Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Trojan War/archive1

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 not promoted 05:46, 9 March 2007.

[edit] Trojan War

The article is well put together, portrays the information well, and in an understandable tone. I believe it would be a good featured article. Christophore 00:33, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

• Object - I'd like to see the Historicity section placed higher in the article, and it to be made more clear that we're dealing with analyzing mythology here, similar to how we deal with articles on fiction. Right now, if you skipped to the middle of the article, it seems to read that the gods really did come down and interfere in these events. More clarity on the usefulness of studying it should be made, whether people study it to get a better understanding of the culture, to analyze it as literature, whatever... I feel that there's a lot of focus on the work as a whole, without nearly enough context. Fieari 02:33, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
• Comment I don't really want to read it at 80K, I think that the article can be forked out further. I agree that the historical aspects of the war should get more emphasis- the notability of the myth can't be disputed, but in history this is a very important war as well even though details have been lost in the mist of time. Note also the article has a couple fact tags somewhere. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 03:23, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
• Object - This page should be about the Trojan War. There is another page that you link to about literary representations of the Trojan War. It seems to me that much of what is on this page should go there. This page should be about the history - or what scholars have been able to piece together (from literature and archaeology) - and the other page should be dominated by the Iliad, Odyssey, etc. (Please note that this is not to say that there isn't really interesting material here; I'm just not sure it's the appropriate page for it.) Awadewit 05:08, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Actually, there's also a seperate article for the history. For a comprehensive summary, this should be about both the history and the myth. The myth isn't a pop culture fad- it's of tremendous Western cultural importance. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 05:23, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
    • I tire of being lectured at on wikipedia. Sometimes I think that we should assume people have knowledge rather than that they do not. As a Ph.D. student in literature, I am quite aware of the impact of the classical epics. Anyway, I wonder if the forking is working well here. Some of the sections seem to contain too much information and some of the sections contain too little information. One does not have to explain all of the plot details of the epics to explain the significance of the Trojan War to Western culture. Moreover, as CanadianCaesar has so pithily pointed out, these myths have had an enormous impact on Western literature, in particular. If the page is an overview, the section describing how authors for centuries imitated these epics, etc. should be bigger. Awadewit 06:34, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
      • My point wasn't to inform you the myth is important, but that there's a reason why the anti-plot summary feelings shouldn't really apply here... and certainly that abandoning the myth in favour of just the history isn't the way to go. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 07:51, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
        • That's fine. I accept that the article is supposed to be an overview, but as an overview I still feel that is unbalanced (see previous comment). Awadewit 08:28, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
• Comment. The writing is quite prolax: "The Trojan War was waged, according to legend, against the city of Troy in Asia Minor, by the armies of the Achaeans (Mycenaean Greeks)" could be more concisely presented (e.g.) "In myth, the Trojan War was between Troy in Asia Minor and the Achaeans…". "The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, of which the two most famous are the Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer" could be trimmed to "The mythology around it was central within Greek literature, most famously in the Homeric epics, the Iliad and Odyssey." I'm guessing that of its 80k, 25-30k can be cut without loss. I suggest, then, a thorough rewrite. semper fictilis 16:26, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
• Comment. I worked on this article before, but I stopped, because it's so long that it took forever to load. I'm glad to see these comments. However, I wanted to note that almost nothing is known about a historical Trojan War--it's not even certain there was a historical Trojan War. For this topic, the mythology is primary, and I think the speculation about history should be forked into a separate article. --Akhilleus (talk) 21:42, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
• Comment Haven't read the article fully yet, but some initial observations:

• The style of prose in areas seems overly antique, almost biblical. (Note: Modern translations of the Bible do not read like this! 10:37, 5 March 2007 (UTC)) Examples:

• "Zeus came to learn"
• "that he himself"
• "Another prophecy said of the sea-nymph Thet"
• "Then she bathed him in the River Styx"

• Obviously citation request tags would need need to be resolved.
• Some sections are stubby, for example the sub headings under "The gathering of Achean forces and the first expedition". Could some of these be merged?
• All the images are aligned right; this impedes flow and creates a lot of white space. Might be beneficial to alternate a few.
• The level and variety of citations and sources is impressive, but can you include author name, publication and retrieval dates to refs 96-98.
• There is an external jump in "Historicity of the Trojan War".
• Article would need work, are the main editors aware of the nom? Ceoil 01:04, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Object - This is certainly good, but has issues left to be dealt with.

The first line is awkward. Perhaps if you switched the "against" clause with the "by" clause it would flow better, but it's still rather awkward.
"There remains no certain evidence that Homer's Troy ever existed" - by this I assume you mean that there is no proof that Troy ever existed in the way it was described by Homer, i.e. no proof the story wasn't all made up, however the layperson might read that and get the picture that there is no proof that any city of Troy ever existed, which I am fairly sure would be wrong.
"The following summary of the Trojan War follows the order of events as given in Proclus' summary along with the Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid, supplemented with details drawn from other authors" - I'm not sure if there's a better way to phrase this, but it sort of sounds like the kind of self reference (or metacommuniation- the article making mention of itself) that is generally good to avoid.
"he came up along with either Momos or Themis with the idea..." - It sounds like you're compounding two narritives. If this is so, it might be better to seperate them, or at least add some note "(depending on which sources used)" to it.
You have a lot of red links. It would be better to either de-link them or create them.
There's a citation needed in the "The Judgment of Arms: Achilles' armour and the death of Ajax" section, the "The Oddessy" section, and the historicity section.

These, especially the last one, need to be adressed before this can be a FA. Thanatosimii 06:11, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose (unfortunately). This article looks to me unbalanced. I'll speak just about the citations: Some sections are overcited, while others have no citations. And there are far too many ^{[citation needed]} for a FA. I'm sorry, but I cannot support it as it is now.--Yannismarou 16:12, 3 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.