Talk:Ancient Egypt

WP:URFA/2020

I am reviewing this very old FA as part of WP:URFA/2020, an effort to determine whether old featured articles still meet the featured article criteria. The FAC nominator has not edited in over ten years, and the article doesn't appear well tended. There is uncited text, MOS:SANDWICH of images, haphazard image layout and galleries, unused sources listed in the References section, inconsistency in citation style, and unvetted text as the article has grown considerably since its promotion. Listing at WP:FARGIVEN. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:48, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree that this article needs serious attention. Over the years, I've periodically cleaned out questionable material that accumulates here, but my last major effort was several years ago.

One ongoing problem that I want to highlight is the population section, which is bloated with detail about various DNA studies. I suspect this problem is driven by POV-pushing related to the ancient Egyptian race controversy. A. Parrot (talk) 01:04, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

That should be shunted out ruthlessly to Genetic history of Egypt, where it probably already mostly is. At 153k raw bytes the article is too long anyway (5300 vpd I see). Really ancient Egyptian race controversy should be given a less exciting title. Such a change at what is now Ethnicity of Cleopatra, formerly "Cleopatra race controversy" went very smoothly Johnbod (talk) 04:15, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

@A. Parrot:, @Johnbod:, I have just replaced the DNA paragraphs with a single summarized paragraph based on secondary literature. All the details about the studies and views on them are discussed in the main article (Genetic history of Egypt), which may also need some clean up. Regards.–Wikiuser1314 (talk) 10:05, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Wikiuser1314 – Page numbers (or perhaps chapter titles for certain e-books) are needed for the book sources being cited. The citations (specifically cites 198 – 208) also need to be converted to be consistent with the citation format used throughout the article. Mr rnddude (talk) 06:47, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

@Mr rnddude: Done, I have converted the cites to the sfnp format used in this article. I will later add the respective page/chapter titles. Regards!–Wikiuser1314 (talk) 09:14, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

WikiUser4020 as you originally added these books (Keita, Ehret, etc.), do you have the exact page numbers or chapters, so I do not have to search for them? Regards.–Wikiuser1314 (talk) 09:40, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

@Wikiuser1314

The page numbers are below and the title of the chapters:

• Ehret (20 June 2023). Ancient Africa: A Global History, to 300 CE. pp. 82-90, 97, 167
• Keita (2022). Ancient Egyptian 'Origins and "Identity" in Ancient Egyptian society : challenging assumptions, exploring approaches. pp.111-122
• Stebling etc (2023). "Ancient Near Eastern History and Culture". pp.209-212
• Etis etc (2021). . The Cambridge World History of Slavery: Volume 2, AD 500-AD 1420. Cambridge University Press. p. 150.

WikiUser4020 (talk) 13:31, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

@WikiUser4020: thanks! I have added them. Regards.–Wikiuser1314 (talk) 14:11, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

@Wikiuser1314 No probs! WikiUser4020 (talk) 14:28, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Working to preserve FA status

SandGeorgia gave us a reasonable list of things to work on:

• Uncited text
• Y MOS:SANDWICH images
• Y Inconsistent image layouts
• Y Unused sources
• Y Inconsistency in citation style
• Unvetted text

I've gone through and tried to unify citation formatting (I have excluded the DNA section as that will be getting pruned and I don't know what we will be keeping from it)

While doing this I saw that:

• Many of the sources for general statements are webpages. These could probably be replaced with citations from books instead such as Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology by Nicholson and Shaw, (I don't have this one) or similar.
• Y Bleiberg (2005) needs a page number
• The last two sentences of "Legacy" need a source that better supports them

A big job but many hands make light work! Merytat3n (talk) 01:55, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

@Merytat3n, there's a set of sources following Zakrzewski (2007) that don't follow alphabetical order by surname. Many of them also have enormous quotations. Are you intending to retain these sources, or not? In the former case I can sort them into the rest of the source list, but I thought it best to check first. Best, Wham2001 (talk) 15:02, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

@Wham2001:, I would not keep the huge quotations but it was not me that added them. Better ask Wikiuser1314 (who added them) about them :) Merytat3n (talk) 08:28, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Would retaining them in any way affect the FA status? Wdford (talk) 14:53, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

No idea if its against MOS but I'm pretty ignorant of this kind of thing! Merytat3n (talk) 21:09, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

They definitely need to be cut if FA status is going to be retained. I don't know or care if there's any particular passage in the MOS about oversized notes—even if parts of the wall of text are shoved down into the notes rather than the body, it's contrary to summary style and common sense to discuss the minutiae of Egyptian genetics in an overview article like this.

In fact (in keeping with what Johnbod and I said above), I think this article should be discussing genetics very little, if at all. This section wasn't present when the article became an FA, and before July 2021, there was only a single paragraph on genetics. Moreover, it's not normal Wikipedia practice to cover the genetic history of a premodern society. Articles on genetic history are usually titled according to the modern populations or regions they apply to—hence genetic history of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, genetic history of the British Isles, and indeed genetic history of Egypt. A. Parrot (talk) 21:33, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

I think the quotes were added for verification, because the online versions of the papers have no pages. But they could be copyvio. Hypnôs (talk) 21:45, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

@Merytat3n Do you mind if we strike through the points in your comment that are done? Hypnôs (talk) 13:42, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

@Hypnôs: Please do! Wahoo, progress :D Merytat3n (talk) 20:20, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Great, I opted for checkmarks instead because they do not obscure the original text.

Another thing that should be done is replacing google books urls where better ones exist. I already started working on that.

Semi-protected edit request on 30 January 2024

I would like to edit Egypts history ancient times because i am more experienced as i am egyptian and have knowledge about Egypt Stawberrylemo (talk) 22:10, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

This is an improper use of the edit request template. The template is for proposing specific actionable changes. Access to edit the article is not granted on a request basis because that isn't how page protection works. Beyond that, and with respect, the quality of the writing in this request indicates a command of the language that is well-below the necessary standard to directly contribute to a current FA. If you have an edit you'd like to propose, you can place it within this section and have an experienced editor check over it. Before doing so note that Wikipedia prohibits original research. Any proposed change needs to be backed by a high-quality (i.e. academic) reliable source. There are other policies and guidelines that may need to be taken into consideration, but cross that bridge when you get to it. Mr rnddude (talk) 22:23, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Should years in subsection titles be removed

The years in subsection titles within the "History" section contradict with our own articles of these periods. For instance, our article stated that the Middle Kingdom ranges 2134–1690 BC, while various parts of our article on the Middle Kingdom stated that it ranges from "2040 to 1782 BC", or even "c. 2055 BC–c. 1650 BC". Should we at least take a look at these periods and check their accuracy? If we cannot form a consensus on when these periods occured then it might be better to remove years in subsection titles and let the subtopic articles discuss about the nuances of each estimated period in detail. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 15:06, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Agree....drop dates use academic terms and let prose deal with time frames. Moxy🍁 15:18, 30 April 2024 (UTC)