Wikipedia:Peer review/Retiarius/archive1

Retiarius

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I intend to list this article at Featured Article Candidates, so I'd appreciate any comments on how to get it into shape to pass there. Thanks! — Dulcem (talk) 12:51, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

SGGH

• The lead needs citations
• "However, unlike the other types, based on military antecedents, the retiarius was themed..." in the second sentence of "history and role" I would change to "However, unlike the other types who/that were based on military antecedents, the retiarius was themed..."
• "man-vs.-nature" the punctuation might need a re-work there.
• citations 19 and 15 after the sentence "The fate of the retiarii is not revealed" need to be swapped to put 15 first, if this happens elsewhere in the article, the footnotes should ideally be in order.
• Good use of citations throughout (apart from the aforementioned lead)
• Glad to see you have avoided the recent tendency to have two-three sentence paragraphs, and have instead gone for the longer ones.
• Citation 39, there is a space between the full stop and the citation, need to remove that and remove such gaps in any other instances (haven't seen any others)
• could make a couple of the images a little bigger, particular the last one, the "mock gladiatorial fight" one.
• Good use of image captions to carry information.
• Reference system is all good
• You may want to divide the references between websites and written sources a la Operation Camargue if you so wish, not a massive deal though.
• Are there no more categories?
• No more external links?

All in all, a very good article, no major flaws that I can see style wise. Obviously I am not an expert on the topic so some commissions in the content may have escaped me. I cannot, however, find any big problems other than those listed above. SGGH ^speak! 09:36, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed review. These are exactly the kind of nitpicky things I was hoping would be brought up. I've addressed your concerns with the exception of the lead and image sizes. It is my understanding that an article's lead is not supposed to present any information that does not appear in the body of the article (see today's Featured Article, for an example). Provided the body of the article is well cited, the lead need not worry with such matters. As for the images, the manual of style suggests leaving images at default size so that users' image preferences can take effect. As for categories and external links, I am unaware of any worth adding, but I am of course open to suggestions. Thanks again for your review! — Dulcem (talk) 04:47, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Alastair Haines

Note: The following comments were posted on my talk page. I have copied them here for convenience so that all peer review comments will be together in the same place. — Dulcem (talk) 07:20, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Quick comment on retiarius. Really excellent lead-in. Language is short, sweet and to the point, carrying plenty of interest, while remaining strictly encyclopedic and factual. The "effeminacy" and "skilled lovers" bits are fantastic, helpful human interest and cultural context; however they scream for citation. I don't doubt they're true, but I'd love detailed refs to the Latin authors, or at least to modern historians commenting on them. A footnote (after the punctuation following such claims) is what I'm used to looking for — and I often check them out — in my life, articles are just cover letters for the Bibliography, which is what I'm really interested in.

I'll keep copy-editing, and give more feedback per peer-review shortly. The article is full of notable, verifiable content, expressed clearly and from a NPOV — exactly what Wiki wants to offer to readers. Thanks for your work (so far) ;) Cheers Alastair Haines (talk) 06:57, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Self-correction here. I've read the rest of the article now, and I see what you've done. The lead is clear of footnotes, because everything is covered in the body. I like that style!

I still think more evidence from primary sources needs to be adduced. For twentieth or twenty-first century historians to presume what might have been considered effeminate is all well and good, but many Latin writers were quite happy to speak their minds on such things.

What I'm saying is:

• article does clearly reflect solid, current expert opinions and cites these
• it does summarize conclusions and arguments of quality available sources
• but I think it lacks a little in reproducing the primary source, textual evidence its excellent secondary sources must cite themselves

I want to hear more of what the Romans themselves said! ;)

Well, that's my personal bias in reading history. I'm sure you appreciate the point. Anything further you could provide from your sources along these lines would make this fellow history-hungry editor happy. :) Alastair Haines (talk) 07:24, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

More self-correction. I've done some research and I'm seeing that there's limited original text available, and what there is does seem rather focussed on Roman perceptions of sex and virtue. I've added some of the original Latin to the footnotes.

I've split the equipment section into subsections, because there was quite a lot of material. It probably injures the dagger section, though I think it helps the others stand out. Personally, I think the equipment section should precede the "social commentary" section.

It really is an outstanding article. I'll fiddle around a bit more (feel free to revert). Then I'll grab a set of criteria for Featured Article status, and write up how I see the article meeting those. Alastair Haines (talk) 10:20, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Wow, Alastair; thanks so much for the thorough read-through! I'm glad you were able to answer most of your own questions. Yep, there's little we know of the retiarii from Roman writers. Rather, most of our knowledge comes from mosaics, graffiti, archaeological finds, and modern re-enactments and experiments. I appreciate your copy edit. I may change a few things back here and there, but for the most part, I think your edits look good. (Specifically, I'm uncomfortable adding subheadings that create one-paragraph sections. I like to think that a new paragraph in these situations is enough to signal the reader that we've changed topic.) Please do let me know if you have any further comments, perhaps on the article's talk page or on the peer review page. Thanks again! — Dulcem (talk) 01:27, 11 March 2008 (UTC)