Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of bibliographies of works on Catullus/archive1


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

The list was promoted by PresN via FACBot (talk) 00:25, 29 January 2023 (UTC).

List of bibliographies of works on Catullus

 * Nominator(s): Umimmak (talk) 02:18, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Catullus was a hugely influential Roman poet whose Carmina are largely known to modern times because of a single manuscript from c. 1300. The first printed book of Catullus's poetry was published in 1472. Thousands of publications about him and his poetry and its legacy have appeared since then, and dozens of works have attempted to bring some sort of order to the sea of scholarship by listing, cataloging, indexing, and summarizing the books and papers about him. This article is an annotated list of these bibliographies which have been identified as being bibliographies of Catullus in third-party sources.

I realize Wikipedia does not have many "metabibliographies"; initially I was planning to do just a Bibliography of works on Catullus but as I was compiling sources to consider using for that, I realized that many sources specifically classified and discussed bibliographies of Catullus as a category of works unto itself. A full bibliography of works on Catullus I think is a monumental task, hence the number of works attempting to do this. I would like to see more topical bibliographies on Wikipedia in general; per WP:BIB these do belong on Wikipedia provided the category of bibliographies on that topic is notable, but I couldn't find too many examples to model this article off of (though see Bibliography of works on Madonna). I am nominating this for featured list because I think this is a great example of what topic bibliographies (WikiProject Bibliographies) and indeed other metabibliographies could look like on Wikipedia. I've done a ton of research for this, and have followed a strict inclusion criterion where every entry on the list is referenced as belonging in this category by a third-party source, and all annotations are sourced to third-party sources as well.

That said, this is my first attempt at a featured list and I haven't found really any FLs which I could use as a model. I've asked WT:BIB for advice but it's unfortunately less active these days. I realize I might have to tweak a few things, but am happy to make this article the best it can be with your feedback and advice.

Thanks! Umimmak (talk) 02:18, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Prose review
Placeholder. Ping me if I haven't updated by Sunday 18th December. AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:17, 12 December 2022 (UTC)


 * just pinging you per your request! Thanks for taking a look at it! Umimmak (talk) 16:18, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

As always, these are suggestions, not demands. As there are several issues currently, I am leaning oppose (see below). I look forward to your responses. AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:15, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Hmm. I'm not entirely sure about the concept or the rationale behind using CS1 templates as, in effect, main text. I'll consider it, but remember to include the parameter |ref=none for each of them, otherwise anchors are created for each.
 * On the note of citations, you may wish to check out no. 60 (Smolenaars 1972), which doesn't appear to be citing anything.
 * You don't need to separate reviews in the same reference, it causes the syntax to become a bit confused.
 * Are there really no non-German bibliographies before the 1940s?
 * I have edited the first sentences for clarity. Feel free to revert if you disagree.
 * Lists should not be introduced as "this is a list of ..." (see MOS:LEADCLUTTER). In practice, this means the last clauses of the first paragraph (from the semicolon onwards) can be removed.
 * Unsure about the second paragraph. The lead has to give importance relative to what's in the body. A large part of the article describes pre-1950s works, and yet there is no mention of this in the lead. The second paragraph seems to just be a selection of bibliographies you found interesting, when in reality it should describe trends or bibliographic evolution.
 * The third paragraph could be simplified greatly. The idea that items are only included if other sources have included them in discussions of bibliographies, even if they aren't strictly relevant to Catullus, only needs to be articulated once.


 * Thank you for taking a look. Some responses:
 * I'm not sure I understand the specific objection. (: Even though items in a list of works are not strictly speaking citations, our various citation templates are often a good way to format a list item. The templates provide a consistent format, and their documentation is a handy way to check that all relevant information is provided.) The templates make sure that a reader can get all the important information about a source in a consistently formatted manner.
 * Added throughout. Umimmak (talk) 21:20, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Fixed the date. Umimmak (talk) 21:20, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
 * You don't need to separate reviews in the same reference, it causes the syntax to become a bit confused. WP:CITEBUNDLE is standard on Wikipedia, no? Or is this about something else? I'm not sure I understand this point.
 * non-German bibliographies I couldn't find any reference to any; I really did aim to be as thorough as possible, erring on the side of including more rather than less so long as they met the inclusion criterion. There are earlier sections on Catullus within broader bibliographies on Greek and Roman literature (see, e.g., Marouzeau 1927 in my works cited), but I've included all the ones which got mentioned specifically within discussions of bibliographies of Catullus.
 * You've changed one sentence to read known for writing 113 poems on personal topics, but I'm not sure if all 113 poems could be classified as being "on personal topics" as this sentence implies? That's not a claim the reference makes in any event, Your first change makes sense to me though.
 * I ended up slightly changing this, also went with source and avoided calling him leading figure. Umimmak (talk) 21:20, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Removed Umimmak (talk) 21:20, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I didn't want to overemphasize the pre-1950s works in the lead; for the most part they aren't talked about much these days other than citations for their existence. I can come up with a sentence or two about Bursians Jahresbericht, but with the rest of your point I'm not sure if that's the way you want me to go?
 * I was thinking more MOS:INTRO making it stand on its own as a concise version of the article, so if people only read the lead they'd still come away knowing the main bibliographic works.
 * trends or bibliographic evolution, I'm not sure if there's anything to say on trends or evolution; I don't want to force a narrative where none exists or go into WP:SYNTH territory. The history of Catullan scholarship as a whole has gone through multiple trends and phases which are well-documented and discussed, but bibliographies stay fairly constant? The only thing sources have discussed as it comes to bibliographies is the rise in electronic ones so I can work on adding a bit on that. The body also doesn't really discuss trends, and Significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article. I'll work on drafting another version though.
 * The third paragraph could be simplified greatly. I'll workshop this. I guess I just wanted separately mention standalone bibliographies about topics other than Catullus, bibliographies within books on Catullus, and tertiary sources like encyclopedia articles, but I can see if I can repeat myself less.
 * As a general question; do you happen to have any ideas of FLs whose leads you think might be useful for me to study? Umimmak (talk) 20:56, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Can we please try to follow the indentation guidelines at WP:TALKREPLY? Otherwise things just get confusing, and formatting a reply to a # list is rather incomprehensible.
 * 1: works for me
 * 2: Apart from the fact that some CSS scripts go into meltdown, it helps to future-proof the article.
 * 4: Not necessarily standard, but it was just a suggestion. For clarification, I'm talking about citations such as 31, 41, 75, and 83, which on their own would be two/three citations. I typically only bundle when I need to put five or more citations at the end of one sentence.
 * 5: acceptable justification
 * 6. feel free to do what you like with the first sentences; I just felt the original was a bit clunky with all the "Catullus"s.
 * 8-11: On the lead: for the second paragraph, I was thinking an outline summarising points such as the opening of Konstan 2010's biography section ("In the first half of the 20th century...such literal interpretations have been superseded"), or Skinner's 2015 introduction. While this is an list of bibliographies, you should show some engagement with the scholarly aspects found in those bibliographies too. This only needs to be a couple of lines; then you can outline the most important bibliographies (in an order, probably chronological). As this is a list, and therefore not as naturally comprehensive, greater allowance can be made for information not in the body; obviously, information in the body should still all be covered, in some way or another.
 * Striking my earlier !vote, I hope you find this helpful. AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:30, 19 December 2022 (UTC)


 * My apologies; I thought numbering points would make it clearer to refer to specific topics; I'll avoid that in the future and just use the reply box. Anchors should all be taken care of. I can unbundle if other reviewers wish, I have the tendency to want to bundle sources if they're all being used for the same purpose. There was also initially some going back and forth on my end as to how many book reviews these bundles refs would have; I ended up only including two or three, focusing on English-language, online, and which most discussed the bibliography when possible but an earlier version had every book review I could find -- at one point there were 7 book reviews for Buchner-Hofmann. But point noted that I don't have to be as scared of two or three consecutive footnotes for the future.
 * Okay that makes sense re the second paragraph, thank you for those comments. There's certainly a lot to be said about the history of biographical research on Catullus or the history of analysis of his poetry, etc., but I'm not sure if there's much to say about how bibliographies have changed over time, other than how they indirectly give a picture of changing research trends? I'll try to come up with some more research for this part; I just don't want it to be engagement with the scholarly aspects if that makes sense.
 * I did quickly rewrite the third lead paragraph by the way, not sure it's perfect yet but it's hopefully a tad less repetitious. Umimmak (talk) 00:27, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I've also now gone through and put the second lead paragraph in as best chronological order as I could. It made more sense to me to discuss Granarolo's Lustrum articles together and then the two books, rather than Granarolo, Harrauer, Holoka, Granarolo, but I can reorder this if you like. Umimmak (talk) 05:09, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Much, much better in all respects. Support AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:20, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much for the helpful comments to make this a better article! Umimmak (talk) 22:23, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Comments from HAL
It good to see a list on the Classics. Here's what I got: That's all. ~ HAL  333  00:48, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
 * My major concern is regarding criteria 4 of the FLC criteria - structure. Is there some way you could make this list into a table, making it more readable and allowing for sort features?
 * "known for his collection of 113 poems" sounds as if he collected/preserved poems rather than composing them. Edit for clarity
 * What's the difference between a survey article versus a review article?
 * "who first compiled" -- what does "first" mean here?
 * Could the two links in the "See also" section be integrated into the lead in some way?
 * Bullets in the "Works cited" section may make it look cleaner


 * Thanks for your comments, my responses:
 * Criterion 4 reads where helpful. I honestly don't think a table would make this more readable; to me a table would just be for the sake of using a table, whereas a simple list doesn't force all items to be treated the same way (books, chapters, journal articles, websites, etc., all have different metadata) or to squish things like annotations into a single cell. Plus this many columns would make it so it would be too wide for many readers' screens (especially with the images for 5b). It does make use of section headings and is easy to navigate in the most useful sense, namely chronological order. I'm happy to try to play around with this, but I think I'd like more guidance as to what readers would actually want. (If I were to make this sortable, then I'd get rid of section headings, and to me that would make this far more unnavigable, for instance. And what would people realistically need to sort this by?) I hope you don't mind my mild pushing back on this; this would be such a massive change to the article I'd want to make sure it's actually an improvement.
 * How does the following work for you? Just trying not to undo the suggestions from :
 * Gaius Valerius Catullus (c. 84 – c. 54 BCE) was a Latin poet and a leading figure of the Neoterics. Catullus and his poetry, comprising 113 poems, have been the subjects of many books and papers ...
 * I think most people treat survey article and review article as being synonyms; Is there a sentence where I imply they're distinct? I realize I wikilink review journal and survey article which both redirect to review article -- at one point in the future I can imagine there being separate articles for review journals and review articles -- but I can remove one of those wikilinks if you like?
 * Wikipedia have separate articles for literature review and review article so I've wikilinked them both. The main difference I'd make is that a literature review can be a section within a larger article or book whereas a review article is its own publication in a scholarly journal.
 * Skinner began co-editing Oxford Bibliographies with him in 2019. Figured this didn't need to be in the lead since that information appears in the actual list entry and the main goal of that sentence is to contextualize the writer of that quotation. Should this information be included in the lead? I didn't want to bog it down with unnecessary detail and I thought the quotation was a nice way to end the paragraph, but can try to figure something here if you deem it necessary.
 * I'll work on this, will ping when I've come up with something.
 * Not sure I understand the problem with hanging indents? I suppose this is just a WP:CITEVAR thing, but I in general prefer hanging indents as they make it easier to skim for an author's name as they jut out from the rest of the citation. The documentation to Refbegin reads: This option can be useful in long bibliographies/reference lists and in particular when individual entries in the list are long, i.e. they wrap over more than one line in the browser display window. Applying a hanging indent to the list makes it much easier to distinguish the keywords (i.e. normally the authors' names) in the bibliography and makes them stand out from preceding and succeeding lines of text. Hanging indents in bibliographies also form part of several widely used citation style implementations, such as APA, MLA, and Chicago.
 * Thanks again, I'll re-ping when I've rewritten the lead to incorporate a wikilink to metabibliography and L'Année philologique. Umimmak (talk) 02:46, 1 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Driving by, I agree that a table wouldn't make this "easier to navigate" (WP:FLCR), though I can see the argument that the sorting by date is haphazard (who will be accessing it that way?) I haven't responded here as I don't exactly feel equipped to judge this article but I will say that I think it is exciting to see an annotated bibliography at FLC and send my support for annotated bibliographies in general. czar  03:48, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comment about table vs list and your overall excitement for more annotated bibliographies at FLC -- definitely would like to see more in the future! To me it made more sense to do it chronologically since that shows clearly which bibliographies will be the most up-to-date, which ones build off of earlier ones, etc., and a reader gets a sense of the overall change in the field over time in terms of names, journals, and it's also a clear way to see there was a surge of bibliographies covering the span 1958-1970 mentioned in the lead. Plus chronological order is the standard order I've seen in my sources. Umimmak (talk) 04:01, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
 * To be frank, I'm not sure how one would put this list in a table in a reasonable format, so no worries. The lead improvements look good. I might just add the Skinner suff to a footnote. I'm fine with everything else. ~ HAL  333  17:44, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I've made a first pass in changing the lead per your suggestions, though (apologies for the mis-ping in my edit summary!). I ended up saying a compiler of Oxford Bibliographies Online's bibliography of Catullus instead and taking out the whole "first" bit in the lead. If I'm going to talk about l'APh in the lead there are a few additional papers I'd perhaps need to incorporate but they might take some time on my end to read, mostly being in French, but I've provided at least the basic information in the lead. I'm also glad you agree it would be unreasonable to convert this into a table though. Umimmak (talk) 19:32, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. If it's too ungainly to incorporate it into the lead, it's no big deal. ~ HAL  333  19:43, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
 * unfortunately the articles I skimmed didn't have too much to say relating lAPh to more specific bibliographies, but I think I've successfully incorporated discussion of lAPh' and "metabibliographies" into the lead. Anything else I can do? Thanks! Umimmak (talk) 22:08, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Support I'm content with the changes. ~ HAL  333  23:27, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your endorsement and your comments which made this a better Wikipedia list article! Umimmak (talk) 01:50, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Support from Iazyges

 * Been reading my way through the article's body for the last week or two, and draw no issue with it. Made a small CE to the lede. Happy to support promotion. Iazyges   Consermonor   Opus meum  04:00, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Umimmak (talk) 20:27, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Source review passed; I'm a little surprised that no one has an issue that none of the non-English titles are translated, but if that's the consensus here then I'll let it go. Promoting. -- Pres N  22:20, 28 January 2023 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.