Talk:Vazelon Monastery

Vazelon Monastery has been listed as one of the Art and architecture good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Review: March 17, 2021. (Reviewed version).

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A fact from Vazelon Monastery appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 12 April 2021 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the Turkish government forced the last monks of Vazelon Monastery to leave in 1923, more than one thousand years after the monastery first opened?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2021/April. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Vazelon Monastery.

Wikipedia

Further sources

Hello! Here are some books that apparently make some mention of Vazelon; however, the Google Books preview is limited or missing. If someone has access to a hard copy of these sources, they could add/verify info.

The Empire of Trebizond and the Pontus 62 mentions of Vazelon in the book. I can preview 3.
Continuity and Change in Late Byzantine and Early Ottoman Society 40 mentions of Vazelon in the book. I can preview 3.
Peoples and Settlement in Anatolia and the Caucasus 37 mentions. I can preview 3.
The Lives of the Monastery Builders of Soumela According to Hathi Trust Digital Library, there are 11 mentions of Vazelon in this book.
Holygrounds of Turkey 4 mentions
The Palgrave Atlas of Byzantine History I can preview the index. Vazelon is mentioned on page 160.

Thank you for your time!

Kravk (talk) 20:40, 20 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

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

Reviewer: Alan Islas (talk · contribs) 14:59, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I will be taking on this review. Going through it now and will be adding comments soon. --Alan Islas (talk) 14:59, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

A stable, very well written article, well sourced and covering the important aspects of the subject. Tone is neutral, and images are freely licensed. Just a few comments:

I would suggest to add archived versions to the online references using either Wayback Machine or archive.today. This to ensure that they don't eventually become dead links. This would apply to refs: 2, 6, 7, 60, 61.
- Done - should I find archive links for all web sources (including refs: 2, 12, 14, 36, 43, 53, 54, 58, and 59)? -Kravk (talk) 00:51, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Some wikilinks appear several times, where MOS:REPEATLINK indicates that "Generally, a link should appear only once in an article". Some examples of repeated wikilinks in the article are: World War I, Greek/Turkish population exchange, Pontian, threshing floors, Turkish Historical Society, but there may be others.
- Done - removed repeat links to World War I, Greek/Turkish population exchange, Pontian, threshing floors, Turkish Historical Society, Justinian I, Byzantine Empire, Empire of Trebizond, John the Baptist, Last Judgement, Pontus, St. Petersburg, and a couple more. Thank you! -Kravk (talk) 17:40, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This sentence feels a bit awkward "Atop the monastery lies one church; it's built into a cave". Perhaps "Atop the monastery lies one church built into a cave" works better.
- Done - thanks for the sentence. -Kravk (talk) 01:28, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"... determined that the chapel was dedicated to the religious figure". Was to be?
- Done - reworded some confusing sentences. -Kravk (talk) 01:28, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"Manpower was short, so slaves went for high prices compared to land and livestock. Sometimes the raiders would ransom Trapezuntines back to their families; a hieromonk's sister, for example, would be returned for a fixed price of 850 aspers". Style may be too casual with the "so" and "would".
- Done - removed "so" and "would". -Kravk (talk) 01:28, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I am unsure of the relevance of the "Naming customs" subsection. Do you think it adds significantly to the article overall?
- Done - removed this subsection. Integrated the less trivial stuff into another section. -Kravk (talk) 17:40, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

--Alan Islas (talk) 23:37, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your comments! I'll get started on these edits as soon as possible. I agree with your comments; I realize the "naming customs" section is a little superfluous. I think I'll remove that subsection and move the contents around/delete as needed.

--Kravk (talk) 00:28, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Web links for web sources are not mandatory so I think just focusing on the sources more likely to go dead in the near future is enough. For example, I don't think an archive link is needed for the Guardian or World History Encyclopedia sources. I'll leave it up to you if you want to add more but I'm satisfied with what you have done already.

Just waiting for your trimming of redundant wikilinks and the naming customs subsection to pass the article. About the wikilinks, I think some flexibility is allowed, especially where a repeated link may help the reader. But there are some redundant wikilinks that I believe should be removed. For example, there are two wikilinks to "Population exchange between Greece and Turkey" in the same paragraph.

Thanks, --Alan Islas (talk) 12:21, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Had another look at your further edits. Looks good to me. Passing now. Alan Islas (talk) 19:16, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much! Hope you have a good day. -Kravk (talk) 19:26, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by SL93 (talk) 00:02, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

(

Comment or view
Article history

)

... ~~that Vazelon Monastery in Turkey's Trabzon Province was abruptly abandoned in 1923, over one thousand years after it first opened?~~ (Source: "Though not having a certain date of foundation, Vazelon Monastery ... is thought to have been built between 270-317 ... The monastery, which continued its missions until the 20th century, was deserted in 1923." (page 261)[1])
- ALT1: ... that frescoes in the St. Elias Chapel, part of Vazelon Monastery in the Pontus region of Turkey, may date to 1219? (Source: "It is not possible to draw further conclusions, but merely to indicate comparisons with the decoration of the interior of the chapel of St. Elias in the Vazelon monastery near Trebizond, dated to 1219, where three scenes from Christ’s childhood (Annunciation, Christmas and Presentation in the Temple) are shown on the southern wall, while on the north—two Passion scenes (Crucifixion and Harrowing of Hell), Dormition of the Virgin Mary is in the inner tympanum (western wall)." [2])
- ALT2: ... that Ottoman troops massacred Ottoman civilians at Vazelon Monastery during World War I? (Source: "Some deportations were linked to the shifting tides of war. On January 10, 1916, the Russians launched a major offensive in eastern Anatolia. They captured Erzerum and Muş on February 16, Bitlis on March 3, and Trabzon on April 18. Each time the front receded, the regional Ottoman commander, Kamil Pasha, ordered the deportation of Greek villagers immediately behind his lines. They were ejected into midwinter temperatures around zero centigrade and sometimes froze along the road ... That spring and summer, the Turks deported the inhabitants of dozens of Trabzon vilayet villages ... Elsewhere in Trabzon vilayet, the Turks rounded up Greek women and took them to Vazelon Monastery, where they 'first violated them, and then put them to death.'" The Thirty-Year Genocide pg 389.)
- ALT3: ... that until the 1800s, Vazelon Monastery in northern Turkey could only be accessed by a wooden ladder, which was removed at night to prevent trespassing? (Source: "Similar to the monastery of Soumela, until late 19th centuries there were a wooden ladder that was taken up at nights at the entrance [sic]." (page 262) [3])

Comment: This is my first DYK nomination, so I think I'm exempt from QPQ. Please tell me if I'm mistaken. Thank you!

Improved to Good Article status by Kravk (talk). Self-nominated at 21:01, 17 March 2021 (UTC).[reply]

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy compliance:

Adequate sourcing: - One sentence needs an inline citation: "After the division of the Roman Empire in 395, Anatolia (including Vazelon Monastery) became part of the Byzantine Empire."
Neutral:
Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook eligibility:

Cited: - Offline/paywalled citation accepted in good faith
Interesting:
Other problems: - ALT0 and ALT2 are unsatisfactory. For the first one, it sounds like suddenly they just decided to leave. For ALT2, it hides the fact that the monks were not killed as "Ottoman citizens" but because they were Christians.

QPQ: None required.

Overall: If I were reviewing this as a GA reviewer, I would ask about the excessively short and choppy paragraphs, which in many cases should be combined. I would also question that there is hardly any info on the Ottoman era. However, that is not part of DYK criteria. (t · c) buidhe 08:16, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

ALT4... that Vazelon Monastery (pictured) operated continuously from the fourth century until the Turkish government forced the last monks to leave in 1923?

Hi buidhe! Thanks for your comments. I just added inline citations for the sentence you brought up. Thanks also for alt 4 . -Kravk (talk) 17:29, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

need second reviewer for ALT4 only. (t · c) buidhe 03:17, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

AGF the offline sources used for citing ALT4. However, the article doesn't seem to explicitly say that the monastery was continuously inhabited throughout its life (indeed the article seems to alternate between "continuously funded" and other terms). In addition the hook says "fourth century", but the article includes an early estimate for a possible third-century establishment. Perhaps a less-precise term can be used here instead? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 08:03, 3 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Narutolovehinata5! Maybe some combination of ALT1 and ALT4 could work, like:

ALT5... that the Turkish government forced the last monks of Vazelon Monastery (pictured) to leave in 1923, over one thousand years after the monastery first opened?

Okay, I guess the hook is now good to go (the thousand years fact is accepted per WP:CALC). I've renumbered it as ALT5 as there was already an ALT4. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 04:26, 4 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]