Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/History of Bulgaria/archive1

History of Bulgaria
Quite complete, well illustrated. Adam 16:14, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Object. This is barely even a beginning to what we need on the history of Bulgaria. This should be a collection of summaries linking off to a variety of subarticles. Everyking 17:31, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * I object to this objection. This article deals with the topic quite well. Subarticle would eventually be desirable, but are not required. Jeronimo 19:31, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Agree. This objection is not actionable, and therefore invalid unless you can point to specific things this article needs to cover, but fails too. - Taxman 16:39, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)
 * Object. Not bad, but this lacks several essential items. 1) No references. 2) Lead section is actually part of the story. Should be replaced by a summary of the article in 2-3 paragraphs. 3) History starts in the 7th century AD. What about prehistory? Roman times? 4) Some of the images have no source and or copyright information. Jeronimo 19:31, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Object. No references and no lead (as Jeronimo noted). As I know little about Bulgarian history, what follows in not an object but a comment: this seems very short for a history of a 1000+ years old nation. The 'Bulgaria under Ottoman rule' section is rather small - 400 years compressed into four paragraphs, and the last 200 years take 2/3 of the article - was the earler Bulgarian history of so little importance compared to the lat 2 centuries? I think that atm no 'history of a country' article of Wiki is ready for FAC, so after references are added and lead is improved, treat my vote as 'abstain'. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:07, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * The article was written from my own general knowledge and from other encyclopaedias. I am not a specialist in Bulgarian history but one doesn't need to be to write at this level of detail.
 * Articles should be judged by what they are, not by what they are not. I chose to write a single narrative history of Bulgaria since the arrival of the Bulgars. If someone wants to write more detailed spin-off articles, they are welcome to do so.
 * As the article makes clear, the Bulgarians did not arrive in Europe until the 7th century. There is therefore no history of Bulgaria prior to that time.
 * The Bulgaria under Ottoman Rule section is fairly short because nothing much happened, as the article makes clear. That was one of the defining characteristics of Ottoman rule.
 * People who admit they nothing about the subject will have to take my word for it that the article covers the salient points of Bulgarian history. The article is a good deal more comprehensive than many of the other national history articles at Wikipedia. I re-wrote this one because the previous article was so awful. You are welcome to try to improve it but you had better know what you are talking about.
 * I no longer argue about images. Feel free to delete any you object to.
 * Adam, one of important the requirements of a featured article is that it has references. The article needs to be verifiable for readers and editors. Second, Bulgaria is a country, so there is a history of it before the arrival of the Bulgarians. Just as the USA had a history before the arrival of the Europeans. Finally, my objection will remain as long as there are images without sources in the article. I may indeed remove them as I like, but the idea of the images is that they're there to illustrate the text (which they do nicely). Removing them will certainly not improve the article. If you, as the editor, aren't interested in making the article a featured one, don't expect us to. Jeronimo 08:06, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * On your three points. First, of course the piece of land now called Bulgaria has always existed. But since it wasn't inhabited by Bulgarians until the 7th century, before that time its history belongs in some other article (Roman Empire, Moesia, Thrace etc). "Bulgaria" is by definition the land of the Bulgarians, and that's what this article is about. Secondly, personally I don't care if the article is featured or not. I write articles as I see fit, and others then edit them as they see fit. If you want to remove the images, go ahead. If you don't, don't. Thirdly, as I have said many times, the credibility of any encyclopaedia article depends on the credibility of the encyclopaedia, not on how many footnotes it is festooned with. That's why there are no footnotes in the Britannica. Adam 09:19, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Well Wikipedia is not Brittanica. Why should we strive for no better than what paper encyclopedias do? Wikipedia suffers from a percieved lack of reliability. References will go a long way toward eliminating that. Academic papers cite their sources for a reason, to ease in checking the facts in the article, and for intellectual honesty.  If you don't feel like citing sources in the articles you write, then just say that, but don't act like Wikipedia wouldn't be better of if it did consistently cite sources in its articles. I'll avoid rehashing all of Talk:Art_in_Ancient_Greece, but those interested can read there. In any case, if you don't care if it is featured or not then no big deal. It just won't be without good use of references. - Taxman 16:39, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I'll go so far as to say that a Wikipedia article can never have any inherent credibility, because its accuracy is based on the honesty of the last (often anonymous or pseudonymous) person who edited it.  Therefore, citations are more important in Wikipedia than in other encyclopedias.  Whenever anyone raises the credibility objection with me, I always answer that they should simply double-check what they read here.  The easier we make that, the more useful Wikipedia will be as a resource.

--Doradus 06:30, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)
 * I concur with Taxman. Also, Adam - if you don't want the article featured, and are not prepared to work for it, why did you nominate this? To waste my time? Jeronimo 07:23, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * The article seems to have been nominated by User:Kostja who seems to have abandoned it. Adam does not seem to be bothered if it's featured or not. Subsequently that  seems to be the end of the matter.  I added the first lot of "references" supplied, they were reverted (probably correctly) as useless, and  no-one seems to want to add the second alternative references provided.  I do see Adam's point, and I'm sure all his  info is 100% reliable, but it also has to be seen to be 100% reliable. Giano 08:52, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * My experience in the past has been then when articles I have written have been given "feastured status" they attract a swarm of vandals and I have to spend all my time reverting their efforts. I then incur the wrath of the Politburo for breaking their silly 3R rule. Adam 03:26, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * The Bulgars arrived in Bulgaria in the 7th century. In Europe they arived perhaps as early the 3rd century. Kostja 19:02, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Not according to any sources I have seen. It depends on how you define "Europe." They may have been somewhere west of the Urals, but they weren't within the zone of European civilisation as it then existed. Adam 02:44, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Object but would quickly change to Support if: The lead is rewritten to summarise the page more broadly. References need to be provided (if only for further reading), if encyclopedias were used - fine, name them.  At 40KB the article is quite long enough, some people (not me)may winge about the length as it is, to write a detailed history of any country in this space is always going to have to exclude something others consider relevant. As it is it seems salient,to the point and up to date. Giano 19:28, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Object. Lack of references, a basic featured article criteria. Oops, forgot to mention, very well written, so the lack of valid references is unfortunate. It is much harder to successfully and correctly add references after the fact than it is to do it while writing. - Taxman 16:39, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)

The sum total of the rerefences for this article would have been:


 * The author's personal knowledge (based on 30 years of reading European history)
 * Encyclopedia Brittanica
 * Collier's Encyclopedia
 * Funk & Wagnall's Encyclopedia

Anyone is free to add that if they think it will add to the credibility of the article or of Wikipedia. Personally I don't. Also it amounts to signing the article which I believe is contrary to Wikipedia policy. Adam 16:48, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Its now referenced. Stop being chippy and give your work the deserving shove it's worth Giano 21:31, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Seems its now not referenced again. Adam can you not just give a little here and conform? - a little? Giano 21:53, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

What do you want me to do? Those are the references I used. I can't make up references out of thin air. Everyking is right that they add nothing of value to the article, which is why he (not I) deleted them. Adam 02:16, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

OK, here are some standard histories of Bulgaria, from the National Libriary of Australia catalogue. They can be added as further reading rather than references, since they were not used (by me at any rate) as references for writing this article:


 * Balkans : a history of Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, Rumania, Turkey / by Nevill Forbes ... [et al.].   1915.
 * History of Bulgaria / Hristo Hristov ; [translated from the Bulgarian, Stefan Kostov ; editor, Dimiter Markovski]. Khristov, Khristo Angelov,.  c1985.
 * History of Bulgaria, 1393-1885 / [by] Mercia Macdermott. MacDermott, Mercia, 1927-  [1962].
 * Concise history of Bulgaria / R.J. Crampton. Crampton, R. J.  1997.
 * Short history of Bulgaria / [by] D. Kossev, H. Hristov [and] D. Angelov ; [Translated by Marguerite Alexieva and Nicolai Koledarov ; illustrated by Ivan Bogdanov [and] Vladislav Paskalev]. Kossev, D.  1963.
 * Short history of Bulgaria / Nikolai Todorov ; [L. Dimitrova, translator]. Todorov, Nikolai, 1921-  1975.

Adam 02:21, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * They don't need to have been used while creating the text, but they do need to be useful in confirming the content in the article. If this is the case, then list them as references. --mav 06:02, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Since I haven't read them, I have no idea what they confirm. Adam 08:40, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Pity! It would have been good to have seen it on the front page. Giano 09:00, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Well then add those references/further reading to the article! ATM it still has bad lead and no refrences - I can see virtually NO improvement since it was listed here few days ago :( --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 13:29, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * I think we mostly all agree this is a good article that needs better references. This discussion seems to have devolved from Featured Article issues to just plain Article.  Shouldn't we move this talk to Talk:History of Bulgaria?  We can resume this here after detailed references are cited and used, which will likely change the article.  -- A D Monroe III 23:15, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * Object. The article contains POV edits by Vmoro, who is attempting to hide the evidence that points to Peter Asen being a Vlach, Peter Asen being the founder of the Empire of the Vlachs and Bulgars. Decius 00:01, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)