Wikipedia:Peer review/Scythians/archive1

Scythians
This article should be written all over again, since it contains many mistakes and does not conform to NPOV or any academic standard. However, some people engage in a pitched battle to avoid any change. The Talk:Scythians page enumerates an extensive list of serious proposals by several users. Rokus01 15:09, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Thanks, APR t 00:13, 1 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Is this a request for review or dispute resolution? The latter really belongs on Request for comment? --AnonEMouse (squeak) 16:17, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * This request involves a review of the overall quality considering focus (Greater Iranian stance), reliability of sources (Herodotus!), NPOV and OR. Rokus01 16:34, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Review by Eubulides
I'm not at all familiar with the controversy, so I'll try to give an outsider's view.

First, the article is a bit long (50 kB), and could be split. I suggest migrating "Historiography" and "Post-classical Scythians" into a new page. With luck, the new page could be about stories about the Scythians, with the existing page sticking to harder facts about the actual people. The title of the new page is up to you, but perhaps "Scythian mythos"? Another possibility is to split off Scythian archaeology. but see below.

There does seem to be a lot of duplication and uncited work here. It's almost as if competing editors got their own sections, with little attempt to build an overall whole. I'm no expert in the field, so I don't know which of the uncited stuff is right, but it detracts greatly from the page's quality.

There's no link to Scythian monks; is this intentional?

The page isn't consistent about terminology; it sometimes calls the people "Scythians" and sometimes "Scyths". It'd be better to be consistent. If you settle on "Scyths" you should change the title of the page, but I suggest "Scythians" since that name is more popular among non-experts.

The Scythian warrior drawing is great. Most of the other images are nice too. The exceptions are the Tillia tepe photos and the throne arm; these didn't do a lot for me.

It was off-putting for me to have one section called "History and archaeology" and another called "Archaeology". I'd prefer a single story, preferably chronological; not two stories, one from a historian's point of view and another from an archaeologist's. And starting off "Origins and pre-history" with coverage of the language is pretty weird: it should start with origins, not with language.

You might take a look at Sassanid Empire for an article with a good section layout for this sort of article. (That article is too long too, but its organization is good.)

I noted too many "According to Professor so-and-so"s. The main text should stick to facts; put professors in the footnotes.

Anyhow, the bottom line is that the article needs pretty much a complete rewrite; currently it's not coherent. Eubulides 21:26, 19 March 2007 (UTC)


 * After writing the above review I wandered through the talk page. Wow. You guys don't need reviewers—you need a U.N. peacekeeping force! Anyway, good luck trying to find some diplomats to help you through the controversy, as the page really does need a lot of work. Eubulides 21:34, 19 March 2007 (UTC)