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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 22:25, 14 March 2011 [1].

List of Governors of Washington

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List of Governors of Washington (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Bgwhite (talk) 07:25, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bringing another governor's list up for nomination. Last governor's list to pass FL was Idaho and Washington is patterned after Idaho. Photos are included as Washington has similar copyright laws to that of the federal government. Dates given in the territorial governor section are the dates that I could find. There is a dearth of western Washington newspapers that have been digitized between 1870–1890. However, from the FAQ on the Washington State Library page, the Puget Sound newspaper from the missing time period is next in line to be released. Bgwhite (talk) 07:25, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Images check I have serious concerns regarding images from the State of Washington due to the following disclaimer on their website: "Our site may contain text, artwork, photos or other content that is copyrighted by others and is being used with the express permission of the copyright holder. Therefore, it is recommended that you contact our Webmaster or Communications Director for permission to use information contained on this site." Have you been able to confirm the copyright status from each image sourced to the State of Washington? --Admrboltz (talk) 21:28, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree with Admrboltz here. We can't assume the official portraits are public-domain just because the website is. Wikipedia is a freely licensed site with copyrighted photos, for example. —Designate (talk) 22:56, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yes. It was unusual, which is why I confirmed it by email with research@sos.wa.gov. They said they are in the public domain, but they wished to receive credit and use the Secretary of State privacy policy as that is their boss. Here is the digital archive's public domain and copyright policy that makes it crystal clear. If you view the photos at their site, you will notice no copyright or access restrictions. Bgwhite (talk) 00:06, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Images check - all OK now. -AdmrBoltz 22:55, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per WP:COLOR color can not be the only way to convey an important information. However you use color as the only way to indicate if the lieutenant governor is a democrat or republican.
My personal feeling is that since this is a list of governors, we can get away with that; want to know about the Lt. Governors, go to their list. However, I've dealt with this before on the California list and will add references to the ones that do not match their governor's party. --Golbez (talk) 22:14, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, it's not very important. You could have "All lieutenant governors were members of the same party as the corresponding governors unless specified." and just have a note for the few that are different. —Designate (talk) 22:51, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
  • I stand by what I said there. There needs to be some text indication, even if most are the same party. For this one, many are from different parties so it's more significant. —Designate (talk) 00:56, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved comments from Golbez (talk) 06:43, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
*Comments (no verdict yet, just free-form thinking)
    • I've been wondering how much detail we need on the office. However, since there's no 'main' article for this, I guess the detail we have in the lede is fine.
    • The history goes too far back; Washington Territory's history began the moment it was formed, we don't need to explain the story of Oregon Country. My initial standards were to go back as far as possible, but in the years since I've changed that to "go back only as far as you need, and then another article will take over". For example: The history on Alabama's list used to explain Mississippi Territory, Yazoo Land, West Florida, etc... when really, that is all best handled by Mississippi, rather than Alabama. Alabama's starts when Alabama Territory was formed, and likewise here. In other words, we don't need the paragraph under "Governors" at all.
    • The "Was a resident of Washington" should probably say "Was a resident of Washington Territory", and explain why this is useful information (I assume because it cut down on the time between appointment and taking office?)
      • I originally had it that it could cut down time, but didn't want to presume. In Idaho's history, the President called a resident of Idaho to D.C. in order to announce the resident's appointment for governor. Train was built, so it wouldn't be months before taking office like others did. Done as you suggested. Bgwhite (talk) 07:51, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Personal preference but the other lists cite constitutions with, using Alabama as the example, "AL Const." rather than full-form "Alabama Constitution". I took this from a page suggesting that the proper way to cite the US Constitution was "U.S. Const.", so I adapted it for the states. If I'm wrong, I'll gladly change them, but no one's told me it's wrong. :)
    • Why are the legend digits outside the legend template, thus making them disproportionately large?
      • See next question
    • The digits don't add up; they add up to 23, yet the intro says there were 21/22 governors. A footnote is required to explain 1) if the numbering matches the official numbering, and 2) explain why there's the discrepancy. I'm guessing it's because Rogers is numbered as a Democrat? The problem with the numbering of the legend in general is that, if there's any weirdness like that, it's very difficult to explain. In this case, one governor is being listed twice without any reason given.
    • The lieutenant governors shouldn't using a rowspan to denote they served more than one governor. Multiple rowspans like this are notoriously unreliable, and since this is a list of governors, I think it makes sense to repeat the cell rather than span it. However, this is a somewhat unique situation; no other state that I've worked on has had so many Lt. Govs serve so many governors in a span. But I still think it's better to avoid the rowspan problem. At the worst, it forces the reader to mentally draw a line across to the term colums.
      • I know you have had problems in the past. What rowspan problems can occur? Bgwhite (talk) 07:51, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • I discovered them in the giant "US Congressional Delegations" tables. Often, when you start getting multiple rowspans, the lengths of the spans start getting weird, or even nonexistent. At least in Firefox, haven't tested too much in IE. But it's made me paranoid about multiple rowspans like that. And, as I said, this is a governor list, so I think we should make each governor entry totally atomic, without any span to any other entry. --Golbez (talk) 14:39, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Other High Offices Held" section needs prose, rather than symbols.
    • The footnotes for the territorial period need to specify "Washington Territory", moreso in this case due to the possible ambiguity
    • Purely stylistic, but I've used and seen "Died in office" rather than "Died while in office".
    • Again, this is purely my style but until someone tells me it's wrong I'm running with it :) but I have only used "Governor" to describe the incument. In other words, footnote 11 should just begin with "Lister".
    • Needs the standard footnote denoting Gregoire's term expiration date and a link to her next election.
    • This is all. I can work on some of the prose issues later. --Golbez (talk) 20:59, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • A new one: Hart needs a separate note with the boilerplate 'as lt gov, filled unexpired term,' but also keep the note (separately) explaining why, since it was a relinquishment rather than a vacating, so it's an unusual situation. And I think the Lister note can be condensed to one sentence, ", and died a few months later." --Golbez (talk) 14:39, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Done Bgwhite (talk) 07:12, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]


Resolved comments from The Rambling Man (talk) 17:56, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
  • Probably something we've covered before but if there's no main article here, why isn't this just called "Governor of Washington"?
  • Wouldn't see a huge issue with moving ref 2 to the end of the sentence.
  • "never took office." why?
  • " after a few " be more encyclopedic than "a few" please.
  • The lead should probably just note that the incumbent was re-elected (assuming she was) because an eight-year term is unusual...
  • What does italics represent?
    • I'm assuming the italics for "appointed" in territorial governor section. I think they were done in Idaho's article to make it look like it is separate for the actual dates of taking office. Bgwhite (talk) 07:12, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Four of the "original" governors have end dates which are just years and are unreferenced. Why?
    • I could not find a reference when they stepped down from office.
  • Table isn't sortable so why overlink (e.g. Grant)?
  • A few notes without references.

The Rambling Man (talk) 20:52, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    • Re overlinking, I've tended to repeatedly link people, but link parties only on their first appearance. Are you suggesting I should link people only once as well, including governors? In the past I thought it rude to ask someone to hunt for the link for someone who served more than once. --Golbez (talk) 22:39, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • "Overlinking" is a problem because it makes paragraphs hard to read and it runs together with more useful links. It doesn't apply here because people don't read tables in a predictable way. They could be reading from the bottom-up or picking any arbitrary date. Plus all the elements are isolated, so links aren't running together. There's no reason to be pedantic about what's linked. —Designate (talk) 00:18, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've gone through and Prosified 'Other high offices' as well as attempted to make sense of the party number situation. It might need a little brushing up on my rough language, but I think it's good enough to say Support. The last remaining question is, do we link the party line on each row? --Golbez (talk) 06:43, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments –

I've taken the liberty of updating it to the new footnote-style refs, because I loves them and hearts them and am so happy they exist. --Golbez (talk) 22:42, 25 February 2011 (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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