Klemm8

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We hope you like it here and encourage you to stay even after your assignment is finished! Haploidavey (talk) 17:16, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Year of the Five Emperors

I've had to revert your group's changes to this article for various reasons, which I'll try to explain as clearly as possible.

As the page topic is "Year of the Five Emperors", the text should provide only as much biographical information as readers need in order to thoroughly understand the topic (in this instance, what happened in that year or during that event). I agree that some kind of potted biography is needed for each claimant, but a lot less than has been provided - we already have articles on each of them. The article should cover what happened that year, why it happened at all, who was involved and why, their fate, and (probably) the consequences of all this for the Empire and its people. Try to maintain a strong, sound and logical article structure, based always on the topic.

Please also note our source requirements; modern scholarly treatments by specialists in the field are preferred over older treatments; both are preferred over primary sources (this is especially so when it comes to the notoriously problematic Historia Augusta, for example). Some online sources are OK, but take care to establish their authorship, credentials and scholarly standing. Generalised treatments (such as other paper or online encyclopedias, school textbooks etc.), particularly older sources, will tend to offer no more than an outline, and may not reflect the most recent scholarly thinking on the topic. By the way, Wikipedia articles can't be used as sources; but their sources can, as long as they're sound; in that case, you'd not be citing the article but its sources (as above). Please also note our citation and style manual requirements.

Please follow the links above for more precise guidance. I've sent a copy of this to your colleagues. If I can be of any help, please let me know. Regards Haploidavey (talk) 17:15, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks...

...for the note, Klemm8. I'm happy to help if and when I can. Where would you like the discussion to be placed? Here, or on the article talk-page? (I archive my talk-page from time to time - so that would probably not be the best place). Do you have a special project page, devoted to the assignment? If you do, that might be the best place, as some issues are primarily to do with basic editing, and secondarily to do with article improvements. In any case, it might be helpful to have discussions centralised, so the whole group can read, respond and discuss.

Don't forget to sign your talk-page posts! Haploidavey (talk) 18:16, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

We should keep basic technical stuff here; content issues should be dealt with at article talk; or, when it comes down to it, a comment in the article's edit summary box might be sufficient. I'm not sure how much time I'll be able to give this over the weekend and the coming weeks; urgent personal matters have come up, and must be dealt with - but as I said, I'll do what I can. For now, I think the main thing is to read good-quality, analytical scholarship on the topic - if there is such a thing - rather than "read around" it through annal-format histories of the people involved. Then, once you've a grasp of the whole, a narrative will more or less write itself. Know the story, then tell it, and while you're at it be prepared to completely rewrite it along the way; nothing on Wikipedia is ever finished. It might help to add no more than a sentence or so - cited, of course - in any one editing session. Important, too, that you read WP:Citations ("how to" guide) and WP:Reliable sources.

I assume you have free access to the major online scholarly repositories, such as JSTOR etc; your topic's not exactly a commonplace, so it (or aspects of it) might well have been more thoroughly covered by the kind of obscure specialist sources to be found there than by even the most thorough, more easily available tertiary sources. Haploidavey (talk) 20:00, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

I took a look at google scholar, using various name-combinations such as Niger Pertinax, Didius Pertinax, Severus etc, but there doesn't seem to be much out there apart from DS Potter's book on the broader period; see Potter, David S., The Roman Empire at Bay, AD 180–395, Routledge, 2004. pp. 93 (or so) - 109.. ISBN 978-0-415-10057-1. A monumental but detailed tome, it covers that year of crisis well, including the political and social background, and the longer-term implications. Worth reading. Here's a link to a partial preview - it works from here (UK) though if you're US based - and I've no way of telling that - it might not. [1] Haploidavey (talk) 20:43, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi Klemm8 - just a quick note. For in-line referencing, please see links above. If still in doubt, open any referenced article rated GA or higher in editing mode and take a look at the wiki-syntax used. It's pretty simple stuff. The toolbar above the editing box includes refs mark-ups - second from extreme right on my browser; then create a reflist section using the appropriate reflist mark-up - the reference will appear in the references section, and will be automatically numbered - like so.. I strongly recommend the DS POtter (above) as a core text for the topic, even if - as someone brought up on the talk-page - the topic title might not be valid, common or scholarly. Also btw and fyi, it's not really a new article; you'll be editing or significantly expanding a page that's been around for a few years. Anyhow, best of luck to all of you, and I hope you enjoy your course(s). Haploidavey (talk) 10:43, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Reference Errors on 17 December

Hello, I'm ReferenceBot. I have automatically detected that an edit performed by you may have introduced errors in referencing. It is as follows:

• On the Year of the Five Emperors page, your edit caused a cite error (help). (Fix | Ask for help)

Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, ReferenceBot (talk) 00:33, 18 December 2013 (UTC)