Talk:Battle of Ostia

Edit war

I reverted Gennarous' edits because:

1. A useful link to History of Islam in southern Italy telling the reader what these "Muslim pirates" were is being removed w/o any attempt at justifying it.
2. Arab and Muslim are changed to pirate throughout, even when "pirate" is not a particularly good adjective to use. Further, the battle is not really "coalition of Christian princes versus pirates" but "coalition versus Muslims", who cares if they were or were not what we call "pirates" (who knows? privateers? naval forces?)
3. "It united the Christian states of central and southern Italy in a joint cause against the Muslims, which eventually led to their expulsion from the peninsula" is changed to "It united the Christian states of central and southern Italy in a joint cause against the threat of Muslim pirates who were attempts to terrorise it": bad English and less informative, since it doesn't tell us what happened and it uses the highly loaded and politicised term "terrorism". No doubt the pirate raids were terrifying to the Italians, but "attempts to terrorise" sounds out of place: they wanted conquest and booty, not terrified expressions on Christian faces.

Srnec (talk) 05:09, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Pleasant disagreement concerning content

Again, useful links are being removed, and Raphael is being discussed twice in a short article. I have no idea why the statement about the united Christian states is disputed, or why it matters if Kreutz doesn't say the exact thing. Or why we need two images, one which has its own article and is too small to be useful at standard size. Srnec (talk) 06:30, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I personally agree with your edits; I only have doubts regarding the selected image: wouldn't it make more sense to choose the much more notable Raphael fresco rather than the rather obscure one is here at the moment?Aldux (talk) 14:26, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I thought the fresco too small (i.e. big) to show up clearly, and it already has its own article, which can display it with more immediate relevance. I wouldn't mind if it were replaced here, it is indeed a far superior noncontemporary visual representation of the battle. Though perhaps less accurate.

I don't like to see the word Arab continuously re-inserted. How do we know these were Arabs? Or all Arabs? Western Europeans of the time made no distinctions between Arabs and many other mainly Muslism people groups. And I still think the History of Islam in southern Italy link is useful to provide context, but obviously I'm too broad-minded. Srnec (talk) 21:32, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, I've reinserted the link because it made more sense from a context perspective. As for "Arabs", while my reason tells me it would be very unusual at the least if even a majority of the pirates were really Arabs, Kreutz puts it that way so I don't want to "correct" a souce. I've also changed the image: you're right that the Raphael image is hardly a clear reflection of the battle, but since the close link concerning notability between the battle and the fresco I think it's better.Aldux (talk) 22:28, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't see your discussion edits until now. If you guys want we can insert the History of Islam in southern Italy in a see also section. But conflating Arab pirates with the Muslim settlements in southern Italy is inaccurate. It is doubtful the intent of the Arab pirates was to actually establish settlements. Like their predecessors who raided Rome 3 years earlier, their intent seems to have been sack Basilicas and steal the treasures. In any case, Rome is not "southern Italy".VR _talk 03:29, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Nobody's conflating anything. But the "history of Islam in southern Italy" does not imply that it is exclusively about Muslim settlements, even though the article is mostly about that (because settlements last longer and have a larger impact). The point though is not suggest that these pirates were settlers, but merely to put them in a context. The average reader will not know how close to Rome Muslims regularly were in the ninth century without a link like that one. And even if Rome isn't southern Italy, its allies at Ostia were. Putting it in a separate see also section is better than no link at all, but it's suboptimal. There should be some way, if the link is actually useful, as I say it is, to incorporate it into the text, even if not where it currently is. Looking at the text, it would probably require some rewording. Srnec (talk) 05:03, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

My understanding is that when you use the format [[Article A|Subject B]], it is implied that A and B are identical (almost) by definition. That's clearly not the case here. The article in question is mostly about Muslims in Sicily (nowhere close to Rome), and even includes some Ottoman stuff! History of Islam in southern Italy is more a see also, than a substitute for Arab/Saracen pirates. You're right the average reader should want to know how close Muslims were, but isn't that a job for a (potential) background section? VR _talk 08:37, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Can you cite a guideline or policy to support your understanding about piped links? I've never had that impression. A and B should be closely related, but B being a subset of A or a type of A or something not warranting an independent article but which is mentioned in A's article seem to me to be fine reasons for piping. I would then point out that the Saracen pirates referred to in this article are indeed mentioned in their broader context in the History of Islam... article. That article may have more information about Sicily than any other are, but it has a whole section titled "Latium and Campania" that has substantial text and three footnotes.

I'm not opposed to expanding this article to the point where a background section of its own works, if that can be done, but so long as the article is too stubby to be sectioned I can't see any point in beefing up the background. I'm also open to finding a better way of incorporating the link in the text, since I think such a way might be found, but I do think the link merits inclusion and that "Saracen pirates" is a worse linkage. Srnec (talk) 04:43, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Per WP:EASTEREGG. Such a linkage as you propose is not very intuitive, unless one believes that Muslims in southern Italy were predominantly pirates. I think a background section, or a sentence or two about the background, would be best. I'm doing exactly that and let me know what you think.VR _talk 01:50, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Neither better nor worse, if you ask me. The article is too small to actually be sectioned yet. I think a link to an article section piped to "conquer Sicily" is not better than what we had, nor worse. But not intuitive. And it happens to be a fact that, for the period under discussion, and perhaps for the entire Middle Ages, "Muslims in southern Italy were predominantly pirates", if we understand pirates to include mercenaries and raiders on land as well as at sea. This has got me thinking that maybe we need to retool the History of Islam... article and create a spin-off about the Muslim conquests in Sardinia, Sicily and the Mezzogiorno, exactly analogous to what we have in Norman conquest of southern Italy. —Srnec (talk) 05:41, 20 February 2011 (UTC)