Wikipedia:Peer review/Magnus Barefoot/archive1

Magnus Barefoot
This peer review discussion has been closed. I would love to see this article reach FA-status, but since I am unfamiliar with the requirements/process I need someone to look through for potential issues or improvements needed to meet the criteria.

Thanks, Thhist (talk) 22:26, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Being Norwegian, I find it easy to follow your article in "Reign" section. However, foreign readers will be helped by given some concise geographical pointers to Haakon's and Magnus' respective areas of domination ( insert something like "North" and "South", with Upplands in the middle?)
 * Arildnordby (talk) 23:42, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Agreed and done. Thhist (talk) 09:54, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
 * The article is perhaps too focused on the martial aspects of Magnus' reign? Perhaps the article will improve with developments within civil society then, and not just go into detail of Magnus' wars?Arildnordby (talk) 23:53, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I have written a short section on other developments on his reign, but as I have explained in the section, the original sources themselves are so heavily focused on warfare (or otherwise trivial events) that it is hard to make much of other developments or events. The little I have found in the literature is a more general description of developments in royal power and the church during the period of his reign. Otherwise, the only specific event that seems to be known is a coin reform that happened during Magnus' reign. Thhist (talk) 14:10, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Fully do I know that gore&glory was very heart of sagas, to exclusion of everything else. :-) I think your "Other developments" section is excellent (and it was needed!). I will, if you choose to keep the peer review open, come with comments on different issues. Just now, I'm slightly dissatisfied with too much detail in your lead section, but I'll try to be more specific on that, and for other sections.Arildnordby (talk) 14:43, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Personal view on leads: They should not get bogged down in imputation of motives or detailed circumstances. Those belong in main text, in my (restrictive) view. For example:

"..in the process of getting the building supplies" Is this necessary within the lead? Why not just "-- probably also gaining suzerainty over Galloway". That the odd circumstance of getting suzerainty specifically in order to secure flow of building supplies belongs in main, I think.

"..by defeating the Norman forces of "the two Hughs"." Belongs in main, IMO.

"in return for his effort." The same

" after claiming an ancient border with the country" The same

"eventually unsuccessful " not needed

" fearing that the conflict could get out of hand." Not needed here

", and possibly greatest", not needed

"uneasy". Why was alliance "uneasy"? I think judgment of that belongs in main text, unless a direct suspicion of the Irish king's complicity in Magnus' death is conventional, in which case that suspicion SHOULD be included in lead. If there really isn't anything within the uneasiness of the alliance sufficiently important to include in lead, then drop the word here. (In direct contrast to the correct inclusion of the uneasiness of the previous co-reign of Magnus and Haakon, a necessary info on his earliest years and battles as king). Arildnordby (talk) 15:17, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Have to say I agree with you about much here, that at least some of this is not necessary or too detailed for the intro. Thhist (talk) 22:26, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Establishing reign: It might be of value to emphasize in the text that Hamnøy is in the (semi-)extreme North of Norway, a region where Magnus' reign had been non-existent. The hanging of Tore at Vambarholm resonates with Magnus feeling strong enough in a region hitherto outside his grasp, or alternately, that Tore had seen a colapse of his general power base, withdrawing to what he thought was "safe teritory". But, of course, these not altogether silly speculations of mine shouldn't be references, but if you can find some discussion among the historians at the significance of the final battle taking place in the far North, rather than in what was "traditionally disputed" territories like the upplands and the Nidaros region, you might possibly put into perspective that Magnus' victory here was actually very important in finally bringing Northern Norway under the heels of a Southern based monarch? Just an idea you can chew on..


 * Furthermore: You mention the indispensable networks of nobles both Magnus and Haakon had. Perhaps geographic pointers, if existing, as to where, for example, their respective foster-fathers resided?Arildnordby (talk) 18:32, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I'll see if I can find anything relevant for this. Thhist (talk) 22:26, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Concerning uneasy co-rule Haakon and Magnus: I just read Snorre, and I wondered whether you should emphasize and clarify that uneasiness, by relating the anecdote told by Snorre of Magnus' keeping his ships war-ready at wintertime, and Haakon strongly suspecting one night that an attack might be imminent?Arildnordby (talk) 18:53, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Might be worth a breif mention. Thhist (talk) 22:26, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Some anecdotes from Snorre concerning increasing state power under Magnus, that you might wish to look into? (I'm using the Holtsmark (1975) edition here:

Paragraph 7: Magnus is said to put down Vikings and robbers, making "good peace in country", peace mentioned in paragraph 26.

Paragraphs 17-20: Royal prerogative on inheritance forces Skofte Ogmundsson and sons to flee.

Paragraph 26: Hard taxes for the leidang makes him an unpopular ruler

Arildnordby (talk) 19:13, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Comments. I have little in the way of knowledge about Viking sagas and Norwegian history, so I'll confine my comments to a layman's perspective in terms of readability, grammar, MOS etc etc. Will respond promptly to any queries about my comments. Regards, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 08:40, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Lead. The jump from the first sentence to his campaigns is strange. Perhaps the second sentence should provide an overall assessment of his reign. Currently it begs questions.
 * Throughout the article there is a tendency to assume knowledge in the reader. This is particularly relevant to the mentions of what I can only assume are Viking sagas. I suggest you explicitly state up-front in the Background section that much of what we know about him has been drawn from these sagas and name them and explain when it is believed they were written. Another example of this is that you merely introduce "Edgar" (linked), but should introduce him as "Edgar, King of Scotland" and probably briefly explain who he was. There are a number of examples of this.
 * Suggest you explain terms such as "hird", " Øyrating" etc as you go, they are not loanwords and most readers will have no idea what they refer to.
 * a general GOCE c/e might be in order, as there are a number of grammatical errors, eg "(although Magnus not necessarily intended to side with the Welsh originally)" which I suggest should be something like "(although originally Magnus did not necessarily intend to side with the Welsh)" or similar
 * Where you refer to a historian, eg "Randi Helene Førsund", I suggest you state that is what he is when you introduce him for the first time.
 * There are a few duplicate links in the article. Sweden, skalds, and Denmark.
 * In the Ancestry template, there is a pointback redirect to this article from "Magnus II of Norway". Probably just change it to "Magnus Barefoot".
 * all the external links are green. No probs.
 * I suggest you put alt text on all the images now to avoid getting held by it later.
 * Reflinks check comes up green too.
 * Earwig indicates no copyvios.
 * Suggest you convert the 10 digit ISBN to 13 digit now.
 * Suggest you separate the journals from the books in the Biblio section.
 * Suggest you add DOIs or similar to all journal articles.
 * Thanks for many helpful comments which I'll see to address. It's not always easy to know just how far it is appropriate to go in assuming knowledge (or not) about certain terms and subjects, but I shouldn't have any problems with expanding my threshold for explaining a bit more though. Thhist (talk) 14:14, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I made a standardization of web citation on your last external source. Do you like it? If not, remove it, but you really ought to have retrieval date of web resource included in your metadata.Arildnordby (talk) 21:02, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Are you sure it's necessary for "External links"? I at least don't think it's appropriate to use the ref tool "{{cite web|" etc. for medieval primary sources. Thhist (talk) 21:29, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
 * It's a judgmental call. After all, even academic sites can be closed down,and it will then be of future benefit to know when the now archived sourced were active links (for retrieval purposes). At the very least, even if you choose not to use the cite web format, you should append to each source a retrieval date, so that later editors can get alarm bells to checkr, even update, the old content. (Links more than 5 years old screams to be clicked on!, I think...)Arildnordby (talk) 21:54, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I'll give you an example: In "my" Impalement article, I had a nice ref to a very good table a Mr. Ian Mortimer had on his personal website. When I rechecked the link 2 months later, the idiot had rewritten the whole article, so that MY reference to it was totally wrong. I ended up with rewriting my own reference, adding retrieval date.Arildnordby (talk) 21:58, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I've listed the primary sources in a similar format as other books under a new Primary sources section in Bibliography, which I think is a better solution(?). Thhist (talk) 21:20, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Agreed.Arildnordby (talk) 21:28, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Very good rewriting! However, it suddenly struck me that saying Magnus was illegitimate jars with the ideas of legitimacy back then (what mattered was that you could claim you were a king's son, not whether your mother had been the wife of that king!). Thus, it would be better, I think, to use formulations like "Born out of wedlock" or "born outside of marriage", or something like that.Arildnordby (talk) 17:31, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it's probably not very important to note at all. Thhist (talk) 15:45, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
 * To my annoyance, I have registered that on Norwegian king lists and so on (not made by you, but by others), the word "illegitimate" is used all the time. But, perhaps this is just a pet peeve of mine..Arildnordby (talk) 17:00, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I have actually brought this up recently in one of my discussions with another editor (great minds think alike, eh?), and you can see my proposal for another format for the Norwegian king list here (the "illegitimacy"-thing is not the only issue). I've become a bit preoccupied with other things on WP in the meantime, but the king list is definitely high on my "to do list". Thhist (talk) 00:15, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Your proposal at King list is much cleaner than the one currently in use. I think it is correct that children are not included in the list, but I would suggest that parents should be referred to. Say, in the forms "Father: Bla-bla", alternately "Father: Bla-bla (claimed)" or "Father: Bla-bla (disputed)", and similarly with mother (possibly with an additional options like "Mother: Several claimed", "Mother: Unknown", options rarely the case for fathers of kings, but occasionally the case for mothers)Arildnordby (talk) 11:02, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Can you explain what DOIs are and how I find them (or what you mean by "or similar")? Seems a bit complicated.. Thhist (talk) 15:45, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
 * DOI is Digital Object Identifier, i.e, some sort of classifying system for digital intellectual property, like isbn for old-fashioned books. Journals have their own classification system, and the other editor here suggested you add such metadata to your listing of journals.Arildnordby (talk) 16:57, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, but where do I find them? They don't seem to be easily accessible for reference. Thhist (talk) 00:15, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
 * They should be stated in the journal itself? If you don't have the journal at hand, you should be able to get that information from Universitetsbiblioteket (UB) (University Library)Arildnordby (talk) 11:02, 9 March 2013 (UTC)