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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Structural history of the Roman military

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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 20:57, 17 July 2007.

Structural history of the Roman military

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This is the first nomination to be made for this article and it is a self-nomination. The article has been peer-reviewed, is a Good Article, and has most recently passed A-class review with virtually no criticism or suggestions for improvement. This is the second of 5 sister articles that I hope to take a FA, all covering various aspects of the military of ancient Rome. The first article, Campaign history of the Roman military is already a featured article, this is the second article, and the third through fifth articles are still start-class. This being my second time pushing an article to FA, I'm better prepared this time for just what a bruising it - and I - may take! Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 20:24, 12 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Edit: I am taking a wikibreak for a short while, I find pushing articles through FA a stressful process and I need a break. Please note that I will not be able to respond to any further posted comments in this FA candidacy. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 07:24, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi HHermans, the bibliography "infoboxes" for each book certainly aren't strictly necessary and don't follow wikipedia convention in that I haven't seen this done before. However, they do not conflict with any specific part of the manual of style that I am aware of either and in my view bring the bibliography "to life" a little. Rather than having a dry text list of works, I thought it was an improvement on the traditional bibliography layout to be able to see a small thumbnail of the cover of each text. It is ultimately a matter of stylistic choice - removing it would have no detrimental effect on the contents of the article, but equally keeping it has no detrimental effect on the content of the article and also makes the bibliography more interesting to view in my opinion. I'm not going to have kittens if the bibligraphy has to be reverted to the traditional format, but equally I see no compelling reason for doing so. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 06:10, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This might look more aesthetic (and take up less vertical space) in two columns, one for primary sources and one for the secondary sources. Is this possible to implement? I would try it but I know little about the wikicode for these things HHermans 13:49, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This is actually set to render in two columns, and does render in two columns in most browsers on most platforms. The main browser not to support this code is internet explorer on windows and there is no way around this. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 14:34, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support If it's not against the manual of style, I have no objections. It looks a lot nicer now without the book images. Maybe you'll start a trend ;) Cheers HHermans 02:03, 16 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Amazing work has gone in this broad yet specific topic (I applaud you) but I would wish to hear your arguement for making all the headings level 3 and the bibliography having fair use non-readable images of books? Thank you. 74.13.97.56 01:26, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, thanks for the kind words, I ought to point out that although I have self-nominated this as the primary editor, there has been significant input from other users since the peer review stage on both factual information and copyediting of the text. On the question of making all the headings level 3 this was done for nothing other than stylistic reasons, ie to make the seciton title text a reasonable and consistent size throughout the article. I see what you are saying - that since they do not contain subheadings but are first-level headings that they should all be level 1 (or level 2?). However, I think having this giant text all the way down the article would look a little odd. If it needs doing to comply with manual of style, then so be it.
With regard to the images of the books in the bibliography, I feel I should justify firstly their inclusiona nd secondarily their size. I included them at all purely to make the bibliography more relevant and interesting and contemporary in feel - people always like to see what books look like even if it has no bearing on their content, which is why all book e=retailers have images of book covers on their websites. I was just trying to include some of that tacticle "this is a book" flavour to the bibliography. With regard to why the images are so small, I was keen to avoid their deletion from wikipedia, and thus made the images comply as far as possible with fair use policy. If it is possible under fair use to have high-res copies of the book covers (I didn't think it was but I might be misunderstanding the policy) then I can upload higher res images in their place and have the small thumbnails link to the high-res images. If this is preferred and permissible under fair use then let me know and I will do this. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 06:10, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The MoS calls for the base headings to be level 2, if I recall correctly; that's what's generally done in most articles, in any case. I wouldn't worry too much about the font size; that's something people can change through CSS, browser preferences, etc., anyways. Kirill 06:19, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Level3 headers changed to level2 headers now. personally I think the use of horizontal page break lines is now overly heavy on the page, but MOS is MOS I guess. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 07:46, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As far as the images go, they don't really comply with the non-free content criteria, regardless of resolution, as they're being used decoratively rather than being an integral part of the article content. I strongly suggest removing them; you're likely to see no end of trouble otherwise. Kirill 06:19, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If the original images were revised to high-res, with the small thumbnails linking to them, would this help? The images are being used informationally/referentially rather than decoratively - ie I am referring to a book and putting an image of the book being referred to - this seems perfectly justified under fair use in my opinion, and there has been no previous objection to the images or article on this point. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 07:46, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't think so—my understanding is that the NFCC require that the image add significantly to the reader's understanding of the topic of the article (which is admittedly rather stricter than pure fair use)—but I'm not an expert on this particular area of policy; suffice it to say that "galleries" of such images have been aggressively removed in the past. If you're unsure of how to proceed here, you should probably ask on WT:NONFREE, and one of the more NFCC-savvy admins that hang out there should be able to tell you if what you have is acceptable under the criteria. Kirill 12:56, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Kirill, I'll post up there now and see what the consensus is. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 16:25, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have started a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content#Acceptable_use_of_images_under_fair_use.3F if anybody is interested in following the discussion directly. I will follow the consensus opinion generated. Thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 16:36, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not keen on the bibliography, with each book having its own box. The boxes are handcrafted out of HTML, adding significantly to the size of the article. The boxes won't display properly on low-resolution monitors, narrow browser windows or browsers with large text.--Nydas(Talk) 12:19, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Nydas. The boxes take up only about 20k. This is less than the extra size a browser must load from adding a single extra image to the article, so is trivial. The bibliography boxes can easily be converted to tempalates if preferred but it is important to realise that although this would make the page look smaller in wikipedia editing mode, the browser would ultimately be laoding the same amount of information. With regards to browser problems I have tested the display in low resolutions and in several browsers on different problems and there is no mroe problem with these items then there are with eg the info box at the top right. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 12:46, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
20K is not insignificant for someone on dial-up. For me, using Firefox, the boxes overlap each other when the browser window is narrowed or the text size is set to large. For someone using a screen reader, the boxes will make it harder for them to navigate the bibliography.--Nydas(Talk) 16:39, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Nydas, my point is that if bandwidth is a concern, it would be better to remove one or more images from the article, which would have a far greater reduction in overall download size of the article than removing some HTML code - HTML is generally "light" in terms of file size. I understand your objections to the boxes but the same objections can be made about the proliferation of infoboxes, userboxes, campaign boxes, battle boxes, etc etc etc that are commonplace and are not objected to - the bibliography boxes use the same code as these so surely either none of them should exist or all of them should? I don't imagine the boxes would cause a screen reader problems because they generally ignore markup and read only text - the boxes should therefore be "invisible" to screen reader software. I have to admit however that I have not tested this with a screenreader so this point is kind of hypothetical and academic at this point. Does anyone have screenreader software isntalled to see if the boxes cause a particular problem? Thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 16:48, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Screen readers still need to be able to navigate between sections on pages, and I believe that they use divs to help do this. A barrage of unnamed divs may well confuse them. Users can turn images down or turn them off, but they can't turn off the biblioboxes. Another problem is they make it difficult to add or edit the entries. The edit button is a barrier to a lot of people, and an HTML-heavy setup won't help with that.--Nydas(Talk) 17:50, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Nydas, I think we might have to agree to disagree on this point - I don't see that the biblioboxes would possibly cause any extra problems. I have had a look at the source of The Wire, the current front-page featured article, and the page is littered with div tags, dozens of them, from the intereiki links to even the FA star itself having its own div and these are at the start of or in the middle of the article where they might interfere with reading whereas the biblio divs are at the end of the article where they couldn't possibly cause any interference. As I say, this point is academic unless it can be shown specifically that the biblioboxes do actually cause a problem not caused by wiki markup on other FA articles. I still can't see how they would do. As I say, we might have to agree to disagree! :-) Regarding editing the entries, I have now formatted these using a standard template, so that they are as easy to edit as a regular bibliography entry, which I hope you will agree is an improvement. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 18:02, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Most of the other divs have classes, which screen readers can use to navigate. However, there are loads of table tags (also bad for screen readers) used in infoboxes and elsewhere. You're right that there's not much point complaining about it here. The template is an improvement, so I now support.--Nydas(Talk) 18:37, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
OK, many thanks for your input on the two points above and for your support. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 19:02, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The article could use more information on the Roman Navy, if it can be found.--Nydas(Talk) 12:37, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Nydas. I am aware that there is little information ont he structure of the navy, but this is primarily because there is little information ont hem. it is an area of active research today but most research deals with issues other than structure of the navy. Information is extremely difficult to find and I have covered this as much as possible givent he sources available to me. its possible that some specialist journals have some more info but not that I can find. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 12:49, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment on lead. This is an impressive piece of work, and very close to where it needs to be. There are some specific places that might be improved, which I'll list below. I don't expect you to accept every one, but my view is that any comment about writing, even if off-based, should result in some change, if only because you might thereby save some other reader from making the same mistake. semper fictilis 12:30, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would delete the clause "the most effective … known to history" and its note. It may be true (I'm not sure it could sustain much scrutiny), but it's a bit irrelevant and sounds like someone is trying a little too hard to make the article really, really, important. And the ref goes to 1911 EB, which is dated. semper fictilis 12:30, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hi semperf, you are right that I did want to put in some quote relating to the important of ancient Rome and ancient Roman military. If you feel that the current quote is a little overblown, are you able to suggest a replacement at all? I would like to include a quote of some sort describing why its worth writing an article on the Roman military at all. - PocklingtonDan (talk) 13:02, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I did consider several different options for the title but considered "structural" to be the best, since I wanted to cover the armies "constitution" as well as organization in one article - ie to cover what type of people (romans, colonists, barbarians etc) were enrolling in the army as well as how they were organised. I also wanted to make it clear that the article was covering only the major structure of each period too and not get too caught up in organizational intracacies about eg who reported to who, what ranks existed etc etc, which would be implicit in "organizational". I'm open to possibility of using a third name but I don't think "organizational" is any more accurate than "structural". Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 13:02, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Four phases in the opening section could use some rough dates. semper fictilis 12:30, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm surprised that the point is made so meakly in "[auxiliaries] may have come to represent a majority of Rome's forces" (near the end of the introduction). According to Tacitus, the auxiliaries and legionaries were in roughly equal numbers in AD 14. Any increase in the use of auxilia will surely have made them the majority. semper fictilis 12:30, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hi semperf, in fact the point is meant to be in relation to allied forces such as foederati in the late empire, rather than auxilia in the principate, if this is not clear I will have to reword it. The wording was changed at the request of User:Jacob Haller who has kept me on my toes by inserting "disputed" tags in several sections, even those with citations - to appease him I have had to tone down some of the previously certain language to include phrases such as "may have". Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 16:41, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments on tribal section. This section is a little weaker, presumably because the evidence is so thin. The best sourcing should both attribute what you write, but also give a reader works that they might consult if they're interested in further exploration. I'm not keen on the sourcing in this paragraph and suggest you replace Grant (here and everywhere else). Vogt (n. 4) is very good, but a citation to his work on the fall of the empire suggests to me that this can be improved. (I'll see what I can find for you.) Cary & Scullard is ok, but it might be better to plunder its footnotes, since they will cite what they regard as the most authoritative works. semper fictilis 12:52, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi semperf, I'm afraid that I have used the citations purely as "proof of fact" rather than "further reading". Perhaps int he bibliography it could be indicated what areas each book covered in what sort of detail? This could then double as a "further readign" section - what do you think? To not just list each work but summarise it also? This would also make even better use of the "bibliobox" boxes for each reference work. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 16:56, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If you do think this is a good idea (and it is definitely growing on me) then I could definitely use your input on summarising some of the works succintly. It does now strike me that being able to give some basic information on the coverage of each book rather than simply listing it would be of incredible use to readers. - PocklingtonDan (talk) 17:03, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - nicely written article that makes for interesting reading. Some issues:
  • Latini should be linked to Latins; otherwise, it goes to a disambiguation page.
Done - PocklingtonDan (talk) 18:14, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Over-referencing: Section "Proletariatisation of the infantry (217 BC to 107 BC )" - in the second and third paragraph, there are five consecutive footnotes going to the same reference (Gabba p. 9) - surely having one reference link at the end of each section would convey exactly the same information? There are further similar instances - two adjacent sentences, sometimes even linked with a semi-colon, each with its own, and exactly the same, reference. It looks a bit over-eager.
This was actually how some of these sections were originally. Due to repeated "cite needed" and "disputed" tags being added, I had to keep adding cites until the situation was as now. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 18:13, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That's just silly, of course. Well, you have to decide whom you want to please - the people who are mainly interested in the substance, or the people who think that the form (in this case, every sentence having a numbered thingy) is important. --Markus Poessel 19:16, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Young, unproven men would serve as hastati, older men with some military experience as principes, and veteran troops of advanced age and experience as triarii" - missing full stop.
Fixed - PocklingtonDan (talk) 18:15, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Inconsequent wikification: "including catafractarii or clibinarii, scutarii, and legionary cavalry known as promoti." - any reason why the promoti aren't wikified?
Fixed - PocklingtonDan (talk) 18:17, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
All fixed - PocklingtonDan (talk) 18:19, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • as (coin) is the correct link, but surely the "(coin)" part shouldn't be visible.
Fixed now - PocklingtonDan (talk) 18:21, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Brutus currently goes to a disambiguation page; please correct.
Fixed - PocklingtonDan (talk) 18:26, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • In general, more than 20 red links in a FAC is a bit disappointing. AFAIK, editors are encouraged to at least start stubs if they can.
It shouldn't be a reflection on the worth of the article that people have not written articles in the subject area on all the topics it covers IMO - PocklingtonDan (talk) 18:13, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It is mentioned somewhere, either in one of the MOS pages or in one of the pages about how a FA should look. I didn't manage to find it though - when I googled it, I basically got the 1900 pages where about as many users have mentioned in a FAC discussion that this is desirable (that number is certainly not bad for a consensus). I guess it's a matter of how much of a perfectionist you are. A small number of red links is certainly tolerated; larger numbers are frowned upon. Perhaps author-linking everyone in your bibliography just isn't a good idea? Unless you expect all those people to be or become personally notable? --Markus Poessel 19:16, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I take your point that a mass of red links can look bad. I think half the problem is that they are rendered in red which we associate immediately then with "error" rather than just "page not written just yet". I suppose its a personal thing but red wikilinks don't bother me at all - I just see them as an invitation to add more articles than a problem with the article being viewed. If there is some official policy against having too many red wikilinks I'll be happy enough to remove some but I've only wikilinked generally what I think *should* have articles: for the entire province of Tingitania not to have an article is bizarre, and certainly the wikilinked authors are generally professors of history with multiple publications in their name and notable in my book, but then I'm not too clear what wikipedia's notability criteria for authors are! Let me know if this is just a personal preference thing or if I really do need to remove some of the red wikilinks for reasons of official policy and I'll get on it. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 21:51, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, the red is chosen with care - it's meant to irritate people into writing stubs (or more)! As you can see from googling "site:en.wikipedia.org "red link" "featured article"", it is widely regarded desirable. Moreover, if you write stubs, it will go a longer way towards getting people to actually write what you think should be articles (since there are lists of stubs, and people are regularly encouraged to flesh them out). I don't think it's a policy (otherwise, it would have been a reason for a temporary "weak oppose" until fixed), just a matter of how much of a perfectionist you are. As for notability, as per WP:NOTABILITY, "professors of history with multiple publications" probably do not qualify automatically - say, if all that other authors have written about them are brief entries on the university's webpages and one paragraph in "Who's who in Academe". If there is a Festschrift in their name, if their research is described in detail in a book on the development of archaeology, or if there are portraits in nationwide (or even local) newspapers, they would probably qualify. --Markus Poessel 10:31, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Imperial legions and reformation of the auxilia (27 BC - 75 AD): Why is the second occurence of "Augustus" wikified, not the first? Similarly for Constantine.
Pure oversight, fixed now - PocklingtonDan (talk) 18:24, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • When linking to a subsection, such as Servius_Tullius#Classes, you are meant to leave a brief comment at the target, to prevent other editors from removing it and leaving your link dangling
I'm not sure how to add such comments, are you able to do this? Cheers PocklingtonDan (talk) 18:13, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Done. As far as I remember, it simply involves adding an HTML-comment to the section in question, so that's what I did. --Markus Poessel 19:16, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • In my version of Firefox (quite modern, 2.0.0.3), the boxes in the bibliography aren't displayed correctly (I see other users have remarked upon this as well) - they overlap, which makes the information hard to read. Surely, in the bibliography of what is meant to be a serious article, conveying the information should be so much more important than graphics gimmicks that there can be no question these boxes should be changed?
All in all, nothing major (except perhaps for the annoying bibliography boxes), but a number of things that should be fixed. --Markus Poessel 18:00, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There was a problem in my code for the biblioboxes, this has been fixed now. I don't like history being made "dry", and don't see why ana rticle shold have to be dully presented in order to be serious. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 18:13, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I fully agree that articles shouldn't be dry and dull. On the other hand, if adding colorful boxes is a key point in your strategy to make an article less dull, you'll be gravely disappointed (just kidding). As long as the choice was between incomprehensible but colorful, or comprehensible and less colorful, I'd say the choice was clear. But in fact, whatever you fixed worked for me (no overlapping boxes any more), so all is well. --Markus Poessel 19:16, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Markus, no offence taken, I have tried to make the prose as lively as possible too of course to try and bring the article alive a little, to use your phrasing I just think comprehensible and colourful is better than comprehensible and drab - I thought you were suggesting that "colour" by its very nature was unsuitable in a serious article. I'm glad the fixed code renders properly in your browser now, I have tested it on several browsers now including relatively little-used ones such as Epiphany and it seems to work fine on all of them. Thanks for your support of the article. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 21:41, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Oppose per Fair Use issue.
  • I'm very pleased to see the size of this article within WP:SIZE guidelines, but the images in the references really should go. Besides the Fair Use issues, they unnecessarily increase the load time for the article, and just aren't a good trend to further on Wiki.SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:39, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am very disappointed int he negaive reaction to the images from several people on fair-use grounds, there seems to be some element of paranoia on wikipedia at the moment of copyright infringement - the use of such tiny thumbails of images would be permitted almost anywhere other than wikipedia, with its harsher-than-required-by-law policies. Images reluctantly removed - PocklingtonDan (talk) 07:20, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • By the way, hyphens are used incorrectly in place of endashes (see WP:DASH on date ranges); I contacted someone who is still testing a script, but he hasn't yet refined it to work on BC dates, so doing the work by hand will take some time, as there are so many that are wrong.If you get the images corrected, I'll be glad to help with the manual work of correcting all the dashes. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:39, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have had a go correcting some of the hyphens and dashes based on WP:DASH. I have to say its a bit of a minefield - who even knew there were three types of hyphens and dashes?? Anyway I think this should be fixed now - Cheers PocklingtonDan (talk) 06:28, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I have no idea what would be causing this but I have checked it in several other browsers and there is no problem at all. I don't have IE7 on my PC to test this but I'll wait and see what the village pump come back with - PocklingtonDan (talk) 06:40, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know who did what and where, but the TOC is back now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:57, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • A typo in the refs (?), not sure which is correct:
Thanks, I have corrected this now - they should both read 1911, simple typo. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 06:51, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are several capitalization issues in section headings (see WP:MSH), but i don't want to try to fix headings myself since the Table of Contents doesn't render in my browser, so someone will have to find the bigger problem. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:08, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Sandy, I believe that I have correct these capitalizatin problems now - PocklingtonDan (talk) 06:58, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I corrected the footnote placement per WP:FN and set up named refs to shorten the citations list (diff). This is not an Object, but a suggestion for shortening the citation list further. When you have citations like:
  • ^ Santosuosso, Storming the Heavens, p. 174
  • ^ Santosuosso, Storming the Heavens, p. 175
consecutively, you can make your Citations list much more manageable by combining them to:
  • ^ Santosuosso, Storming the Heavens, pp. 174–175
and using a named ref to list them only once. This is just an example; if you did it throughout the article, you could probably cut the size of the citation list in half. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:19, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Sandy, I always thought the use of "174-175" was to cite a section that started on one page and finished on the next, rather than being used to merge footnotes. I think it is more important to precisely cite a fact to the exact page that the information can be found on rather than it is to reduce the length of the list of footnotes - I mean, I could cut the length of the footnotes even more drastically if I simply listed the chapter, or even just the book, but at each step you are losing information on precisely what you are citing. I would rather leave this as it is unless it is a major issue. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 06:58, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No problem on the combined citations; you're probably right. It looks like you're well on the way; I'll check in tomorrow to see if someone at the Village Pump has figured out the TOC. I know the biblioboxes are pretty, but I sure hate to see them get started, as they slow down load times and increase potential editing headaches. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:45, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Another fix: have a look at WP:UNITS regarding conversions and non-breaking hard spaces. It's strange to see "foot" and "cm" mixed in the same sentence (... each with a 3 foot wooden shaft the diameter of a finger, with a 20–30cm ... ). You can use {{convert}} to easily address this. Also, see WP:DASH#Hyphens regarding punctuation of 3 foot wooden shaft. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:09, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. In the Etruscan section, paragraph beginning "The army is traditionally said…". I think the sentence in which n. 18 appears should be excised, since (1) an argumentum ex silentio ("no evidence of…") is not much use for this period and (2) the point is so minor. (This is an interesting point for late Empire, but not for regal period). Much of the next sentence and note beta can also go, in my opinion. semper fictilis 12:47, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Very interesting article, but please ditch the Bibliography tables, especially the icons. Just a list really should be sufficient, not everything has to be in tables with colourful icons. Garion96 (talk) 17:28, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Many of the headings have specific dates, and these seem to correspond with the watershed-marks of Roman history: 509 as end of monarchy, etc. It strikes me as unlikely that the watersheds were exactly the same for military evolution, and the exact dates could lead the unsuspecting astray. I suggest that Etruscan heading be changed to "Etruscan-model hoplites (regal period)", and so forth. semper fictilis 18:03, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • The earliest ones are equally dubious for the political development; whatever actual event has come down to us as the Expulsion of the Tarquins, it was unlikely to be in 509 BC; the other dates are military events (Marius's first campaign, Trajan's conquests in the East, and so on.) I would prefer c. for the earlier dates anyway; the later ones are as reasonable here as in any account of military evolution. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:51, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have added a {{cn}} for one point (which may well be correct, but is a modern conjecture; it needs a source). I am disquieted by the use of the 1911 Britannica on this subject; anything from a century ago is likely to be dated, especially on a field so dependent on epigraphy. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:51, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - this is an absolutely fantastic article, but I have two issues at the moment. Firstly, the bibliography boxes are rather unnecessary now that the book covers have been removed. If the book covers are allowed under fair-use, I would support them, since I think they do add value. But if they're not going to be included, then the bibliography should be made into a simple list. Additionally, the box border stretches beyond the content frame on my 1680 x 1050 monitor (this is not a problem at lower resolutions). Secondly, the title may be somewhat ambiguous. As some user has pointed out before, "structural history" is also a term usually associated with the Annales School; it denotes the view of history in terms of long-term structures rather than immediate causes. Then again, I agree that "structural" is the best adjective to use here. Would there be any way of rephrasing this so that "structural" and "history" are not put together? Ronline ✉ 09:36, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Consider merging citation with the footnotes, as these are in just about all reference works sorted under the same category. Footnotes are intended to be used for either specifying sources or making comments, so I don't see the need to separate them. And the Greek alphabet-thang really does make it all look a lot more complicated than it actually is... Peter Isotalo 12:23, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Further comment. Unsurprisingly given the nature of the Roman state and its military, the navy gets not a lot of attention here, with a paragraph attached to the end of each chronological period. I wonder whether these paragraphs shouldn't be collected and spun-out into their own article. (This might result in the article needing to be renamed to "… of the Roman army/infantry", which may spoil the symmetry of the article series.) semper fictilis 13:57, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The section on early history jumps directly from the archaeology to the traditional Roman history, accepting its dates as accurate. (I just inserted a paragraph break, as a minimum.) It should be made clear that these dates and facts are conjectures, made centuries later, on inadequate data. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:59, 16 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Upon consideration, the prehistory of Rome is off topic here, for several reasons; most importantly, we may conjecture something about the weapons of Bronze Age Latium, we know nothing about the stucture of their military. Moved to talk. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:46, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Article should be named "history of the structure of..." or "history of the organisation of...". It's not clear to the layperson that "structural history" refers to organisation rather than mechanical structures, and it is also not a very widely used term - the article itself is the fourth Google hit for the topic! And if you need a final straw, there is no Wikipedia entry for "structural history". Spamsara 19:22, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. One thing that is missing from this article is the importance of the Italian allies before the second century, which was governed by the formula togatorum (which I've just created a stub for). The importance of the Italian allies (whose dissatisfaction led to the Social War) needs a little more emphasis. (This is, of course, fixable.) semper fictilis 01:44, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak oppose Featured articles should be written in English, not in jargon. I have removed "pro-active"; but several instances of "re-active" and "tasked" remain. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:17, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. 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.
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