are not. Jsharpminor (talk) 01:49, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

1. ABCNews
2. Newsweek
3. PollingReport