Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Maximus the Confessor

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 07:46, 15 March 2007.

[edit] Maximus the Confessor

Self-nomination. This article has been through a peer-review, and has been approved as a Good article. The biography is as complete as the sources available, and I don't see much room left for expansion. I am more than willing to make whatever changes/edits are deemed to be necessary for this to be a FA. Pastordavid 22:31, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

• Update: I have added a brief section on Maximus' theology in the legacy section. -- Pastordavid 18:36, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
• Update #2: With the help of Thanatosimii, the lead has been expanded. -- Pastordavid 23:35, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• Support - I'll assume good faith that it is comprehensive - other than that I tweaked a couple of typos - otherwise fulfils criteria. cheers, Casliber | talk | contribs 23:37, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
• Weak OpposeStrong Support - The lead section needs to be expanded. There are a lot of terms that need to be linked as only somebody with a theological background can understand some of them.Balloonman 07:11, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Reply: Could you suggest some of the unlinked terms that need wikilinks? I have tried to explain and wikilink unfamiliar terms, but have no doubt that I may have missed some. --Pastordavid 22:13, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Changing vote to supportBalloonman 23:26, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose. This strikes me as a great start to an article. I have several reservations. First, the references are mostly to tertiary sources, rather than the impressive collection of scholarly resources mentioned only in the further reading section. I would want to see those works cited in the notes. Second, I think that the contributions of Maximus as a thinker/theologian need further elaboration. semper fictilis 16:37, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Reply: I have attempted to present the facts of his life, and not draw conclusions about his theology -- the most importance aspect of which was his opposition of monothelitism. The reason that I did not use the resources listed under further reading, is that they focus on his writings rather than the historical facts of his life. -- Pastordavid 22:13, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

• Surely his writings could be described and placed in their historical contexts for us: they are, after all, an important part of who he is and why he is important. semper fictilis 00:45, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Reply: Thanks for your helpful comments. I am working on a "Theology" section, and should have an update in a few days. I will post here, to see if it is what you are looking for. -- Pastordavid 11:20, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• Support - it seems fairly comprehensive to me, given that the article has about as much information as the general reader might want. Scholars won't be using wikipedia for comprehensive research, so it's an excellent article for the layman (which is whom wikipedia is for, surely). InfernoXV 17:43, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support - it's a good, concise article. Majoreditor 22:55, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - The article seems very small. If Maximus is fairly unknown, then it is at an appropriate length. I only have a few questions about if some places might benefit from having more material. First, there's a reference to some Maronites who apparently didn't like him, and it might not be a bad idea to explain what he did to get them so angry with him so as to write a biography about him. Second, if he was a theologian, might not some comments on his theology outside of the Monothelite controversy be in order? Thanatosimii 05:52, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
• Comment. A nice effort, but a series of things need fixing so as this article to be a proper FA:
• The lead is not well-worked. Let's see some issues:
  • "Maximus was involved in the Christological controversy known as Monothelitism, in which Maximus supported the Chalcedonian position" Why "Maximos" twice in the same sentence? Wouldn't it be better to say: "Maximus was involved in the Christological controversy known as Monothelitism, in which he supported the Chalcedonian position"?
  • "Maximus (also known as Maximus the Theologian and Maximus of Constantinople) is". The parenthesis should go in the first paragraph, where his name is referred for the first time.
• You wikilink single years without full dates. This is against WP:MoS.
• I have added two ^{[citation needed]}s in "Early life", where there is uncited biographical information.
• You wikilink more than once the same articles. Christology is wikilinked at least three times.
• "For more detailed info on the controversy, see Monothelite." What is the purpose of this footnote? Monothelite is already linked (again more than once!) within the main text.
• Are his "Writings" surviving or do we know them from another source(s)? If they survived how where they saved?--Yannismarou 16:08, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Replies:

Changed the article lead to remove double use of proper name. Un-wikilinked single years (I believe you, but could you point me to this in the MoS ... I looked and couldn't find it ... thanks). I removed the unnecessary note about Monothelitism (a hangover from my days writing papers -- where more notes are always better than less) and removed duplicate wikilinks. I will look into how his writings were preserved, and provide citations for those two facts. Thanks for your helpful suggestions. -- Pastordavid 16:53, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

For MoS see here.--Yannismarou 13:21, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I have added the citations you requested. -- Pastordavid 18:35, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose: The article is extremely short, but much more information seems to be available, considering the references section alone lists four books on him. The text can't be considered comprehensive. Sloan21 16:18, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Reply: The books in question are not what I would call accessible for the general audience. They are quite sophisticated, complex, and represent some theological "heavy lifting." I am adding a section on Maximus' theology, per the discussions above ... but an in-depth analysis (such as presented in the books in the further reading) would require the reader to have advanced knowledge of some of the most obscure parts of Christian theology. (And I'm not sure that I agree that 4 books on a person is a significant amount, but that is neither here nor there) -- Pastordavid 18:27, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Neutral. The text is still very short for a historical/biographical FA, but I'm certainly not an expert, therefore I can't assess whether it could be longer or not. Sloan21

• Oppose: The sexy article is imho too one sided in the sense that it does not go in depth regarding Maximus' theology, focusing somewhat exclusively on biography. If I read a FA on, say Karl Marx, I expect to read a bit on Marx's thought (which is the case with the Karl Marx article). Also it would be nice if the article directed the reader to original sources (such as P.G. 90 and 91). References to the work of eastern orthodox scholars such as Dumitru Stăniloae could also enrich the article. Apart from that there exist some stylistic aspects that are still lacking in FA standards, for example double wikilinks (such as the one for Pseudo-Dionysius, that I fixed). All in all this is a really good article, however I think it lacks one of the two legs to get it standing at FA status, that is a "Maximus' thought" section. --Michalis Famelis (talk) 23:28, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Reply: Thanks. Please see above ... I am working on a brief "Theology" section. -- Pastordavid 11:20, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. The major objection to this page is that it is too short. I believe that the recent addition of the Theology section helps to deal with that problem significantly. However, none of us who are reviewing the article, I suspect, are experts in church history, and what this page could really use is input by another person who is. (Ironic timing, since wikipedia's resident expert in all things catholic just turned out to be a fraud!) However, as a layperson, when I read the article, I do not get a sense of closure. You have a lot of info on the Monothelite issues, and that paragraph seems comprehensive and complete. The section on his early life, however, seems very short. Now, if that's all we know, then that's just fine, however a note should be worked into the prose somehow that we don't know a whole lot more about such and such aspect of his life whenever a unsatisfyingly short section appears in the article.
  Additionally, now that the article is bigger due to the theology section, the lead should be exapanded to fit. Thanatosimii 21:04, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Reply. Looking at the article again, I agree about the lead and am going to take a stab at expanding it. As to his early life, there is just no info there - the details of his life only became of interest to those who recorded such things with his involvement in the monothelite controversy. I will make a note of that and work it into the prose. Thanks for your helpful comments. -- Pastordavid 21:19, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
    • I have worked a note saying as much about his early life into the prose. -- Pastordavid 21:24, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
      • I have expanded the intro in the way I might have done it had I been writing this article, however I can make no claims for the accuracy of what I have written. I think that it now adheres to WP:LEAD, however someone should probably make sure I haven't commited factual error. Thanatosimii 21:47, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Strike that, the prose in one sentance I wrote was just terrible. Can anyone think of a better way to say "However, later in life he entered the monastic life."? Thanatosimii 21:49, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
        • Gave it a shot with "However, he gave up this life in the political sphere to enter into the monastic life." -- Pastordavid 21:53, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
          Added one fact change, from "declared a saint" to "venerated as a saint" (many saints were recognized in a "grassroots" fashion, and to use top-down language like "declared" isn't quite accurate), otherwise the expansion looks great. -- Pastordavid 21:56, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• Support nomination. All my concerns have been taken care of. A fine article. Thanatosimii 02:37, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support. Much improved during the last days.--Yannismarou 10:02, 8 March 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.