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Wikipedia:Featured article review/Battle of Red Cliffs/archive2

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

The article was kept by Nikkimaria via FACBot (talk) 7:46, 14 September 2024 (UTC) [1].

Battle of Red Cliffs

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Notified: Underbar dk, Lingzhi.Random, talk page notice 2023-01-19

Review section

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I am nominating this featured article for review because there has been no improvement since issues were raised in March 2022 (Talk:Battle_of_Red_Cliffs#FA_sweeps). Issues include: cn issues, questionable sources, and unsourced images. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 15:17, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A455bcd9 you should also notify the four WikiProjects listed on the article talk page. While you are doing that, would you please also notify Lingzhi.Renascence on their talk page? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:52, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Notifications should have also included @Applodion and Gog the Mild:. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:58, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Done: User_talk:Lingzhi.Renascence#Battle_of_Red_Cliffs_to_FAR, Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_History#Battle_of_Red_Cliffs_to_FAR, Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_China#Battle_of_Red_Cliffs_to_FAR, Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history#Battle_of_Red_Cliffs_to_FAR, Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Chinese_history#Battle_of_Red_Cliffs_to_FAR, Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Three_Kingdoms#Battle_of_Red_Cliffs_to_FAR. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 16:02, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This article is missing de Crespigny 2010, Imperial Warlord (Brill), his biography of Cao Cao. I read it in the springtime this year; I'll see what I can do with it. I'll have a look at this article sometime this week, but probably not right after work today. Folly Mox (talk) 19:02, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would also like to actively throw my hat into the ring to help save this FA. I'll start with grabbing this Cao Cao biography. Remsense聊 00:57, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If anyone else wants to peruse the source I mentioned above, a recent English-language treatment by an expert in the field, direct TWL link. I'm currently searching for more sources. The only real bad ones live at the article have to do with pop culture stuff, and the last time I was forced to cite material like that (at Sima Yi) it made me want to cry, like I had called my dentist to make an appointment and ended up filing taxes over the phone instead. Folly Mox (talk) 18:47, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Some of the sourcing issues (like maps about the engagement) are not going to be resolveable, since there's no uniform reconstructed narrative. A455bcd9, I've never been to FAR before. Do we discuss sourcing issues here or on the article talk page? Folly Mox (talk) 20:35, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have no idea either... a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 20:36, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Whichever works best, Folly Mox. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 03:43, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Folly Mox longer discussions can be put on the talk page of this FAR page, or on article talk. Just provide a link back to here, and if improvements are occurring and more time is needed, please keep this page informed weekly; otherwise, we proceed to declarations (Move to FARC, Close w/o FARC). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:42, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oops ok I was not aware of the time limit. I guess I'd better get going on this. Folly Mox (talk) 20:28, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Folly Mox; no time limit as long as things are progressing in the right direction-- just keep this page informed weekly. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:06, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I started in on this yesterday. I've resolved a few of the "easy issues" brought up: improved the sourcing for two claims and removed a third claim that was not adequately supported; I think all but one of the {{cn}} tags has been resolved, but I've also been adding them as I go. Most of these were of the genre "actually already supported by sources cited in the article, which the tagger didn't check."
The maps are probably sourceable, and may even be accurate for the leading historical reconstruction. I have a question for the reviewers: if I find a suitably RS map that is similar to the unsourced ones in the article, is it ok to cite the article maps as "after Source S"? or just cite the map to an appropriate source even though the graphical style or level of detail varies?
Apart from the obvious issues raised at Talk:Battle of Red Cliffs § FA sweeps, I see more serious problems that are not evident to people without a background in the subject matter. One is that the historical narrative that has grown up around the battle is blandly accepted without balance by opposing critical viewpoints. It even gets a shout out in the infobox, where "Cao Cao fails to conquer lands south of the Yangtze River". This is not wrong, but we don't actually have evidence this was his intent. Another major issue is the impoverished postface. The § Cultural impact section is a measly two paragraphs, which is inadequately representative of the state of the field.
Overreliance on certain sources is present, and I'm probably not going to be able to do better than de Crespigny for the English language ones. He's been the preeminent English language scholar on early mediaeval Chinese history for decades. At the time of promotion fifteen years ago, the article leaned heavily on freely available internet sources, some of which have since been paywalled and I'm not readily able to verify. The source I mentioned in my initial comment on this page was published post-promotion. I've begun incorporating information from it.
The § Location section closely follows the major English language treatment of the question, the author of which holds a view distinctly outside the mainstream, which he acknowledges. We'll have to make sure that is balanced out at some point.
I haven't started looking at Chinese language sources yet (apart from the early ones I have at home). I haven't scraped zh:赤壁之戰 for its sources, or even read it or the subject's baidu to see what sorts of things we're not mentioning that I haven't thought of.
Surface level issues include citation style irregularities and slightly incomplete full citations. User:Remsense has kindly standardised the shortened footnote templates already, which I threw out of balance in my first several edits. There is also copyediting to do, and almost certainly other things listed at WP:FACR that I'm unfamiliar with.
I'm happy to take point on this effort, but I do work full time, so except for the band between about 1130–1400 UTC, I won't be able to do much on weekdays. Thanks everyone for your patience. Folly Mox (talk) 12:06, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Folly Mox, if you are willing/able to see this all the way through, time is always allowed. But you should probably know going in that you and Remsense may be doing the work alone, as no one else has shown up. I'd be fine with using a map to source a map. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:30, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, that characterisation of the workload was pretty anticipated. I'm down. Folly Mox (talk) 14:07, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Here is a bibliography of a couple zhwiki sources that appear additive for our purposes from first skim:
  • Zhang Zuoyao (张作耀) (2000). 曹操传 [A biography of Cao Cao] (in Chinese). Beijing: Renmin chubanshe. ISBN 978-7-010-03216-0.
  • Wang Wen-Chin (王文進) (2010). 論「赤壁意象」的形成與流轉－「國事」、「史事」、「心事」、「故事」的四重奏 [The Formation and Transformation of Images of the Battle of Red Cliffs: A Quartet of National, Historical, Mental and Narrative Matters] (PDF). Chengdu University Journal of Chinese Literature (in Chinese) (28): 83–123. doi:10.29907/JRTR.201004.0003. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-12-06. Retrieved 2019-01-18.
And a couple I happened to find while searching:
Remsense留 18:48, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've got some sourced downloaded already, and more set to go once I get back on wifi. I'll copy them over to the § Further reading subheading or the talk page when I get time. `Folly Mox (talk) 21:38, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Folly Mox, do you mind if I sometimes endeavor to do some work you plan on doing in your (always very elucidating) edit summaries? When you mentioned Tian 2018 could be useful, I was excited because that's something I could help with easily, but I don't want to step on your toes. But I also also don't want to leave you with all the particularly difficult work in this article refresh, so let me know if you have any particular preferences with me taking the initiative with things you specifically mention, or if you'd prefer your own particular sequence of editing, as it were. :) Remsense留 05:31, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Please by all means, Remsense, do whatever excites you! I'm glad for any help!
I think we should probably do any necessary coordination on the talkpage though, to spare the reviewers the watchlist hits, and just report in periodically as advised. Folly Mox (talk) 05:38, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary update 03 December

(I guess this is transcluded somewhere, so lvl 4 subheading here).
Improvements to the article thus far have been slow. We've identified and added some additional sources, and cleared out all the {{cn}} tags but for the two maps (which Remsense may have to recreate? but if new maps based on sourced information look substantially similar to the existing maps, did we need the new maps? still characteristically confused on this point) – and a {{cn}} tag that is essentially there because something was stated in prose rather than framed as part of article structure.
I am working on (read: sometimes thinking about) replacing all the sources I'm not able to verify personally, chiefly two offline Chinese news sources, but also two de Crespigny sources. Overreliance on de Crespigny will seem less serious once the "cultural legacy and impact" section is filled in a bit more. I knew de Crespigny was unavoidable for historical treatments of this time period, but I didn't previously understand how he's basically the Amazon of English language Three Kingdoms period history. The monographs are all him, and even the Cambridge History chapters are him too. Will have to look in different disciplines for other authors to include.
Most of my work thus far has not resulted in edits: finding and reading (or rereading) sources. Problems remain with framing, coverage. Remsense has been making a lot of positive technical and copyedits, which of course I'll let them report about.
At this point it's no longer my intent to replace all the statements sourced to Chen and Pei 429 (三國志注) with modern sources, but instead to quarantine them in their own section, alike but unalike to the "Fictionalised account" section about the Romance of the Three Kingdoms variant narrative. Reason being that the earliest sources are already disparate in their accounts, and providing these to the reader should assist encyclopaedic understanding. Folly Mox (talk) 23:37, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My addendum: my work has been decidedly less meaty than Molly's, a large chunk of it being presentation-oriented, copy edits and template work and citation formatting and the like. I'm assembling all the sourcing I think I may need to either secure or redesign the maps into one place. Overall, I think we are doing well.
On the map sourcing question: If the information presented in a map indeed lines up with the written description in a source, I fully believe that this qualifies as verifiability. To me, it is not qualitatively different from adding a source to text, even if that text may not have been originally written according to said source. Remsense留 23:42, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary update 14 December Hey—I've done a bit more work behind the scenes and working on the graphics, but haven't directly edited the article in the past week. Folly is busy, and my attention has been elsewhere for the most part, in part on the simultaneous FAR over at Byzantine Empire. But now my attention is turning back here, and I'll be sharing some updates and doing some of the cleanup I can still see in the article in the next couple days. Cheers. Remsense留 16:54, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Confirming that I am indeed busy and have updates planned but not committed to databases. Organising thoughts is not my forté. Might be my dump stat (I appear to have many). Stupidly, I've acquired 三國志集解, the standard annotated edition. This has not been an efficient use of focus. Folly Mox (talk) 17:16, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So, @Folly Mox—this is my present understanding:
  • Nothing in the battle map itself requires additional/better sourcing
  • The main unsourced/SYNTH bit in the candidate sites map is the special "fourth region", and a replacement would essentially just replace this.
Remsense留 18:40, 27 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Remsense, yeah the battle map is definitely sourceable. I feel like I linked de Crespigny 2010 p. 267 somewhere already, which is a partial match, showing Cao Cao's movements (unlike the map presently in the article, it's possible to see that his naval forces came downstream rather than overland; the green arrow is almost entirely hidden by Zhou Yu's advance to Jiangling in the aftermath of the battle).
I'm certain I used to have a book with more maps about this, but that hard drive was lost in the past two years in either a move or a breakup. The other movements on the battle map can be sourced to prose records, either Zhang 2006 or Generals of the South, which reminds me I still haven't converted the multifarious de Crespigny cites to author–title for ease of use.
The "fourth possible region" in the battlefield locator map is probably sourceable to Zhang 2006, given how closely that section follows the arguments in that source, but highlighting modern Jiayu county seems to have been a convenience for the original mapmaker, and I'm not sure "possibly somewhere other than these spots" is adequately supported in the literature to add to the map. We could put "not an exhaustive list of possibilities" or something in the caption.
Meanwhile, on the historical research side of things, it should be obvious that I haven't been active in updating this article during the past couple weeks. Apart from offwiki responsibilities, which have consumed most of my energy, the main blockers have been 1. wanting to do a full rewrite of the article because I'm even worse at organising others' ideas than I am my own, and 2. hesitancy with accepting de Crespigny uncritically whilst being unable to locate any broader consensus or lack of it.
The situation with that is de Crespigny has been at the top of the field of English language Three Kingdoms period history for five? decades, and doesn't really have competitors or even collaborators in a narrow sense (I've seen maybe two or three mentions of his work that engage it thoughtfully, rather than just citing it as authoritative). There's really no one else. While I can read Chinese language sources on the topic, I've been running into a lot of dead ends trying to access sufficiently reliable Chinese sources, which are poorly represented in the TWL corpora.
The problem here is that although de Crespigny has become more cautious with age, some of his earlier work is pretty conclusive about questions that don't seem conclusively answerable based on his sources at the time (although I'm certainly missing some of those). For example, the idea for Sun Quan and Liu Bei to ally is credited originally credited to all three of Lu Meng, Zhou Yu, and Zhuge Liang. Pei Songzhi and de Crespigny each pick one. Cao Cao's ships being burnt is originally credited to Zhou Yu, Liu Bei, and Cao Cao himself. The earliest record we have is actually Cao Cao's claim that he burnt his own navy on the way out so his opponents couldn't make use of it, but scholarship tends to accept the Zhou Yu story because it's also early, and it's there and it's compelling. I haven't seen any sources that really address this question other than by mentioning Cao Cao's claim, but it's ultimately unanswerable due to lack of contemporary sources, in a way that even the Battle of Fei River can be more clearly seen.
Anyway, this has been a me problem. Folly Mox (talk) 10:21, 28 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Remsense: You are correct about the above sections missing citations. There's also two other sentences that need citations, which I have just indicated in the article with "citation needed" tags. Also, "Taiping Chang (2014)" and the two sources in "Dien, Albert E." do not seem to be used as inline citations in the article. Should they be, or should they be removed as references? Z1720 (talk) 00:13, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • Z1720 et al.—I apologize for my lack of diligence in this FAR. Folly Mox is busy and I've been either elsewhere or wiped out, so now I will now take it upon myself to do what needs to be done to save this. Thank you very much for the additional tags. I am taking a look as we speak and will do what needs to be done. — Remsense诉 00:16, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Remsense: Sorry for the late response. What prose in the article are you referring to? Z1720 (talk) 17:55, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Remsense:, I'm a bit late to this, what are we still looking for? Sources beyond Crespigny? Although he is a wonderful scholar. Aza24 (talk) 23:46, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So, the one clear thing is the map showing the candidate sites. I think everything else is sourced. I have done a bit of looking, but honestly I am not sure that there is other scholarship to include, save maybe for cultural impact. Remsense诉 00:29, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Gotcha. Afaik, the Eastern Han is not nearly as popular as the Western in English-language academia. I'm not surprised that Crespigny is dominating the subject here. We could possibly use more from the CHC, but just skimming it now, I don't see much. Unless anyone has access to some Chinese sources, this might be the best it gets.
I'm think Folly is right above that much of the map can be sourced by Zhang 2006. It looks like pages 215–216 cover it (I've just added a citation there). Aza24 (talk) 04:17, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Z1720

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Comments after a review:

  • "Battle of Red Cliffs and Cao Cao's retreat.[26][additional citation(s) needed] " This tag needs to be resolved in the image caption
  • The "Fictionalised account" sections confuses me. It seems to only talk about the historical differences between fictionalised and historical accounts, but does not describe what these fictionalised accounts are (plays, operas, folk songs) and when/how they were developed. Of particular confusion is what "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is: this needs to be described so that I don't need to click on the wikilink to discover what this is.
  • "Since then, cultural festivals held by the city have helped to dramatically increase tourism to the area." How are these cultural festivals connected to the battle?
  • The "Cultural impact" section could probably be organised better to remove the small paragraphs. I would also consider merging this with "Fictionalised account" as these seem to be related.

Those are my thoughts. Z1720 (talk) 16:04, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Z1720, if it is ok with you then I would like to work on this FAR along with @Remsense. My replies to your comments:
  • I think the citation to de Crespigny is enough for the map, if more sources are needed then I can find them, if not then the tag can be removed.
  • The Romance of the Three Kingdoms has been introduced here as a 14th-century historical novel by another editor per your comments. I will try to find other fictional accounts of the battle, if not then is it ok if the title of the section is changed to "Portrayal in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms"?
  • I think the cultural festivals have portrayals and reenactments of the battle, I will try to find a proper source for this, if not then I will remove this sentence if that is ok.
  • I will start working on expanding the "Cultural impact" section, but I don't think it can be merged with the "Fictionalised accounts" section, since the latter looks at the differences between the facts and their portrayal in the novel.
I've also added alt texts for the infobox image, I will work on adding alts for all the remaining ones. Matarisvan (talk) 06:26, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Matarisvan: Yes, additional help is always welcome. I responded to your points above to help keep the discussions organised. Z1720 (talk) 06:43, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Z1720, I have incorporated all your suggestions, also I have added alts for all the images and archive URLs for the refs, I will add them for the biblio soon. Are there any other comments you may have? Matarisvan (talk) 15:19, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. @Matarisvan: I'd like to see a sentence in the lede about the cultural impact. Other then that, I don't have any major concerns with the article. Z1720 (talk) 19:11, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I have added a sentence on this, let me know if it is good enough or needs to be expanded. Matarisvan (talk) 20:47, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

FARC section

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Stalled. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:29, 29 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Embarrassingly, I completely passed over Z1720's comments until now. Will add this back into my rotation, though at this point I don't expect people to wait up for me. Remsense诉 20:13, 29 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Nikkimaria, can this review be closed now? One FARC coordinator, Z1720, has already voted above, so I believe only your vote is pending. This review has been open for 11 months now, which is why I think it should be closed before it completes a full year. Matarisvan (talk) 17:48, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Coordinators don't generally vote. I see that there are some commenters above who haven't put forward an opinion in this section - you could invite them to revisit. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:11, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is my first ever FAR and I did not exactly know how the process works. Thanks for the clarification! Per your comment, tagging @A455bcd9 and @SandyGeorgia so that they may add their votes. Any other editor I may have missed tagging, @Nikkimaria? Matarisvan (talk) 07:00, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Nikkimaria, it has been a week since I tagged the two editors above for their votes, but there has been no response from either of them. Do you think this FAR can now be closed since we already have 2 votes, or would more votes be needed? Matarisvan (talk) 16:31, 11 September 2024 (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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