Talk:Isaac Komnenos (son of John II)

Untitled

As this person's date of death is not definitely known surely we can come up with a better title for the article. PatGallacher (talk) 00:34, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Isaac Komnenos (son of John II)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: HaEr48 (talk · contribs) 18:43, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

I will take a look. HaEr48 (talk) 18:43, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Generally a well-written article with decent writing. Referenced with no sign of original research or copyright violations. Broad enough and not distracted by unnecessary detail. A little bit short but it looks like because not a lot of sources talk about him, and in any case the main aspects of his biography and key events are covered. Appeared neutral, stable, and properly illustrated with images. I have some feedback below for your consideration:

• when his oldest brother Alexios was crowned co-emperor Isaac, along with his other brothers: I suggest a comme between "co-emperor" and "Isaac" to prevent misreading it "co-emperor Isaac" as the regnal name of Alexios

• Good point, rephrased.

• What does "harsh punishment of infractions" mean? Do you mean "harsh punishment or infractions"? Or can you choose a clearer wording?

• I've removed the "infractions" bit, "harsh punishments" should suffice, obviously a punishment is the consequence of an infraction by the one being punished.

• Isaac, who had been sent to accompany Alexios along with Andronikos, accompanied the bodies of his brothers back to Constantinople: it seemed that the three brothers were elsewhere when this happened, can this be mentioned? (e.g. "unexpectedly died during a campaign in XX" or some such)

• Added, and clarified some more what his role was.

• "... Isaac attacked his cousin, the future emperor Andronikos with a sword, the blow was deflected.." I suggest comma between Andronikos and with, and period (instead of comma) between sword and the blow

• Good suggestion, done.

• Both images are appropriate. Commons complain about "You must also include a United States public domain tag" though, probably it can be fixed by replacing {{PD-old}} by something more specific, probably Commons:Template:PD-old-100-expired.

• Fixed.

• The two Varzos reference links seem to lead to an error page

• Yes they do, pity. They were online for many years before.

@Cplakidas: (optional) Can you find a web archive? HaEr48 (talk) 21:57, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

• Fixed, the url was changed but the files are still hosted online.

-- HaEr48 (talk) 06:45, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

• "contemporary Byzantine historians are forced to provide extensive speeches and explanations in an effort to justify the choice of Manuel". Are there any main arguments/explanations that we can mention in the article? HaEr48 (talk) 21:57, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

• It essentially boils down to John supposedly recognizing Manuel as the more capable of the two, and the lack of a strict primogeniture principle in Byzantine succession, although in most cases this was the de facto principle applied. Added a brief mention of this.

• • @Cplakidas: In case you didn't see my last comment. HaEr48 (talk) 06:29, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
    • @HaEr48: Sorry for the delay, I was travelling during the past few days and away from a PC. Any further issues/suggestions? Constantine ✍ 11:33, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
      • @Cplakidas: No worries. Thanks for the response and I hope my feedback has been useful. Passing the article as GA now. Good work on the article. HaEr48 (talk) 20:18, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
        • Thanks for taking the time and for your suggestions :). Cheers, Constantine ✍ 21:45, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Contemporary Byzantine historians...

@Cplakidas: I shortened this sentence:

The background for this nomination is unclear, and the event was anomalous enough that the contemporary Byzantine historians are forced to provide extensive speeches and explanations in an effort to justify the choice of Manuel, portraying him as the more qualified and stressing that in Byzantine tradition, primogeniture was not decisive.

It now reads:

The background for this nomination is unclear; contemporary Byzantine historians suggest Manuel was more qualified and stress primogeniture was not decisive in Byzantine tradition.

I removed the extraneous details about the event being anomalous (that seems clear from the background for this nomination being unclear, and the later part about primogeniture not being decisive implies this) and about historians providing extensive speeches and explanations (without more detail, this doesn't tell the reader that much; the "forced to" bit makes it sound like Byzantine historians are a bit inept). Since I don't have the original book, I wanted to let you know in case I misrepresented the the book.

I will note I can see an argument for mentioning the event was an anomaly, if some measure of comparison can be given. Ideally it could state something like "This event was one of N exceptions to primogeniture in Byzantinian succession, with X and Y being other examples". e^πi (talk | contribs) 15:20, 1 May 2019 (UTC) (edited 15:31, 1 May 2019 (UTC))