Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Basiliscus

Basiliscus

I feel this article might meet the criteria for a FA. I enjoyed writing it, I hope people will enjoy reading it. (Self nominated) BlaiseMuhaddib 14:58, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

• Support. I found this informative, very well written, and very well sourced.Jeffpw 15:29, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support and comment. One of the first articles I tried to review! It is very nice to see it here. I think it is a nice article. Can you just rearrange or possibly merge these four citations in a row at the end of "Religious controversies". It is not nice the way it looks now.--Yannismarou 17:35, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

  I modified the position of the references, I hope I addressed your concern.--BlaiseMuhaddib 18:42, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

• Support I found this to be a well written, well sourced article. definetly meets the criteria of a fa Pigottsm 19:25, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support Well done! Some minor quibbles:
  • When the chieftain of the Heruli, Odoacer, deposed Western Emperor Romulus Augustus, sending the imperial regalia to Constantinople, Zeno, who had just regained his throne, could not do anything more than appoint Odoacer dux of Italy, thus ending the Western Roman Empire. That sentence confused me...is there a missing "he" before "could not do"?
  • Avoid passive voice when possible. For example, However this interpretation is not accepted by all scholars, since other sources do not say anything about the foreign origin of Basiliscus. "However, not all scholars accept this interpretation, since other sources do not say anything about the foreign origin of Basiliscus." is stronger. Note also the missing comma.
  • The number of ships and troops under the command of Basiliscus, as well as the expenses of the expedition, have been differently calculated by historians.--> "calculated differently" sounds better IMO.
  • Caption: Hagia Sophia (here showed after the reconstruction ordered by Justinian I)... should probably be "here shown".
  • Maybe it's just me, but the last sentence seems an odd way to end... Gzkn 05:32, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

  Thanks for your review. I tried to address your points:

  • I rewrote the sentence in a (hopefully) clearer way: "Zeno had just regained his throne, and he could only appoint Odoacer dux of Italy. So the Western Roman Empire ended."
  • I introduced your sentence "However, not all scholars accept this interpretation, since other sources do not say anything about the foreign origin of Basiliscus."
  • I reworded the sentence to avoid passive form. It now reads: "Ancient and modern historians provided different estimantions for the number of ships and troops under the command of Basiliscus, as well as for the expenses of the expedition."
  • Obviously it is "shown". Pardon.
  • I like that sentence, it sounds like an epitaph. However, I am keen to remove/reword it, if it is necessary.--BlaiseMuhaddib 13:00, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

• Support Kyriakos 07:12, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
• No motion, yet, but there are quite a few archaisms, possibly drawn from sources like Gibbon, and inversions. I am lending my shoulder to the stone, but I think the mock-Latinate structures are serious interference to readers and therefore cannot support without a thorough updating of syntax. As for sources, I do wonder about using Gibbon after all these years. I won't say that Gibbon is wrong, and this isn't an academic paper (where old references are rejected), but shipping Gibbon into one's article is like transporting nitroglycerine: one needs to be very careful and thoughtful about it. Geogre 10:28, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

  I used Gibbon because I like his prose. Wherever I found the primary sources for his words, I used them. I also used more recent secondary sources to support his claims, when it was possible. Consider also that Gibbon is necessary only in a limited part of the article, the anti-Vandal expedition, and that I found no ancient or modern source confuting his claims (otherwise I would have dropped him).--BlaiseMuhaddib 10:54, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

  I like Gibbon's writing, as well, although I prefer the more direct structures of Swift and clearer periods of Addison and see in Gibbon one instance of the overly florid style that would culminate in the calumny of Macaulay, but the point is that Gibbon's style is off-putting when mixed with contemporary prose and is faulty in a short, informational article, because its archaisms (and they were archaisms in 1780) are spice that, in his works, flavor the buffet but, in our short articles, merely jar. His validity is still secure as it has ever been, but he has been corrected enough in enough areas that he should be understood as a man who is synthesizing ancient secondaries. He is limited by his own sources and his assumptions, and therefore it's at least worth letting the reader know that you're using a fellow whose work may carry its own limitations. Geogre 14:25, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

  Would you be so kind to tell me exactly which archaism are present? I would gladly accept collaboration on this matter.--BlaiseMuhaddib 16:23, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

  Indeed, I would never dream of objecting on those grounds, and, as I said, I am trying to help. My initial comment was more a hope for spurring you on and an explanation of the use of Gibbon. I was saying, essentially, "I endorse, except that we probably need to finish combing archaisms and strained structures," and I definitely include myself in the "we." Geogre 19:14, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

  Don't worry, I understood your reasons. My problem is that I am not a native English speaker, so I do not recognize the archaisms you were talking about.--BlaiseMuhaddib 20:35, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

• Support Very informative, well organized, nicely referenced, deserving of featured status. Hello32020 02:41, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comments. The references should be updated: Western historiography has evolved a lot since the 18th century. The image of Hagia Sophia is both irrelevant and annoying. It could be appended to any article about a Byzantine emperor. One thing which I don't appreciate about Wikipedia is that an article about a minor figure (such as Basiliscus) may take twice as much space as an article about an emperor who reigned for decades (such as Zeno). As a result, historical perspective tends to be distorted: unexperienced readers would assume that Basiliscus is more important than Zeno. This is a general comment, not a problem of the nominator, of course. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 08:52, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

  • As regards references: Secondary sources used are dated 1923, 1998, 1998, 1788, 1986, 2003, 1980, 1917, 2001, 1870, and (in notes) 2002, 1998. Gibbon is presented as a source per se, Smith is a good summary of ancient sources. I think they should be removed only if their statements have been rejected by modern historiography, a thing I am not aware of.
  • Hagia Sophia image is relevant, as Basiliscus hid in this church to avoid popular lynching. I do not know any other Byzantine Emperor so related to this church, apart Justinian, of course.
  • You are right about Zeno's article. The only thing I can say is that having this article clearly marked as FA would help readers to understand its quality is higer than Zeno's ;-) --BlaiseMuhaddib 10:54, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

  I removed Gibbon from the references, substituting him with primary and more modern secondary sources. Let me know.--BlaiseMuhaddib 16:23, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

• Notes & queries: I am endeavoring to update language where I feel it is incommunicative, but I welcome the principle author's review; I try to use edit summaries that enumerate changes. Questions: 1) Rule: Those subsections create some very, very minor subheads. I would prefer that this be one section. 2) Rule: Corruption & Fire: "ith the help of the Prefect, and Verina's longtime favourite, Epinicus": Is Epinicus the prefect and the favorite, or did the emperor perform the extortion with the help of two persons? 3 Ibid: Is "extort" really accurate? If so, can you not give us some means by which he could exert such force? What was the threat he held? A single clause could do the trick, and it might help contextualize the religious controversies, later. 3) Rule: "raise to the purple." I made this change once, as I regard it as an archaic circumlocution, but it is used a second time in the "Contrast with collaborators" section, where what seems to be implied is that Verina was going to bring her lover to replace Basiliscus, but "purple" is also a term used for the senatorial rank in different eras; because the phrase is euphemistic, we can't be sure what she was planning, here. 3) Rule: Contrast: There are two "unavoidable" statements made, with citations. I understand the literature saying that it was virtually unavoidable that there be these conflicts, but to actually be preclusive is strong enough to challenge readers. Mediate a bit with something like "It may have been unavoidable that these crises occur, as Patricius...." 4) Rule: Controversies: Probably wise to link simply to Monophysite controversy and let that article do the heavy lifting and concentrate instead on how the political implications played out at Byzantium. That's pretty much it. Geogre 20:01, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

  Some answers:

  1. I feel the division of "Rule" section is more functional, as it helps to point down the main issues.
  2. Epinicus was both Prefect and favourite
  3. "extort" is the exact word used by Friell, but I did not find any other reference
  4. "purple" is here always used in the sense of imperial dignity
  5. I reworded the bit about unavoidability
  6. The explanation of the Monophysite controversy was required in a previous peer review.

  A question: I did not understand the edit about Peter Fullo, what was the problem you solved?

  Thanks, BlaiseMuhaddib 15:20, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

  Feel free to change the Fullo business back. My thinking was that we had a rush of names involved in the Monophysite controversy. Some of these people were very important and importantly controversial and active, some less so (from the point of view of our articles). Aesthetically, I always feel that a list of "Tom Jones, Sam Cooke, and Abraham Lincoln" loses the significance of the figures somewhat by having a solidly blue line. To break up the blue line, and to have people see a link when they'd be most curious, I put the link to Fullo away from the others. Again, it's purely an accidental and nothing more. Geogre 16:44, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

• Support on one condition: If we can heal that "with the help of the Prefect..." sentence to clarify whether we're talking about one or two people, I support. It's an interesting article on a very peculiar footnote of Byzantine history. All qualms aside, the article does its job. Geogre 21:21, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
• Weak support. Somewhat too short, but good writing and sourcing, as well as the subject generally justify considering it a good work meeting the criteria. CP/M ^comm |Wikipedia Neutrality Project| 12:21, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

  I changed it to "with the help of the Prefect Epinicus, Verina's longtime favourite". I hope this addresses your concern.

• Support, excellent article. - Mailer Diablo 19:43, 10 November 2006 (UTC)