Wikipedia:Peer review/Reign of Cleopatra/archive1

Reign of Cleopatra


I've listed this article for peer review because of fierce opposition to its FA review. If anyone could give tips and suggestions, it would be much appreciated.

Thanks, Unlimitedlead (talk) 18:11, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

Comments from Airship
I do hope you've noticed that the article is essentially a copy-paste of selected portions of Cleopatra, with identical section titles and extremely similar/often identical prose? AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:45, 17 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Yes, the same user who wrote almost 79% of the Cleopatra article and successfully promoted it to a Featured Article created Reign of Cleopatra out of concern that the Cleopatra article would contain too much information on the events of her reign and not enough on other aspects, such as Cleopatra in the arts and media, for example. Unlimitedlead (talk) 15:35, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, as far as I can see, they contain round about exactly the same information. Aside for the 'Egypt under Cleopatra' section, I cannot see why a separate article is even warranted, never mind deserving of FA status. Copy-pasting (or at least very closely paraphrasing) a section of an FA-class article under its own name, to my mind, falls under WP:OVERLAP. AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 10:53, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I see your point. What would you suggest I do? Unlimitedlead (talk) 10:55, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, I would inquire to as to their reasoning behind creating Early life of Cleopatra and Reign of Cleopatra as ostensible summary-style sub-articles of Cleopatra, when in reality they do not substantially expand on the mother article. If that user finds any talk of merging articles together objectionable (as they are entitled to do per WP:FAOWN), I suggest moving your attention to different topics, as these will never achieve Featured Article status.  AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:56, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your input. I would hate to abandon this article, but I will wait to hear from other users before making a decision. If I were to move some of the information in this article to more appropriate articles (like Battle of the Nile (47 BC)) and expand on the Reign of Cleopatra section, would raising this article to featured status be possible? Unlimitedlead (talk) 15:03, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * If I may interject: the idea of having a separate article on "reign of X monarch" isn't completely crazy. It corresponds to what Wikipedia does for presidential administrations and premierships: e.g., Presidency of Barack Obama vs. Barack Obama, or Premiership of David Cameron vs. David Cameron. Monarchs' lives and identities tend to be tied more closely to their reigns than those of elected officials who only hold office for a few years, so "reign of X" articles only crop up haphazardly rather than being standard. But they do exist, as in the case of Reign of Marcus Aurelius.


 * However, if this article is going to focus on the nominal topic, it needs to cut out extraneous details and improve its treatment of domestic policy. For some obvious examples, internal Roman events or military movements that aren't directly relevant to Cleopatra or Egypt (such as "In a show of loyalty to Rome, Octavian decided to begin construction of his own mausoleum at the Campus Martius" and "He stopped at Ptolemais in Phoenicia where his new ally Herod entertained him and provided his army with fresh supplies") should be cut and moved to the underdeveloped article on the War of Actium. Ancient narrative historians such as Plutarch and Cassius Dio naturally focused on how Cleopatra affected the Roman Republic and its internal power struggles, but there must be modern RSes that have attempted to assess the state of affairs within Egypt during her reign. (Ashton 2008, which is listed here but cited only once, might be a good starting point.) Based on my cursory understanding of Ptolemaic history, the years between 46 and 31 BC may have been the longest period of peace in Egypt since the reign of Ptolemy VI, and apparently there were no revolts in Upper Egypt at the time, even though they had been a common occurrence in earlier centuries. Do modern historians have any ideas as to why Egypt was more stable in Cleopatra's reign than under her predecessors? How much evidence is there about the policies she adopted in ruling Egypt, and how do historians assess her performance? These are topics that should be addressed, insofar as possible, before the article is ready for FAC. A. Parrot (talk) 22:57, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much. This has been the most helpful comment I have received thus far! I will definitely take your advice when working on this article. Unlimitedlead (talk) 02:00, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Fantastic response, great suggestions on what to remove and add to the article, especially the assessment of historians of how Cleopatra was so successful compared to some of her Ptolemaic predecessors. Also, you provided great examples of sub-articles on political administrations, especially Reign of Marcus Aurelius. For that matter, other contemporary monarchs have various sub-articles dedicated to them. Take Augustus for example, who has Early life of Augustus, Wars of Augustus, Constitutional reforms of Augustus, and Cultural depictions of Augustus. Pericles of Athens  Talk 07:07, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
 * @PericlesofAthens Hi, long time no see! I think that moving forward, I will structure the article based on this comment, so a good chunk (if not most) of the current text will have to be moved somewhere else. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, I will not be able to seriously work on this article until summer 2023. Until then, I will do my best to do research and collect some more sources. If you know of any books I should obtain, please reach out. Thanks, Unlimitedlead (talk) 11:50, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Since this PR has not received activity since the beginning of November, would it be possible to close it? Unlimitedlead (talk) 21:33, 2 December 2022 (UTC)