Talk:List of governors of Alabama

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Featured listList of governors of Alabama is a featured list, which means it has been identified as one of the best lists produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do so.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
July 29, 2007Featured list candidateNot promoted
August 15, 2007Featured list candidatePromoted
Current status: Featured list

List display[edit]

What's with the weird font on the list? Or is that just my browser? john 07:37, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)

'Pears to be your browser. What are you using? -- Rob C (Alarob) 02:36, 23 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Numbering errors[edit]

The numbering of Governors on this list, are inconsistant with the numberings at Ala Govenor bios (example: George Wallace, Bob Riley etc). GoodDay 23:42, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Have no fear, I've corrected the relating Ala Governor bio's to match this list. GoodDay 15:03, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Automatic addition of "class=FA"[edit]

A bot has added class=FA to the WikiProject banners on this page, as it's listed as a featured lists. If you see a mistake, please revert, and leave a note on the bot's talk page. Thanks, BOT Giggabot (talk) 03:25, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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screen real-estate[edit]

There are some formatting-changes being attempted, which have the admirable goal of getting the official portraits into the 'pedia. However, the downside is that the pictures are pretty big, not just in bytes to be downloaded, but in the screen-real-estate that is required to hold them.

Here is the page as of August,[1] with selected pictures shown to the right of the table:

  • three screens of info for governors #1 thru #53 , plus several pictures to the right of the table , and several paragraphs above the table.
  • roughly one screen-fulls per century of data: can see history from 1907 thru 2011 on a single screen-full.

Here is the upgrade as of September,[2] with the majority of the governor-rows having a picture embedded *into* their row of the table:

  • eight screens of info for governors #1 thru #53 , with pictures now embedded one-pic-per-cell into every row of the table , and several paragraphs above the table.
  • roughly three screen-fulls per century of data: can see history from 1904 thru 1931 , 1935 thru 1968 , and 1971 thru 2011 on a single screen-full (each).

I think there is something to be said for avoiding excess whitespace: it allows the readership to better understand the history of the position. In particular, on 4" screens that some smartphones offer, a compact layout is a Good Thing. Even on a relatively-very-large desktop display, the change to the table-structure is significant: around three times the textual-data is visible, if we don't have large portraits in every row of the table.

I don't have a firm stance on the best way forward here; it is possible to somewhat mitigate the excess-whitespace-problem, simply by reducing the image-size of the portraits, but of course, that makes the images less compelling. Is there some way that we can have a tiny thumbnail-image of the portrait, say 50pixels high, and when the readership hovers their mouse (or taps their finger) on the image-thumbnail, they see a zoomed-in-version of the picture, without leaving the page, and without obscuring the textual data in the list? If so, that might solve two problems, getting rid of excess whitespace, and permitting all 53+ governor portraits to be included without forcing large download-sizes. Ping User:Golbez and User:Spartan7W, who are working on these layout changes methinks. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 22:53, 14 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

When reading the article on a mobile device, the portraits are shrunk anyway, so I don't think we need to worry about phones... as for the rest of your request, that would be a major change to Wikipedia far beyond the scope of the editors on this page. I could go either way, swapping portraits out for a gallery of interesting ones, as it used to be, but the trend does appear to be towards including portraits in the table when possible. Finally, you say you want thumbnails 50px high... these are generally twice that, and I can't imagine them being useful at 1/4 the size (halving both height and width). --Golbez (talk) 05:28, 15 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Golbez, here is a modified version of the table in mainspace, using current Alabama guv Bentley (mainspace is at 75px but I think 50px is quite useful ... on my screensize and screenrez albeit). I've also swiped one of the CCBYSA4-licensed pics of a presidential candidate, which has been 'zoomed in' by cropping the original photo. If we used https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:CropTool or equivalent on Bentley.jpg to create Bentley2.jpg, his features would be considerably clearer at 50px. There is some value in using the 'full' official portraits as seen in the governor's mansion, but it takes a LOT of whitespace to do it thataway.
# Picture Governor Term in office Party Term Lt. Governor
75px Robert J. Bentley January 17, 2011 – Incumbent Republican 69+ Ivey]]
50px Robert J. Bentley January 17, 2011 – Incumbent Republican 69+ Kay Ivey
25px Robert J. Bentley January 17, 2011 – Incumbent Republican 69+ Kay Ivey
17px Robert J. Bentley January 17, 2011 – Incumbent Republican 69+ Kay Ivey
75px not Robert J. Bentley January 17, 2011 – Incumbent Republican 69+ Kay Ivey
50px not Robert J. Bentley January 17, 2011 – Incumbent Republican 69+ Kay Ivey
25px not Robert J. Bentley January 17, 2011 – Incumbent Republican 69+ Kay Ivey
17px not Robert J. Bentley January 17, 2011 – Incumbent Republican 69+ Kay Ivey
Now, this table-style still requires the readership to click (or tap) the picture-thumbnail, to see the larger size. There have been some attempts to get javascript-popups in 2009 at WP:POPUPS and more recently at User:Zocky/Picture_Popups, but nothing suitable for mainspace, and per the WP:Deviations ... gotta love how using javascript to improve wikipedia makes one officially a 'deviantdeviationist' in the eyes of the MOS folks ... seems unlikely that we'll ever get such things, either. Anyways, be that as it may, I don't think 50px is too tiny. Can you test if it looks bad on the devices you have available, please? 75.108.94.227 (talk) 17:44, 16 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Just to point out, these are widths. Above you suggested 50px high, which would indicate an even smaller width than 50 for portraits. --Golbez (talk) 18:10, 16 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, thanks... I was actually using a WP:Gallery_tag at first, and I believe those are height-controlled. But pretty sure you are correct that the pics in the normal wiki-table are width-controlled, which is different. Using the sample table about, and duplicated the rows therein a bunch of times (previewed but not saved to avoid cluttering up this thread), here is the amount of user-visible data at any one time, on my particular PC config, for the various available picture-widths:
  • at 75px: I can see 08 governor-rows , per screenfull of info
  • at 50px: I can see 12 governor-rows , per screenfull of info
  • at 25px: I can see 22 governor-rows , per screenfull of info
  • at 17px: I can see 30 governor-rows , per screenfull of info (which would also be the case for a table with no pics, aka the gallery-of-selected-pics to the righthand side)
So numerically, using pics-in-the-gallery-to-the-right (or size 17px-and-lower) means we display 3.8 times as much reader-visible information, on the non-mobile devices at least. Dropping down to 50px is an improvement, since there is only 2.6 times as much info visible to the readership, in that case, versus gallery-to-the-right-layout. If we could go all the way to 25px, the difference between that and the gallery-to-the-side style is around 1.4 times the info, which is within striking distance. But I don't think the pictures at such small sizes add much value. And going all the way to 17px, there is effectively no loss of whitespace, but these are mini-icon-sizes, and may not be acceptable aesthetically. Anyways, I think there is a balance between using big beautiful pics, and providing reasonably-dense and readability-oriented textual info, and 75px is "too big". Any thoughts on what a good compromise is, or perhaps, on what an alternative arrangement of the info might offer?
    p.s. I came here after talkstalking the usertalk conversation between User:Golbez and User:Spartan7W, because Spartan7W and myself are trying to work out some table-layouts for the 2016 presidential candidate pages. This table of Alabama governors is the "option#H" layout-style, which I cordially dislike because it requires so much whitespace -- though I do like that it can be WP:sortable. The previous style of the page, with the gallery to the side, was close to the "option#E" layout-style. The RfC in question is still open, although is not very active now, it's almost done; I won't link to it in case anybody would interpret that as non-neutral canvassing, since I've expressed a clear opinion and so has Golbez.  :-) &nbps; &nbps; Anyways, at the risk of a technical foul, figured I would mention where my sudden interest in the page-layout of the governor-list-pages stems from. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 18:22, 17 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'm willing to try 50 wide. And you don't need to justify your activity here. :) But where is this RfC you speak of? I couldn't find it. --Golbez (talk) 18:40, 17 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think 50px is far too small. 75px seems like the smallest size which is sufficiently expanded to see in reasonable detail the individual, without needing to click on that governor's main article. Additionally, it depends on the list and nature of the list. For Alabama, there are many governors, many lacking an available (or existant) portrait. For more defined lists, like California, larger files are better.   Spartan7W §   00:58, 18 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Acting governors[edit]

What's the best way to handle these? It seems weird to have them lumped in after the governors they were acting for, like Beasley. One could propose that it should read Wallace from Jan 18 1971 to June 5 1972, Beasley from June 5 1972 to July 7 1972, and Wallace from July 7 1972 to January 15 1979. But on the other hand, Wallace was still governor during the time that Beasley was acting, so it seems incorrect to have a gap there. Any ideas? --Golbez (talk) 06:28, 21 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hugh McVay is said in this article to have been the shortest-serving governor of Alabama not to have been acting governor, but his own article says that he was "acting governor of Alabama from July 17, 1837 to November 30, 1837..." so which is really true? 2600:1004:B16F:EB9:24FD:EAC4:CD4:8F47 (talk) 23:37, 20 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
hm I'm guessing it's coming from the source [3], which specifically notes "acting" governors but doesn't do that for McVay, probably because he ascended to the office before there were strict rules for it. --Golbez (talk) 03:58, 21 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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To do[edit]

Outstanding questions:

  • Did Bagby succeed McVay on November 22 or November 30? State has been emailed.
    • State says "According to my research, McVay was appointed interim governor after C. C. Clay resigned to take a seat in Congress. I also found one article from the Voice of Sumter (Livingston, AL) dated November 28, 1837 that states “Inauguration – On Tuesday 21st instant, A. P. Bagby Governor elect of this state, was installed into office at 12 M (noon).”".
  • I would really like to know why O'Neal succeeded Comer on November 17, based on the court ruling, but none of the other governors are considered to have been the next day.
  • Why did Applegate take office as Lt Gov on August 13, and not July 14?

--Golbez (talk) 16:41, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Move discussion in progress[edit]

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Post-1907: Midnight term ends/begins[edit]

Alright, what's this 'midnight' thing about & why (if it's accurate) hasn't it been added to the post-1907 governors & lieutenant governors bio articles? GoodDay (talk) 07:05, 6 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Because no one's added it. As for if it's accurate, I only have the sources linked to go on. --Golbez (talk) 15:03, 6 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Acting governors[edit]

Is there a meaningful distinction between an "acting" who replaced a deceased or resigned governor, and one who properly "succeeded" to the office? Like, I know they can be differing concepts, but are they so close as to be irrelevant in most cases? In the few cases where it matters (like where the president of the senate loses their senate seat while acting as governor, but I don't think that happens in Alabama) we could go into more detail, but I noticed that Kallenbach says they didn't care about the distinction, so I'm wondering if we should. It starts to feel like synthesis when I'm interpreting a constitution. --Golbez (talk) 21:12, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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