Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Ethiopian historiography/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Sarastro1 via FACBot (talk) 21:36, 11 October 2017 [1].

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Ethiopian historiography

Nominator(s): Pericles of Athens^Talk 15:16, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm nominating this article for FA status because I think it meets all the basic FA criteria. This article has recently succeeded in passing its Good Article candidacy and has seen some massive improvements since then, although it is now stable with very little editing activity going on. There were some disagreements between another editor and I over some of the content and wording of the article, but we have since come to a consensus on how the article should look. I hope you enjoy reading the article as much as I enjoyed writing it. The article is filled with a rich amount of historical details that should keep you entertained if you're a history buff like me. I've written and nominated various articles on European and Chinese history for FA status, but this is only the second African-history related article that I've nominated, the first being Ancient Egyptian literature. It's certainly my first nomination focused on a sub-Saharan African country and Semitic culture, two areas of our English Wikipedia that perhaps need a lot of work and still lack critical information. This is my little effort to help remedy that and hopefully spark interest in other editors to follow suit. Let's hope so! Pericles of Athens^Talk 15:16, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Image review from Adityavagarwal

• All the 18 images are well-relevant, have proper description templates, and have no copyright problems! ALT text is absent, though.

Looks good otherwise. Adityavagarwal (talk) 20:41, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

@Adityavagarwal: hello. Thanks for reviewing the images so quickly. I wasn't expecting any response anytime soon! I'm glad to hear that everything is in order. Per your suggestion, I have also amended the article to include alt text for each and every image. I hope that you find the descriptions to be suitable. If not, please let me know! Regards, --Pericles of Athens^Talk 12:28, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Perfect! No issues, now. It is good to go now. Adityavagarwal (talk) 12:56, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Excellent! Once again, thanks for the speedy review. --Pericles of Athens^Talk 13:05, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Initial comments from Hchc2009

An interesting article! Some initial comments, more to follow:

• "The Church of Saint George, Lalibela and a panel painting inside depicting Saint George slaying a dragon; it is one of eleven monumental rock-hewn churches built in Lalibela, Ethiopia that were allegedly sculpted after a vision by the Zagwe-dynasty ruler Gebre Mesqel Lalibela (r. 1185–1225 AD), in which St George instructed him to do so.[18][19] The city of Lalibela was reestablished as a symbolic new holy site, following the fall of Jerusalem to the Muslim forces of Saladin in 1187 AD, yet archaeology reveals the religious structures to have been built between the 10th and early 12th centuries AD, with perhaps only the last phase carried out during the 13th century AD and reign of Gebre Mesqel Lalibela." - a very long caption, and failed the MOS test for me. I'd advise trimming after "...slaying a dragon."
• File:St. George Astride His Horse, Church of Bet Giorgis, Lalibela, Ethiopia (3268383996).jpg needs a copyright tag for the underlying image (could be done in a similar way to File:Gebre Mesqel Lalibela.png, for example). The other historical images need checking in this regard as well.
• After Zagwe dynasty, the number of images produced a solid wall of images on the right hand side of my screen; I suspect that you should cut one or two to bring it into the MOS guidelines.
• "An engraved book portrait of Ethiopian monk Abba Gorgoryos (1595-1658) by Christopher Elias Heiss, Augsburg, 1691;[72][73] Abba Gorgoryos aided the German orientalist Hiob Ludolf (1624–1704) in the translation of Ge'ez and Amharic, as well as with material for composing a history of Ethiopia.[74][75]" - I'd trim after the first clause
• "File:Painting of St. Abbo, Church of Bet Mercurios, Lalibela, Ethiopia (3308268798).jpg" - needs an Ethopian tag to cover photography of 2D art images (NB: if this is legal in Ethopia, I don't know!)
• "File:Battle of Adwa tapestry at Smithsonian.png" - needs a tag for the underlying tapestry image (or painting, depending on which bit of the file you believe).
• "File:"Yared An (sic) His Disciples Singing A Song In Front Of King Gebreme Skel . . ." (3171512810).jp" - needs an Ethiopian tag to cover photography of 2D art images. Hchc2009 (talk) 22:11, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

@Hchc2009: hello! Thanks for the initial review. Unfortunately I don't have time to address this right now, but hopefully by the end of the week I'll have everything in order. Regards, --Pericles of Athens^Talk 06:57, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

@Hchc2009: hello? Are you still alive and/or active on Wikipedia? It has been a very long time since you have commented here. I was hoping to see the rest of your review. --Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:17, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

PericlesofAthens' response

@Hchc2009: hello again. I have done several things to address your concerns listed above.

(1) Per your requests, I have shortened the captions for the "File:Bete_Giyorgis_06.jpg" and "File:Aba_Gorgorios,_1681.jpg" images.

(2) I have resized nearly every image after the "Zagwe dynasty" sub-section, and have removed several pictures. Keep in mind, though, that not every monitor and not eevry browser presents the page the same way. Are you viewing this on a mobile device? The page looks fine to me, but I have edited the article per your advice regardless.

(3) I'm not sure what sort of tag I would need for "Ethopian tag to cover photography of 2D art image", so I have simply removed the three images you have mentioned as being problematic. This is perhaps a temporary move until I am able to properly tag those images, but I guarantee that they will stay removed from the article until that happens. I just hope it doesn't lead to an edit war with the editor who added all three of them to the article. Since I added the majority of images to the article in its present incarnation, he might take this as some sort of slight or that I'm deliberately attacking the contributions he has made. I hope that won't be the case. Perhaps he can even help in locating the appropriate tags. I'd like for you to elaborate more on this in the meantime, though.

(4) You wrote that "File:St. George Astride His Horse, Church of Bet Giorgis, Lalibela, Ethiopia (3268383996).jpg needs a copyright tag for the underlying image (could be done in a similar way to File:Gebre Mesqel Lalibela.png, for example). The other historical images need checking in this regard as well." - I think you made some sort of mistake here. These two files actually share the exact same tags (i.e. "PD-Art|PD-old-100" and "PD-1923"). I also think your suggestion here is unwarranted given how this article has already passed the initial image review and inspection of media content by User:Adityavagarwal. I'm willing to cooperate on any further suggestions you might have, but I think your particular point here is moot. Regards, --Pericles of Athens^Talk 06:28, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

@Hchc2009: well, it appears that User:Soupforone has found some suitable replacements for the pictures that I had to remove. Feel free to check the tags and licensing on these new images; everything seems to be in order now. Kind regards, --Pericles of Athens^Talk 17:26, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Comments from Dank

• Welcome back to FAC ... you're bringing us an impressive array of underrepresented topics, well-researched and explicated.
• "AD": There were too many of these, enough to constitute a MOS violation (i.e., we don't have any choice in the matter at FAC, at least not without a big hubbub). WP:MOSNUM says: "In general, do not use CE or AD unless required to avoid ambiguity (e.g. The Norman Conquest took place in 1066 not 1066 CE nor AD 1066) or awkwardness (January 1, 1 AD not January 1, 1). On the other hand, Plotinus lived at the end of the 3rd century AD will avoid confusion". I looked carefully, and the ambiguity required to support the automatic addition of "AD" just wasn't there ... it can be there in some texts, but so far, not in this text. I'll keep looking. I'll be back in a couple of hours, feel free to run through the text catching some of these yourself. - Dank (push to talk) 19:14, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
• "Historiography became an established genre": "Historiography" is a slippery word, and per my standard disclaimer, I leave these kinds of issues to other reviewers. But this is one I think other reviewers might want to comment on ... can the works you're citing in this sentence be considered historiography themselves? Isn't it the study of those works that constitutes the historiography? - Dank (push to talk) 01:23, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
• Most slashes should be removed per WP:SLASH (at WP:MOS). I normally try to fix these things myself, but there was some ambiguity. - Dank (push to talk) 15:37, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Comments from Pericles

Greetings! Thanks for taking the time to review the article.

• As for the BC/AD thing, I've had an FA review in the past (Sino-Roman relations) where people griped that I should consistently add "AD" after every date or mention of "century" or "centuries" in that article, to avoid confusion with BC-era dates. I'll side with your view for now, but if someone makes a similar complaint, then we'll have two conflicting if not totally incompatible arguments made by the reviewers. At that point there will be no appeasement for one side of that argument, because there is no seeming compromise to be made. Let's hope it doesn't head in that direction.
  • If there's a complaint, please ping me. - Dank (push to talk) 01:48, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
• I have reworded the bit about historiography being an established genre. Regards, Pericles of Athens^Talk 01:35, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Much better, thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 01:48, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
• I have removed the forward slashes from the prose of the article, per your new suggestion above regarding WP:MOS. --Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:03, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
• @Dank: do you have any issues with the sourcing? Choice wording of the prose? The narrative structure? Are there any glaring omissions in your estimation? I'm happy to fix all the minor issues like image captions and WP:MOS related stuff, but I'm more interested in tackling the meat and substance of the article. Perhaps I'm being impatient and you're getting to that point after a thorough read of the article? In either case, thanks for your recent edits. Regards, --Pericles of Athens^Talk 04:38, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Normally I get my part done pretty quickly, sorry for the delay, I know it's annoying. When I'm done, what you get is a "Support on prose per my standard disclaimer". I know that doesn't sound like much, but it does tend to increase the chances that this will pass FAC, by counting as a support (and a kind of vetting). Also, any support increases the odds that other reviewers will at least read the article. - Dank (push to talk) 12:59, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
    • Ah! Got it. Excuse me, didn't mean to disturb your mojo, so to speak. Carry on, sir! --Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:10, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
• Support on prose per my standard disclaimer. Well done. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 19:32, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
  • @Dank: thank you kindly! The article is in better shape thanks to your review. Cheers. --Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:16, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Sources review

No spotchecks carried out. The sources appear to be appropriately scholarly and reliable, with a few minor issues:

• You should be consistent as to whether you use "Accessed" or "Retrieved"
• Some publisher locations in lesser-known places are not specific enough, e.g. Abingdon, Westport, Jefferson etc. These should be clarified by adding "U.K." or the US state abbreviation – as you have done with "Lawrenceville, NJ."
• Bizumeh - source lacks publisher location
• Two articles, Jalata and Omer, are behind paywalls, so you should add the (subscription required) template

Otherwise, sources are fine. Brianboulton (talk) 15:48, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

@Brianboulton: hello! Thanks for taking the time to review the sources.

• I have replaced all instances of "accessed" with "retrieved" instead.
• I have improved the info about publisher locations as you've requested, adding US states where needed and "UK" for British publications.
• There is no "Bizumeh" in the article, although there is a "Bizuneh", which does not require a publisher location, as this is a journal article, not a book. Not sure how you confused or missed that.
• I have placed the "subscription" template next to the Jalata and Omer articles listed in the references section.

I hope you find these changes to be sufficient. Regards, Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:02, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

@Brianboulton: hello again. Just following up here, since I would like to know your thoughts on the recent changes that I made. Is everything in order now? --Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:17, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

No outstanding sources issues Brianboulton (talk) 11:36, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Some comments about the sources:

• Per FAC requirements about consistency in sourcing, Reference 46 [Africanus, Leo (1526). The History and Description of Africa. Hakluyt Society. pp. 20 & 30. Retrieved 2 August 2017.] and Reference 60 [Jeronimo Lobo; Joachim Le Grand, Samuel Johnson (ed.) (1789). A voyage to Abyssinia by Father Jerome Lobo a portuguese missionary: containing the history, natural, civil and ecclesiastical of that remote and unfrequented country. Elliot. p. 198. Retrieved 2 August 2017.] should be converted to harv shortened footnote with the bulk of the citation in the "Sources" subsection and the authors name and page in the immediate citation.
• "Further Reading" should be its own section, not a subsection of "References"
• What is meant by "External sources"? If they were indeed sources used for the article they need to cited and properly incorporated. If not, the title "External links" might be more appropriate.

-Indy beetle (talk) 06:20, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

@Indy beetle: nice catches! I have changed "External sources" to "External links", made "Further reading" its own section outside of "References", and have conformed the Leo Africanus (1896) and M. Le Grand (1789) citations with the accepted format. Thanks for pointing these out! Kind regards, --Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:48, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Very good. I have no further concerns about this article and am happy to offer my support. -Indy beetle (talk) 20:53, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! Pericles of Athens^Talk 15:46, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Coordinator comment: This FAC is approaching 2 months now. I think we can leave it open a little while longer, but I think we need to see something happening soon. I wonder would it be worth approaching some editors and asking for reviews? I can make a few recommendations if you like. Sarastro1 (talk) 22:01, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

@Sarastro1: so far this candidacy has received two supports and no oppositions. That's rather pathetic compared to the early days when I used to submit FACs (c. 2008-2010). This site is a graveyard, either that or the community no longer values quality contributions or cares to review content. Is Ethiopian history so tedious that it's turning reviewers off from the subject? Either way I think this will be the last FAC that I ever submit, and I think it's time for my semi-retirement to be full-on retirement from this website. I was thinking about doing an FAC for my Good article on the Mosaics of Delos, but just forget it. It would most likely just get ignored like this nomination here. Regards, Pericles of Athens^Talk 22:32, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

@Sarastro1: since I would like to close this nomination and retire from Wikipedia as speedily as possible, I would be very grateful if you could contact those aforementioned potential reviewers for this article. Kind regards, Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:59, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

A few names come to mind: I don't know if Hchc2009 has any more to add. Also, Mike Christie (sorry to ping you yet again!), HJ Mitchell, Finetooth, Brianboulton, Wehwalt and Casliber can be guaranteed to give a quality reviews if they are available (sorry for pinging so many, I'm hoping that at least one of you can spare the time to take a look at this to avoid it being archived). I suspect that the length of the article, rather than its quality, is what is putting reviewers off. Sarastro1 (talk) 22:10, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Comments support from Cas Liber

My ears were burning...aha....I did start to read this when I was on my phone somewhere weeks ago...and got distracted. Anyhoo...will go through and make comments below: Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:48, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

The power of the Aksumite Kingdom began to decline after the 6th century ... Why not just say, "The power of the Aksumite Kingdom declined after the 6th century "?

whereas Steven Kaplan argues she was a non-Christian invader and Knud Tage Andersen - need a couple of words on the occupations of these two people, which helps us understand why their opinions are significant

Apart from these two minor quibbles, it reads fine to me, with no prose clangers outstanding and an easy read. The structure and comprehensiveness seem sound, though I confess I am a neophyte in the area...so a tentative support pending others' POV Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:43, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

@Casliber: thanks for your input! I have amended the article accordingly. Cheers, --Pericles of Athens^Talk 21:35, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Comments from Mike Christie

Thanks for the ping, Sarastro1. Pericles, I'd be sorry to see you retire; you consistently write high-quality articles on topics not well-covered by the work of other editors.

I'll add comments as I read through the article. I'm copyediting as I go; please revert as needed.

• The second paragraph under "Epigraphy" might be better placed above the epigraphy section, as an introduction to the "Ancient origins" section; its topic predates that of the first paragraph of "Epigraphy", and it's not about historiography in any case -- it's context-setting.
• Why do we need the sentence about De Lorenzi and the Garima Gospels? It's about the manuscript tradition, but not about a historiographical manuscript. If it's intended to provide context for the information about the Aksum Collection, I don't see the relevance.
• allegedly under Zagwe-dynasty ruler Gebre Mesqel Lalibela (r. 1185–1221), yet archaeology reveals the religious structures to have been built between the 10th and early 13th centuries: why "yet"? The dates are not necessarily in conflict.
• Looking at the paragraph starting "The most common form of written history", I wonder if it could be resequenced a little. The last two sentences give the origin of the genre; the second and third sentences might be better placed afterwards.
• Not necessary for FA, and the sources may not cover it anyway, but I'm curious about the mention of the Solomonic-era hagiographies of Zagwe rulers -- were these similar to the rote hagiographies common elsewhere in medieval literature? I.e. almost useless for historical purposes, consisting only of standard descriptions of miracles?
• In the Medieval Europe/Prester John section, you begin by characterizing Homer as mythology. He certainly includes mythological elements, but since the point of discussing him is that he also is regarded as a historical source, I think it might be better to cut the whole first clause, and just start with "Homer and Herodotus...."
• Is "Prete Ianni" a corrupted form of "Prester John", as it appears to be? If the sources don't say, that's fine, but if they do, it might be worth pointing it out parenthetically.
• How about mentioning in a few cases what language specific works were written in? I began to wonder about this in the "Early Modern historiography" section. Not sure it's needed for FA, but it could be a useful detail.
• Presumably the works Paez translated are mentioned in the earlier sections about the Zagwe and Solomonic dynasties? If so, it would be good to identify them in the later section too. If not, perhaps because Paez's translation is the only surviving version of the text, then I think that should be made clear.
• the Portuguese Jesuit missionary Jerónimo Lobo (1595–1678) would also describe Abyssinia and its denizens: why "would also"? Any reason not to just say "described"?
• At one point you say "the Era of the Princes"; at another there's no "the". I don't know what's standard usage; should one of these be corrected to match the other?
• Donald Crummey (1941–2013), Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Illinois: do we need his credentials inline? And if we do, do we need "Emeritus"? Surely that would only be relevant if he was Emeritus when he published the cited work?
• bore striking historical commonalities: suggest either "bore striking historical resemblances" or "had striking historical commonalities".
• the establishment of the Egyptian abun ecclesiastical office, which encapsulated Ethiopia's traditional orientation toward Egypt and the Middle East: this is a bit too compressed for me. How does an Egyptian ecclesiastical office encapsulate another country's external orientation?
• I also don't follow the thinking in the last three sentences of that paragraph, from "Consequently" on. Why would political tension lead to a laissez-faire attitude? And if there was a laissez-faire attitude (which to me means not hostile, if not actively cordial) then what's the relevance of the conference attendee numbers?
• native and foreign Ethiopianists of the post-1950 generation also focused more on historiographic matters pertaining to Ethiopia's place within the African continent: suggest cutting "also", unless it implies something I am missing.
• This trend had the effect of marginalizing Ethiopia's traditional bonds with the Middle East: marginalizing the bonds, or marginalizing them in contemporary historiographical writing?

-- That's everything I can see. These are all fairly minor points, and I expect to support once they're addressed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:05, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

@Mike Christie: hello. Thanks for taking the time to review the article. I have tried my best to address your concerns and I have amended the article per your suggestions. The only one that I didn't fully address was the concern you had about Pedro Paez and his translations of Ethiopian works. Aside from the Kebra Nagast (which to my knowledge was not translated by Paez), I didn't actually mention the specific titles of royal biographies and chronicles in the previous sections, only when they were generally dated and what they were about. Aside from that, I think the article is in pretty good shape after implementing your suggestions. Regards, Pericles of Athens^Talk 21:40, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Support. My concerns have been addressed. This is a fine article. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:10, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm glad that I was able to address all of your concerns. Kind regards, Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:27, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Closing comment: I am promoting this shortly, but I note that two of the images lack alt text, and it might be worth checking for duplinks as a few show up; in this case, the terms are far enough apart to justify them I think, but I would still recommend checking. Neither of these issues warrant delaying this any further, and I hope the nominator will continue to bring his excellent and diverse articles to FAC; in future, it is fine to request reviews and it is not canvassing unless you explicitly ask someone to come and support. Sarastro1 (talk) 21:35, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Sarastro1 (talk) 21:36, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.