User talk:HaEr48/Archives/2016/December

Address Collection
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DYK for Mataram conquest of Surabaya
Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:02, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Mataram conquest of Surabaya
Hello, HaEr48 -- There are a few things I want to ask you about, but I don't have time right this minute. I'll get back to you later. – Corinne (talk) 18:10, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for copy editing. Sure, feel free to ask me in the Talk:Mataram conquest of Surabaya (I'm watching that page) or here in my talk page. HaEr48 (talk)

Here they are:

First, you'll see I made two more edits to the lead, removing some unnecessary words and combining two sentences. I think the lead should be streamlined (concise).

1) You will now see this sentence:


 * Subsequently, Mataram gradually conquered members of the Surabayan alliance, and by 1620, the city of Surabaya itself was under siege, holding out until it surrendered in 1625..

I think the adverb "subsequently", while certainly appropriate in the right context, is somewhat vague here, especially considering you have another adverb, "gradually", in the same sentence. I think it would be better to substitute a time phrase that gives the approximate range in years, something like:


 * Over the next xxx years,...

or


 * Over the next decade,... (if it is about ten years). I didn't look at the dates again, so you'll have to pick the best number and phrase.

I also think that if you use one of these phrases, you don't need the adverb "gradually", either. So, it would read:


 * Over the next....., Mataram conquered members of the Surabayan alliance, and by 1620, the city of Surabaya itself was under siege, holding out until it surrendered in 1625.

2) In the first paragraph in Mataram conquest of Surabaya, you'll see the following sentence:


 * Mataram consolidated its power by absorbing other principalities: Pajang in about 1588, Demak (1588), Madiun (about 1590) and Kediri (about 1591).

I had earlier changed "c. 1588" to "in about 1588", and "c. 1590" to "about 1590". I may be wrong, but I felt c., meaning circa, was more appropriate to captions for images, lists, etc. I didn't want to write "in about" before each year (it seemed wordy and repetitive), so I shortened it to just "about", except for the first one. Now I'm wondering about two things:

(a) I notice you did not have "c." in front of 1588 for Demak. I assume that is because there is some firm evidence that it actually happened in 1588 whereas for all the other dates there is no firm evidence of the year. However, since they all took place around the same time, within a few years of each other, I wonder why scholars wouldn't have the same degree of certainty about the year, for each one – either sure about all, or uncertain about all.

(b) I still think the repeated use of "about" looks bad. Even if there is some disagreement about the year (say, 1588 or 1589), perhaps it would be all right to leave out "about" for each one. Would that be too inaccurate? Alternatively, you could just group the principalities and say Mataram absorbed them between the years of 1588 and 1591. What do you think?

3) In the first paragraph of Mataram conquest of Surabaya, we find the following sentence:


 * Surabaya and other conquered regions on the northeastern coast of Java would remain in Mataram's hands until they were ceded to the VOC in the aftermath of the 1741–1743 Java War.

I may have missed it, but what is "VOC"? If it is already mentioned, and spelled out in full, and explained and/or linked before this, I apologize. If not, it would be a good idea to do that here. Well, that's all. – Corinne (talk) 02:46, 6 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your inputs.
 * 1) I changed it to say "Over the next few years". Since the previous sentence says "1616" and the next clause says "1620", I think it's clear to the reader how long it is.
 * 2) This is the source I use: Ricklefs p.46 (see the paragraph that starts with "These stories obviously reveal"). So to answer your question: The author specifies exact year for Demak and Kediri, so let's not have circa/about from them . About Pajang, it says "c.1587-1888", which I guess means it happened over several years *and* the author is uncertain about it? I also don't know for sure. For Madiun, the author said 1590 or 1591, so here again the author is unsure, that's why I thought adding c. was warranted. Probably (this is totally my guess) the uncertainty is due to the fact that Javanese sources did not use the Gregorian calendar, so when something got reported, modern author had to do some guesses about which Gregorian year it is? So the accuracy can vary. Anyway, Ricklefs does use "c." to describe the uncertain years in this paragraph, so I think it is acceptable to use it to avoid the repeated "about"?
 * 3) Ah sorry, my mistake. VOC is the Dutch acronym for the Dutch East India Company. I thought I already spelled it out in preceding paragraph, but turned out I didn't. I updated it now.
 * I hope this answers your questions, and really appreciate you working on at the article! HaEr48 (talk) 06:43, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
 * The changes you made are all good. It reads well now. Regarding c., now it appears in front of the year for only two of the independent states, so it is less distracting, and I think you were right to change it back to c. for the uncertain ones. I don't know what I was thinking. – Corinne (talk) 15:44, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Eastern salient of Java
Hello:

The copy edit that you requested from the Guild of Copy Editors of the article Eastern salient of Java has been completed.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Regards,

Twofingered Typist (talk) 20:38, 6 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the copyedit, ! HaEr48 (talk) 23:09, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Duchy of Surabaya
Hello, HaEr48 -- I think the article is in pretty good shape now. I have to ask you about one sentence, though. It is the last sentence of the first paragraph in the Duchy of Surabaya section:


 * Dutch historian H. J. de Graaf wrote that in the second half of 16th century, the court of Surabaya became a centre of culture and Islamic Old Javanese literature, as opposed to the "upstart" central Javanese courts such as the Pajang and Mataram Sultanates.

The sentence is not badly written, but the relationship of the second half of the sentence to the first half is not clear. Specifically, the phrase "as opposed to" does not explain enough (or is not the right phrase). Was deGraaf saying that, in the second half of the 16thcentury, the court of Surabaya was the centre of culture and Islamic Old Javanese literature rather than the central Javanese courts (which one would ordinarily have expected to be the centre of culture and literature). The word "upstart" to describe the central Javanese courts is not clear. It's not clear what you (or deGraaf) meant by "upstart", and it's not clear why "upstart" courts would or would not be centres of culture and literature.

How about something like this? --


 * Dutch historian H. J. de Graaf wrote that in the second half of the 16thcentury, it was the court of Surabaya, rather than those of the central Javanese courts such as the Pajang and Mataram Sultanates, that became a centre of culture and Islamic Old Javanese literature.

Also, I would just like to draw your attention to a message that appears at the beginning of the article, visible only in edit mode, regarding a template used in the infobox. You might want to look at that. – Corinne (talk) 22:14, 10 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks . About the upstart sentence, I think the context is this. There were two centres of powers in Javanese-speaking world around that time, the central Java-based one (initially Pajang and then later Mataram) and the eastern one (Surabaya). In the book the article cited, de Graaf repeatedly point out that Surabaya's court was "a centre of culture" and literature, that it was highly civilized, and so on, and contrasted this with the courts of Pajang and Mataram which he considered "upstart" and "uncultured". Does this make sense? How do you suggest to rewrite this? About the template parameter, I took care of it. Weirdly enough it does not show up except in visual editor mode. HaEr48 (talk) 23:40, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

DYK for Duchy of Surabaya
Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:01, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

DYK for Eastern salient of Java
Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:01, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

You've got mail!
--Cameron11598 (Talk) 05:23, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Indonesian spelling
Please note you are welcome to join in the discussion for the proposal about spelling to be ratified (about 8 years after it was thought about) - trust your festival season has been a good one - and hope to see your comments at the page - Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Indonesia - thanks JarrahTree 00:46, 27 December 2016 (UTC)