Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Governors of West Virginia/archive1

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 The Rambling Man 18:18, 12 September 2009 [1].

List of Governors of West Virginia

Nominator(s): Designate (talk) 14:13, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Featured list candidates/List of Governors of West Virginia/archive1

I am nominating this for featured list because I think it meets the featured list criteria. It's based on other featured lists (List of Governors of Connecticut, List of Governors of Indiana, etc.). Designate (talk) 14:13, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Jeez, over a hundred years without a death or resignation? Impressive. :P I'll take a closer look at this later, on its face it looks pretty good. Except for, "All representatives and senators mentioned represented Connecticut." --Golbez (talk) 14:39, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Images need alt text per WP:ALT. Dabomb87 (talk) 17:38, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments by Golbez

Comments:
- This is very much a case where 3(b) comes into play; the first two paragraphs of this list are identical in content to the first two at Governor of West Virginia, and that article only has three paragraphs. I propose a merger.
  - I'm fine with that. It's just that we have GAs on other Governor of x articles; it seems like we should leave open the possibility of expanding it. But we can merge it for now. Designate (talk) 00:32, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Is there any particular reason you used {{frac}} instead of ½?
  - I could go on all day about that – but, basically the same reasons the MOS says to use <sup>2</sup> instead of ². The fraction characters are designed for less sophisticated interfaces, we should take advantage of quality typography when we can. Or that's just me, anyway. Designate (talk) 00:32, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- The notes dealing in any detail (i.e. Wilson's remaining in office) need specific references.
  - Will do. Designate (talk) 00:32, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Please link the previous constitution and borrow the formatting style from List of Governors of Alabama for constitution citations.
  - I can't find the previous constitution online. Why abbreviate the citations? Designate (talk) 00:32, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - It was the closest to a standard method of constitution citing that I could find online, and it makes the references section much less a wall of repetitive text. I'll take a look around; Google Books has been pretty helpful in finding old constitutions. --Golbez (talk) 02:58, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      - That makes sense. Designate (talk) 03:26, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Bob Wise served in the House.
  - - - Look what I found. :) [2] It's not dated, but it's clearly the 1863 constitution; note the bit about how it will allow the panhandle counties to join, which is absent (obviously) from the 1872 constitution. --Golbez (talk) 20:30, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        I'm not sure if that site is a RS, but I found a print version on Archive.org. Designate (talk) 23:02, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Right, thanks. Designate (talk) 00:32, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Fix the bioguide cites; use {{cite web}} instead of just including the URL in quotes. --Golbez (talk) 17:32, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Any particular reason? Seems like it just makes things more complicated and looks the same. Designate (talk) 00:32, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - Citation templates are used for a reason, I can't necessarily expound on what that reason is but I'm sure there is one. :P Standardization, I suppose. --Golbez (talk) 02:58, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      - This page says they're neither encouraged nor discouraged, and the template doesn't appear to actually do anything, so I'm going to leave it the way it is. Designate (talk) 03:26, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review, I'll get to the missing references soon. Designate (talk) 00:32, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nice job. I concur with Golbez. You can either merge Governor of West Virginia into the list or expand it to include the history of the position and elections. See Governor of Indiana. Reywas92 ^Talk 21:42, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK. It would be better to have a separate article, but I'm not interested in writing it so we might as well merge for now. Designate (talk) 00:32, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I agree, it would be better as a separate article, but for anything else on Wikipedia, if we had a 30k article, and then a 3k article, of which 2k is a direct copy from the 30k article, that smaller would have no chance of survival. It's only in cases like this where people question it. --Golbez (talk) 02:58, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Good point, I didn't think of it that way. Designate (talk) 03:26, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I think everything up to this point is taken care of. Designate (talk) 00:36, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support, all issues resolved. Dabomb87 (talk) 13:13, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved issues, Dabomb87 (talk)

Comments from Dabomb87 (talk · contribs)

"The Governor of West Virginia is the head of the executive branch of West Virginia's government" You might mention that West Virginia is a U.S. state.
- The word "state" is linked in the first sentence, I don't know if there's a better way to work it in. Designate (talk) 23:16, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Oops, missed it. "state" was right next to "military forces", so the blue blended in. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:52, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"must be thirty years old"-->must be 30 years old
"The current Constitution of West Virginia, ratified in 1872" Remove "current".
"Senate President carries out the remainder of the term" Personal preference, but I think "serves" is a better word than "carries" here.
"Since becoming a state, there have been 34 governors of West Virginia"-->Since West Virginia becoming a state, it has had 34 governors
"Only 6 governors in the state's history have served multiple terms."-->Six governors in the state's history have served multiple terms.
"who served for three terms over 12 years" Per WP:MOSNUM, comparable quantities are formatted in the same way. So, "three terms over twelve years" or "3 terms over 12 years".
Image captions that are not complete sentences should not have periods at the end. Same for the footnotes.
Center the em dashes in tables. Use {{center}}.
The alt text is mostly good, but phrases such as "portrait of" are unnecessary. Also, the image in Template:Governors of West Virginia should be more descriptive of the seal.
- I disagree, the photo is well described by saying it's a portrait. It implies that this isn't a picture of him doing something, just a deliberately composed, identifying photo of the man. Otherwise you just have "nineteenth-century man" which is redundant with the caption.
- The seal is decorative (it's there to say West Virginia), so alt text isn't required. Designate (talk) 19:59, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Purely decorative images like that seal shouldn't have links, as per WP:ALT #When to specify, so I added "|link=" for the seal. Often "portrait of" is unnecessary, but here it might be appropriate since it is such a formal portrait. No mention of beards or glasses? But that's editorial judgment, and the existing alt text is OK. I do have to wonder, though, about that odd placement with all the white space to the left; that's pretty weird. I suggest moving two of the images to the lead, and putting the second of them on the left in the lead. Eubulides (talk) 21:13, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Why is there no mention of Francis Harrison Pierpont? Dabomb87 (talk) 17:32, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Because he wasn't a governor of West Virginia? What should we say about him? Designate (talk) 19:59, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Well, he's mentioned here. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:52, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - Oh, I didn't see that. That's an error; he was governor of Virginia. Designate (talk) 00:00, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      - It looks to me as if he was governor of the Union-friendly counties in Virginia, it unfortunately for us being one of the few Civil War states with functioning governments of both types. From what I gather, he was governor of the Union-friendly counties of Virginia prior to West Virginia's independence, and was instrumental in the secession of West Virginia; however, when they split off, they chose their own governor, and a new chain began for them. Since he was governor of those counties prior to statehood, his status is equal to any other governor of Virginia before 1863 - belonging in the other list. Perhaps a note in the Governors header, with the history of the state itself, but not anywhere else. --Golbez (talk) 05:45, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sources look good. Dabomb87 (talk) 17:32, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment

"To be elected governor, a person must be 30 years old, and must have been a citizen of West Virginia for five years, at the time of inauguration." Suggest tweaking. I'm presuming these are minimum requirements, however it technically reads as a very specific criteria. --Jpeeling (talk) 21:40, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Fixed. Designate (talk) 21:22, 7 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As father of the U.S. governor lists on Wikipedia, I hereby anoint this article with a Support. --Golbez (talk) 05:54, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Thanks. Designate (talk) 21:22, 7 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I supported, but you might add in the note Golbez suggested about Francis Pierpoint. Just a suggestion, not a dealbreaker. Cheers, Dabomb87 (talk) 13:13, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support with comments. DaBomb and Golbez have done great work on this article. However, on the statement "No governor of West Virginia has held any other federal office," I get that no governor has become president but no WV governor has ever become a Cabinet-level secretary? I just want to make sure. Staxringold _talk^contribs 14:11, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- That's right. Designate (talk) 21:22, 7 September 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.