Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Hippocrates

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 review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 22:34, 10 January 2007.

[edit] Hippocrates

I'm resetting this nomination (old nom). Much of the old nom pertained to the now totally rewritten formating at the end of the article (it was bad before, it's very good now). Raul654 17:29, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support (as in the first nomination) and comment: Page number in citation 56?--Yannismarou 09:55, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Missing page number noted; I just don't have that book with me at the moment. I have put it on the talk page todo and will fix it as soon as possible. -- Rmrfstar
• Support, nice work. Sumoeagle179 11:01, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment disagree that "much of the old nom pertained to the now totally rewritten formatting at the end of the article". Most of the opposes on the old nom were for the sloppy choppy prose and referencing problems. Sandy (Talk) 11:45, 21 December 2006 (UTC) In fact, upon review of the old nom, it seems that none of the previous Opposes were because of the formatting at the end, hence, they should not be discounted. Sandy (Talk) 15:46, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Object Several footnotes are *still* dead blue links, and prose problems are still apparent (example, "Hippocrates and his followers identified many diseases and medical conditions for the first time."). Can you "identify" a disease for the second or third time? Sandy (Talk) 12:17, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
    • I went through every link in the sections with footnotes and couldn't find the dead link. Which ones are dead? And yes, one can identify a disease multiple times, because doing so only involves linking together the relevant symptoms: that's what identifying a disease is. -- Rmrfstar 21:33, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
      • No, some links are dead. If you click on the note "National Library of Medicine 2006" it takes you nowhere. However, if you click on the note "Garrison 1966" it takes you to the appropriate source under "References". So "Garrison 1966" is not dead. But "National Library of Medicine 2006" is a dead link. So are links like "Internet Classics Archive 2006", "eMedicine 2006", "Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2006". This is probably because the Harv style has not been properly followed while creating this notes. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 05:52, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
        • This has been fixed completely, I believe. -- Rmrfstar 23:48, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• Identification of disease — I've changed the sentence. Also have done some merging in the section "Direct contributions to medicine" in order to decrease choppiness, and establish proper sequence of sentences. Please check out. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 06:34, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• Nice improvements, Dwaipayanc. I'm striking my oppose. Sandy (Talk) 23:36, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• Object—Not written uniformly to the required "professional" standard. There are some nice sentences, especially in the lead (which will satisfy the director's concern when it comes to the main page), but a serious copy-edit is still required. In most places, glitches are easy to find. Here are a few random examples. Please don't just fix these ones alone.
  • "He is often referred to as "The Father of Medicine" for his lasting contributions to the field as the founder of the Hippocratic school of medicine which revolutionized medicine in ancient Greece, separating the field from the other disciplines (notably theurgy and philosophy) and making a profession of it.[2][3]". A comma is mandatory before "which", unless there are a set of Hippocratic schools of medicine, and it's just one of them in question—that's not the case. Why not chop this slightly long sentence into two, anyway? I'm not convinced by the assertion that he "revolutionized medicine in ancient Greece. What, in every village? Suddenly? Needs qualification or softening.

If anything, this statement is too weak: the Hippocratic school practically revolutionized all of Western medicine, in addition to that of ancient Greece...

• • "Historians accept ...". Who? Name them, or supply references.
    • There is a reference there.
  • "As no real biography was available until centuries after his death, those that are available today might be based on hundreds of years of oral tradition and are thus unreliable." What's a "real" biography? How many centuries? (If you know this much, name the first and date it.) "Those that are available—what centuries that are available? "Available" is repeated, too.
    • Dwaipayan fixed this.
  • "He died probably in Larissa at the age of 83, 90, 100 or even later; different accounts of his death exist." The position of "probably" is awkward. "Later" is grammatically different from the three ages that precede it. Avoid the ungainly "exist" construction, which is all too often used on WP. Just "There are different ...". I'd be happier with "at least three different ...", or something like that. If extact info can't be rustled up for a FA, where would you find it?
    • I have reworded this sentence along with Dwaipayan. And there is no reliable account of his death, as is stated in the article: no biographies were available until centuries after he died. -- Rmrfstar 19:19, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Not good. Tony 13:15, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

As I wrote on your talkpage, I am too close to this article to significantly improve the prose myself (I've copyedited it many times over). All I can really do is fix anything someone highlights. -- Rmrfstar 19:19, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I have copyedited the article. --Robth^Talk 09:28, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

• Object I think it still needs quite a bit of work, although not necessarily major work (imo), as I know there are real limits to writing about Hippocrates. I will post comments on the talk page. KP Botany 17:34, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I have responded to your talk page post. -- Rmrfstar 21:33, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

A request for reconsideration has been made. -- Rmrfstar 16:36, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose Too much one-paragraph sections that need either expansion or merging. Circeus 23:09, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I think that this is allowed, considering it follows Wikipedia:Summary style. The one exception is "Vis medicatrix naturae" which I don't think should be expanded or merged. -- Rmrfstar 02:22, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
    • WP:MOS says "Be generous in adding sub-headings. They help readers to get an overview of the article and to find subtopics of interest." -- Rmrfstar 17:43, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
      • Which doesn't mean the section should be kept unreasonably short. WP:GTL is pretty clear on it: "Just as for paragraphs, sections and subsections that are very short will make the article look cluttered and inhibit the flow. Short paragraphs and single sentences generally do not warrant their own subheading". Single paragraph sections have been a prime objections to FA status for a long time. Circeus 13:51, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
        • • Please see this and this changes. Two short subsections in "Hippocratic therapy" have been merged. While a new section "Notable concepts: humorism and crisis" has been created from two prior subsections of "Humorism" and "Crisis". The new sections looks substantially flesy than the previous two subsections individually. Please comment. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 18:48, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Note The aforementioned changes were followed by this change, whereby unintentional modification of Robth's copyediting were reverted. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 19:13, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I still think these two sections ("oath" and "corpus") could be lengthened, or reworked enough to contain more than a paragraph. Maybe add in a "buffer" paragraph between "works" and corpus". Having two headers that follow each others is poor layout. And the "namesakes" needs to be prose, not lists, someting I should have noticed earlier.Circeus 16:25, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Please have a look at this version. Namesakes has been transformed into prose format. A section named "Hippocratic Corpus" has been created, including a subsection on "Hippocratic Oath". The information on the Corpus has been enhanced. Please comment. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 21:24, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I do like Dwaipayanc's working of "Hippocratic therapy" and "Hippocratic Corpus", but I do not think that "theory" has been thus improved. Should not "notable concepts" still fall under the "Hippocratic theory" header: concepts are part of theories, no? By my estimation, "Notable concepts" does not warrant its own top level subheading; the current organization there seems contrived. And what's the point of sticking together "crisis" and "humourism" into this new section without differentiating between the two? How does it fundamentally help the article? Indeed, it only makes it harder to read. Sure there are now no "one paragraph sections", but that in and of itself is not sufficient cause to merge these sections. Such action should only be taken when it actually improves the readability of the article, and right now does not do so. -- Rmrfstar 00:18, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Let's have a look at this version. Please comment.--Dwaipayan (talk) 06:33, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

A request for reconsideration has been made. -- Rmrfstar 16:36, 5 January 2007 (UTC

I'm opposing on minor stuff now: the references are very confusing right now. You have a few unique references used in the footnotes, while others ("Internet Classics Archive 2006") are duplicated to the references section. Personally, I believe that non-book references (i.e. when you don't need to reference distinct places in a physical item) do not warrant the duplicated Harvard ref at all (it just add an extra step that is meaningless), but the referencing is still inconsistent, and that is bad. See recently featured articles Only Fools and Horses, El Greco and Tiridates I of Armenia. They all use Harvard refs, but single and web references are not moved into the separate section.

Also, none of the access-date variable has been entered correctly, as demonstrated by the extraneous brackets. These dates should be in ISO 8601 date format: YYYY-MM-DD.Circeus 18:32, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I've standardized the references and made them all Harvard style. They are all Harvard style... and Harvard style, according to Wikipedia:Harvard referencing, puts the date in the format I've used. -- Rmrfstar 21:12, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Re: dates. Okay, so It's Harvard style that requires brackets around consultation dates? Amazing that is the *most confusing thing* that could happen, since a wrongly inputted date in {{cite web}} results in the same appearance... I still find that puttingal those references away is unnecessary and confusing, though. (moving the refs away didnot actually help)Circeus 21:33, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Making all of the refs with access-dates to be in the {{cite web}} format would not work very well, if that's what you mean... -- Rmrfstar 00:01, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

• Support. Nice work. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 17:56, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support. The article has a length that is not intimidating. It uses several book and some web sources as reference, which are properly cited. After it went through copyedits and merging of short subsections, it is now in a position to be promoted to FA status. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 05:39, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - the business about him having pseudoscientific beliefs is anachronistic. They are beliefs that are not tenable now, after the scientific advances of the past 400 years, but they may have been the most rational accounts available then. It's not like a modern physician believing in astrology or whatever. This part needs some finessing. Metamagician3000 10:55, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Oh well, did a quick but perhaps acceptable fix of this myself. Metamagician3000 06:58, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment. Came by for a new look, and see massive improvements thanks to Dwaipayanc, Robth, Stevefruitsmaak and many others (the article has been rewritten during its FAC), but still find problems:
  • (Weasle words - according to whom?)
    • The Plane Tree of Hippocrates, under which Hippocrates is said to have worked.^{[citation needed]}
      • Considering that this statement is based on legend, I think a reference here is unnecessary; the 18 sources at Tree of Hippocrates do suffice. -- Rmrfstar 16:26, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
        • No Rmrfstar, a reference is necessary. Tree of Hippocrates is a different article. We are here for improving Hippocrates. So I have provided a reference.--Dwaipayan (talk) 18:48, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
  • These parenthetical inserts – sending readers to and for in the text – are a distraction, and should See be capitalized? All other information - all - anything else I find anywhere else about Hippocrates is unreliable?
    • Historians accept that Hippocrates existed, was born around the year 460 BC on the Greek island of Kos (Cos), and became a famous physician and teacher of medicine; all other biographical information, however, is apocryphal and unreliable (See Legends).^[1]
      • Please see the arguments above: all biographical information on him except those basic facts was first (detectably) written down hundreds of years after he died... so yes; all other material is unreliable! -- Rmrfstar
• Not there yet. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:00, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Despite Rmrfstar's convincing reply, I've softened the words. See has been made see. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 20:08, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

• Support Great article. Wikipediarules2221 04:39, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

• Object Every time I peek back in to this article, it's something else. Now it has mixed reference styles (using both Harvard and cite.php). Hippocrates and the beliefs that he embodied are considered medical ideals. "He is, above all, the exemplar of that flexible, critical, well-poised attitude of mind, ever on the lookout for sources of error, which is the very essence of the scientific spirit" (Garrison).[51] "His figure... stands for all time as that of the ideal physician”(Singer and Underwood), inspiring the medical profession since his death.[53] Pick one style and stick with it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:09, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what you're talking about; we went over this before: the article uses both cite.php and the Harvnb template in every reference (that I know of). This is quite standard practice. And in the cases above, the names are simply inserted there to make the author of the quote a little more visible, because the claims are a bit steep. I see no problem with the references... they all work, and they all are the same. -- Rmrfstar 01:39, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not surprised: example above: you cite the quote to (Garrison), followed immediately by [51] which is ^ a b Garrison 1966, p. 94 - Garrison again - that is, you cite it twice, with two different styles. Later you cite (Singer and Underwood) with no footnote in cite.php. Pick one style, stick to it. Since the rest of the article uses cite.php, why does it have these references in parentheses? After a month, this FA should be steadily improving by now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:23, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Right. I have "prosified" the two citations for these quotes. -- Rmrfstar 03:27, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

That's better; I wish this article would stabilize, so I could quit striking objects. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:33, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

The article is not actually "mix[ing] reference styles". Just look at the two articles i link to above. They use a very similar style, except without the links. It would only be doing so if the Harvard referencing was used inside the article text itself. The way these two particular quotes are cited, though do happen to be the only 2 cases of such references, and these parentheses must go.Circeus 03:01, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Like Circeus, I believe that non-book references (i.e. when you don't need to reference distinct places in a physical item) do not warrant the duplicated Harvard ref at all (it just add an extra step that is meaningless). However, in this article all notes have been done in Harvnb format. I just fixed two errors. Request Rmrfstar to please address the concerns of Circeus. (I could not do it as I am not comfortable using harvnb stuffs!). Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 05:48, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

It's one more click which makes the whole system consistent, uniform and almost painfully simple. This is a good thing. Also, in the future, even the web references might be used twice in the article, something that would be very easy to implement in the current system. -- Rmrfstar 15:10, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment -- is there no better image than Image:HSAsclepiusKos.jpg to illustrate the "image" section? And I think there are more suitable illustrations for the legacy section, and that the image of the Tree of Hippocrates should be located at a different section. At the legacy section, maybe you could put the Roman bust. / Fred-Chess 11:14, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree, and have shifted around some of the images. Please review. -- Rmrfstar 15:14, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

• Support -- although I would still like to see better images. On Image:HSAsclepiusKos.jpg, it is hard to distinguish the persons. Shouldn't there be lots of images of Hippokrates? / Fred-Chess 18:11, 7 January 2007 (UTC) I have added one image I think is suitable, but I haven't referenced it with the Harvard system. I might do that later, or you can remove it from the article. / Fred-Chess 18:29, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Why's the reference there? What statement does it verify? Is that website the source of the image? Concerning other images, I'll soon include Image:GreekReduction.jpg and Image:HippocraticOath.jpg. I just need some information from the book where I found them. They should help, though. -- Rmrfstar 20:26, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

The reference is intended to verify the location and year. That information wasn't included on the image description page. / Fred-Chess 21:13, 7 January 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 review. No further edits should be made to this page.