Talk:Ruins of Gedi

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): BBTouag25.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 08:26, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

References

• Kirkman, James. "Potters' Marks from Medieval Arab Sites in Kenya" The South African Archaeological Bulletin. vol. 13 no. 52 (December 1958): 156-159.
• Kirkman, J. S. "The Culture of the Kenya Coast in the Later Middle Ages: Some Conclusions from Excavations 1948-56." The South African Archaeological Bulletin. vol. 11 no. 44 (December 1956): 89-99.
• National Museum of Kenya. "Gedi." http://www.museums.or.ke/content/blogcategory/22/28/ (accessed October 12, 2016).
• Reynolds, David West "Swahili Ghost Town." Archaeology. vol. 54 no. 6 (November/December 2001): 44-47.
• Schofield, J. F. "The City of Gedi: Presidential Address." The South African Archaeological Bulletin. vol. 10 no. 38 (June 1955): 35-42.
• Wilson, Thomas H. "Spatial Analysis and Settlement Patterns on the Eastern African Coast." Mitteilungen zur Kulturkunde. Bd. 28 (1982): 201-219.

BBTouag25 (talk) 19:38, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Intent to Edit

In addition to making further contributions to the page I intend to edit the existing content. One of the most easily observed issues with the existing text is that the “Legends” section is underdeveloped. I have found some, albeit very little information on this subject. However, the information I found may be able to contribute to the section and pertains to how the legends may have been the result of the sites abandonment and the identity of the local group who has associated supernatural elements to the site. Although my original intent was not to contribute to this section, since I have found information relating to it I will determine if the section can be expanded. Otherwise, if the section cannot be developed further, I will consider removing it, since it is linked with the Ajuran Sultanate page, which is associated with Somalia rather than the Swahili coastal settlements that Gedi is a part of.

I will also modify the introduction due to the absence of some citations and its ad hoc presentation of information. However, much of the information contained within the body I will retain in different sections. Presently, the information in the introduction can be organized into sections relating to site location, occupation history, architecture, material culture, and the sites history as an archaeological and historic site, which need to be both expanded on and placed under the appropriate subheadings. Since most of the material in the introduction can be reorganized under different sections, it will have to be recreated to introduce the following subheadings. For the introduction, I intend to introduce the site according to its archaeological and historical significance, which can be obtained from the research questions developed from the scholarship on Gedi.

In addition to the previously mentioned reorganization and expansion of headings and their content, there are additional topics that can be incorporated into the existing article. Although I will focus on expanding on the archaeological aspects of the site, it will be just as crucial to provide context and the theories that have been developed from the research at the site. One of primary focuses will be incorporating a section on excavations at the site, which can be divided by the rediscovery of the site by colonials, the initial excavations in the 1950s, and recent excavations that have taken place since the 1990s. The history of the excavations and their affiliated research questions also demands the incorporation of a section about the evolution of the sites interpretation initially as one of several Arab colonies on the Swahili coast to the analysis of both Arabic and African elements found at the site that show a fusion of cultures resulting in the formation of the modern Swahili culture. Also, since the description of the site’s architectural elements are crucial to both archaeological investigations and describing the site itself, I will incorporate a section dedicated to describing the sites layout related with the excavations. Additional sections I intend to create include “trade and exchange” associated with the material culture section, “art and iconography” associated with the Great Mosque and pottery, and “culture” associated with the sites architecture and pottery, which illustrate the sites political and social organization.BBTouag25 (talk) 09:10, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

@BBTouag25: Excellent job so far. This sounds like a great plan to me - detailed and ambitious, but doable! Your sections sound appropriate, and I think you can definitely turn this into a great article. Here's another reference that will help: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00672700309480369?journalCode=raza20. Pradines did a bunch of new work at the site recently, and while most of his publications are in French, this one is in English. At some point you'll also want to think about adding a map, but we can talk about how to do that in class. Good work!! Let me know how else I can help. Ninafundisha (talk) 20:54, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Ruins of Gedi/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Joe Roe (talk · contribs) 10:52, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

First reading

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

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An exceptionally comprehensive, detailed and well researched article. Just needs a few improvements to the layout and formatting (1b & 2a), and expansion of the lead, to meet GA standards. – Joe (talk) 14:47, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

1. Is it well written?

   A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:

   The prose is reasonably clear, if a little overburdened with detail. I spotted a few grammatical mistakes which I fixed, but I'm not the most eagle-eyed so the article would probably benefit from further copyediting. Nothing fatal though.

   B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

   The lead should be significantly expanded to summarise the major points in the article body (but drop details like the precise distance from multiple nearby locations!). Similarly, the infobox could be significantly expanded and it would be nice to see that lovely photo of the Great Mosque at the top of the article. Layout is also a major weakness. There are sections which significantly overlap (site description vs. architecture, site history vs. archaeology, local economy vs. maritime trade), ambiguously titled sections (isn't the whole article a "site description"? Can we expect the reader to infer the difference between "site history" and "history of occupation" from just the TOC?), and the order isn't logical to me. On the basis of other articles on archaeological sites I'd suggest something along the lines of: history of discovery and investigation -> history of the site -> description of the site -> interpretation of the site. But whatever you go with, you should definitely avoid splicing sections, e.g. having two sections on the history of investigation between descriptions of the architecture and finds. The standard "See also" and "External links" sections would also be a nice addition. Finally, while MOS:UNITS is not part of the GA standard, the inconsistent use of units is jarring. As this article doesn't not have strong ties to the US, ideally all the units should be given in SI, with an optional conversion. Either way it should be consistently SI-first or Imperial-first, and consistently converted or not converted.

2. Is it verifiable with no original research?

   A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

   Generally consistent, but a few references are not formatted using a template. None of the references are accompanied by URLs or DOIs even though many have online versions available. These should be added. Since lots of references are repeated, perhaps consider switching to shortened footnote style.

   B. All in-line citations are from reliable sources, including those for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines:

   Exemplary. Every single statement is directly cited to a high quality scholarly source.

   C. It contains no original research:

   The article relies quite heavily on primary sources, but I believe this is appropriate for an article about a single site.

   D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:

   No significant matches found by Earwig's copyvio detector.

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

   Very comprehensive. My only suggestion would to be expand the section on this history of the site with more regional background, if sources are available.

   B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

   As mentioned above I found the prose got a bit bogged down in the details, particularly in the description sections (e.g. listing every major structure, giving precise measurements) – and I'm used to reading site reports! I'll leave this to your discretion, though.

4. Is it neutral?

   It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:

5. Is it stable?

   It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:

6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

   Very nice images. Are no photos of the finds available, though?

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   On hold pending improvements to layout and formatting. and expansion of the lead (1b & 2a).

@Joe Roe: Thanks so much for the review! I will get to work on the recommend edits; I agree with them all and I'll see what I can do. I have an absolutely bonkers week coming up, so I apologize in advance if it takes me more than a few days. Hopefully, though, I can work it into good shape ASAP! Ninafundisha (talk) 19:27, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Status query

Joe Roe, Ninafundisha, where does this review stand? I see that Ninafundisha made a bunch of edits on January 22 and 23, and one further edit on February 11, but nothing since, and there's no indication here of what progress has been made and what is left. This review is nearly three months old, and should probably be wrapped up before too much longer. Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:06, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

• BlueMoonset Joe Roe Thanks for the note - apologies for the delay; my semester has gotten away from me. I did make some pretty substantial edits to the organization of the page, and I think that it's pretty much ready to go. I got hung up on the changes requested to the references - I can add DOIs and such, but is there a quick way to switch to shortened footnote style? I'm not all that competent when it comes to organizing references, and so any advice on that front would be welcome. In any case, I will take a look through the article again this weekend, and I'll post a reply to each of the points in the review. Thanks again for your patience! Ninafundisha (talk) 01:43, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
  • While I can see the value in going SFN, I don't think this is required as part of the criteria (see Wikipedia:What the Good article criteria are not - in particular If you are able to figure out what the source is, that's a good enough citation for GA) AIRcorn (talk) 09:52, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Second reading

I've taken another look at the article and made a few changes myself. The lead and organisation are much approved. The changes to the units and switch to SFN were just suggestions – I think the current version of the article more than meets the requirement for GA status. @Ninafundisha: @Aircorn:. – Joe (talk) 09:09, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

• @Joe Roe: @Aircorn: @BlueMoonset: Thanks to all of you, especially Joe Roe for the review! Very much appreciated. Ninafundisha (talk) 16:38, 10 June 2017 (UTC)