Talk:Patronage in ancient Rome

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment[edit]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 6 January 2020 and 12 April 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jarbobinkly. Peer reviewers: Heinev1.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 02:10, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sections[edit]

The sources I have consulted, which include this article before I edited it, seemed to be showing three sorts of patron relationships. If not Cynwolfe, what do you see? One of the processes of building up an article is developing a lead and section labels. Please continue this process in a constructive fashion. Bob Burkhardt (talk) 20:57, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The use of numerals in the intro doesn't conform to MOS and implies some system of formal categorization. (I'm not sure what you mean by "seemed".) It's good to develop the structure, but moving all info out of the intro strips it of the basic overview of the topic as required by WP:LEDE. The article does need constructive development from good modern sources, three of which are listed the "Further reading" section. There are many more, so I don't see any need to resort to generalist encyclopedias from the mid-19th century. Cynwolfe (talk) 22:20, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What I should also note is that there used to be separate articles on patronus, clientela, cliens and maybe even a fourth article on the same topic under a different name. This made no sense, as these are all terms for parts of the same social relationship that needs an integrated explanation. When I turned these to redirects feeding into the unified article, I tried to preserve information that was cited in the original articles (unfortunately, very little of it) or that was so fundamental that it needed to be preserved even though I didn't have time then to provide citations. So I'm very supportive of developing a better article. Cynwolfe (talk) 22:26, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

By "seemed" I meant to indicate I was not completely sure of my edit, but that is the direction I saw that it was most reasonable to take it. I originally just had a list of three items, but it didn't seem clear so I added the numbers. The latest edits seem much more constructive in nature thank you. I see benefit from developing from a variety of sources, old and new, conservative and liberal, accessible and inaccessible, and I think any article is hobbled by arbitrary exclusion of worthwhile information from these. A 19th century source can have information that has been forgotten for one reason or another and deserves reemphasizing. I definitely prefer more accessible sources to less accessible ones. Bob Burkhardt (talk) 14:28, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure that all the sources used for the article can be found online; those listed for further reading, which should really be used, are regrettably not. What you say about information in 19th-century sources is quite true (though they aren't infallible), but modern scholars in classical studies work within a tradition and incorporate their predecessors. And the great 19th-century classicists weren't free of assumptions about class and the organization of society that may differ from those of WP readers in the early 21st century. In general Wikipedia has moved beyond simply copying material from public domain sources such as the 1911 Britannica and SMIGRA. I'm not aware of any GAs that rely primarily on those or other 19th-century sources. I don't see what "conservative and liberal" have to do with this article, and would resist imposing these modern ideological constructs on articles about ancient Rome. Cynwolfe (talk) 18:14, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't put conservative or liberal in the article either, but I imagine modern sources may, some of them, be classified that way in their assumptions, and if so it is best to sample from both points of view for sources. Just a speculation on my part, with little knowledge of the modern literature on the topic, but some experience with academia. Bob Burkhardt (talk) 02:30, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

dubious tag[edit]

It is simply untrue that a client had the same gens name as his patron. Cynwolfe (talk) 18:18, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like AmCyc went over the top there. I modified it with material from 1911 Britannica, as well as adding some more obligations listed there and in 1920 Americana. See what you think. Bob Burkhardt (talk) 20:20, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]