Wikipedia:Featured list removal 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 kept by PresN via FACBot (talk) 00:26, 10 February 2023 (UTC).

List of governors of West Virginia

 * Notified (through ping):, (both 2009 reviewers) and (via talk page notice) WikiProject West Virginia

I am nominating this for featured list removal because the list itself is unreferenced. It's been an FL for a long time but even back in 2009, the list content should have been referenced, but it wasn't.  Schwede 66  18:58, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Fully agree this shouldn't be an FL as it stands, but this should be low-hanging fruit as far as improvement is concerned., this is an area you've worked in, any interest in taking this on? Vanamonde (Talk) 19:19, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The list relies on general references. Just as we don't need to cite every single sentence, we shouldn't need to cite every single row, when the references handle that. That said, it's fallen apart a bit in the last decade ('still living' table, party affiliation count, useless addition of lifespans and time in office, it's fallen well behind standards in other governor articles, etc.), so I won't necessarily vote to keep. But I will defend its use of referencing. --Golbez (talk) 19:21, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Ok, let me check whether I've got that right. Say I wanted to confirm the term for William E. Stevenson (March 4, 1869 – March 4, 1871). Which general reference do I look at to do so? Because I cannot see that there is a reference for his term. And if indeed there isn't, are you saying that's good enough?  Schwede 66  01:27, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
 * There are two general references, both contain the info you seek. Especially the first one, which if you had clicked it would have plainly offered the info you wanted. Are you complaining about the content of a citation you didn't bother clicking? --Golbez (talk) 03:29, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, maybe there is a reference in that list that confirms the term details (March 4, 1869 – March 4, 1871). The one that you pointed me to didn't; it merely confirms the years, which isn't good enough (at least in my books). It's also not good enough to expect a reader to go hunting in a long list of references.  Schwede 66  03:52, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Ummm. So, you saw that there were links in that page, right? That will take you to the specific info on a specific governor? Are you implying that it's too much to expect our readers to click in a source to get more info? Should we use anchors to cite the specific words of a page, for those too unfortunate to know how to use their browser to search for words? You've been here a long time so I can't chalk this up to trolling or ignorance, so exactly how are you getting that it's improper to do anything but hand-feed our readers the sources? Your argument against expecting them to click would seem to remove any offline citations, since that would be impossible for them to see. --Golbez (talk) 05:25, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Maybe you should read more carefully what I'm talking about. What you talk about in your reply is something completely different.  Schwede 66  05:33, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
 * "The one you pointed me to didn't, it merely confirms the years." Yes, and if you then clicked on the link labeled "William E. Stevenson" on that page, it would take you to the dates, as well as all other info on his term. --Golbez (talk) 14:47, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Incidentally I'm rather amused that the article for your example not only doesn't cite his lifespan directly, but the only web citation in the page doesn't include his birthdate without clicking a second link. --Golbez (talk) 05:27, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
 * A chunk of the introductory text discusses the ages of governors at appointment, I don't think its unreasonable for a reader to expect to be able to verify this without clicking through to article pages where the lifespans may or may not be cited. Likewise dates of office.  The general reference mentioned above is no longer live and the archived version covers only pre-2009 governors.  We are currently telling our readers this is one of our best lists - Dumelow (talk) 06:22, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I ... didn't say they should ... okay, you know what, y'all have fun. I'm not defending the list, so I have no more purpose here. Y'all burn whatever straw men you need. --Golbez (talk) 14:47, 17 November 2022 (UTC)


 * I've just cited the whole list to the Blue Book, and linked to the legislature's download section for the Blue Book. Might need a little work—I don't usually use this particular template, and the publication format is unusual.  But it was pretty easy to find the source—the Blue Book was the first thing that I thought of, and it came up quickly in a Google search.  The list on pages 328 and 329 covers just about everything in the table, except perhaps the dates of birth and death—which are presumably cited in each governor's individual article.  As for the article "falling apart", someone does seem to have made major improvements to the table recently, so that's a plus.  P Aculeius (talk) 02:36, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Excellent! That's better. Whether the exact life range of each governor needs to be even part of this list is something that a FL review can establish (I'd say it's irrelevant detail but others may see it differently). And if it is decided that the life range should be part of the table, I'm sure there will be discussion on whether that needs referencing (my hunch is that it ought to be).  Schwede 66  03:56, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I think it's useful to have, so I would keep it. I don't think each entry needs to have a separate citation for this one detail, provided that readers can locate the information in more detail from the individual articles about the governors, whose names are linked in the table itself.  So as long as they have their own articles, there's no need for repetitive citations in just one column.  P Aculeius (talk) 05:19, 17 November 2022 (UTC)


 * What is the "Years are rounded" note intended to convey? CMD (talk) 05:48, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Good question. Introduced last month with . Makes no sense.  Schwede 66  05:57, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
 * If anyone looks at the version of the page before someone began revising the table in September—a sequence of edits very visible and at the top of the page history, so I don't see how it could be missed—they'd see that the previous version used fractions for partial years—"1½", "2½". Presumably the editor who revised the table thought that this was unnecessary: you can either state whole years or years and months—which also need to be rounded off, unless you want to add the exact number of days for partial months.  I would guess that noting "years are rounded" was meant to forestall someone from conscientiously adding fractions back in to the table for precision.  P Aculeius (talk) 18:57, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes. However, the note is (and has always been) with the column of the term dates. The term length is the column to the right of it.  Schwede 66  20:04, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
 * It was probably misplaced, and should have been on the following line. That said, it seems unnecessary, so I've removed it.  P Aculeius (talk) 23:31, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

This nomination has stalled out with no consensus to delist. It looks like the nominator's major concerns were addressed, so I'm going to close this. I did add some accessibility fixes as well. -- Pres N  14:43, 9 February 2023 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.