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Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Siege of Constantinople (717–18)

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Siege of Constantinople (717–718)

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Nominator(s): Constantine ✍

One of the most important conflicts in world history. I recently rewrote the article from scratch, using every major source I could locate, including translated and annotated versions of the main primary accounts. The article passed GA without major problems a couple of weeks ago, and over the past few days I made further additions as a couple of sources I didn't have access to became available. I am confident that the article is as comprehensive as it can get, and would like eventually to push it to FA level. I'd greatly appreciate any criticism and help in improving it further and making it accessible to the average reader. Constantine ✍ 14:30, 12 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Images:
  • File:Greekfire-madridskylitzes1.jpg and File:47-manasses-chronicle.jpg lack a US licence tag (You must also include a United States public domain tag...). The solution is a PD-old-100 tag (although PD-1923 would also suffice). The former also lacks a PD-art tag, exemplified by the latter.
  • File:Terbelliou.jpg, the source work for one of your images, is rather dubious. Firstly it needs to distinguish between the underlying work and the photograph, and second there's no mention of where this seal actually comes from and, well, in the absence of evidence to the contrary common sense says there's a good chance the image was taken from somewhere else.
  • (Also in a general comment I think paragraph breaks would help the flow of the lead).
Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 19:03, 21 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've fixed the tags on the first two images, and rewritten the lede somewhat. I am going to check on the source for Tervel's seal, and if I don't find anything, I'll remove it. Constantine ✍ 15:55, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed Tervel's seal as a possible copyright violation and nominated it for deletion at Commons. Images should be OK now. Constantine ✍ 11:44, 31 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support Suggestions:

  • "The siege is also credited with having halted Muslim advance into Europe" --> "The siege is also credited with having halted Muslim advances into Europe" or --> "The siege is also credited with having halted the Muslim advance into Europe" (emphasis add only to highlight suggested changes);
  • in the lead, overlink of "Asia Minor";
  • repetition: "The result, however, was a series of Arab victories that resulted" --> "The result, however, was a series of Arab victories that led to";
  • in the Background, overlinke of "Justinian II";
  • elsewhere, possible overlink of "jihad" and "Galata";
  • "Arab sourced claim that altogether 150,000 Muslims perished during the campaign" --> "Arab sources claim..."?
  • inconsistent presentation: endash here: "through – the Armeniac and Anatolic themes, whose governors he still believed to be his allies" but emdashes here: "—30,000 out of the original 80,000 that set out for Constantinople—departed for";
  • repetition: "Among the Arabs, the 717–718 siege became the most famous among the expeditions against Byzantium" ("among" is the issue here);
  • "The Arab failure was chiefly due to logistical reasons, operating too far from their bases in Syria" --> "The Arab failure was chiefly due to logistical reasons, as they were' operating too far from their bases in Syria";
  • caption: "The Second Arab siege of Constantinople" --> "The Second Arab Siege of Constantinople" (if the event is a proper noun), or "The second Arab siege of Constantinople" (if the event is not a proper noun);
  • in the References, are there places of publication for: El-Cheikh, Haldon, Hasluck, Hawting;
  • in the References, the cite book template has an "|edition=" parameter that you could use for the Hawting entry;
  • in the References, "New York, New York" --> "New York City, New York". Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 08:16, 27 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the suggestions, they've been implemented. Sharp eyes you've got! Constantine ✍ 11:45, 27 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. Please check the edit summaries. - Dank (push to talk)

  • "heavy winter": hard winter, as in cold?
  • "decimate": Avoid this word, because it has two common but contradictory meanings: to reduce by a tenth, or to obliterate. Per M-W: "to cause great destruction or harm to <firebombs decimated the city> <an industry decimated by recession>" - Dank (push to talk) 11:10, 1 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "In early 716, they continued their advance into central Asia Minor, the Umayyad fleet under Umar ibn Hubaira set sail and cruised along the Cilician coast, while Maslamah ibn Abd al-Malik awaited developments with the main army in Syria.": How are the 3 clauses connected? - Dank (push to talk) 02:52, 2 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm making a lot of wording tweaks; please check these.
  • "a certain Sufyan": I went with "a general named Sufyan"; if you don't know if he was a general, "commander" would work. Search for "a certain" and replace by "a commander named", "an Egyptian named", "a man named", or whatever you happen to know.
  • Done. - Dank (push to talk) 00:40, 3 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Dank, thanks for the edits! I've checked them, and they were mostly OK. I also implemented your suggestions. Once again, thanks for your work! Constantine ✍ 06:57, 3 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support:

  • Looks good. One (very) minor point below.
  • The image captions have full-stops; I think the MOS would have them without, unless they're complete sentences. Hchc2009 (talk) 08:29, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Quite right, I've removed them. Constantine ✍ 14:16, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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