Template:Did you know nominations/Ancient Macedonians


 * The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as |this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: rejected by  —♦♦ AMBER  (ЯʘCK)  14:03, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Ancient Macedonians

 * ... that the ancient Macedonians spoke Attic Greek and then Koine Greek as a lingua franca, while modern scholars still debate if the native ancient Macedonian language was a dialect of Greek or not?
 * ALT1:... that the Ancient Macedonians ate a flat bread with meat in the 3rd century BC that perhaps influenced the later 'trencher' bread of medieval Europe if not Greek pita and Italian pizza?

Improved to Good Article status by PericlesofAthens (talk). Self-nominated at 23:00, 28 May 2017 (UTC).


 * Symbol possible vote.svg Newly promoted to GA, long enough, no copyvios found. I prefer ALT1 but I'm not sure it's fully supported by the source (the possibility of a direct connection isn't actually covered in the source) so the original hook may be a better bet (AFG on the content of the sources for that one since they aren't available in Google's preview). Both need rewriting for brevity, though, as they both exceed the 200 character limit. QPQ still needs doing as well. Yunshui 雲 水 10:55, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Which "source" would that be? I'm not relying on a single source for the first hook. It is a terse summary of the language sub-section, particularly the last two paragraphs, so it obviously relies on multiple sources to come to this conclusion about the ambiguities in modern scholarship over the exact classification of the ancient Macedonian language (even though most scholars now agree it was a dialect of ancient Greek). As for Attic Greek and then Koine Greek being the lingua franca of Macedonia, that is covered in the first two paragraphs of the sub-section and is also well-sourced. I fail to see the problem here, other than the fact that I forgot to check the length of each hook to make sure they didn't exceed 200 characters. Pericles of Athens  Talk 00:13, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
 * The source for ALT1 seems to be Dalby, who doesn't seem to say explicitly that the Macedonian flatbreads were (or even could have been) the ancestors of pizza etc. (the source actually says, "there is no earlier evidence than third-century Macedonia for the use of a flat loaf of bread as a plate, a function which bread continued to perform in the pide of Turkey, the pita of Greece and Bulgaria, the pizza of southern Italy and the 'trencher' of medieval Europe"). The first hook is problematic in that it concatenates several sentences in the article - per DYK#3b, the fact mentioned in the hook needs to be cited at the end of the specific sentence in the article. (The sources I can't view, incidentally, are Boardman and Woodard, both of which are only available in snippet view on Google Books.)
 * As an alternative, how about:
 * ALT2 "...that scholars still debate whether the language of the Ancient Macedonians was a dialect of Greek or not?"
 * This is short enough for the hook and is supported with appropriate inline citations for the sentence from Woodard, Finkelberg, Malkin, Hornblower et al and Christides and Chrite. What do you think? Yunshui 雲 水  10:53, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
 * hello again. Yeah, sure, that modified hook sounds fine to me, or even this: "...that the ancient Macedonians spoke Attic Greek and then Koine Greek as a lingua franca?" Perhaps that could be ALT3. I was unaware of that rule for DYK#3b; demonstrates that I need to go back and reread the eligibility criteria! Also, do you think I should reword that passage about pizza and pita in the article? I thought I was reflecting what was said in the source, but now I'm not so sure. Perhaps the phrasing "influence" is too vague. Regards, Pericles of Athens  Talk 15:12, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I can totally see how you got the statement in the article from the Dalby source about bread - my reading and your reading of the source may differ, but that doesn't mean mine is more correct - perhaps something like ALT4 "...that that the Ancient Macedonians ate a flat bread with meat in the 3rd century BC with similarities to Greek pita and Italian pizza?" would be a possible compromise? I'm not completely sure on ALT3; while it meets the length requirements I sort of struggle to find an appropriate statement in the article that directly supports it - I guess the sentences in the first paragraph of the Language section which are sourced to Borza and Engels respectively could be used, but it might get shot down at WT:DYK later on. At the moment, I'm leaning towards ALT4 as the best of the bunch, if you're happy with that.
 * I mentioned this above, but a QPQ review still needs to be done, unless you've already done one and haven't listed it here (if so, just let me know). If you;re happy with ALT4 then once the QPQ is taken care of I reckon this is ready to promote. Yunshui 雲 水 15:28, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Yeah, Alt4 is fine. However, I'm in no mood to do a QPQ review and I have no interest in learning all of these rules for reviewing an article: Did you know/Reviewing guide. It's too much and I don't have time for it. Sorry. If that means this DYK will fail then so be it. A shame, but I have to be brutally honest and admit that I really, really don't care for reviewing other people's DYKs. Regards, Pericles of Athens  Talk 17:16, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Symbol delete vote.svg Well, I hate to do this, but them's the rules - QPQ is a standard requirement for DYK. I'm inclined to agree with you about the level of instruction creep here (there are a lot of rules...) but that's how it is. If you change your mind at any point, feel free to ping me here and I'll happily re-review it. And regardless of the outcome of this discussion, congratulations on the Good Article promotion and on the article itself; it was a fascinating read. Yunshui 雲 水 12:21, 1 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Mr ofAthens, as with Yunshui, thanks for your work improving articles on Ancient Greece and its hinterland. A DYK will bring more eyes to your work, so if makes any difference let me point out that you can absolutely practice jury nullification on the rule bloat that has occurred here recently. There's absolutely no need, e.g., that a recently created page have a figleaf citation in each paragraph. The review can be done in a straightforward and common-sense manner: (1)Is it at least thorough enough for an introduction to the topic? The notional cutoff is 1.5k+ characters, not counting tables, infoboxes, etc., but you can tell if it's a good 3–4 paragraphs of legible English or not. (2)Is it well and reliably sourced enough that we're not spreading hoaxes or misinformation? with double-plus strictness on anything about living people who might sue for defamation. (3)Is this plagiarized? Use Earwig's program to check. There's a link at the top of the review pages, so it's not hard to find. (4)If there is an image, just click through to see if it has a valid copyright waiver... or just pick a terse hook that doesn't have a picture.

Edit: Well, too late now, I guess. Point stands. — Llywelyn II   16:10, 2 June 2017 (UTC)