Talk:Anania Shirakatsi/GA2

GA Review

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Reviewer: Daniel Case (talk · contribs) 18:42, 14 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

OK, it's been here for over ten months; past due for this. I'm going to print it out, copy edit it, and then come back with my thoughts in (hopefully) a day or two. Daniel Case (talk) 18:42, 14 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Alright ... I am pleased to say that the copyedit (copyediting, I should say, since [[u|Yerevantsi}} did a bit) took care of a few things that other reviewers might have raised. What I have left really comes down to some questions I'd like to know the answers to, and maybe some slight reconfiguration of the article.

I always start off by saying some good things about the article I'm reviewing if I can, and here I definitely can:

Research: It has been done ... and how! No one would ask for more sources on this article. I don't think I've seen an article this compact sourced so meticulously.

Prose: It was an easy copyedit in that I did not have to clean up any serious grammatical, stylistic, mechanical or orthographic messes anywhere, rather the odd MOS deviation and imperfectly translated non-native English or academic phrasing. It still needed a little work to read as if it were written by a single person, but thank you all the same, writers!

A copyvio check detected no real issues.

I probably shouldn't have had to be doing this ... for some reason, I think, Cosmia Nebula, the reviewer who seems to have been ready to pass it after GA1, didn't take the final step (maybe she didn't realize that she had to), and it would have been passed last summer. But this allowed me to take a closer look, and I hope the nominators don't mind that I have just a few concerns and issues to resolve before I go ahead and pass this.

Intro length: It feels too short for what follows ... if the article is expanded, as it greatly was in this edit, the intro should be expanded correspondingly. And this is not just a feeling on my part ... MOS:LEADLENGTH says that an article with more than 20,000 characters, such as this one, really should have an intro of three grafs, not two.
I think we could easily have a third graf, perhaps devoted to all the extraordinary claims the article makes. For one thing, I think, the claim that he basically wrote the first recreational book of math puzzles à la Martin Gardner should very much be in the intro. That is a huge first, and one we can use for a DYK hook (which I would like to do after passage).
I have a lot of experience expanding intros for expanded articles; if the nominators don't feel comfortable doing this themselves I would be happy to, subject to their approval.

Citations in intro: I generally don't complain about them, but it seems like a great deal of other editors take WP:LEADCITE to mean, contrary to its text, that there must be as few citations in an article intro as possible. At the very least I can agree that the first citations for non-controversial facts could probably go deeper in the body text, which in this article means the two for "was a 7th-century Armenian polymath and natural philosopher".
However, at the same time, "first Armenian mathematician, astronomer and cartographer" is an extraordinary claim (I consider any claim of first, only, or a superlative to be an extraordinary claim that should be cited in an article intro) and thus properly cited in the intro. The following text about being considered the father of the exact and natural sciences in Armenia also urgently needs a cite, for that same reason.
Down in the next graf, "first known geographic work in classical Armenian", needs a citation, too. And any similar claims added to the intro as I have auggested above will likewise need to be cited.

։։I've moved the citations for polymath and natural philosopher down to the body of article and added a citation for the first known geographic work in classical Armenian.----Երևանցի ^talk 10:07, 23 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Years of birth and death: The article is all over the place with its exactitude on this. In the lede we mention no years whatsoever, just "7th century". In the infobox we get date ranges, date ranges that appear to derive from the discussion in the first graf of the "background" subsection. These seem to establish a scholarly conensus of 610–685, which, voilá, is how the aricle is categorized at the bottom.
We need to be consistent on this. If we're so unsure that we give no dates in the lede, then we ought not to be so sure in the categories—and vice versa (The infobox is perfect middle ground; I think we can leave it as is).

I've removed the categories for his birth and death dates. ----Երևանցի ^talk 17:51, 20 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The names of his students: This is one of those cases where the article seems to want badly to show its work even when it doesn't have to. After this party of five all get duly namechecked, we learn that they are "otherwise unknown". Then, I ask, why mention them at all? Since not only are they not notable, they are otherwise unknown, this falls under WP:INDISCRIMINATE IMO. Really, I think I'd strain to justify their inclusion even in a wiki devoted to classical Armenian scholarly history.

Removed their names. ----Երևանցի ^talk 17:51, 20 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

His relationship with the church: This section is all very well in discussing Anania's intellectual relationship with the church. However, it also discusses the possibility that he may have been a monk in his latter years, and to me this really belongs in the preceding section as biographical material. It would, in fact, make a smoother transition from that section into one that begins by discussing how Soviet historians saw him.
And, really, I know we're talking about someone who lived 1,400 years ago, in an obscure (to most of us) corner of the world, with records written in an archaic version of a language not widely spoken outside that corner, for whom sources are considerably limited, but while the article generally does a great job with what it has (AFAICT) I think it would only be fair to readers if some discussion of what he might have done/been doing at the time of his death, as a way of taking us out of that section.

I've restructured the entire section. ----Երևանցի ^talk 10:07, 23 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Standard textbook for science in Armenia": For how long was this so? Is it still in use for that purpose today? I don't think so, but I could be forgiven for doing so, based on that wording.

I've added "medieval" for clarification. The sources don't really mention any specific dates. One thing is clear, though, it was the standard textbook during the Middle Ages. ----Երևանցի ^talk 17:51, 20 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Ashkharhatsuyts: Gesundheit! Along among all his works, this one that seems to be of singular importance, has no translation given for its Armenian title. Google Translate gives me "Worldview", and I think I saw that in some of the other English sources I read so it may be right. But I'd really prefer for an editor much more familiar with Armenian than I to make that call.

It's definitely not "Worldview". Maybe "view of the world", but that, too, isn't an accurate translation. It's actually mentioned in the article that it is known in English as The Armenian Geography. I could provide a literal translation: "showing the world". ----Երևանցի ^talk 17:51, 20 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that would be fine. Daniel Case (talk) 06:06, 22 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Done. ----Երևանցի ^talk 16:29, 22 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The use of slashes between two nouns to indicate some sort of, uh, indecidability: This needs to go, generally. I can see why it might be used when discussing the combined celebration of Christmas and Epiphany, something I didn't know about (and which suggests to me that a Christmas in Armenia article, or "Christmas and Epiphany celebrations in Armenia/the Armenian Church" or something like that, would be something we ought to have, if this is still true), but we don't do this in any other article TMK and thus things like "book/manual" leave me wishing the editor responsible could have made up their mind ... I would have changed these myself but without knowing more about what the sources might say (especially the ones in Armenian), I didn't feel comfortable.

I've removed the slashes for couple of cases. Hope I can one day create article such as Armenian Christmas. ----Երևանցի ^talk 16:29, 22 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Subdivision of the bibliography: Do we go to the extent of having separate sections for 1) books on the article subject, 2) book chapters on the article subject, 3) books about general subjects, 4) journal articles and 5) encyclopedia articles in any other article? Do we really need to? It strikes me as needless bureaucratic, overly academic and perhaps again reflecting an overeagerness to show the depth and comprehensiveness of one's work.

I'm ok with removing the sections and just listing all the cited sources in an alphabetical order. I actually do it for my own ease of navigation when doing research. ----Երևանցի ^talk 17:51, 20 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

OK. I am putting the article On hold for the usual week to address these (or not, if a compelling justification for the status quo is left here in response, or emerges from discussion). If it is decided to correct them, I think that can easily be done within that time frame. Daniel Case (talk) 19:24, 17 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This is going well so far ... Yerevantsi, I am willing to keep this open past the 24th if you have more changes you want to make.

I am also willing to expand the intro when you're done and take that off the list. Let me know here. Daniel Case (talk) 04:09, 23 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Please do. Thanks! ----Երևանցի ^talk 10:07, 23 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Daniel Case, thank you very much for the review. ----Երևանցի ^talk 15:34, 4 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome. ✓ Pass Daniel Case (talk) 18:06, 4 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]