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First Persian invasion of Greece

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First Persian invasion of Greece
3 articles
Battle of Marathon
Siege of Eretria

I am nominating this as a good topic. It is intended as a sister topic to Second Persian invasion of Greece. There are only three articles, but these articles cover all the aspects of the campaign.

For anyone interested in how this might develop, I eventually intend to make a Greco-Persian Wars super-topic. In theory would have the two Persian invasions as articles and sub-topics, alongside the Ionian Revolt article. It was suggested in the good topic review of Second Persian invasion of Greece that I include articles on some of the commanders. In practice, I think I would include these biographical articles in the Greco-Persian Wars super-topic, rather than in the sub-topics, since these commanders were usually involved in more than one campaign. MinisterForBadTimes (talk) 11:33, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • (starting back over here) Whilst this is my nomination, my (mostly) unbiased opinion on this (and other similar FTs/GTs) is as follows. I think the good topic criteria are being misinterpreted here. Yes, a good topic should be comprehensive. But does it need to include every possible article on the subject to qualify as a good topic? — I don't think so.
b) The articles have a clear similarity with each other under a well-defined topical scope.
c) All articles in the topic are linked together, preferably using a template, and share a common :category or super-category.
d) There is no obvious gap (missing or stub article) in the topic. A topic must not cherry pick :only the best articles to become featured together.

Nowhere do these criteria state that every possible connected subject is addressed. The articles in this topic (and the other other military campaign topics) fulfill the above criteria. Adding in articles on commanders actually somewhat weakens the topic, because the articles are not similar to the other articles, do not share the same category, and are not linked to the other articles by a template. Furthermore, 'Battle of X' is clearly a non-overlapping subset of 'Campaign of Y'. However, 'Commander Z' may overlap with other campaigns, and other completely different topics, like 'Commanders of W'.

Furthermore, to rename the topics 'Battles of campaign Y' etc, would be to ignore the fact that this is a) not the name of the main articles in the topics, b) is not the scope of the main articles, c) is not the scope of the topic. The scope of the main articles (and therefore the topics) is to provide a history of the campaign (not just the battles). However, to provide this history comprehensively in no way requires biographies of the commanders. MinisterForBadTimes (talk) 11:06, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For a), there is no rule saying that the topic has to have the same name as the lead article, and there are several topics that have different names for their scope and lead. For b) and c), what do you consider the scope to be? I don't see a way of making it broader than just the battles but narrow enough that it does not include the commanders. If the topic is the invasion in general, then we have to ask whether a reader would have a well-rounded knowledge of the invasion without reading anything about the commanders. If, on the other hand, the topic was specifically limited to the battles, than by definition the topic would be complete as it currently is. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 18:36, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Reading back what I wrote, I think I may have slightly overstated my case, though I do still feel that commanders, in general, aren't necessary. However, I can see that a topic like "Hannibal's invasion of Italy" would clearly require a biography of Hannibal. Or any campaign where the result was strongly influenced by the personality of the commander (Napoleonic wars, for example).
"If the topic is the invasion in general, then we have to ask whether a reader would have a well-rounded knowledge of the invasion without reading anything about the commanders." I think that nicely summarises the dilemma in this kind of 'campaign' topic. Whilst I understand that the question was asked rhetorically, it actually makes sense as a criterion for the inclusion/exclusion of commanders. Can a reader have a well-rounded understanding of the campaign without understanding the personality of the commanders?
In this particular topic, I would argue that knowledge of the commanders adds little to the topic. Of the Persian commanders, Datis and Artaphernes (son of Artaphernes) we know almost nothing (there being no extant Persian sources) except a few fragments from Herodotus. And what there is adds nothing to the reader's understanding of the campaign. On the Greek side, the only commanders whose names we know are Callimachus, who is known only from Herodotus's account of Marathon, and Miltiades the Younger. Both these generals only fought at Marathon, and there is some debate as to whether Miltiades was in actually in command at Marathon - this may have been propaganda spread by his son Cimon. Although Miltiades is better attested than the others, there is still little to say, and this would not greatly enhance the reader's understanding of the campaign.
So, in summary, I still don't think that this topic requires biographies. This isn't because I don't want to write biographies — I wrote this biography of Themistocles for possible inclusion the the 'Second Persian invasion of Greece' topic — I just don't think they add anything here. I do however concede that the general argument I made above, for all similar topics, may not be valid. MinisterForBadTimes (talk) 07:03, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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