Talk:List of state leaders by date

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[edit] Notes from construction

Here are some of the principles I used in putting this page together. Hope they help in maintaining it.

1. Only included CURRENT heads of state.
2. Included the same heads of state as listed on the List of state leaders page. Many republics have two leaders - a formal head-of-state, such as a President, and an excecutive leader, such as a Prime Minister. Both are included. Some states have more than two leaders eg Monarch, Governor General and Prime Minister. All are included.
3. Each person should be listed only once, they can have only one current continuous period as leader. Title may change, and this is noted. They may hold more than one postion, such as Queen Elizabeth II, that is also noted.
4. The position given for the head of state is their current position, if they have held a number of positions since the date they assumed the office, the former positions are given as notes.
5. The date used is the start date of their current continuous period as a state leader, eg if a PM lost an election and won a subsequent election to commence a second term, the date is the start of the second term.
6. The date used is the date they assumed office, eg by inaguration, not the date of an election win, unless the inaguration date is not known
7. If they were considered the state leader, but were not officially holders of the office, the earlier date is used. Eg acting Prime Ministers who subsequently became PM, are listed with the date they became acting PM, eg Ehud Olmert of Israel is considered to have started on Jan 5th 2006
8. The dates come from other WP pages - individual bio pages, or the related list-of-officeholders page, but should also be verified against Rulers.org, I have not done this
9. Short interruptions, eg as the 3-day Venzeulan Coup of 2002 are not taken into account in deciding the start-date
10. For Royals, periods of regency are not counted, since there is another person, the outgoing Royal, still in the role.
11. Where there is a complication about the date given, I have used reference notes to explain the background.
12. Reference notes are used so that the list remains simple to read without too much confusing information. The list can just be date, name, country, position, with the details elsewhere. Allows for easy comparison.

Enjoy, and help keep it up to date.--Rye1967 06:28, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestions and Remarks

Hi, Rye. I see you have finished the work, and that's indeed a very good work. I have few suggestions to improve it, but I know from my experience how painful it can be to make a work, and then someone else comes and changes all what you've made because he has views on things he feels are far better... So, I don't want to change anything without your consent.

Thx. I do have some opinions so I do like discussing changes first. I dont own the article of course, so once its bedded in, Im not going to stay involved.--Rye1967 16:34, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, I think the general presentation can be improved, using cells with fixed widths. For example, in List of popes, you can find such a board. If you agree, I can do it myself.

Agree. In my wide-screen browser, the date col wraps around in places. Do whatever you think--Rye1967 16:34, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Secondly, the "1996 to 2000" section is too long. It could be replaced by shorter one-year-sections.

Agree. I considered making 1999 its own section, but either way is fine. I also think that the 2nd half of the current year, ie 2006 at the moment, should be its own section to keep the list to a reasonable size--Rye1967 16:34, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Thirdly, you tried to expose as simple as possible some very complicated facts. I think, it's not really possible and a happy medium must be found between the complicated reallity of facts and a simple presentation. If I take your Notes for construction one by one, here is what I think:

I need more time to read these so I will come back to it later.--Rye1967 16:34, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

1. I agree.
2. I agree.
3. I agree in theory, but in practice it's more difficult. When a leader changes posts, his power changes too. A prime minister isn't a president and a president isn't a prime minister. Furthermore, even if one leader changes posts, there is nearly always a few days gap between the first one's end and the second one's begin. I propose (as I have already done with Sam Hinds and Artur Rasizadə) to show them twice: once with the date of their first continuous post in office, and the detail of their different continuous posts, and the other one with only their current post. Of course, we can play on presentation or typography to find a good way to show they are in continuous power from an older date. For exemple we can write this second mention with smaller letters, or in a coloured line, and so on.

This is the one that I have issue with. Either the person is a state leader or not. If they change post, they either remain a state leader (but with a new post) - so the original date stays eg Fidel Castro, they are no longer a state leader - in which case they are dropped from the list, or they become a state leader, in which case they are added to the list. If someone changes from PM to Pres, they probably were a state leader before the change and remain so. If there is a gap, then we either decide to ignore it, or take it into account for start-date. If we take it into account, it means that that there was a break in the period of state leadership when we consider that the person was not a a state leader, so only the new date is used. In all cases, we should justify what we do in the refs/notes.

I think that having a person more than once in the list is confusing for the reader. By definition, they are looking for the start-date for a particular person assuming office. We should advise a start-date, and give them the info in notes in case they wish to consider an alternative date. No-reader is going to like scrolling up and down through the list to find a 2nd piece of info on a person. Also, when I look at the sections on Sam Hinds and Artur Rasizade there is a multitude of dates and periods to think about. As a reader, I want to be lazy and not have to analyse anything to draw conculsions if not necessary. So we should simplify it to say '<date became state leader> <name...etc> Notes:<pos1> then <pos2> from <start date>, <pos3> from date and leave everything else to the notes. The list should answer the question, what date did Sam Hinds become a state leader, in his current 'term'. More info should be in notes, saying 'We have chosen x, but here is more info ....'. Ref notes are the system for jumping fwd/back in the list for more info rather than saying 'Scroll up to 1.June.96 etc'.

If a person is in the list twice, we are giving two dates for when they became a state leader. If we are are talking about a continuous period, by definition, there cannot be two start-dates. We could explain more in the into notes, but readers like me will ignore those and decide to understand the list construction just by reading the list contents.

I agree that I am trying to generalise a very varied system, and trying to simplify things that are not simple.

I've mucked up the numbering by posting this response here, but I know which is which anyhow --Rye1967 00:10, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

1. I agree.
2. I agree. But small gaps are possible, not only because of a lost election or, as Hugo Chávez, because a failed coup, but for institutional reasons. King Baudouin I of Belgium, for example, abdicated one day to avoid to sign a law allowing abortion and he let his governement, acting as regent for the empty throne, to sign it. The day after the Parliament voted to put back the king on the throne (of course King Baudouin is dead and no more in this list, but it is just an example). Another example: In Guyana, when the Office of president is vacant, the prime minister becomes president. When president Janet Jagan decided to retire for health reason, prime minister Sam Hinds steped down to allow the parliament to chose an other prime minister, who became president two days after and Sam Hinds was renamed prime minister. So I agree with Principle #5, but the "current term in office" must be understood without taking "technical gaps" in account, but thoses gaps must be explained in a note.
3. I agree.
4. I agree, but the date of their inauguration as rightful leader must be showed two. I think it's simpler too show with the same means when an "acting prime minister" becames a "prime minister" as we do when a "prime minister" becames a "president" for example.
5. I agree and I can verify all the dates on Rulers.org myself.
6. I agree. Same remarks as #5.
7. I agree: it must not be counted, but it can be indicated in a note. In some cases (for example now in Liechtenstein) the regent acts as the sovereign himself and for him. So the regent's role is very near the role of governor-general you can find in Canada or Australia. If we include governors-generals in the list, why not the regents?
8. I agree, excpet for the definitition of "note". See next point:
9. I don't agree at all. If the board is well presented, as List of popes is, for example, there is no "confusion" problem. If every note is a footnote, there will be two many footnotes, it will be hard to find the good one and nobody will read it. I find it far better to place the notes in the board itself. If you want, we can add another column to seperate the office and the remarks. For exemple for Kim Yong Nam, we can write "Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly" in one column and "Performing ceremonial head of state functions only. The "highest post of the state" has been declared on September 5, 1998 to be the post of Chairman of the National Defence Commission hold by Kim Jong Il since April 9, 1993." in another. Or for Sam Hinds, we can write "Prime minister" or even "Various offices" in one column and the details in the next column. I think the list can be clear enough without any footnotes and all the information in front of every proper name.

Ok, I see your point. I like the layout of list of popes, so I don't have any objections to that. Although the list is not as 'tidy', it is easier for readers to get the info they need. -- Rye1967 20:29, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

What do you think of my remarks? As I have already said, I won't change anything in the presentation without your consent. Once again, thank you for your work.

Švitrigaila 11:52, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discssion on start-date from talk-page

Hi, Good suggestion on the seperate col for state and office. It means slightly less work for me in converting the data into the page. I've taken the dates of office from the individual WP bio pages/List of leader pages, so if you are sure of the date changes that you have made, could you update the relevant bio pages also? Also, take a look at the entry in the list for Denis_Sassou-Nguesso Republic of the Congo, there seems to be a conflict in your chanages between 1996 and 1997.--Rye1967 21:14, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi too. I know an excellent site about the subjetct. It's Rulers.org. About Sassou-Nguesso, it's difficult to say the real beginning of his rule because he returned to power after a coup d'état and a short civil war.

There can be a presentation problem about rulers who changed offices or who stepped down only for a short time. I think it's better to show the date of the first appointement when there is a small interruption between two terms... but what can we call small ?... A good exemple is Guyana Prime Minister Sam Hind. The constitution says in case of vacancy of the presidency, the Prime Minister becomes President. So Sam Hind stepped down twice as Prime Minister only to let the ruling party to appoint a new Prime Minister who became immediately President, and Sam Hind became president again. The same applies to Artur Rasizadə in Azerbaijan. But how to decide if an interruption is short enough?

Švitrigaila 23:20, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure. I just think we should pick a date and see if anyone else wants to change it. I think there should be only one entry per person though.--Rye1967 06:32, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Should Ali Abdullah Saleh be under 1978 instead of 1990? I tend to think the earlier date is better because it more accurately represents how long he's been in power; however, a technicality issue (N. Yemen and unified Yemen) obviously exists about it.

Also, the question raised above about leaders who spend periods out of office before returning is quite significant. Quite a few people would appear further up the list if we applied a different standard to this. A case could be made for putting people at the date they first held the office without consideration for intervening periods; it might be worthwhile to have different lists with different rules. Everyking 03:34, 14 December 2006 (UTC)