Talk:Gaius Sosius/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: UndercoverClassicist (talk · contribs) 12:30, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

I'll look at this one. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 12:30, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	Mostly there. I've gone in and added some non-breaking spaces before BC/AD. The prose sometimes becomes clunky and archaic, and occasionally steers away from an encyclopaedic towards loaded vocabulary and moral judgement - I think this may be a reflection of slightly over-close use of some older sources (see point 2 below).
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	The layout is professional and the lead section does a good job of summarising the material. There is still some work to do on 'words to watch', or loaded language and editorialising more generally (see for instance 'warmly espoused the cause of Antony', 'a violent harangue before the senate', 'this critical year', 'this rabid Antonian'.)
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.	The formal aspects of citation are excellent. See 2b below, however.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	The citation style, particularly the frequent use of multiple citations for individual points, sometimes makes it difficult to ascertain precisely what is proven by precisely which source. There are a few places where the line between the editorial voice and the citation is not clear: note 29, for example, cites Fluss, which supports the intercession of Arruntius but is at best indirect evidence for Octavian's reluctance to pardon Sosius, and offers no opinion on the reason for this reluctance. I would like to see the references straightened out a little - tighter links between the sources and the ideas they contain, and, in general, multiple citations reduced to one when supporting a single non-controversial fact. Where there are multiple views on something, it would be better to separate out in the text or a footnote precisely what each source believes. I am a little concerned that the article relies heavily on older research - the most cited sources are 1927, 1930 and 1939, there is only one 21st-century source, and the newer sources such as the CAH are referred to relatively lightly. I appreciate that doing Roman prosopography often means contending with changing scholarly appetites, but there has certainly been a lot of more recent research on the Second Triumvirate, for instance, and it would be good to cite the key matters of historical fact to up-to-date sources where possible.
	2c. it contains no original research.	Facts are reliably cited to secondary literature, and the handling of the primary-source evidence from Josephus is done well to avoid the charge of OR. See caveats in 2a above.
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.	I cannot straightforwardly check all the sources, but the overwhelming impression is that this represents the judicious synthesis of multiple sources throughout.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	A good overview and biography, especially given the obvious limitations of the source material.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	This is nicely done: clear and concise throughout.
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	There are a few minor points that need addressing here (see 1 above)
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	This is difficult to judge: it was massively cut down on 25 December, having been broadly stable beforehand. There is, however, no evidence of edit warring thus far.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	There is a single image, understandable given the nature of the evidence - it would be good to expand the caption here, perhaps with a footnote, to explain why the identification with Sosius is possible/dubious. It would be nice to have an image of the Temple of Apollo Sosianus, if one exists, but I can see the argument that many more pictures would be an aesthetic rather than an educational improvement.
	7. Overall assessment.	This article is nearly there - I would like to place it on hold for a week to give the editors a chance to address certain matters. In particular, the overall tone and language needs to be brought closer into line with modern encyclopaedic English, and aspects of the citation need to be cleared up so that it is clear exactly what material is being sourced from exactly what authority. It would also be beneficial if the references could be more heavily weighted towards more recent scholarship.