Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Song Dynasty/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 21:24, 28 April 2007.

Song Dynasty
After compiling a lot of work into this article on my own behalf, with significant edits by User:AQu01rius, I believe this article is ready for FA status. It has a wealth of (researched and cited) information ranging on just about every major topic associated with the Song Dynasty of medieval China. It has an infobox with map and general info, the Chinese history box, a detailed history of the dynasty, detailed sections on its society, culture, economy, and technology, and to cap it all off, a small dissertation on Song era Chinese architecture. There are also 50 different citations throughout the article, from the sources listed at the end. There is also a great deal of precious artwork that brings this part of Chinese history alive through mere sight and tangibility.

Feel free to comment, give advice, suggest changes, and even to object.

--PericlesofAthens 01:38, 31 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Strong Support, though the "Citations" section wasn't totally proper. I moved it into the "Notes" and got rid of the redundancy of listing all of a source's info over and over again. That belongs only in "References". But it looks good, nice work. Cliff smith 03:03, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Object Insufficient amount of citations, years alone should not be wikilinked, "See Also" section comes before ntoes sections per Guide to layout, about ten external jumps around the "Song Architecture" section that need to be converted to references with . M3tal H3ad 03:38, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
 * ✅ Those things have been taken care of. Cliff smith 17:43, 8 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment Don't judge the article just yet, Cliff smith just made a ref change that now makes a large part of the article invisible unless you go to the 'history' tab or 'edit this page' tab. With the missing information, a large part of the article does not flow together, is abrupt, does not fit together, and does not make sense.PericlesofAthens 03:53, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment Article fixed! Everything's fine. Feel free to judge away! Lol. Btw, good advice M3tal H3ad, and I like the name, I'm a metal head as well. Hah.PericlesofAthens 04:09, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
 * ✅ The external jumps are all taken care of. Cliff smith 17:02, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks Cliff! PericlesofAthens 17:47, 31 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Support - The article is pretty well done. Needs another 20 more citations at least, and optionally the organization of the references section. Other than that, I don't see any other significant problems. AQu01rius (User &#149; Talk) 04:51, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
 * CommentI just added to the technology sub-section, about Shen Kuo's writings on the Chinese use of a drydock to repair boats suspended in the air, in the 11th century.PericlesofAthens 05:17, 31 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Strong Oppose Blue-link references. All websources need a publisher and retrieval date, as well as author and publication date when available.  Once you've provided publishers, it will be easier to judge the reliability of your sources.  Example of how to cite can be found at WP:CITE/ES, or the cite templates can be used. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 03:02, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Please consider not using the bulky citation templates. They add huge amounts of wikicode that make articles much more difficult to edit to those unfamiliar with wikicode, or for that matter experienced editors who don't want to dig through mounds of excess text just to try to do simply copyediting. Figuring out a standard format for one article isn't complicated enough to actually require a template. Peter Isotalo 10:09, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * ✅ The websources are now all listed with authors, publishers, creation dates, and retrieval dates! Thanks for the CITE/ES reference, SandyGeorgia.
 * Not done :-) I guess I confused you with the generic "references" when I should have said footnotes; they still contain bluelinks with no expanded bibiliographic info.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 20:02, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * ✅ Ok, this time, I got it! Lol. I'm glad I finally understood what you were getting at, and that it's over with.

OK, now that websources are identified, I have questions: And so on ... Sandy Georgia (Talk) 00:42, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Beck, Sanderson (2004-2005). China 7 BC To 1279 Sanderson Beck. Retrieved on 2006-08-23 The publisher here should be listed as san.beck.org, which is http://www.san.beck.org/  He lists his credentials, but it still appears to be a self-published personal website, and maybe self-published books (I'm not clear on that).  Is it a reliable source for the text sourced?
 * Theobald, Ulrich (2000). Chinese History - Song Dynasty 宋 (960-1279) event history Ulrich Theobald. Retrieved on 2006-08-23 The publisher here should be listed as chinaknowledge.de  Here are his credentials; is it a reliable source for the text sourced?
 * Leong, Kit Meng (April 2006)Chinese Siege Warfare Leong Kit Meng. Retrieved on 2007-03-29 The publisher here should be listed as history-forum.com, which looks like a message forum and doesn't seem to be a reliable source.  http://www.history-forum.com/

I corrected several endashes on date ranges (starting at the bottom of the article) and added non-breaking hard spaces between numbers and units of measurement (see WP:DASH and WP:MOSNUM), but there is more to be done. Also, per WP:MOSNUM, solo years should not be wikilinked; there is a lot of work to be done in removing the links. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 01:00, 2 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I switched to strong oppose based on the non-reliable sources used (1c), lack of citations on most of the article (1c), MOS issues still (2), and extreme size and failure to employ summary style for tight focus on the subject (4)&mdash;the article has 74KB of readable prose, against the WP:LENGTH guideline. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 01:37, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, all agreeable. For now I skimmed down the article by taking out the section "Shen Kuo's Dissertation on the Timberwork Manual" by actually putting that info into Shen Kuo's own wiki article, with a parenthesis directing the reader to his article if they wished to learn more about the Timberwork Manual of Yu Hao. Also, with those websources that you have in question, I will get book sources for them instead, since they seem to be more trouble than they are worth. To be honest, I was not the one who referenced the first two, but the Chinese Siege Warfare one I did. The information posted in that online source is from Leong Kit Meng's book (the title of his book is the title of the site), and I know the author as an acquaintence through www.chinahistoryforum.com. I don't feel like going out and buying his book, so I will just look for stuff on the flamethrower in one of Needham's books instead. PericlesofAthens 02:37, 2 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment I just got rid of all the wiki-links to solo years, as you requested. I also slimmed down the article a bit more, by taking out that large block quote about the Lighthouse of Alexandria, and putting it into the article of Lighthouse of Alexandria instead. Hope that cut (along with the earlier cut) slims down the article to a significant amount that it better fits the length standard.PericlesofAthens 03:57, 2 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment: Please name date and artist (+lifespan) of all images as far as possible. Just to make clear what is contemporary and what is centuries later artwork and to be fair to the artists. Wandalstouring 09:38, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * ^ Ok, from what I see, the only artwork that is not dated or ascribed to a specific artist is:

A) Portrait of Wang Anshi

B) The drawing of Sima Guang

C) The Portrait of Kublai Khan

D) And the portrait of Zhu Xi

129.174.54.151 18:43, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure about the portraits of Wang, Sima, and Zhu, but I know for a fact that the Kublai portrait was one commissioned by Kublai himself in his reign era, along with the official portrait of Genghis Khan, which is painted in similar style. I'll get back to you on that, but really, it's not a top priority at the moment. This article needs improving on many other things before someone minds getting to that.PericlesofAthens 18:46, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, if you're looking for answers about those portrait paintings, here's what their image pages say:

A) Wang Anshi - the only description it provides is that it was scanned from ISBN 7-5347-1397-8

B) Sima Guang - Sima Guang（司馬光）was a historian of China. This image was carried on the book which is called "Wan hsiao tang-Chu chuang -Hua chuan（晩笑堂竹荘畫傳） " which was published in 1921（民国十年）.

C) Nothing is said of the Kublai picture on its own image page of Image:Kublai Khan.jpg, and further, nothing is said on its wikicommons equivalent.

D) Zhu Xi - his image page says the picture was scanned from 《社会历史博物馆》 ISBN 7-5347-1397-8

Unfortunately, all that I can provide are the ISBN numbers for the books that someone scanned them from. What is particularly annoying about this is the only person who bothered writing a description of any one of the portrait paintings was the guy/gal who was nice enough to write where he/she got Sima Guang's drawing from. But beyond that, that's it. In my opinion, it's all pretty trivial, since most of the artwork in the Song article is dated and attributed to an artist (or specified as from an anonymous artist). Don't let these four pics bother you. If they do, you can look up those ISBN numbers and try to find the pictures on your behalf, if you're still curious about who painted them and when.PericlesofAthens 21:49, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - I just fixed all the in-between dates of the article with proper dashes (ie. "&ndash") as described in the Manual of Style (dashes).PericlesofAthens 23:52, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment I just fixed all unites of measurement in the article, by using the format "" meters ("" feet), "" kg ("" tons), etc., according to the guidelines of the Manual of Style (dates and numbers). PericlesofAthens 00:20, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
 * ✅ - with these items above SandyGeorgia has requested.

You're making very nice progress on the article, but many solo years are still wikified and should be unlinked per WP:MOSNUM. Also, strangely, the prose size of the article is now larger as measured by Dr pda's script, moving from 74KB of readable prose to 76KB (well beyond recommended guidelines at WP:LENGTH). The article seems to lend itself to natural divisions for Summary style; can you move content to separate articles on Song Dynasty architecture, Song Dynasty technology, Song Dynasty philosophy, or Song Dynasty culture, and summarize each of those back to this article with a few paragraphs? The goal is to make an encyclopedic-sized entry, easier for readers to load and digest. (PS, another benefit of doing that is that you can probably submit those articles as future FACs, getting some additional featured articles.) Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 04:05, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
 * ^ Cool, I'll consider doing that next (just to be safe, I got rid of the brief history of Chinese written work on architecture prior to the Song Dynasty, which has hopefully slimmed the article down significantly). I got rid of the questionable websources mentioned, and replaced them instead with extra book citations. I also attempted to trim the article down a bit more and summarize more clearly to the point, but you're right, this article is rather long. However, might I remind you of my wiki login name: PericlesofAthens. Pericles has a featured article on wiki, and in all his article is 89 kilobytes. That's merely one figure of Greek history (although a very important one), while the Song Dynasty covers 3 centuries of history. Doesn't 3 entire centuries of history deserve at least somewhat of a larger portion of written space than a person's single life? Also, by removing all that information, I think the article would be too shortsighted (not gaining the big picture as it should) and would also lessen the amount of citations required for a substantial featured article. You are a more experienced wikipedian than I, and you probably know the ropes (of bureaucracy) much more than I. Consider what I've said, though. PericlesofAthens 05:08, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - I just skimmed down the prose amount of the article more by deleting the long paragraph on the wedding process description, which was under the family and gender sub-section of Society. That should bring the article into more acceptable length standard.PericlesofAthens 14:50, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Back to look again, as requested. Solo dates are still wikilinked.  Pericles, you don't need to *remove* content; you can move it to sub-articles per summary style.  The current readable prose is still significantly above guidelines, at 73KB.  The overall size of Pericles at 89KB isn't a problem; it has only 42KB of readable prose, which is within guidelines. Have you read WP:LENGTH to understand the difference between overall size and readable prose?  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 15:54, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Very nice; the size is now at 35KB, which is quite nice, and gives you a bit of room to grow if needed. All of the structural/MOS things look sound now.  I'll print a hard copy for a thorough read (don't like to do final read at the computer.)  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 02:33, 4 April 2007 (UTC)  PS - pls don't use those goofy green tick marks; for some reason they're talking hold this week, and they're really irritating :-)  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 02:34, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Great, I can't wait to hear your responses. As to the green marks, I am new to wiki, and I thought it was the appropriate thing to do after watching others. Lol. Guess I was wrong! --PericlesofAthens 15:52, 4 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Oppose—1a. The writing is nowhere near good enough. The whole text needs careful copy-editing by somone who's unfamiliar with it. Please network among WPians who've successfully worked on similar articles. Here are a few random examples of problems in the writing. (Please don’t just fix these examples.)
 * "was marked both by cultural explosion, as well as military and natural disasters."—Talking of "marked", this is marked grammatically twice, in "as well as" (= strong "and") and "both" (= unexpected duality); is either required? In the subsequent sentence, is "also" necessary?
 * "In the transition between 10th to 11th century, the population of China increased dramatically, as the Northern Song Dynasty held a population of some 100 million people". "the transition between 10th to 11th century"—Nope. The logic of "as" escapes me. "held a population" is unidiomatic.
 * "This came about through expanded rice cultivation in central and southern China, along with Chinese farmers producing abundant yields of food beyond self-sufficiency, hence their ability to sell greater amount of food for the market."—"farmers producing" is ungrammatical; why not use "through" by ellipsis and nominalise ("production")? And who else but Chinese farmers would be at issue? "This came about through expanded rice cultivation in central and southern China, and farmers' production of abundant yields of food beyond self-sufficiency, hence their ability to sell greater amount of food for the market." Do you sell for a market?
 * Maybe just a little too much detail in your northern/southern distinction in the lead. We'll get to that later, won't we?
 * "created new use of revolutionary military technology enhanced by the use of gunpowder." Create old use? Create use? Was the newness based on the use of gunpowder (it's unclear)? Use x 2.Tony 23:07, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok Tony, I fixed the introductory paragraphs a bit, since there were a few sentences that needed rewording. I will also read through the rest of the article again in order to edit and improve any grammatical errors or poor wording that might be found. However, put down Michael Halliday's elite book of functional grammar for a moment and level with all of us plebian laymen folk. Lol. Just kidding, thanks for commenting. --PericlesofAthens 02:59, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
 * "A bit"? I've had a quick go at the lead after you looked at it, and was surprised to find so much to edit. Can you find someone unfamiliar with the rest to have a run through it? The rest is much better than it was, but there's a limit to what a primary author can readily identify (me too). Tony 08:09, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I see, and I like your improvements, they sound much better. Michael Halliday is useful after all! Who would have thunk it? Lol. I'm not sure who to summon for editing and commenting on this article, if they are to be unfamiliar with it. You mean that I should just go around making random requests? I had the thought of leaving messages about this thread to everyone at Wikiproject:History of China, but are you saying it's better to get feedback from someone not versed in Chinese history?--PericlesofAthens 16:01, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I think he's talking about submitting this to the League of Copyeditors. Cliff smith 17:42, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Cool, I left the League of Copyeditors a message on their proofreading page to view this article (and I also attached their tag to the discussion page). Personally I would have gone with The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but I suppose help from the copyeditors instead will have to do for now. Lol.--PericlesofAthens 20:50, 9 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Update? Any changes in the copedit status, Pericles? I printed your article to read last week, but decided to hold off until it's closer to ready.  I'm also bugged that there's a problem with the Printable version on Wiki; they don't show the See also templates, so I thought you hadn't used Summary style correctly.  Need to figure out how to get this fixed with the Wiki tech people. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 20:32, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Nothing new, just waiting for some word or anything from the league of copyeditors.--PericlesofAthens 17:59, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I struck my object because Pericles has done a fine job of addressing concerns. I can't offer my support only because my house flooded, and I don't have time to re-read the article.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 16:43, 17 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Object due to image problems. Image:Northern Song Jun Ware Planter, stoneware with Jun glaze, early 12th century.jpg is labeled both PD and non-free, and does not contain fair use rationale. Image:Liaodyanstyguanyin.jpg is tagged as Cc-by-2.5, but the Flickr page does not support this. I only checked the first three images and two had problems; please verify the correct copyright status of all images in the article.  Pagra shtak  22:07, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Object, the photographs of vases are copyvios and can, IMO, not be a fair use; other images need at least additional information at most serious licensing sorting-out issues. Regarding the vases, the photographs are not slavish reproductions but require considerable creative skill and thus create a copyright which the photographer or his or her employer owns.  Thus photographs of items whic h have fallen into the public domain are not necessarily in the public domain themselves.  --Iamunknown 04:59, 26 April 2007 (UTC)  This -- commons:Category:Greek antiquities in the Louvre -- is why I do not think that the non-free photographs of vases can be a fair use; while I am unaware of a free collection of vases from the Song Dynasty, it could be possible and thus these images fail point one of Wikipedia's policy regarding non-free content.  --Iamunknown 05:02, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, gentlemen, settle down now (lol). I fixed the copyright status on both the Jun Ware Planter and the Liao Dynasty Guanyin statue pic. You can check them both out now, they are sound (and the links to their fair use copyrights are provided). All other pictures in the article are also taken care of. Still object?--PericlesofAthens 18:56, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I apologise that I have not yet elaborated; I do still have concerns. Image:Liaodyanstyguanyin.jpg is, according to the Flickr description page, licensed under a Creative Commons license that is unacceptable for Wikipedia.  I have attempted contact with the Flickr user and will hopefully be able to get him or her to agree to freely license it.  In the meantime it should be deleted.
 * Furthermore the gallery of non-free content under the section titled "Society, culture, economy, and technology" should either be orphaned and deleted or replaced with free images. I pointed to commons:Category:Greek antiquities in the Louvre because I wanted to point out that we do have galleries of an entire museum's collection and that it is possible; I wanted to point out that the images are replaceable and should not be used.
 * Can you send the permission for Image:Liuhe Pagoda.jpg to ?
 * We really do need more detail on the image description pages of those images scanned from books.
 * So I maintain my objection, the article fails point #3 of the Featured article criteria, several images have inappropriate copyright statuses and some fail the Non-free content criteria. --Iamunknown 03:11, 28 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Prose much improved; however, please take Iamunknown's concerns about copyright seriously. Tony 23:25, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.