Talk:List of governors of Washington

List of governors of Washington 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
Date	Process	Result
March 14, 2011	Featured list candidate	Promoted

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Acting governors

There were three acting governors for Washington Territory, as can be seen at:

"Governors of Washington Territory and Washington State". HistoryLink.org. 2003-05-11.

Currently, none of these men are listed in this article. Is there any interest in integrating these persons into the article, either as footnotes, in the marginal note column, as a separate table, or directly into the table of Washington Territory governors? — Myasuda (talk) 01:10, 14 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If it's simply a matter of, "They were secretary of the territory when there was no governor" typically people don't include those as acting governors, unless it's a notable case (like on the List of Governors of Arkansas how Robert Crittenden held lots of power and was the first 'governor' of the territory, despite never being appointed to the office; nonetheless, he is mentioned only in prose and not in the list). First we'd need a source with more detail. --Golbez (talk) 13:34, 14 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds like a rather subjective criteria for inclusion. . . an objective criteria would be an official site such as [1]. Nevertheless, we can look and see that Charles H. Mason, for example, performed consequential actions and participated in consequential correspondence during his terms as can be seen at [2] and [3]. — Myasuda (talk) 01:21, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The electronic document [4] appears to have some problems with it, but if one could obtain the material source, there are (per the table of contents) biographical sketches of McGill and Turney on pages 75-76 and 91-92. — Myasuda (talk) 13:25, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, it turns out that it is possible to open [5] so that the full document is accessible. Some partial excerpts (to allow a more informed decision on this article to be made):

From page 15 (regarding Mason): Due to the fact that the governors appointed during those years were frequently away from their posts, it fell to his lot to act as chief executive on several occasions. Despite his lack of experience he was an able man who selected his counselors wisely and was universally esteemed by those who knew him. Mason's message of December 7, 1855 was submitted to the legislative assembly while Governor Stevens was away on a nine-month treaty-making expedition east of the mountains. It was during this interval that the councils with the Yakima, Flathead, Blackfoot and other Indian tribes were held.

Page 75: Henry M. McGill, appointed to succeed Charles H. Mason as secretary of the territory in November, 1859, became acting governor in May, 1860, when Richard Gholson returned to Kentucky. McGill was an Irish immigrant who had come to the United States as a boy six years of age. Having taken up the practice of law, he journeyed west to San Francisco during 1857 but returned to Washington, D. C. the following year where he served for a time as President Buchanan's private secretary and later, in 1859, as a commissioner of the Court of Claims. Acquainted with problems of territorial government through his experience as secretary, and possessed of considerable executive ability and political sagacity, he discharged the duties of the governor's office with energy and decision. He was replaced in the summer of 1861 by President Lincoln's appointee, L. J. S. Turney

Page 91: L. Jay S. Turney of Illinois became secretary and acting governor of Washington Territory in the summer of 1861. A personal friend of President Lincoln, he was appointed to succeed Henry M. McGill. At the same time William H. Wallace was named governor but he resigned the office without qualifying, when nominated (and later elected) by the Republicans as territorial delegate to Congress. Turney therefore held the executive position until Governor Pickering arrived in June, 1862.

— Myasuda (talk) 03:18, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

From the above snippets, it does sound like "ordinary" secretaries who were acting governors. Thus, I agree with Golbez that they shouldn't be included.
Generally, I don't see acting territorial governors, acting presidents, acting college presidents, etc in lists on Wikiepedia, unless the institution they become "acting" of defines them as "not acting". An example is the current West Virginia Governor. Upon the previous governor's resignation, Senate President Tomblin became the acting governor as defined by WV's constitution. But, West Virginia has listed him as their 35th governor. Please note that Territorial Governor is a federal office and not a territory's. Bgwhite (talk) 07:05, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Amazing Layout

Well done on this page. This List of governors page. Let's have three different tables. Quality! --66.188.84.18 (talk) 15:19, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Governors of the Territory of Washington: sourcing

I've googled the source for the last sentence in the said section, but had no success. Could anyone help please? --Синкретик (talk) 12:57, 11 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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New citations

@Golbez: Can you please harmonize the citations to resemble those previously used in the article (which is a stable FL)? It seems that many of the newspaper citations in particular use misleading "titles" (descriptors rather than the actual newspaper article titles). Sounder Bruce 01:15, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've gone through these alphabetically and this is the first time anyone's responded, so I guess I'm glad to find out someone cares. Yes, the citations are autogenerated based on the names I gave the clips, I have a plan on a future pass to go through and fix the cites, adding author info, etc, which isn't caught by the autogeneration. --Golbez (talk) 02:45, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Golbez: Any plans to come fix this? This list is in danger of losing its FL status with the citations in their current state, which fails WP:V. Sounder Bruce 03:40, 2 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Genuine apologies. I don't necessarily think I was out of line, but I've been out of line in enough places in the last couple of days to make me doubt myself. Either way, I brought more heat than needed. I took it personal when you called my work misleading. I hope the changes are what you were looking for. --Golbez (talk) 02:23, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I also must apologize. It was jarring to see such a sudden change and I overreacted, seeing as similar articles have had misguided rewrites. Sounder Bruce 02:28, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]