Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/Sack of Amorium/archive1

Lead comments from Cryptic C62

• The lead is currently one very fat paragraph. It should be split into two paragraphs.
• What is a sack? When I first saw the title of this page, I assumed that "Amorium" was a material and "sack" meant "bag". A link would be helpful.
• "The Abbasids penetrated deep into Byzantine-held Asia Minor, and the northern army defeated the Byzantine fores under Theophilos at Anzen." Is "fores" a jargon word or a typo of "forces"?
• "The city fell after a short siege—probably by treason" I don't understand what the "probably by treason" part means.
• "The conquest of Amorium was ... a traumatic event for the Byzantines, reverberating in later literature." First off, I'm not a fan of the use of "reverberating" outside the context of acoustics. There are plenty of words in the English language that don't have scientific meanings; pick one. But before you pick one, note that it isn't even clear what the subject of "reverberating" is here. Is it the conquest or the Byzantines? Or perhaps the trauma?
• The lead should provide more material to summarizes the Siege and fall section. All that can be gleaned at this point is that the Arabs arrived, some sort of treason happened, and then the city was sacked.

--Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:01, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I've tried to answer most of your concerns. I split the lead in a first para describing the events and a second on the consequences, linked "sack", corrected the typo for "forces", and added a few more details from the siege and aftermath sections. I think that any more of the latter would go too far, all the reader needs to know from the lede is that the city fell probably due to treason (the Arab who defected and Boiditzes. The latter's motives are not quite clear, but he is universally treated by the sources as a de facto traitor). The article is less about the siege itself, for which sources are scarce, than the events surrounding it and its impact. I disagree with your objections on the use of "reverberating". Most terms used to refer to an event with repercussions in the future have something to do with acoustics or optics; for obvious reasons. I could use "reflected", "echoing" or "resonating", but that would be the same. Constantine ✍ 08:48, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

"having wide-ranging effects" as a meaning for "reverberate" is coming up in my British (and American) dictionaries. - Dank (push to talk) 10:11, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I like "resonating" better; changed. WP:LEAD states that "in a well-constructed article, the emphasis given to material in the lead will be reflected in the rest of the text." The weight of the Siege and fall section is not reflected in the lead. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 16:09, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I've rewritten and expanded the middle portion of the lede to include more details on the circumstance of the siege, mention the active destruction of the city as well as the reasons for Theophilos' inability to provide aid. Constantine ✍ 07:56, 11 May 2011 (UTC)