Wikipedia:Featured article review/Castle/archive1


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

The article was kept by Dana boomer 17:54, 14 December 2010.

Castle

 * Notified: WikiProject Military History, WikiProject: Japanese military history task force, WikiProject Japan, WikiProject Architecture

I am nominating this featured article for review for several reasons: Boneyard90 (talk) 14:58, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The article is heavily BIASED toward European castles, to the point where it actively excludes the possibility of castles being built by non-European cultures.
 * This point has been brought up by several contributors in the Discussion page, and no constructive resolution has been reached.
 * The catalytic point of contention revolves around the issue, If a Japanese castle meets all the criteria of a "castle", as described in the article, can it be considered a "true" castle?
 * At least one reference has been used out of context to support the Europe-only bias (specifically, #15 (Turnbull 2003)).
 * The article is therefore in violation of several points of the criteria for "Featured Articles":
 * 1.(b) It fails to be 'comprehensive'.
 * 1.(c) Claims are based on misinformation or based on a narrow set of sources.
 * 1.(d) It is therefore NOT NEUTRAL.
 * 1.(e) Because of prodigious commentary and on-going disagreement over content, the subject is therefore NOT STABLE.


 * Comment I don't believe FAR is to be used to settle content disputes. If you believe the article should include additional geographic or cultural areas, you should follow the dispute resolution process. I don't see any evidence of even an RFC, just rehashing the same discussions on the Talk page (most recently July) and failure to establish consensus that the scope of the article should be changed. I also note that you have not followed the FAR instructions and notified the primary contributor to the article. Recommend removing this nomination. -- Andy Walsh  (talk)  16:30, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep (ec) This definitional issue was addressed at great length in the FAC, which was not that long ago, & the consensus to promote demonstrated that the nominator's position that this was how most academic sources treated the Western tradition of the "castle" was accepted. Why it is always the very clearly distinctive Japanese tradition that is brought up I don't know - Indian forts are at least as strong an argument. All this is really just arguing for a rename to Castle (Western) or something, but I don't think such a move is justified. Johnbod (talk) 16:31, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment. This vexatious nomination is simply the latest attempt by the nominator to impose his own pov on this article. And to claim that there is "prodigious commentary and on-going disagreement" resulting in the article's instability is quite simply a fantasy. This nomination should be closed and the content/renaming dispute dealt with elsewhere. Malleus Fatuorum 16:38, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment. I have been frustrated by other means of dispute resolution. I have brought this article to this forum because I believed the points were valid and wish to see the article improved, and I thought it should be brought to the attention of a larger group of editors. The point about "Indian fort" is valid, but I don't have expertise on that topic. There has been prodigious commentary on the topic of European bias, in the Talk:Castle (some of which has been moved to an archived section, I believe), and alot of discussion revolved around this bias when it was up for Featured Article. I don't believe it was fully resolved there either, but somehow it passed. I feel the point about the references is pretty solid.Boneyard90 (talk) 16:56, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The matter has been resolved because a consensus was established, which doesn't mean that everyone agrees or is happy. You'd better spell out what your references point is, but it will hardly justify an FAR. Johnbod (talk) 17:02, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The passage I refer in the article reads: "...there were analogous structures in Japan built in the 16th and 17th centuries that evolved independently from European influence and which, according to military historian Stephen Turnbull, had 'a completely different developmental history, were built in a completely different way and were designed to withstand attacks of a completely different nature'.[15]". The quote was taken from a book titled Japanese castles 1540–1640, so obviously was not meant to refute its own title and topic. Boneyard90 (talk) 17:18, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It seems very clear that whatever the title of Turnbull's book he is stating that Japanese castles were analagous structures, not that they were castles in the way we would use the word in English. They "had 'a completely different developmental history, were built in a completely different way and were designed to withstand attacks of a completely different nature. Japanese castles obviously are so dissimilar in history, form, and function from European castles that they need to be dealt with in a separate article, as indeed they are. Malleus Fatuorum 17:25, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Points acknowledged. However, they still contained the same features and served the same functions, as stipulated in the Castle article, and therefore fit the definition. In Discussion, I cite several sources on architecture and history that either acknowledge that castles were built in other countries (such as Japan), or are completely neutral with respect to geography. Therefore, the article should be modified, and made more inclusive in some of its wording. Boneyard90 (talk) 17:36, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Comment When was I going to be notified about this? I only stumbled across this because I was idly reading over the article on Raby Caslte and happened to click on the link to the castle article by mistake. In short Johnbod says what I was thinking, although I'll try to summarise what I have said on the article's talk page. Nev1 (talk) 20:10, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * That might be my fault. I read that the "Featured Article" nominator was supposed to be notified, but once I was in this process, I couldn't find that specific information. If that is indeed you, (Nev-1), I figured it would pop up in your Watchlist. Boneyard90 (talk) 20:18, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm sure it did, but my watchlist has nearly 8,000 items. My signature was on the talk page and includes a link to my talk, and my name is all over the article history, also with links. Nev1 (talk) 20:24, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment As stability is the most straightforward issue, I'll deal with that first. Since this was last discussed in June and July, the article has had 128 edits which for the most part consisted of the usual back and forth of vandalism fighting (it probably wouldn't have hurt for the article to be semi-protected) you'll find on any high-profile article with the occasional tweak here and there. To claim that it's unstable simply doesn't stand up to scrutiny. When this discussion was brought up in June there were nine edits to the article and plenty of discussion on the talk page. Criteria 1(b) to (d) are all inter-related and depend on the representation of the sources. The sources used in the article are major publications on the subject, written by some of the most authoritative authors in the field of castellology. R. Allen Brown for instance was one of the founders of Château Gaillard, a multi-lingual journal for the publication of articles relating to castle studies. Broadly castle studies can be divided into work up to the 1990s, where the military interpretation dominated, and from the 1990s onwards when there was a shift towards looking at castles in their social context. Allen Brown and Cathcart King are two of the most influential of the first period, while Liddiard, Creighton, and especially Coulson are the three biggest names of the latter. The definition of castle the article uses is sourced to Allen Brown, quoted below. The references Boneyard has provided on the article's talk page would under most circumstances satisfy WP:RS, but in this instance asserting that they take precedent over publications specifically about castles is to give primacy to lower quality sources. As I previously demonstrated, they are less than ideal and make errors that people specialising in castle studies would not make. For instance, while the work of architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner is rightly highly regarded, he is not a specialist in castles and it shows when he defines "castle" in his Penguin Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture: "Castle. A fortified habitation. The planning and building of castles is primarily directed by the necessities of defence". This reflects an old school of thought regarding castles, despite being published in 1999, and has been refuted but later studies (particularly from the 1990s onwards) which show that in many case aspects such as display were also important. Much of Boneyard's argument rests not on sources but assertions that Japanese shiro share many features which are comparable with castles. He gives Stalley Early Medieval Architecture in support of this as it does not explicitly exclude structures outside Europe and the Middle East from its definition of what is a castle, however ignores that Stalley himself says "The rise of the castle, which has traditionally been defined as the fortified residence of an independent lord, was a direct consequence of feudalism, the social structure which emerged in Europe following the disintegration of the Carolingian Empire." This supports the current content of the article. As is already referenced, castles originated in Europe and were spread to the Middle East by Crusaders. Castles in this sphere – not exclusively European – are treated as separate entities in the sources to Japanese castles, which are analogous structures with differing backgrounds to those that originated in Europe. Moffett, Fazio & Wodehouse's A World History of Architecture further demonstrates the problem of general sources rather than those specifically about castles. They claim that one of the features of masonry castles in Europe was a promontory position; this is a popular misconception as castles were more often sited at centres of population or along important communication routes (such as roads) than hilltops which would have provided a natural defence. That's not to say castles weren't sited on promontories (eg: Beeston Castle), but it wasn't as common as most people assume. The source goes on to say that what set Japanese castles apart from other fortifications was "reliance on timber as the primary structural material". This simply is not the case; the earliest castles were timber, most notably Hen Domen, on which there has been a highly regarded study and it is considered an important example of timber castle. Higham and Barker have a volume called Timber Castle in which they trace the story of timber castles in Europe and examine their significance. My point is that works specifically on castles should naturally be favoured over those that are not; an author of a general works is expected to be a jack of all trades. Sorry about the wall of text, but while I of course understand FAR is not dispute resolution, I would like to put this to rest rather than deal with these attrition tactics. Nev1 (talk) 22:35, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment Seems to me as though Japanese Castles have as much relevance to this article as Mayan temples do to Egyptian Pyramids. They may share certain similarities, but otherwise are entirely unrelated.  I don't see anything important enough in this discussion to warrant FARC. Parrot of Doom 23:10, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment: Nev-1 makes some good points, but as this is an encyclopedia, I think it is appropriate to take from some general sources, or at least let the reader know that there is a broader interpretation available, and "specialists" are themselves biased. It would be difficult to be an authority on the same type of structure in different geographic regions. At least we can agree that the construction materials are largely irrelevant, as both European and Japanese castles used timber.
 * The latest comment by Parrot of Doom makes a good point. If you check the Wikipedia page Pyramid, you will indeed see that Egyptian pyramids and Mayan temples, along with a host of other pyramidal structures are all included and given equal attention. Boneyard90 (talk) 23:23, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * That wasn't the point I was making. Mayan temples and Egyptian Pyramids share certain structural similarities, but that's it.  Their designs are based purely on the only way to build tall structures from stone.  The Mayans didn't take photographs of Egyptian Pyramids and then sail back across the Atlantic to build their own.  Besides which, Pyramid is a rubbish article. Castle is not. Parrot of Doom 00:10, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment I'm one of those who commented on the talk page about apparent Western bias. My feeling is that if we are going to write about European castles under the title "Castle" rather than something more specific, that article should at least deal briefly with the reason it doesn't cover non-European castle-like buildings. It does that now, but not entirely to my satisfaction.

However, I am not an expert on castles, nor have I spend months digging through the literature on the subject. User:Nev1 has. As someone who spends months digging through literature on a completely different subject, I'm sympathetic to his problem with people who know less about the subject but think they know more. I believe his position is that castellologists simply don't deal with the European/non-European distinction adequately. If that is the case, there's not much Wikipedia can do about it. User:Boneyard90 proposed adding text to the article (option number three in his comment here) that I think would satisfy the definition problems—if it were reliably sourced. Nev1 argued that the text was original research and couldn't be added. As I haven't read the sources either of them are reading, I can't say whether that is the case, but if it is, I don't think this flaw—the only major flaw in an excellent article—can be resolved.

Short version: While I sympathize with Boneyard90's complaint, I'm also inclined to believe Nev1 when he says that the problem can't be resolved with the available sources. If Nev1 is right, this is a failing of the scholarly community rather than the article, and therefore a failing we cannot resolve anytime soon. If articles can get their FA status revoked for that, maybe the status of Castle should be taken away. But if they can't, it certainly shouldn't. A. Parrot (talk) 00:32, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't see it like that. I see no reason why European castellologists should cover Japanese castles except as an interesting contrast from a wholly different and unconnected tradition - parallel evolution in military architecture. I rather doubt books in Japanese on their castles devote much space to European ones, nor should they. The argument here seems to be that either the articles are pretty much combined, or we redirect the plain term straight to Castle (disambiguation), which doesn't seem necessary. There is a clear early link to the Japanese article, and in English the Western castle is the clear primary meaning.  I think a few more sentences on Japanese ones might be justified, but any more and there are plenty of other kinds of "castle" that will be demanding space, until you end up with a classic WP list of junky sections like pyramid. Johnbod (talk) 04:09, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok, a "few more sentences". A.Parrot linked to another long comment I made, but here was my proposed compromise paragraph he mentioned:
 * "The word "castle" is also applied to fortified structures in other parts of the world, that may have developed independantly, but nonetheless meet the same criteria, contain the same features, and served in the same functions as castles in Europe. Among the more notable are the [Japanese castles|o-shiro] of Japan, which are popularly referred to as "castles". While there are texts written by professors of history and architecture that do not include geography as a defining characteristic of a "castle", some of which specifically use the terms "Japanese castle" in comparison to "European castles" (reference Fleming et al., Gwilt, Moffett et al, and Turnbull - or another history source), there remains some dispute over the scholarly application of the word "castle", in regard to whether a fortified structure that originated outside of the European sphere of influence in history can be regarded as a true castle (reference something that specifies Europe only)" Boneyard90 (talk) 04:20, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Well that isn't what I had in mind myself at all, though perhaps something like it could be added at Japanese castle, which currently doesn't even mention the Western tradition or the use of the term. How would you reference "popularly"? I suspect it means mostly "by Japanese translating into English" or "in tourist information".  I was thinking of a very brief summary of the period they were built & how they differed and compared to Western ones, not going on about the word. I couldn't do it myself as all I know about them comes from watching Kurosawa films.  But I think I supported that way back & Nev wasn't keen.  You need to get away from the word, and start thinking about the concept or subject for the article. Is there one thing or two? I say the latter. Johnbod (talk) 07:15, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * "You need to get away from the word, and start thinking about the concept or subject for the article." That's it in a nutshell. Malleus Fatuorum 13:59, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Concept. The concept of a type of building, separated from its label. Are we talking about, say...
 * the difference between a church and a mosque?
 * Or a skyscraper in New York versus a skyscraper in Taiwan?
 * Or the use of the word "temple" to denote either Buddhist or Jewish places of worship (not to mention the neutral connotation, as in "the body is a temple")?
 * I will continue to think on this. I can also look into editing the Japanese castle page. If we can agree that the Castle page needs some minor modification, I would be willing to cooperate so editors are satisfied and readers aren't misled in any way. Boneyard90 (talk) 15:37, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Additional closing note: The majority of editors commenting here appear to think that a FAR is not warranted for this article at this point. I would suggest that the nominator take into consideration the comments that have been made here, and seek to work this dispute out with the primary editor and others in a civil fashion on the talk page or another dispute resolution venue. Dana boomer (talk) 17:56, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.