User:Tmitfc/Magna Graecia/WesternGoblin Peer Review

General info
Tmitfc
 * Whose work are you reviewing?


 * Link to draft you're reviewing:User:Tmitfc/Magna Graecia
 * Link to the current version of the article (if it exists):Magna Graecia

Evaluate the drafted changes
Lead

I understand that it can be pretty intimidating to work on an article of this size and importance, however, I do think there is a lot of improvement that you could do in order to improve the lead section of the article. I think it's pretty long and can be trimmed down in order to allow for the content to be talked about in more detail throughout the rest of the article, where it should be. I also think the formatting on the lead section is a little strange, 6 paragraphs is too many and they should either be removed or condensed.

Content

The content you've added, while a little dry (just because of the numbers, no shade), is a really important expansion on the woefully underdeveloped Economy section that exists in the article in its current state. I like the details about the economy, it's my favorite thing to read about in any context. I know that "it's difficult to establish precisely the type of goods traded and the volume of these exchanges" but maybe you could include some theories and archeology that people have talked about, if that discourse exists? I understand if the information is contested then it is hard to include it but as long as it is clarified with something like "X historian says Y while B historian says C" then I think it would be valuable to include if it exists.

Tone and Balance

I think your tone is fairly neutral though I would try to steer clear of the use of "excellent" in the first paragraph when regarding the quantity of goods exchanged. I think that word could be appropriate if proven with evidence or numbers but since it's immediately followed by a "we don't know how much economic activity there was" I think it'd be better to steer clear of it. I think the sentence "The size of the Greek towns says it all" in the second paragraph of the Economy section is a little awkward and subjective for Wikipedia, it does a good job of being a segue into reciting the numbers but remember you're portraying facts and arguments, not making them so there's no need to link those two things together to string the reader along in the way that you did. Additionally, this might just be me, even though it is being used in a pretty literal sense here, I would personally also not use the term 'motherland'. I think it is literally applicable here but the term just has so much nationalist baggage now-a-days that it sticks out like a sore thumb to me.

Sources

Four sources added is a great number for the amount of text you've added. My only suggestion would be to put more footnotes within the paragraph you've written. One citation at the end of a paragraph unfortunately isn't specific enough, even if you're just citing the same source multiple times it's better to have five of the same citation throughout a paragraph rather than just one at the end.

Organization

I think the organization is good, my only note would be to reformat the numbers of inhabitants in the second paragraph of the Economy section. At present they are formatted with an apostrophe where a comma should be (10'000 instead of the correct 10,000).

Images and Media

I think you could pretty easily get away without touching the images and media in the article, it's pretty thorough as is. If anything I might actually suggest cutting some or at the very least moving some of the side-bar images to a gallery at the end of the article because as is the article is packed literally top to bottom with images on the right side.

Overall Impressions

I think what you've done is good so far. I actually think that you may have added everything you need to add. The article is so packed already that I think adding more content is less of a priority and instead fixing the content that is already there would be a better use of your time. I already said that I think the lead section could use some work as well as the images being reorganized or cut on the side, but in generally I think the article as it is right now relies far too much on lists and tables rather than cleanly well written text. It also has an abundance of super short one or two sentence long paragraphs that could use some reformatting. Good luck with the rest of the work!