Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Mosaics of Delos/archive1

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 Sarastro1 via FACBot (talk) 11:33, 20 January 2018 [1].

Mosaics of Delos[edit]

Nominator(s): Pericles of Athens^Talk 01:26, 30 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The mosaics of Delos might seem like an arcane, niche topic but in terms of surviving Greek mosaic artwork it is of prime importance. I created this article from scratch and have since brought it up to GA status. A peer review was also made, although I've decided only to implement a few suggestions from the reviewer there. Overall the article is well-written, stable, fully cited with a decent amount of reliable sources, and in my view the images are all meticulously well-placed, sufficiently relevant, and licensed appropriately. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! Regards, Pericles of Athens^Talk 01:26, 30 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

Some of the images appear to be duplicative - for example, the House of the Trident section could easily lose at least one image if not two without impacting reader understanding
File:Delos_cubic_floor_mosaic.jpg needs a tag for the original work. Same with File:Delos_Theaterviertel_21.jpg, File:Delos_Theaterviertel_18.jpg, File:Delos_Theaterviertel_14.jpg, File:Delos_Haus_des_Dionysos_05.jpg, File:Delos_Haus_der_Delfine_03.jpg, File:The_House_of_the_Dolphins_(II)_(5182955988).jpg, File:Ancient_Delos.jpg, File:House_of_the_Lake,_Delos_01.jpg, File:House_of_the_Trident_02.jpg, File:House_of_the_Trident_06.jpg, File:House_Trident_Delos_13M204.jpg. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:18, 30 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Since you and the peer reviewer both brought up the House of the Trident, I've decided to remove one image from that section that was admittedly rather repetitive. As for the other images needing "a tag for the original work", can you explain that, please? I have no idea what sort of tag this would be or what that would entail. Do you mean a second type of Public Domain license or something? Pericles of Athens^Talk 01:35, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Currently these images have a tag representing the copyright of the photographer; they also need a public domain tag indicating the status of the original work - the mosaic, sculptural work, etc that is shown in the photographs. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:54, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Nikkimaria: thanks for clarifying! I have standardized the licensing for all images as requested, with the appropriate PD tags indicating the status of the original works. Kind regards, Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:48, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ceoil

I'll certainly be supporting this excellent article, based in the 50% of it that I've so far. Comments to follow (its a little late here). Ceoil (talk) 02:31, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Ceoil: hello! Take your time to review the article, there is no rush. I'm glad that you have enjoyed reading it thus far. --Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:34, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have any gripes to add more than whats been resolved above and below. This is a very nice addition, and glad to Support. Ceoil (talk) 22:10, 7 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Ceoil: fantastic! Thanks for the support and once again I'm glad you liked the article so much. Kindest regards, Pericles of Athens^Talk 01:34, 8 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Edwininlondon[edit]

I like this a lot. Short and sweet, and nicely illustrated. Some comments:

and subsequently abrupt decline -> and the subsequent abrupt decline?
eight millimeters square -> I think "eight by eight millimeters" would help avoid the classic ambiguity that the square notation creates
not sure the chip-pavement link is particularly helpful
fifty-five -> 55; twenty-five -> 25
and appear in mosaics -> appears
Although the three major -> although twice in quick succession
weren't -> contractions are to be avoided
Like the House of the Lake, -> since this has not been introduced yet, this statement doesn't help the reader much. I'd leave it out.
ISBN numbers should all be in same format (seems ISBN 13 is becoming de facto standard at FAC). Include hyphens.

Questions:

is anything known about where the materials (mostly marble) came from? Locally sourced?
how did they get the different colors marble?
is it known why these mosaics have survived so well?

Edwininlondon (talk) 18:30, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Edwininlondon: hello! Thanks for reviewing the article. I'm glad you enjoyed reading it! To the best of my abilities I have tried to amend the article according to your suggestions. However, I have not changed "subsequently abrupt decline" to "subsequent abrupt decline", because I believe that "subsequently", an adverb, is a modifier for abrupt, an adjective. Adverbs are used to modify both verbs and adjectives. I'm almost certain that the sentence as it stands now is grammatically correct. Also, I'm not sure if it's a good idea to fiddle with the ISBN numbers. For instance, I checked on the very first source, Brecoulaki's 2016 book chapter "Greek Interior Decoration" in A Companion to Science, Technology, and Medicine in Ancient Greece and Rome, which does not include hyphens in its own ISBN number. I'm not sure if adding hyphens would screw things up or not. Perhaps you know more about this than I do, but I will refrain from touching this. You are more than welcome to edit it if you like. Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:30, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As for your questions, they are good ones, but I'm not sure if I can adequately answer all of them. I'm not sure about the quarries and places where the materials were gathered for making the mosaics; I don't think I've come across a single article or book that explains this or even mentions it. I can look around, but I can't promise to find information on quarry sites for these materials or the common methods for gathering them.

As for the second question, notice how the article says "white marble" and not any other kind. The rich varieties of color in the mosaics are therefore achieved through the use of pottery fragments, glass, pebbles, and other materials that comprise the tesserae. Although I do provide a link for it for anyone who's curious about this material, should I perhaps also define what tesserae is in the article? Notice how in the "House of the Dionysos" section I state that "The tesserae materials, made of glass, faience, terracotta and natural stones, are fashioned into pieces measuring roughly one millimeter square, allowing for sharp detail and an elaborate color scheme." I wonder: should the materials that are found in tesserae be mentioned further up, in the "composition" sub-section? I don't want to be too repetitive about it, though. --Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:30, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"is it known why these mosaics have survived so well?" This is a fantastic question, although I don't think I can answer it right away. I have a suspicion it has something to do with the island of Delos virtually being abandoned until modern times. As the article Delos explains, it didn't have enough local natural resources to sustain a sizable population of its own, relying on outside imports for food and other necessities. Once the island was bypassed as a major trade route and suffered damaging raids by the armies of Pontus, the Romans basically deserted the place. I don't think I've seen a book or article that has explicitly stated that this is why the mosaics have survived so well, but it seems to be the case. For instance, Roman artwork in various other locales have been well-preserved throughout the ages either because of geographic isolation, being buried in a tomb or mausoleum, or because institutions like the Catholic Church decided to preserve architecture (and the artwork tied to them) by converting buildings into churches. Antiquarianism during the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance perhaps played a role as well, but as far as I know this didn't apply to mosaics, only to more vaunted pieces of artwork such as busts and statues that could be easily transported from one private collection to another. --Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:30, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Great work. With the caveat that I have no knowledge in the field, I support. Edwininlondon (talk) 19:47, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Edwininlondon: excellent! Once again, thanks for reviewing the article and providing suggestions for areas needing improvement. Regards, Pericles of Athens^Talk 23:57, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sources review[edit]

General: page ranges require ndashes, not hyphens, per MoS
Ref 47: I don't really see the purpose of including this information. Is the translation in the source? If not, it's a bit of editorial OR and shouldn't be here.
Ref 57: I suggest you replace this with a short citation, since the link is given in the entry within the References list.
References list: Dunbabin, Joyce, Westgate 2000 and Westgate 2007 are all behind paywalls, so you should add (subscription required) to each entry.
The link in Hardiman presently goes to an irrelevant page.

Otherwise, sources are in good order and are of appropriate quality and reliability. Brianboulton (talk) 20:25, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Brianboulton: hello! Thanks for reviewing the sources. I have removed Ref 47 about the French translation per your suggestion. I've also shortened the citation for Ref 57 (now 56), added the "subscription" tag to the sources Dunbabin, Joyce, and Westgate 2000 and 2007, and provided a different URL for Hardiman (from archive.org instead of Google Books) that goes straight to the relevant page number for his book chapter. However, I'm not sure what to make of your suggestion regarding ndashes versus hyphens. From what I can tell, I have done nothing manually in this article in regards to page ranges. I have only used the Harvard citation template. I'm not even sure how to tinker with the Harvard citation template in order to force it to have ndashes instead of hyphens. If you have some sort of solution for this I'd be happy to implement it, but I'm not going to remove the Harvard citation template and format simply because it cannot currently accommodate ndashes. The Harvard citation format is the chosen one for this article and I don't think we should go about changing that to satisfy some other issue. Regards, Pericles of Athens^Talk 04:28, 2 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If you allow me to jump in: all Brianboulton meant, I believe, was to replace the "-" character in the "pages=" with the "–". I just made those changes. Edwininlondon (talk) 19:29, 8 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Edwininlondon: thank you very much for taking the initiative! Are there any more outstanding issues that need resolving at this point? --Pericles of Athens^Talk 00:56, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support by Cas Liber[edit]

Taking a look now...

Despite the invasions by Pontus, the island was only gradually abandoned after Rome secured a more direct trading link with the Orient, superseding Delos as a pivotal midway point for trade leading to the East ~~- what superceded Delos? Presumably it wasn't Rome or the Orient....~~

The mosaics of Delos are a significant corpus of ancient Greek mosaic art. - what extra meaning is gained by using "corpus" over (say) "body"?

On reading it, I don't get a sense from reading the lead as to why/how mosaics of Delos are especially significant in the context of Ancient Greek mosaics in general. Possibly doesn't help that we don't have a specific article on Ancient Greek mosaics in general - only mosaics and Ancient Greek art. The Significance section helps a little, but I wonder if there is anything more that can be added.

Overall, though, a nice read and seems comprehensive. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:25, 8 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Casliber: hello! Thanks for reviewing the article. Per your suggestions, I have reworded the bit about Delos being superseded as a conduit for trade to the East and replaced the word "corpus" with "body" in the introduction. As for the lead section not conveying the significance of the Delos mosaics in regards to the overall surviving body of Greek mosaic artwork, I worded things very tersely in order to avoid having a large, wordy lead for such a small article. In addition to the statement "Among Hellenistic Greek archaeological sites, Delos contains one of the highest concentrations of surviving mosaic artworks", what else do you think I should add here to emphasize this point? Perhaps the statement appearing later in the article that roughly half of all surviving tessellated Greek mosaics from the Hellenistic period come from Delos? That would probably hammer the point home, so to speak. --Pericles of Athens^Talk 01:06, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yep - all good now. A nice read. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:19, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Casliber: thank you for your support! Your suggestions also led to a significant improvement of the lead section. Regards, Pericles of Athens^Talk 03:09, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator comments: A few minor issues before promotion. The duplinks need to be checked as we seem to have quite a few and I can't really see that we need them all. This tool will highlight any duplication. Also, the references are not currently in ascending numerical order (e.g. "...and can be found at other sites such as Arsameia (albeit arranged in the opposite direction).[24][12]" instead of [12][24]); some editors prefer to place the references in order of relevance or importance, which is fine, but I'd like to check whether this was intentional or not. Finally, it might be worth looking to see if we can remove the "however"s (see WP:HOWEVER). Once these minor points are addressed, I think we can promote. Sarastro (talk) 23:04, 19 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Sarastro1: hello! Thanks for offering your suggestions. Per your advice, I have reordered inline citations so that they appear in numerical order. I have also removed all duplicate links that were contained within the body of the article only. I did not remove duplicate links in image captions or if they appeared once before in the lead section, in accordance with the standards outlined in Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Linking#Duplicate_and_repeat_links. As for your suggestion that we remove "however"s per WP:HOWEVER, I am quite honestly confused as to why you raised this issue. After reading the essay at WP:HOWEVER and skimming my article for such occurrences, I can't think of a single instance where my article is guilty of presenting itself in "thread mode" (i.e. having repetitive counterpoints due to partisan editing, necessitating separate sections or paragraphs for competing if not irreconcilable views). As far as I can tell the article simply contains the word "however" in four different locations. That's hardly a sin worth mentioning, especially since it is an acceptable conjunction for encyclopedias. Dare I cite various instances of the word "however" in Britannica as evidence for my case? Even Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Semicolon before "however" makes it clear that the word "however" can be used in a sentence so long as it is done with proper grammar, syntax, and punctuation. In either case, thank you for trying to speed up the nomination process for this article. I hope you find my recent edits to be sufficient enough. Regards, Pericles of Athens^Talk 05:06, 20 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. It's possible that someone will raise the "however" issue at another time, but it's not part of the FA criteria and I will be promoting shortly. Sarastro (talk) 11:32, 20 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Sarastro (talk) 11:33, 20 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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