Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Thurisind

Thurisind
As part of my plan of expanding articles on late antique/early medieval "Barbarbarian" European kings I've created this article, expecting to make it a GA. Concerning the completeness and objectivity of the article I'm confident it's OK; the articles difficulties may eventually manifest themselves in the quality of the prose. Most importantly I'd like a careful evaluation of the lead and if the article is ready to stand up to a GAN. Aldux (talk) 17:37, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

TRFasulo
Barbarian kings! I love reading about those fun guys. And every time someone tells me that we live in the worst time in history, I get up and rush to the window and, looking out, yell, "Oh, my God! The Huns are coming! Or it is the Visigoths?"

The biggest problem I see with the article is the number of complex sentences that need to be split into separate sentences or shortened. Some examples,


 * The Byzantines' plans to reduce the Gepids' power were ultimately successful: in 551 or 552 Thurisind was decisively defeated by Audoin, prompting at this point the intervention of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, which forced a peace accord on both the opponents so that an equilibrium in the Pannonian Basin could be kept.


 * Thus at Thurisind's death, sometime about 560, his other son Cunimund succeeded him, only to be also killed by Alboin in 567, when the latter became King of the Lombards.


 * Thurisind found himself in a difficult situation, as the Byzantines had instigated in 547/548 or 546 the Lombards under Audoin to move in Pannonia to contain the Gepids, felt as a serious menace to the Byzantines' control on the Balkan frontier.

A sentence needs to convey an idea. Some of the sentences in the article jumble several ideas, resulting in confusion to the reader. These sentences need to be split out and, perhaps, the ideas they convey enlarged so that they build on one another.

For instance, in the last example above—while not knowing as much about the subject as you do so I may be making an historical mistake—I would rewrite the sentence as:


 * Thurisind found himself in a difficult situation. Sometime during 546–548, the Byzantines had conspired to convince the Lombards under Audoin to move into Pannonia. It was hoped this would contain the Gepids, who the Byzantines felt were a serious menace to their interests on the Balkan frontier.


 * Comment Thanks a lot for your help: it's greatly appreciated. I've worked on the critical sentences you noticed, hopefully making them sound better. Please tell me if there are some other awkward or unclear passages.Aldux (talk) 00:35, 7 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Since you asked, I placed some other examples of complex sentences on the talk page. Thomas R. Fasulo (talk) 01:01, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Hchc2009
An interesting piece - I too like the kings of this period! :)

My key comment would be that the sections don't explain much of the background - it assumes that we know who the Gepids, Byzantines etc. are. The links obviously give more info, but you could ease the way for the causal reader with a few introductory words in the main sections. e.g. "Thurisind rose to power in 548, succeeding on the throne Elemund." - you could say "Thurisind rose to power amongst the Gepids, a powerful east Germanic Gothic tribe, in 548. On the death of Elemund, the previous king, he seized the throne in a coup d'etat, forcing Elemund's son, Ostrogotha, into exile..." - it would just help build the picture up a little. The same, I think, applies to the later sections.

In the lead you mention an assassination, but I don't think you've covered that in the main bit of the article.

Nice set of references, BTW.

Hchc2009 (talk) 21:08, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Comment I followed your advice and expanded the context for the first section. I've avoided calling them Gothic because it's not all that pacific that they can be called "Goths" and scholars have had some debate on this. As for the assassination, maybe the lead gave the erroneous idea Elemund's son was killed immediately, but in reality it took place in 552 and thus his death is described under the "peace" section, i.e. the last one. I'll try now to expand the context in the second section. Thanks for your help, Aldux (talk) 21:24, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I've elaborated on the context of the second section too. I think that now the meaning should be understandable. But please correct me, as these are things I know quite well it is possible I may still take too much for granted. Ciao,Aldux (talk) 23:20, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Cheers! Hchc2009 (talk) 15:40, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Ian Rose

 * A nice effort for a challenging subject -- well done there. Sourcing and illustrations look good, but the prose and presentation need attention. I took the liberty of copyediting First War with the Lombards, and made a few minor changes elesewhere, but have some other comments/queries:
 * Agree with earlier reviewers re. complex sentences. An example is right at the beginning, i.e. The next-to-last Gepid king, he succeeded Elemund, whose son Ostrogotha he excluded from the succession and years later was to had assassinated by a foreign king who had given him hospitality. At the very least, I assume you mean "was to have", or simply "had", rather than "was to had". In any case, it's a bit confusing as to who had been given hospitality, Thurisind or Ostrogotha...
 * Hope to have adressed this
 * The Byzantines' plans to reduce the Gepids' power obtained their goal when Audoin decisively defeated Thurisind in 551 or 552. is probably better rendered as The Byzantines' plans to reduce the Gepids' power came to fruition when Audoin decisively defeated Thurisind in 551 or 552. or some such.
 * Done
 * Unless War with the Lombards is the proper name of a conflict, "war" should be lower case in the heading First War with the Lombards.
 * Done
 * In the latter land a protracted conflict was pitting one against another Ostrogoths and Byzantines and Justinian wanted to be able to rush troops in Italy if they were needed. Don't really understand this sentence -- do we mean simply that the Ostrogoths were fighting the Byzantines?
 * Yes you've got it right, I was probably a bit unclear and also eliptic, so I throwed in some context on the Gothic war.
 * Don't forget the general MOS rule is that citations go outside punctuation.
 * Think it's OK; they're some citations after dates without punctuation, but I'm afraid that can't be avoided as the sources supporting each date must be recorded.
 * Another general rule is to place images on alternate sides of the page, rather than all on one side. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:19, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment Should have adressed all issue I think. Please tell me if you find anything that doesn't sind right, and thanks a lot for the advice. Aldux (talk) 15:12, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Looks like you've got everything, well done. I think you could take this to GA, maybe even MilHist A-Class afterwards -- feel free to let me know if you need further assistance re. copyediting as I'd be happy to lend a hand. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 04:01, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

llywrch
While this is an admirably well-written article, one thing I looked for & was disappointed by its absence was citing the primary sources directly. Both Procopius & Paul the Deacon are mentioned in this article, yet no details where they made these statements -- i.e., book, chapter & lines numbers. Or even the page of a given translation. The reason I look for this information is that I'm one of those who uses encyclopedia articles as shortcuts to finding specific passages in historical accounts, one of their many uses; the only reason for not including these citations would be concern over original research, & it's clear that there is little -- if any -- original research in this article. -- llywrch (talk) 04:36, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Hello Ilywrch and thanks a lot for dropping by. The issue you raise is very interesting, but I must admit I avoided the phobia I've developed for anything that may even vaguely hint to OR, which is a reason why I've always avoided relying on primary sources unless this was filtered by a secondary source, as not everything that is mentioned in a primary source is per se important enough to be mentioned. But I must admit that something is lost this way, which is why in this article and in my previous Alboin I inserted extensive passages. This article being shorter I only inserted one, Thurisind's feast for Alboin.Aldux (talk) 15:

Fifelfoo

 * Sadly I'm not peer reviewing the prose, only citations
 *  Procopius  De Bello Gothico, Book IV, Ch. 18. Surely Procopius De Bello Gothico, Book IV, Ch. 18.  as per your style in the footnotes
 * Done.
 * Similarly with Paul the Deacon Historia Langobardorum, Book I, Ch. 24
 * Done.
 * Do we have an original writing date for: Prococopius 1928, p. 235? As in when Prococopius wrote.
 * No, not really, but we know he's a contemporary, added it to the article (by original date you mean the year in which Procopius wrote the work, right?).
 * Prococopius 1928, probably too much coco. Procopius?
 * Thanks for catching that one.
 * Page ranges are out of style. Some are given 99–101, some are given 99 – 101.  Consistency.
 * Found one that had escaped my notice, should be in order now.
 * Bibliography style, inconsistency. "YEAR, ISBN####"  versus "YEAR, pagerange. ISBN####"
 * The iconsitency, if we are speaking of the same thing, is only apparent; the two different criteria are necessary because the first reflects the full book, the second instead a single chapter in a collective work.
 * Bibliography, commas out of style in publication information, no publisher or location, "Procopius. History of the Wars, Books VII (continued) and VIII. Henry Bronson Dewing (translator). 1928 [1962]. ISBN 3-1761-00801257-7."
 * Should be OK.
 * But overall, excellent citations! Really superb.  Great selection of scholarly material. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:47, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot for the kind words! :-)Aldux (talk) 20:08, 8 October 2010 (UTC)