Talk:Senate of the Roman Republic/GA1

GA Review

• References required, for:
  • "The senate was only allowed to meet in a building of religious significance, such as the Curia Hostilia."
  • "individuals usually sought to become a senator only if they were independently wealthy."
  • "Many of these laws were enacted in the last century of the republic, as public corruption began reaching unprecedented levels."
  • "It is known, for example, that the senator Cato the Younger once filibustered in an attempt to prevent the senate from granting Julius Caesar the military command of a province after his Consulship in 59 BC."
  • "were senators voted by taking a place on either side of the chamber."
• En dashes for page ranges
• "Further reading" should be alphabetical order by last name
• Both navigation boxes at the bottom of the article should be collapsed (they should be collapsed when there is two or more)

Gary King (talk) 05:44, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

All of these items now have references. "Further reading" has been alphabetized, and the navigation boxes have been collapsed. RomanHistorian (talk) 06:51, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Where do you see page ranges? Besides that? Nergaal (talk) 01:36, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

In the references Gary King (talk) 01:55, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Check again. Nergaal (talk) 02:25, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Remove bold formatting per MOS:BOLD. Gary King (talk) 02:35, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

going at a snail's speed... Nergaal (talk) 03:06, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

• Are the Primary and Secondary sources in "Further reading" actually used as sources?

I believe that both primary sources are used as references in two of the references of this article.

• Are the references in the lead really necessary? If the statements are mentioned again in the body – which they should be – then the references are unnecessary in the lead

My personal opinion: presence of refs in lead does not really matter, especially since since it is not a FAC. anyways, the 4-5 cases where I see them, they reference possibly debatable statements so I see no problem in keeping them there.

I went ahead and removed them. I don't think they are important enough to delay the GA nomination. RomanHistorian (talk) 06:58, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

• The images are extremely big and the article would probably benefit if they were smaller; if someone wants to see them at full size to read them, then they can click on them to expand them. They currently squish the text between one of the images and the infobox, on my screen.

this depends on the res. I will let you decide what width they should be since on my screen they appear to be fine. Nergaal (talk) 06:34, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I have corrected this issue. RomanHistorian (talk) 06:58, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Gary King (talk) 04:13, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

• If "Primary sources" and "Secondary source material" are used as sources then shouldn't they be used in " Notes" or " References"? Also, they need a publisher and access date if they are used as references.
• Republic is sometimes capitalized and sometimes not; I suggest always capitalizing it.
• Perhaps "Senate" should always be capitalized too?
• "U.S." → "US"

Gary King (talk) 21:46, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I have made the changes for your last three points. As for the first, I believe that all references point to items in the "References" section. A couple of items (Cicero and Polybius in particular) are listed in both "References" and either "Primary Sources" or "Secondary Source material". RomanHistorian (talk) 00:49, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I believe these have been solved now. Nergaal (talk) 01:57, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

• quotes such as "'interpose the sacrosanctity of his person'" should use double quotes
• most articles have really short paragraphs; in this case, though, a lot of paragraphs are pretty long. In particular, perhaps the paragraphs in "Votes and the Tribune's veto" could be broken up further
• disambiguate: Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, Temple of Bellona, Omnibus bills, Social War, Procurator

Gary King (talk) 03:41, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I have made these changes. RomanHistorian (talk) 04:06, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

• The following requires references:
  • "Senators who had held magisterial office always spoke before those who had not, and if a Patrician (an individual of aristocratic ancestry) was of equal seniority as a Plebeian (an individual not of aristocratic ancestry), the Patrician would always speak first."
  • "which are bills, usually enacted by a single vote, that contain a large volume of often unrelated material. Today, the United States Senate has similar rules, which are called the "Byrd Rules"."
  • "Quorums were required for votes to..." paragraph
  • "Any motion that had the support of the Senate but was vetoed was recorded..." paragraph

Gary King (talk) 13:57, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I have added the references. RomanHistorian (talk) 22:25, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

tried to fix some more MOS's... Nergaal (talk) 06:43, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

bumpiest bump! Nergaal (talk) 18:26, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Passing Gary King (talk) 18:30, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

This is not a good article and should remain under review, at least until RomanHistorian can be persuaded to stop reversing out the changes I have made en bloc. My additions and reorganization hardly bring it up to GA status either, but at least it's a start, and would be nice if others contributed as well. The problem with self styled RomanHistorian is that he isn't one, and while enthusiastic enough his knowledge includes serious gaps and misinformation. So for example he ridicules the statement that all the senior magistrates had powers of veto, and uses it as a prime justification for reversing my changes. It is just a basic fact of the Roman constitution (i. e. the formal civic powers or potestates belonging to the senior magistracies). Similarly he persists in reinserting his misinformation that the Senate appointed dictators. The Senate had no powers to appoint any magistracies whatsoever, and all dictators had to be nominated by the consuls at some place within the ager Romanus. Again a fundamental fact of the constitution which ought to be known (very quickly) by any introductory level student.
He persists in returning to his bad organization of the article. I've grouped vetoes and obstructionist tactics under the same header. Makes sense no? No, according to RomanHistorian. I had to add the whole section on the secrecy of Senatorial meetings because he had them open to the public at all times, another gross error. Worst of all he cited as a reason for reversing my changes the lack of references. This is not error but an outright lie. All of my changes have been accompanied by a lot more references, and usually primary sources references (sometimes even translated quotations of primary evidence), than his own efforts as any fair minded reader can see who bothers to compare the two versions. In fact the article needs a lot more changes with citations but I have refrained from doing so until I can spare the time to collect the appropriate substantiating refs. Again, changes and additions by others with genuine knowledge of the topic would be appreciated. Unfortunately for all his enthusiasm RomanHistorian does not have this knowledge, nor apparently any acquaintance with primary evidence. He should have the decency to contribute according to his level and not interfere with what he doesn't know.. Appietas (talk) 00:03, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't know what the current situation is, but if you feel that the article no longer meets the good article criteria, then feel free to bring it to WP:GAR for a reassessment. Gary King (talk) 00:44, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I had assumed from the title of this page that it was currently under review for GA status. If so that's fine. Having taken time and effort to improve what I consider serious errors and organizational arrangement in the article, I don't like having everything I did reversed for reasons that are false, and serious errors reinstated. There's quite a serious issue in that RomanHistorian has stooped to ridiculing corrections of his errors. I. e. he doesn't know and refuses to check when he is in error even over basics, and for reasons best known to himself assumes that his limited knowledge is spot-on factual. I've not encountered this attitude before and find it bizarre. It certainly condemns the article to an embarrassing level if he is permitted to have editorial control by dint of persistence and enthusiasm. I wish I had the time to keep up, but don't. A good solution would be to get Roman experts on the ancient projects list involved. There seem to be some academics or at least post grad. students there. Appietas (talk) 03:16, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Okay, well I'm going to butt out of whatever the issue is right now. I reviewed the article for its good article status, passed it, but have not kept myself up-to-date with what has been going on with it. I recommend continuing this discussion on the article's talk page rather than on this good article subpage, which not as many people are watching. Gary King (talk) 03:27, 2 January 2009 (UTC)