Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Gunnhild Mother of Kings

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 18:13, 25 August 2007.

[edit] Gunnhild Mother of Kings

Self-nom as creator, but others have worked on and improved the article considerably. Article recently promoted to GA. I think it is well-sourced and up to FA standards. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 17:59, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Oppose. The references must be more precise and used more carefully. At one point a direct quote gave Fagrskinna § 8 as its reference but the text did not match the text of the only Fagrskinna translation given in the references.[1] If there are other instances of this they must be fixed. Using references like "Harald Fairhair's Saga §§ 45–46" is also not precise enough. We can't rely on chapter numbers in the sagas being standardized between editions. For example the first edition of this saga which I checked doesn't even have 46 chapters.[2] It has to be made clear that Harald Fairhair's Saga is a part of Heimskringla and the text should refer to the page number of a particular translation/edition of Heimskringla (though I don't mind giving a chapter number too). Haukur 19:03, 18 July 2007 (UTC) See below for more serious problems. Haukur 17:07, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Your criticisms are well taken, though my format of citation is similar to that used in many reference works (see, for example, any of the books of William Ian Miller.) I was not aware that there were significant differences in the numbering of chapters between editions. Would you be willing to help me change the citations? Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 00:04, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not particular about the citation format per se, as long as it clearly identifies where the information can be found. I.e. I'd accept chapter numbers as long as the edition is identified. Numbering of chapters is often variable. The manuscripts only sporadically indicate chapter divisions and individual manuscripts of the same saga can easily disagree on them. Modern editors then add their own ideas. Haukur 00:50, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Support. I miss the old days when articles could be featured without a single inline reference, and I am sure that Briangotts will address Haukur's concerns.--Berig 21:05, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Support. Well written, quite interesting, and I too am sure Briangotts will address Haukur's concerns to the extent that they need to be addressed. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:44, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment I support the article, but I recuse myself since I did work on it. I would say that 17 redline broken wikilinks is a bit high, even for obscure Norsemen and Norsewomen. I think it used to be a requirement to have no broken links before making it to FA, but I've been gaslighted by rules-changers lately, so I will leave this to others' discretion. Cheers. -- Yamara 15:44, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree that some of the obscure people should probably just be delinked. I think the note about the unreliability of Egils saga is a bit odd. Egils saga is one of the earliest and most historical Sagas of Icelanders, more or less on a level with the (un)reliability of the kings' sagas. This is especially odd since information from the romantic Laxdœla saga and Njáls saga are cited as facts. Haukur 16:03, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

That note has been removed. With regard to redlinks, the presence or absence of redlinks should have no bearing on an article's FA status. Consensus has overwhelmingly acknowledged that redlinks are useful because they promote the creation of new articles. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 16:20, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, for one thing some of those obscure people may not qualify for an article to begin with because the sources are so meager that there's almost nothing to say. The other point is that the featured article is more useful to the reader if it is well supported by its surrounding articles. Someone reading about Gunnhildr might well want to broaden his understanding by reading articles about her children - most of which are currently redlinked. Haukur 16:35, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not quite happy that none of the references used in the article are actually works about Gunnhildr. Academic articles have been devoted to the study of her and I would expect to see the article make use of them. Here are a couple of suggestions:

• Sayers, William (1995). Power, magic and sex : queen Gunnhildr and the Icelanders.
• Heinrichs, Anne (2000). Gunnhild Özurardóttir und Egil Skalla-Grímsson im Kampf um Leben und Tod. Haukur 16:18, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

nn:Ragnhild Magerøy's 1966 historical novel on Gunnhild, Dronning uten rike ("Queen without a Country"), should be mentioned. Haukur 16:48, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

The article describes Gunnhild's death like this: "According to the Jomsvikinga Saga, Gunnhild returned to Denmark around 977 but was killed at the orders of King Harald." The footnote reads: "Ashley 443; Jomsvikinga Saga §§ 4-8. Poul Anderson regarded this account as entirely unreliable. Anderson 594-595." This is entirely unsatisfactory for a number of reasons.

1. The saga description of Gunnhild's death is picturesque and interesting. It should be included in any biography of her.
2. The details of this account led archaeologists to think that they had discovered Gunnhild's body in 1835. This should be mentioned. The article doesn't even mention the Haraldskær Woman which still lies in state in a place of high honor in a Danish church because she was believed to be Queen Gunnhild.
3. Citing a fiction writer on the accuracy of this account is not the way to go. Scholars do (now) think that this account is entirely unreliable but Poul Anderson shouldn't be cited on that.
4. The Jómsvíkinga saga is not the only source to give this account and shouldn't be cited as if it is. The story is also found in the early Norwegian works Ágrip and Historia de Antiquitate Regum Norwagiensium. Haukur 17:06, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

• I would argue that Anderson is well-regarded as a researcher in the field of Norse history and mythology but I would happily change this to a different source if I could find one. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. Also, if you could add the cites to AGrip and Historia, I would appreciate it.
• I will add the saga account when I get to my Jomsviking saga text, hopefully later today. I'm adding Harakdskaer Woman but would appreciate some help with citation. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 17:46, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

• Thank you, this is an improvement. I can possibly help you with citations and such but I'm not making any promises :) Haukur 16:44, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment—I'm not yet satisfied with the prose (1a), but I'll hold off opposing until I see how it improves. The lead is totally inadequate in scope and length (2a). Can it position this person in the larger picture of Norse mythology? "What little is known about her comes largely from these primarily Icelandic sources, and the Icelanders were generally hostile to her and her husband, making some of the more negative episodes suspect." The linking agent, "and" is wrong here; the ideas don't flow smoothly enough for that. First caption: run the lines on and don't use colour, just the words. Read MOS about captions. Quite a lot of redlinks. Delink them or start those articles. A few redlinks might be OK. Paragraphing a little disjointed in places. Tony 08:22, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

• I will work on your suggestions, but I strongly disagree with your comment on redlinks and don't believe it meshes with WP policy. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 17:46, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

• 'Support although the lead needs to be expanded to give a recap of Gunnhild's life. Else, I think it's good. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:13, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
• Comment These minor fixes needed:

• "17th century", "13th century", "tenth century", "twentieth century" - more consistency needed here
• "— he turned the horse-head to face the mainland — " - em dashes should be unspaced, as per Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Dashes
• Page ranges in the footnotes need en dashes rather than hyphens
• "Orange - the domain of the jarls of Møre" - needs an en dash rather than a hyphen. Epbr123 20:23, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• Strong object. A good portion of the footnotes cite the various sagas she played a role in. As the article admits, these are generally unreliable making a detailed biography of her life difficult. Therefore they surely qualify as "questionable sources" per WP:RS: "Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for fact-checking or with no editorial oversight. Questionable sources should only be used in articles about themselves. Articles about such sources should not repeat any contentious claims the source has made about third parties, unless those claims have also been published by reliable sources." Note also on the same page: "Primary sources that have been published by a reliable source may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. For that reason, anyone—without specialist knowledge—who reads the primary source should be able to verify that the Wikipedia passage agrees with the primary source. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a secondary source. Examples of primary sources include archeological artifacts, [...] historical documents, [...] and artistic and fictional works such as poems, scripts, screenplays, novels, motion pictures, videos, and television programs." Evaluating sources like these sagas is a historian's or archeologist's job. It requires comparing them with other sources, examining the credibility of each source, perhaps even an expert knowledge of the historical epoch. Wikipedia editors are generally presumed to not have these qualifications. Don't get me wrong, as far as I know you may have a Ph.D. in Nordic history or be a high school dropout, but neither would qualify you to add information to Wikipedia without citing reliable secondary sources. Right now the article does cite a number of (from what I can tell) good secondary sources, but too many statements rely on the sagas. Let me give you some examples:
  • "Gunnhild and Erik had the following children: Gamle, the oldest; then Guthorm, Harald, Ragnfrod, Ragnhild, Erling, Gudrod, and Sigurd Sleva." The footnote after this sentence cites Harald Fairhair's Saga. How do we know that archaeologists or historians haven't found evidence to the contrary?
  • The same thing goes for the "Conflict with Egil Skallagrimsson" section. It just cites Egil's Saga. Is it reliable?--Carabinieri 12:29, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.