Talk:Cup of the Ptolemies

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Cup of the Ptolemies/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Caponer (talk · contribs) 01:31, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Gen. Quon, I will complete a thorough and comprehensive review of this article within the next 48 hours. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns in the meantime. Thanks! -- Caponer (talk) 01:31, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

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

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Gen. Quon, I have completed my comprehensive and thorough review and re-review of your article, and I find that it easily meets the majority of necessary criteria for passage to Good Article status. Before passing this, I do have some comments, questions, and suggestions that must first be addressed. Thanks! -- Caponer (talk) 02:22, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, no copyvios, spelling and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): 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 and other media, where possible and appropriate.

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

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Lede

• The photographs of the front and back of the cup are licensed CC BY-SA 3.0 and are therefore free to use in this article.
• I suggest using the multiple image template for the images of the front and rear of the cup.

  Excellent idea!--Gen. Quon (Talk) 05:44, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Front (top) and back (bottom) of the cup.

• In the first sentence, should the French name for the cup be written as either (French: Coupe des Ptolémées) or (French: Coupe des Ptolémées)?

  I went with the latter, since it's both the title (and thus needs to be capitalized) and French (and therefore should be italicized on the English Wiki).--Gen. Quon (Talk) 05:44, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

• Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section, the lede of this article adequately defines the topic, establishes the necessary context, and explains why the cup is notable and historically relevant.
• The lede is well-written, consists of content that is adequately sourced and verifiable, and I have no other comments or questions for this section.

History

• Cameo is mentioned and wiki-linked in the lede, but not used as a descriptor of the carving in the history. Could it be listed in both descriptions for consistency's sake?

  Sure thing.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 05:44, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

• Per Wikipedia:Inline citation, the inline citations should be consolidated and listed in numerical order at the end of sentences. This does not include the footnote citations.

  Fixed.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 05:44, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

• Is there a descriptor for Jean Tristan de Saint-Amant to introduce his relevance to make an assertion regarding the cup's original intention? Was he a historian, an antiquarian, a scholar? I'm also assuming Babelon was a historian, too. I suggest rewriting as "description by historian Jean Tristan de Saint-Amant" or "Historian... Scholar E. Babelon argued that the cup..." Where possible, it may read better if the person's profession is mentioned in the sentence. Let me know what you think; this is merely a suggestion.

  I like the suggestion, and it has been implemented.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 05:44, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

• I'm assuming the sources aren't clear on which of the French monarchs donated the cup to St. Denis?

  There's quite a bit of debate on that, and that's the reason why I made Note 3.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 05:44, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

  My apologies for leaving this comment in the review; I should have struck this when I read the footnotes below. Looks good! -- Caponer (talk) 13:54, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

• 1,200 should be written as 1,200 livres.

  Opps, good catch.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 05:44, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

• De-link the second mention of Basilica of Saint-Denis

  Done.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 05:44, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

• This section is well-written, consists of content that is adequately sourced and verifiable, and I have no other comments or questions for this section.
• Gen. Quon, according to page 62 of the book The Engraved Gems of Classical Times by John Henry Middleton, the cup was occasionally utilized as a chalice for mass at the abbey of St. Denis. It also says the burglars of the cup were arrested in Holland. You may have already come across this source, but I thought it was worth bringing to your attention just in case you hadn't. -- Caponer (talk) 14:22, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Chalice mount

• The image of the mount engravings are released into the public domain and are therefore free to use in this article.
• Should the sentence read "After the cup was recovered..."?

  Done.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 05:44, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

• As mentioned above, per Wikipedia:Inline citation, the inline citations should be consolidated and listed in numerical order at the end of sentences. This does not include the footnote citations.

  Done.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 05:44, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

• The footnotes read well and are sourced.
• This section is well-written, consists of content that is adequately sourced and verifiable, and I have no other comments or questions for this section.

Comments

I didn't think the article was very well-written, frankly, but I have given it a quick copyedit (adressing some points above I see). The description of the cup and its carvings is pretty inadequate for a GA, I would have thought, & the history takes up the great bulk of the article. Do we know its weight? I never know what the GA standard actually is though, so don't mind me. Johnbod (talk) 04:40, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

I always appreciate a good copy-edit. Sadly, I've added all the source I could find about this object to the article. I'm sure many, many more exist, but I think that they are in either French or Italian, and I do not have access to them at the moment.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 05:44, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

OK, I found a good source that was in French (heh, it was already in-use in the article), and I spent a bit of time translating it. I've added quite a bit, even going so far as to create a new section called "Description". Here's what I've done.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 07:17, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Johnbod, thank you for your additional comments and for contributing to this review while still early in its progress. It looks like Gen. Quon has certainly expanded upon the descriptions of the carvings and the history. I'm going to give it a further copy edit as part of the GAR process. Of course, I wanted to give Gen. Quon ample opportunity to make edits before doing so. Thank you both for your outstanding contributions to this article in order to make it adhere to GA criteria. -- Caponer (talk) 13:58, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

• Changing to the multiple image, though suggested above, was not a good idea. The images are now much too small, and have no extra images below them. Johnbod (talk) 05:42, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

I can fix that.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 05:44, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Gen. Quon, I think the increased size looks much better. Great job! -- Caponer (talk) 14:00, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

• Ok, thanks, much better now. [1] Johnbod (talk) 14:10, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

I found a few more good sources, so I added them. How does this look? I also removed the description of the cup because, while written well, it really veered pretty close to original research.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 18:53, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

You're joking! Whatever. Nothing from 1891 is a "good source". The article has a big problem in not having any sources with substantive coverage that are less than 100 years old. Johnbod (talk) 22:02, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Gen. Quon, you have greatly improved this article throughout this Good Article review process. Upon my re-review, I assess this article to meet all the criteria for Good Article status. Great job! Thank you Johnbod for your input throughout this review process. -- Caponer (talk) 01:26, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you! As for the date issues, yeah, that's true, but nothing more recent has emerged. To be fair, many of the old, old articles are secondary sources discussing the history and the Latin inscription (facets of history that are fairly uncontroversial and probably not likely to change any time soon). The golden age of philology, art history, and the classics was in the 1890s, so it only makes sense that a huge amount of sources would be from that time period. With that being said, I'll keep my eye out for any newer and larger source that can take the place of some of the older bits in this article.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 02:29, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Ptolemys vs. Ptolemies

Hi all! I saw that JackofOz recently moved this page. I was wondering if there is any specific Wikipedia policy that says to favor "Ptolemys" over the original "Ptolemies"? A Google search suggests that "Cup of the Ptolemies" is by far the most common spelling, and an Ngram search shows that "Ptolemies" is itself more popular than "Ptolemys". WP:COMMONNAME suggests that we use the most "commonly recognizable name", so I thought it was worth discussing.--Gen. Quon_[Talk] 16:11, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes - "Ptolemys" hardly seems to be used at all. Johnbod (talk) 18:01, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

I was relying on the pluralisation rules for human last names ending in -y, for which one can find numerous sites. Here's one: Merriam-Webster: Plural and Possessive Names: A Guide:

• Unlike regular nouns that end in y, names that end in y are also made plural by adding -s:

• the Kennedy clan → the Kennedys
• the Daley family → the Daleys.

It's the same with "the two Marys", not "the two Maries". Kerrys, Perrys, Hollys, Murrays, and so on - not Kerries, Perries, Hollies or Murraies. These rules enable us to write things like: "The three Berrys (Jim, Mary and Bruce) were eating berries". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:05, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

That's understandable, but I don't think that fully gels with Wikipedia's rules about common names, etc.--Gen. Quon_[Talk] 23:05, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Most rules have exceptions, and if you look at a Gbooks search, this is clearly one of them. There may well be others. Always best to check these things. Johnbod (talk) 03:04, 7 June 2024 (UTC)