Talk:Isbul

Isbul has been listed as one of the History good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
January 25, 2011	Good article nominee	Listed

A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on November 28, 2010.

The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that 9th-century Bulgarian first minister Isbul was so rich that he constructed and donated buildings to the monarch Malamir himself?

Biography: Military

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	This article is supported by the military biography work group (assessed as Mid-importance).

Bulgaria High‑importance

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Middle Ages Low‑importance

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Military history: Biography / European

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GA Review[edit]

This review is transcluded from Talk:Isbul/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Lord Roem (talk) 23:52, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Lead

I'm not entirely sure 'fl.' is the best usage here. Maybe try something that more lay people would understand or just omitting any identifer at all.
Please include something from the 'Legacy' section in the lead, about how people have assessed him as important to Bulgarian history.
Maybe include a second paragraph giving more about his role and what he did.

Biography

Period at the end of the caption on the image.
Put the cite before the comma after "Kavhan family"
Who is Krum? A higher official, I'm guessing? If so, place his title there to give more context.
"one has to assume" - change to more neutral way to say it
Cite at the end of the first sentence, 2nd paragraph about the epigraph.
Where was it found? Put that in.
"too immature to rule by himself" - cite it please
Wikilink Byzantine and explain what was causing Bulgaria's instability, its a bit unclear
Wikiling Thracian if possible and remove "and ravaged"
First sentence in the campaign section has too many 'ands', consolidate
"Pavlov is of the opinion" - who's Pavlov?
In the next paragraph, there are a few cites that are after commas - put them before commas.
"who too must have been underage" - must have been?

Assessment + legacy

If Pavlov is a historian, he needs to be introduced here or earlier.
If the two quotes are from the same page, the cite (numbered 15) is fine. But if they are not, then please put an individual cite for each quote.
More here about why he was significant. Any more on his legacy in Bulgarian culture or tradition?

References/Sources

Not sure on this, but do you really have to indicate that the sources are "in Bulgarian" :P

Best regards, Lord Roem (talk) 01:51, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review! I have introduced most of the changes you outlined above to the article. Here are my comments on the few I did not add:

"fl." has a rather specific meaning: that the person's birth and death date are unknown and that only the active part of his life is recorded. Do you suggest that I remove "fl." and leave only "820s–830s"? I don't think the way it is used at the moment is confusing, and if anyone wonders what it means, it is readily linked.
Per Wikipedia:Footnotes#Ref tags and punctuation, footnotes are supposed to go after commas.
I was unable to find out where the Malamir Chronicle stone inscription was discovered: even Beshevliev in his rather in-depth study of Bulgar inscriptions (Bulgar Epigraphic Records, cited in this article) leaves this out. That said, it would certainly be an important part of an article on that inscription, but for the article on Isbul I do not think the location of the inscription is of particular importance anyway.
Plamen Pavlov is a historian and this is already made clear the first time his name is mentioned in the article: in the middle of the first paragraph of the body ("Historian Plamen Pavlov theorises that Isbul...").
Despite his unquestionable positive role, Isbul is a rather obscure and uncelebrated figure in Bulgarian culture. It is pretty much only historians who rightfully assess his importance in that period. There is a village in northeastern Bulgaria called Izbul, though I was unable to verify whether it is named after the person from this article. I did add that he was a character in a Bulgarian opera, however. — Toдor Boжinov — 20:44, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, I forgot to comment on the addition of "in Bulgarian" to the sources. In my opinion it is necessary to indicate the language. That it is in Cyrillic and about a Bulgarian person does not mean that a source is not written in Russian or Serbian, two languages in which many able historians of the Balkans write :) You probably dislike the repetition of "in Bulgarian" in every source. ~~We can implement the solution which I used in Round Church, Preslav: In English and In Bulgarian subsections of the Sources section. I'll go ahead and organize the sources this way,~~ if you have something else in mind, do post! Best, — Toдor Boжinov — 20:51, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Meh, I just realized that I've also cited a source in German, which would make the above solution impractical. In that case, I'd rather keep the "in Bulgarian" parameters, but feel free to suggest something else :) — Toдor Boжinov — 20:53, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think the changes you've made are good. Let me look through the article once more for a further check. Lord Roem (talk) 04:51, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have promoted the article. Good job! Lord Roem (talk) 18:19, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! Best, — Toдor Boжinov — 18:46, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]