Talk:Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: ErnestKrause (talk · contribs) 22:11, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Review process started and may take a few days for placing initial comments. ErnestKrause (talk) 22:11, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Starting with comments:

(1) Lead section and the article appears to be well-written in general. For the lead section, its the paragraph breaks which might look a little better if you move the first two sentences of the second paragraph into the first paragraph. After that, if you could move the first sentence of your paragraph three to the end of paragraph two, and it might look better. Currently, the material appears to be a bunched up at the end and these new paragraph breaks might be useful.

(2) Your date for starting the Background section is directly after the end of the Civil War and I'm wondering about this historical transition in 1868. Was there nothing useful to say about the State administration hierarchy both before the Civil War and during the Civil War which might be of interest to readers of this article? Where there any changes which were enacted upon the Southern states after the War because of the outcome of the War? Were there any protocols imposed during Reconstruction which made certain requirements upon the Southern states? Which versions of the previous state constitutions, which years, were used for defining the office of Lieut. Governor? Was there an analogous office prior to the Civil War?

(3) The Table at the end of the article is a little bulky looking and I'm wondering if a two column format might improve things in terms of the current list being so very long. The third column (years in office) and the fourth column (party affiliation) in the list, it seems, could be 'coded' into the first column; just state the party and the years under the name of the elected official as you already do in your last column. That would reduce the number of columns in the list and allow for a "div col 2" approach for the List as a whole.


 * These are the main items at this time; let me know if any clarifications are needed. ErnestKrause (talk) 19:07, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

-Indy beetle (talk) 02:10, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Re point 1: I've split it mostly along your lines, though I've made some alterations to better retain thematic cohesion in the paragraphs.
 * Re point 2: I've revised this text to better emphasize that the office of lieutenant governor replaced the speaker of the Senate. As far as the wider trend of political change is concerned, the constitution was changed to be a "more democratic" and progressive document to suit Reconstruction, broadly speaking. It was partly based off of some northern constitutions (those of Pennsylvania and Ohio, I believe), so that might be be where the idea for the office came from. However, I've seen no sources specifically make this point with regards to the lieutenant governor of North Carolina, so I feel it would be UNDUE to talk about it here. The official journal of the 1868 convention is not very enlightening as to why the office was adopted, aside from an explanatory addendum by two delegates printed with the constitution who note that it is a new office, had apparently been discussed since 1865, and was needed to provide for vacancies in the governor's office (which is odd, considering there were previously other means of filling in a vacant governor's seat).
 * I'm frankly not very good at coding tables, and I don't see how breaking this chronological ascending order into two side-by-side columns would help much in terms of reader comprehension when one can just keep scrolling.

(1) Lead section looks better.

(2) If you can add that Pennsylvania or Ohio even used the off ice of Lieut. Governor historically before North Carolina did, then it would add to the article's historical context. Do you think that North Carolina may have been the first in the South to introduce this office?
 * Ohio had one before NC, Pennsylvania's didn't come until later. I have no source making that connection anyhow, so it would be pure speculation to argue that NC got the idea from Ohio. And no with regards to the second question, Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi existed in 1817 and Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas existed in 1864.

(3) The table is occasionally printed out by readers of the article using the Wikipedia options to print out articles and that gets a bit lengthy for this table format which you have chosen. I'm still thinking along the lines of two columns; the first half of the list goes in the first column, and the second half goes in the second column. If you don't know how, then you might post it on one of the helper pages for a quick response, and possibly someone can do it for you. The print out size will be twice as small in pages printed in a two column format. ErnestKrause (talk) 18:10, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Have a look now, I set the width to 40em.


 * I've looked at it and it looks much better. I'm going to make an optional comment before closing this GAN, and both the Lead section and the two column format Table look much better. My optional comment is that my own reading would be nicely informed if the article said that there were other states that used the Lieut. Governor model and maybe give one or two examples. That way other readers will not be wondering if North Carolina was setting some sort of precedent in the South or elsewhere. I'm leaving that as optional though since the article is passed as reaching GAN. ErnestKrause (talk) 18:03, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I'll note that the existence of other lieutenant governors is already alluded to with By 1982, North Carolina had one of the most powerful lieutenant governorships in the country. -Indy beetle (talk) 01:29, 13 November 2022 (UTC)