Wikipedia:Peer review/Bolokhoveni/archive1

Bolokhoveni

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because it should be chequed against WP:NPOV before its GAN.

Thanks, Borsoka (talk) 05:43, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Boguslavmandzyuk comments

Hi,

Good job with citing all of your sources.

Some room for improvement:

Lead section

The lead section should follow the guidelines at WP:LEAD. The lead section should give a general overview of the subject of the article without getting in too much detail and avoiding jargon. It should summarize what the article is going to discuss later.

For example,

Instead of "Based on their ethnonym, the Bolokhoveni may be identified as Romanians (who were mentioned as Vlachs in the Middle Ages); but the Hypatian Chronicle and archaeological research suggest that they were rather a Slavic people."

Consider something like: "The ethnic identity of the Bolokhoveni is not known; whereas the ethnonym identifies them with modern-day Romanians, archeological evidence and the Hypatian Chronicle suggest that they were a Slavic people."

Also, consider giving more of an overview of the article in the lead. For example, you may mention that they disappeared from all records in 1257 (I think this is a pretty important piece of information). On a side note, is there any literature or hypotheses about why they disappeared? What is the result of a genocide, a mass-migration, or perhaps just a cultural re-identification with the other groups?

Boguslavmandzyuk, thank you for your comments. I am really grateful. I changed the text and expanded the lead. Borsoka (talk) 12:27, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Prose

Much of the prose is confusing and difficult to follow if you don't read through the passages multiple times. The prose should be easy to follow and straight to the point. Guidelines include WP:TECHNICAL and WP:WTA.

For example, the following sentence may be easier to follow: "However, this identification is not without contradictions, because the Bolokhoveni's material culture was not dissimilar from the contemporary culture of the western parts of Kievan Rus'."

Consider avoiding double negatives and just saying the facts: "However, this identification is contradicted by archaeological evidence, which indicates that the Bolokhoveni's material culture resembles that of its contemporaries in western parts of Kievan Rus'."

Thank you. I changed the text. After the peer review is closed, I will request a copy edit. (I always ask for a copy edit before a GAN.) Borsoka (talk) 12:27, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Section heading names

Wikipedia doesn't have specific very specific rules about section names, but the general practice is to name a section based on what conceptually similar articles name such sections. In this case, the "land of Bolokhoveni" is not a very common section name that can be compared to other similar articles. You may consider the following examples: the articles Bavaria and Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth use the section heading name "Geography", while the articles on Prussia and Kingdom of Navarre use "Territory" and "Territory today", respectively.

Thank you. I changed the heading name. Borsoka (talk) 12:27, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Other than these concerns, this article looks very solid from a content and citation point of view.--BoguSlav 02:35, 12 December 2014 (UTC)