Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Campaign history of the Roman military

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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 review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 22:53, 10 February 2007.

Campaign history of the Roman military‎[edit]

Reason for nomination: I split the old military history of ancient Rome article into 4 sections - campaign history (covering military campaigns), structural history (covering reforms of the army), political history (covering political changes in its command and use), and technological history (covering weapons development and use over is 1300 years of existence). My aim is to work through these one by one bringing them to featured article status. The first one I have worked on is the Campaign history of the Roman military. It has recently undergone a peer review and I have made several changes, primarily to layout rather than content, based upon the feedback from this peer review. To my mind the article is FA-ready and so I am self-nominating it as such, but I am happy to incorporate any requested changes. I am happy to answer any and all questions. - PocklingtonDan 14:50, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Withdrawn FAC archived here; needed for ArticleHistory. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:31, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Commentary copied from earlier FAC
  • Comment. Looks really good at first sight! Because I didn't check the whole page thoroughly, I won't support or oppose, but merely comment.
  • Thanks, I will respond to each of your points in turn, as well as update you on what I have done to address them - PocklingtonDan 17:26, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Is it possible to emphasize in the introduction that the page deals only with the Western Roman Empire after the split? Not every reader will be informed about the split and even if they would: the Eastern part is also considered Roman, so it is confusing.
  • The term "Roman Empire" normally does include only the west after the split, the east normally being termed the "byzantine empire", but I will make this clearer in the introduction. updated in lead para now to make this clearer - PocklingtonDan 17:28, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

#It is at the hands of the Gallic Celts that Rome suffered a humiliating defeat that temporarily set back its advance and was to imprint itself upon the Roman consciousness. reads a bit narrative and unnecessary imo. (striked as it was a subjective and non-material comment)

  • Not sure I see a problem with that sentence, can you suggest an alternative?I was trying to build some narrative in to tie the sections together better and prevent the article appearing stubby - PocklingtonDan 17:26, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Message left on user talk page asking him to respond to this point - PocklingtonDan 15:16, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • No response after 24 hours, marking as not necessary to be actioned - PocklingtonDan 16:45, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  1. It is it possible to add more specific campaign info (the used strategies, the generals in command, the assumptions made, specifics of troops: infantry, cavalry, etc?) if they aren't (yet?) specific battles wiki-battlepages. E.g., How were the Celts driven off or bought off? Especially the "driven-off" seems to be an important part, as it includes campaigns/battles.
  • If I go into too much detail in every section the article will get far to lengthy - the idea is to cover every campaign briefly, and then the campaignboxes to the right provide links to more detailed articles on each campaign and battle. I'd really rather not have the article try and incorporate that kind of detail, with 1300 years of battles to cover there just isn't room for it at this level - PocklingtonDan 17:26, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Is it possible to add in a line (or two) when Rome created legions. They are first mentioned in the Pyrrhic War - a bit out of the blue.
  • I'd rather not cover that, since that is the job of the companion article "Structural history of...". Instead I will try and parse the article and replace legion -> army. Especially given how "legion" meant so many different times during different periods, I think its use at all here is probably confusing, and should remains in the companion "Strucutral history of..." article - done now - PocklingtonDan 17:26, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  1. The map of the Pyrrhic War can be improved. The geographic names are not in English (I think).
  • I will see if I can find a better image - replaced with English-;anguage image now - PocklingtonDan 17:26, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Can it be added in a few words that Pyrrhus campaigned against Carthage - raises questions now.
  • I will look into this now I've added the very briefest of mentions of this now: although technically its not a Roman military campaign I see how it fits into the historical narrative - PocklingtonDan 17:26, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Better remove the use of the term superpower as the meaning of that term does not correspond with the powers of that era. Use instead regional power or major power. Sijo Ripa 17:11, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have changed superpower->power, but for the record one of the source reference works on Rome's military is subtitled "Military History of the World's First Superpower", I believe the term does fit - PocklingtonDan 17:26, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. There are no authors names in the notes. Semperf 03:50, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment References come after punctuation, example it's currently like this [149][150. when it should be .[149][150] FInd a citation for the [citation needed] tag. Try remove weasel words like allege. Make the spelling of English words consistent with either American or British spelling, depending upon the subject of the article. Examples include: neighbour (B) (American: neighbor), defence (B) (American: defense), pretence (B) (American: pretense), organize (A) (British: organise), realize (A) (British: realise), ization (A) (British: isation), isation (B) (American: ization), counter-attack (B) (American: counterattack). Avoid using contractions like wasn't spell it was not. Also remove, merge or expand the very short one-two sentence paragraphs. I also think the article is too big, and the above objection will be ignored as it isn't valid. M3tal H3ad 10:57, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the comments:
  • References and punctuation - I corrected the incorrect footnote place with Gimmetrow's script - please see WP:FN and WP:CITE. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:14, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Citation - sorted
  • Weasel words - removed
  • Spelling - should now be standardised on British English but American spellings are so common in online materials my brain subconsciously accepts them now so its difficult for me to recognise them. Let me know if I've missed any
  • Contractions - think there was only instance, sorted
  • Article Size - I'm not sure what to do on the article size issue. I know it is large, but I'm not convinced its " too large" (too large for what?) since any contraction of the article would be at the cost of reduced comprehension of the events and an FA criterion is that the article must be "Comprehensive". I have already cut out as many names of non-esential figures etc as possible but its hard to see how to cut it down any further whilst still being able to give an accurate overview of 1300 years of warfare. This is a big topic and if the recent FA Alcibiades (a single individual) can have an (officially "too large") size of 89kb, it doesn't seem unreasonable to have a 112kb article on the military campaigns of an empire over 1300 years. The only official FA criterion regarding size is that "It is of appropriate length, staying focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail". I would arguse that the article size was appropriate for the massive scope of of te article, and that I have avoided unecessary details. I will have another go but I doubt I can reduce te article length substantially without simply losing information.
  • I do not intend to reduce article size, marking as no action necessary - PocklingtonDan 16:43, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments, please let me know if there's anything else you find that you think needs fixing PocklingtonDan 11:46, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Any reason why the Mercenary war campaignbox is missing from the Punic Wars section? CheekyMonkey 13:23, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Missing Campaignbox Only oversight on my part, added now - PocklingtonDan 13:42, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

*Comment. Bibliography is long quanitity, but not especially impressive on quality, being dominated by general books rather than specific studies. Semperf 13:41, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Bibliography Quality I'm not sure how you judge the "quality" of the reference works but if references to Gibbon, Liddell Hart and Livy aren't good enough for you, I wonder what would be? I have several books that go into great detail on individual battles, wars and events, but since the article aims only to give a brief overview of these, they are redundant and add nothing that the summary works do not, in my opinion - PocklingtonDan 13:47, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

*Comment. An article like this is really a long list of details with little analysis of the history (what changed and why?). It is a better Featured List candidate than a Featured Article Candidate. Semperf 13:41, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Lack of analysis History is "the branch of knowledge dealing with past events", there is no necessity for it to provide analysis of every event. You are correct that there is little analysis, rather the article lays out a chronology with links to individual articles on individual wars, battles etc that one might expect to contain commentary and analysis. As explained above, the "what changed and why" matters will be informed in the sister articles "Structural history of...", "Political history of", and "Technological history of". I think the article's coverage is implicit in its title, ie it covers only campaign history. It is outside the remit of the article to consider the impact of campaign, especially as the article is already being judged as over-long even before the inclusion of this information. There is also no requirement for analysis in Wikipedia:Featured article criteria - PocklingtonDan 14:17, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Bibliography has quantity, but not quality. Amyot-North is a translation of Plutarch from the 16th century and should not be used except as a link to Plutarch; Chaliand's The Art of War in World History is too general to be useful to a reader (references are for readers who want to do further research); Gibbon became a classic of English literature, but now is too old to be useful as a reference for history; Michael Grant is too general, as are Boris Johnson, Lane Fox, Matyszak; I don't know the Rogers, but any work that calls Rome the world's first superpower (Persia?!) can surely be improved upon; Rolfe is a translation of Sallust and therefore belongs in the primary source column; do Saggs, Trigger, and Wood really have much to offer? Also, lack of consistency in capitalization (either use capitals throughout or not) and naming of authors (Jones?), where sometimes it is full names, sometimes only initials, sometimes before surname, sometimes after. (Matyszak, by the way, is Philip; his friends call him 'Maty') Semperf 14:05, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Bibliography quality I'm not aware of anything in WP guidelines that makes pronouncements on the quality of given sources, and I have confidence in the sources that I have used. If you believe that I have cited a fact that is reputed by, in your opinion, more reputable sources, the correct action would be to change "X is so" in the text to "Although A says X, B C D E and F say Y". Your point is academic unless you can cite an example of a cited fact that a more reputable source disagrees with.
Message left on user talk page asking him to respond to this point - PocklingtonDan 16:23, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lack of consistency with capitals Please feel free to copyedit to correct this or point out any examples you want me to correct
  • As per this edit, requesting editor is now happy with this, marking as done
  • Consistency of Authors names in footnotes - this is now done - PocklingtonDan 14:40, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments I haven't really focused on this article, but I just noticed that it has a massive number of footnotes for the simple reason that named refs haven't been employed - the footnotes would be FAR more readable if named refs were used consistently throughout to eliminate all the repeats. Also, the article doesn't currently conform with WP:GTL - External links are listed in Sources. Which are they? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:56, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Footnotes - hadn't been keeping up with named references when adding new cites, done this now. Let me know if I missed any - PocklingtonDan 11:11, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:GTL - External links were all legacy from before I rewrote the article and were no longer relevant, removed now - PocklingtonDan 11:29, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Oops, another huge problem - 73 KB of prose is a non-starter. Please see WP:LENGTH and WP:SS for readable prose limitations and correct use of Summary style. The prose should be cut in half via use of daughter articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:58, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Article Size - I have already addressed this issue above. I have read the length guidlines wikilinked above and I think the article broadly complies with them. The hardest guidline given is that articles over 50kb "Probably should be divided (although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading time)". This is not a hard and fast rule (let's not forget that WP guidelines are just that - guidelines to which there are always exceptions, not laws) and I note that it has already been broken by several feature articles including the recent Alcibiades, which is well over this. I think its hard to argue that a single figure of ancient Greece is a topic that "has a topic that justifies the added reading time", but easy to argue this for 1300 years of military history. I do not believe that the article can be significantly reduced whilst still maintaing an authoratitive overview of 1300 years of ROme's military history. Some articles are by their nature bigger than others, even in traditional print encyclopedias. To addres the four concerns with size specifically:
  • technical issues, (e.g. browser limitations, upload speeds, cellular connections, etc.) - this seems a poor reason for reducing article size. The broswer limitations listed are noted in the guidelines as being largely legacy and redundant now and not an issue. Upload speeds, etc are increasing every day on both fixed and portable devices. It seems a shame to butcher an article to meet technical restrictions that are at best rare and may be irrelevant the same time next year due to technical progress anyway.
  • reader issues, (i.e. readability, organization, information saturation, attention spans, etc.) - I think very few people sit and read every word on many of the larger WP articles. The key point here is that article is presenting an overview, which then allows drill-down to more detailed articles on specific sections. I would not expect a casual reader to read throught he whole article in a single sitting, but an interested reader would do so.
  • editor issues, (e.g. talkpage tensions, arguments over trivial contributions) - this does not seem to be an issue with this article.
  • contribution issues, (i.e. articles stop growing significantly once they reach a certain size) - this does not seem to be an issue with this article - PocklingtonDan 11:25, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Oppose. The writing is competent, but not brilliant; the sourcing can be improved is mostly to tertiary, obsolete, and non-authoritative works; the decision (described in the nomination) to divide up Roman military history by theme (campaigns, structure, politics, and technology) and then have one article covering 1300 years of Roman history for each is deeply flawed and results in an article that fails guidelines such as WP:LENGTH and gives so little analysis that it begins to look like a compilation of facts rather than an encyclopedia article that aims to explain. The article seems not to have gone through the good article process (I frankly do not think it should pass even there), and the wikiproject that it is part of seems to rate it only a 'B'. Semperf 15:03, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am sorry to see that you are still firmly entrenched against this article despite me working hard to address your previous concerns as well as explaining to you (in some detail) the rationale for decisions taken with regard to the directin taken with and presentation of the article.
  • Writing quality - Am trying to arrange to have this article copyedited now- PocklingtonDan (talk) 13:33, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sourcing - I'm not sure that I understand your objection here. The article is comprehensively cited using over two dozen reference works. The article references primary, secondary and tertiary works, as is common. Primary works cannot be relied upon solely since they are often biased, and secondary sources that compile and correlate multiple primary sources seems like the most NPOV way of presenting facts. Are you saying that you think some of the facts presented are wrong? Or that they are correct, but you think the cites for the facts should come from elsewhere? If the former, please present examples of incorrect facts so that I can fix them. If the latter, your request is absurd. I'm particularly amused by the fact that you object to the fact that I'm not using solely primary sources, and at the same time call my secondary sources "obsolete". I think you'll find the primary sources, predating the secondary sources by, oooh, about 1500 years, are a good deal more "obsolete" still.
  • Further comment on sourcing. The difference between secondary and tertiary is important here (for a useful review of the principles, see WP:RS#Types_of_source_material). This article's bibliography is dominated by tertiary items, and the few sources that might be fairly described as "secondary" are not much used. Primary sources should be cited not by page number to a translation, but by book and chapter: e.g., not Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, p. 266, but Plutarch, Crassus, 54; etc., etc. Again, authors names have to be added to the references. Semperf 18:21, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thematic split decision - I'm sorry that you disagree with how I am choosing to tackle the subject, but I am unsure why you feel such an approach is flawed. It was suggested by other editors when the original "Military history of ancient Rome" article grew too large, and I think it is an excellent way of presenting the information.
  • Good article process - It is not mandatory for an article to go through a GA process before going for FA status. In fact, although you state you think GA would be more appropriate, the GA guidelines actually state "For articles longer than about 25 kB, rigorous reviewing of the Wikipedia peer review and featured article candidates guidelines is often more appropriate than the process here", so I believe you are incorrect.
  • B rating - Article was rated as B several months ago before the majority of the work was done upon it. Why is this relevant to its current status now? - PocklingtonDan 16:42, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I think the basic complaints against this article have been addressed. This is not a simple topic to cover so completely and the 300+ notes is simply a testament to the thoroughness that must have gone into the development of this article. I disagree with the complaints made about the article's length as I don't think one can be thorough (an FA requirement) and brief (another FA ~requirement) about something like the military campaign history of Ancient Rome. There are many other FAs out there that are quite long as well and setting a limit on the size for all FA candidates doesn't allow for any mobility on the topic being covered. This is a long article, but it's not overlong for the topic. If I'm writing an article on the military campaign history of Fiji, clearly it's going to be shorter. I do have one question to the main editor, though, regarding the title: is this the common naming convention in the military history project? It seems like you might want to say, for instance, "Military campaign history of Ancient Rome" or something of the sort. Thanks, JHMM13  19:30, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you for your comments. For what is worth, I actually agree myself that the title should probably be changed as suggested to "Military campaign history of Ancient Rome", since this is in keeping with MILHIST naming conventions. I'm useless at wikipedia technical stuff, is it possible for this rename to go ahead during this FAC or is it best to wait until after it is closed? - PocklingtonDan 19:42, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • If it's renamed, it should probably be to Military campaigns of ancient Rome, as the "history" is redundant in that case; but I'm not convinced this is actually a good idea. The title isn't wrong, per se, and it allows for a nice parallel naming scheme with the related articles.
  • (If you are going to move it, I'd suggest doing so before the FAC concludes, as there will be fewer archives that need to be moved that way.) Kirill Lokshin 20:16, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Your point about it fitting in with the naming scheme of the other articles is a good point that I hadn't considered. It's just a shame it doesn't seem to quite tie in with MILHIST naming conventions. I'm happy to move it or keep it as-is - PocklingtonDan 21:07, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm actually not aware of any naming convention for this particular type of article, for what it's worth. Kirill Lokshin 21:14, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I understand that there is a problem concerning the length. If this would be an obstacle, it is possible to let the article split at the Roman split in West and East. IMO, it isn't and shouldn't be obligatory, but it would shorten the article and give the opportunity to deepen certain aspects (if necessary). Sijo Ripa 12:46, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Splitting Article - If you look at the article on the Byzantine Empire, it is listed as 330 AD - 1453 AD (ie everything in the east after the split). If ancient Rome was not likewise considered to be everything up to the split and the west after the split (as is conventional) then the west after the split would be in a strange limbo of conceptual nothingness. I think it is best (and consistent with most texts) to consider the Roman empire to be that empire containing and being governed from Rome. ie after the split, the Byzantine Empire was founded in the east, and the Roman Empire lost half of its territory, despite that territory being populated by people previously citizens of the roman empire. I'm not sure any other treatment would be possible or consistent with other articles on wikipedia or with other sources/references. I would therefore be against splitting the article, which aims to give an overview of roman military campaigns from the city's foundation to its fall - PocklingtonDan 13:28, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - While I severely lack the knowledge necessary to judge this article for completeness or correctness, this is a very impressive article that Wikipedia and the editors of this article should be proud of. In any case, this article looks to be a real challenge to judge, so best of luck with this FAC. Cheers! Wickethewok 15:59, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I support this article because I think it meets all the FA criteria. It is wel citated and sourced and it gives and good descroption on a extremly hard topic. Kyriakos 20:24, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mild oppose. Technically, the size should reflect the comparative coverage degree of an article (Campaign history..., being currently 113KB long, is only 1KB away from the United States for example). I suggest some heavy summarizing (to reduce the size to 70KB or lower) and adding further information templates to some sections. The general appearance is a bit tedious, consider adding at least one painting. The last to-do IMHO is unlinking the publishing houses names. A really cool work anyway. --Brand спойт 01:50, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you for your comments:
  • Size - This seems to be a recurring complaint! I think it is a little bit of contemporary big-headedness to consider that the history of Rome's military campaigning shouldn't have a much greater article than that of the United States, the former covering a period of 1300 years, and the latter only just over 200. As before, I am heavily against shortening the article to the degree stated because it would impossible to maintain an authoratitive article on the topic in that length of space.
  • Further Informaiton templates - I have chosen not to use these, believeing that the campaignbox infoboxes to the right provide links to all the relevant pages.
  • Appearance and Paintings - I tend to not like to add paintings etc for the heck of it just to pretty up an article without adding informational content. It is a view I know is shared by a few other MILHIST editors. However, I realise it is not a widely-held view and a certain degree of beautification is necesssary. I have added 2 paintings now of a suitable martial nature!
  • Unlinking publishing houses - All deadlink publishing houses unlinked now - PocklingtonDan 16:40, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Terrific work, actually one of my dreams seems to become true very soon. My shaky preference is to narrow the first lead sentences (probably by merging) to achieve smoother transition to the subject. --Brand спойт 19:37, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I think the complete variation in map scale and style detracts something from the article. But, I don't think that's fully a reason to oppose--but if you could employ one of the better map makers to standardize these it would help the article tremendously. I do have some other, simpler issues which I think can be dealt with:
  • Most of your maps have no source data that can be used to verify that what they are portraying is correct. The UTexas maps are fine. Some like Image:Roemischeprovinzentrajan.png really need source data since the link is to a world map that shows nothing about Roman Empire. Some are in between like Image:Caesar campaigns gaul.gif which states it's from a reliable source but gives no means to verify that; It needs either a web link or a proper citation so we could actually find the book.
  • "Rome from which we have inherited so much[359][360][361] breeds the concept that" seems to me to be bad style. Footnote markers should cause minimal disruption. You can easily combine them into one footnote making it:
359 ^ The History of Rome, p. 1; Civilization Before Greece and Rome, p. 1; In Search of the First Civilizations, p. 176
instead of
359 ^ The History of Rome, p. 1
360 ^ Civilization Before Greece and Rome, p. 1
361 ^ In Search of the First Civilizations, p. 176
  • I am a little worried about the hide/show for foonotes since when you click on a reference before pressing show it will not take you to the list. If there was a way that we could make it automatically show if you click on a footnote marker that would solve the problem.
  • Image:España y Portugal.jpg doesn't seem to add anything to the article. A map showing maybe Roman settlements or, at least relating to Rome in some way I think is necessary to justify the image. Having a satellite picture and saying 'Rome took this over' isn't enough in my opinion.
  • That being said, this article is very impressive. gren グレン 08:29, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you for your comments:
  • Maps I agree with you actually, it would be wonderful to have a cohesive series of maps specifically drawn up for this article. I will look into this today and tomorrow.
  • I've made a request on the talk page for someone to help out with some maps - its definitely outside of my area of expertise so I need help with this - PocklingtonDan 15:04, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Footnotes Hidden - Fixed now - PocklingtonDan (talk) 13:32, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Combining Footnotes - Is this standard wikipedia policy? I don't want to do this only to have to undo it - I've not seen anybody combining several cites in one like that before. I am happy to do this if there is consensus for it, but its not something I've seenbefore either on wikipedia or in print. Is this standard??
  • Thanks - PocklingtonDan 09:54, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I wouldn't call it "combining" them. But, citing one statistic from three sources in one footnote is standard academic practice--whereas having three footnote links next to each other surely isn't. This won't make or break any nomination, though.
  • I think this would actually make the list of footnotes longer and is incompatible with the named references that I have already implemented at the request of other editors, so this is going to have to be a no I'm afraid - PocklingtonDan 21:00, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sourcing of Maps - Agree with you completely that all maps should be sourced, just as text. This might take some time to verify, but I will start looking into this. - PocklingtonDan 21:00, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • What I am most concerned about is that the maps aren't all reliably sourced. They provide information like texts and we need not only copyright sources for them but verifiability sources too. In some cases they are the same (such as the UTexas ones) but for the self-made ones they are not veriable until we have an understanding of how the user drew the borders. So, I did make the point that "it would be wonderful to have a cohesive series of maps" but what really needs to be done before this becomes a featured article is make sure the maps are verifiable like the text. (Image:Etruscan civilization map.png is a perfect example. It looks nice, no copyright problems, but we need some source to check to make sure that creator User:NormanEinstein got the locations right. I cannot presume that he knows the borders of an ancient empire unless it is cited "made from Scholarly Etruscan Book by Famous Author." This is just like leaving article content unsourced.)
  • So, my second point is the one that really matters. The others are just tweaks I think would be nice. I should note: I will support if this is done. Otherwise, I will have to oppose since FAs shouldn't have unsourced material. gren グレン 18:38, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support--Absar 13:01, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Splitting article - Thank you for your comments. However, I do not feel this is a good idea. One of my main criticisms with the coverage of Rome, and the Roman military in particular, on wikipedia is that when I arrived it seemed that wikipedia equated Roman Empire to Rome, and the Roman legion to the Roman army. I have been hard at work in numerous articles trying to dispel this idea and emphasise that the Roman state was active for hundreds of years prior to the Empire, and that the legions were only one part of Rome's military, and changed massively in form and scope. I would be afraid that "Military campaigns of the Roman Empire" would likewise be taken to mean the military campaigns of the entirety of rome's history. It would also entail the creation of yet another article at the current page to link to the two. It would also ignore the Roman Kingdom unless this was put into yet another article. And finally it would be difficult to classify certain periods of war near the end of the republic as falling definitievely into either republic or empire. As you might have guessed I'm still against shortening the article by splitting! - PocklingtonDan 14:07, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Feature it. It has a great story.--Pupster21 14:45, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I support this page. I have read the page myself and have followed all comments made by other wikipedians. I cannot come up with any reason to object to FA status. I also want to compliment PocklingtonDan and other contributors because they were able to write a comprehensive well-references article about such a difficult topic. Sijo Ripa 18:38, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object. There is exemplary work in this article, and I'm very glad to see the dropdowns eliminated from the text, but some things still to be addressed:
  • Why did the previous External links go away, rather then being listed in External links?
  • I just realised I explained this in my edit summary but not on this talk page - it was because all the external links were actually legacy links from before I (massively) rewrote the article and were now redundant and had no conenction to the article contents. I don't think I used any web sources in revising the article - PocklingtonDan 20:37, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why are Wikis listed as sources ? If those Wikilinks are only intended as links to information about the books, the relevant info still needs to be included in this article. If Wikis were used to source the article, that wouldn't be good.
  • I think you've got confused on this point, I didn't use a wiki as source as such. All I have done is to link to the relevant reference works on wikisource where available to allow easier verification, but I worked from the print versions whose information is given after the wikisource link. The same is true of the texts available on Project Gutenberg. I have seen this method used on FA articles such as Alcibiades and liked the easy verification of cites - PocklingtonDan 20:37, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • All websources used in the Bibliography need last access date
  • None of the works in the bibliography are normal external websites as such but Wikisource or Project Gutenberg. Is it conventional to add access dates even on these sources?
  • The footnote list is still longer than need be, and could be shortened via use of named refs - example,
  • ^ Tacitus, The Annals, Book 1, ch, 60
  • ^ Tacitus, The Annals, Book 1, ch, 60
  • Named Refs If you look at the wikicode I have already used named references widely. It appears that I might have missed a couple - they are after all difficult to keep track of. I will try and fix any missed ones now but please fix any others you see that I have missed - PocklingtonDan 20:37, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • It might also be possible to consolidate further some of the refs (to shorten the size and list) by judiciously (where appropriate) combining very close range page numbers into one ref - example:
  • ^ Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, p. 6
  • ^ a b Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, p. 7
    • Could become one link to pp. 6-7
  • Merging cites This should be possible, though very time-consuming. I will look into it. It would have the disavantage of making each cite "woolly" aswell - PocklingtonDan 21:29, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not convinced its worth making the cites more vague for the skae of reducing the number of discrete footnotes - the idea of the footnotes is to provide as exact as a cite as possible for easy verification of facts - PocklingtonDan 17:06, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The readable prose size is still 73KB, with one of the largest overall sizes I can recall seeing on an FAC. This article will be simply inaccessible to anyone who doesn't have a fast connection, and I can't support an article which is double the recommended readable size per WP:LENGTH. This is fine work, and I hope the author will find a way to turn it into two or three shorter featured articles. I would normally register a very strong oppose on an article this length, but believe the quality of the work must be acknowledged. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:03, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Article Size As I have already addressed at great length above, I believe the technical restrictions placed on larger articles are now outmoded and redundant, and I do not intend to decrease the size of the article since I do not beleve anyone has suggested a viable way of doing so to date. Thanks - PocklingtonDan 20:37, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • There's the History of Lithuania approach. Also, there are more dialup users than you might think (not that I'm one of them).--Rmky87 23:01, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • History of Lithuania approach - I'm not sure what the good aspects of the History of Lithuania that you refer to are - which aspect of that article do you think should be incorporated in this one? - PocklingtonDan 17:06, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I meant the way they farmed out a space of six years to another article (I didn't know until I read the article that this was only done with one period of time!).--Rmky87 16:55, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. The article needs a lot of polish. For example – inline citations appearing before the punctuation;
There are many textual, punctuational, phrasing errors, examples from the first part of the article include:
“Relinquishing his army, of course, leave Caesar defenceless before his enemies.”
“This time the Romans had devised methods to deal with the war elephants, including the use of javelins,[65] fire[67] and, once source claims, simply hitting the elephants heavily on the head”
“Rome sought out land allies in Greece to fight a proxy war against Macdenon”
“Before the First Punic War in 264 BC there was no Roman navy to speak of as all previous Roman war had been fought in Italy.”
“However, Rome discovered the agreement when Philips' emissaries. . .”
“Although the Roman historian Livy's work. . .”
"In 224, the Parthian Empire was crushed not by the Romans but by the rebellious Persian vassal king Ardashir revolted. . ."
. . .and many, many more examples throughout.
  • - If you find any more, just fixing them yourself is the easiest thing - PocklingtonDan 07:42, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Update: did major copyedit, no-one has pointed out any more, marking as done - PocklingtonDan 16:49, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The other problem is more subjective. The campaign boxes take up a lot of space and are wholly unecessary. Punic War campaign boxes belong in the Punic War article – the link has has been made in the text and that should be sufficient. Removing the clutter will improve the look of the article and reduce its size.
  • - This is definitely subjective, I disagree with their removal - PocklingtonDan 07:42, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Where did this come from?
“To paraphrase Rupert Brooke,[355] there must be many a corner of a foreign field throughout Europe, Asia and Africa that is, forever, Rome.”
Substituting 'Rome’ for ‘England’ from Brooke’s emotive poem about WW1 is not encyclopaedic. Raymond Palmer 23:27, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. This is an excellent article, despite the size; and, for a topic like this, ignoring the normal suggested length seems justifiable. Even at this point, the article is, in many ways, just a skim through the millenum of Roman campaigning; condensing it further would significantly impair its actual usefulness to readers, I think. Kirill Lokshin 18:10, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Further comments Fails 1a—I'm wondering how many reviewers have read this article? I just took a glance at the prose somewhere in the middle; the first sentence my eyes fell on is:
  • When a diplomatic dispute between Rome and the Greek colony of Tarentum erupted into open warfare in the naval Battle of Thurii, Tarentum appealed for aid to Pyrrhus, ruler of Epirus, for military aid.
  • Copyedit error Fixed. And I don't think you can fairly argue the entire article isn't well written because of one error in phrasing! - 81.174.157.135 21:46, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Editor reviews - It is somewhat out of my control to get others to proofread the article. I have scanned it several times myself and asked several others to do so, and I believe several people have. If you find a phrasing error in an article, the simplest thing to do surely is to fix it, rather than report it on the review page? - PocklingtonDan (talk) 21:50, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • If there is a ce error in the first random section, first sentence I happen to look at, either I was incredibly unlucky (in such a large article), or the entire article might benefit from a third party ce. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:10, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object—1a. Long, winding sentences and other problems, which make it a harder read than it should be. Here are random examples just from the lead. They indicate that the whole texts needs serious copy-editing. And it's too long for a summary article. Consider starting a few daughter articles to shift details out?
  • Article Size - please see discussion elsewhere on this page - PocklingtonDan (talk) 08:58, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Copyedit - requested copyedit from several dedicated copyeditors- PocklingtonDan (talk) 08:58, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • The first sentence is like Hannibal's elephant: "The history of Ancient Rome, originally a city-state of Italy, and later an empire covering much of Eurasia and North Africa, from the ninth century BC to the fifth century AD, was often closely entwined with its military history." You could use em dashes and remove the unnecessary commas (and the questionable reference to Italy), I suppose: "The history of Ancient Rome—originally a city-state and later an empire covering much of Eurasia and North Africa from the ninth century BC to the fifth century AD—was often closely entwined with its military history." Or you could split it into two: "Ancient Rome was originally a city-state, and later an empire covering much of Eurasia and North Africa, from the ninth century BC to the fifth century AD; its history was often closely entwined with its military campaigns." I'm unsure which solution is better.
    • "Despite the later Empire being based around ...". Ouch: ungrammatical and clumsy. Reword, avoiding "Despite the fact that ..." if you can. Perhaps "Despite the later Empire's base round the periphery of the mediterranean, naval battles were typically less significant to the military history of Rome ...". Again, it's up to you how to do it. "Less significant" than what?
    • "the land surrounding the Mediterranean Sea"—"the Mediterranean coastline"?
    • "From the outset, Rome's military typified this pattern and the majority of Rome's campaigns were characterised by one of two types: the first is the territorial expansionist campaign, normally beginning as a counter-offensive,[2] in which each victory brings subjugation of large areas of territory and allowed Rome to grow from a small town to the third largest empire in the ancient world, encompassing almost one quarter of the world's total population;[3] and the second is the civil war of which examples plagued Rome right from its foundation to its eventual demise." This is a very long sentence, despite the use of a semicolon to break it up. Remove "and" after the semicolon. Change present tenses to past, for consistency?
    • "Roman armies were not, despite their formidable reputation and host of victories,[4] invincible:"—Awkward word order; relocate "invincible" after "not".
    • Please consider not putting quotes in italic. Does the MoS say this? I think so.

It's clear that a lot of work has gone into this. That's why it's worth fixing up. Rintrah might agree to go through it ... Tony 23:38, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: The map of Carthage is not right. The Ebro-treaty mentioned in old sources is considered wrong by modern researchers, instead it is the Iberus-treaty now and they argue where this Iberus was(most think it was south of Sagunt). Another mistake is the Punic power in the Maghreb. The kings were formally sovereign according to Livy and Polybius and most modern authors agree that they had some degree of independence. I will start to draw a map of Carthage prior to the war, but it will take some time. However, I would appreciate if this wrong and outdated map gets removed. Wandalstouring 00:01, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Carthage Map - Wandals, if you were able to produce a revised map (maps are completely beyond my skill to create) that shows Carthage's territory more accurately, I would greatly appreciate it - it would be of benefit not just to this article but to several others. I will leave the old map in place for the moment since it does at least provide a general indication of territory even if not, as you say, absolutely correct. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 13:31, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments. Overall I would lean toward supporting over opposing; the article is very good.
    • The footnotes are broken by the collapsing references feature. This is a bigger problem than the size issue the collapsing section were designed to solve. I would suggest using a traditional reference section; with the small font size it will not be all that overwhelming.
    • The length seems appropriate for a survey article of this scope.
    • A copyedit is probably in order, per Tony and Sandy above. Christopher Parham (talk) 07:06, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Footnotes - I hink they're best hidden myself but since several people have now commented on this, I have changed this now - PocklingtonDan (talk) 08:39, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Length - Thank you, a few people seem to be agreeing now that the article merits the length it is - PocklingtonDan (talk) 08:39, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Copyedit - I have tried copyediting this myself but I'm not a professional writer, as with any article on wikipedia, it could doubtless benefit from the work of a professional copyeditor. I have requested this now - PocklingtonDan (talk) 08:39, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.
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