Talk:Expansion of Macedonia under Philip II/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Iazyges (talk · contribs) 15:18, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Hello again.

• I'll continue this when I get home. -- Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 11:59, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Lead

• I'd suggest changing "various" to "many" in the infobox.
• "defeating the Phocian commander Onomarchus at the Battle of Crocus Field." suggest "defeating the Phocians, commanded by Onomarchus, at the Battle of Crocus Field."

@Iazyges: hi Iazyges! Thanks for reviewing this article! I have changed the field of the infbox but instead I listed the belligerents. Saying "many" is a bit too vague, at least as vague as saying "various". It looks much better. I also reworded the sentence about the Phocians. Pericles of Athens^Talk 06:38, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Sources

"Intact and relatively detailed histories of Greece cover the period ca. 500–362 BC, in the form of Herodotus's The Histories, Thucydides's History of the Peloponnesian War, and Xenophon's Hellen." perhaps: "Intact and relatively detailed histories of Greece, such as Herodotus's The Histories, Thucydides's History of the Peloponnesian War, and Xenophon's Hellen, cover the period c. 500-362."

@Iazyges: I've reworded the sentence exactly how you've suggested. Cheers! Pericles of Athens^Talk 06:38, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Background

• I would suggest either making "===Macedonia in the early 4th century BC===" into "==Macedonia in the early 4th century BC==", or removing it altogether, as it only contains a main article template.
• "The Illyrians began to prepare to invade Macedon" began to prepare is a bit awkward, perhaps "The Illyrians started planning to invade Macedon".
• The nominal heir of Perdiccas, his son Amyntas IV, "was only an infant" perhaps "was at this time still an infant".

@Iazyges: done! Pericles of Athens^Talk 10:32, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Recovery

• " He took this opportunity to march his army in Paionia" Perhaps expand on opportunity, I am assuming from historical knowledge that the Paionian were crippled by the death of their king, and their was [perhaps] a power struggle for the throne. If there is more that can be added, please do so.
• " and requested Philip to aid them.[28]" Perhaps "And requested aid from Philip" or else "and asked Philip for aid".
• "Aleuadae to negotiate a peace settlement with Pherae from a position of greater strength." Is this meant to convey that the Alaudae were at a greater strength than before, or else they were just in a superior position?

@Iazyges:: I've fixed the article according to your first two suggestions, but I don't know about your third one. The text seems pretty clear to me. For the full context, it says: "Although Diodorus says that Philip defeated the new tyrants, Buckler considers it more likely that Philip's appearance on the scene allowed the Aleuadae to negotiate a peace settlement with Pherae from a position of greater strength." Basically, Philip showed up with an army and the two tyrants of Pherae were in imminent danger of being attacked and deposed. They basically had no choice but to negotiate with the Aleuadae noble family, who had requested aid from Philip in the first place. Otherwise they would be threatened with a siege and possible extermination. Instead, as was typical of how Philip did things, he came away from the situation with a new wife, forming a marriage alliance with factions who were his erstwhile enemies in order to ensure their obedience/loyalty/compliance. Pericles of Athens^Talk 10:48, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

North

Sorry for being slow to review.

• You should probably link etesian winds to Etesian, although that article isn't fantastic.
• "Philip expelled those who were ill-disposed to him but" ill-disposed seems a little awkward, perhaps "hostile"?
• "by offering them an alliance on very advantageous terms" are any of the terms known? (I'm presuming no since you're generally very specific).
• "Philip was to capture the city of Potidea" by capture does this mean they marched into the city, they sieged it, or something else? Because capture in this context seems to mean siege.
• " He changed the name to Philippi" No changes needed here, but Apple doesn't fall far from the tree eh.
• "greatly increased the population" Is their a record of how he did this? I.e. did he force people in, move slaves in, offer cheap land?
• "The capture of Krinides was thus, in the long term, a very significant event in Philip's rise to power." What's the citation for this one? I presume the same as the quote?
• "Polyaenus recounts that Philip attacked and reduced" reduced might need to be changed, as in my mind, given Phillips history I would presume this meant burn to the ground, is that correct?

Thessaly

• "as ritual demanded for temple-robbers." would "as this was the punishment demanded for temple-robbers." work better? Because it makes no direct mention of a ritual execution.
• should "Archon" be linked? The article doesn't mention the Thessalians, but a link may still be useful.
• After Phillip effectively controlled the Thessalian army, did he reform them into his 5m pike build, or did he keep them as they were?

End

Thats all the suggestions I have.

• No dead links Y
• No Copyvio Y
• Aigai is a DAB page. -- Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 22:51, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

@Iazyges: excellent! I tried to edit the article to the best of my abilities per your latest suggestions. I do not have the sources on hand so it was slightly difficult to address a couple of your concerns. I hope these suffice! Cheers. Pericles of Athens^Talk 00:15, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Post-pass comment

I'm going to request that Iazyges reverse this listing and reopen the review. The first thing I saw when I looked at this article was that it was huge—over 80,000 prose characters—yet the lead is only two paragraphs, a clear violation of WP:LEADLENGTH, which is a section of MOS:LEAD, one of the basic criteria of a GA. This is not okay. It's especially not okay because I brought the lead length up as part of the problematic Sino-Roman relations GA review last fall, and while that article had five lead paragraphs rather than two, too many rather than too few, it pointed up something that should always checked by a GA reviewer. PericlesofAthens, I'm very sorry that such a situation once again involves one of your articles, but something's clearly gone wrong, and it needs to be addressed now. Further, if this basic criterion was not addressed, there's a good chance that others were missed as well. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:29, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

@BlueMoonset: thanks for bringing this to my attention. I was fully aware that five paragraphs were too much, but must have grown unfamiliar with the rule that an article over 30,000 KB must at least have three paragraphs (and probably four of them for good measure). I'll see what I can do to remedy this right away. There is much to summarize in the article, so there's certainly not a lack of material at my disposal. I'll be able to whip up a paragraph in no time. Kind regards, Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:39, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

@BlueMoonset: Sure thing, I will comment that I usually only post the full GA criteria if their is something lacking. Here is the full GA criteria:

• 1

  1.a Y

  1.b N until lead concerns are fixed, which should be soon.

• 2

  2.a Y

  2.b Y

  2.c Y

  2.d Y

• 3

  3.a Y

  3.b Y (although it is a huge page)

• 4

  4.a Y

• 5

  5.a Y

• 6

  6.a Y

  6.b Y

• My bad on not catching the lead length MOS.-- Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 02:50, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

@Iazyges: @BlueMoonset: in order to fix this problem as speedily as possible, I have just now added a new paragraph to the lead section. I look forward to your review of that, but from what I can tell it looks just fine. The article is very big, but then again so is the scope of the article (covering not just the reign of Philip II and the beginning of his son's reign, but also events in Greece over a span of decades and for that matter the historic unification of most of Greece in ancient times). Pericles of Athens^Talk 03:20, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Looks good to me but I'll see if BlueMoonset has any objections before reinstating the GA. -- Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 04:43, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I would like to take the time to read through the entire article, something I won't be able to do for a day or two, before the review is concluded. It looks like it will be an interesting read, so I'm looking forward to it. In the meantime, the lead is supposed to summarize the top-level sections of the article, and while I see two sections with "Thrace" in their titles, there's only a single mention of "Thracians" in the lead. This is a huge article, and I think the lead could still be longer to cover more of the major highlights. Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:32, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

In the meantime I have expanded the introduction to talk a little more about Thrace and Illyria. However, I request that you please review this article as soon as humanly possible, because before you reverted its GA status, I nominated this article for DYK. The DYK nomination can continue so long as this article quickly regains its GA status. Otherwise I'll have to nominate it again, which is tricky if not impossible (they might deny a second nomination due to the technicality that a GA DYK was already lodged). Pericles of Athens^Talk 13:50, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the additional work, PericlesofAthens. I don't think you need to worry about DYK—I'm very active there, and will be happy to intervene on the nomination page if necessary to point out that this needs a little more time before a final decision is made. I doubt I'll need to, however, since your reviewer is unlikely to return until you've pinged him. In the interim, as the reviewer notes, you will want to propose different hooks: the absolute limit for a hook is 200 characters including spaces, and yours are 313 and 295 respectively. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:52, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

I will fix the DYK hooks, but are you still reviewing this article? I'm assuming you've just been busy these past few days. Pericles of Athens^Talk 10:47, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

@BlueMoonset: hello? You still around? Pericles of Athens^Talk 22:24, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, still around, but with not enough concentrated time to read and review an article this long. I'm hoping things get better later in the week, or this weekend at the latest; I apologize for the delay, and for not seeing your previous query. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:31, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

@BlueMoonset: hello again. It's okay if you don't have enough free time to tackle this article in earnest. I distinctly remember this happening with the GA nomination process of my article on Sino-Roman relations (which is now a featured article, btw), where you had to give up and let someone else take a look at it. That seems to be the case once again, which is almost certainly not your fault given your responsibilities, but I think you should either expedite this article or pass it off to someone else. To be honest, User:Iazyges did a fine job reviewing the article already; it's just that he forgot one of the fundamental requirements, that being the length of the lead section. Hell, even I forgot about that rule! And I've been editing Wikipedia for roughly a decade, with tons of featured articles under my belt. I think that you'll find that his original judgment that this article should be passed was the right one. Regards, Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:32, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

PericlesofAthens, I apologize for not responding sooner; I have finally squeezed out the time to carefully read through the article, which is—as I know to expect from you—well written and interesting. Because perfection risks angering the gods, I found a few glitches here and there; you'll see that I have also done some minor copyediting. There are also a few points that I think should be addressed:

• Sources section: the third paragraph is itself unsourced, which is a problem, especially with such characterizations as "very negative" with regard to Justin. Also, if the Trogus Philippic History does not survive, please make this clear; if it does, then specify that. Thanks.
• Battle of Crocus Field section: in the Buckler quote near the end, the phrase "dead that alive" is given. While I imagine it's "than" rather than "that", I think you should be the one to change the quote, since you'll have access to the actual source.
• Fourth Sacred War section: in the second paragraph, I believe "the Persian marching into Phocis" needs to be revised in some way; since I don't know the details, it could be as little as adding a letter or as much as a sentence recast.

Also, please check to be sure that my edits work. Once these are done, the article should be ready for GA status. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:33, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

@BlueMoonset: hello! Thanks for responding. I have removed the statement about Justin viewing Philip very negatively since I can't seem to find a definitive statement for it in my sources. However, I have been able to provide citations for everything else. I have also fixed the Buckler quote that you mentioned and the statement about the Persians being blocked from entering Phocis by the Phocian army. I hope that these changes are deemed suitable enough for awarding this article GA status. Kind regards, Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:23, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

PericlesofAthens, it looks great. I did make a minor edit following yours; I did want to clarify that while Justin survives, the book he epitomized did not (it's implied in the previous paragraph, but I thought it could do with clarification), and I fixed the page ranges in the new sources. As far as I'm concerned, it's ready to be listed, but as the official reviewer, that step is up to Iazyges. Thanks again for your quick work on the latest edits, and best of luck should you eventually take this to FAC. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:11, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! Hopefully Iazyges will respond promptly. Cheers. Pericles of Athens^Talk 21:57, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Passed and listed. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 13:41, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

About the definitive statement about Justin viewing Philip very negatively, I can not find sources on internet or in books. Other than that, the article looks great. --SILENTRESIDENT 12:25, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

@Iazyges: thanks once again for reviewing the article! @SilentResident: thank you as well! --Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:00, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Congrats once more! :) @Iazyges:, @PericlesofAthens: you are awesome. On my part, updated the article with ARBMAC so people can be careful and refrain from edits that could damage or undo these GA efforts. --SILENTRESIDENT 13:21, 25 April 2017 (UTC)