Talk:Iga–Kōka alliance/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Vami IV (talk · contribs) 08:54, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Preamble from Vami
Hello, and thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. My name is Vami, and I will be your reviewer. During this review I may make small edits such as spelling corrections, but I will only suggest substantive content changes in comments here. For responding to my comments, please use ✅,, , ❌, , or , followed by any comment you'd like to make. As my comments are addressed or rebutted, I will cross them out, and only my comments. If I have demonstrated incompetence or caused offense, please let me know. – ♠Vamí _IV†♠  08:54, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

I have had my eye on this trio for some time now. I've been listening recently to a Japanese history podcast that is currently covering Sengoku Jidai, so Iga-Koga is fresh in my mind! My non-expert mind. I look forward to this. – ♠Vamí _IV†♠  08:54, 26 January 2024 (UTC) I will be taking over this review in Vami's memory. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 18:33, 15 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Lead
 * The lead could stand to be expanded somewhat. Two sentences is rarely sufficient to summarize an entire article.
 * The lead as it currently stands also contains background information that isn't actually in the article. It shouldn't - a lead is a summary, everything mentioned in it should be mentioned in the body.


 * Governance
 * I generally suggest explaining non-English and/or less common terms such as jizamuri and daimyo, whether that's briefly in the text or in a footnote, so the reader doesn't have to click out and break up the reading. You've done this with bugyō so I don't see why the others couldn't be
 * What were the daimyo doing, particularly, to threaten the ikki? What social order had they created that was being threatened? Was it particularly unusual compared to Japanese society in general?
 * The first we hear of any feuding between the two clans is when we learn that it ended. Narratively, this is confusing.
 * I might recommend a brief Background section to set the stage, so to speak - the fact that these guys ended up in an alliance is way more significant if you know they hated each others' guts for decades first
 * Do we know why Koka got to have more reps?


 * History
 * "The first documented joint operations between Iga and Kōka 1487, ninja from Iga and Kōka gained significant fame due to their actions at Magari."
 * This sentence seems to be missing some words.
 * Magari is an unhelpful Easter egg link - "Magari" is not mentioned in the linked article, Rittō, Shiga, so even clicking through provides no context to what or where Magari is.
 * Having read the rest of the paragraph, I don't see where you actually ever describe what actions the ninja took at Magari that made them so famous
 * What's a shugo? Is it different from a shogun?
 * If Takayori was Koka's boss (I assume shugo means some kind of dude in charge), why did he have to bribe Koka with land ownership for them to fight for him? If Takayori's Koka were different than the ninja Koka, that needs to be clarified. What land was he recognizing that the ninjas owned?
 * "the aggressive landgrabs" what aggressive landgrabs? Where? This is the kind of thing you need to provide context for, usually in a Background section
 * I'm going to gently point out that I'm basically one and a half paragraphs in and I've pointed out readability and context issues with almost the entire thing so far. A reasonably intelligent amateur reader such as myself should be able to read a Good Article and understand the majority of it without having major questions or having to read several other articles, but so far at every step I've had to stop and ask wonder about something.
 * "The illness which prematurely killed Yoshihisa..." - what illness? This is the third time where you introduce a point of fact in a way that assumes the reader already knows about it. You can't assume the reader knows this stuff. I would suggest phrasing it in a more logical order for the reader: "During this conflict, Yoshihisa died of an unknown illness, which may have been caused or exacerbated by wounds suffered during nighttime attacks by Iga and Kōka units."
 * Actually, come to think of it, even that phrasing presupposes that the reader is aware that Yoshihisa was injured by ninja during nighttime attacks, neither of which is discussed in the narrative so far. We need to back up and explain what the ninja were up to before we start explaining what the outcome was.

I'm going to stop here for now. I've already pointed out quite a bit of work for the first two paragraphs, and it's unlikely that I won't find more going forward. There's enough of a context/flow issue that the article will require quite a bit of revision to meet the GACR, and I'd rather not overwhelm you with notes right off the bat. If you're up for the work, I'm happy to carry on the review, but if not, I think this is likely to be a fail in the state it's in. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 01:18, 26 February 2024 (UTC)


 * I see you have been inactive for 20+ days. Hopefully you see this ping. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 13:31, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks, sorry, I hadn't checked for a bit. I'll try and get to work on these. 3family6 (Talk to me &#124; See what I have done ) 16:57, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I think a lot of these issues are from me being too familiar with the context as outlined in the respective ikki articles that I didn't include here. I'll try and get that addressed.--3family6 (Talk to me &#124; See what I have done ) 17:15, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that often happens with subject-matter experts, I'm certainly no stranger to it. You don't need to be extremely detailed in terms of background context, just enough that people don't have to interrupt their reading to go look up some other stuff before they can understand. Take your time, if you're working I'm happy to let this ride. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 04:00, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * , I've added a background section, some other context, and cleaned some text up. How does it look now?--3family6 (Talk to me &#124; See what I have done ) 23:20, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Take 2
Sorry for the delay in responding. Starting the review from the top again.
 * Lead
 * "with approximate date" shouldn't that be "with an approximate date"? Or if you prefer to reword around, "dated to approximately X"?
 * "Nobunaga would destroy the Iga ikki in 1581." not sure it's strictly relevant to the Ika/Koka alliance. (But if we must retain, "would destroy" should just be "destroyed")
 * Please make sure that all terms linked in the lead (notably Iga ikki and Kōka ikki) are also linked in the body


 * Background
 * Recognizing that I've done this to myself by asking for a Background section in the first place, I think you're doing too much with it. It's big enough that it almost outweighs the rest of what's in the article by word count (~2000 words total, 660 in Background - nearly 30%). You want to stick with broad strokes, the stuff that sets up the topic of this article.
 * The first few sentences of the Background section, about the broader history of Japan over the past several centuries leading up to this period, aren't really necessary.
 * Neither are specific examples ("For example, late into the Kamakura period, bandits attacked the Tōdaiji monastery on the Kuroda estate.")
 * These paragraphs could probably benefit from being split up differently - separate paragraphs about Iga's social organization versus Koka's might be more clear. Right now it feels a bit scattered
 * Much of paragraph 2 could be condensed also - singling out the opinion specific historians is probably not necessary, and some of the specifics of the Yamanaka, Ban, and Minobe families could maybe be trimmed.
 * Moving on for now but may return here


 * Governance
 * Points from earlier generally resolved except - Do we know why Koka got to have more reps?
 * Is that really all the detail available about the governance of the alliance through its entire history?


 * History
 * Since you already have one dinky subsection at the end, I would go whole hog and divide this up a bit more, if possible
 * We still don't know what Magari is - a castle? A field? A small village?
 * "at least 37 areas" what would an area be, in this context?


 * Bansenshūkai story
 * "Tateoka Doshun" new guy who dis
 * "this account of the Rokkaku campaign against Dodo is full of errors" according to who? This is sourced only to one historian, so if it's not common consensus, we should be careful when repeating it in wikivoice
 * Why does Dodo only get mentioned by full name at the end of the paragraph?
 * I'm not sure the detail about what actually happened to Dodo is strictly relevant to the Iga Koka alliance.
 * If this whole thing is apocryphal, I might revise this paragraph to state that offhand, otherwise we're kind of giving them net zero information, you know? "Here's some history, just kidding that was fake." Better to establish it as apocryphal off the bat. It would be great if there were any scholarly comments as to why ninja might have been added in this book, and perhaps if there were any additional accounts of ninjas being added in for flavor. (Then you could get a whole paragraph out of "Ninjas from the Iga-Koka alliance were so well-known that they were sometimes added into history books by later authors, such as in X story and Y story")


 * Everything past that
 * Why do you use "Rokkaku Yoshikata" in one paragraph and "Rokkaku Jōtei" in the next? It makes them appear to be different people, especially since you've linked them both times
 * "780 samurai from the Iga and Kōka ikkis" I thought these guys were ninja clans, they had samurai too?
 * "Stephen Turnbull" who? Please introduce people with context, even if it's just "the historian so and so"
 * "Shinchō Kōki makes no reference to that alliance for the next three years." who?
 * "who is presumed to have been a mercenary" presumed by who?
 * You could probably trim some of that sentence also
 * "mercenary ninja" suffices on its own (having assassin in there feels like over-egging the pudding)
 * "ambushed Nobunaga, fired at him, but failed to successfully assassinate him" this is a lot of words to say he didn't kill a guy. Suggestions:
 * "failed to assassinate Nobunaga in an ambush"
 * "ambushed Nobunaga but failed to assassinate him"
 * "fired at Nobunaga but failed to kill him"
 * John Man who dis
 * Lead says Nobunaga "destroyed" Iga, but the body only says he invaded. The lead and body should be consistent.
 * I would also suggest adding some images if at all possible - maps of locations would be great, or historical images of important figures

I appreciate your hard work, especially in creating the background section. In my opinion there's still a lot of fixing that needs doing. I recognize the irony of saying "please add this thing" and then complaining that it isn't to my liking, so I apologize for that. I have yet to complete a proper spot check; I'm going to wait on that until the article is in more of a final stage. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 21:28, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I figured that this would happen, lol, but also figured that over-doing it and then trimming would be easier than trying to add a lot in bit by bit in a back-and-forth. Regarding these questions:

"Points from earlier generally resolved except - Do we know why Koka got to have more reps?" and "Is that really all the detail available about the governance of the alliance through its entire history?" As far as I know, as someone who isn't a Japanese historian and who can't read the language, no, we don't know why they got more reps. That document is the only primary source from either of those ikkis that exists at all. There might've been more at one point, but in at least the case of Iga, the 1581 invasion and destruction burned any records in the administrative capital. This also is the answer to the second question: As far as I can tell, yes, that's all the detail we have about the governance of the alliance. I'll work on getting those other issues addressed.--3family6 (Talk to me &#124; See what I have done ) 23:27, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I tried to address all the issues.--<b style="color:navy">3family6</b> (<u style="color:black">Talk to me &#124; <small style="color:purple">See what I have done ) 01:13, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * , what do you think now?--<b style="color:navy">3family6</b> (<u style="color:black">Talk to me &#124; <small style="color:purple">See what I have done ) 21:56, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I still think the background section is overlong (~500 words of ~2000 in the article, not counting the lead); some of the detail I pointed out has not been trimmed. The images are nice, although as a nitpick you've got a bit of undesirable sandwiching (fwiw I'm on old Vector not new Vector). History section still only has the one dinky subsection. The notes section is also empty (I've left it alone as I'm not sure if this is an error). That being said, none of that is sufficient to fail the GACR, and the remainder of my criticism has been addressed, so on balance this is a pass. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 23:56, 5 April 2024 (UTC)