Wikipedia:Peer review/Third Servile War/archive1

Third Servile War

After much blood, sweat, and tears in researching, editing, writing, and map-creation, I think I've finally got the article on the Third Servile War beat into "acceptable" shape. However, any one writer/editor has blind spots, so I would very much like to hear input, thoughts, criticisms, and suggestions as to how the article might be improved - especially comments/suggestions on how to improve the prose and style.

Thank you in advance for any (constructive) comments made :) - Vedexent 10:45, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Looks like the military history peer review was pretty thorough, so I may be repeating some comments. I'll be particular.

• Infobox: Sentences are hard to read when words are three to a line. I don't know what the standard is, but I would cut down on the worded explanations and instead make sure the information is in the article.
• The last sentence of the first paragraph is somewhat awkward.
• I assume you decided on large image sizes so they're readable without clicking on the thumbnail. The result, though, is some formatting errors and scrunched text. If that's the tradeoff, I'm not sure which is better; but you might consider playing around with this.
• "It is mentioned that..." Better to use the active voice and say who mentioned it.
• I would combine the small paragraphs under "Defeat of the consular armies (72 BC)" into larger ones.
• "Following this victory, Spartacus and his followers (some 120,000), pushed northwards as fast as they could, "having burned all his useless material, killed all his prisoners, and butchered his pack-animals in order to expedite his movement"." Does the quotation refer to Spartacus? Since the subject of the sentence begins with the subject "Spartacus and his followers", one expects "their", not "his".
• If possible, I would make the timing of events in relation to one another more explicit. Also, under "The war under Crassus (71 BC)": "Despite the contradictions in the ancient sources regarding the events of 71 BC..." Wasn't it 72 BC?
• Under "Aftermath (71-70 BC)": "As an object lesson..." Not sure what that means.

More generally:

• Ideally there would be fewer parenthetical expressions using dashes and parentheses.
• Use the possessive 's even after names which end in s.
• I think citations should follow after punctuation.

Great article: comprehensive, well-organized, well-referenced. In my opinion, structure and weight of the lead are also perfect. And the diverging accounts of history are well-handled. -- bcasterline • talk 16:32, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Some comments on referencing and footnote usage:

• Why do so many footnotes refer more than one source? It doesn't seem motivated considering that so many of them refer to single sentences. At times there's even more than one per sentence. This amounts to reference overkill in many places.
• Try to minimize the use of consecutive footnotes that refer to the exact same source. Using as much as 6 footnotes in one section or paragraph pointing the critical reader to the exact same source (supplemented by additional sources occasionally) serves no purpose. Notes 20-25 is the best example, but there are more.
• Why have primary sources written by Roman writers been so heavily preferred over the works by modern historians? I would consider the article better referenced if it reflected consensus among modern historians rather than making its own interpretations of classical works. We are, after all, not professional historians and should make no claim of being the best interpreters of ancient source material.

Peter ^Isotalo 10:59, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Footnotes reference more than one source when there are more than one supporting source. "Assertion X is stated by A, B, and C", or where different source support different parts of the sentence.

Sequential references to the same source reference different sections of the text. Given that most of these texts are entire histories, or biographies, different sections vary widely in content. Plutarch 10:1 is likely to make very different claims that 10:5. Not always, but often (I haven't checked that exact example - only an illustration).

Multiple references in one paragraph are assigned on One assertion = one reference. "A occurred, and at the same time B occurred followed by C" requires that there be some supporting evidence for A, B, and C. Especially if the sources used to support any one of the points is different. In the case of notes 20-25, I agree that notes 22 and 23 can be collapsed. However, compressing the others is misleading. Florus does support the assertion that the captured roman soldiers were made to fight to the death. He does not mention the killing of the pack animals, other prisoners, etc." Condensing footnotes 21 and 22 together would be misleading. Condensing multiple refernces to be added at the end of every few sentences would result in a mish-mash of different sources, different parts of the text being included in the referneces, and require the interested reader to "dig around" to find out who claimed what and where in the source material. As it stands, the reader can quickly locate who supported what assertion, and precisely where in the text they do so.

Primary sources are not used to create interpretation. Interpretation of events is left to secondary sources when not avoidable, but mostly left out entirely and the divergent claims in the primary sources given instead. This means there is no "spoon fed coles notes" narrative in the article, because this would require some interpretation by the editors of the article which as you point out, we're not qualified to do, or require the perspective of the article to favor a particular interpretation by using particular secondary soruces. Instead, statements in the article are constructed along the lines of "A is said to have happened, and B, but some historian Q writing at the time claims C happened instead of B". No interpretation of the "truth" is given, except when bridging points are required from secondary sources. In short, I agree we are not professional historians, nor are we qualified to judge which historian's interpretation is most likely "correct", so the divergent viewpoints are laid out and left to the reader to make up their own mind. Since the viewpoints and claims given are from/in the primary sources, they tend to be drawn upon most.

Vedexent 14:09, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

If you can't reference a single sentence with less than two or three sources then you to find better references or rewrite the sentence. Seriously. This is supposed to be a general, encyclopedic article and this kind off treatment makes it seem more like an academic paper. We might not be professionals in our field, but we should be doing at least a minimum of the research work for the readers. This seems to be aimed at satisfying a ridiculously small minority of skeptics (often editors) that most likely won't ever read a single one of those references.

An encyclopedic article on history should reflect the current consensus among historians. Primary sources, unless they are uncontroversial and undisputed among historians, should not be used because they don't reflect this academic consensus. Presenting primary sources this old to readers that are not historians is not doing them a favor since it suggests that we're ranking the ancient writers on the same credibility scale as modern historians, which is in itself a very skewed presentation of history writing.

Peter ^Isotalo 14:33, 12 September 2006 (UTC)