Talk:Governor of North Carolina/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Thebiguglyalien (talk · contribs) 06:25, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

I'll write up a review for this within the next day or two. Thebiguglyalien ( talk ) 06:25, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
 * , I have very little to say about this article beyond well done. A few notes below, but a lot of them are just thoughts. This article is closer to FA than GA. Thebiguglyalien  ( talk ) 16:09, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
 * It seems you've made all of the changes necessary for GA. I still think that the political dynamics section could use restructuring, but that's more an issue of personal taste. I'm passing the article, and I encourage you to take this to FA after a quick copyedit for sentence flow if you feel so inclined. Thebiguglyalien  ( talk ) 22:17, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

I've made a few minor copyedits.
 * Well-written


 * The lead might benefit from a short paragraph summarizing the history section. It could also briefly touch on the information under "Capacity, removal, and succession" and "Office structure"
 * Seventy people have held the office since its inception in 1776. – As far as I can tell, this appears in the lead but not the body.
 * Corrected.
 * faithfully carrying out the laws of the state – Is this an exact quote from the constitution? If it is, it should be in quotation marks in the lead and the body.
 * The constitution requires that the governor "take care that the laws be faithfully executed" so not quite the same.
 * History of the office – This heading could just read "history"
 * Done.
 * Following a 1995 referendum resulting in a constitutional amendment, in 1996 the governor – This transition reads a little awkwardly.
 * Revised.
 * Unlike most other candidates – Most other candidates for political office in North Carolina? The article doesn't specify.
 * Changed to candidates for statewide executive office
 * The governor is elected in 1972 – Reword so that this isn't in present tense
 * Changed to The governor is elected every four years in increments proceeding from the year 1972. I'm not really sure how to say elections occur in four-year intervals following from the year 1972.
 * They serve for a four-year term and until their successor has assumed office – Could this be clarified or reworded? The way it's written, it sounds like the governor might step down two different times
 * Revised as They serve for a four-year term and continue in office until their successor has sworn-in.
 * of appointment of – Can this be reworded in a way that still makes sense?
 * Revised.
 * many appointees serve at the pleasure of the governor – It might be worth briefly explaining this
 * The "pleasure of the governor" is how Cooper and Knotts describe it, and I think it would be remiss of me to go too beyond what they have said. We have a rather poor quality article which explains the concept at At His Majesty's pleasure which I could link to.
 * For the line of succession, I'm on the fence about the many "then the"s. It seems a bit repetitive, but at the same time, squishing all of those linked titles together might affect readability.
 * I didn't know how else to organize it in prose.
 * North Carolina's government and the state's congressional delegation and the federal government – Two "and"s make it confusing who's talking to whom.
 * Inserted a "both" which I think helps.
 * Just a general question rather than a comment about this article: is there any reason why Adult Correction is the only department not to have its own article? Redlinking isn't really relevant to GA, but a red link here might be useful.
 * Redlink added. The department is the youngest of the cabinet agencies and was only created by bureaucratic reorganization last year, so I think no one has bothered writing an article about it.
 * Suggestion for the layout: "political dynamics" feels like a miscellaneous section. "political role" and "weaknesses of powers" could be merged into "powers and duties", and then "trends in officeholders" can become its own second level heading.
 * I suggest changing "trends in officeholders" to "political trends" and "weaknesses of powers" to "limitations".
 * Incumbents tend to win reelection – without additional information or context, I'm wondering if this is sufficiently relevant, especially since this isn't unique to North Carolina.
 * Linked Incumbent advantage and added that this is common among the other states. Incumbency is not an advantage of all political offices (cough cough the French presidency) and common though it may be, it is still politically relevant to this office. Otherwise I don't think the sources I included would've bothered mentioning it. It was kind of a big deal in 2016 when Pat McCrory became the only NC governor post-1977 to lose a bid to succeed himself.
 * Keep futureproofing in mind. Obviously it will need to be updated whenever a new governor takes office, but other political details can be tricky and go by unnoticed. The one that caught my attention was Unlike governors in 43 other states, the North Carolina governor does not have line-item veto power. If any state changes the status of the line-item veto, this will be inaccurate, and most people won't think to update "Governor of North Carolina" if there's a change to the law in Wyoming.
 * Good point. Changed the comparison to "most" — I assume it would become more widely known if suddenly a bunch of states stripped their governors of the line-item veto.

There are a few instances of stilted prose where it reads like listing off facts and dates rather than a cohesive summary. Not really a GA issue, but I'm bringing it up in case you're inclined to take this to FA. I'm noticing it at:
 * The first four sentences of "colonial antecedent"
 * The first paragraph of "constitutional and legislative enhancements"
 * The first paragraph of "election"
 * The last few sentences of "election"
 * The first paragraph of "executive authority and responsibilities" – For the purpose of GA, I suggest changing this one at least so fewer sentences here begin with "the governor" or "they".
 * The last paragraph of "office structure" – This one looks like it might be unavoidable, so don't worry too much about it unless you have some brilliant idea for reorganizing the section.

All sources appear to be reliable. Damore et al (2020) is published by a think tank, but it's not used in any way that might be an issue.
 * Verifiable with no original research

Spotchecks:
 * Fleer (2007) – Checked pp. 1–3. Good, except I found the info from the final citation under "other duties" on page five, not page three.
 * Fixed that last one.
 * Allen (1999) – Checked all uses. On pp. 2062–2064, how much does this source actually support as opposed to the NCPedia source?
 * It's particularly important with regards to the "the creation of appointive offices". The Brookings Institution report which Allen discusses explicitly is basically how Gardner got his blueprint to direct the legislature to reshape government.
 * wxii12 (2021) – Good.
 * Leslie (2022) – Good.

All of the major aspects of the office are covered without going into unnecessary detail.
 * Broad in its coverage

No ideas are given undue weight, and nothing in the article favors any particular political inclination.
 * Neutral

No recent disputes.
 * Stable

All images are public domain, Creative Commons, or Flickr's Commons. Images have relevant captions to provide context. Two of the captions have "(pictured)", which isn't necessary since it's already an image caption, so it can be assumed that it's referring to a picture.
 * Illustrated
 * Removed the "pictured".