Talk:Skanderbeg's Italian expedition/GA1

GA Review

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Well written?

I think that basically the article comply the manual of style guidlines. There are minor suggestions that do not affect this general statement. Lead section: I think that the lede of the article is well written according to Wikipedia:Lede. The lede "define the topic, establish context, explain why the subject is interesting or notable, and summarize the most important points". Layout: The layout of the article comply to the MOS guidlines. though it maybe good idea to add external links and see also section. Words to watch: There are couple of puffery words used to promote the subject of the article: Skanderbeg's victory is most famous victory, King of Naples is Skanderbeg's most important ally or most important and helpful ally (I propose to check term ally, since all other articles about Skanderbeg on the basis of the same sources claim that he was vassal), Skanderbeg's decisive victories made him famous throughout Italy in which he was "devastating the land" of his enemies, triumph, jubilation, great enthusiasm.. are some of the puffery words that should be avoided or at least used less extensively, though most of them are supported with sources. List incorporation: Embedded lists should be used only when appropriate. There is a template with Ottoman-Albanian wars within this article that I think is not appropriate since Italian expedition is not part of war between Ottoman Empire and Skanderbeg. On the contrary, It was not until 1459, after Mehmed's conquest of Serbia, that Mehmed not only declared a truce, but also a one-year ceasefire with Skanderbeg. This gave Skanderbeg his opportunity to land in Italy. If this expedition happened during the truce with Ottoman Empire it can not be part of the template about Ottoman-Albanian wars and that template should be removed.

There is one thing I noticed. Word Albania is mentioned 49 times in the article (Albanian itself 32 times). Word Italia is mentioned 11 times in the article. This is article about Italian expedition of Skanderbeg. I think that we should avoid such extensive nationalization of this article. It can mislead readers to believe that Skanderbeg and all of his fighters were ethnic Albanians (which is heavily disputed by many reliable sources). This article describes medieval times and conflict over the throne which has nothing to do with nationalities that emerged almost 500 years later. Therefore I propose to avoid misleading the readers by unnecessarily nationalization of medieval events and nobility.

All of the words which you see as puffery are taken directly from the sources I used, hence why I sourced them. And if you press CTRL and F and type in Ital instead of Italia or Italy (since there are different variations for the root), you would see that you get 48 finds. Add that with Italian place-names.--Gaius Claudius Nero (talk) 21:33, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I happen to have checked the sources and both primary and secondary agree the very enthousiastic welcoming citizens of Ragusa and Apulia at the arrival of Skanderbeg, still I made some changes, hope Antidiskriminator is ok with them. I removed some words that Antid calls "puffery", they were in fact redundant, but they are easily encountered in all the sources. There was war in southern Italy at that time and the people on the side of Ferdinand welcomed very warmly the new arrived. Still I removed much stuff that might be not considered encyclopedic. Secondly, I also entered info on the Treaty of Gaeta, which explains the terms of vassallage, still we can't miss saying that Alphonse was an ally to Skanderbeg: we have many sources to say exactly that he was his best ally, but at the same time, we are not hiding that de iure, Skanderbeg was a vassal of Alphonse. Now, the controversy as to how much of a vassal he was is better to be covered in the article of the treaty itself, but I believe it's out of doubt that Athanas Gegaj in 1937 already explained how this was not at all a vassallage treaty, but rather an alliance one, and modern historians all agree with that. On the other hand, I took out the Ottoman Wars template, as Antid suggested, because that template is for the wars against the Ottomans: A template with all the wars of Skanderbeg is now warranted, which can include those against Venice and the Anjous, but for now it should be fine for the article. Anything else Antid? --Brunswick Dude (talk) 23:57, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Factually accurate and verifiable

I find this article accurate and verifiable. Although there are no external links nor possibility to verify online the content of the article and sources on English language I will AGF and state that it is accurate and verifiable. The article provides references to all sources of information in the section(s) dedicated to the attribution of these sources according to the guide to layout; it provides in-line citations from reliable sources and it contains no original research.

I would like to suggest replacing Harry Hodgkinson with another source if possible. There was WP:RSN and majority of the users (though no consensus was reached) who participated in the discussion stated that his work (Scanderbeg: From Ottoman Captive to Albanian Hero) is not a RS.

The only external sources I could find would lead the reader to nationalistic websites. And Hodgkinson's work has been vetted by Dr. David Abulafia, one of the premier historians in the field of Mediterranean history and published by the Centre for Albanian Studies based in London. WP:RS says Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable.--Gaius Claudius Nero (talk) 21:33, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I understand Antid's concern for Harry Hodgkinson, but I don't believe that his book may hinder GA status of this article. GA is a lightweight process, far from FA requirements. Hodgkinson's fault is that he himself bases his book on secondary sources, thus making him a tertiary source. However, he is the ONLY contemporary source in the English language, and rather than impoverishing this article, he enriches it. Hodgkinson may be safely removed, but it will hurt the article, not vice-versa. There has been a long discussion on him [[1]], btw, so I understand Antid's feelings for him, :-), but again, it's the only good source in English on Skanderbeg, and the English reader may want a book in English after he reads this article. For example, since I take it that none of us has English as his primary language, wouldn't it be best that we leave Hodgkinson's own translation of Skanderbeg's letter to Piccinino in English there, rather than tearing apart the article and throwing away pieces that might be helpful to an English reader? Just my 2 cents. --Brunswick Dude (talk) 00:02, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Broad in its coverage

I think that this article basically meets this criteria, with below suggestion for reduction of text which is not within focus of the topic of this article.

a) The article addresses the main aspects of the topic.

b) I think that article is not fully focused to the topic. I propose to reduce the background section. Out of 26.400 characters of this article around 36% is within section about expedition itself and 44,6% of the text of the article is background section and description until Skanderbeg landed in Italy, without lede.

Neutral

I think that this article fails neutrality criteria. The article should describe conflict over the throne in medieval period, without taking a stance. Unfortunatelly, I find this article glorifies Albanians and Skanderbeg and their military skills ("quick maneuvering and swift assaults virtually immobilized the Italian warriors"), triumphs that made them famous throughout Italy, jubilation of his followers (this is medieval time, medieval lords paid their armies, they did not have followers of their ideas), ...

Extensive using of terms like Albania and Albanians could mislead readers to believe that Albania as state existed 500 years before it was established (no wikilink is associated with Albania as geographic toponym), that Skanderbeg was Albanian, that his fighters were all ethnic Albanians. League of Lezhe is described like states of Albanian nation ("Albanian states"). Ottoman armies consisted of Albanians too are described as Turkish armies.

I propose to remove inappropriate pro-Skanderbeg and nationalistic POV before this article goes trough reassessment process.

Again, this is taken directly from the sources.--Gaius Claudius Nero (talk) 21:33, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I removed the appellation "Albanian Prince" because it's coming from primary sources. We know that Skanderbeg called himself "Lord of Albania" (Dominus Albaniae in Latin), however, the rest is all well sourced. Albania existed as a princedom in the 12th century (see Principality of Arbër, Kingdom of Albania, and Princedom of Albania, in addition Albania as a territory existed for even a longer time, so I don't see any risks of the reader being misled. I however removed "Albanian States" and left League of Lezhe, because the reader can see that it was a confederation for military purposes. I also removed "Turkish" and replaced with "Ottoman". Hope it's good now? --Brunswick Dude (talk) 00:07, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Albania and Albanians are terms that have to be used. For antid's suggestions to avoid them, please see my Second Opinion below. --Brunswick Dude (talk) 05:06, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Stable

This article is stable and without edit wars and meets this criteria.

Illustrated

I think that this article meets this criteria, though it would be good to have map of the area where main battles took place (which is the main topic of the article). The article is well illustrated and images are properly licenced. There is very good image of routes of Skanderbeg's voyage to Italy, and it is very illustrative.

Conclusion

I think that this article should be placed on hold until above mentioned issues are resolved.

This is my second GA review and I will ask somebody to review my review.

Reviewer: Antidiskriminator (talk) 13:38, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I, too, ask for another review.--Gaius Claudius Nero (talk) 21:33, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Second opinion

If Antid thinks that Skanderbeg was NOT an Albanian, then we have a problem. I looked into his talk page and saw that he had a warning from an admin apparently for his 'refusal to accept consensus at Skanderbeg'. The warning was logged into the ARBCOM log. In addition you were told to stop negotiating POV in Skanderbeg's article by FPS. These things actually make you, Antidiskriminator, unfit for a review of this article, and in breach of the neutrality status that a reviewer should have before undertaking. As a result, I would kindly invite you to no longer make any edits in this GA review, because a warning might get transformed into a sanction. In addition, for the same reason I would kindly ask you to remove your two points from the Wikicup submissions, Now, as a second reviewer of the article, I still think that Antid had some valid points and I tried to address them. I will suggest Antid to post on the article's talk page, not here if he has any additional concerns. In fact given his problems with the admins on the issue, and the lack of neutrality that he has as a reviewer - see for integrity necessary to review the article that the wikipolicy states that it is preferable that the reviewer is not too close to the topic Wikipedia:Reviewing_good_articles#cite_note-0, I think it is best that he leaves this review. If he has no particular concerns, or anybody else for that reason, I will pass this article within the next 48 hours. --Brunswick Dude (talk) 00:37, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

In my review of the GAN of this article I stated that I find article meets all criteria except neutrality, and asked someone to review my review, because I am not very experienced in reviewing.

I also proposed (not as condition for passing criteria in mention) a couple of changes within other criteria which I still believe would make the article better:

• extensive use of words Albania for geographical region Skanderbeg and his men came from especially without appropriate wikilink to describe it could mislead readers to believe that they came from state Albania, which is of course not true. I do not have intention to discuss reliability of sources listed on the WikiProjectAlbania and their claims about when was state Albania established because it does not matter in this case. Skanderbeg and his men could not came in 1460 from the Kingdom of Albania which existed under Charles I of Naples in period 1272–1368, a hundred years before this events.
• I will avoid discussion about ethnicity of Skanderbeg and his men here, since there are discussions started by many other users on more appropriate pages than this.
• I still believe that adding see-also section and external links section would improve the quality
• I also only "suggested replacing" harry hodgkinson as source "if possible", not stressing particular concern because he was not extensively used in the article so there is no need for further elaboration of this issue

Since there is opinion that I "don't have the integrity necessary to review that article" because I am warned for my "apparent refusal to accept concensus at Skanderbeg" I will refrain from further review of this article and try to find consensus that I refused to accept.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 08:13, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

We currently don't have an Albania (region) article, although it would have been a great idea. The problem is that it would have even more problems than the article Albania already has. Now I understand your concerns of not mentioning too much "Albania", because it refers to today's country, but the sources say "Albania" (or "Arber" in Medieval Albanian), all the time. You must understand that the name Albania is necessary to locate geographically the area where Skanderbeg would return to or go from and that the name existed way before 1912. Sometime we don't know where exactly in Albania he was, but primary sources tell us "Albaniae" in Latin, and secondary sources "Albania" and that's all we can do. By the way, following your reasoning "Italy" and "Italians" shouldn't be used either because "Italy" was created only in 1860 (in fact it didn't exist in 1460, 4 centuries earlier. But sources say otherwise. --Brunswick Dude (talk) 08:59, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

We have it now: Albania (Balkans). --Antidiskriminator (talk) 14:23, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, it seems like there is no consensus in the community for the existance of that article, and for good reason, I reckon. For the above I am going to promote this article as worthy of GA status. A very good work has been done and honestly I would like to see more articles in Wikipedia that are so well researched and so well written by non English users. I would like to thank Gaius Claudius Nero for the dedication to 15th century history as it seems like he has other articles of this quality under his belt. --Brunswick Dude (talk) 15:15, 7 February 2011 (UTC)