Talk:Sikidy/GA1

GA Review

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Nominator: Zanahary (talk · contribs) 00:37, 12 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: SnowFire (talk · contribs) 00:51, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! Nice work on this topic. Happy to take a look and review it.

That said, before we get too deep in, there is one issue that I think merits putting the review on hold until resolved. GA criterion 2 requires that the content be verifiable. However, there are currently no less than 16 citations to all of Ellis's History of Madagascar, a 517 page book if these are just to Volume 1, and another 537 pages in Volume 2 (although I presume V2 is not relevant? But then the citation should say just "Volume 1", which it currently doesn't). This is fine for most articles, but at the GA level, there's an expectation of more specific citations - it's a lot to ask of a reviewer checking the citations to read / search through 500+ pages. Additionally, Ellis's book was written in 1839, meaning it is quite dated. Is it still considered a good source by modern historians of Madagascar? (It can happen! There's another topic I've written on where one guy's 1890s histories (Emil Schürer) are still cited and discussed by books written in 2010 & afterward... if sometimes to disagree with him, sure.) For example, does Mervyn Brown's 1995 "A History of Madagascar" cover the relevant topics?

If Ellis is still considered good, then I would recommend adding in some more specific page ranges, so that a person verifying the citations has an easier time. There are a number of ways to do this. First, you'd probably move the Ellis citation to a separate section called "Bibliography" or "Sources" or "Works cited". Then you'd use some templates to make "short" citations to Ellis. Template:Sfn is one popular one - you'd make something like {{sfn|Ellis|1839|p=100}} in the source editor. If you prefer to use Visual Editor or just like more flexibility, you can also use Template:Harvnb - the result is something like <ref name="ellis100">{{harvnb|Ellis|1839|p=100}}</ref>. You can also just straight-up do raw text citations, like <ref name="ellis100">Ellis 1839, p. 100</ref>. (I am also legally required to inform you Template:Rp exists, but I am firmly in the RP-haters brigade, so I can't personally recommend it... but it is technically an option.) If you find a more up-to-date source than Ellis, then similar page ranges might also be useful.

This one is also very optional, but given that Ascher 1997 has 27 citations, you could potentially divvy up Ascher's article into three sections and do something similar - i.e. move the full citation to a Bibliography section, and have page ranges for the start, middle, and end of the paper as a rough guide for where to look. But Ascher's article is much shorter, and I myself have used citations to a full journal article repeatedly, so like I said, just an optional thought.

Finally, this is also optional, but per MOS:NOTES, "if the sections are separated, then explanatory footnotes are listed first, short citations or other footnoted citations are next, and any full citations or general references are listed last." You've placed explanatory footnotes last. It's not a big deal, but if you want to be consistent with how most articles do it, it might be worth considering moving the "Notes" section to be between "See also" and "References". (It also might be worth considering repeating the relevant citations within the footnote itself, rather than leaving it for the end of the main sentence - but again optional, up to you.)

Looking forward to taking a closer look! No hurry, I realize that getting the more specific cites for Ellis, and/or partially replacing with a more modern source, might take a little bit of time. SnowFire (talk) 00:51, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @SnowFire! It’ll take me a while to get the pages/ranges, but as for the relevance of the source, Ellis is just reproducing Lars Dahle, whose account is very widely cited (I don’t believe I know of any sources on the rituals of sikidy that fail to cite Dahle). ꧁Zanahary꧂ 03:52, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Are you sure? I don't see Dahle's name coming up in a search of Ellis's book, and this website indicates Dahle was born in 1843 - but Ellis's book is from 1839. (Also, looking more closely, I suppose it does seem like most of the information is in Chapters 15 & 16 of Ellis's book, which helps narrow things down a bit more than "all 500+ pages." But still a pretty broad range.) SnowFire (talk) 06:23, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hah, I must be wrong! Thanks for checking. I’ll do a review of the source. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 18:53, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I hope your move went well! I had hoped to wait on updating the sources, but I suppose it's not that big a deal, and don't want to keep this in limbo forever. I read the Ascher source & the Ellis chapters for some background. The article is very interesting - nice work! I will give my usual disclaimer that most suggestions are just that, suggestions, and you should feel free to push back, ignore, or revise them.

and divinely interpreted after being mathematically operated on

"Divinely" is wikilinked to divination, but I don't think "divinely" as an adjective meaning divination is very common. Most people will assume "godly" or "heavenly" on a casual read. "interpreted after being mathematically operated on as a form of divination" perhaps?

often involving a sacrifice.[1]

Hmm. There's a lot in the first paragraph that isn't strictly in the Ascher article (frequency of it being a sacrifice, the names for the areas, it being an expression of fate, etc.). Per MOS:LEADCITE, you shouldn't need any citations in the lead section at all, if it's all in the body of the article itself. I'd suggest double-checking that everything here is in the article and then remove the citation. (I don't think the frequency of sacrifice being picked is in the article currently, for example.)

planning annual migrations

Is this from the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers, or sourced somewhere else? That source does say "timing of residential movements to the forest" but it's not clear it says it's annual.

"adapting indigenous months, volana, to the astrological months, vintana"

This is fine, but just for my own curiosity... I don't have access to the source, but so does this mean vintana can mean both "fate" and "astrological month"?

Most writers link the practice to the "sea-going trade involving the southwest coast of India, the Persian Gulf, and the east coast of Africa in the 9th or 10th century C.E."

Optional nitpick: Don't really see a need to do a quote here, especially since this is cited to "many writers". Maybe just change it to a non-quoted version?

the word derives from the Arabic sichr ('incantation' or 'charm').

This is totally optional and absolutely not a blocker for GA status, but FWIW, you might be interested in Template:Transliteration. Basically you can write that as {{transliteration|ar|sichr}} instead. (But it's not a big deal... just something for machine-pronunciation for screen readers and the like.)

with one practitioner quoted in 1892

Can I ask where 1892 is coming from? I don't see it in the source. (Not saying it isn't there, just I missed it if so.)

Recovery without adherence to divined prescription and faditra is believed "almost impossible".

Do any sources other than Ellis say this? This strikes me as possibly a bit of 19th-century writer over-statement, but if others agree, it's fine. (It seems clear that this couldn't possibly be true even to devout Sikidy practitioners simply because not every ailment gets a sikidy-derived prescription, yet presumably these minor illnesses and such do pass...)

Hopefully should be enough for now. SnowFire (talk) 08:03, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@SnowFire, thanks so much for your kind words and for these truly excellent notes. My move has unfortunately been extended as I wait in limbo for a should-be-previous tenant to move out. In the meantime, I’ve had little time and peace to work on wiki. I’ll make this review my first priority.

Just re: vintana, I’ve found that often Malagasy words describing concepts can be applied in more specific contexts to refer to objects on a conceptual gradient—that is, the word for “brightness” could be the name for a type of yam with a white root, among a series of yams of various colors. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 23:14, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]