Wikipedia:Featured topic candidates/Confederate government of Kentucky

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[edit] Confederate government of Kentucky

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Featured article Confederate government of Kentucky Good article George W. Johnson (Civil War) - Featured article Richard Hawes

The topic is the Confederate government of Kentucky, a shadow government set up by Confederate sympathizers in the state. George W. Johnson and Richard Hawes were the two governors in the shadow government, which operated from 1861 to 1865. The main article is featured, as is the article on Hawes. Johnson is a GA and is probably unlikely to ever be FA because he spent most of his life as a farmer and died at age 50, so comprehensiveness would be a problem. This topic is the result of a collaboration between myself and HiB2Bornot2B. We hope you will find it worthy of your support. Acdixon (talk • contribs • count) 23:07, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

  • Oppose Cherry picking. Should at least include all the "members" of the government as given in Confederate government of Kentucky, two of which currently are article-less. I'm not even sure the topic can be subdivided clearly enough. Circeus 00:37, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
    • I don't see how it's any more cherry picking than not having characters like Zell Dincht or Quistis Trepe in the Final Fantasy VIII topic or not having Final Fantasy Tactics in the Final Fantasy titles topic. (I'm just using those because it's something I know about.) In all my research on the Confederate government, I've never seen anything said about the other officers beyond mentioning who they were. Apparently, none of them made any appreciable contribution to its operation (although records on the subject are rather sparse.) The point is, the governors are far and away the most important people related to this topic. Even if the other officers' articles were to be created and promoted, they would still shed very little additional light on the topic at hand. Acdixon (talk • contribs • count) 12:34, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
      • It's missing obvious members of that "government". That's criterion 1(d) "There is no obvious gap (missing or stub article) in the topic." Circeus 15:07, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
        • Hearkening back to my example of Final Fantasy VIII, playable characters like Zell and Quistis are just as "obvious" a gap as not having articles on the other officials in Kentucky's Confederate government. Acdixon (talk • contribs • count) 21:31, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support - I believe the topic is worthy of FT. The articles included in the nomination are all well written, and comprehensive. The "other officials" in the government are simply not notable enough to warrant their own articles, as per the notability guidelines on Wikipedia, as it does not have "significant coverage in reliable sources." Additionally, according to Wikipedia's policy on the notability of people, "just being an elected local official does not guarantee notability", and therefore even official government officials may not be necessarily notable. The topics included for FT consideration have established notability according to guidelines, and these include the majority of information available on the actual topic itself. Therefore, the topic should be considered worthy of FT status. -- Steven Williamson (HiB2Bornot2B) - talk ▓▒░ Go Big Blue! ░▒▓ 16:54, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support - If those are really the only notable members of the confederate government, and all other minor figures are included in the main article, this is a complete topic, is it not? How would a lack of comprehensiveness be proven? Judgesurreal777 20:15, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
    • This is one of the inherent problems with the comprehensiveness requirement. It is tough to prove that what you've said is all there is to say about something. FWIW, I'm in Kentucky where the most information on the topic should reside, and I have yet to find any information on the Confederate Secretary of State, Robert McKee, except for the fact that he was the Confederate Secretary of State and a passing reference to him as a member of the state guard. This leads me to believe that, as HiB2Bornot2B pointed out above, even if I were to start an article on him, it would be speedied for non-notability. I do believe you have arrived at the correct conclusion, that this is a complete topic. Acdixon (talk • contribs • count) 11:49, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I want to support it, and the Final Fantasy example is a very valid one, so I want to have it debated one way or another. Judgesurreal777 12:27, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
At the risk of sounding self-serving, I would encourage you to add your support "vote". There is strong precedent for changing your "vote" to "neutral" or "oppose" if the debate changes your mind. Acdixon (talk • contribs • count) 12:29, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Done. Judgesurreal777 18:32, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak Oppose - I'm on the fence with this one. The articles you have are good and meet the criteria with each other, but I have a hard time accepting that a government (even a shadow one) can be covered in just one article (plus two about people in the government). Could the elections held for the government each have their own articles? Could the structure of the government's legislature have its own article? I have a feeling that there are some big gaps in the coverage, but I don't know enough about the topic to be able to say exactly what they are. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 15:03, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
As the lead says, the government was self-constituted. There were no elections to the sovereignty convention, and members of the state government were chosen by the delegates to that convention. I have provided what few details are available regarding the elections that were held for Kentucky's representatives to the Confederate Congress, but as the article states, the military vote outnumbered the citizen vote, and people were allowed to vote in whichever county that happened to be in on election day. That makes any meaningful analysis of the elections themselves impossible.
I have also provided all the information I have regarding the structure of the government. There was no judicial branch, the executive branch consisted of four (or five, if you believe that Simrall indeed served as lieutenant governor), and there was a legislative council of ten whose only apparent office was president. Per Harrison, the government kept meager records after 1862, which makes any elaboration on their day-to-day operations difficult.
Let me assure you, I've looked in all the resources available to me for more information about the government. (It's of particular interest to me because I live about an hour from Russellville and went to college in Bowling Green.) Please be aware that we're talking about a government that existed for less than five years, was exiled from its constituency for the greater majority of that time, kept very sparse records, and had very little influence on most of the population of the Commonwealth. Dr. Harrison seems to be the only scholar who has even attempted to document their activity in any detail. I hope you will reconsider and support the nomination. I understand your concerns, and if you aren't able to support the nomination, I'll understand that too. Thanks for your comments. Acdixon (talk • contribs • count) 22:24, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
I've withdrawn my objection; this seems like enough information for a FT, though if more articles were written later they would be welcome additions to it. I'll see if this has any more comments over the next day or two and then I'll close the nomination. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 01:22, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
  • This has been here for long enough. The two support votes seem to have delt with the consern of the one object vote. I'm going to assume the nominator supports it and I'll add my support to make it four. Pass --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 18:19, 28 September 2007 (UTC)