Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Troilus/1

Troilus[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • GAN review not found

Result: Delisted. Hog Farm _Talk 03:58, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This 2007 listing contains significant uncited material, violating GA criterion 2b). It is also over 10,300 words long (not including numerous quotes, lists, or references) and contains excessive detail, meaning the article does not meet GA criterion 3b). Significant work is needed. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:31, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The excessive length was already mentioned at peer review back in 2011 as an impediment to the article reaching featured status. Aside from entirely uncited material, I'm seeing some questionable use of ancient sources (e.g. the section on "the standard myth" is supported by a citation to Apollodorus; I would like to see a secondary source saying that Apollodorus' version is in fact the standard variant).

The length issue is not helped by some overly-wordy prose: e.g. does "the story of the circumstances around Troilus' death was a popular theme among pottery painters" say anything better than the more concise "the story of Troilus' death was a popular theme among pottery painters"? Or take "Of the esteemed Nine lyric poets of the archaic and classical periods, Stesichorus may have referred to Troilus' story in his Iliupersis and Ibycus may have written in detail about the character." What is wrong with something like "The archaic lyric poet Stesichorus may have referred to Troilus' story in his Iliupersis, and Ibycus may have written in detail about him"? Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 12:32, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is some extremely impressive research here: I'm not an expert on the specific material, but most of it seems eminently sensible, which is not always the case for such monstrously lengthy articles. However, I agree that the mass of uncited material is a pretty serious problem. There are also parts of it with quite a prominent authorial voice, reading more like an essay than an encyclopaedia. I'd be reluctant to start hacking at it: I think the best way to ultimately handle it would be to split it into sub-articles (say Troilus in Greco-Roman culture and Troilus in post-classical culture, perhaps even Troilus in 20th-century culture as well?), and it would be good to have the material on hand if/when someone does so. There's a bit of flab/fat (three paragraphs on three modern interpretations?!), but I'm not seeing too much that's obviously wrong or clearly has no place anywhere on the encyclopaedia. However, I think all that amounts to a delist for now; any GA-suitable version of this article would be a rewrite. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 17:33, 14 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.