Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/War against Nabis

Roman-Spartan War

 * Previous peer review

I just withdrew the article's FA and I want some advice and to see what can be done to improve the article before I re nominated it in the future. Kyriakos 02:32, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Kirill Lokshin
Well, at this point, the most sensible thing would probably be to focus on the objections raised during the FAC. The chief ones seem to be:
 * Sources: adding citations to modern secondary works shouldn't be too difficult; ideally, there ought to be enough to stave off any questions of over-reliance on ancient primary sources.
 * Lead: this could, admittedly, be reworked quite a bit; it seems to have moved away from attempting to summarize the article and goes off on tangents about Nabis's title and such.
 * I remove the comments about Nabis' title and put them in the notes section.

Hope that helps! Kirill Lokshin 05:42, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Prose: the writing style is probably the most subjective thing here. The only thing I can really suggest would be to try and find a few fresh editors to give the article some copyediting.

Yannismarou
Per Kirill on the sources. I think the most important thing in this article is now further and more thorough research based on both primary (in case, you have missed any - something I do not believe) and (most importantly) secondary sources. This is I believe the main problem that impeded FA promotion.

The prose looked and looks to me fine. It has been copy-edited by an excellent copy-editor, and it has been well worked by the main editor. Maybe, a second addition external copy-editing wouldn't hurt. In some of my articles, I have asked the assistance of more than one copy-editors.

More photos incoroporated in the article (not just "external photos") would help the article to "show" better. It is not the most important thing, but it definitely matters.

I promise I'll soon read the article once again in detail, but I really think (and I agree on that with Kirill) that what it really needs now is "fresh eyes", which will feed it with "fresh nurture": fresh ideas and fresh conceptions. The article is definitely on the right track, but the FAC reviewers seemed to believe that it lacked the "spark" a FA has to have.--Yannismarou 19:47, 4 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Sometimes the prose gets "choppy". See here for instance: "Nabis built new ships and besieged Gythium in 192 BC with a navy and an army. The Achean's sent an envoy to Rome with a request for help.[8] In response the Senate sent the praetor Atilius with a fleet to repel Nabis' attacks as well as an embassy headed by Flaminius.[8] The Achean's themselves under Philopoemon headed with their troops towards Gythium to try and relieve the city. The Achean fleet under Tiso seems to have been in a very bad shape as reportedly the flagship was so unseaworthy that it fell apart at the first assault." I think you should go from one event to the other, from one sentence to the other more "smoothly". And I think it is the "Acheans"; not the "Achean's".
 * Prose problem again: "The Roman's however did not strip Nabis of his power. His allegiance was assured with five hostages, amongst them his son Armenas.[32] However, the exiles were not restored to the city, but their Spartan wives, who had been remarried to former helots, were allowed to leave and rejoin their husbands.[32] The Roman's however did not strip Nabis of his rule." Repetition of the same forms of expression. And again: why "Roman's" and not "Romans"? Am I missing something here? I am not anymore sure, and, therefore, I did not correct here. I then see "his force's". Isn't it "his forces"?
 * Mixing styles that Piotrus points out in the references is a problem that can be easily be resolved: either adopt a common numbering ([1][2] etc.) for all your notes with no exception either divide the notes in "notes" and "citations", as I like to do (and Kirill doesn't!). It is up to you. Maybe a single numbering in a single "notes" section is the best solution for this particular article.--Yannismarou 09:26, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Piotrus
A map of troop movements would be invaluable. There seem to be some confusion between notes (two systems) and references, please streamline.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:10, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Would any one be able to make a map about the troop movement? Kyriakos 20:27, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanatosimii

 * I haven't looked at it yet but I plan on giving it a thorough going over tomorrow. Do you want copyedit/prose concerns adressed, or were the objections that lead to your withdrawl more content oriented? Thanatosimii 05:16, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The big problem is and was the prose. Wandalstouring 01:17, 22 January 2007 (UTC)