Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Hrafnkels saga

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[edit] Hrafnkels saga

Self-nomination. I've done my best to make the article readable and well referenced. I think the subject is interesting and worthy of more than the four lines Britannica gives it. See Talk:Hrafnkels_saga for some more information.

Haukurth 01:38, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• support. I think this article is an overachiever. I love the photo of the Icelandic horse. My only suggestions for improvement would be to include more quotations from the work itself and to reorganize the article so that a plot summary comes in the middle. The plot summary takes up the bulk of the article now, the sections after the summary, like the ones on publishing history, almost read like they are afterthoughts. User:dinopup

Thank you! I'd like to have more quotations; I only included the two memorable sentences that I have actually seen people quote from the saga. I can pick some more myself if it's not considered original research. As for rearranging the sections I think it's probably wise to wait until more comments come in before making largish changes. My idea was that the pictures should go with the synopsis and the pictures sort of naturally come at the beginning. Haukurth 09:51, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This is minor, but why not provide a phonetic pronunciation guide to the word "Hrafnkels" for people who aren't familiar with Norse languages? I am sure that I'm not the only person who wouldn't be sure of how to pronounce the article's title correctly. User:dinopup

Ooh... that's tough. There is no easy way to do it since some of the sounds, especially the one represented by 'hr', don't even exist in English. I could record my reading, though, and put it in an audio file. Would that be helpful and in accordance with Wikipedia policies? -- Haukurth 14:29, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

That definately seems within the rules as long as your pronounciation is not disputed :)  ALKIVAR™ 18:09, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Okay! I'll start checking my recording equipment. Might take a day or two to get this up. -- Haukurth 18:36, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think that quotations should be integrated into the plot summary. They can be copied to wikiquote too. User:dinopup

• Support If this is not featured material, three quarters of the current featured articles are not. One small gripe,though: the Quotes section feels a bit insignificant. Maybe more quotes should be added and moved to Wikiquote. Phils 10:26, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes. Something needs to be done about the quotes. That was my own biggest worry and since both you and dinopup think so too I guess it's a bit glaring. I'm mulling this over but I'd like to have some direct quotes in the article, to give a sense of the saga's style. One solution would be to simply integrate the two quotes into the synopsis. Would that be acceptable? -- Haukurth 10:43, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Second that... move quotes to wikiquote and link to it.  ALKIVAR™ 18:09, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

All right. There seems to be a consensus for moving the quotes. I'll check Wikiquote and try to find the most appropriate solution. -- Haukurth 18:36, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• Support, though I would second the suggestion to reorganise so that the plot summary is less prominent. --ALargeElk | Talk 12:25, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I understand the idea but I'm somewhat at a loss as to how to implement it (as noted above). Would it improve the balance of the article if the other sections were made slightly longer? I've certainly got enough material to expand on some of the points. On another note I see that you made the captions in the article into whole sentences. Thank you, I didn't realize this was Wikipedia policy. I think the part about the settlers of Iceland bringing Icelandic horses might need some rewording. As for the axe picture I'm hoping I can get a picture of an Icelandic axe from the National Museum of Iceland. I'm going there tomorrow. -- Haukurth 12:51, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• Support. Though the lead image being to the left fo the table of contents and lead section is a bit odd and pretty jarring. - Taxman 13:07, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

I agree that it's odd. My problem is the conflict of three rules: 1. The lead picture should be on the right and 2. The pictures should alternate from right to left and 3. Pictures of people (and, I presume, animals) should have them looking into the article. One possible solution would be to reorder the pictures like this: i) Manuscript. ii) Axe. iii) Freyr. iv) Horse. I'll probably try that and at least see if it looks better. -- Haukurth 14:03, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have now done this. I hope it helped. As for the captions I noticed that the one for the picture of the manuscript still isn't technically a complete sentence. I'm not sure if it needs to be fixed or how best to fix it. -- Haukurth 14:49, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• Support looks good  ALKIVAR™ 18:09, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Object. This can use more ilinks, the lead is too short and quotes should be moved to Wikiquote. The rest of the article is good and I expect I can support it soon after those objections are adressed. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 20:31, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Object. This is very good, but it needs a few tweaks . 1) Lead should be slightly longer, presenting a summary of the article (see Wikipedia:Lead section). 2) Boldface is used for the name of the article only, per the WP:MOS. 3) The use of subsections in "From writer to reader" seems a bit overkill; the subsections are only three or four sentences; having them as paragraphs would make the text look less messy. 4) As Piotrus also mentions, the quotes should go to WikiQuote. Jeronimo 20:38, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Comment. I have made the lead section longer and, I hope, more representative of the contents of the article. I have moved one quote into the text and put up a separate quote page on Wikiquote. I tried removing boldface from the alternative name but it didn't look right and I put it back. This is consistent with my use of boldface in the rest of the article and with the current practice in many featured articles. (I think I misunderstood that, see one of my comments below for a more sensible answer to the bold concerns.) The most serious lingering problem seems to be the imbalance between the length of the synopsis and the rest of the sections. There was a specific complaint that one section was too short to merit subsections. I think these concerns can be best addressed by adding some content to the right places. I'll attempt to do so. As for the audio file I'll try to do it tomorrow. There are now more internal links in the introduction. I'd like to thank User:Sfahey for polishing the language in several places. -- Haukurth 22:49, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Object on several points which mainly is about ethics. First, both Hrafnkell and Sámr are caught when asleep but it is stupid to be caught while sleeping and more so to be caught the same way. There is, probably, some tricks here but both men seem to be simply unaware of dangers and I wonder why this is so. Second, both men chose to live but why did they not chose to be killed? Of course the story would have ended there and that ruins the story but what ethics beside the desire for revenge made them chose so? Third, unlike many old stories, there is nothing about love and romance in this story. Is this normal for Icelandic saga? Revth 00:41, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The only part of your comment where I have any idea what you're saying is the last question. There's no clear cut answer. Hrafnkels saga, indeed, does not have any love themes or romantic elements. This is perhaps somewhat unusual but in such a short and focused saga it is not very surprising. Many sagas have a prominent love theme. The best known love stories are Gunnlaugs saga and Laxdæla saga. It has been suggested that the latter may have been written by a woman. Getting back to the article I don't think Hrafnkels saga is unusual enough in this respect for a note on it to belong in the article. As for your ethical concerns I do not understand them and thus I cannot say if they are actionable. -- Haukurth 01:00, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It seems that the basis for this objection is that the article is faithful to the saga! Filiocht 08:34, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)

That's what it looks like. Interpreting it charitably, however, he might be saying that the article needs a section on the "ethics of Hrafnkels saga". It would certainly be possible to write such a section, indeed the saga's ethics is a topic that has been subject to some research (notably by the scholar Óskar Halldórsson). I'm not sure if such a section should be absolutely required, however. Indeed it is not the next set of information pieces I would have planned to add. -- Haukurth 09:20, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Support. Also, object to the object, assuming the interpretation by Haukurth is correct. I think it doesn't need an ethics section. A line will do. --JuntungWu 10:58, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Comment. Withdraw the objection because I realized that differences in ethics should probably not be discussed on individual saga. 08:43, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• Support. Filiocht 08:34, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)
• Comment. The suggestions in the MOS on the use of italics have now been implemented. There isn't much there on using boldface and I don't find anything suggesting that the way it is used in the article under discussion is inappropriate. In my opinion it makes the synopsis more readable to bold each personal name the first time it appears. In most Wikipedia texts names get a wiki-link the first time they appear, which serves some of the same purpose. This link practice is inappropriate here since most of the names refer to characters which only occur in this saga and don't need a separate page. (Though I guess it would be possible to write a separate article on Hrafnkell since he is mentioned briefly in some historical sources.) -- Haukurth 17:32, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Comment. My wife kindly agreed to read the words "Hrafnkels saga". I couldn't seem to upload the wav-file so I made an external link to it. I hereby release it under the GFDL. Anyone is welcome to upload it and link to it the proper way. -- Haukurth 18:49, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Support.--Bishonen | Talk 23:12, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Status report. The additions to the article today have hopefully improved the balance between the different sections. With that I think that just about every substantial complaint has been addressed one way or another. I think the article has improved by going through this process. There are still a few points I think I might add to the later sections - I should probably give Sigurður Nordal's seminal book some more space so the reader can get a better idea of its contents and influence. Another thing I was wondering about is whether the second section should have a subsection on English translations of the saga. That just didn't occur to me before now since I don't need them myself - but for the typical reader of this article that would possibly be somewhat useful. A simple bibliographical list of translations seems somewhat boring and redundant, though. Any library system search (or web search) can probably yield this information for those interested. A judgment of the merits of the different translations would be more useful but it would be very hard to source and probably end up as my, woe of woes, original research. So, I'm thinking out loud here, I guess I'll leave that alone for now unless someone sees a good way to do it. -- Haukurth 00:56, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Support. I think it's excellent. Tuf-Kat 01:40, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)
• Support, my qustions have been answered Neutral. Several comments, I would like the paragraph on the manuscript transmission to be more clear. It sounds like the saga survived the medieval period in a single manuscript. Several paper copies were made that differ from one another, with one tradition having a longer version. After the paper copies were made the original manuscript was largely destroyed. Assuming my synopsis is correct, this raises several questions. How was the vellum manuscript destroyed? I assume that the paper copies are also manuscripts, but the article doesn't say so. Are they? Why are there at least two versions in the paper copies? Could one version have come from a separate, now lost manuscript? How many paper copies are there? Were they all copied directly from the source manuscripts or are some of them copies of copies? I would also like to see a more complete reference for the manuscripts - i.e. where are they kept (institution and shelf number).Dsmdgold 01:56, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)

Hehe. :) I see from your page that you're a manuscript buff. I'd love to write more about the mss. I didn't really think anyone would be interested. Tell you what, I'll make a diagram to clear it up a little. I'll try to address all your questions one way or another. -- Haukurth 07:54, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have now added a diagram and some more text. I hope it answers most of your questions. I don't think it is known how most of the vellum ms. was lost. At least I have nowhere come across any information on that. You can follow the external 'sagnanet' link to find more information on the individual mss. All the mss. in the diagram are currently preserved in the Árni Magnússon Institute in Iceland (see http://tinyurl.com/6w9z4). -- Haukurth 15:52, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• Support. Exceedingly well done. Bacchiad 06:33, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Strong support I love it. Thank you for writing it. SlimVirgin 08:31, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)
• Comment. I added a Further reading section. These are interesting books on the subject which were not used in writing the article. My references happened to be only by Icelandic authors; I think that might have given the reader the wrong idea as to the nature of the scholarship on the saga. The combined list of works is still by no means comprehensive. Much more has been written on the saga but I think I've got the most important works covered now. -- Haukurth 15:29, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)