Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Battle of Ollantaytambo/archive2

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 not promoted by Karanacs 19:07, 28 October 2010 [1].

Battle of Ollantaytambo[edit]

Nominator(s): Victor12 (talk) 14:33, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because even though it is small (12kb prose size) it seems to me it reasonably covers most available information on its subject, has images that follow Wikipedia's guidelines, is properly written and throughly referenced. The article was nominated at WP:FAC about a year ago and failed, mainly due to its prose. Since then it has undergone some serious copyediting and, hopefully, it can meet 1a this time. Victor12 (talk) 14:33, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:48, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - no dab links or dead external links. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:55, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - The order of sections looks a bit odd at first glance. Other battle articles seem to prefer background -> start -> battle -> aftermath -> additional info. I understand "battle site" and "sources" provide valuable information, but would it be better to put them after "aftermath" to avoid splitting the actual battle itself? Just a suggestion, please feel free to disregard, if it was already discussed. GermanJoe (talk) 18:36, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The placement of a Sources section before the Battle section stems from common practice in academic history articles to discuss sources before the actual subject of a text. As for the Battle site section it seemed right to discuss the details of the controversy about the battle location right after a description of the battle because the arguments are derived from battle accounts. Anyway, it wouldn't be too complicated to change the order of sections if reviewers at FAC feel it's necessary. --Victor12 (talk) 19:19, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments 2c: Malden is a sufficiently unknown location to require a country / US State. Notes and references formatted beautifully. Terminal full-stops in citations? Dates at the end? Hooray! (I am a Chicago Manual of Style bigot). Fifelfoo (talk) 02:13, 14 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comments. I've just added the US State for Malden (it's in Massachusetts). --Victor12 (talk) 02:57, 14 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments 1c: - An open question, as I'm not a specialist on the Inca period. Does the article capture "a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature"? I ask because the article draws predominantly on John Hemming and D'Altroy's two books; both are solid and reliable pieces of work, of course, but I don't know if there are other important articles or academic books out there on this battle beyond the four used to support this article. Very happy to be told that these four are a good cross-section of what is no doubt a fairly specialist field. Hchc2009 (talk) 15:18, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, although there are plenty of books dealing with the Incas and the Spanish conquest there are very few references in English or in Spanish about this particular battle, which is something of an obscure event. In English, it is mentioned in Hemming's super detailed account of the Spanish Conquest and in Protzen's monograph on Ollantaytambo both of which are based on very thorough academic research. For some details not mentioned in these sources I've added Vega's work, which is in Spanish. Besides these three one would be very hard pressed to find any more academic sources on this battle. As for D'Altroy's it's only used to provide background info on the Incas and it seems to me it's enough for that task. Thanks for your comments --Victor12 (talk) 15:40, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds a good justification of why the article meets standard 1c. Hchc2009 (talk) 15:51, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So, support? ;) --Victor12 (talk) 16:54, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, support. :) Hchc2009 (talk) 09:14, 16 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments I think this article needs a map of the area, especially given the controversy over the battle site. I've been to the area, so I can sort of picture what's being discussed; I can imagine people who haven't been there being unclear on what's claimed. The background and battle description are good enough, but in this sort of situation, a picture is worth a thousand words. Magic♪piano 14:41, 21 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree on the need of a map, but it seems to me it would be hard to find a suitable one which complies with Wikipedia's guidelines. There are a couple of maps produced by the Hiram Bingham expedition to Machu Picchu which could be used: 1 and 2, which seem to be public domain but they'd probably need to be modified to be used in this article. I'll keep searching. --Victor12 (talk) 15:36, 21 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not at all surprised by the lack of an adequate period (or even near-period) map; a more schematic SVG map, based on more recent maps, might be in order. Magic♪piano 17:40, 21 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've been unable to find an adequate period map. It seems to me that the most feasible option left is to use a template such as {{Location map many}} and fill it with the locations mentioned in the article such as Cusco, Ollantaytambo and Vitcos. For this we would need an equirectangular projection map but the only one available at Wikipedia is File:Peru location map.svg. At that scale the sites that interest us would be to close to be shown appropriately, see User:Victor12/Sandbox. So we'd need a different equirectangular map, one of the Cuzco Region perhaps. The problem is, where can I get one of those? --Victor12 (talk) 13:07, 23 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You might ask at Wikipedia:Graphic Lab/Map workshop, or the author of File:Provinces of the Cusco region in Peru.svg. Magic♪piano 14:52, 23 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Image review: Images are verifiably in the public domain or appropriately licensed. Jappalang (talk) 08:25, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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