Wikipedia:Featured article review/archive/November 2018

Removed status

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 delisted by Casliber via FACBot (talk) 3:29, 18 November 2018 (UTC) [1].

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Battle of Cannae

WP:URFA nom

Original nominator hasn't edited since 2013. Notified: WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome, WikiProject Military history, WikiProject Rome

This article is one of the oldest Wikipedia:Unreviewed featured articles. The lead is too short, many statements are uncited, and many references lack page numbers. Much of the sourcing is from old texts or primary sources, rather than up-to-date secondary ones. The original nominator hasn't edited since 2013. DrKay (talk) 17:23, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Review section

llywrch comments

It will be difficult to bring this article up to FA status. I've spent most of the last 6 hours since I saw DrKay's notice sizing up what it would take to do this, & maybe if one had two full-time weeks to read the necessary books & extract the needed information this could be done. But there are several clear issues. Here are some of my thoughts:

• I don't see why the lead is considered "too short". It covers the topic adequately, & comparing it to the leads of other Wikipedias this lead does not omit any information. (I could add some details about why, although it was a crushing defeat for the Romans, it did not win the war for Hannibal. But one would be guessing.)
• Citing primary sources is not in itself a bad thing. Having reviewed three of the major primary sources, I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised that they agree so well in the events of the battle. Where they differ is which incidental details they include or exclude. For example, only Plutarch includes the story where Hannibal jokes about there being not one Gisgo in the Roman army. However, I have to complain that the original sources are not provided in a format both consistent & useful. I don't know what the MoS says on the matter, but my personal preference is to provide the book/chapter/section divisions of the original text, with an additional note pointing to a translation. Primary sources (i.e. Polybius, Livy, Plutarch) are sometimes cited by page of translation -- which is of no help to someone who doesn't happen to have access to that specific printing of the translation, or wants to read the source in the original language.
• I've found at least two of the secondary sources cited are, in effect, non-expert essays. Acceptable sources for 2006, but not at all acceptable now.
• Looking hard at the remaining citations, I notice a very heavy dependence on Gregory Daly, Cannae: The Experience of Battle in the Second Punic War. Which may be an entirely fine book. But there are other books by experts -- for example, I added to the "Further reading" section Robert L. O'Connor, The ghosts of Cannae: Hannibal and the darkest hour of the Roman republic (2010), written by an instructor at a military institution, which I have read & found to have a lot of insights this article would benefit from. Lastly, the Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th ed. article on this battle lists two books not at all mentioned in this article: J.F. Lazenby, Hannibal's War (1978), & J. Seibert, Hannibal (1993). I have not seen either book, but their mention by the OCD is a recommendation worth considering.

What is frustrating is that, IMHO, the bones of this article are fine. There are no errors of fact in this article that I can detect. But the fact this article is basically a paraphrase of Gregory Daly interpreting the primary sources does prevent this from serious consideration as a FA. -- llywrch (talk) 06:44, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Update: I've fixed some of the issues I noted above, & corrected some faulty citations. I also made two of the most memorable incidents after the battle -- the pile of gold rings on the Carthaginian Senate floor, & Scipio Africanus' fiery threat to wavering Roman officers -- more prominent. -- llywrch (talk) 23:20, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Second update: Looking over a fraction of the many works on this famous battle, I believe this article needs two additional sections. The first about the location of the battle; there are three locations in the neighborhood of the hill where the ruins of Cannae lie experts have proposed the battlefield is. The second I'll simple refer to under a possible section header, "Carnage". To quote Robert L. O'connell, The Ghosts of Cannae (pp. 157f):

...exploring the details of the massacre [of the encircled Romans] might seem to serve little purpose beyond pandering to some bloodlust with a kind of pornography of violence. Yet war is truly terrible, and to turn our eyes away from its results is in itself an act of cowardice. Hannibal's great victory, his tactical masterpiece celebrated through the ages, produced, in the end, little more than corpses. ... As one source put it, "What remains unclear is how encircled troops, with nowhere to run, could be slaughtered in such a one-sided fashion."

I believe WP:NPOV requires us to document the horrible alongside the beautiful. -- llywrch (talk) 00:22, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

Third update: I've revised the lead to address DrKay's appropriate concerns. It now not only covers the battle, but notes its context in the Second Punic War & in the history of military theory. -- llywrch (talk) 07:58, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Last update: Due to Real Life (tm) demands I've had to suspend my efforts to save this article. If no one steps up to take up the task of saving this article, it will need to be delisted. -- llywrch (talk) 17:11, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Monstrelet comments

Overall, this seems to be a solid article. Main issue for me are

• Relationship between "References", "Bibliography" and "Further reading" need to be sorted out. References uses a mixture of models, referring in some cases to bibliography on a refname system, but also fully citing in the list for others. Several books are fully cited multiple times, which is bad practice. The German original of Delbruck is referenced in the references, but the English translation is in the bibliography. Lazenby is in the bibliography but should be in the further reading as it isn't cited.

• the section on "Historical sources" needs to be much higher in the article if it is essential to understanding or removed if it isn't.

• the section on "Historical significance" needs attention. The impact on the Roman army isn't really historical - it describes what happened within years of the battle and fits better at the end of "Aftermath". The other two sections could be brought together. As a minor point, I surprised not to see Norman Schwartkopf's comment on the influence of Cannae on Desert Storm to show continued military relevance post WWII.Monstrelet (talk) 12:27, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

FARC section

Placing Dudley Miles comments at top of FARC section - has outlined remaining issues. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:51, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

• There is repetition in the 'Strategic background' and 'Roman command' sections. It is stated three times that it was rare to deploy all four legions at once.
• Overall this article is below FA standard. There are several 'citation neededs', the referencing is inconsistent and the range of sources is far too limited. I would delist. Dudley Miles (talk) 20:23, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
• Delist. Thank you for the improvements to the article. This article is solid, however, it is tagged for citation and there are concerns over comprehensiveness and whether the article represents the range of reliable sources available on the topic (as discussed above). DrKay (talk) 16:24, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
• Closing note: This removal candidate has been delisted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please leave the {{featured article review}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:29, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

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