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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Ludwig Ross/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 29 August 2023 [1].

Ludwig Ross

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Nominator(s): UndercoverClassicist (talk) 13:09, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about the first (real) head of the Greek Archaeological Service, the meticulous, scholarly and complex Ludwig Ross. One of the many Germans to make the journey to Greece in the early years of independence, Ross played a major role in the establishment of the practice of archaeology in Greece and the early restorations on the Acropolis of Athens. He is also something of a tragic figure: he considered himself a foreigner in his native Denmark, was eventually rejected and effectively exiled by his adoptive Greek homeland, and died in misery having never really managed to integrate into German academia during the final phase of his career. I've reviewed the article recently but wrote it a little while ago; it underwent a thorough and thoughtful GA nomination conducted by User:Mike Christie. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 13:09, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

Comments by Bneu2013

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UndercoverClassicist (talk) 22:27, 10 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Archaeological career in Greece
Work on the Acropolis of Athens
"Naval Records Affair" and resignation as Ephor General
Professorship at Athens
Professorship at Halle
Personal life, death and legacy
  • Per MOS:SEASON, replace "spring of 1847" with something else appropriate, like "early 1847 or the month this occurred (I know this is sometimes complicated by what the source says).
  • Was Ross's illness a reason for his suicide?
    • This is one I'm not happy touching too much; the source to which this bit traces back goes into quite considerable detail about Ross's methods and alleged motives, but not from, as far as I can tell, any position of knowledge. They attribute it to generalised misery and Weltschmertz, but I strongly suspect that mostly comes from a desire to romanticise Ross as a tortured genius and to give him some grandeur in death. One might sensibly infer that his increasing pain was a contributing factor, but I don't think we can ever know - he never explained himself - and frankly I think it's a bit irresponsible to be too speculative about "justifying" suicide. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 08:33, 11 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • Good eye and good points throughout: thank you for these and for taking the time to review. I think I've replied to all of them: mostly straightforwardly done. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 08:33, 11 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Source review
  • Add |via=Google Books and |via=Internet Archive to all of the sources that were retrieved through these sites.
  • Do we need to include the full date for the footnotes that cite The Spectator Supplement, instead of just the year?
    • The Spectator is published every week, so I think so: there would have been about 52 different issues that year. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 07:23, 12 August 2023 (UTC) I musunderstood: yes in the biblio, not sure it's necessary for the footnotes (neater with just the year). On the grounds that we wouldn't necessarily expect to be able to identify the source from the sfn alone, changed. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 07:26, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Support pending a citation for the present-day valuation of the defunct currency. Glad to review, and hoping someone will be willing to pick up one of my FACs. Bneu2013 (talk) 18:54, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Golden

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  • I wouldn't wikilink German in the first sentence per MOS:OVERLINK.
  • independent Kingdom of Greece - Is "independent" necessary here?
    • It's a bit of a tautology (there never was a non-independent Kingdom of Greece), but it's important to establish that a) Greece is newly independent and b) Greece is newly a monarchy. I don't think we should rely on our readers' knowing that the establishment of the Greek monarchy followed, with a short but important delay, Greece's independence. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 15:47, 13 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • While at Kiel, Ross met his friend and future travelling companion, the philologist Peter Wilhelm Forchhammer. - It is not clear whether he became friends with Forchhammer during or prior to this meeting. Can you clarify it?
  • with a foreword by his friend Otto Jahn. - It would be interesting to learn more about Jahn and his friendship with Ross. —
    I did find one reference that the two met at Kiel; honestly, I wouldn't hang my hat on it, but Jahn did study (and later teach) there, so it seems like the most sensible place for it. Added that. UndercoverClassicist T·C 10:21, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Golden talk 13:41, 13 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the replies, UndercoverClassicist. Happy to support. — Golden talk 15:56, 13 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Mike Christie

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Some minor prose suggestions:

  • "When Ludwig was four years old, his father moved to the Gut Altekoppel estate in Bornhöved, which he managed and later acquired. Their five sons and three daughters ..." Suggest "his father moved the family" or "the family moved", so as to provide a nearer referent for "their" in the next sentence".
  • "Ross's work on the Acropolis began in January 1835, and has been described as the first systematic excavation of the site." If the source is authoritative enough, could we make this "was the first", rather than hedging?
    • It's a bit hedgy. The problem is that it's very much not the first archaeological work on the Acropolis: most notoriously, you've got Elgin who, fairly systematically, removes sculptures from most of the major temples from 1801. The Ottomans also undertook a lot of building and repurposing, such as the construction of the Parthenon mosque, which must have involved excavation: we might say that this wasn't scientific study as we understand it, but you could probably level the same charge at Ross. Ross was definitely a more careful and methodical man than his predecessors, but I'm a little uncomfortable drawing a sharp line to say that what he did was "systematic" and that nothing before "counts": I'm also not keen to dive completely into the myth that the story of Greek archaeology starts with independence in 1821. Perhaps I'm being a bit precious about this one, though. UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:59, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      I think that's useful background. If you can summarize something like that in a couple of sentences in a footnote I think that would be worth it. Otherwise I think the current wording sounds more definite than it really should. Perhaps it could just be cut, if we can't give it appropriate context? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:05, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      I've added an EFN which, I hope, clarifies the contrast being made while framing all the value judgements as "have been described as...". UndercoverClassicist T·C 07:47, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      That looks good. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:54, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • You link disiecta membra, but it seems an unnecessarily obscure way to say fragments, or remains. I've read quite a few archaeology papers but haven't run into this term before. Is it the standard term for this site? Or does it have a specific meaning that I'm not picking up from the linked article?
  • The link to assistant professor seems not to be very useful; you say "German-style" but there's nothing to explain that in the target article.
  • You redlink Bavarocracy in the body of the article; suggest linking it in the lead too.
  • "He took a leave of absence for about half of 1839 and all of 1842": suggest "He took leaves of absence".

More to come. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:23, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • "The project was financed by the Prussian Ministry of Culture and Friedrich Wilhelm, to whom Humboldt had recommended the project." Can we avoid the repetition of "project"?
  • I wouldn't oppose for this, but I would suggest linking to the Danish Wikipedia's article on Haugsted rather than to the Wikidata page, which is going to confuse most readers who follow the link.
    • Done. I went through a phase of linking to Wikidata on the grounds that we were really doing ILLs for article creators, and that Wikidata usually gave you a few initial options to choose from when crafting a new article, but I've come much more in line with your view more recently: most non-editing readers can hit the Google Translate button, but might not be comfortable navigating around a Wikidata page. UndercoverClassicist T·C 22:36, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • You mentioned that he "died in misery" in the introduction to this FAC, but I don't see anything to that effect in the article -- is there anything solid enough to add?
    • In the Greece section, we have "he entered a severe depression during this period which continued for the remainder of his life", his status as an "isolated figure" in Germany and "he developed the beginnings of a health condition, which gradually reduced his strength and mobility and caused him increasing pain and discomfort.". Perhaps more could be done to emphasise quite how miserable he seems to have been towards the end of his life, but I don't want to fall into the trap of repeating trite rationalisations and cod-psychoanalysis from contemporary not-really-observers. Will have a look over the sources and see if there's good material there. UndercoverClassicist T·C 22:36, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That's everything. All minor points; a fine article. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:18, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Support. The point about his "misery" came up because when I was reading the "Personal life ..." section I noticed there was nothing about his depression there, having recalled your mention of it in the nomination statement, but I didn't remember at that point that it was mentioned earlier in the article. A depression that lasted the rest of his life seems worth mentioning again in that last section but it's a judgement call; I leave it up to you. Also just making sure you saw my follow up to the "systematic excavation" question above. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:32, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've added a small comment that his depression continued: I'd quite like a source to link it to the deaths of his brothers, but none have, as far as I can see, and I don't actually have one for John other than the photograph of his tombstone. UndercoverClassicist T·C 18:24, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
...looking at those dates, I realise that John is almost certainly not Ludwig's brother, but I now have absolutely no idea who he was. Fixed caption. UndercoverClassicist T·C 18:26, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Tim riley

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Two minor suggestions, neither of which affects my support:

  • Lead
  • He was also a significant figure ... was particularly significant" – I remind you of the good advice in Plain Words about "significant": "This is a good and useful word, but it has a special flavour of its own and it should not be thoughtlessly used as a mere variant of important, considerable, appreciable, or quite large ... it ought to be used only where there is a ready answer to the reader's unspoken question 'Significant, is it? And what does it signify?' (There's another stray "significant in the last sentence of the article, too.)
  • Work on the Acropolis of Athens (1834–1836)
  • Throughout his excavations on the Acropolis, he published his results – this far through the paragraph it's a long time since we had Ross's name mentioned, and perhaps it might be helpful to add it here.

Nothing to cause alarm and despondency there, and I have no hesitation in adding my support for the elevation of this article. It's a cracking read (I lost count of the number of times I muttered "Good Lord!" when reading it), well and widely referenced, evidently balanced and neutral and admirably illustrated. Meets all the FA criteria in my view. Tim riley talk 17:51, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Source review

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Sources are reliable; I queried the wordpress one in the GAN and am satisfied with the answer there. Links all work as far as I can test them -- I am getting unusably slow responses from archive.org at the moment so have not verified those. A couple of minor formatting points:

  • Missing a publisher location for Giraud (2018).
  • What rule are you following for translating chapter titles, book titles, and journal titles? For example, Goette (2015) has the book title translated but not the chapter title and Brandl (1987) has the same, but for "Historical Einleitung" you translate the chapter title but not the book title, and Lehmann (2003) is the same. For Blau (1855) you translate the article title but not the journal, and Junker (1995) is the same; it looks as though that is consistent for journals.
    • The theory is that I've tried to translate all primary titles: that is, the title of the thing actually being cited (so the book if it's a book, the chapter if it's a chapter in an edited volume, the article if it's in a journal), and so on. If you're happy with that as a philosophy, I'll go through and make sure it's consistent. UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:57, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      That's fine; any approach that is not utterly mad is fine so long as it's applied consistently. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:04, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      "Not utterly mad" is one of the stronger endorsements my work has received. Goette fixed (it actually was the chapter that was translated, but I'd used the wrong parameter name): I think this is now consistent now. A small exception made for Ross's work Erinnerungen und Mittheilungen aus Griechenland: this first appears as the volume title for Jahn's foreword and later is cited in its own right, and it felt weird to leave the title untranslated the first time but translate it on second mention, so I've translated it on first use as well. If this is truly offensive, I suppose the best fix would be to translate everything (or at least all book titles): it feels a little wrong to translate journal titles when they are universally referred to in the language of writing.
      Giraud fixed. UndercoverClassicist T·C 22:21, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:23, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry about the delay getting back to this -- yes, the translations all look consistent now. I did just notice one more minor thing -- you give the Greek name of the publisher for Mallouchou-Tufano (2016). Per MOS:ROMANIZATION I think this should be transliterated. And of course if you ever want me to provide a reference that your sourcing is not utterly mad I'd be glad to do so. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:12, 20 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've added a transliteration in square brackets. UndercoverClassicist T·C 17:42, 20 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Pass. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:35, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments from JennyOz

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Hello UndercoverClassicist, thanks for this interesting article. I have a few nitpicky comments and suggestions...

Refs

  • 78 Junker 1995, p. 755–756. - pp
  • 80 Fatsea 2017, p. 65–68. - pp
  • 91 Berlin-Brandenburg_Academy_of_Sciences 2015. - remove underscores

Bibliography

Succession box

Poss cats

  • Category:People from Segeberg
  • Category:German expatriates in Greece

Hope all that is understandable! JennyOz (talk) 14:45, 19 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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