Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Governors of New Jersey/archive1

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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 The Rambling Man 14:00, 3 February 2010 [1].

List of Governors of New Jersey[edit]

Nominator(s): A Stop at Willoughby (talk), Golbez (talk)
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I am nominating this for featured list because after considerable work, I am confident that this list is comprehensive and meets the featured list criteria. It was peer-reviewed here. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 19:16, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • "duty to enforce state laws, and the power to either" No comma needed.
  • "and Richard Codey, and also affected" No comma needed.
  • "original thirteen colonies, and was admitted" No comma needed.
  • The red coloring for Kim Guadagno is unnecessary. Since the Lt. Gov. runs on the same ticket, he/she will always be the same party as the Gov.

Great job overall! Reywas92Talk 23:56, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

All changes made, though I would prefer to keep the coloring there. --Golbez (talk) 01:42, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I changed "and Richard Codey and also affected Jim McGreevey's numbering" to "and Richard Codey, affecting Jim McGreevey's numbering," which is a better wording in my opinion. I've no preference either way regarding the coloring. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 01:48, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
But what's the point of it? On many of your lists there should be colors because they may be different parties, but for NJ that's impossible, so the color is always redundant. Reywas92Talk 01:56, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not necessarily impossible; unity tickets do happen, even in the presidency. --Golbez (talk) 02:48, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Eh, it can be readded if/when that happens. Anyway, Support and good work! Reywas92Talk 02:54, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, co-nominating. --Golbez (talk) 01:42, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Request - Since we have a new governor, can someone please review the alt text for the new lead image? Also, did I pick the right author for the new book reference, the Manual of the Legislature? Fitzgerald is credited as 'Publisher' but her name is the only one on the book's cover, so I figured that was safer than going with the 'Compiler', Dullard. --Golbez (talk) 19:00, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • And also, when citing it, should I say "Manual p. ###" or "Fitzgerald p. ###"? --Golbez (talk) 19:02, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • In fact, in case anyone has already looked at the article, here's the recent batch of edits that *finally* bring it to full quality, I think: [2] Just full disclosure since these are rather major things being added after the FLC started. --Golbez (talk) 20:37, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support: Comments: Leaning toward support. In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I peer reviewed this list and discussed aspects of it on its talk page. The article has steadily improved since my review and is generally excellent. I have a few remaining quibbles.

  • I think the fractions in the "Term" column of the tables should all appear in the same type size; i.e., 1⁄2, 1⁄5. I would recommend the {{frac}} template for them all.
    • Frac is ugly. :P I'd like to avoid that, but if others agree, then I'll do it.
      • Actually, frac should be used for accessibility reasons. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:41, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • All right then. I changed the entire column to {{frac}} for uniformity and per the suggestions here. It doesn't look as good in my opinion, but I suppose accessibility takes precedence. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 06:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Under this Constitution, the governor was president... " - Lower-case "constitution" for consistency?
    • Fixed.
  • "Under the 1776 constitution, the Vice-President of the Legislative Council would act as governor should that office be vacant." The verbs seem a little odd to me since we are talking about the past. Perhaps "The 1776 constitution specified that the vice-president of the legislative council would act as governor should that office be vacant."
    • Done.
  • Alt text of Chris Christie looks fine to me.
    • Agreed. I made a couple of minor modifications, but I think it's in good shape now. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 06:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Google Books summary page for Fitzgerald's Legislative Manual, 1921 lists several authors under "More book information", starting with F.L. Lundy. If the Google information is correct, this could be entered as "Lundy, F.L. et al. Usually citations take the form "Author, p. X" rather than "Title, p X". In the case of two or more books by the same author, the date is added; i.e., Author (date), p X. If the citations were organized by "Author, p. X", it would be easier for a reader to find the corresponding author in the "General" list. As it is, a reader is forced to figure out the match between say, "1921 Manual" in citation 27 and "Fitzgerald, Josephine A" in the General list. It appears that the 1905 manual has the identical multiple authors so you would need to use Lundy et al. (1905) and Lundy et al. (1921) to distinguish them.
    • OK, I'll switch to this.
  • The General subsection of the Reference section should be arranged alphabetically to make it easier to find any particular item.
    • I've set the book refs apart from the major general refs and alphabetized them, is that okay?
Looks good to me. Finetooth (talk) 19:35, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • George W.F. Gaunt should not be redlinked more than once. He's redlinked in notes 30 and 31. Finetooth (talk) 19:37, 20 January 2010 (UTC)<[reply]
  • Comment - the first table should be sortable—Chris!c/t 19:48, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Not possible, unless you want me to get rid of the rowspan and make 76 "None"s appear. Also, what is the point? If you want an alphabetical list of governors, we have a category for that; it's already sorted by date; I suppose you could sort by party but those are already counted and easily visible; and number of terms, but that wouldn't help too many people, not many people want to know how many times a governor was elected. --Golbez (talk) 20:02, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • IMO, the category can't replace the list in terms of usefulness, so I still think sorting is important here. But I will wait and see what others think.—Chris!c/t 20:59, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • I disagree. Having 76 cells all saying "none" before you hit the first lt. gov. is simply unnecessary. Like Golbez, I don't think sortability would be particularly valuable in this particular list. Why don't you think the category is a sufficient replacement for an alphabetical sort? A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 06:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • If you insist, then my comment could be ignored. Sortability is a part of the FL criteria and it should be implemented unless there is a valid reason not to. In this case, I think you can argue that a valid reason exists because of the rowspan. But I still disagree with the notion that a category can replace a list. List provides far more information than a category.—Chris!c/t 20:56, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
            • Yes, lists offer more than categories, but again, let's think about what sorting gains you. You would only reasonably gain three sort abilities by making this list sortable: Name, party, and # of terms. # of terms is useful for finding out who was elected the most times, but that's about it. It doesn't tell you how long the person was in office. Party is somewhat useful, but since we already tell the reader how many people were in a specific party, it won't help for counting, it will only help to make finding people of a certain party slightly easier to find. And name isn't useful because it's duplicated by a category. My point is, if there were a table whose only sorting utility were to alphabetize it, would you still say that the category couldn't do just as good a job? This isn't like a list of countries where being able to sort by population, area, HDI, GDP, etc. gives you more insight into the list, without requiring multiple, pre-sorted lists, or a list of, say, marathon winners, where you could sort by time they took to run the race as well as name and year (assuming it would be sorted by default on year). My point is, sorting is extremely useful, but let's recognize that there are some tables where it is far more useful than others. --Golbez (talk) 21:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
              • I concur with Golbez, and I note that the FL criteria do not require sortability except where helpful. My opinion is that sortability in this table would be of negligible helpfulness and come with the negative side effect mentioned above. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 01:33, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • As a side issue, one note lack references. I can see why some (like "Resigned to be Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency") don't need any because one can refer to the biography of the governor. But others such as note 39 do need one.—Chris!c/t 21:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Although all of my concerns above have been satisfied (and I have switched to "support"), I agree with Chris that the claims in note 39 should be supported with a citation to an RS. Finetooth (talk) 21:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I usually omit specific references when they are easily verified on the NGA list, but when there are complex ones that aren't extremely easy to verify, they need a specific citation, and you are right, that one needs a specific citation. I will fix it. --Golbez (talk) 21:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Reference (a 2002 NY Times article) added. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 01:33, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Sortable or not, this is still a great list. So, I am comfortable supporting.—Chris!c/t 03:41, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - I think everything looks in order. Afro (Its More Than a Feeling) - Afkatk 17:05, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • Lead image could be expanded potentially, if the resolution supports it.
  • NJ Legislature is overlinked.
  • "of the Senate.[6] which was continued" I'm guessing you mean a comma here rather than a period?
  • "have officially been 55 governors" why not, "have been 55 official governors"?
  • I would have thought images exist freely for all of these governors. Why not include them in the table?
    • For many (possibly most) free images do exist, but I'm reluctant to include the images in the table like that. My personal preference is to have images of a few governors off to the side, as with this list, Governor of New York, List of Governors of Delaware, etc. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 21:53, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • To clarify: If we had images for every entry, we'd include them, but FLC in the past, as I recall, has told me that if we shouldn't use placeholders, and if not every cell has an image then some are randomly narrower and it becomes, well, ugly. And we don't have pictures of everyone. --Golbez (talk) 23:44, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Italic numbers don't appear to be explained.
  • "Other offices held" table is sortable, the main table isn't. Seems a bit odd (but I understand that your row spanning Lt Governor col wrecks it) - perhaps think again?
    • ... Think what? We can't make the main table sortable, are you suggesting making the lower table unsortable? --Golbez (talk) 23:47, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • What does H & S mean in the second table?
    • "House of Representatives" and "Senate." Do you think it's confusing? The titles of the columns make the "H" and "S" self-explanatory. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 21:53, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'm willing to try including congressmen and senators in text rather than using H/S, but that would lead to a lot of repeated mentions. --Golbez (talk) 23:47, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Rambling Man (talk) 20:11, 30 January 2010 (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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