Wikipedia:Peer review/Domenico Selvo/archive1

Domenico Selvo

Hey, everyone. At total random, I decided to take this article from what it had been[1] and turned it into what it is now. I've tried my best to get this article to FA status. I've found as many resources on this absurdly obscure topic as humanly possible and I've participated in FAC for the last month or so to really get an understanding of what it takes for articles to be promoted. I think now that it is close, but I've come as far as I can take it and now I need help polishing it up. I'll list specific issues I'd really be interested in seeing discussed here to get it started, but naturally you can add whatever suggestions you may have for the article.

1. Is the lead long enough/concise enough/coherent enough/representative of the article?
2. Do you see any problems with the notes section? I'm looking particularly at note 31 and how I should cite a source such as Basilicasanmarco.it when there is no apparent author of the page other than the institution.
3. Do you see any problems with the references section? Here I'm testing the waters for something that I have not yet seen show up in FAC. Essentially, what happens if your subject is so obscure that half of your sources don't have ISBNs? Is it OK to cite the LOC number? I've asked another user already and he essentially said that there shouldn't be a problem because the spirit of the citation is still perfectly intact.
4. How does the image layout strike you? I've heard people complain about non-alternating images, but it's difficult to do that in this article without setting off the text a lot. I had a particularly difficult time getting that Diehl quote in and showing an example of St Mark's Basilica mosaics all under the same section without creating awkward text overlays.
5. How do you feel about the See Also section? I've seen people complain about the inclusion of this kind of section, but I can't seem to fit it in anywhere in the article, yet I think it's a very important link to have on a Doge's page.
6. Does the succession box at the bottom throw you off? It's a direct rip off of the ItWiki's Doge succession box, but I'm open to suggestions. I will soon apply the box to all the existing Doge articles if some consensus is reached here. My personal opinion on the matter is that I love it. I think it's a very cool box that is not overbearing and looks very nice at the same time. To me it seems much better than just the boring rectangle succession box that you usually find.
7. How about the infobox at the top of the page? Is there enough information? Is there too much information? By the way, it is the "Monarchy Info Box" which is not a reflection on the government of the Republic of Venice, it's just the nicest one I could find that wasn't too flashy.
8. Are there any issues with the pictures and text anywhere that I'm not seeing? I'm using 1024x768 at the moment and I configured the page so it fits best under those circumstances. If there are any major problems (like the last picture dropping too low into the Notes section), please let me know and I'll see if I can come up with a solution.

Well that's all I can come up with right now. I'm really looking forward to reading your opinions and I will respond here as quickly as I possibly can and leave a notification on your talk page to let you know I've responded. Thanks again in advance and I hope you can help me make this article featured! JHMM13 07:21, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Peter Isotalo

Peter, thanks. You've been a huge help on this article. I'll try to address each of your points here.

I'll start by saying that this has been an impressive and meticulous expansion of an article of relative obscurity. I'll reply to the questions below and then move on to some (rather minor) gripe of my own.

1. Technically, there's room for more info, but I feel it's very representative of the article.

Thanks.

3. The "other user" was me, so I'll just add that I don't see how it would be a problem other than (maybe) someone complaining about the obscurity of the sources. But that should only be a problem if someone actually has reason to doubt the reliability of said source.

Was there a number 2 suggestion you had? Yeh, for now I think it's fine.

4. I think some of the complaints might have been due to some images being inserted right at the end of a section rather than in the beginning of the one after it. I tried suggesting a tweak for at the article, but it'll probably take a few tries to get it right.

My trouble with this is that I don't know what is the most common screen setting for Wikipedians.

5. Complaints about useful links? I can't see why. In fact, I would like a few more links, and I would recommend to ignore requests to remove any links that appear in the article from the See also-section. Unless they're very prominent and repeated several times, there's no harm in repeating them once more in a section which has the sole purpose of being an internal "further reading"-guide. It must be very common for someone to read maybe just the lead, browse through the rest of the article, and then check out related articles.

I'll try to put in a few links in the See Also section.

6. I think it looks great! I generally whine quite a bit about succession boxes, but this one seems like anything but crufty.

Thanks!

7. As far as infoboxes go, less is always more. Maybe a few more facts, but nothing extreme. The infobox cruftfests that we have in articles like Michael Jordan are just embarrassing.

Got it. I think I'll leave it as it is because I don't have much more information.

Now for some pointers of my own:

• Why are there so many citations in the lead? The lead is supposed to be a summary of the rest of the article, so it doesn't seem necessary to cite anything stated there.

I've taken most citations out of the lead except the note regarding his name.

• There are several repeats of the same sources throughout the article. Footnotes such as 6, 12, 16, 27 are used lots of time. Any particular reason for these? Just a suggestion that some of the most obvious ones could be merged.

Those two are my best sources that discuss his whole reign in as much detail as possible. The rest would often view it from one perspective or just one instance in his life (like the naval Battle at Durazzo and nothing else). I separate certain page ranges that I think are distinct so if people wanted to get to that information in those sources, they could get there without reading 15 pages first. I'm trying not to hide the information as much as possible.

Peter ^Isotalo 09:36, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks again! Does anyone else have any suggestions for this article?

M3tal H3ad

Thank you for responding M3tal H3ad :-D. I will address each of your useful suggestions one-by-one.

• From the middle of the tenth century until 991, I don't like the use of "the middle" is there an actual year period like 1950's?

I've changed the sentence to this: Beginning with the reign of Pietro II Candiano in 932 Venice saw a string of inept leaders such as Pietro III Candiano, Pietro IV Candiano, and Tribuno Memmo, whose reputed arrogance and ambition caused the deterioration of their relationship with the Holy Roman Empire in the west, the stagnancy of their relationship with the Byzantine Empire in the east, and discord at home in the Republic. What do you think about this sentence? I've also added a reference to earlier in Norwich where it makes the information regarding those Doges very clear. It's difficult to go into too much detail or it stops being a biography of Domenico Selvo and starts being a history of Venice. I'll be creating the Tribuno Memmo article later today most likely to eliminate the red link on the page.

• inept leaders - what leaders?

Please see above.

• link Doge - i was clueless to what it was

The reason I didn't link Doge was because I had already linked Doge of Venice in the first line. Though, since I just realized that there is an article on Doges in general, I'll be sure to link it.

• regaining some of the territory that had been lost - > regaining territory that had been lost. No need for "some of the" - redundant

Done

• the majority of the people of Venice were clearly not in favor of having a royal hereditary class, reference? sounds a bit POV and OR - same with "Being connected to the relatively popular Doge might have been one of the causes for his own apparent initial popularity."

These are both conjectures from information presented previously in the section. The law I referenced, which was put in by a popular movement of Venetians, disallowing the son of a Doge to become a Doge is the important bit here. I think it's less point of view and more common history of Venice info, but if you'd like, I could reference the Grubb article concerning "the Myth of Venice" and the common beliefs Venetians held regarding government and politics.

• Add WP:PDATA

Done. It's at the bottom of the article if you'd like to review it.

• The See Also section comes before notes

Done.

• 1071 - 1080: peace and prosperity - as far as I'm aware Peace should be capitalized because its the first letter in the title.

Done by Peter Isotalo. Thank you :-)

• Whenever you refer to him in the body use Selvo, don't mention his full name every time - we know its Domenico from the article title

I've removed all the ones that are in the prose, but I kept the one that is in the image caption. I hope this is not a problem. If it is, please let me know.

• Looks good to me though, although try have a reference at the end of each paragraph.

I've tried to reference everything that needs referencing in the places they need it. For the history of the battles, information that is typically not disputed (though I've noted which parts are disputed), I tended to put one all-encompassing end-of-paragraph reference for general information about what was going on (usually to Norwich or Hazlitt, my two big sources). I believe there's only one paragraph (outside the lead) with only one reference, and that one is at the end of the paragraph. I'll go through the last lines of the paragraphs that have no citations at the end to try to see where the issues arise:

However, one fact remained: based on their actions in the first half of the 11th century, the majority of the people of Venice were clearly not in favor of having a royal hereditary class. This reality, coupled with the fresh memories of power-hungry Doges, set the stage for Domenico Selvo. When I wrote this, I felt it was pretty boring and basic conjecture based on the bunch of evidence I gave beforehand. The claims made are no historical secret and any reliable history of Venice will address these points. I believe that if people read the whole section and check out the accompanying references, they will understand immediately. I didn't want to clutter up the page with multiple references to the same page or pages. I wonder what you think in light of this. Do you think it's ok in this instance to have no citation at the end of a paragraph?

Being connected to the relatively popular Doge might have been one of the causes for his own apparent initial popularity. This was a mistake of mine caused by an add-on edit. It is important to discuss why Selvo was popular, and therefore elected, but I think this kind of supposition does need at least a source to link the two claims, and that source is Hazlitt. I had it at the end of the previous sentence, but reviewing it now, I see that Hazlitt is where I got the info from in the first place, so I just moved the citation to the end of the paragraph instead.

Incidentally, the location also proved ideal for the election of a new Doge for the very same reasons. I felt this one was so straight-forward that providing an inline citation might do more to insult the reader's intelligence than provide them with information. :-D. Please let me know if you think it needs a citation and I'll move around the notes to encompass this information. So I don't tread on Peter's response, I just want to thank you again here for reviewing the article. It means very much to me. JHMM13 18:51, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

M3tal H3ad 09:20, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

The article uses a lot of sources. Have you read any of them? Have you seen sources that say otherwise? If you're to bring up charges of POV and/or OR please motivate your suspicions.

Peter ^Isotalo 10:53, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

But there's not an in-line source for these claims, which is required for FA when information is likely to be challenged. M3tal H3ad 13:18, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Most of the article doesn't (technically) have inlines. Why did you decide to question this and not everything else? Do you have any reason to doubt it other than simply never seeing the claim before? Please keep in mind that there are no specified requirements concerning the density of footnotes in FAs.

Peter ^Isotalo 14:28, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Askari Mark

Just a quick note until I have more time later. I've done a bit of wordsmithing but came across a couple items I couldn't fix myself. In the section "1081 - 1083: Victory" (para. 2, sent. 3) it is stated that Guiscard’s ships “retreated into ???”; the destination has apparently been accidentally edited out. As I recall, they retreated to the shore, not into someplace in particular. Second, what is (currently) footnote #29, regarding his burial at St. Mark’s, is blank. I suspect the reference name might be "dogeonline" instead of "dogionline". BTW, you all have done a GREAT job improving this stub!! Askari Mark (Talk) 18:31, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a million times for the vote of confidence. I'm slightly embarrassed by the missing reference because I spent so much time keeping them in order. It is, however, my fault, because I initially had that ref "dogionline" in the lead, but I deleted it to trim out the notes up there, and I just ran the /ref follow up without initiating a note in the first place, which is why it was blank. The problem is now fixed and I've updated the retrieval dates for all (3) web refs. Regarding your first question, the hidden word was "harbor." Unfortunately, nobody won this round of Wheel of Fortune. :-D. I'm eagerly awaiting your other suggestions, and I want to thank you for all the copyedits you've made to this article. JHMM13 19:03, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Believe me, I understand, and after you've looked at the article umpteen-hundred times, you end up being surprised by the blatantly obvious errors you can't believe you didn't catch until they were pointed out to you. :P That's why it's good to have extra heads take a look at it.

Okay, here are my comments on your questions:

1) Yes, I think it’s fine in length and coverage. Some further tweaking might be done, but it's okay.

2) I’ve used “Anonymous” for the author; Wikipedia:Citing sources/example style is unhelpful on this point, but check out Template:Cite web for an alternative citation approach in which the author is “optional.”

I had a look at the templates and what I have now seems to give information in almost exactly the same way. I'll keep it as is for now.

3) It’s quite okay to have sources without the ISBN. The focus should be on documenting the sources, and providing the ISBN where it is available. According to [sources/example style#Books|Wikipedia:Citing sources/example style], the LOC is fine, but I usually see it identified as “LCCN” followed by their catalog number.

Changed to LCCN.

You will find that some editors like combining References and Footnotes into a single “References and notes” section, but others do not. I tend to go with Wikipedia:Citing sources#Notes, which recommends keeping them separate when there are a lot of footnotes — and this article has lots of footnotes.

I'm not getting a little confused by all the terminology. My notes section is full of citations and footnotes, right? For instance, #27 is a footnote, but #26 is a citation? And the references are the full citations below? Should I keep three sections?

Where there is a separate Reference section, it will have a list of the reference sources used given in alphabetical order by author name — yours is correct. As Wikipedia uses them, a citation (e.g., #2) gives the particular source for a particular statement, while a footnote (e.g., #1) provides explanatory text. A "References and notes" section combines the two — and then "footnote" becomes generic for either or both; in fact, one can have a "proper" citation followed by further explanatory or commentary text as part of the same "footnote" (although I think this is "pushing it" and I tend to deprecate it). (Take a look at what I have in the HAL Tejas article on how I have built a "References and notes" section.)

You could choose to separate "proper" citations and footnotes into different sections. It's acceptable style, but the problem that arises is how to distinguish between the two. Traditionally footnotes would be identified with with a number of asterisks ("*") and/or daggers ("†"), depending on how many will appear on a single page. Wikipedia, however, lacks distinct pages and such symbols are difficult to "automate" for long lists. Some have started using serial Greek alphabet characters for listing footnotes separately. There is a template for this somewhere.

However and nonetheless, there has recently been discussion supporting the maintenance of a separate "Bibliography" when there is a long list of citations and footnotes in a "References and notes" section. That way, other editors and readers can quickly identify the main sources used (and editions, where important) without digging all through a mass of citations. It's not a guideline at present, but there's obviously a problem being encountered with the standing MoS.

In summary, I think your current approach is acceptable, but I would rename the "Notes" section "References and notes" and the "References" section "Bibliography". Askari Mark (Talk) 17:55, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

4) It’s really a matter of “what looks good.” Too many too close together (vertically) takes away from the layout quality. The only images I’d suggest floating left would be the Guardi painting and the coin.

I actually have more trouble with the two quote “boxes”. You employ two different styles, for one thing. I think the Diehl quote should appear one paragraph earlier and I don’t find that having regular text floating to its right is at all appealing. One approach I’ve seen used elsewhere that might work here is to place it centered right under the section header and before the St. Mark’s image. The earlier quote might best be placed inline with the text, with the translation in parentheses. (I’ve noticed that “imaged” and “boxed” quotes get deprecated a lot in reviews.)

I've removed the first box and worked it into the prose while having the translation in parentheses. Do you want me to use the current box and center it under the section header or something else? I'm not too familiar with quote boxes.

I've not used them much myself. My temptation is to center it rather than float it one way or the other. Perhaps you could leave it so that the FA reviewers have something to criticize ... er, make helpful suggestions about. ;-) Askari Mark (Talk) 18:06, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

5) “See also” sections are fine, but should only be used to direct readers to further articles on related topics of interest which were not already linked to in the article.

I've removed the link to Doge of Venice, but I've kept the List of Doges of Venice link which I think is useful.

Yep, it is. That's just what belongs there. Askari Mark (Talk) 18:06, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

6) The succession box is fine, relevant, useful, and there’s no problem with using it.

Thanks!

7) Like Peter Isotalo, I am also a minimalist when it comes to infoboxes. You might mark his birth as “unknown” simply because the death date looks a little odd out there all by its lonesome.

Done and done.

My comments:

A) For the sake of his legacy, is there any more available information on his contributions to Venetian culture or civic affairs than St. Mark’s and riding off graciously into the sunset? Sometimes people complain that there is too much focus on the wars (although not infrequently that’s most of what history has left us with). You allude to the cross-cultural influences between Venice and the Byzantines; is there something a little more explicit that might be said (perhaps with a “See main article: xyz” subheader to link the reader to a fuller discussion)?

Unfortunately there is very little on Wikipedia that I can find regarding the cross-cultural relationship between Venice and the Byzantine empire. I wish there was, but the legacy section of a particular Doge doesn't seem the appropriate place to elaborate too heavily. Several of the sources, particularly Byzantium and Venice, give a very great analysis of this relationship and the significance of the Golden Bull. The very difficult thing about this subject is that not an enormous amount of material has been written on Domenico Selvo, and whatever was written is almost always written from the perspective of how Venice managed to scrape by during those years. St. Mark's in itself is a grand cultural testament to the relationship between Byzantium and Venice and the fact that it was mostly constructed under Selvo's supervision speaks volumes to me. I wish I could talk about the inner-workings of domestic Venice (legal system, fish trade, boat trade, etc.), but finding real, reliable sources for that kind of thing is like finding a needle in a needle factory. I suspect that the only people with any semblance of that kind knowledge have access to a plethora of primary sources that are most likely written in something resembling Latin. In other words, it's beyond my means...I've tried to find more, but I've found it practically impossible for me to do. I've added some more information about the distrust of his wife leading to his deposal that was in Staley, but more I'm having trouble doing. :-(..sorry.

Don't apologize — you can only work with what you have sources for (that you can read). I raised the issue because a FA reviewer is likely to do the same. Also, you don't have to look to Wikipedia articles — your own work might inspire others to write more on it. That's part of the value of identifying references: It helps some discover a useful source they didn't already know about it, and others to contribute from sources not available/accessible to editors who have "gone ahead." Askari Mark (Talk) 18:06, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

B) I recommend scanning the article for “peacock terms”. E.g., see footnote #28 “... but according to Hazlitt and Norwich, almost all accounts name Selvo as an heroic figure who nearly beat staggering odds.” If the source actually uses those words, then mark the phrase with quotation marks; if not, find a better word. (There actually isn’t much in the article’s text that clarifies what the odds were in either battle.)

I've changed the wording to this: "...according to Hazlitt and Norwich, almost all accounts name Selvo as an heroic figure who nearly overcame an unlikely counterattack." I think that fits the information a little more accurately. I've tried looking around and I can't find too many...that might be because I wrote it. :-/

I didn’t see anything else offhand that hadn’t been caught by one of the other reviewers. It really is a great job! Awesome, dude! Askari Mark (Talk) 01:01, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a lot again! You've helped me out a lot on my (long) quest to get this promoted to FA status!

Thank you for your continued help in this FA drive! I've made the requested changes to the article and if you have any other concerns or suggestions, please please please let me know and I'll try to figure out where I went wrong. Thanks also for being bold and changing the article on your own...it's our article, after all! :-D JHMM13 18:33, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Mangojuice

Wow, that's really a great improvement. Let me answer JHMM13's questions, and then make a few separate comments.

Thanks a lot for really taking the time to thoroughly review this. I will attempt to address each point one-by-one.

1. Yes. There's a sentence with "power" twice that's a little clunky.

How does this sound: "He successfully avoided conflicts with the Byzantine Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Roman Catholic Church at a time in European history when struggles for power threatened to upset the balance thereof."

2,3. Yes - I think the notes & references sections should be reorganized, because most of the notes are citations, but some of the notes are really footnotes and aren't citations, and those should be separate. I wouldn't worry about note 31, but I would hope that you could integrate those two sections. See History of the Philippines for an example of the type of references section I'm invisioning.

My main problem with organizing the notes and references section to the way it's done in History of the Philippines is that I think that the article is a lot less cluttered with separate notes and references sections. Perhaps a way we can work around this problem is to have three separate sections that go Notes, Citations, and References. It helps in the editing process to not have full citations refed from the body of the article, as pointed out by Peter Isotalo on the article's talk page. I'd love to hear your opinion on this.

4. The image layout seems okay, but I don't know about the image selection. Why two different maps? I like the second one, but the first one seems relatively unimportant. If you're going to have two maps, I would think that they should at least be at two different scales, or show some kind of change between the two of them; right now I just find it a little odd. As for the painting by Guardi, could you add a date to it? If the date is far from 1071-1084 (as I suspect), I'm not sure that image is so appropriate. Perhaps a modern-day photo of Lido or a close-up map of it? There's room for improvement.

I'm glad you brought this up. I'll try to explain my rationale for using these images. The two maps are there to illustrate the expansion of Robert Guiscard's forces in souther Italy and the subsequent loss of land by the Byzantine Empire. It is an important point in the article as it relates to the later conflicts at Durazzo and Corfu, but perhaps I can put that info in the caption? I have to admit that it's very difficult to find illustrations for an article about a person who doesn't have any known paintings (to the best of my knowledge) and who lived in a time that didn't have an overabundance of contemporary landscape paintings. This brings me to the painting by Guardi. According to the descriptions by Norwich, Tino, and Hazlitt, the lagoon was filled with ships of all sizes. Ascension Day was already being celebrated in this manner in Venice in 1071 and one of the focuses of this celebration was the church of San Nicolò. The church stood in 1071 as it did in 1766 when the painting was painted. This is a long gap, but the only real noticeable differences would be these: different surrounding houses, slightly different kinds of boats, but not in size. I think a modern day photo would provide less illustration of the subject than this pseudo-re-creation does, and on top of that, obtaining an adequate free image of San Nicolò that would usefully illustrate this article is beyond my capabilities. :-( I hope you can see why I chose this image. Please let me know what you think.

5. The See also section is fine, but if it bothers you, you could always add a link to the List of Doges of Venice article in the succession box template.

I'll leave the section as it is for now.

6. It's short and sweet, looks good. 7. The infobox is good; I think any further info in it would be distracting. 8. Looks good on my screen.

Thanks!

Separate comments:

1. First, I'm not sure I like the use of quote boxes. For one thing, there are two of them, in different formats. For another, the first quote is only being set apart becaue of the translation: that seems unnecessary, and the second quote could use more context in connecting with the article (was Diehl talking about the issuance of the Golden Bull? If so, that should be said in a caption, I think).

   I've seen articles on FAC recently get passed through with no objections to the quote boxes. Is there any community consensus regarding this? On the first box, I chose to set use that format because I thought it was the best template in Wikipedia that could show the primary source and the translation. It's an effect I want to have to try to get the reader into the mind of a Venetian of that time, but I wonder if it's an appropriate thing to do. I wonder if any other users have an opinion on this issue so we can build some consensus. On the second point you make, it originally made sense where it was in the first paragraph, but a reorganization made it make less sense. I wonder what kind of caption you have in mind, because I'd really like to see the quote box stay. I think it looks nice :-)

2. Also, in places, I'm concerned that this article is doing original research (but take it as a compliment: it looks very professional!) There are probably places here and there where it would be better to simply say where the sources conflict than to come to a conclusion yourself. Places where this might be at issue are the places where there are notes that aren't merely citations. A few specific places beyond that:

• The essentially democratic way in which he not only was elected but also removed from power was an important step in shaping future Venetian political philosophy. (lead),

  This is addressed in the legacy section...in other words, see below.

• However, one fact remained: based on their actions in the first half of the 11th century, the majority of the people of Venice were clearly not in favor of having a royal hereditary class. This reality, coupled with the fresh memories of power-hungry Doges, set the stage for Domenico Selvo. (Background section),

  As I wrote above (in response to another reviewer...I can't remember who right now), I felt that this was pretty basic conjecture or extrapolation. I don't feel I was making any claims with these two sentences that aren't covered adequately by not only the information that precedes it, but also by the claims of the authors of the secondary sources. Please let me know if you think they need citations and I'll reorganize the current citations to better encompass the claims.

• ...but it can be assumed that he was a Venetian noble because, with the rare exception of Domenico Flabanico, only members of this class were elected to the position of Doge at this point in the Republic's history. (Biography / Life before Dogeship)

  Those first three sentences are covered by note 9. I omitted the citation to prevent clutter. Do you think it is worthwhile to cite note 9 twice in a matter of two or three sentences or does it work as is?

• Due to the new trade privileges and the fact that virtually no damage was inflicted on the Venetians during this siege, Selvo remained very popular in Venice. (Biography / 1081-1083: Victory)

  The whole second part of this paragraph is covered by note 26 just like with the Hazlitt quote above. Same question applies here...double cite or leave as is?

• Guiscard, however, saw the departing Venetian convoy and realized that his last chance had come for victory. (Biography / 1084: Defeat & deposal) (this sentence could actually be removed: it just serves to up the narrative tension.)

  Sentence is gone.

• Acting on the sensible belief by the Doge that a third attack would be extraordinarily unlikely and the presence of a slightly depleted Venetian fleet meant greater odds for victory, Guiscard summoned every floating vessel he could find and led the Normans into a surprise attack. (right after previous one)

  This sentence is covered by the Hazlitt citation at the end of the paragraph. Same question applies here...double cite or leave as is?

• The whole last paragraph under "Legacy".

  Admittedly, this section stems from the academic claims that the turbulent relationship Venetians had with their Doges and the reformation of the democratic process had been shaped over the centuries through a series of deposals and popular elections. The only analysis I have provided here is that Domenico Selvo was one of those Doges and that the contrast between his popularity at the beginning and end of his reign illustrates this legacy quite well. I've added a reference to the "myth of venice" and how it describes the concept behind the popular belief of free will and the democratic process in the Republic of Venice.

Keep in mind, I'm not saying I doubt any of this. Just, whenever the article starts making analytical claims about events, I want to see an inline citation for the sentence. Okay, that's it. Good work. When you put this up for FAC, let me know; if you address all these points I'll definitely support. Mangojuice^talk 20:00, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I hope I have adequately addressed your concerns. As the Italians would say, sei un drago! Thanks a lot, and I eagerly anticipate your response.JHMM13 21:29, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd rather see double cites than wonder about the support for individual sentences. The one including "set the stage for Domenico Selvo" -- yeah, I do think that needs sourcing, it's making an analytical claim about what Venetians wanted in terms of their rulers. My point about quote boxes is more that they seem a little clunky the way they're used in this article, not that I object to them as a general thing. Mangojuice^talk 12:15, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I've cited the sentences as Norwich and Hazlitt both hold those claims (so I just refed Norwich). I've moved the images around and tried to make it work out to some extent. I have a lot of trouble trying to figure out what does and does not look good. To me it never looks good to have a left-side image directly under the section heading, but I guess a lot of people do because you tend to see it often in FAs. I moved the Lido painting to the left and switched the positions of the quote box and the St Mark's image but keeping the image on the right so it doesn't interfere with the See Also header at higher screen resolutions (I usually use 1024x768, but I've upped it for the moment to the next one so I can see what people tend to use more often). Let me know if you still see any problems. JHMM13 16:34, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the painting is okay; it's certainly better with the date specified. I like the second map, it's the first one that seems a bit unnecessary (especially with the second one there) - what is the first one illustrating, exactly? More important, I think the article attributes too much importance to Selvo's forced abdication. Do any of the sources describe his abdication as "important" in the development of a democratic rule in Venice? Do any of the sources describe his election and abdication as his most important contribution to Venice? I think it's certainly reasonable to cite Selvo as an example of a peaceful transition of power and note that Venice was in the progress of developing from a monarchic system to a democratic one. But this really seems to be making claims beyond the analysis in the sources, which we shouldn't do. Mangojuice^talk 19:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll try to explain why I think the image is worthy of being on there. It shows the Byzantine control over southern Italy and how close it was to the Holy Roman Empire at the time. Guiscard spent a long time kicking the Byzantines out of Italy and did so in part by allying himself with the Pope, the essential co-ruler of the Holy Roman Empire. It was very similar to the Vietnam War in which the two main powers weren't fighting, but there were tensions. Venice was stuck right in the middle of this mess and managed to befriend both sides by not fighting either. The second map shows the transition of power from Byzantine control over southern Italy to full Norman control under Guiscard. Would perhaps anyone else like to sound off on this issue? If we do get rid of it, are there any suggestions for a replacement? I've reworded the last paragraph a bit per your request. You were right, there are no mentions of it being a particularly important transition, but the Norwich reference covers the entire scope of the transitions of power in Venetian history. I hope you find this acceptable. Thanks a lot, JHMM13 20:34, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I think having both maps is fine. The problem seems to arise with the fact that they are very similar. When I first saw them, I thought it was a matter of duplication of the same image — until I looked closer. The main differences are in the political structure of the lower part of the "boot" of Italy and the fact that the second is focused a little further east and south of the first. Askari Mark (Talk) 23:14, 28 March 2007 (UTC)