Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Governors of Delaware/archive2

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted by Dabomb87 15:02, 14 November 2009 [1].

List of Governors of Delaware[edit]

Nominator(s): Golbez (talk) 01:14, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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The next in my series of governor lists. This was formerly featured, but was long ago defeatured for having been left behind as standards improved. The only current issue is, no one seems to know how many governors there have been. Most sources say 73, including news sources; however, the state archives (which, for a state as historically rich as Delaware, are embarassingly deficient) say 82. It's just a matter of how you count repeat governors. This article so far goes with 73. -Golbez (talk) 01:14, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Resolved comments from NMajdan
Comments
  • I will try to do a more complete review later today or tomorrow but one right that pops out is your use of color. Per WP:COLOR, "Ensure that colour is not the only way used to convey important information." Mainly, I'm looking at the first few governors who are listed as having no party, but have a color next to the name column.—NMajdan•talk 12:28, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Nevermind, I now see Note 2.—NMajdan•talk 13:22, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • I think I'll just get rid of those shadings; they're being difficult to source. --Golbez (talk) 21:02, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The 2nd sentence in the first paragraph seems a bit awkward to me. Another editor might be able to offer better advice on how best to restructure, but I do think it needs work.
  • Also, I'm not a fan of of paragraphs with less than 4 sentences. I don't think there is anything in the MOS against it, so its just a personal preference. Would it possible to expand the first and third paragraphs in the lead or combine them?
    • Combining paragraphs in the lede would, I think, lead to information overload. There's a lot of numbers, years, and references in the 2nd and 3rd grafs, and I think combining them would make the whole situation harder to keep track of. --Golbez (talk)
  • Any source that has the url field populated also needs the accessdate parameter populated. Specifically, #2 & #3 under General.
  • Use one format for dates in the references; some use Month DD, YYYY and others use YYYY-MM-DD.
  • What makes reference #11 (http://www.50states.com) reliable?
  • Biographical Directory of the United States Congress only needs to be wikilinked once.

—NMajdan•talk 13:41, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support.—NMajdan•talk 14:40, 2 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

All in all a very good list. There are a few comments though.

  • As a follow on from NMajdan's comment about colour above, the lieutenant-governors parties are only given by the shading.
    • My general thought on this has been, the list is of the governors, not the lieutenant governors. Their party is mentioned for help, but should be considered slightly extraneous information. For the details of their terms and party affiliations, that's what the list of lieutenant governors is for. If others continue to disagree, I'll find something to deal with it.
One way round it would be to have a general note saying that most Lt-Governors were of the same party as the Governor, with specific notes against the 3 or 4 where that wasn't the case. Boissière (talk) 22:33, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've put that in, that's not a bad idea. --Golbez (talk) 07:20, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the lead would it be desirable to wikilink the various Delaware constitutions that are mentioned (assuming that there are articles for each - I haven't checked)?
    • That's a good idea, though the articles for the constitutions are pretty weak. On a side note, to be frank, Delaware's lack of historical presence online is embarassing. They are the first state, they have a very old history, yet they had zero resources online for me to use for this list. Even the old Constitutions, I had to find through Google Books.
I am happy with the changes you have made here, and you're right about those articles. Boissière (talk) 22:33, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the other offices held table the governors name column is sorted (incorrectly unfortunately) but the names are not sortable in the main table. Is there a reason for this?
    • Because several use rowspans to illustrate they had more than one lieutenant governor; last I checked, rowspans break the sortable table.
Oh yes that's a very annoying restriction if that could ever be fixed then a lot of tables could be improved throughout Wikipedia. The sort order on the "other offices" table still needs fixing though. Boissière (talk) 22:33, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed. --Golbez (talk) 07:20, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is it possible to put in a short explanation of the "No parties" attribution? Was there genuinely no partisan politics or was it a constitutional restriction (or perhaps a gentleman's agreement)?
    • I can't really source it at all, except that no source supplies party identification for the first nine. So I have no explanation. My only guess is, yes, that early in American politics there were at best loose factions rather than organized parties. There was no constitutional restriction. --Golbez (talk) 00:28, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Boissière (talk) 21:50, 27 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • You're mostly right, Golbez, historians date the beginning of the first political parties in the United States to 1792, when the split between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson led to the development of the Federalist Party and Democratic-Republican Party. Between 1787 and 1792 there was a split between two other groups (not parties) who called themselves Federalists (not quite the same as the later political party, these are people who supported ratification of the Constitution, hence the Federalist Papers) and Anti-Federalists (who opposed ratification), but that split was not really the creation of the party system. It might be helpful to add two notes, if you can find the sources, one for all of the people without parties explaining that parties did not exist yet, and one for the last two that gives their affiliation in the ratification debates. My guess is that in the latter note both of them were supporters of the Constitution - Delaware is known as the First State because it was the first to ratify the constitution. End history lecture. Geraldk (talk) 12:54, 31 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support Yet another fantastic Gov list from Golbez! Reywas92Talk 20:38, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A great list, and I only have one query. Is it common for partial terms to be referred to as "halves", "thirds" etc? The notes accompanying these fractions are without exception excellent, and if that's the convention then it's fine by me, but it just strikes me as a little odd to use fractions. WFCforLife (talk) 08:01, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's the system we've come up with to signify which governors shared elected terms amongst each other. I don't know if it's 'common' outside Wikipedia, it's just an illustrative tool others came up with here. --Golbez (talk) 18:45, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose it's more personal curiousity than something which detracts from the list. I'm supporting even if you don't do this. But perhaps a (less cumbersome) note to the effect of "1/2 signifies that Governor was one of two governors to serve during this term, 1/3 signifies that governor was one of three governors to serve during this term." would be a useful addition? I think fractions are a clever solution, but if it's a wikipedia-devised system then I think we should explain it. WFCforLife (talk) 19:00, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I get it now. We have a standard note for the Terms column; I forgot to place it in this one. :) Adding it now... --Golbez (talk) 19:27, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good. WFCforLife (talk) 21:45, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Alt text comment The alt text is decent, but some of it is too short and non-descriptive. For example, what is a "nineteenth-century man"? I'm not asking for every detail, but a little more on their appearance would help. Dabomb87 (talk) 04:39, 11 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I admit to not understanding quite how to implement alt text for maps and simple portraits; I merely copied the style from my most recently promoted list. --Golbez (talk) 05:39, 11 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I improved the alt text a bit. It's not the best, but it does the job. Dabomb87 (talk) 03:29, 13 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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