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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 4 July 2024 [1].

IMac G3[edit]

Nominator(s): Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 17:31, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In the mid-to-late 1990s, Apple Computer was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and irrelevance. They were saved by a combination of ruthless cost-cutting by their new interim CEO, Steve Jobs, and a hit product—the iMac G3, which if you lived through the era helped usher in the colorful candy plastics era of consumer products, as well as reshaping the idea of what computers were supposed to look like. This article was reviewed at GAN by DFlhb and I look forward to acting on comments here to make this article on a major product in computer history shine further. Thanks in advance for your time reviewing! Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 17:31, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sodium[edit]

Putting myself down for a review. I intend to take a look at a review in a bit. (by next weekish) Sohom (talk) 18:45, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • but the company still needed new hit products. This probably needs a slightly less optimistic framing
  • ... became the iMac, to be inexpensive and with easy Internet connectivity. "to be inexpensive" seems to be off grammar-wise.
  • I feel like the Background could do a better job of transitioning into the rest of the article, the last paragraph is a bit stilted and does not do a good job of introducing the next section.
  • Engineers adapted the abandoned Common Hardware Reference Platform specification to speed development. Is it abandoned now or was it abandoned then?
  • According to Jon Rubinstein, Jobs had always known about the CD tray. I feel like we are missing something here. Why had he not raised this before according Jon?
  • The jpeg artifacting of File:IMac_G3_color_carousel.gif is noticeable even at its small size. I'd suggest removing it or replacing it with a GIF with a higher resolution.
  • How well did iMac G3 do in the traditional office/enterprise computing space that was prevalent during this time? Do RS cover it?
  • Hiawatha Bray said the iMac was doomed and a severe misstep from Jobs a word or two about why Hiawatha Bray thought the way they did would be nice.
  • two FireWire ports What is a FireWire port, the article kinda assumes that the reader is familiar but it would be nice to fit a sentence somewhere about what it does. (I guess I'm revealing that I'm Gen Z)
  • Wikilink VGA
  • Wikilink CD-ROM in the Release section
  • Ditto for CD-RW
  • maintained Apple's position as a leader of the emerging digital audio and video sector. Less optimistic framing, also this isn't directly in the cited source AFAICS?
That's it for me. sohom@enwiki 23:10, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hey Sohom Datta, thanks for the review. I've tried to address all the above; Bray's comments particularly revolve around the lack of a floppy, so I tried rewording the first mention in the high-level comments and then elaborated later on when discussing the drawbacks. I've reworked the end of the background section to introduce the players a bit and then shift to the specific project, let me know if that works better. The Rubinstein bit gets to the fact that Jobs was mercurial and (as the article talks about somewhat) pretty much would change his mind on a whim. That might be a bit too much going into the weeds, so I'm fine with just simplifying that bit so there's not the back-and-forth and it's a little more straightforward. Only thing I didn't change is the carousel image: as you can see it's not a very lossy GIF at full resolution, the limitation seems to be Mediawiki's thumbnail rendering, and I don't think there's a way of fixing that unfortunately. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 17:26, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The changes look good me. I disagree wrt to the gif, however, that is not worth opposing over. Support sohom@enwiki 03:39, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Source review by Generalissima[edit]

I'm in a productive mood today, let's get going on this.

  • Lede is uncited, and since there's nothing seemingly contentious here I'd say that hits WP:LEDECITE well.
  • Well, besides the infobox. That introductory price ($1,299) is neither referenced elsewhere in the article or cited for that matter. The price points of later models of the machine are given, but not the first. Should be pretty easy to fix this, however.
  • Everything in all body sections is cited. I don't see any potentially controversial or contentious claims that are uncited. Subjective claims are properly attributed.
  • Citation section is properly organized and titled.
  • Everything with pages has page numbers. The bibliography is also well formatted, and works are cited consistently with ISBNs and ISSNs as applicable.
  • Good mix of all sorts of sources here. I was a bit worried about Segall 2013 but it seems to only be used in an about-self context or for direct quotes so I think that's good here. I commend you on digging through 1990s and early 2000s computer magazines for a while; they have certainly been used well.

All in all, I think citing that price figure is the only thing left to do. Cheers. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 22:40, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Generalissima, thanks for looking. I went ahead and removed the price. The article covers the rough price range (and the more germane point it was cheaper) in the development, and then the lower base prices are discussed in the review, so I don't think you need the exact one (and doesn't seem to have coverage that makes the price so important it should be in the infobox.) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 13:27, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support for source review. Good job with this. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 13:30, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Gog the Mild[edit]

Recusing to review

  • References: article titles are a mix of sentence case and title case. They should be consistent. (How they appear in their originals is irrelevant.
  • Press and Cooper: is it possible to provide a page range?
  • "The iMac was Apple's first major product release under its CEO Steve Jobs". Does "its" add anything here? I assume that Apple had other CEOs.
  • "the company he had co-founded and then been ousted from". Perhaps dates for each of these? Which would tie in with the "after eleven years away" in the lead, which I can't find referenced in the main article.
  • Any chance of an image of the round mouse?
  • "4 GB"; "6GB" ?
  • "A more substantial revision to the iMac lineup came in 1999." When in 1999? I assume this was different to, and prior to "On October 5, 1999, Apple released a new series of iMacs"?
  • "so users could easily add additional RAM; and a slot for an AirPort wireless networking card". Why a semi colon rather than a comma?
  • "a better graphics chipset, and a larger hard drive." Better and larger than what?
  • "a larger hard drive"; "with more RAM". Similarly.
  • Some of the prose is a bit uninspired. Eg, two consecutive paragraphs start "On October 5, 1999, Apple released a new" and "On July 19, 2000, Apple released a new". Or, in one paragraph sentences starting "The new iMac line"; "The new models; "The new iMacs had"; "Three new models".
  • "500-, 600-. or 700 MHz processor" and similar cases. Why the hanging modifier when the following main modifier is not followed by a hyphen?

More to follow. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:28, 28 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    • Hey Gog, thanks for the opening comments. I've taken a stab at all the above, and I believe addressed most of them. The "larger hard drive" and similar are attempts to make the prose less wordy and technical, they're just comparing the sizes of the hard drives or memory amounts to the previous models they replace. Beyond that, it's kind of just listing tech specs so I don't think there's much room for exciting prose. I'm fine with slimming it down even further, but previous reviews felt that just saying basically "they were faster and had more memory and hard drive space" was even more samey-sounding. I suppose the alternative is drastically summarizing it further and just leaving the specifics to the technical specification section entirely, if you think that's a better option? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 12:52, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "its original mouse and keyboard ... calling it an example of style over substance." Should that be 'calling them examples of ...'?
  • "were later replaced with the Apple Pro Mouse and Apple Pro Keyboard for the 2000-revision iMacs." I think that readers will realise that 2000 is later than the release date, in which case "later" can be deleted.
  • "museums including The Henry Ford". See MOS:INSTITUTIONS "The word the at the start of a name is uncapitalized in running text, regardless of the institution's own usage".
  • "nearly 20 percent were Microsoft Windows users who had switched to the Mac". Suggest deleting "had".
  • "The iMac continued to be a strong seller for Apple as it returned to profitability, with 3.7 million units sold by July 2000". The previous two sentences have already established the first part of this. Perhaps 'a strong seller for Apple after it return to profitability ...'?
  • "public's introduction to Jony Ive". May be worth a second link here, which is allowed these days.
  • "The iMac was so successful in the education market Apple created a G4-powered successor named the eMac." This seems to end abruptly. Possibly add something like '... designed for and promoted to the education sector' or similar?
  • "George Foreman Grills". Why the upper-case G for Grills?
  • Article titles still in title case, see Press; Segall; and Simmonds. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:16, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One comment above was missed. In is now in green. I am supporting anyway, lovely work. Gog the Mild (talk) 14:19, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Z1720[edit]

No concerns with the prose. Additional comments below:

  • "It sold more than 5 million units in its lifetime." MOS:NUMERAL recommends that integers between zero and nine be written in words. Consider changing the 5 to five.
  • I might have missed it, but what is the G3 referring to? Lots of time was spent talking about how the model got the iMac name, but why/when was G3 added?
  • Checked the lede and the infobox, and everything seems to be cited in the article.

Please ping me when ready for additional comments. Z1720 (talk) 02:29, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Z1720, I've changed the numeral in the lead (I remembered to do it in the body but not there before, go figure.) The G3 processor is mentioned in the lead and later on. The "iMac G3" title was a retronym added to distinguish it from the iMac G4 when the latter released; I'm looking through sources now to see if I can find one that specifically calls out that change rather than just talking about them staying on sale side-by-side, and will update if possible. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 15:48, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Please ping me once you have concluded your research into the G3 addition to the name, and I will take a look. Z1720 (talk) 20:24, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hey Z1720, went trawling. From what I can tell Apple never specifically called it the "iMac G3" themselves; it got shuffled to a subpage when it was sold alongside the newer G4 iMac, but wasn't specifically called that in any press release or anything I found from Apple. Went through Macworlds and press of the time and there was a point of "the new iMac/the old iMac" and "G3 iMac/iMac G3" formulations by the press and retailers to make it clearer; by now it's pretty much always referred to as the latter in retrospectives (e.g. the legacy sourcing covering this in the article.) At this point "iMac G3" is definitely a WP:COMMONNAME thing but if you think it's a little misleading to title it that in the lead I'm open to altering it. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 14:01, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it is misleading in the title: If it is called iMac G3 by the industry now, then that is the common name. However, I recommend that a sentence or note is added somewhere in the article body, explaining that, although it was released as the iMac, it is now referred to as the iMac G3 to distinguish it from other products. Since this is a relatively minor point, I'll support. Z1720 (talk) 16:18, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Image review[edit]

Image source, licence, ALT and placement seem fine for me. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:08, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support from RoySmith[edit]

Just a few random comments:

  • board of directors dismissed CEO Gil Amelio on July 9, 1997, and Jobs replaced him as interim CEO this is a little awkward; it sort of makes it sound like Amelio was also an interim CEO. Maybe something like "...Jobs replaced him, in an interim capacity"?
  • Jobs told staff Apple's problems stemmed from its poor products. maybe "Jobs told his staff that ...."
  • and was succeeded by 29-year-old Jony Ive, who inherited the award-winning design team could you make it clearer that Ive was already at Apple and just moved up, as opposed to be recruited to replace Brunner?
  • much lower than the $2,000 (equivalent to $3,700 in 2023) for entry-level models. -> "... for current entry-level models"
  • the Power Macintosh 8600, 9600, and Power Macintosh G3 tower computers had translucent green latches, and the LaserWriter 8500, eMate 300, and Studio Display incorporated translucent colored plastics there's a problem here in that most of those link to product articles with images that don't show any translucent parts. That's not strictly a problem with this article, but it leads to a discordant reader experience. Would it be possible to find images that show the translucent bits of these products?
  • Ive was especially proud of the round mouse Ive may have been proud, but the mouse was despised by just about everybody else. This is discussed at Hockey puck mouse. You don't need to go into a lot of detail, but it would disingenuous to not at least mention this.
    • Oh, never mind, I see you cover that further down.
  • The first release of the iMac G3 had ... an infrared port ... new models ... The IrDA port and mezzanine slot were removed. It may not be clear to readers that "IrDA" refers to the previously mentioned "infrared port".
  • It had the same processor and memory as the previous iMac but with a larger hard drive -> "... but a larger hard drive" (i.e. drop the "with")
  • had a 400 MHz and 450 MHz processor, respectively, and larger hard drives Not sure about this, but I think you want "processors" plural, like "hard drives". Likewise with These models shipped with ... a 500, 600, or 700 MHz processor in the next paragraph.

Overall, nice job. I haven't read this in enough detail to venture an official support, so just take these for what they're worth RoySmith (talk) 23:48, 15 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hey RoySmith, thanks for the comments. I believe I've addressed all the above; you're right that the other mentioned products don't have good images that show their translucency in their respective articles; product photos for those details might be hard to find but I'll see if there's some out there on Commons already or Flickr that could be added. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 14:01, 18 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I took another pass...

  • unable to quickly distribute split infinitive
  • the iMac has Universal Serial Bus (USB) ports, which are faster and cheaper than Apple Desktop Bus and serial ports Possibly "which were faster"? The problem here is that for all three of these technologies (USB, ADB, serial), there's a wide range of possible speeds (well, maybe not for ADB), and the unit cost has varied greatly over time. So the cost/speed comparison is really only valid at some point in time in the past.
  • And still on the topic of USB, unsupported by any third-party Mac peripheral seems like an odd statement since the whole idea of USB was that devices weren't platform-specific.
    • The implication is that while Apple was switching to a common standard, it wasn't widely available, and it was essentially killing off the existing Mac peripheral market that did exist, even if it was tiny. Among the invested, ditching the old standards was pretty controversial.
  • using the three-dimensional (3D) modeling program Alias Wavefront to sculpt models see if you can rephrase to avoid repeating the word "model"
  • primitive 3D printers used to create physical mockups why were they using primitive ones? Apple's not one to cheap out on tooling so I'm assuming the answer is something like "the 3d printers that were available at the time were primitive by modern standards"
    • Yeah, the answer is by modern standards they're primitive. Is there a rephrase you want to make that clearer?
  • Jobs reconsidered the network computer concept as similar products struggled in the market could you give some examples of those products?
  • He was persuaded to recalibrate the project as a full-featured computer who persuaded him?
    • Source doesn't say; reworked.
  • with optical and hard drives "optical" and "hard" are not comparable concepts. Perhaps "optical and magnetic disks"?
  • In some places, you use "US$", in others just "$". Pick one.
  • You've got a few places where you pile on what I assume are extraneous references, i.e. WP:CLUMP. This paragraph is particularly bad: Positive reviews highlighted the computer's ease of use for setup and operation;[56][62][63] According to Morse, the iMac felt "almost human" and approachable for a non-tech consumer.[61] While publications including CNN and PC Week considered the iMac's performance fast,[56][58][62][64] others felt the machine was underpowered, and PC World's testing showed that the machine generally performed less well than Windows PC competitors.[65] While reviews noted that general consumers and new computer buyers would be well-served by the machine,[66] reviews were less sure that it could fit into an office environment, especially if it was not networked.[57][59][64][67]
    • Bundled the longer ref chains into ref bundles.
  • its cable was frequently considered too short, "frequently" seems like the wrong word here. Something like, "many reviewers considered..."?
  • The quarter the iMac shipped ==> "In the quarter..."
  • to making its first profit in three years in 1998 How much profit did they make?
  • The iMac's massive success helped buoy Apple ... and refreshed ... and positioned rephrase to eliminate the repetition of "and".
I found one more split infinitive and fixed that. As for primitive 3d printers, maybe something along the lines of (assuming the sourcing supports this) "They used CNC milling machines and took advantage of the newly emerging 3D printing technology to create physical mockups"? But there's no reason to hold up my support while you mull on the details of that. This is a really nice article; you cover an interesting portion of Apple's history in a compelling and easy to read format. Good job. Oh, yeah, you're missing a couple of WP:ALT texts (IMac wordmark (1998-2003).svg, Apple USB Mouse.JPG) RoySmith (talk) 20:47, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by David Fuchs via FACBot (talk) 1 July 2024 [2].

George Floyd (American football)[edit]

Nominator(s): Therapyisgood (talk) 15:18, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Proudly nominating this article for FAC. Instead of PR, I'm hoping an England or UK-based editor can take over where TRM left off before the last FAC was archived. Therapyisgood (talk) 15:18, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging everyone who commented at the first two FACs: @Sdkb, Buidhe, Nikkimaria, Jimfbleak, Mike Christie, and The Rambling Man:. Therapyisgood (talk) 02:12, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Missed some: @Kavyansh.Singh and AryKun:. Therapyisgood (talk) 02:13, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Image review - pass[edit]

The article uses 2 images ([3] and [4]) from old newspapers from 1977 and 1981. Apparently, the images were published without a copyright notices next to them, which could mean that they are in public domain in the US. These two images were already present during the first FA nomination, where Buidhe raised concerns that there may be a general copyright notice for the newspapers as a whole that covers the images. @Buidhe: has that concern been resolved? Phlsph7 (talk) 09:04, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't recall. (t · c) buidhe 15:50, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the timely response. I'm not an expert so I'll probably have to ask at the notice board.
@Therapyisgood: I had a look at the specific newspaper pages on which these images appear and I did not see any copyright notices. From what I understand from the previous image review, you had a look through the newspapers and the other pages did not contain any relevant copyright notices either, is that correct? Phlsph7 (talk) 08:01, 26 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Phlsph7: Yes, that is correct. If someone wants to go through all the pages and finds something different from what I found, that would be OK, but I went through all of them and found no copyright notices to speak of. Thank you for bringing this up. Therapyisgood (talk) 23:32, 26 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It seems like there is a strong case for them being public domain but since I'm not an expert and the issue was not resolved in the last image review, I asked at the noticeboard just to be on the safe side. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:22, 27 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As long as we can say confidently that there was no copyright notice in the newspaper, we should be fine. Typically, it would be either on the front page or in the masthead. - Jmabel | Talk 14:15, 27 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just a note that the photos seem to be agency photos of sorts - File:George Floyd playing for Hernando High School, 1977.jpg is marked in the source as a "Tribune Photo" while File:George Floyd Latches Onto the Ball.jpg is sourced to "Herald-Leader". As omitting the notice from comparatively few copies in a low circulation newspaper does not necessarily void the copyright claim, some more research may be needed. Felix QW (talk) 19:44, 27 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Felix QW: I get your point. What kind of research do you have in mind so we can reasonably exclude this possibility? Phlsph7 (talk) 07:49, 28 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am not sure, since I am not an expert on the subtle points of American copyright formalities – hence the cautious phrasing as a "note". I just always avoid uploading agency images under a no-notice rationale in the first place. Felix QW (talk) 14:53, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Phlsph7: I cut the images altogether. Therapyisgood (talk) 23:26, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry to see the images gone. I'm not sure that this step is strictly speaking required but given the controversy here, we are on the safe side this way. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:25, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

PCN02WPS[edit]

Comments to follow. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 23:24, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Lead and infobox

  • Recommend switching the way the links to the Jets' seasons are displayed: I think including "the team's" in the link to the 1982 season and "Jets'" in the '84 link make it more clear that you're linking to their season rather than the overall NFL season.
  • "EKU" is used without any explanation; of course, I know what you're referring to but it would be helpful since the full name "Eastern Kentucky University" isn't given in the lead and therefore it might be a little harder for unfamiliar readers to make that connection
  • "into the College Football Hall of Fame, and the hall of fame" → remove comma
  • "and Hernando High School; in 2009, EKU named" → Recommend splitting into two different sentences

Early life

  • "attended Hernando High School, and played " → remove comma
  • "Hernando finished as Gulf Coast (GC) Conference champions" → is the "GC" abbreviation used in sources? I find it very strange to exclude the last "C" since many well-known athletic conferences include it (ACC, SEC, MWC, AAC, etc.)
  • "Leopards' punt returner, and played on offense" → remove comma
  • "had a seventy-two yard punt" → add hyphen between "two" and "yard"
  • "during the season, and finished the year" → remove comma

Collegiate career

  • I was going to recommend using |upright for the image in this section but, and this will sound stupid, I can't find the picture in the code. It doesn't show up in any individual section so I have no idea how it's there. Some explanation would be helpful (more so for my curiosity/confusion than anything).
  • "Against Jackson State in November, had sixteen tackles" → missing word (he had sixteen tackles)
  • "win the 1979 NCAA Division I-AA football championship" → recommend another link to the championship game since it's only previously linked in the lead
  • "to the Second-team" → does "Second" need caps here?
  • "composed of the second-best players in the conference" → "the second-best players in the conference" seems a very ambiguous explanation; recommend "the second-best players at every position..."
  • "fourth-most on the Colonels, and he led the team" → Oxford comma used here but not with "sixteen tackles, one interception and one fumble recovery" - either way is fine, just should be consistent
  • "sixteen seconds left in the game as EKU won 24–20" → sounds like EKU won the game at the same time he picked off the pass with 16 seconds left, recommend changing "as" to something else
  • "against the Broncos" → "against Boise State" (update note at the end of the sentence too)
  • "Floyd was in the school's record book no fewer than eight times" → is the exact number not known?

Professional career

  • "of the 1982 NFL draft, with the 107th" → remove comma
  • "John Rowe of The Record described Floyd as a "hard hitter" in July" → this sentence sticks out just a bit; was this in context of his mini-camp/training camp/offseason performance with NYJ or just a review of him as a college player?
  • "Floyd appeared at both safety spots (both free safety and strong safety)" → repetitive use of "both", recommend nixing the second
  • "Bill Verigan of the New York Daily News" → is there a reason "New York" isn't italicized? The publication's WP article seems to give the whole title italics
  • "late October, and became a starter" → remove comma
  • "Paul Needell of the New York Daily News" → ditto as above

Personal life

  • Lots of "Floyd" in the first few sentences; most of these can be changed to "He"
  • "major at EKU, and wanted to teach" → remove comma
  • "He married his wife in March 1983" → Any chance her name could be found?
  • "As of 2023, Floyd is a defensive backs coach for Conner High School in Kentucky" → the previous sentence says he is employed at Boone County; does this mean he is employed at Conner too?

That's all I've got for prose. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 00:05, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@PCN02WPS: comments responded to. Therapyisgood (talk) 19:49, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Nice, happy to support. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 15:41, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator comment[edit]

More than three weeks in and just the single general support. Unless this nomination makes significant further progress towards a consensus to promote over the next three or four days I am afraid that it is liable to be archived. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:59, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Harper J. Cole[edit]

  • Floyd attended Hernando High School, where he was selected for The Tampa Tribune's all-area football team in all three of his varsity years, composed of the best high school football players in the area. I'm not sure you need the last part of this sentence "composed of..." as it contains nothing that cannot be deduced from the rest of the sentence.
  • Also with "The Tampa Tribune's" you aren't italicising the apostrophe and the s (this happens a few times during the article). Unless there's a Wikipedia convention to the contrary, it seems like the whole word should be italicised, even if part of it isn't wikilinked.
  • I believe the convention is listed at Template:'s: "Using this template avoids wikicoding issues that may occur when 's is used after a italicized word e.g. USS Ticonderoga's. It includes inline CSS "padding-left:0.1em;" to provide some separation from the previous letter. This prevents the italicized text from crashing into the apostrophe" Therapyisgood (talk) 01:37, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • After missing the entire 1983 Jets' season While technically correct, it isn't standard to put a possessive apostrophe on "Jets" in this context (as indeed, the article itself does not).
  • during the 1985 NFL preseason, where teams played exhibition games before their regular seasons began. No need to explain what the preseason is; it's tangential to the article, and curious readers can always follow the wikilink.
  • Not done, though I'm open to hearing others' opinions on this outside of WP:NFL. Also I disagree with your assessment "curious readers can always follow the wikilink" per MOS:NOFORCELINK ("Use a link when appropriate, but as far as possible do not force a reader to use that link to understand the sentence. The text needs to make sense to readers who cannot follow links. Users may print articles or read offline, and Wikipedia content may be encountered in republished form, often without links.")
  • the hall of fame classes of EKU and Hernando High School Usually a hall of fame class refers to a specific year (class of 2024 being the players inducted in 2024, for instance). If you're not giving a year, then simply "the halls of fame of EKU and Hernando High School" would be standard.
    Changed as suggested. Therapyisgood (talk) 01:03, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • and made The Tampa Tribune's (TTT's) all-area football team, composed of the best high school football players in the area. As above, the explanation seems unnecessary.
  • a seventy-two-yard punt return Touchdown lengths are always written with numbers ("72-yard").
  • he earned TTT Hernando County Player of the Week for the performance on September 30 No need to add the date here; it adds confusion as to whether we're still talking about the game with North Marion.
  • named to TTT all-area team Either "TTT's all-area team" or "the TTT all-area team."
  • Before the 1980 season, OVC football head coaches voted Floyd to the preseason All-OVC Team. No need to specify the preseason as you've already said it was before the season.
  • as of 2020, he holds or ties five school records Can we get more recent than 2020?
  • In an article about the Jets' training camp Wikilink training camp here, as it's the first time it's used (you're currently linking it in the next sentence).
  • The Jets waived Floyd in October 1985 (an NFL process in which a team releases a player and makes him available to all other NFL teams) No need to explain the term "waived" as you have it wikilinked.
  • Not done per MOS:NOFORCELINK ("Use a link when appropriate, but as far as possible do not force a reader to use that link to understand the sentence. The text needs to make sense to readers who cannot follow links. Users may print articles or read offline, and Wikipedia content may be encountered in republished form, often without links.")
  • He taught physical education for eighteen years at Bellevue and Boone County High Schools and, as of 2020, works as an assistant principal at Boone County High School. As of 2023, Floyd is a defensive backs coach for Conner High School in Kentucky. Would his post at Conner High School not imply that he no longer has the Boone County job, or could he work for both?

Harper J. Cole (talk) 16:25, 26 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Therapyisgood:? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 11:13, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@David Fuchs: I'm working on them, albeit very late. Therapyisgood (talk) 01:45, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Harper J. Cole:, thanks for the review, comments responded. Therapyisgood (talk) 01:57, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Therapyisgood Thanks! With regard to writing the touchdown lengths as numbers; if I'm honest, it was my instinctive reaction that they're written that way. I did find this from AP, though. [5] Also, I searched for "seventy-two-yard touchdown" on newspapers.com for the years 2000-2024 and got 3 results, while "72-yard touchdown" gets 14,997 results.
I've no objections to the other non-changes. Harper J. Cole (talk) 19:26, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Harper J. Cole: now changed. Therapyisgood (talk) 20:56, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks; I Support nomination. Harper J. Cole (talk) 15:37, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Source review[edit]

Little to say here, but I wonder what makes www.mydigitalpublication.com a reliable source? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:42, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Jo-Jo Eumerus: thank you for the source review. mydigitalpublication.com is just a host for The Eastern Magazine. The Eastern Magazine is an alumnus publication of Eastern Kentucky University. As for the magazine itself, it had a staff and a President in the year cited. I added another bit from the magazine to the article. Other than that, I can't speak to reliability, but it seems reliable. Therapyisgood (talk) 14:07, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by SafariScribe[edit]

  • This line in the Early life section, "George Floyd Jr. was born on December 21, 1960, in Tampa, Florida, and grew up in Brooksville, Florida." Can Florida be reduced to one. It looks repetitive to readers.
  • In the Early life section, you didn't leave a note of what Hernando Leopards are. Maybe add a note connecting it to Hernando High School (Florida). It may be late but it's important.
@SafariScribe: thank you for the comments, were you planning on leaving a longer review? Therapyisgood (talk) 00:10, 12 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not really. Anyways you did a great job there. I made a few changes to the article including excluding "As of 2020, he works as a vice principal at Boone County High School in Kentucky." It wasn't explained well in the lead in the sense that it isn't necessary. Why not merge the two paragraphs of the lead to one. It's will improve readability sas they both seems to contain his awards/honors. Also, regrouping is important especially in the "personal life section", but that one wouldn't be a problem. Kudos! Safari ScribeEdits! Talk! 02:48, 12 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have read the article and saw it was written well. Support from me though I would love to see images illustrated. Safari ScribeEdits! Talk! 02:49, 12 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose from RoySmith[edit]

My initial impression is that this is fundamentally a non-notable marginal player who only gets an article because of our absurdly inclusive WP:NSPORTS guideline. I accept that this is the wrong forum to raise complaints about NSPORTS, but I mention this because it leads to groping for trivial material to fill up the space.

We've got an entire section (Early life) filled with details about Floyd's High School athletic career. WP:FACR requires that the article stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail. The main topic is stated in the first sentence: "an American former professional football player". How is all this stuff about his high school play not "unnecessary detail"? What is it about Floyd that makes his high school career so interesting that it's worth devoting almost as much space to as is devoted to his professional career?

Contrast with (to pick a few players who were active back when I followed the sport), for example Phil Simms: the entirely of what it has to say about Simms's high school career is Simms was the quarterback of the Trojans of Southern High School in Louisville and graduated in 1974. Eli Manning has all of four sentences about Manning's high school play. I assume Franco Harris played high school football, yet his article only mentions what school he went to and says nothing about playing football. Troy Aikman mentions the high school he attended and that he was All-State. And looking at a couple of football FAs, Otto Graham says nothing about high school, and Billy Joe Tolliver has one short paragraph. If that level of high-school coverage made sense for those articles, what's different about Floyd that it's worth devoting almost 400 words?

I also have deep concerns about this meeting WP:FACR's "prose is engaging and of a professional standard". Even allowing for the fact that I don't find football interesting, there's very little here that I would call truly "engaging". Much of it is OK, but it's kind of a bland recitation of facts rather than telling a compelling story. Some of it is downright stilted. The "Personal life" section is particularly bad in this respect. It's a random jumble of unconnected facts. The prose itself is a succession of short choppy sentences; the antithesis of "engaging".

@RoySmith: Hello, while I respect your comments there's not much I can do about them. I disagree with your assessment of Floyd as a NSPORTS marginal player. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, for one, and for another he was covered in several publications in the 1980s and 1970s. That aside, per WP:FA?, section 1b, the article must be comprehensive and neglect no major facts. When a biography subject has received major coverage in several newspapers for his high school play, I think neglecting this important part of his career would run asunder of 1b (and the 1c "well-researched" criterion). Additionally the FA? you quote is 4, which says "It stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail and uses summary style where appropriate". If you could give me specific examples of what you consider "unnecessary detail" that would be helpful. The articles you cite are for players whose career were significantly longer than Floyd's. It would make sense that their high school sections are less in terms of coverage because they are less important to the professional careers, and more documentation has been covered about them. As far as the lead goes, I have cut a sentence on his high school play. If you have anything else to add. I will work on the "personal life" section in the upcoming days. Therapyisgood (talk) 18:54, 13 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You're arguing that the other players did more as pros so it makes sense to not cover what they did in high school. How is that any different from saying this guy didn't do much as a pro, so we need to cover his high school career in order to have something to say about him? It only took me a few minutes of searching to find tons of coverage of Phil Simms's high school career in the local papers. Does anybody care that Simms hit Mike Burke with a 12-yard touchdown pass, leading Southern High to a 13-6 victory over Stuart High? Of course not. So why would anybody care that Floyd got two interceptions in a game against Inverness Citrus? Or that he had a 72 yard punt return against Lake Weir?
Looking through "Early life", it's almost entirely cited to The Tampa Tribune and Tampa Bay Times. These are the local papers covering the local high school. It's obligatory coverage. I would expect that anybody who makes it to the NFL was a stand-out athlete in high school. These are the kids who are faster and stronger than the rest of their age group and will excel in whatever sport they play in, so it's not surprising he also played basketball. I'd be surprised if you could find many NFL players who didn't play multiple sports in high school and were good at all of them at that level. I could see covering some of the most significant highlights (like making the all-star team), but if you devote more than a couple of sentences to this, it's just padding. RoySmith (talk) 19:44, 13 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@RoySmith: can you take a look now? Therapyisgood (talk) 00:40, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just acknowledging that I've seen this, but let me spend some time thinking before I reply. I'll probably come back tomorrow. RoySmith (talk) 01:40, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I searched for other NFL player FAs and looked at a few: Scott Zolak, William Wurtenburg, Jim Thorpe, Billy Joe Tolliver, Otto Graham, Chris Gragg, Tyrone Wheatley. Most make no mention of the player's high school career, and those that do generally have just a couple of sentences about some outstanding achievement. Tyrone Wheatley is the only one with significant coverage of high school and most of that is talking about his non-football sports (All-American in track, and also being on the basketball team). The parts that are about his high school football note some awards and only mentions his performance in a single specific game. By comparison, you go into much greater detail about substantiallly less significant events.
The rest of the article similarly digs deep for minor achievements. Honorable mention for defensive player of the week? Eighth most number of tackles one year and fourth most another? A single fumble recovery? Assistant coach for a high school team after leaving the NFL? Made all-conference, but only as second team? Perhaps some of these things really are noteworthy, but the overall impression I get is that of grasping for positive things to say.
And, my apologies for the harshness of this, but the "Personal life" section, while improved in organization, is still very far from "engaging and of a professional standard". Most of it is short simple declarative sentences, which gives a monotonous feel. Things like "accomplished his teaching aspirations" is just fluff. Awkward repetition ("he wanted to join ... wanted to play ... wanted to teach"). Saying "he married his wife" is almost comical. Who else (discounting the possibility of a husband) would he have married? Surprisingly, you don't tell us her name (although to be fair, I thought I saw somewhere in a previous FAC that you had originally done so and got talked out of it by a reviewer).
While I'm on the topic of prior reviews, I see you also got talked into "Hernando high school team, nicknamed the Leopards". Just saying "the Hernando Leopards" was fine. Everybody knows what that construct means. I can't blame you too much for acquiescing to this bad advice, but knowing when to push back on bad advice is useful.
It pains me to say this but I'm sorry, I just don't see any path to supporting this short of a major rewrite. RoySmith (talk) 14:36, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
PS, I found the bit about not giving his wife's name; it was in Talk:George Floyd (American football)/GA1 RoySmith (talk) 14:39, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't agree that the personal life section is bad prose. As to his wife's name I didn't include it per WP:BLPNAME (see above), nor did I include his sister's or brother's name. As to the meat and potatoes of your complaint, I will look over the article and make appropriate changes in the days to come. I also disagree on the alleged blandness of the prose overall, and will leave it up to FAC coordinators to make that determination. Therapyisgood (talk) 17:22, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, but reading just the personal life section, I agree with RoySmith. The prose in this section is not up to FA standard. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:14, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The three supports disagree, unfortunately. They wouldn't have supported if they thought the prose was not up to FA standards, so I'm not concerned with your assessment of the text. Additionally you have not given specifics on how the text could be improved, other than saying vaguely it's "bland". And no, I'm not rewriting the whole thing just because a wiki mod says he doesn't like it. Therapyisgood (talk) 01:26, 15 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose

Having seen the above I thought I'd look at the personal life section to see whether there were any issues or not, and it's clear that there are. Specifically:

Personal life
  • "high school, he wanted": there's a good rule of thumb about using the subject's name in a paragraph before using 'he'; doubly so for the first mention in a section.
  • "senior year in college, Floyd": Changing the above to 'Floyd' means this can now be changed to 'he'
  • "wanted to teach after graduation before being drafted.": this is a bit ambiguous. As it's written it means he actively wanted to 1. Graduate, then 2. Teach, finally 3. Get drafted. Is that actually what the source says, or does it just say he 'wanted to teach after graduation', but that instead he was drafted.
  • "Floyd accomplished his teaching aspirations after his selection by the Jets:" This sentence could do with a bit of a rewrite, partly by deleting the quoted bit. The second part of the sentence says much of the same thing, so there's no point in repeating it.
  • "Floyd picked up coaching": 'picked up' fails MOS:IDIOM to my eye: "Floyd was employed as an assistant coach at ..." would be far better
  • The next two sentences are a bit of a mess, jumping round the dateline. Better to work through chronologically and make it clear that he has two jobs (and as it's now 2024, it would be better to check the sources to see if these can be updated.
  • "He has": New paragraph, repeat the name
  • "brother, and married his wife" bit of a comma splice that should be sorted.
  • The less said about he "married his wife" the better. I think it's too much of a stretch of BLPNAME to omit her name, but it's editorial discretion, so it's down to you and any other page stewards. Having said that, several people in this review have said the omission is a strange one.

I'll go over the rest of the article shortly to see on the prose there, but this short section isn't up to FA standard as it stands. As it's fairly short, it shouldn't take much to sort it. - SchroCat (talk) 14:38, 15 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@SchroCat: comments responded to. Therapyisgood (talk) 00:48, 17 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That’s immeasurably better now, and I’ve struck the oppose. I made one further change: it’s just a suggestion, which I think reads better, but if you think there’s an issue with it, or prefer the previous version, feel free to revert. The rest of the article reads well enough too. I agree that there is a little too much emphasis on his college career, but as it is the background to his inclusion in professional sports (and therefore the basis for his notability), I’ll support. - SchroCat (talk) 05:02, 17 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Gog the Mild via FACBot (talk) 1 July 2024 [6].

Homeric Hymns[edit]

Nominator(s): UndercoverClassicist T·C 21:27, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This article is probably the "biggest", in all of technical challenge, subject matter, viewing numbers and sheer mass, that I've ever taken on. The Homeric Hymns are a hodge-podge corpus of Greek poems: neither meaningfully "Homeric" nor technically all "Hymns", but an interesting and until-lately quite neglected area of ancient literature. Most survive only in fragments and at least two were discovered by chance in an eighteenth-century barn, but we have them to thank for, among other stories, the most famous retelling of the myth of Demeter and Persephone. I have done my best to chart the winding thread of the Hymns' influence, from most of the greatest hits of ancient literature, to some pretty obscure late antique and medieval works, through to a surprisingly wide slice of modern culture: Botticelli, Goethe, Shelley, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Alfred Hitchcock and Neil Gaiman. If you like arcane textual criticism and ridiculously long bibliographies, this one's for you. If you don't, I hope you'll give it a look anyway. UndercoverClassicist T·C 21:27, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

SC[edit]

Definitely up for this one. I have a couple of others to sort first, but I shall return (to quote MacArthur). - SchroCat (talk) 22:07, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you: not that it needed much, but I've popped a few comments on your cookery FAC as well. UndercoverClassicist T·C 08:26, 7 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • For two of the image captions (bust of Homer and fragmentary painting) you given the century as "2nd" and "1st". For the others you have "fifteenth-century", "sixth and the fourth centuries". Consistency is key (fully written out would be my advice, but the choice is yours)
  • "The Homeric Hymns did influence": or possibly "The Homeric Hymns influenced"?
    • Personally, I like did influence slightly better (though there's not much in it for me), as we're drawing a contrast with the direct influence of the Homeric Hymns was comparatively limited until the fifth century. The Hymn to Hermes was a partial exception... further up. There might, however, be a better way of doing this whole thing. UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:30, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Thomas William Allen published a series of four articles in The Journal of Hellenic Studies on their textual problems between 1894 and 1897": were the problems only there between 1894 and '97?
  • For the table, neither the notes or ref columns should be sortable
  • FN 49 pp. should be p.

Kudos for taking on such a body of work and for producing such an interesting and readable article. - SchroCat (talk) 16:23, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments[edit]

  • Putting a placeholder down for later. One drive-by comment: some of the entries in the "subject matter" column have full stops and others do not. As none of them are complete sentences, none should have full stops -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:31, 7 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks, Chris -- looking forward to it. Good eye on the full stops; I've fixed those. UndercoverClassicist T·C 07:50, 7 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "They were comparatively neglected during the succeeding Byzantine period (that is, until 1453), though continued" - I think "They were comparatively neglected during the succeeding Byzantine period (that is, until 1453), but continued" would be better grammatically
  • "The earliest of the Homeric Hymns were composed in a time period where oral poetry was common" => "The earliest of the Homeric Hymns were composed in a time period when oral poetry was common"
  • "Many of the hymns with a verse indicating that another song will follow" - I think there's a word missing here (maybe "end"....?)
  • "As of 2016, a total of twenty-nine manuscripts of the hymns are known" => "As of 2016, a total of twenty-nine manuscripts of the hymns were known" (2016 was eight years ago)
    • "Are" is correct here: it implies that the state of affairs continues, whereas "were" implies the opposite (compare "as of 1959, there are 50 states in the USA", or "as of this morning, I'm the CEO"). UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:56, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • Hmmm, it still reads weirdly to me - if I was writing a football article I wouldn't personally write "As of 1925, Sheffield United have won the FA Cup four times", I'd write "As of 2024, Sheffield United have won the FA Cup four times" to make clear that it is the current state of affairs rather than the then-state of affairs just shy of 100 years ago, even though the number of wins hasn't changed in that time. But I'm not going to hold up the nom over this little quibble -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 10:53, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        I agree, but I don't think we've actually got the sources to say that: the source being from 2016, it can only itself be evidence for the state of play until then (that situation hasn't changed, but we'd need a second source to actually say that). I'm also not sure we want to set ourselves up with a continually moving treadmill: if we did find a 2024 source and stick it in, we'd have the same problem in 2025, and 2026, and so on ad infinitum. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:20, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "and the only edition to date that has printed digammas in their text" => "and the only edition to date that has printed digammas in its text"
    • I prefer "their" (the hymns') here: I think both are defensible but "their" is slightly more precise (since the edition includes notes, apparatus criticus and so on that are not strictly the text of the hymns). UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:56, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Notes g, i, j, and k don't need full stops
  • That's all I got - fabulous work! -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:14, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 10:53, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support from Tim riley[edit]

A most impressive article. Some minor cavilling:

  • "and their collection as a corpus likely dates to this period" – unexpectedly AmE phrasing: in BrE one might expect "...probably dates..."
Oops -- I did mean to do this one: now fixed. UndercoverClassicist T·C 14:30, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "They were comparatively neglected during the succeeding Byzantine period" – this is the first of nine "comparatively"s in the text. One of them is quoting René Nünlist and can't be remedied, but the other eight bring to mind Gowers's comment: "Timid writers who shrink from positive statements have a bad habit of using comparatively and relatively to water down their adjectives and adverbs, forgetting that those words can properly be used only when some comparison is expressed or implied." I don't think that can be said of the eight "comparatively"s here.
    • Auditing: the plan was to use "comparatively" when there is an implied comparison (usually, to the rest of Greek literature):
      • Their influence on Greek literature and art was comparatively small until the third century BCE: I think this one's kosher: it wasn't small as such, but it was smaller than that of other texts, in particular the Homeric epics. It was also smaller than their influence on later literature.
      • They were comparatively neglected during the succeeding Byzantine period: as above, I think this one's good, since they weren't absolutely neglected (some poets used them)
      • iterative narration ... which is comparatively rare in ancient Greek literature: the implied comparison is with singulative narration: I suppose we could do "which is much rarer in ancient Greek literature than..."?
      • the Homeric Hymns generally place greater focus on single events than the Homeric epics ... resulting in what he calls a comparatively "slow" narration: there's a comparison here with the epics.
      • The Homeric Hymns are quoted comparatively rarely in ancient literature: this one's dubious: the implied comparison is to other texts, particularly the epics. I do think some sort of adverb is useful here, since "rarely" would be a bit too strong. Could do "relatively" just for variety?
      • In late antiquity ... the direct influence of the Homeric Hymns was comparatively limited until the fifth century: as above: there's an implied comparison with other periods, but it's not as strong as some of the others. However, some kind of adverb is useful here still, I think.
      • Although they received comparatively little attention in English poetry in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: I've changed this one to relatively for much the same reasons as the last two.
        • I'm happy to accept your rationale for all the above. If there's one thing I loathe more than most about GAN and FAC it's reviewers (happily few) who say "I'd write it this way and so therefore must you". I hope never to be such a reviewer. (And nor are you, as I know from your valuable reviews of my offerings.) All the same, I might make some of the comparativelys "not much" or "seldom" or "infrequently", but I pass the ball back to you. Tim riley talk 14:13, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "(that is, until 1453)" – this is the first of seven parenthetical instances of "that is," and the phrase rather outwears its welcome, me judice. Three instances come in the space of 150 words in the Composition section. Some of the instances seem to me useful, such as "in a vernacular language (that is, not in Latin)" but I really think you could blitz those like "Hellenistic (that is, 323–30 BCE) Alexandria" and "singulative narration (that is, accounts of specific events related in sequence), where the meaning and grammar are both secure without "that is".
    • I've removed it except where it's useful to be clear that it's defining the whole, rather than a subset of it: for example the succeeding Byzantine period (that is, until 1453), where it's useful to be clear that "until 1453" is another way of writing "the Byzantine period" rather than a greater degree of precision.
  • "all of the surviving manuscripts of the hymns date to the fifteenth century" – unexpected and I think unneeded "of".
  • "The Homeric Hymns were first published in print by Demetrios Chalkokondyles in 1488–1489. George Chapman made the first English translation of them in 1642" – perhaps drop "of them"?
  • "an artificial literary language (Kunstsprache) derived largely from the Aeolic and Ionic dialects of Greek" – not sure why the German term is mentioned here: the blue link goes to an English one.
    • Kunstsprache is the normal term in Anglophone scholarship for what the Homeric dialect is (see Google Books results here. Strictly speaking, it has a slightly more specialised and precise meaning than "artificial literary language", which is really my explanation of the term, so I think it has value here. I've added a link to the footnote which goes into a bit (well, a lot) more detail about what we mean when we say this word. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:03, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Irene de Jong has contrasted the narrative focus" – a word or two of introduction to Irene de Jong would be helpful.
  • "René Nünlist has also suggested" – likewise for René Nünlist. Helps the reader see why the person's views are of interest.
    • I've tried to follow a wise colleague's words (courtesy ping to User:Caeciliusinhorto) and avoid giving introductions that would amount to "the classicist..." for views that we would expect to come from a classicist (this was a view fairly widely expressed in the recent-ish FAC on Beulé Gate. Where the person has some other claim to fame (Ezra Pound, for example), I've tried to make that clear so that the reader doesn't assume that they're necessarily a subject-matter expert. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:16, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • There's no one right answer to this. I am perhaps permanently influenced (not to say scarred) by this comment at the 2011 peer review of my revision of Thomas Beecham:
"Sir Adrian Boult": I don't know who this guy is nor why I should care what he thinks. Since the reader, like me, may be too lazy to click, I suggest a brief characterisation of him.
But I quite see your point of view, and I happily leave the matter in your hands here. Tim riley talk 14:13, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "the didactic poem Phainomena" – for those, e.g. me, who are unfamiliar with the term "didactic poem" a concise explanation would not go amiss. One knows what both words mean, but not quite what the two together mean, or whether the didacticism of the poem is material here.
  • "earliest known poet to use them" – I think I'd hyphenate "earliest-known" – otherwise he's the earliest of known poets to use them.
  • "the Restoration playwright and poet William Congreve" – pushing it a bit to call Congreve (b. 1670) a Restoration playwright? I have the impression that the term is normally applied up to about the end of the 17th century, and not as late as 1710.
  • "In 1744, he released a revised version of his 1710 Semele: An Opera, with music by George Frideric Handel and a newly-added passage of the libretto quoting Congreve's translation of the Hymn to Aphrodite" – this baffles me. Who is "he"? Despite reading and rereading I can't construe the text as meaning anyone but Congreve, but he was long dead by then.
  • Semele – could perhaps do with a blue link.

That's all from me. I think you have achieved an exemplary distillation of a great deal of information, and made it comprehensible to the lay reader. Tim riley talk 11:26, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am happy to support the elevation of this article to FA. It seems to me to meet all the FA criteria (and has impressed me mightily). Tim riley talk 14:13, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from The Morrison Man[edit]

Not sure if me looking over the article again would be good practise after also handling the GA (though if more comments are needed, I'm always available), but I would still like to just pop in here and wish you good luck during the review! The Morrison Man (talk) 19:17, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you: that's very kind. I don't think there's any problem with GA reviewers coming back for another go at FAC (@FAC coordinators: please do correct me if I'm wrong), as it's a different set of standards, but equally you've more than done your time in reading and reviewing the article the once (and with your very helpful comments since the nomination). UndercoverClassicist T·C 19:33, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The Morrison Man, there will be no problem at all with this. Your already being familiar with the article is a pleasant bonus. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:48, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'll be sure to take another look at it, in that case! The Morrison Man (talk) 20:53, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@The Morrison Man: apologies for the prod, but are you still planning to give this a look? UndercoverClassicist T·C 10:20, 17 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, apologies for not letting you know sooner. My comments should be up tomorrow! The Morrison Man (talk) 14:00, 17 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Whoops, seems like my changes didn't save and I haven't noticed untill now, sorry for not providing the comments earlier like I promised! Just like with the GA, feel free to ask questions or discuss any suggestions that you don't agree with, and I'm sure we'll be through these in no time. The Morrison Man (talk) 23:04, 22 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just to note that I almost certainly won't be able to get to these for about a week, but thank you for them: I'll ping you when I do. UndercoverClassicist T·C 06:47, 23 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • “It is unclear how far the hymns were composed orally, as opposed to with the use of writing” - This sentence feels overly complicated to me. Maybe something like: “It is unclear whether the hymns were composed orally or through use of writing,” could work?
    • Just thought of a potential alternate version myself after reading over it again: "It is unclear whether the hymns were solely a product of oral composition or whether writing was also involved [in their creation]" The Morrison Man (talk) 23:07, 22 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • Not sure either of these work. Everyone agrees that writing is involved somewhere in the process, if only because they all became written texts in order to be recorded in manuscripts, and that oral composition is somehow involved, if only because the poems at least reference and imitate works of oral poetry. It's not a binary, but a spectrum. The questions is where you mark the balance along that spectrum: both oral composition and writing are definitely involved, but how involved? UndercoverClassicist T·C 18:28, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        • Alright, I do still think that the current sentence could read better. How about changing "how far the hymns were" to "how much of the hymns was"? That would fix the sentence for me and I do believe it keeps the same meaning. The Morrison Man (talk) 23:45, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
          • That’s slightly different - it would imply that we are trying to look at individual hymns or sections of hymns and ascertain whether those sections were themselves composed orally or through the use of writing. In practice it is much fuzzier and these sharp binaries are generally to be avoided – for instance, it could be the case that a passage of narrative, iterated over for several generations as an oral poem, was later polished up by a poet using writing into the form we currently have. Trying to ascertain which parts of the result represented oral composition versus written would be impossible and indeed somewhat meaningless. UndercoverClassicist T·C 10:21, 26 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • “reciprocity” - Would just using reciprocation do the trick here too?
    • They're not quite the same thing (though are very similar): reciprocity is the practice/relationship rather than the action, and more about the general state of balance (that acts from one party are or should be reciprocated by the other). UndercoverClassicist T·C 18:28, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • “performance within that cult, though the latter did not necessarily follow from the former” - Shouldn’t “did” be present here? latter does not necessarily follow
  • “polities” - Could this be swapped out for “city-states”? Easier on the layman reader. If not, I would link it.
  • “but never performed.” - Change to something like “, though it was never performed.
    • I'm not sure I'm seeing the problem this is fixing, or how it makes an improvement -- to me, that reads as a slightly clunkier way of saying the same thing?

I believe all my comments have been addressed, and I have found no more. I will now support. The Morrison Man (talk) 12:19, 26 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@The Morrison Man: Much obliged (and for your time in doing the review) -- thank you. UndercoverClassicist T·C 15:30, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Image review from Generalissima[edit]

  • File:Exekias Dionysos Staatliche Antikensammlungen 2044.jpg Own work CC upload of a public domain art piece.
  • File:Homer British Museum.jpg Public domain upload of a public domain statue.
  • File:Hermes Stabia 1.jpg Public domain, although the license appears to be formatted incorrectly on commons.
  • File:Sandro Botticelli - La nascita di Venere - Google Art Project - edited.jpg Public domain.
  • File:Page from the first printed edition (editio princeps) of collected works by Homer.jpg Public domain.
  • File:Pinax con Ade che rapisce Kore-Persefone, da Locri - MARC.jpg CC-BY-SA-4.0
  • Complete side note, but I'd wikilink Demetrios Chalkokondyles in the caption for the book.

All imhave alt-text. All are laid out correctly, and are relevant to the texts. I do slightly question the infobox image; wouldn't it be better to put in the front cover of Demetrios Chalkokondyles' editio princeps, as the first published volume of the compiled hymns? That Dionysus Cup is very nice and would be fitting somewhere in the article, however. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 00:11, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for these, Generalissima. I've tweaked the formatting on the Stabiae image licence. On the infobox image: a matter of taste, maybe, but the folks at Penguin Classics thought that the Dionysus Cup would make a pretty good main image too. A chunk of Chalkokondyles' edition would also work, except that all the images I can find on Commons (and in the PD more widely) are from the Iliad part of that text, not the Homeric Hymns. There's also some value, I think, in having something broadly contemporary with the Hymns themselves, rather than two thousand years more recent. I've linked him in the caption. UndercoverClassicist T·C 06:31, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's fair enough! I think the images are in a good state now - Support on image review. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 07:32, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Aza24[edit]

  • Just a quick comment. I feel that the lead and body are missing clarity as to the musical content of these hymns. Presumably, no music notation survives (and perhaps it never existed?). Do we know if the melodies were improvised, or performed in accordance with tradition? These feel like things which should be addressed more explicitly. Otherwise, the reader may be left wondering. Mathiesen's Apollo’s Lyre (1999), the standard modern survey of ancient Greek music, probably discusses this. I see that Grove has an article ([7]) but it seems largely redudant to the article's current content. – Aza24 (talk) 18:15, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Hm: I don't think we know very much about this at all, to be honest. There's a little bit in Mathiesen (thank you for the nudge towards that; I hadn't come across it), which I'll work into the article (essentially: no, the notation wasn't written down, but it may well have been fixed by tradition, like the lyrics -- equally, from Henderson, it may well have totally shifted over time). Thank you also for the Grove article, though I agree there doesn't seem to be much I can pull out of there that isn't already in the article. UndercoverClassicist T·C 18:55, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I've added a chunk to the "Content and function" section on music -- trying to say what we can, which isn't a lot, especially as basically none of the sources directly talk about the performance of the Hymns (they do talk in general about early Greek music or "Homer", though). UndercoverClassicist T·C 20:06, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Good choice and a definite improvement. I find that Wikipedia articles often forgo important information entirely when its limited, but its inclusion here seems worthwhile. Sometimes its necessary to state the obvious (e.g. "we don't know much about the music"), just so readers don't walk away thinking "what about the music?". Aza24 (talk) 21:08, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Pardon my stalking, but maybe these articles about the hymns' performance will be useful: Homeric Epic in Performance, "Homeric Hymn to Apollo": Prototype and Paradigm of Choral Performance, The performance of the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, The Homeric Hymns as Poetic Offerings: Musical and Ritual Relationships with the Gods, Choreia and Aesthetics in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo: The Performance of the Delian Maidens, and this modern project Hymns: Visual Album. Artem.G (talk) 06:14, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you: I'll have a look here and see what I can pull out. UndercoverClassicist T·C 06:25, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    OK, I think I've got what I can here: there's a lot which would be of interest in a specific article on e.g. the Hymn to Aphrodite or the Hymn to Apollo, but doesn't really fit into an overview article on the whole corpus. I can't find any secondary references to the Getty Center/Four Larks project, and I'm reluctant to include it on primary testimony only per MOS:POPCULT: have you got anything here? UndercoverClassicist T·C 07:43, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    most sources are about individual hymns, I didn't find any general "theory" of their perfomance, probably because they differ in purpose, or just because of lack of evidence; I think you're right here. For Four Larks I have no sources and don't propose to include it, it was just an interesting finding. There is also this Homeric Singing page that might be interesting. It's not about the hymns, but about all Homeric epics. Artem.G (talk) 08:23, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, it's an interesting field, and it's quite amazing to hear people play reconstructed Greek music on modern replicas of the instruments. Most of it's pretty conjectural, to be honest -- lots of people (for instance, West cited in the article) trying to use the "natural" rhythm of the words to talk about the likely rhythm of the songs, and the pitch accent as a guide to the melodies. It's not a silly idea, but you end up with reconstructed music that doesn't really hang on any real evidence, and of course the possibility of having different musical settings for the same lyrics, as we find throughout just about every period of history, pours a great deal of cold water on the whole thing. Good territory for Music of ancient Greece to cover, but I think there's too much distance and too little certainty to put it in here, really. UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:00, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Matarisvan[edit]

Hi UndercoverClassicist, marking a spot, will add comments soon. Matarisvan (talk) 20:19, 13 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for all of these: you have done a great deal of work for me in finding all of these articles for such a huge pile of scholars! I've seen the Biard comments: I need to take another run at that article, partly in light of the help and advice received there, and am keeping the ACR feedback to hand for when I do -- it will be very useful. As for this one, replies below. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:32, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Consider linking to the German language wiki for René Nünlist?
  • Link to Claude Calame in body and biblio?
  • Link to Delos?
  • Have any scholars speculated on whether the hymns were only intended to be invoked at singing competitions? We know Ancient Greece had sports, sparring, chariot racing competitions; the hyms might have been sung there too.
    • I wouldn't draw such a sharp distinction: in most cases, athletic and musical competitions were tied up as part of the same thing. The Olympic Games, Panathenaic Games and so on had musical and poetic competitions as part of the programme; early in Greek history, Hesiod writes of winning a tripod for poetic singing at the funeral games of a local ruler. It's better to think of singing contests as being part of bigger events (i.e. religious festivals, which athletic competitions generally more-or-less were) than as a stand-alone thing. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:32, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Link to Jenny Strauss Class in the body as done in the lead? Also, why use Jenny in the biblio and Jennifer in the lead?
  • Link to Callimachus in body as done in the lead?
  • Translate gymasiarch per NOFORCELINK?
    • It isn't really a translatable term: it's its own thing, with quite specific but also quite hard-to-pin-down details. Compare words like Taoiseach, daimyo or consul: we treat those as items of vocabulary in their own right, explain them if it's useful and practical (here, I don't think it's really either), and link in any case. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:32, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Was the negligible influence of the Hymns in the Byzantine era due to a negative Christian view of pagan literature? Do any authors speak about this?
    • It wasn't: after all, they didn't generally imitate them, but they did keep copying them (and therefore reading them), which is a tremendous pain in the neck to do with a text you don't really like. The Homeric epics were ubiquitous in Byzantine literature, so it's more a matter of shifting literary fashions than any grand religious-ideological statement. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:32, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Translate and link editio princeps in the image caption?
  • Reword "an operatic libretto, Semele" to "Semele, an operatic libretto" to avoid SEAOFBLUE? There's only a comma as a separator.
    • Normally a good idea, but I think that would create the implication or ambiguity that he wrote Semele in 1707: we don't know the date for sure, only that it was before 1710. Given the comma, we don't have a true SEAOFBLUE to be worried about. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:32, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • What was the influence of the Hymns in France, Spain, other parts of Europe? I'm sure they must have had an impact, do any authors write about this? One big paragraph might suffice for this, wdyt?
    • Not much, as far as I can find: there's a little on the reception of the Persephone myth in German literature, such as Schiller, but here we have the problem of telling the myth apart from the Hymn: nobody is willing to come out and say that Schiller was directly using the Homeric Hymn as opposed to the underlying myth (which was certainly popularised by the 1777 discovery of the Hymn, but equally was already known through Ovid). We do have a mention of a French translation, but I can't find much evidence of their involvement in French literature (they aren't mentioned once in The Cambridge History of French Literature), or indeed in Spanish. In the C15th at least, I wouldn't expect there to be: Greek literature in general had huge penetration in Italy, where many exiles from Constantinople ended up, but it took a while for it to really catch on in the rest of Europe. Gilbert Highet's well-known book on the classical tradition has quite a lot on French and other imitations of other classical poets (particularly Pindar), but only Chapman on the Hymns. There's a tiny bit in Richardson's introduction to Cashford, which I've added. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:32, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Translate ottava rima?
    • A translation wouldn't help much, as it's a poetic form: equally, I don't think a full explanation is possible here within the constraints of readability, or (honestly) particularly clarifying in an article that's about the Hymns, not the translation. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:32, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Link to Coraline (film)?
  • We have the textual history of the 33 hymns, what about the 1 epigram?
    • It's in a few manuscripts, but doesn't really have a distinct textual history to speak of: it's only a couple of lines long. The first sentence of the article makes clear that we mean to include it when we speak of "the Hymns" as a whole. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:32, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Shouldn't the textual history section be placed before the reception section? I'm not sure about this though.
    • The thinking behind the current arrangement is that the two cover the same chronological ground, so there's no a priori reason why one should go ahead of the other, but that Reception is likely to be of more interest to more readers, so we shouldn't force them to go through what is, for most people, a pretty dry chunk of editors and manuscripts to get to the juicy stuff about Joyce and Botticelli. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:32, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why is Dionysus linked twice in the List of Hymns?
    • I've generally thought of the list as being like a bibliography or list of footnotes: we expect, more than for the body text, that readers might read it out of sequence (for instance, if they choose to sort by surviving lines), and so duplinking is more forgivable/useful here. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:32, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not quite sure about this, but transliterate the Greek letters theta, phi, sigma used here?
  • In the biblio, to be consistent, you will have to link to Apostolos Athanassakis, Alessandro Barchiesi, Glen Bowersock, Luciano Canfora, Han Lamers, James J. Clauss, John Miles Foley, Sebastiano Tusa, Alison Keith, Anne Draffkorn Kilmer, Edwin Seroussi, Shirley Strum Kenny, Robert Parker, Irene Peirano, David Piper, Simon Price, Nicholas Richardson, Øivind Andersen
  • Why do Strauss 2006 amd van der Berg 2001 use ISBN 10? Google Books provides ISBN 13, consider adding? Pearcy 1989 and Sowa 1984 can be excused on account of their year of publication.

That's all from me, cheers Matarisvan (talk) 10:45, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also, @UndercoverClassicist, if you have some free time, I have posted my comments on the A Class Review of the Henry Biard article. I understand that you must have been busy with this FACR and weren't able to check those out. Matarisvan (talk) 11:19, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Matarisvan, I was wondering if you felt in a position to either support or oppose this nomination? Obviously, neither is obligatory. Thanks. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:50, 30 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Gog, I would like to support for promotion to FA class. Matarisvan (talk) 02:40, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Source review[edit]

There seem to be quite a few people on prose already, so I will try to look at sources. —Kusma (talk) 14:54, 15 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Source formatting looks fairly uniform already.
  • Many JSTOR items have DOIs, others do not. You could consider making this consistent.
    • In theory, they've got a DOI only if that links to a page that isn't JSTOR -- for example, a lot of the CUP journals have a DOI that points to Cambridge Core and a JSTOR link to, well, JSTOR. It's not out of the question that a reader will have access to one but not the other. When the only DOI I can find is JSTOR itself, I haven't duplicated it. If I've messed that system up, please do tell me! UndercoverClassicist T·C 17:09, 16 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Pfeiffer 1976/1968 has ISBN 0198143427 or 9780198143420 (reeditions are new enough to have ISBN, better than OCLC in my view if we have both).
  • Piper 1982: David Piper is a disambiguation page.
  • Richardson 2003: should this use |chapter=Introduction?
  • Cambridge Scholars Publishing is a bit questionable. (It is on Beall's List). Can you comment on the reliability of Bodley 2016, Clark 2015, Rice 2020?
    • Interesting: I hadn't come across that list before, and Beall doesn't give any specific rationale for including CSP. Looking around online (e.g. here on reddit, they seem to have a reputation for being somewhat low-tier, and not a particularly good place for academics to submit manuscripts to, but generally legitimate (one comment somewhere-or-other called them "the bottom end of reputable"). I can't find much footprint for Musical Receptions of Greek Antiquity in the usual classical review sources, but Bodley herself is a grown-up musicologist with plenty of publications in serious academic presses on the same topic area. Likewise, Paul Rice: his book also has a few cites in (inter alia) a Brill volume here. I am less convinced by Clark: I can find little trace of her or her book anywhere scholarly, and it's only really included as further reading/supporting plot summaries, so I've swapped it out for better sources that can do the same job. UndercoverClassicist T·C 17:09, 16 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • The talk page leads to a discussion about CSP publishing recycled Wikipedia articles., so they certainly must be used only with great care. I agree that Bodley and Rice look relatively decent, so I think they can stay. —Kusma (talk) 20:27, 16 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        Yes, I'll definitely be checking their individual works much more closely in future. They've published some quite robust stuff by fairly big-name people, but also, it seems, some works that don't measure up to that standard. UndercoverClassicist T·C 20:37, 16 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Cassola 1975 probably has an ISBN
  • Taida 2015: the linked ISSN does not find anything. The whole issue of the journal (published by Vilnius University) is here: [8]. Worth using |trans-journal=? (I don't read Lithuanian, unfortunately).

Sources look great: scholarly journals and books from reputable publishers (with very few question marks as above). Only very small formatting issues. Happy to do spot checks on request. —Kusma (talk) 16:01, 15 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Choliamb[edit]

Hello, I see you've been busy. I'm butting in again uninvited. I haven't read the whole article, just the section on the history of the text and the early editions, which is the only area I feel competent to comment on. There are a couple of areas of confusion here:

A. Manuscripts

  • First, and most important, the discussion of the manuscript tradition, and especially the relationship of M and Ψ, is incorrect. The article currently describes Ψ as one of the sources of M, but that is not true. The manuscripts of the Homeric hymns fall into two groups: one group consists of M alone (the only ms. to preserve the hymn to Demeter and portions of the first hymn to Dionysos); the other group consists of all of the remaining manuscripts (which lack those hymns). Ψ is not one of the sources of M, but rather the source of all of the manuscripts except M. It is the hypothetical ancestor of the defective branch of the tradition, the branch that lacks the first two hymns. The discussions of the manuscripts in Richardson 2010 and Olson 2011 are clear about this (see Olson's stemma on p. 49 for a nice graphical representation of the relationship, which shows M and Ψ as cousins, independently descended from the ultimate archetype Ω).
  • But I'd suggest citing the introduction to West's Loeb edition, p. 22, instead, since that is widely available and has the simplest and most easily understandable description of the tradition, aimed at general readers rather than editors of classical texts.
  • The article describes John Eugenikos as a "priest and polymath", but was he really a priest? The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium describes him as a deacon (not the same thing), as well as a notary and a nomophylax. Are there other sources that identify him as a priest?
  • The suggestion that Eugenikos copied M after his return to Constantinople in 1439 was made not by West, as stated in one of the footnotes, but by Thomas Gelzer, "Zum Codex Mosquensis und zur Sammlung der Homerischen Hymnen", Hyperboreus 1.1 (1994), pp. 113–137, at p. 124. I haven't read West's article on the hymn to Dionysos (= West 2011), which is what you cite here, but in the intro to the Loeb edition (p. 22, n. 23) West rightly attributes this view to Gelzer. See also Simelidis 2011, pp. 259–260, who disagrees with Gelzer and suggests a date earlier in the 1430s. All of these specific dates are pure speculation unsupported by any evidence at all, so it might be better to omit this note entirely and leave it at "first half of the 15th century," which is what we know for certain. Gelzer's article, by the way, is an important one for anyone interested in the textual tradition of the HH, although in this case there's enough English bibliography that I can understand if you'd rather not cite a German article.
    • Corrected. I'd added Simelidis to the note: at the moment, I'd like to leave it in. I do recognise that the dates are speculative, but my (very uninformed) impression is that there's a general view that we can at least tentatively be more precise than "any year between 1401 and 1450 is an equally good guess". However, if someone has put it in print that the guesses are baloney, that would be another matter -- do you know if they have? UndercoverClassicist T·C 12:15, 29 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • Fair enough. Speculation ≠ baloney, and not all dates between 1401 and 1450 are equally probable. Certainly if the attribution to Eugenikos is correct, and he was born "after 1394", then the first quarter of the 15th century seems unlikely, and the first decade is probably out of the question. I think the way you currently handle this, with a more general date (based on the watermarks of the paper and the general characteristics of the hand) stated in the text, and the more specific suggested dates (based on historical context and what is known of Eugenikos's life) in the footnote, is good.
  • The notion that Ω, the original archetype behind both the M and the Ψ branches of the tradition, was a minuscule manuscript is not original to Olson; much of the evidence was collected already by Allen in his 1895 article in JHS, pp. 142–143 (summarized in the editions of Allen and Sikes and Halliday: 1st ed., p. xv; 2nd ed., pp. xx–xxi).
  • This article is probably not the place to discuss the circumstances of the discovery of M in "a stable where for many years ... it had been hidden among the chickens and the pigs", and Matthaei's efforts to purchase it from its proprietor, "a cunning and greedy old man"; but it's a wonderful story, told with copious quotations from the Latin correspondence between Matthaei and Ruhnken, by O. von Gebhardt, "Christian Friedrich Matthaei und seine Sammlung griechischer Handscriften", Centralblatt für Bibliothekswesen 15 (1898), pp. 441–458. (The quotations translated above are from a letter of 1783, printed by Gebhardt on p. 450.) It's great recreational reading if your German and Latin are up to it.

B. Allen's editions

  • Contrary to the statement in the article, the 1904 edition with commentary by Allen and Sikes was not in the Oxford Classical Texts series (which never included commentaries). The 1904 edition was not even published in Oxford; it was published in London by Macmillan, as you correctly report in the bibliography. Allen's Oxford Classical Text of the hymns was published in 1912, as the fifth volume in the OCT Homer (see here); Sikes had no part in it.
  • The second edition of Allen and Sikes was published by Oxford in 1936 (but still not in the OCT series). By this time, Sikes was out of the picture (Allen, in his preface to the 2nd ed., writes that Sikes "has long betaken himself to other provinces, and resisted entreaties to assist in a revision"), and Allen found a new coauthor in W. R. Halliday. Sikes is still credited on the title page, but after Halliday, and his name does not appear on the spine. Officially this is Allen, Halliday, and Sikes 1936, but most people refer to it informally as Allen and Halliday. It is superior to the first edition, and anyone citing Allen's scholarship, which is still valuable in spite of its many flaws, should cite this one instead. Since this edition, unlike the first, remains under copyright, I will not give a link to an online version here, but if you were to go to a popular online archive, and search for the names Allen and Halliday together, it's not impossible that you might stumble upon one.
  • But wait, there's more! In fact, if not in name, Allen's first edition of the Homeric hymns was actually Goodwin's posthumous Oxford edition of 1893. Goodwin had done a lot of preliminary work for his edition, but he died leaving only some notes and drafts for the first few hymns; the material was entrusted by the press to Allen, who was Goodwin's student, and he was the one responsible for turning it into a publishable edition, although out of respect for his teacher his name does not appear on the title page. See the preface to the 1893 edition for Allen's description of what Goodwin left behind (not much); and see also the WP article on Allen, which correctly credits him with the preparation of this edition, and cites two reviews that accurately describe his contribution. (Taida, the source you cite for much of the section on early editions, is not always the most reliable guide, and seems unaware of the circumstances of publication.)
    • This point is now integrated into the article. Must admit I struggled to find good summary sources on the history of textual criticism, though it seems that combing through the various prefaces is probably the way to go. UndercoverClassicist T·C 17:14, 30 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

C. A few other small points

  • The article currently says that "most modern editions of the text are based on that made by Filippo Càssola in 1975". This statement, which is also taken from Taida, is misleading, I think. What subsequent editors like Richardson (in his Cambridge green-and-yellow volume; not in his Oxford edition of the hymn to Demeter, which was independent of Càssola) and West (in the Loeb edition) rely on is not Càssola's text per se, but his collation of the manuscripts and his apparatus, which are better than Allen's. The texts themselves naturally differ from Càssola at a number of points. And Olson in his edition of the hymn to Aphrodite does not rely on Càssola at all: he writes (p. viii) that he prepared fresh collations the manuscripts and that he has corrected Càssola's readings where necessary. My advice is to cut this sentence about Càssola entirely, but if you want to keep it, it should simply say that he provided fresh collations and a fresh discussion of the manuscript tradition (the first since Allen), without implying that subsequent editions are derived from his.
    • Cut: I think that fact on Càssola is worthy, but it won't be supported by the cited material: I might dig around and see if I can find a review that gives a sense of why it's an important work (to the effect that you outline) and reinstate mutandis mutatis. UndercoverClassicist T·C 18:19, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Finally, in the text you mention Richardson's 1974 Oxford edition of the hymn to Demeter and West's 2003 Loeb edition of the entire corpus, but you don't provide citations for them and they don't appear in the bibliography. Both are essential works of scholarship that really do belong in any serious bibliography of the Homeric hymns.

Cheers, Choliamb (talk) 16:42, 23 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Much indebted to you as always, Choliamb. I've made small fixes where I can: I'm away from home at the moment, and will get to the more substantive stuff when I'm more able to do so. UndercoverClassicist T·C 18:19, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Choliamb: I think everything is addressed here now. Thank you as ever: it is rare to be able to get an expert review on content as well as style, and it certainly does the article a huge amount of good. UndercoverClassicist T·C 17:14, 30 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      Hardly expert: I taught a course on the Homeric Hymns only once, thirty years ago, and I haven't kept up on the critical literature since then, which is why I declined to comment on the rest of the article. Fortunately, the manuscripts and their relationships haven't changed since then!
      One final note: I skimmed the earlier comments about the illustrations, including the image of the edition of Chalkokondyles, which as you noted is not ideal because the page shown is from the Iliad rather than one of the hymns. I can't remedy that, but I can offer an alternative. The Leiden University library has a good scan of M, licensed for free use, so I have uploaded to the Commons an image of one of the pages of the hymn to Demeter: File:Leiden BPG 33 H fol 33r - Homeric Hymn to Demeter 187-236.jpg. Do with it as you will. I'm not sure it's a better lead image than Exekias's Dionysos cup, which most readers would probably find more engaging, but at least it can replace Chalkokondyles. Choliamb (talk) 20:36, 30 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      I concur: replaced the manuscript image with this one, but kept it where it is. Not quite as pretty as the old one, but far more relevant. UndercoverClassicist T·C 21:07, 30 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Drive-by comments[edit]

Thanks, Gog -- all done or replied. UndercoverClassicist T·C 19:19, 30 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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