Talk:Nanbu clan/GA1

GA Review

LordAmeth

Let's see... according to the Wikipedia:Good article criteria, a Good Article should be

1) Well-written - I'm not fully familiar with all the intricacies of the MoS, and there are a few turns of phrase that differ from how I would have written it (e.g. Sengoku Era with a capital E instead of Sengoku period; "lordly (daimyo) family"), but I do not see any major grammatical or spelling mistakes, and for the most part, it reads in a smooth and natural manner.

2) Factually accurate and verifiable - I have not personally checked the references, but the article cites its sources well, including many in-line citations and numerous reliable sources. The only source used which I know to be a bit questionable is Papinot, and then only because of its age; having been written in the early 20th century, and translated from the French, the Papinot source does not reflect later developments in Japanese and romanization of Japanese, or changes in the views of the historian scholarly community. However, I trust Tadakuni to compensate for all of this, to reflect information as accurately as possible, and to not rely too heavily on Papinot.

In any case, this is far from a controversial subject, and there is no reason whatsoever to believe that there should be any political motive to deceive within the context of this subject.

3) Broad in its coverage - the article covers the history of the clan from its origins until the abolition of the samurai class and the clan with it. Covers several important figures and events without going into excessive detail.

4) Neutral - there is nothing to be biased about here - this is not a political or controversial subject. The article does not treat the clan, or any of its members, as heroes or villains, but treats the subject objectively.

5) Stable - the vast majority of edits have been made by the same editor, making steady and meaningful improvements. No edit wars or content disputes of any kind have occurred in the page's history.

6) Illustrations are relevant, the number sufficient.

I see no reason to not support the nomination of this article for Good Article status. Fantastic work. LordAmeth (talk) 04:34, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Second Opinion Comments

Through a conversation on LordAmeth's talk page, I have agreed to give a second opinion on the article, as LordAmeth feels that he is too close to the subject to be completely unbiased towards it (as well as being a new GA reviewer). So, here are my comments:

• There should be no new information in the lead. The lead should be simply a summary of the rest of the article, around two solid paragraphs for an article of this length. The new information in the lead should be moved with its references to the body of the article.
• There are several places that need references:
  • "Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama era" section, second paragraph, last sentence
  • "Edo era", second paragraph, last sentence
  • "Edo era", last paragraph
  • "Boshin War", last sentence
  • "Family heads" section
  • "Notable retainers" section
  • Current ref #17
• In the "Edo era" section, the last three paragraphs are all fairly short. Could they be combined?
• In the "Edo era" section, there should be no words bolded
• In the "Notes" section, please put language tags on all references that are in a foreign language, not just some of them.
• In the "References" section, because you have them divided by language, you probably don't need the language tags, but if you want to have them, put them on all of them, not just some.
• In the "Family Heads" section, the last word of the header should be decapitalized.
• I am concerned about the lists in "Notable retainers" sections. First, it's not referenced. Second, you're really not supposed to have lists. The list of family heads is one thing, since these are rather important and it would make a very long prose section. However, there aren't very many notable retainers, and you have nothing saying why they are notable. My suggestion would be to turn this section into prose, with a brief sentence or two describing what it means to be a "retainer" in a Japanese clan, and describing why each of these people was a notable retainer, as opposed to a bunch of others that I'm guessing you haven't mentioned because you think they're not notable. Does this make sense?

Because of the list of things above, I have not done a complete review of the prose. Please address the comments above (you can either fix them and just say that they're done or reply as to why you think I'm completely wrong and out of my mind *grin*), and I will take a second run through to grab prose issues. If you have questions you can ask here or on my talk page. Dana boomer (talk) 13:49, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the preliminary review. I have gone through all of your comments, and edited the article accordingly; I believe I've covered everything you've mentioned above. I will be eagerly looking forward to your next review of the article. -Tadakuni (talk) 19:59, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Second Opinion the Second Time

• Because the lead is a summary of the rest of the article, it does not need to have (and should not have, per MOS) its own references.
• The last sentence of the "Boshin War" section needs a reference
• Your references should go in numerical order in the "Family heads" section, i.e. [1][7], not [7][1].
• Prose: (all suggested rewordings are simply suggestions, you are free to reword however you wish)
  • In the "Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama era" section, you say "power, during the headship of Nanbu Harumasa.", which reads awkwardly. Perhaps say "power under the leadership of Nanbu..."
  • In the "Edo era" section, you say "A Dutch ship, the Breskens, arrived in Nanbu territory in the late 16th century; a shore party from the ship was captured by local authorities and taken to Edo.[10]". This sentence is incongruous in the context in which it is placed...you're talking about politics and talking about politics and hey, wait, there's this ship, and then back to politics. Do you see what I'm saying? I would suggest either removing the sentence, or placing it in some sort of context to what's around it, or expanding it into it's own paragraph if you have the material to do so.

Not many comments this time around. The article looks almost ready for GA. As soon as these few minor things are fixed, I'll drop a note to the principle reviewer so that he can take a final look over the article and pass it to GA status. Let me know if you have any questions, and thank you for your hard work and prompt response. Dana boomer (talk) 20:27, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Have gone through your suggestions and applied them all. Many thanks! Tadakuni (talk) 20:52, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Everything looks good. I'll drop LordAmeth a note to let him know that I approve of passing the article to GA. Dana boomer (talk) 00:38, 21 August 2008 (UTC)