Wikipedia:Featured article review/Byzantine Empire/archive1

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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

The article was kept 09:18, July 29, 2007.

[edit] Byzantine Empire

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at History, Classical Greece and Rome, History of Greece, Middle Ages and MilHist. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:03, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Byzantine Empire is a brilliant prose promotion, which has grown dramatically from the version that was promoted more than three years ago. It has several deficiencies relative to current FA standards, and a review is warranted.

  • 4, It is of appropriate length, staying focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail. The article has 78KB or prose, making it one of the four or five longest FAs. Better use of summary style might be necessary.
  • 2, WP:MOS, WP:LEAD, etc. See also is massive and needs attention, and External links may need pruning per WP:EL, WP:NOT. WP:DASHes need fixing, but since another editor is testing a script which automatically fixes them, that can be left for later in the review. Wikilinking seems uneven and may need attention.
  • 1c, a review of citation is in order. There are multiple, entire sections with no citations whatsoever. There are direct quotes with no citations, page numbers.
  • 1a prose, there is some capitalization I'm not sure on, and since I saw minor punctuation issues (The Angeloi dynasty has had an extremely poor reputation historically, with more than one historian finding them directly responsible for the collapse of Byzantine power[5]), a ce might be in order, given the amount of growth this article has seen since its promotion.

I suspect knowledgeable editors will be able to adequately trim, tweak, and tune up this article during review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:05, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I hope knowledgeable editors will do their best. Has User:Bigdaddy1204 who is maintaining the page the page for some time been informed?--Yannismarou 06:54, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
Now he has :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:06, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
  • The article has been hijacked by Greek nationalists with their own agenda (see the numerous talk pages). It is definitely not deserving of FA status (although there may be some segments that are - they are not enough to compensate for the skewed opinions presented in other parts of the article). Roydosan 11:09, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Be specific please. Sending us to "the numerous talk pages" is not helpful. Oh, and by the way, I repeat to you that the main maintainer of the article during all these years is not Greek.--Yannismarou 14:27, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for notifying me of this. Sorry I have not responded until now - I have been very busy for the last few months, and this has left me with very little time to spare for wikipedia. And thankyou, Yannismarou - I very much appreciate your hard work at Manuel I Komnenos, and I am grateful for the respect you have shown to myself and other editors.

I believe that there are several specific and very serious problems with Byzantine Empire:

1. The sections concerning events after 1204 are in extremely bad condition, and need to be removed and replaced by new material.

2. There needs to be a clear decision on what this article is supposed to be - is it going to be long and detailed (as I would personally prefer), or short and concise? I have added some 9,000 words to the article in my time, but most of it has been removed by other editors, who are unwilling to consider compromise and who seem determined to shape the article to their own desires. This needs to be resolved. Personally, I find recent edits made by User:Lacrimosus, among others, to be little better than vandalism - he removes large sections of text (sometimes 1000s of words) without consultation, doesn't bother to find a new home for that text, and reverts any edits he doesn't like. This has got to be dealt with. As it stands now, I feel very disheartened, and at times I feel like giving up on wikipedia entirely.

3. We need to decide if another article, History of the Byzantine Empire, should be created, as has been suggested, so that the history of the empire could be treated in more detail there. I would support such an article, if it would end the current conflict; however, we need to discuss whether or not this is the best course of action to take. Some of my text has been relocated to new articles, but I do wonder if the material would be better placed in a general Byzantine Empire article than in an obscure related page that nobody is going to read (for example, Byzantine civilisation in the twelfth century, which by the way needs attention itself...).

Roydosan, you sound pretty disillusioned yourself. This I understand. But ultimately editors like us should stand up for this article, if we feel it is being taken in the wrong direction - together, we can make wikipedia a better place, whereas if we allow ourselves to just give up, wikipedia will be the worse for it. As Yannismarou has said, it would help us all if you would be a little more specific, though I think I know what you were referring to. Bigdaddy1204 19:04, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

As far as I am concerned I try for the time being to properly cite the article, fix some obvious prose deficiencies and keep it in a total length of about 105 kbs. The years after 1204 are my next priority in rewriting. I did not remove material from the Justinian, Heracleian and Isaurian period. I did some removals from the Komnenian period, which was the most detailed in the article, but, using WP:SS, I send the reader to Alexios' or Manuel's article, where he can find all the relevant details. As a matter of fact, after starting my rewriting, the article has become longer in terms of total length (from 104 kbs to 107 kbs) due to citations and additions in the Isaurian and Heracleian periods, which had serious flaws. Nevertheless, I do not worry much about that. My only priority now is quality, and then we'll see if there are worries about the length. After all, personally, I have a personal opinnion differing a bit from Sandy's views as far as FA's length is concerned.
In any case, I'll continue to gradually work on the article, and I believe that through discussion and exchange of ideas, we'll find the best solutions for one of the most important topics in Wikipedia. This article could be a model one. Of course, I do not know if my rewriting will be done within FAR's or FARC's time limits. I'll do my best, but I can guarantee nothing here. Unfrotunately, the article's problems are not limited to adding citations, but I have at the same time to research, re-structure, copy-edit (though not a native English speaker!) etc. It is a tough and extended job. And it is a pleasure, because during this rewriting I do learn things, and I improve myself, and my knowledge of an empire I love! So, even if I do not manage to save the article, I'll be happy just for the fact that I had the chance to follow once again the lives and the achievements of some of my heros of my childhood: Heracleius, Leo III, Justinian, Basil II, Alexios and Manuel, Constantine the Great and Constantine the Palaiologos. That is ok with me!--Yannismarou 08:03, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I believe that we should not be constrained by arbitrary size limits that are in any case long out-dated and no longer relevant. We should concentrate on returning Byzantine Empire to its former glory. I look at the article now and I feel despair - it has been ruined, a travesty of its former self. Yannismarou, I think it is going to take a lot of work from both of us if we are going to save the article from its present terrible condition! Bigdaddy1204 11:39, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree. This is an incredibly large subject with several periods of history which, even if summarized themselves, would still create a large article. Size paranoia is dying out of Wikipedia; let's not resurrect it here. As for those unsavory editors, perhaps you can begin arbitration. I'm unfamiliar with the process, but invoking some kind of administrative help or ruling may settle the issues. Zeality 00:35, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Attention spans have not grown just because certain technical limitations have become irrelevant. One should generally assume that the general readership has something like half the patience of the aficionados that write articles. 20-something printed pages is pretty unreasonable unless one is actually intent on writing for one's peers. "Because we can" is really not a good argument...
Peter Isotalo 10:28, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Peter is right. There's no need to give a blow-by-blow of every military campaign or administrative reform in the main article, especially as it is already structured according to intelligent and well-considered chronological divisions: each subheading can easily become a more detailed article in its own right (and many already have), so that none of the hard work of the various editors need be lost. Next to this overdeveloped, if impressively accurate, political history stands a rather underdeveloped, and largely out-of-date, section of thematic entries on "legacy and importance": the "cultural elements of Byzantine literature," for example, are carried over from a 1913 Catholic Encylopedia article, and the section on Byzantine art is carried over from Brittanica. None of this is to suggest that the article does not constitute an excellent resource; merely that its excessive length is the product of an inordinate concentration on political history, which forms a very small part of any given state or society. --Javits2000 09:58, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern are focus (4), MoS issues (2), citations (1c), and prose (1a). Marskell 10:36, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
I'd clarify an issue with criteria with 2(a) - the LEAD does not summarise the article but is mainly concerned with when the Byzantine Empire is supposed to have begun.cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:06, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Just to inform the reviewers here that my rewriting is still on the way, and hopefully I will need until one more week to get it over.--Yannismarou 22:04, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Please let us know when it's ready for a new look. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:27, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
      • I inform everybody here that I am obliged to be on a extensive break until June 20. I am sorry I cannot go on with my rewriting for the time being.--Yannismarou 16:03, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
        • A lot of progress had been made before Yannis had to take a break; do we know if anyone else can work on this article, and can we possibly hold the review? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:25, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
  • All those article series templates, quote boxes, timelines and whathaveyou combined with so many images make the article look rather cluttered. For example, do we really need 15 maps? I also question the relevance of an infobox that is intended for modern nations. Most of the facts included in that infobox are pretty arbitrary choices. Peter Isotalo 08:03, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Remove Rather than being summarized and shortened, the article has been expanded to 83k of prose since the last comment here and there are now 16 maps. Yannis is still not back from his vacation and it doesn't seem like anyone else is going to rein in this colossus any time soon. Peter Isotalo 23:19, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
  • The prose size has come down; it's currently at 66KB. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:09, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
  • I have no idea how the figure of 66KB has been reached (my calculation puts it at around 80), but it's still massive. Haggling about what constitutes actual article material isn't going to amend the problem either. Peter Isotalo 21:15, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
  • If such a massive amount of text-based information (we're talking some 20% in this case) is so irrelevant to the total size of the article that it's not be considered prose, one really wonders why it should be included in the article in the first place. Peter Isotalo 14:23, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Length isn't a criteria, though is it? I do agree that the "history" section of the article should essentially be composed of the leads of daughter articles, each of which covers a specific period. But then someone has to write those daughter articles! The only problem I see with the maps is a spelling mistake, "Constantinopel", in the 1400 one. "Early history" is under-cited. "None of this was of any comfort to the farmers in Asia Minor, suffering raids from fanatical ghazis." Hmmn, I suppose not, but still a source would be nice. Paragraphs from 1391 to the end of history are under-cited. Despite these problems, I'm not keen on removing FA status from a well-researched and illustrated article. So…Default keep, but please try to address my comments DrKiernan 09:34, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
    • Focus is a criteria. As an article gets longer it gets less focused, even if the limits aren't set in stone. 20+-pages and 83k of prose, however, isn't what I'd call a borderline case. Peter Isotalo 07:53, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
    • Would be a pity to lose this one. Tony 15:35, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
      • I cannot agree more with you, Tony. Gradually, I will be back to Wikipedia more focused and eager to work. I already work on the article, but I cannot guarantee that at this or this moment I will have completed my work and the article will be ready. Any assistance is welcomed here. Unfortunately, this article came here during the most complicated period of my life ...--Yannismarou 16:01, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
There is nothing on what language people spoke in the Byzantine Empire. I have browsed thru it - main thing would be to (fairly aggressively) summarise historical segments for which there are subarticles - starting with Justinian I think...cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:41, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
"Greek-speaking" is in the first line of the introduction. Slac speak up! 00:10, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Remove. As I remarked long time ago, a major problem of this article is that the 'history' section comprises most of the article. This has not been addressed since then. I would consider supporting a history of Byzantine Empire, using a slightly improved version of the current history section, for a FA - but as an overview of the entire Empire this is not adequate.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  21:16, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment: Earlier, someone said that " the article should essentially be composed of the leads of daughter articles, each of which covers a specific period. But then someone has to write those daughter articles!". Well, a start has been made on that process. New articles on the Komnenoi and Palaiologoi are being linked into Byzantine Empire. Hopefully, this is the start of a process that will eventually give rise to a series of articles on, for example, the Heraclian line, the Isaurians, etc, allowing the main BE article to remain as a featured article whilst the real detail is contained in these smaller, more detailed sub articles. Bigdaddy1204 22:30, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

  • Comment on the "history section" issue: Recognizing the article's current deficiencies, I must however point out that I disagree with the view of some of the reviewers (e.g. Piotrus, a reviewer I highly esteem) that it is a problem "that the 'history' section comprises most of the article". An article about a no more existing empire is normal to speak mainly about history. First of all, the article does not (at least not any more!) just speak about history - it treats religion, diplomacy, economy, culture etc. linking to the proper relevant articles per WP:SS, but it is IMO inevitable most of the article to be history. If we create a sub-article History of the Byzantine Empire, keeping here just a section of this article, I am afraid we will deprive Byzantine Empire from its essence, from its wealth. Yes, I support the creation of sub-articles in parts of the history, yes, maybe the WP:SS could be even better utilized, but I do not honestly see the reason for the creation of a History of the Byzantine Empire sub-article. The history of the Byzantine Empire is the Byzantine Empire itself! And I do not say that in Britannica everything is perfect, but, if you check the respective article, you'll see that it is nothing more than history!--Yannismarou 13:35, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment. When I nominated this article, it was in dismal shape from almost every aspect; that it has come so far is a joy to behold. The article is now cited, has a nice lead, conforms with the MOS, and is deserving of featured status. The only outstanding concern is length, and that has me between a rock and a hard place. I have never supported an article that passes the upper guideline of 50KB prose. This article started at 78KB of prose, and has been reduced to 65KB during the FAR. Many reviewers argued at FAR that B movie—at the same size (63KB prose)—was not too large. I disagreed; B movie passed FAR with 63KB prose. I submit that if a topic like B movie is not too large at 63KB prose, then the Byzantine Empire—a weighty topic—would not be considered oversized if the same standards are used. I echo Tony's statement: it would be a pity for this article to lose status based on size alone, while the same FAR process passes B movie at the same prose size. All of my other concerns have been addressed, but there is an unequal standard at play here wrt size, as that has never been sufficiently resolved at WP:WIAFA. I'm afraid I can't support or oppose because the standard has not been clearly defined, and the closing admin will have to make the call. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:17, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Further clarification, which may muddy the waters or make closing decisions easier. I fought the Extra Long Article Committee (ELAC) because they were applying extreme and un-Wikilike measures to reducing article size, without consideration for overall and prose vs. reference size; in other words, they penalized well referenced articles. I sort out prose size from references with Dr pda's page size script, and I have opposed any FA that passes WP:SIZE by a large amount. I believe our longest FAs currently are B movie (63KB of prose), Byzantine Empire (65KB of prose), Campaign history of the Roman military (74KB of prose) and Ketuanan Melayu (a whopping 82KB of prose). IMO, WP:WIAFA 2 and 4 (complies with MOS and stays tightly focused) are no less important than other measures. But, Ketuanan and Roman military passed FAC, and B movie passed FAR. If Byzantine Empire fails, Ketuanan and Roman military should be revisited. If Byzantine empire passes, the requirement that featured articles comply with WP:MOS, including WP:SIZE, is weakened. The size issue should be settled at the level of WP:WIAFA. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:10, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Another: History of Russia, 72KB prose, currently at WP:FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:13, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Çlosing: Precisely because a size rule has not been sufficiently resolved, I think this should go keep. Until we decide on a specific criterion, that must be the default. Now, if an article is bloated and wanders (4) that's a different thing, but I think this is great read. I agree with Yanni about the history issue—comments on religion, the arts, bureaucracy, etc. are woven throughout the article, and then get their own small sections at the end. Plus the nominator is pleased with various criteria concerns. (Though note that the Early history needs sources.) Marskell 09:17, 29 July 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.