Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/War against Nabis
I just withdrew the article's FA and I want some advice and to see what can be done to improve the article before I re nominated it in the future. Kyriakos 02:32, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, at this point, the most sensible thing would probably be to focus on the objections raised during the FAC. The chief ones seem to be:
- Sources: adding citations to modern secondary works shouldn't be too difficult; ideally, there ought to be enough to stave off any questions of over-reliance on ancient primary sources.
- Lead: this could, admittedly, be reworked quite a bit; it seems to have moved away from attempting to summarize the article and goes off on tangents about Nabis's title and such.
- I remove the comments about Nabis' title and put them in the notes section.
- Prose: the writing style is probably the most subjective thing here. The only thing I can really suggest would be to try and find a few fresh editors to give the article some copyediting.
Hope that helps! Kirill Lokshin 05:42, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Per Kirill on the sources. I think the most important thing in this article is now further and more thorough research based on both primary (in case, you have missed any - something I do not believe) and (most importantly) secondary sources. This is I believe the main problem that impeded FA promotion.
The prose looked and looks to me fine. It has been copy-edited by an excellent copy-editor, and it has been well worked by the main editor. Maybe, a second addition external copy-editing wouldn't hurt. In some of my articles, I have asked the assistance of more than one copy-editors.
More photos incoroporated in the article (not just "external photos") would help the article to "show" better. It is not the most important thing, but it definitely matters.
I promise I'll soon read the article once again in detail, but I really think (and I agree on that with Kirill) that what it really needs now is "fresh eyes", which will feed it with "fresh nurture": fresh ideas and fresh conceptions. The article is definitely on the right track, but the FAC reviewers seemed to believe that it lacked the "spark" a FA has to have.--Yannismarou 19:47, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
- Sometimes the prose gets "choppy". See here for instance: "Nabis built new ships and besieged Gythium in 192 BC with a navy and an army. The Achean's sent an envoy to Rome with a request for help.[8] In response the Senate sent the praetor Atilius with a fleet to repel Nabis' attacks as well as an embassy headed by Flaminius.[8] The Achean's themselves under Philopoemon headed with their troops towards Gythium to try and relieve the city. The Achean fleet under Tiso seems to have been in a very bad shape as reportedly the flagship was so unseaworthy that it fell apart at the first assault." I think you should go from one event to the other, from one sentence to the other more "smoothly". And I think it is the "Acheans"; not the "Achean's".
- Prose problem again: "The Roman's however did not strip Nabis of his power. His allegiance was assured with five hostages, amongst them his son Armenas.[32] However, the exiles were not restored to the city, but their Spartan wives, who had been remarried to former helots, were allowed to leave and rejoin their husbands.[32] The Roman's however did not strip Nabis of his rule." Repetition of the same forms of expression. And again: why "Roman's" and not "Romans"? Am I missing something here? I am not anymore sure, and, therefore, I did not correct here. I then see "his force's". Isn't it "his forces"?
- Mixing styles that Piotrus points out in the references is a problem that can be easily be resolved: either adopt a common numbering ([1][2] etc.) for all your notes with no exception either divide the notes in "notes" and "citations", as I like to do (and Kirill doesn't!). It is up to you. Maybe a single numbering in a single "notes" section is the best solution for this particular article.--Yannismarou 09:26, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
A map of troop movements would be invaluable. There seem to be some confusion between notes (two systems) and references, please streamline.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 20:10, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Would any one be able to make a map about the troop movement? Kyriakos 20:27, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
- I haven't looked at it yet but I plan on giving it a thorough going over tomorrow. Do you want copyedit/prose concerns adressed, or were the objections that lead to your withdrawl more content oriented? Thanatosimii 05:16, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
- The big problem is and was the prose. Wandalstouring 01:17, 22 January 2007 (UTC)