Talk:Roman Dacia/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer:  SilkTork  *YES! 17:25, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Nice looking article. I'll read it over the next few days, and then start to leave comments.  SilkTork  *YES! 17:25, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria


 * 1) Is it reasonably well written?
 * A. Prose quality:
 * B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:
 * 1) Is it factually accurate and verifiable?
 * A. References to sources:
 * B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:
 * C. No original research:
 * 1) Is it broad in its coverage?
 * A. Major aspects:
 * B. Focused:
 * 1) Is it neutral?
 * Fair representation without bias:
 * 1) Is it stable?
 * No edit wars, etc:
 * 1) Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?
 * A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:
 * B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:
 * 1) Overall:
 * Pass or Fail:
 * 1) Is it stable?
 * No edit wars, etc:
 * 1) Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?
 * A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:
 * B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:
 * 1) Overall:
 * Pass or Fail:
 * B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:
 * 1) Overall:
 * Pass or Fail:
 * Pass or Fail:


 * I notice there has been a little bit of reverting and terse edit summaries. This does appear to have settled down. Some information on the background to the reason for the disagreements would be helpful, and would save me time looking closely at the edit history.  SilkTork  *YES! 17:06, 17 December 2010 (UTC)


 * There is a lot of citing in the lead. Statements in the lead should also be in the main body so there isn't a requirement to cite the lead as long as the statements are cited in the main body. However, it is appropriate to cite in the lead if statements are highly contentious or make big claims. I am seeing triple cites for the date when Dacia was a Roman province, cites for each alternative name, population numbers, etc. Stuff that really shouldn't be contentious. Is there a reason for this heavy citing? If not, then consider cutting it back. Such intense citing in the lead is seen as distracting and intrusive. The same is true of linking. See WP:LEADLINK and WP:Lead.  SilkTork  *YES! 17:14, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Cleaned up the lead a bit. Nergaal (talk) 00:52, 20 December 2010 (UTC)


 * You can assume the general reader will understand common terms like grain, commerce and conurbation, so these do not need to be linked. If there are words which might be difficult for the average reader to understand, it may be better to select an alternative rather than linking. This does not apply to words which are directly related to the topic, but just to the general prose of the article. If there are specific words related to the topic which may be difficult for the average reader to understand, then they should be both linked, and briefly explained in the text. See WP:LINK and WP:Jargon. And place names are not put into bold or italic type. The use of bold for article titles and alternatives is just for the first line. See Manual of Style.  SilkTork  *YES! 17:30, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Removed some extra linking. Nergaal (talk) 00:59, 20 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The prose doesn't always flow. There are places (particularly the lead) where there are a number of short sentences, compounded by short paragraphs. This makes for jerky reading. There are uses of informal and vague language such as "mopping-up", "festering problems", "carved out", "unfolded in Dacia", "pour across the river". There is a vaguw authorial voice occasionally present in the text, which is appropriate for a scholarly essay written by an expert, but not for a general encyclopaedia which is looking to summarise a variety of experts - "Less than 30 appear on the published heritage lists throughout the province, but this is clearly an underestimate", "Our sources from antiquity imply ...".  SilkTork  *YES! 11:22, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I've tried to improve the prose, especially through the lead. Nergaal (talk) 01:26, 20 December 2010 (UTC)


 * There is a tendency to use prose lists - Religion, Native Dacians, Settlements, After the Roman withdrawal. While lists can sometimes be useful and acceptable, their use here may be intrusive and break reading flow. While Settlements may be OK (worth a discussion), the other uses are more doubtful. See Embedded lists.  SilkTork  *YES! 11:22, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Removed all but the settlements. There, the list would be hard to convert into clear prose. Nergaal (talk) 01:30, 20 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I'd like to see the lead tightened. It consists of 8 short paragraphs, and it's difficult to compare it with the main body because the arrangement doesn't appear (yet! - I'm still working my way through this) to match up easily with the main body. I'm not sure if the contents of Life in Roman Dacia, with its six subsections, is represented in the lead.  SilkTork  *YES! 11:22, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I went through the lead a few times. It should be better now. Let me know if it still needs work. Nergaal (talk) 01:40, 20 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm now checking out the referencing. The system currently employed is not helpful. While there are inline cites, these do not indicate pages. While page numbers are not required under GA criteria, it is helpful when checking facts. Currently the cites only mention entire books, some of which have over 200 pages. To check facts I have to search through the entire books. Luckily, some are online, which makes searching slightly easier, but that is still hit and miss, and quite time-consuming. The details I check out I will amend and update the cites with page numbers. It would be helpful if the rest of the cites were then also updated.  SilkTork  *YES! 11:50, 18 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Article: "Romanization is essentially a culture of cities; and Roman Dacia had 11 (or 12), all developed from Trajanic camps." Source: "Romanization is essentially a culture of cities; and Roman Dacia had eleven, all developed from Trajanic camps." That is copying too close. Summarise the sources and use your own words, otherwise there may be accusations of copyright violation. If editors are aware of other examples in the text of potential copyright violation, please either deal with it or bring it to my attention as a matter of priority.  SilkTork  *YES! 12:18, 18 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The use of apostrophes is non-standard. The consensus use is explained here: WP:PUNC. I am amending them bit by bit, but there is a lot of non-standard use so I will likely not get around to them all.  SilkTork  *YES! 12:18, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I removed some of the uses of " but I don't know if this is what you referred to. Nergaal (talk) 01:36, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Upper Dacia is not an appropriate format. Place names are not italicised - see Manual_of_Style and WP:ITALICS. When using a non-standard word, or an unusual word, or making reference to a word as a word, we can use italics, though "quotation marks" is preferred as that is more straightforward and less misleading (some proper nouns are italicised, such as some plants, vehicle names, works of ark/literature/albums, and if the place name is unfamiliar then a reader may assume it is supposed to be in italics, rather than put in italics for emphasis because it is non-standard). If in doubt, take a look at how reliable sources, such as The Dacian Stones Speak, present the names. Place names should to be removed from italics throughout the article. Certain unusual Roman terms can be placed in quotation marks on the first use, and with an explanation in the text as to what the term means. Does that help?  SilkTork  *YES! 12:35, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Hold to Jan
I'm putting on hold for the holiday period. This will give me a chance to do a bit of background reading. In the meantime it would be useful to put in page numbers on the cites following this example:.  SilkTork  *YES! 13:19, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
 * You'll have to use this dash; "–" and not this one "-". --TIAYN (talk) 01:10, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Please feel free to alter one dash to the other. I cannot immediately see the difference - by themselves I wouldn't know one from the other. As the use of one dash instead of another doesn't impact on meaning or readability then it's not something that concerns me, nor is part of GA criteria, so I wouldn't ask anyone to do it, though editors are welcome to make alterations from one dash to the other as appropriate per MOS:DASH.  SilkTork  *YES! 14:50, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * For citations/references, I am suggesting the use of cite book (and its other flavors) and sfn templates, for consistency and to remove clutter. See also Citing sources/Example edits for different methods. An example article is Amutria. Within WikiProject Dacia we prepared this Dacia bibliography. Please feel free to copy/paste from it and add your own references and bibliography, alphabetically.--Codrin.B (talk) 01:39, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah yes - I agree, cite book is good. I note that the Dacia project is giving examples in short citation style. The short citation style is not the main style recommended or in use on Wikipedia. It's not a GA issue as to which style to use, full or short, but as the full style is more useful to the reader (and any GA reviewer checking sources) then that is the one I prefer dealing with. With the short citation, the reader has to consult two lists - one with the page number, and one with the source text. The full citation puts source text details and page number together making checking sources quicker, easier and more accurate. If the full citation is coupled with a link to the right page on a Google Books scan, then that is ideal!  SilkTork  *YES! 15:20, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the suggestions. I'll take a note. However, full citations have there own problems, creating a lot of duplications, if different pages get cited. Please take a look at the List of ancient cities in Thrace and Dacia as an example. The amount of duplication and clutter caused by full citation is incredible and only 15% of the needed citations are in! I favor short citations since they create a much cleaner and academic references section and can cite different pages without duplicating a lot of information or using wide page ranges. At least when it comes to history related articles, full of citations. The example of different methods page doesn't seem to favor one over the other. My 2 cents.--Codrin.B (talk) 15:47, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I just looked at List of ancient cities in Thrace and Dacia and I'm not clear what the problem is. What some editors do when there is a long list of cites (and some articles have hundreds these days), is to have a list of the major texts used listed below the cites under a name such as Bibliography - see Covent_Garden. Duplication in the full cite shouldn't be an issue - there is going to be duplication with the short cite - there will be the same amount of cites after all. What particular issues are you having with duplication in the full style that you don't have when using the short style? It may help, if I tell you how as a reader and a reviewer, I am using cites and sources. When reading, I note something that I want to check is accurate, or from which source it came - so I click on the cite number. In the full cite I am taken to the source details and given a page number - I can check which publication, which author, which date, and even the page if I want to look it up. In the short cite I am taken to an abbreviated line which gives me an author and a date and page. I then have to check in a different list for which of that author's publications it may be, using the date as a reference. Then when I find the publication I have to look back at the abbreviated line to find which page. If there are a number of cites, this can involve scrolling up and down, and as I am dyslexic I find it difficult to hold numbers in my head, so it may involve having to make a note of dates and/or page numbers. There is a system that some editors use which enables a click through on the abbreviated line so I am taken to the publication details, though if I haven't made a note of the page number there is no click back, and I can't return to the exact spot in the article where I was reading, so that creates a problem for me, especially as the cite highlighter is not always clear when I page back. The other use of sources is the list of publications used, and - as I say - this can be a bibliography list. I'm not concerned if there are pages and pages of cites, with or without duplication, as they are only read when needed, and this is one cite at a time. Abbreviating cites is a hangover from book publication, where the space (and so money) saving was seen as worth the slight inconvenience to the reader. I understand that some editors use the style as they like the look of it, but it's not practical, so I feel we should be prioritising ease of use for readers over editors' desire for neatness in the appearance of the reference section. But, as I say, this is not a GA issue - so this discussion may need to be moved elsewhere if we are to continue it.  SilkTork  *YES! 16:25, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Good points and thanks for the details on your workflow. Much appreciated. While with short notes you also duplicate, you only duplicate the author and year not the whole details. If you look back at the List of ancient cities in Thrace and Dacia, you can see that An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis and The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume 3, show up again and again, with full detail, since different pages are cited, far away from each other, making range of page use unpractical. That is a LOT of duplication. Versus having Tudor 1958 show up a few times in the notes of Amutria. In your example, which is nicely organized article by the way, F. H. W. Sheppard (General Editor) (1970) shows up again and again in full detail. It is very common in the literature (at least historical books which cite many references again and again) to have an abbreviation of a book/author to which to refer many many times without writing the details of that book so many times. The reader checks once and second times he knows the book when he sees HEROD, 41. I see the points for simplifying your reviews, but the reader that looks at List of ancient cities in Thrace and Dacia is absolutely overwhelmed. And there are more readers than reviewers. But maybe the place for this discussion is on the citation pages. :-) --Codrin.B (talk) 18:13, 6 January 2011 (UTC)


 * The edit warring hasn't recurred, so I'm accepting that as a pass. And I note that there has been some tidying up of the lead. It's looking tidier, and is easier to read.  SilkTork  *YES! 15:51, 6 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I am trying to bring this article to GA standards, but I am somewhat confused about what exactly is it still missing. Is it just 1.B? Nergaal (talk) 19:04, 7 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the prod. My initial two observations were the lead and the lack of page numbering in the cites. The lack of page numbers is a concern as it makes checking difficult, not just for the GA review, but also for the general reader; however, it is not actually a GA fail. So the only GA related work that I have notified is 1.B - I then intended to do some background reading to check sources and broad coverage and NPOV, and suggested that while I do this reading that people could locate the page numbers for the cites. There was then some interesting side discussion about the formatting of cites, which was not actually GA related, and I am aware I got distracted and haven't done the background reading and research in order to complete this review. I will do that now, and hopefully complete this review in the next day or so. Again, thanks for the nudge.  SilkTork  *YES! 14:53, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Pass
I think there's still room for some development, particularly in tightening the prose and in putting in page numbers on the sources, but as it stands this meets GA criteria.  SilkTork  *YES! 16:56, 14 January 2011 (UTC)