Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/1755 Lisbon earthquake/archive1

1755 Lisbon earthquake
Having looked at it after the earthquake was mentioned twice in two days (in a book I am reading, Rumours Of War by Allan Mallinson, and The Long View on BBC Radio 4 this morning, currently available to hear here), I think this deserves another go. Other than adding remembered snippets from the radio, this is nothing to do with me.

Previous FAC nomination here. I think previous objections are addressed. -- ALoan (Talk) 21:06, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Support. The current article is very, very good.  All the objections, including mine, have been addressed as far as I can tell.  I've been reading through Harald Weinrich's article on the earthquake's philosophical impact (listed in the article's References section) and actually can't find anything more in it to add. -- Rbellin|Talk 23:57, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Support. I'm happy with the article (at last).  It really does have a philosophical section, one that is rather well-balanced.  And with deftness, the entry sidesteps the great controversies swirling around and about the legacy of Marquis de Pombal (swirled, I'm told, mainly by European historians).  Pombal is 18th Century Europe's equivalent of the man who made the trains run on time. Pombal rebuilt the city and Portuguese society along fluid new lines, but he antagonized a lot of people in the process (not least the Church and the old gentry) and hasn't quite been forgiven for it.  I think the entry makes clear that he took the reins after the quake and seized a personal opportunity, and maybe that's all that needs to be said in it.


 * But if I could ask for one further refinement: could someone please find a picture of Pombal to include? It would be good to have him, as well as something to represent the philosophical contingent (an image of Voltaire and/or Kant?..or even a philosophy book?)


 * Remember that November 1, 2005 is the 250th anniversary, so we would do well to polish this to WP:FAC level sooner rather than later. Sandover 00:12, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Support: Well written and well covered. "Comprehensive" is all but impossible, as this was one of those events that had effects far away from the epicenter and in forms other than physical.  Samuel Johnson was affected.  For that matter, so, sort-of, was Laurence Sterne.  As the article says, pretty much everyone had cause to think.  My only quibble is that the philosophical development of the sublime as a theory is not the same thing as the development of the aesthetic of the sublime.  It's true that the Romantics went nuts with their version of the sublime, but the aesthetic was at work in poetry and exploration prior to the earthquake, and definitely prior to Kant's treatises.  (E.g. the Churchyard Poets had developed an idea of the sublime in desolation at just the same time as the quake.)  My quibble is only that Kant can't really be the father of the sublime, and therefore I think, rather than stating that the quake made Kant create the sublime, it would be better that it made him consider the sublime and attempt to formulate a philosophy of it.  That's not an objection, though. Geogre 00:48, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * I've had a go at rewording this, though I don't think it ever quite suggested that Kant invented the sublime; see what you think now, or please make it better if you can. -- Rbellin|Talk 01:48, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Brilliant and beautiful, and now I can't even quibble. (Must..find..article...to.grumble.about  Must..go...to.VfD.)  Geogre 05:31, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Support, perhaps one of the best writeup of a historical geologic event i've read on WP. FA this and schedule it for mainpage in November!  ALKIVAR &trade; 03:41, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm disappointed. I don't think it's very good. It's too short, far too short. It feels like nothing more than a summary. I guess I can't specifically object about anything, though. Everyking 11:20, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, we are supposed to write in summary style while remaining comprehensive. Please let us know if you find any omissions.  -- ALoan (Talk) 11:29, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * I don't see any subarticles. I just see one article of moderate length. Not bad but not great, either, especially as our standards for FAs seem to steadily increase. Everyking 11:32, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Since when size is directly proportional to quality? What kind of an objection is that? Do you suggest a specific topic to expand? muriel@pt 11:57, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * I think my complaint was too broad to be a formal objection. So it's just a complaint. On the other hand, it is actionable; just research and write more. Everyking 12:38, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Oh dear - I hope we are not going to fall out about this. Summary style is not just about how articles and sub-articles should relate, but also how stand-alone articles should be written.  Unless you can identify specific shortcomings, I think you are making more of a comment than an actionable objection: what is not very good; what should be researched and written about? -- ALoan (Talk) 13:22, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * I don't think the article is comprehensive. That may or may not be counted as an objection; it doesn't matter to me. But I do think it should be addressed. Everyking 13:30, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Other than a general sense of disappointment, can you point out anything that should be covered but isn't? -- ALoan (Talk) 13:39, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * No, I don't know enough about it to do that. Everyking 13:49, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Without taking any position on this article itself, I will say that Summary style is a method of writing articles that is by no means endorsed by a consensus among Wikipedians, let alone an official criterion for featured article status. For more information on this, please see this discussion. Hydriotaphia 18:03, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)
 * Small size alone is not by itself evidence of not being comprehensive. Sure it is harder to be comprehensive with less text than more (that is why good lead sections are so hard to write), but it is still possible to have a comprehensive treatment if done by skillful writers. In fact the most prized skill an author can have is the ability to get across a message in as few words as needed (try summarizing a 600 page report into a 16 page executive summary - not easy but I&#8217;ve done it). One reason why I support summary style is that it encourages the development of this skill. Another is that the shorter an article is the more people will read it in the first place and the more people that will actually finish reading it. This statement is general - I&#8217;ll take a look at the article later and compare it to other sources to see if it has missed anything important. --mav 14:06, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * The brevity of this article is a virtue. There's a lot on Wikipedia that's bloated beyond all need or reason. Sandover 16:39, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Support &mdash; but that part of "what did animals think" is a bit strange and should mellowed down instead of a trivia as it currently appears to be. == 20:00, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)
 * Support. A very well-written article. --Carnildo 01:04, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Support. A well-constructed and interesting article. Sarge Baldy 06:15, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)
 * Support. I must say this article looks much better than it did a month or so ago.  The philosophical parts are quite good now, and I can no longer object that this part has been treated in a shallow manner.  I never even realized Kant wrote about the earthquake until now, so good work!  WhiteC 08:35, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Support as usual. This article shows how an article can be excellent and not boring, by contrast an example is Shroud of Turin and its extreme comprehensiveness. muriel@pt 09:26, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Shroud of Turin looks great. The readers are not seven year olds with seven minute attention spans; don't insult them by making them settle for mere summaries. Featured articles are supposed to be comprehensive. Everyking 14:08, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * As I've already said, summaries can be comprehensive. It just takes a bit of writing skill and knowledge of what is most important to include. --mav 15:14, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * If this linked off a couple subarticles, that would be different. Then people would say it doesn't directly pertain to this article, I suppose. But this isn't comprehensive enough in itself, all other things aside. I've written articles more detailed than this that I wouldn't even consider nominating for FAC at this point. Everyking 15:25, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Muriel, for pointing out Shroud of Turin, which I looked over. One hilarious bit of Wikipedese jumped out from it:  "Those supporting image formation by miraculous means point out that a singular resurrection event could have skewed the proportion of Carbon 14 in the cloth in singular ways."  Only Wikipedia, and the custom of NPOV, could have given rise to such a beautifully contorted sentence.
 * But seriously, User:Everyking feels that 1755 Lisbon earthquake reads like a summary. By comparison to many other FA, it may feel that way. Yet I still think it's a stronger article for never getting prolix, for never offering competing theories and interpretations, for not basking in trivia, etc. Instead, the article is up front, and contains all the essentials from (at least) four different points of view -- historical, philosophical, cultural, scientific.  Best of all, it reads like a thriller.  You watch, someone in Hollywood will make a movie from this! Sandover 17:59, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * The Shroud of Turin, in the attempt of referring *everything* is a serious mess of fact and interpretation. I know because i read it carefully when i was writing the portuguese article. I dont want this one to be a mess like that! muriel@pt 12:27, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * The lead of the article says the earthquake "inspired the concept of the sublime." I click on the link for sublime, and learn that the concept of the sublime was being written about by a 1st century Roman!  How is that acceptable?  The article doesn't even bother to explain this bizarre claim.  68.118.61.219 00:30, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * See my exchange with User:Geogre above: the section on the quake's philosophical impact does, in fact, give a considerably more detailed version of this claim. The history of ideas of the sublime is really a very complicated question; without wishing to get too deeply into it, the current article on the sublime in philosophy leaves a lot to be desired, so don't just base your response on it. And Kant's development of the sublime in philosophy (and hence also aesthetics), which was to some extent certainly prompted by the quake, was unquestionably seminal.  What would you like to see changed here?  Perhaps the lead section puts its case for the quake's influence too baldly, but I think in the interest of brevity its claim seems eminently reasonable.  -- Rbellin|Talk 06:25, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Perhaps "inspired the concept of" is the wrong phrasing. Maybe 'caused re-evaluation of' or something that doesn't suggest creating the concept at this time.  But other than that, I agree with Rbellin. WhiteC 02:27, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * I've revised this phrasing slightly to tone down its suggestion about the sublime. -- Rbellin|Talk 02:44, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pointing up (and fixing!) the problems in the lede&mdash;they were left over from edits a couple months ago, before all the Wikipedian philosophers were recruited (and who deserve credit, ultimately, for making this article feature-worthy). I've made a couple minor changes in the lede and last grafs, for the sake of clarity, readability, and (why not admit it) style.  I love how the article reads now, tight, taut, like a thriller.  Sandover 05:46, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)