Talk:Siege of Constantinople (717–718)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Canadian Paul (talk · contribs) 15:33, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

I'll be reviewing this article in the near future, hopefully later tonight. There don't seem to be any obvious reasons for a quick-fail, so I should be set to go! Per the toolbox at the side, there are two disambiguation links in the article, and resolving them may help my review of the article. Canadian Paul 15:33, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Comments:

1. The "Background" section is written as if a reader has read the lead but, since the lead cannot introduce anything that is not in the body of the article per WP:LEAD, the "Background" section needs to provide the same sort of basic contextualization/Wikilinking that is present in the lead even if it is a bit of stating the obvious.
2. A little context on who Warren Treadgold is and why one should care about his opinion would be helpful here, especially since his Wikipedia page is somewhat lacking. Even "Nevertheless, as Byzantine-era historian Warren Treadgold comments..." This also immediately alerts the reader to the scholar's specialty (Byzantine rather than Umayyad) and what his potential biases may be.
3. Under "Opening stages of the campaign", there's a side note "(this is may be a confusion with Phoenicia)", which would probably be better for the flow if it were a footnote rather than a part of the text itself.
4. Same paragraph, "Finally, in late summer the rebels entered the capital through treason." This is kind of an awkward fragment in the middle of that disrupts the flow - I would suggest either adding an explanation (How does one enter a capital through treason) or perhaps rewording/reworking it to maintain flow.
5. Same section, second paragraph, "while the famed Maslamah ibn Abd al-Malik" - famed seems like a fairly POV word to me here. Either it should be explained/cited per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV or simply removed.
6. I'm a little confused with the second paragraph in general, maybe it's just something that needs to be explained to me rather than clarified in the article. I guess what I'm missing is why the Arabs offered terms of surrender for the fort when they could have just taken it and what purpose they thought it would serve having those terms be the acknowledgement of Leo as emperor. What Arab objective did he thwart? I get that he tricked the Arabs into not capturing the fort so that he could have it himself, but what were the Arabs planning on gaining by not capturing the town in the first place? A strategic alliance? (Reading on after it seems like this was the case, but it's not very clear from this paragraph)
7. Same section, third paragraph: "Leo's success was a stroke of luck for Byzantium, since Maslamah with the main Arab army and in the meantime crossed the Taurus Mountains and was marching straight for Amorium." I think there's a word missing here that would help me understand the sentence.
8. Under "Historical assessment and impact", there is a direct quote ("By turning back the Moslem invasion, Europe remained in Christian hands, and no serious Moslem threat to Europe existed until the fifteenth century. This victory, coincident with the Frankish victory at Tours (732), limited Islam's western expansion to the southern Mediterranean world.") that requires a direct citation at the end of the sentence, especially since there is a group of citations that end the paragraph.

I went through and did a copyedit, so hopefully there should be no more problems in that department. To allow for these changes to be made I am placing the article on hold for a period of up to a week. I'm always open to discussion so if you think I'm wrong on something leave your thoughts here and we'll discuss. I'll be checking this page at least daily, unless something comes up, so you can be sure I'll notice any comments left here. Canadian Paul 00:05, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to review this article, and for your edits! I've fixed the issues you raised, and hopefully clarified any uncertainties in the narrative. Please have a look and tell me if anything still needs fixing. Cheers, Constantine ✍ 20:59, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Great! I'll take a look at it right now. Canadian Paul 18:08, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

One small thing: Under the "Opening stages to the campaign" section, first paragraph, "sent an embassy to Damascus". Is that supposed to be "sent an emissary to Damascus"? I would have normally just fixed that myself, but I wanted to double check that I'm reading it correctly. Also, in the same paragraph, "There they declared a former tax collector emperor as Theodosios III." sounds a bit odd, because it makes it seem like they declared an emperor of tax collection to be named Theodosios III (it's kind of hard to explain why that reads funny).

Anyways, there's no need to keep the article on hold for those two little issues, so I am going to go ahead and pass the article as a Good Article, because I now believe that it meets all the criteria, so congratulations and thank you for your hard work! Canadian Paul 18:24, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

To clarify your two points: an embassy is properly the delegation sent to a country, it refers to the building they are housed through metonymy. On the "as", it reads a bit odd, indeed, but it is partly there because it is probable that "Theodosios" was a regnal name, and not his actual name. Anyhow, thanks for your help and your edits! Constantine ✍ 07:37, 25 June 2012 (UTC)