Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Military of ancient Rome

Military of ancient Rome

This is a relatively new article worked on almost exclusively to date by user wansdalstouring and myself. We've taken it a fair way in a short time but could definitely do with input, comments, suggestions for improvements from more editors. - PocklingtonDan 09:40, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

There may be some dispute on the use of bulleted lists in general. In this article prose has been avoided in order to create a bulleted "organized link list" in the second half of the article. In contrast to the usual non-structured See also section (which in all FAs is neither structured nor prose). While you surely can turn anything into prose, the effect of a fast and easy to understand structure is likely lost and this leads to differing opinions on the topic, so we would apprciate if other editors threw in their two cents whether or not such an approach does help the reader. Wandalstouring 08:39, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Kirill Lokshin

It's definitely off to a good start. Some broad things to look at:

• Much of the article—particularly the second half—is composed of lists that can fairly reasonably be converted into genuine prose (with {{details}} applied as necessary to break out into sub-articles).
• The is a lot of crowding of diagrams in some sections; this is, perhaps, due to those sections simply needing to be expanded, but gallery-like layouts should probably be avoided in any case.
• More generally, expansion would be useful throughout the article.

I would suggest asking oldwindybear to comment on this review as well, as he knows a lot more about this particular topic than I do. Kirill Lokshin 21:55, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Kirill for the first peer review. Wandalstouring I have had a lot of toing and froing on exactly how much prose to insert in the "branches" section you refer to that is composed mainly of lists. This stems from our wish for the article to be a hybrid article/extended disambiguation page - since the topic is so huge there are separate articles covering a lot of the terms and areas covered more closely we didn't want to duplicate too much here. However, your comments are taken on board, and if this is the consensus, then we shall certainly expand that section to full prose. Thanks again for your input - PocklingtonDan 22:12, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I absolutely oppose converting these lists in the second half into prose. In this case it would be just like writing shopping lists in prose. Give some arguments why these short list are better off in prose. Wandalstouring 01:59, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

These sections shouldn't really be lists at all, but brief (one or two paragraphs, or so) summaries of the linked daughter articles. Someone reading this ought to be able to get a halfway decent overview of the material, not just a list of terms; as it is, this is a pretty decent attempt at a glossary, but it doesn't really indicate how all the items come together.

(Indeed, the short length of the lists makes is easier to change them to prose; you basically already have clusters of two or three decent sentences in each section, just broken up by bullets. There's no real gain in leaving them in list form here, as the lists aren't so long or so full of numbers/statistics/terms that they would flow poorly in prose form.) Kirill Lokshin 02:07, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Consider, for example, one of the sections in the article:

Ship types used

• Trireme
• Quinquereme
• Liburna

This could just as easily be presented as

The Roman navy included several types of ships, such as the trireme, the quinquereme, and the liburna.

What benefit of the first version has been lost in the second? Kirill Lokshin 02:12, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

(The fundamental point here is that prose is generally easier to read than seemingly unrelated lists of terms. There's no flow from section to section and from item to item in such a list-heavy article; it's quite difficult, when reading through, to understand what the underlying logical structure of the piece is.) Kirill Lokshin 02:14, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that there needs to be a logical structure, but you have also taken the worst example for your point and this clearly needs workout. For example this section makes good use of the bullet form (and from the basic conception the article should follow such a style, while providing limited information to help the reader):

• Roman legion - almost entirely heavy infantry drawn exclusively from Roman citizens of any class

• Cohorts - sub-unit of a Roman legion

• Centuriae - tactical sub-unit of a Cohort

• Equites legionis - Roman legionary cavalry

• Roman auxilia - a formalisation of the earlier arrangement of using allied troops from the Socii and Latini who had received Roman citizenship after the Social War

The advantage of the bullet form like this is giving fast and easy to access links (and descriptions have not yet been added to all of them). This has clear advantages in this aspects to pure prose as all the disambiguation pages show. Wandalstouring 02:34, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, that's one way of doing it, but it's still basically a glossary. You could accomplish the same thing with easier-to-follow context, I think; for example, something like:

The Roman legion was almost entirely heavy infantry drawn exclusively from Roman citizens of any class. It was made up of Cohorts, which were further divided into Centuriae. Each legion had an associated Equites legionis, a body of Roman legionary cavalry.
The Roman auxilia was a formalisation of the earlier arrangement of using allied troops from the Socii and Latini who had received Roman citizenship after the Social War.

You have so much material that it folds into sentences pretty naturally; I don't really see the benefit of keeping it in bulleted form, given that you're not presenting some complicated hierarchy that needs graphical cues to be understood. Kirill Lokshin 02:41, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm happy to see what the consensus is on this but I do agree with wandalstouring that some of the ease of understanding of the overarching structure may be lost by turning this all into prose. Prose has te disadvantage that you have to read all of it to understand the structure, whereas a branched structure is much more easy to understand at a swift glance. However, I take on board your points and I'm hapy to go along with the majority consensus either way. - PocklingtonDan 07:59, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

As Dan pointed out there are some flaws to prose which would corrupt essential parts here. Take for example Military of the United States or British Armed Forces both articles present a similar topic with the use of bulleted lists. Notably the See also sections are not structured within and if they get any longer their practical use is quite in question. As for this see it as an organized link list that would normally be in the See also section. Wandalstouring 08:32, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, it's basically up to you how you structure the article. Personally, I (and many other editors) prefer prose to lists, so that's what I'll generally advise; but you're obviously free to do something else if you don't think that my suggestion is sensible here. :-) Kirill Lokshin 16:49, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

The use of blockquotes or bulleted lists can be discussed. This is not a structural, but rather an aesthetical question. In presentations bulleted lists seem to me by far more widespread than non-bulleted lists (such as the blockquote given as example below, thx to Kirill Lokshin).

Roman legions These units were almost entirely heavy infantry drawn exclusively from Roman citizens of any class. It was made up of Cohorts, which were further divided into Centuriae. Each legion had an associated Equites legionis, a body of Roman legionary cavalry.
Roman auxilias These units were a formalisation of the earlier arrangement of using allied troops from the Socii and Latini who had received Roman citizenship after the Social War.

So we could discuss this issue, although bullets are nice markings in my opinion. Wandalstouring 20:58, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, if it's a list, yes; but I was suggesting having the terms actually inside normal text, not given before it as if in a list (i.e. the difference between "Roman legions were..." and "Roman legions These units were...", the latter of which isn't actually a gramatticaly correct sentence). Kirill Lokshin 17:21, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Wandalstouring, all 3 separate peer reviews have all mentioned how they find the bullet points disrupt the flow and reduce readability - that's sufficient consensus for me to think that we need to change it to prose and so I have started to do so. I think the problem is that if you already understand the structure of the Roman military, the bullet points are a handy summation, but if you don't know the topic the bullet points are just a bewildering list of concepts - I now favour rpose for all these sections, making clear how each term is related to every other. We had our viewpoint, but I think it has to be shown not to stand up under scrutiny from readers perhaps unfamiliar with the tpoic. Cheers - PocklingtonDan 17:43, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

PocklingtonDan I think you hit the nail on the head. A reader familiar with the material would surely prefer the bulleted format or lists of any sort; someone unfamiliar with the topic would want a prose explanation. old windy bear 21:43, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Hal Jespersen

(I am providing some comments because Dan requested that I do so. I actually know virtually nothing about Roman military history, besides what I learned in ninth grade Latin class, so will limit myself entirely to presentation issues, not military content.)

Thanks very much for your time on this Hal, I saw you had done some great in-depth peer reviews on other subjects and I thought your help would be invaluable on this article - I don't think its necessary always for every peerr eview to have in-depth knowledge of the article content. Thanks again - PocklingtonDan 08:16, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• If this article is intended to become a Featured Article, it needs to comply with the FA guidelines, which say that you should have three or four paragraphs in the introductory section (the text before the table of contents) that summarize the content of the article.

Never mind FA guidelines, we can always vote and change them. So what argument do you have for more paragraphs in the introductory section? Any suggestions to help the reader to understand something better? More information? How do you want to summarize lists (the main aspect of this article)? Wandalstouring 02:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

We weren't shooting for FA status from this review as such, just hoping to tighten up the article and get some more eyeballs onit - PocklingtonDan 08:16, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Chicken and egg problem there as far as the lists are concerned. ;-)

More generally, the lead section should be a concise summary of the entire article; in theory, a reader should be able to read only the introduction and still walk away with the major points that would be covered in more detail in the body of the article. The current version doesn't really get into any of the material, but is more like a newspaper-style lead that tries to draw the reader in; that's not really the best approach in an encyclopedia, I think. Kirill Lokshin 02:27, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I'll take a look at trying to summarise article in 3 or 4 paras - PocklingtonDan 08:16, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• The headings in section 7.1.1 are much longer than typical Wikipedia headings and make the TOC unwieldy.

Will try to reduce the headers for readability. Wandalstouring 02:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• You should find a way of taking the microscopic text that is included in the images and turning it into real text to accompany the strictly visual portions.
• Headings such as "Funding and Expenditures" should follow style guidelines about overuse of capital letters.

No problem, will reduce them. Wandalstouring 02:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• In the second table/image, presenting information that consists almost entirely of "unknown" is almost worthless.

There is no such info in wikipedia about things that existed, so there are two possibilities:

a)we do not mention anything as existant as long as there is no wikipedia article (or chapter in a wikipedia article) on it

b)We leave it red and hope for the proper article/chapter in an article to appear one day. I hope it makes little difference to understandability whether something is writen in red or black. I know FA articles should have no red parts, but whoever suggest this rule has not my vote. The usual solution to this problem is delinking red names and soon an article looks perfectly integrated. At least we try to find links that do somehow fill in for the missing articles. Wandalstouring 02:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm with wandalstouring here - I don't see any harm in having links to articles that haven't been written yet - they are valid topics/articles that really should have content and users are going to know by their red text that they aren't active yet. If consensus is to remove them, though, then again I'm happy to go along with that - PocklingtonDan 08:16, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• The section "Command Structure" should have textual descriptions, rather than relying entirely on the microscopic images for information. Use the images, but make the text the normative information of the article.

Can be improved, but textual description will likely be much longer and to a lesser degree understandable. Wandalstouring 02:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• In "Readiness" and elsewhere, use proper punctuation (EM-dashes rather than hyphens).

OK. Will work through it. Wandalstouring 02:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• In "Engineering" and elsewhere, eliminate the use of bulleted lists. FAs generally don't allow them.

Nope, I don't mind FA criteria as long as an article is better to read. So are they a pro or a contra to getting information from this article and the way it helps you to find links? Wandalstouring 02:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

They're quite good at finding links (which is why they're used for disambiguation pages), but not so good at actually presenting information. Someone reading this article is not necessarily going to navigate around through all the links just to get an overview of the material; if the links were given within a summary section, they would have rather more context to them, and a reader would be able to get a decent idea of the material without necessarily needing to follow them all. Kirill Lokshin 02:36, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

There seems to be a compromise here of annotating the lists to give an idea of the content of the linked articles?? - PocklingtonDan 08:16, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• You have some duplications in Notes. By using the name= field in the < ref > tag, you can specify multiple notes that have the same contents, without duplication. If you would like to see an example, a recent article I wrote has a few such instances: Battle of Kelly's Ford.

There are different opinions on this formatting issue and not everybody approves of the suggested style. Both are possible in FA articles. Wandalstouring 02:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• You should find some illustrations of soldiers, ships, battles, etc. Featured articles almost always have a number of images (beyond your graphs).

I disagree about the use of images for images sake. For once I want to give an informative article without cozy legionaries. As Dan tried to point out this article has its roots in a disambiguation page and the aim was to maintain such a structure, but give a more informed disambiguation/link list page. Wandalstouring 02:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with wandalstouring that a lot of images I see in articles are attractive filler that don't really provide an awful lot of information. Especially if we just threw in a photo of a modern recreation of a legionary soldier from the early empire, it just perpetuates myths of uniformity across time and unit types etc and isn't very helpful. If we did insert images of soldiers or ships, for instance, then to my mind it would only be worth doing so in both cases if it showed the historical changes and variations over time in a series of images, for example.

Good luck, Hal Jespersen 23:00, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the review, you've given us a lot to think (and argue!) about here. Cheers - PocklingtonDan 08:16, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I had no idea my simple formatting suggestions would prove to be so controversial. I was making the assumption that you would eventually seek featured article status, because that is what most of the peer reviews I have seen are attempting to set up. If you are not seeking such approval, some of my comments are irrelevant. Certainly, if your goal is primarily to provide a series of bulleted pointers to other articles with little other added value, you will not have to worry about featured article status. Removing from my watchlist now... Hal Jespersen 16:10, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

We will work on FA, but the rules are not set in stone. So if we do get a good article by violating some of them it might be worth it. Wandalstouring 20:48, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Yannismarou

Although I'm not a specialist in the Roman history, I give this article a review because I was asked to and because it is really an important article, and I see that its editors (an interesting British-German co-operation!) are really determined to improve it. I'm sorry if I repeat things other reviewers said, but I did not read their reviews in detail. These are my remarks:

• I see somebody expanded the lead. Well done! Because it was too short. You can expand it even more if you wish to (by adding one more paragraph).
• "(for the military of the East Roman Empire after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, see Byzantine military)". I don't like where this parenthesis is placed. Wouldn't be better to place it befor the lead in italics, like that:

For the military of the East Roman Empire after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, see Byzantine military

• "In the late Imperial period, while equipment quality decreased, the military's numbers were significantly increased to cover the borders and suppress unrest. The circumstances of the Empire had changed; the Western Roman Empire now relied heavily on foederati units of mostly Germanic tribes living within the borders, who fought in the name of Rome during the Migration Period." I want to understand the syllogism of the editor. Do you mean that "the military's numbers were significantly increased", because the "The circumstances of the Empire had changed" and "the Western Roman Empire now relied heavily on foederati units of mostly Germanic tribes living within the borders, who fought in the name of Rome during the Migration Period". If yes OK. If not, I'd suggest rephrasing of the last period, in order to be clear that this is another independent topic, another idea not necessarily related to the previous period.
• Don't over-wikilink the article. For instance, Roman army or Roman Republic are linked more than once.
• "It is not thought that they constituted a significant proportion of troops even amongst the federated troops of the late empire." Citation? "It is not thought" without citation is a bit weasel.
• "See also: Crisis of the Third Century" I think the seealsos is better to go straight after the heading; not in the middle of a section.

*"Several additional factors bloated the military expenditure of the Roman Empire:

   * Substantial rewards were paid for the demeanor of "barbarian" chieftains in the form of negotiated subsidies and for the provision of allied troops[11]
   * The military boosted its numbers, possibly by one third in a single century[12]
   * The military increasingly relied on a higher ratio of cavalry units in the late Empire, which were many times more expensive to maintain than infantry units.[13]"

One of the many listy parts of this article. Why don't you make a nice paragraph here without bullets?

Easier to read, than a paragraph in this case. But we have been discussing possibly differnt structures, although your example is best suited for a bulleted list to make a limited number of points. Wandalstouring 17:46, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

• "Raubwirtschaft". I think the German term is redundant in an English article. Link to article Raubwirtschaft with just the English term.
• The images in "Funding and expenditures" and the next section are bigger than the text margin. I don't think this is nice layout and I believe that it needs fixing.

Smaller images would be of little valuze. Currently this section is mainly focused on the late Empire, so a text expansion is possible. Wandalstouring 17:46, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

• "Command Structure" is uncited.
• "Culture" is obviously stubby.
• "On the other hand, this also could mean the payment of immense subsidies to foreign powers[22] and opened the possibility of extortion in case military means were insufficient." Try to have the citations at the end of the sentence. Place it in the middle only if you regard it as absolutely necessary. See the paradox in this sentence: it gives the impression that only half of it has a verifiable citation, while the rest of it is uncited!
• The first paragraph of "Sustainability" needs referencing.
• "Forces were routinely supplied via fixed supply chains, although Roman armies in enemy territory would often supplement or replace this with foraging for food and the forging and repair of their own weaponry and tools." Another uncited sentence, which includes historical assessments presented as facts.
• "Engineering" is stubby and poorly written. Just a reference to Heather and three bullets are not enough to justify the existence of a section.

Sure, it has not yet been expanded, needs input. Greetings to oldwindybear. Wandalstouring 17:46, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

• I see again many Wikilinks of the same article, e.g. Roman Navy.
• "What is generally agreed on is that there was a site of habitation at Rome, if not during the Bronze Age Terramare culture then certainly during the Iron Age Villanovan culture that succeeded it." "Certainly" is a strong word and needs at least a citation to support it.
• "Archeology from the site argues against the traditional apocryphal tale of seven Roman kings during this period." Archeology "argues" via whom? Again verifiable sources should be provided.
• In many parts the article is poorly written and there are many typos. The over-wikifation is just an example. See also this sentence: "As with most of the villages in the region, the [[Romans] warred". Somebody wanted to wikilink "Romans" (again?!!!), but did a typo. But nobody saw this typo to correct it! This typo is now fixed along with another wrong red link. But be careful with these minor things! They give the wrong impression about the level of your effort!
• "By the 7th century BC, Etruscan civilization was dominant in the region. As with most of the villages in the region, the Romans warred against the Etruscans and by the close of the 7th century the Etruscans conquered Rome and established a military dictatorship or kingdom." Look again what I mean. In this shord paragraph "Etruscan" are wikilinked 2 times and 1 more in the lead→2+1=3!!! By the way, Etruscan leads to a disambiguation page. This is not a proper link.
• "Later Roman historians tell us that he reformed the army as a result of his transplanting onto the army the structure derived for civil life from his conducting the first Roman census." Which historians? You don't cite anyone. Weasel words!
• I don't understand these bullets at the end of "Military establishment of the Roman kingdom". Why isn't there any coherence with the previous part of the sentence or any introductory sentence before the bullets?

There was a very strong and negative echo on all the use of bullets. Someone is half through a rewrite. Wandalstouring 17:46, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

• The same and bigger problem with "Military establishment of the Roman Republic". It is difficult for me to follow the article in these sections. These bullets harm the article. Why isn't there a proper prose. In these sections the article has a really bad flow. It reads really bad! Obviously, I disagree that these bullets are better for the understanding of these sections. They are not! It is your choice, but, as far as I'm concerned, I've a great problem to understand these parts of the article and, therefore, I'm discouraged to continue reading it. "The ease of understanding of the overarching structure" will not be lost, because (for me as a reader) there is no ease right now!
• The same with the next sections until "Roman navy". I strongly recommend prose in these sections and bullets only where it is absolutely necessary. And when you use bullets, the flow of the prose must not be interrupted as it is now.
• The three sub-sections of the "Roman navy" are all listy. I don't know with GAC, but in FAC, if you go with these listy sections, I'm afraid you'll be sent back for another peer-review.

While information is very poor in wikipedia this was the least possible. Naturally it gets expanded. Wandalstouring 17:46, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

• "For the military of the East Roman Empire after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, see Byzantine military" So you treat the military of the East Roman Empire before the Fall of the Western Roman Empire? Then why I did not see this topic developed and analysed? How were the Western and the Eastern army organized after the division of the Empire? Similarities? Differences? Reprocussions of the military division for both sides?
• I think that your primary sources mentioned in Notes deserve also mentioning in "Bibliography" ("References" is a better title for me). Why only Livy is there? Tacitus? Polybius? What about them. And in my article I prefer to divide my references in primary and secondary sources, but it is up to you.
• And something else: The diagrams and the maps are really nice and congratulations to you for this work, but such a long and important article should have more pictures and not only diagrams and maps. Maybe a statue of a Roman soldier or a painting depicting an ancient Roman battle. Things like that. It is not just "picture for the picture". No! Pictures make an article look better! And encourage the reader to go and read it. A picture catches the eye of the reader and makes the whole layout of the article more pleasant, interesting and nice. This is my philosophy and I think that this is the philosophy of most encyclopedias!

Not mine. We will possibly put a balanced view of pictures to avoid encouraging prejudices. I have been negotiating for months to release several accurate pictures of different periods. But we do it right or not at all. There shouldn't be another Hollywood-Roman look-alike contest or cozy 18th/19th century paintings that happened to be on commons. Wandalstouring 17:46, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree strongly with this - that we either put in worthwhile pictures that add content or not at all - PocklingtonDan 18:10, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

As a principle, I also agree. The pictures must serve the article and not vice versa.--Yannismarou 19:23, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

In general, the article is informative and with good maps and diagrams. But it needs better prose and more coherent article flow, more pictures serving the article, some clean-up in some sections, expansion or/and citing in other sections. I have also some reservations about the coherency of the whole structure of the article, but we could see that after the prose is improved and the article reads better. Continue with the good job!--Yannismarou 14:44, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Wow, that's one heck of a review - thanks enormously for all your effort on this. It will take some time but I will start to look at each of the issues you raised. Thanks again, very much appreciated - PocklingtonDan 15:23, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, I've run through the article and made several changes based on your recommendations. I shall work going forwads on improving the readability of the article, adding more pictures (although only where I feel they add something) and trying to expand some of the stub sections. - PocklingtonDan 17:19, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

While you used the critized bullets here to make your different points of arguments clearer, would it be possible to give short headers to different names in this style (List of ethnic slurs)?

Furthermore there is the suggested blockquote style (above by Kirill and modification by me). Would any of these solution be acceptable by FA standards? This way it is possible to keep the core idea for the use of bulleted lists uncorrupted: quick information access

For the more casual reader there is also a longer and detailed textual explenation offered. I hope to serve this way green as well as grey readers on the topic. Wandalstouring 20:37, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Wandalstouring, I'm not sure why you're still pushing this - the consensus clearly seems to be that prose is far easier to follow for a reader unfamiliar with the subject - the bullet structure of that article originated with myself (see edit history) and was only used to present a hierarchy of levels when we were deciding the superstructure of the various sections. A list is only useful if someone is already familiar with one of the terms and looking up what the term means (such as in the article you gave as an example). For the purposes of an encyclopedic article on a topic such as the Roman military, the majority of readers have been shown to prefer prose. I don't understand your resistance to this - I appreciate that it doesn't look as neatly hierarchical to you and me, but an article's clarity should focus on its readers, not its editors. Can we drop this issue as resolved? PocklingtonDan 20:57, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Layout is not writing style. I argue about the layout, not the use of ellipsis or prose. Wandalstouring 21:08, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, one minor point that seems to have gotten lost somewhere along the line (probably due to me not being clear enough about what I was suggesting): the blockquote formatting is something I used in the peer review to indicate quotes from the article. If you have the same material in the article, you can take off the blockquote tags; they're meant for quotes, and don't really do anything useful here except for adding an extra level of indentation. Kirill Lokshin 21:09, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Got it. Restructured to List of ethnic slurs style. Wandalstouring 21:31, 14 November 2006 (UTC)