Talk:Paradisus Judaeorum/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 11:53, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

I'll have a go at this well-written article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:53, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Comments

 * Lead image - why not make a cropped extract (using the Commons CropTool, I can do it if you like) so the words of interest are bigger? Half the image is of the blank facing page at the moment. It is also good to make the lead image somewhat larger than the rest, with "|upright=1.35" generally accepted.
 * Great idea, if you could help with that I'd appreciate it. I don't have that much experience with this tool. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 02:54, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Done.


 * POLIN image: please move it to the "Controversy over use at POLIN" section. As it is also very low, I suggest you use "|upright=1.5" to give it about the same area as typical images.
 * Done. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 02:54, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's much better.


 * I see the POLIN gallery appears to use a variant spelling starting with "I"; though "Controversy over use at POLIN" implies it uses a "J" - one of the two must be wrong, unless the gallery randomly uses both spellings. Should this not be highlighted in boldface in the lead?
 * Spelling variant added to lead, good point. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 02:54, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks.


 * For the section "Paradise for the Jews", why don't we use an image such as File:Reception of Jews in Poland by Jan Matejko 1889.png? It would seem to convey the intended message better than any text.
 * Done, through I am a bit worried about possible image clustering issues. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 02:54, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I've alternated the images to prevent that.


 * Why is the "Paradise for the Jews" section introducing the title phrase and alternative spellings, halfway down the article? Should be in the lead.
 * Fixed by adding it to the lead. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 02:54, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks.

Thx for calling it 'interesting'. Tables are certainly permitted to arrange information. Leaving formatting aside the section requires further explanation of the several points mentioned only very briefly. Right now many have no gloss at all. For example why should protestants have been confused with Jews? How did it plausibly apply to nobles, were they Jewish or did they dress the same way or what? I could go on. Please add a clear explanation for each and every item in the section. I would suggest that since there is quite a list that you arrange it as a table but text or bulleted list might be all right.
 * "Meaning": this section seems to need further elucidation, as multiple meanings are hinted at but not really explained. I wonder whether a table would not be helpful? There could be a column for "Meaning", such as "Critique of gentry", and a column for "Interpretation", giving historical context ("The gentry were seen as overprivileged in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of 1572–1795" or whatever).
 * Interesting idea, but I think the table is not usually used for this (MoS-wise). I do find this section clear, but then, it was me who has written it. I am not sure how to make it more 'clear', but I am not convinced the table is the best solution. Maybe we can ask for a third+ opinions here? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 02:54, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I am confused by our confusion. The text does not suggest that Jews were confused with protestants. It mentions that the author of the text was Catholic, hence given the times of course he disliked all others - Protestants, Orthodox, Jews, Muslims... I tried to clarify it with this edit because our readers may not always be familiar with the historical context. Please do tell me what else may be unclear and should be spelled out more clearly. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 04:23, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Many thanks for fixing that one.


 * Meaning: The "entire Polish society" thing clearly makes "Judaeorum" a bit of a misnomer - not only jews but many other groups. Has any critic said that in so many words? It would clearly be helpful if we could say so.


 * Meaning: "various variations (not a good phrase) of the poem or the proverb" - this will become much clearer when the Latin variations are translated. Meanwhile, it would be useful to put names to faces by giving an example or two of a variation that includes some additional group as a target.


 * Table "Early Latin verses": could we please have a column "English translation" to the right of "Latin text" (rather than "Text")? Not all Wikipedia readers are comfortable with Latin, even when it's mostly rather straightforward. It would be nice if the English was a line-by-line translation with the same punctuation and line-breaks as the Latin.
 * I have no objection, but the problem is that there is no copyright-free English translation, AFAIK, and nobody volunteered to do one so far. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 02:54, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Where there's a will there's a way. I suggest you look at a couple of translations and then pen your own. Actually since much of it is a list of terms there will be little choice of English words in many cases and all translations will be alike: and lists can freely be copied for this reason. In short since a translation is needed here it's time to put one in.
 * I don't mind translating from Polish, but I don't feel competent translating from Latin :( Please keep in mind that translating poetry is much tougher than translating prose, you need to understand the mechanisms of poetry do do so well. And sadly, the only wiki-poet I know has retired over a year ago.  --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  04:06, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Um, nobody's asking for English POETRY. What is wanted here is a basic prose version of each line so you readers have SOME idea what it's about. I assume you wish them to have that so let's get it done please.
 * Ok, I did my best, but as I don't understand Latin it is tough to handle the resulting gibberish, since the machine translation I used also seems to have major problems. But as you say, someone will fix it, right? At least I was able to get the table working for the new column. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 02:40, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Gosh, that's a real mess; I've fixed some of the most obvious howlers. As I said, the right thing to do is to find 2 or 3 existing translations and get the gist of the actual meaning. Or better, find a scholar. I guess it's beyond our fixing for the moment, and it is of some use even if VERY rough, so I hope the GAR crew will forgive us our trespasses.


 * References: Could we please have "|trans-title=" parameters for all foreign language titles?
 * Done. Except Starowolski, it's Old Polish and I am not sure how to translate it correctly... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  02:54, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'm sure that Starowolski's Staropolski will become at least a little more comprehensible if you do your best to translate it. A passing scholar is sure to come along and fix it, too!
 * Sure, done. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 02:40, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Further reading: again, could we also have an English translation of the title please.
 * Removed section as this work is already cited. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 02:54, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks.

Summary
Overall, this is a fascinating article on a lesser-known theme. It is well-cited and will make a worthy GA. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:15, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Ping, issues mostly addressed. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 02:54, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, mostly. I think we are at the "covers the main points" stage of the GA criteria; it was the only one I was concerned about, so I shall close this now. Many thanks. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:51, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus: As you know there has been a deal of discussion about the article's quality on the article's talk page, and a considerable amount of editing of the article by multiple editors, demonstrating multiple issues which I had not grasped. I am not now confident that the article is satisfactory, nor do I feel personally able to shepherd the article through to the required quality. I think it will therefore be best to fail the GA1 now, allowing you and other editors to work on the article and build consensus that it is ready for a second GA by another reviewer. I am conscious that this will be disappointing news but I am sure that with the editing skill that is available you will collectively be able to bring this to GA, and I wish you all the best in that venture. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:42, 19 March 2020 (UTC)