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List of Governors of New Jersey

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because after working on it this fall, I feel it is fairly complete and may meet the featured list criteria. Because I've never nominated anything for featured status before, I'd like some feedback first.

Thanks, A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 06:37, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Richard75 This is a good list, and I think you should nominate it for featured list status. However first I think you should make all of the lists on that page follow the same format for diffrentiating between elected and acting governors. The first list has blank spaces in the Notes section for elected governors, the second says "Elected Governor" and the third just says "Governor" which os the worst. I suggest making the 2nd and 3rd lists look like the first one. Good luck. Richard75 (talk) 22:18, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Not only is this good for consistency, but the list is also more reader-friendly now – less cluttered and busy.
A related change I made was in the third list, where the fact that DiFrancesco and Codey were listed as Governor is supported by a footnote. I changed their cells in the "Notes" column to "Unelected Governor6" (rather than just "Governor6") because I still felt it was a worthy "note." Thanks very much for the review; I appreciate the feedback! A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 00:20, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: This is an interesting list but needs considerable work to get ready for FLC. Here are some suggestions.

  • It's often helpful to look at FL articles to see how other editors have solved similar problems. WP:FL#Lists of heads of state or government includes quite a few featured lists of U.S. governors. I wouldn't imitate them slavishly because if you look closely you'll probably find things that could be improved, but they are valuable models nonetheless.

Lead

  • There's a trend away from starting lists with the boilerplate "This is a list... ". Also, leads in similar articles usually extend beyond a bare-bones explanation of what "governor of X" involves. See, for example, the leads of List of Governors of New York, List of Governors of Pennsylvania, and List of Governors of Delaware. I think the New Jersey lead should include more detail about the governor's powers, duties, term lengths and limitations, and other details relevant to the office and its history.
Perhaps, but this is likely to be an issue at FLC. MOS:BEGIN says in part, "If the page is a list, do not introduce the list as "This is a list of X" or "This list of Xs..."." I hadn't noticed the double bolding of the title before you mentioned it. That may draw fire too, per WP:BOLDTITLE, which says in part, "Use as few links as possible before and in the bolded title." Generally the bolded titles aren't linked. I don't raise these points to be argumentative but to point out possible trouble spots as you move forward. Finetooth (talk) 00:38, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's true, no doubt. I've unbolded the link, and I re-worded the first sentence so it doesn't begin with "This is a list...". I think I've avoided WP:MOSNUM issues because that guideline allows numbers that start sentences to be written out.
  • In the table of governors, would it make more sense to arrange the parties by number of elected governors; i.e, Democratic, Republican, Federalist, Whig, Democratic-Republican?
  • Done. Good idea.
  • This list needs images. Mug shots of governors seem standard, and you might consider using an infobox like the one in List of Governors of New York.
I think the page looks much better with the Corzine image and the infobox. You can add more if you like, but it might not be necessary. Finetooth (talk) 00:38, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
On second thought, I moved the infobox to Governor of New Jersey. I'll be adding some images in the main body of the list tomorrow.
A whole host of images added within the past hour or so.
  • Bear in mind that when you add images, you'll need to add alt text as well as captions. Alt text is meant for readers who can't see the images. WP:ALT has details.
  • Done for the Corzine image.
Done for all images.
  • It would be good to use a notes system that makes the second tier of note numbers embedded in the sublists clickable. Several systems can be used. List of Governors of New York uses an A, B, C plus 1, 2, 3 system. List of Governors of Pennsylvania uses something similar, and so does List of Governors of Delaware. In my own work, I'm leaning toward the system in Forksville Covered Bridge, but my direct experience with two-tier systems is limited. I can't point you to an explanation of how all these systems work; my own approach is to find things I like in other articles, study them in edit mode, and imitate.
  • Doing.
  • The Manual of Style suggests avoiding the repetition of the article title in the heads and subheads. For that reason, I'd suggest truncating at least some of the heads to eliminate repetition of the words "Governor" and "New Jersey". The first two, for example, could become "Colonial" and "U.S.", and the first subhead under "U.S." could become "1776–1844".
  • Done, but not in the exact way you proposed.
  • Citations 4 and 5 need the publisher's name and the date of most recent access. Can it be said who the author in each case was? Was it the New Jersey Legislature, for example? Citation 3 looks strange to me. What is Francis Newton Thorpe the editor of? Should the publisher, Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale University, of the linked version be mentioned? The date of most recent access is missing. To be honest, I don't know exactly what the right form would be for these citations. For Internet citations, it's generally good to include author, title, publisher, date of publication, url, and access date, if all of these can be found. Complaints about too much data in a citation are not often heard, and it's always easier to delete a bit of excess than to hunt down a missing date, page number, or author.
  • I struggled with figuring out how to cite this. I ended up using {{citation}} withthese parameters, which I thought would be decent because it included parameters like "year," "date," and "place," which seemed appropriate for a constitution.
  • Thorpe was the editor of the 1906 book which republished the 1776 NJ Constitution. The author in each of these cases was a constitutional convention that collectively wrote the document.
I'll take a stab at fixing this one. Finetooth (talk) 00:38, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Done. I think the way to handle this is to acknowledge the source but not the source's source. The Lillian Goldman Law Library is the cited source, and it is citing a source (Thorpe) who cited, presumably, the primary source. The actual source we are citing is the law library, which I think is a reliable source (as defined by WP:RS) in this instance. To cite Thorpe, you would need to get a copy of Thorpe's book and add publication details and page numbers, but I can't see any reason to do that. To see what parameters I needed for the "Citation" template, which I've not used before, I looked at the samples at WP:CIT. Armed with that info, it was easy to modify the citation template you'd already installed. By the way, I removed the unneeded parameters from the Thorpe (now Law Library) template as a housecleaning measure. Finetooth (talk) 03:04, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think changing citation families will solve the underlying problem, which is figuring out which data goes where. Let me work a bit on the Thorpe entry. Finetooth (talk) 00:38, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thorpe is done. I think you can fix the others in similar fashion. Use the actual author (even if it's something like "Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey") for the "last" (name) parameter, the actual title (such as "Public Law Chapter 282: An Act concerning the title of Governor and amending R.S.52:15-5"), the publisher of the document you are linking to, the url, the publication date (if any) listed at the site, and the access date. If you stick to this basic information and these fairly straightforward parameters, you can't go far wrong. Hope this helps. Finetooth (talk) 03:04, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, will do.
Done. The "actual author" I used for the second and third refs was "The people of the State of New Jersey, in convention," which is the most accurate reflection of what the actual documents say.

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog. That is where I found this one. Finetooth (talk) 20:34, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks; they are very helpful. I appreciate you taking the time to review this article, and I certainly will try to help out with the PR backlog. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 22:59, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Should there be an infobox on this article? I note that List of Governors of Indiana doesn't have one... - Tbsdy lives (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) talk 04:48, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No, on second thought. I moved that to Governor of New Jersey. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 06:32, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Looks much better. I like the photos of the governors along the right-hand margin. Since you are taking this to FLC, it's fine if you close the PR yourself. Instructions are at WP:PR near the top, under the heading "How to remove a request". Good luck at FLC. Finetooth (talk) 05:08, 12 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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