Talk:Chandragupta Maurya/GA2

GA Review

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Reviewer: Display name 99 (talk · contribs) 14:05, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

This is a fascinating article about a subject which, although I study history, I have not learned much about. I look forward to reviewing it. Here are some initial comments.

Lead

• Short, 1-2 sentence "paragraphs" are awkward to read and don't look very good. In addition, per WP:Lead, the lead should have no more than four paragraphs. So can we combine some of these short paragraphs? Display name 99 (talk) 14:05, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

• I'd like a little bit of detail towards the end of the lead about him becoming a monk. One of the most important purposes of the lead in a biographical article is to provide a chronological summary of the important things that happened in the subject's life, and so, there should be a discussion of this in the third or fourth paragraph. Display name 99 (talk) 14:05, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Ancestry

• Same issue as with the lead. Combine the short paragraphs. Display name 99 (talk) 14:05, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

• Are there any sections which can be further developed by adding new information? For example, do we know what the omen is that Justin speaks of? Display name 99 (talk) 14:05, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

• There are a lot of sometimes contradictory claims discussed here which were made by various historians over the millennia, which is fine. But scholars today often have access to more information and better materials than people did back then. So, do we have any information about what contemporary historians and scholars think about Chandragupta's ancestry, and whether some of these stories are more reliable than others? Display name 99 (talk) 14:05, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

More later. Display name 99 (talk) 14:05, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Continuing with the review...

Early life

• For the meeting between Alexander and Chandragupta, the word "supposed." Does that mean that we don't know for sure whether it truly happened? And if we don't know whether this is true, than we cannot rely on it to tell us when he "must" have been born. You'd also have to clarify this for the "Meeting with Chanakya (Kautilya)" section. Display name 99 (talk) 19:59, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
• Link Alexander. Display name 99 (talk) 19:59, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
• The stuff about him being brought up by a cowherd is all part of the legend, correct? Display name 99 (talk) 19:59, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Meeting with Chanakya (Kautilya)

• "Dhana Nanda, the reigning Nanda king of Pataliputra" Consider a comma at the end of this section. Display name 99 (talk) 19:59, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
• I'm not sure where the Nanda dysnasty came from. I know practically zero Indian history but am having difficulty understanding what India was like during Chandragupta's early life. That isn't good. Display name 99 (talk) 19:59, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
• You don't need to introduce Justin as "the Roman historian" because you have already identified him. I'd like more details about his encounters with a lion. Everything in these sections seems to have some kind of connection with legend. How much, if any of it, do contemporary historians consider reliable and why so? This also goes for "Meeting with Chanakya (Kautilya)." The problem basically is that just about every paragraph in the article starts out with "This text says this" or "This text says that." Most of the time, there isn't anything to tell us whether these are true or not, which is confusing, especially when the texts don't fully agree. My advice to you is that if there is doubt, you should include what contemporary historians have to say about each theory. If there is a virtual unanimous consensus among modern historians that something did actually happen as a certain text or texts say, you can simply say that a certain thing happened without the caveat that it's from a particular text. I understand that it is important that major primary sources make it into the article, but you might want to create a separate section where you talk about them so that they don't get in the way of the rest of the article. Display name 99 (talk) 19:59, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
• Again, you don't have to keep introducing Justin and Plutarch. Display name 99 (talk) 19:59, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Building the empire

• Consider replacing "the" with "an." There has been more than one empire in history. On that note, you also might want to state the name of the empire that Chandragupta built in the title so that people are reminded of what it's called. Display name 99 (talk) 19:59, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
• The information in the caption about Chanakya is uncited and only appears in the caption. If it's important, it should appear in the main text of the article with a citation. Display name 99 (talk) 19:59, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
• Link guru in the text. Display name 99 (talk) 19:59, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
• I'm not entirely clear on what gave Chandragupta the standing where he could begin to recruit a powerful army. And why did he do it? Display name 99 (talk) 19:59, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
• The first paragraph out to be in its own subsection, in my view, because it describes things which aren't in any of the others. Display name 99 (talk) 19:59, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
• Do we have any more information on these campaigns? The detail here seems pretty light. Display name 99 (talk) 19:59, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Eastward expansion and the end of Nanda empire

• Again, more content that doesn't seem to get into a lot of detail. Is this really all that we know? Display name 99 (talk) 19:59, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
• "The conquest was fictionalised in Mudrarakshasa, a political drama in Sanskrit by Vishakadatta composed 600 years later – probably between 300 CE and 700 CE." If the drama is mostly fictionalized, you should move it down to the "In popular culture" section. The purpose of the narrative portion of the article should be to tell us about what actually happened, and throwing in sentences about dramas that aren't based on actual history just distract the reader. Display name 99 (talk) 19:59, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
• Numerical figures in ancient accounts are often suspect. Chroniclers would deliberately exaggerate. So, how well to the figures of Plutarch and Pliny conform to modern estimations? You need to be basing the article off of contemporary historians' interpretations of the different, often-conflicting primary sources. That's not what you've done so far in this article. You've simply told us what the primary sources state but it's not always easy to know which to believe. Display name 99 (talk) 19:59, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

That's all for now. Looking ahead, I see major problems with this article. The entire (brief) "Succession" section is uncited. There's a "Citation needed tag," which, by the way, you should have taken care of before nominating this article. Articles on important historical subjects, such as Chandragupta, should also, in my strong opinion, have a "Legacy" section, in which we summarize how the person or thing is remembered. There is no such subject for this article. I'm thinking of not passing the review and giving you the chance to work on these things outside the pressure and time-frame of a GA review, which ideally, isn't supposed to last more than a few weeks at most. Please let me know whether this is what you'd like me to do. Display name 99 (talk) 19:59, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed review, that's what I was looking for. I would like to accept your suggestion of taking some time to improve upon the article and retry later. Capankajsmilyo^{(Talk | Infobox assistance)} 12:26, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Alright, I decided to fail it. Good luck improving it. If you plan on nominating it again, I suggest you take it to WP:Peer review first. The editors over there can offer you some helpful advice without actually passing or failing you. Display name 99 (talk) 20:09, 26 May 2019 (UTC)