Talk:1241 papal election/GA1

GA Review

I put this article on hold for the following reasons:

1. It badly needs a copyedit. There are plenty of English grammar mistakes. Three that really jumped at me: before his pulled back to Apulia, angered by rumors than a non-Cardinal would be elected, traveling not the election.
2. The lead is too short.
3. The ==Context== does not do its job well. The sections should talk about when & how the old pope died, how cardinals were convened, why pope warred with emperor, politics involved, etc. The section lists Sixth Crusade as the main article, yet mentions nothing about it in the text. The discussion "conclave vs. election" seems to be misplaced (would look better in "legacy" section or similar).
4. Why ==Accounts== just talk about one witness? There surely must be other sources. Expand, incorporate somewhere else, or remove.

Renata (talk) 22:06, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I believe I have satisfied your first three comments (I have re-read the article and run a spell check, but grammar is not my forte so please let me know if you caught anything else specific). As for the accounts section, this discusses the only primary source of note that I was able to discover and his impact on secondary sources. To wit, there are no other notable accounts of the election, and no sources available for expansion. Thus, I find your recommendation to be counterproductive, unless you happen to know of any sources I have overlooked. The sectioning of notes about the primary sources is important for parallelism with other election and conclave articles, among other things. Removal clearly would not improve the article. Savidan 23:55, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for a quick response.

The lead looks nice. Context is so much better, but would benefit from a couple citations and incorporation of Gregory's date of death. I would move up legacy to after aftermath. I think "the election was the first of many protracted vacancies" is not quite correct - if I understand it, you mean the vacancy after the death of Celestine IV. And election cannot be a vacancy, anyway.

The copyedit is really needed. I would be glad to help, but my English is not much better. Can you ask around if any editors would be willing to help out? The article is sometimes even hard to read because of rather awkward phrasing.

The accounts section really bothers me as I know it does not give a full view of primary documents concerning the election. For sure there must be a ton of official Vatican documents, letters (a quote is present from Frederick's) & such. There are two accounts of people wanting to dig up the dead pope. Whose are they? Paris says two cardinals were poisoned, but the text say they died of disease, so there must be another account. Whose? In short, I see a point mentioning Paris and his "poison" view when talking about the deaths of the cardinals, but not as a separate section knowing that discussion about all other sources is missing. Renata (talk) 01:00, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

It is closing to a week and I don't see improvements being made... What's the status? Renata (talk) 02:52, 28 August 2008 (UTC)