Talk:Davidian Revolution
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Davidian Revolution was a good article nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake. Reviewed version: October 3, 2007 |
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This article is within the scope of WikiProject Medieval Scotland. |
| B | This article has been rated as B-Class on the assessment scale. |
| Top | This article is on a subject of Top-importance within medieval Scottish studies. |
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[edit] Title
Isn't "revolution" a bit, erm, loaded? Revolutions are supposed to come from the bottom, not the top. Besides David's legacy is a mixed one, effectively helping to split the country centuries later, and lay the foundations for it becoming a vassal state of England through anglicisation. --MacRusgail 19:39, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
- Hey, I agree, the term "Revolution" should be used with qualification, but it's the term used by historians, probably trying to get across to lay people and historians of other areas that David's reign changes Scotland dramatically; though I've never come across the notion that Revolutions have to start from the bottom to be Revolutions. I do think the whole Feudalism stuff is a heap of trash though; David founded a mercenary state backed by the English monarch; calling this mercenary state a "feudal revolution" for me misses the point entirely; but I can't add that to the article, because that would be in violation of WP:OR. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 17:22, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
- Although I realise your point is that the term can stay, but with some qualifications. I would defend the terms use here. Revolution properly means "a turn around", and is a significant change that usually occurs in a relatively short period of time. Secondly, if "Davidian Revolution" is the term used by published historians, although we might not agree with it, that's what gets used in things like Wikipedia. Thirdly (using only modern examples perhaps not totally relevant to Scotland in the middle ages) there can certainly be revolutions in government and administration brought about at the top, and revolutions in society and culture brought about by action at the top. Although there are connotations around the term "Revolution" now, it still accurately describes events surrounding David's reign and all revolutions are not necessarily brought about from the bottom, indeed many modern revolutions are actually from the top, if not people near the top (One of the earliest events of the French Revolution was when the nobles, clergy and bourgeoisie refused to accept a tax on themselves and it was liberal nobles who were both the leaders and the force behind Revolution in that country, in America the Founding Fathers had extensive political power and experience there). 82.41.85.29 23:31, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Trying to think of modern equivalents here... we tend to think of the French and Russian Revolutions in terms of the popular uprisings. What Napoleon and Stalin did top-downwards is not considered part of the revolutions, despite the fact that possibly greater changes were caused by these actions. However, in the context of industrial/agricultural revolution, where there is a huge change (presumed improvement) in the means of labour and output. I suspect David did something to improve Scotland's military prowess, but in other respects, I'm still sceptical. --MacRusgail 04:57, 16 November 2007 (UTC) p.s. Incidentally talking of Russia, the process of planting burghs and bringing in foreigners to modernise is highly reminscent of what the later tsars did, such as Peter the Great... instead of being "europeanised" by force, they brought them in semi-voluntarily.
[edit] GA Review - On Hold
This article covers some important elements of history, and is filled with solid resources and nicely-used images. However, the surface-level prose needs some work. For this reason, I'm going to place it On Hold, to give editors a chance to fix the writing style – this can probably be done in a few days, without huge investments of time. Some specific things to look at include:
- Run-on sentences. The following huge sentence should be broken up: In applying this model to Scotland, it would be considered that, as recently as the reign of David’s father Máel Coluim III, "peripheral" Scotland had lacked – in relation to the "core" cultural regions of northern France, western Germany and England – respectable Catholic religion, a truly centralized royal government, conventional written documents of any sort, native coins, a single merchant town, as well as the essential castle-building cavalry elite. There are others like it in the article.
- Excessive use of passive voice. History articles sometimes use passive voice out of necessity, but it seems to me that we need to make a greater effort to avoid it here. For example, in the "Military Feudalism" subsection, the following appears: It is to David's reign that the beginnings of feudalism are generally assigned. The question is: Who assigns it? And why not just use the active voice: "David's reign created the practice of feudalism."? You might want to run the article by the WP:LoCE for help on the above two points.
- Non-standardized headings. The first European Revolution subsection has both E and R capitalized; the second does not. Consult WP:MOS for rules on this sort of thing. Also note that articles (the, a, an) are generally avoided in headings and subheads. Finally, is there a reason that most of the headings in the article are actually subheads (using three = signs instead of two)? Again, consult the MOS for details.
- Organization. It's not clear to me when we move in the article from context/background to the actual changes implemented by David himself. Articles on history work best when they make clear distinctions between the background and the foreground. (And, in cases where the aftermath/legacy is relevant, the fore-foreground? I don't know what the term would be there.)
- Image placement and spacing. WP:MOS#Images has pretty specific rules about where images should go (ie, always before headings and sub-heads, so as not to break up the flow). You'll need to correct several image placements, as with the one on the left under "Creation of burghs". Also note that this image has two captions – one in the image itself and one below it as an article caption. Cropping the image can help remedy this (and it's a good idea to get rid of that thick black border as well). Finally, there are long blocks of text with no images, and several images stacked on top of each other. Space them out more to redress this imbalance.
Again, the article is packed with good information, and it's very close to GA status. The editors involved should be proud of the hard work invested; it shows. Fixing these matters of style will take the article a long way.
Please let me know if you have any questions. – Scartol · Talk 14:12, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
- The Deacon appears to be taking a break. Rather than have this fail for trivial reasons, I'll make a stab at addressing your points above. I think we'll need some more time. Angus McLellan (Talk) 07:58, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
[edit] GA Fail
Because the article has been on hold for over two weeks with only very minor changes (and no indication as to when it might be finished), I'm going to have to fail it at this time. As I said before, it's structurally sound and close to GA status. When the prose is fixed, please re-submit it (and if you like, let me know so I can do the second review). Thanks for your work on this page. – Scartol · Talk 17:01, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Alston mines
I presume that the link to the Alston mines should go to Alston, Cumbria? The article link goes to the disambiguation page Alston.
Notuncurious (talk) 18:32, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
