Talk:Science and technology of the Song dynasty

GA Nominee

I can't wait to hear the responses for this article. I've put a lot of work into it, and I'd love to hear suggestions/criticism/approval.--PericlesofAthens 03:08, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Very informative article, well written, shows true understanding and enthusiasm on the subject. However, some work is needed to make it more easily approachable for a general reader. Some chapters are very long and clearly require reorganization to sub-chapters, like Polymaths and mechanical engineering and Nautics. Some blockquotes are in italics, while some are not. Extensive usage of "()" to provide notes is rather interrupting, consider putting those to sub-notes or merge them with the main text, for example as links. I have put the article's nomination on hold for you to react to the feedback. --Drieakko 07:38, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi Drieakko

As you've requested, I've organized those two sections into multiple sub-sections, made all block quotes normal font, not italic, and converted most of the text that was placed in parentheses into article prose instead.--PericlesofAthens 11:11, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

GA review

I did the GA review for the article. Findings:

1. Well written?: Very fluent English.

2. Factually accurate?: Nothing that would stick out as erroneous as far as I know.

3. Broad in coverage?: Could not think of anything to add. Covers the subject in detail, well referenced throughout.

4. Neutral point of view?: Yes.

5. Article stability? Loads of edits in the recent days, but seemingly not resulting from disputes of any kind.

6. Images?: Good images.

Passing GA. Added the article to Wikipedia:Good_articles. --Drieakko 11:56, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Awesome! I'm glad all that hard work meant something.--PericlesofAthens 12:51, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

a star is needed

Where is the (featured article) star??????????!?!??!! (pardon my use of punctuation, I just found it particularly amusing) Pandacomics 20:20, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for noticing!--PericlesofAthens 08:16, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Odometer

The picture of a modern odometer is an anachronism of the technology of the Song Dynasty. Even the caption, "A modern mechanical odometer of an automobile." proves so. They also did not have automobiles at the time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bdodo1992 (talk • contribs) 03:15, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

And your point is what? I think anyone viewing this article would be able to discern that the picture is of a modern odometer in an automobile, and that the automobile is a modern innovation.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 13:56, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Follow-Up Question: First, congratulations on a very good article. However, I have a question about the description of the odometer, and would appreciate some clarification here and in the body of the article. After reading the description in the article, the rotating device that you describe as an odometer was not actually recording the total distance traveled. From the article, it seems as though the device only makes a sound each time that a certain distance has been surpassed. My question is: how was the total distance recorded?

Compare this with the image of the odometer that you have inserted, which suggests that the device can measure and record distance traveled.

Thanks for the clarification. Amarco9 (talk) 14:43, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Correct, it only made a sound each time a certain distance was traveled; it was up to the observer to record in his log how many times the bells and bells rang out and he would manually have to calculate the total distance. Perhaps, in this case, the odometer picture should be removed, since we are not burdened today with recording each time our vehicles bang drums and ring bells. Lol.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 15:39, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Wow

What a superb article, it really is a fascinating read. Congratulations to all those who contributed to it and brought it to this fine standard. Keep up the good work. WilliamH (talk) 02:53, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm the creator and prime editor of this article, so I truly appreciate your comment.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 03:20, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

And to think some losers complained about computer articles making the front page, I bet they would approve of this article. Well attention to them, it's the exact thing thing, technology from a certain era. Well done on the great article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.251.229.70 (talk) 15:39, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Simplified or Traditional?

Is the Chinese text in this article in Simplified or Traditional? 1. It should be mentioned. 2. Both versions should be offered. -68.4.73.34 (talk) 08:08, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Given that there's almost always a 1 to 1 correlation, I don't see the problem … IIRC you can just convert the characters as needed with near 100% fidelity. John Riemann Soong (talk) 19:24, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

There's a total of 4 Chinese characters in the entire article; does this issue even merit discussion? It was the written radicals and other most commonly used characters in the writing system that were "simplified", but as John has noted, most characters in the Simplified and Traditional systems are the same.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 22:25, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

could we see a bit of source diversity

This article is definitely FA, but I could see some room for additions from other sources, given that much of the sources seem to be from a single Needham. John Riemann Soong (talk) 19:27, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I would love to include more sources, it's just that I don't own every book in the world, JSTOR only features so many scholarly journal articles related to pre-modern Chinese technology, and I've been working on a dozen other large wiki projects, such as improving the history articles of Society of the Song Dynasty, Augustus, Giovanni Villani, etc. Feel free to improve the article if you have access to sources, but I'm afraid that additional sources will come slow, since there are not many books on pre-modern Chinese technology.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:50, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Dating (eras) of this article

The MoS says that either BC/AD or BCE/CE may be used in an article. Since this article is about a non-Christian part of the world, it seems to me that BCE/CE notation would make the most sense. The Chinese use the term "Common Era (公元)" and I note that key articles about China, (e.g., China, Song Dynasty) use BCE. Comments? Sunray (talk) 20:55, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Changing to BCE/CE is perfectly acceptable. I have no objections; BC/AD was just the format I chose a long time ago when I created the article, and didn't think too much about it at the time.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 22:58, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Since only two people have commented in over eight days and both are in favour of the change, I shall proceed with it. Sunray (talk) 01:37, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Technology of the Song Dynasty

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Technology of the Song Dynasty's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "chase":

• From Cannon: Chase (2003). Firearms: A Global History to 1700. Cambridge University Press. p. 31–32. ISBN 0521822742.
• From Gunpowder: Chase 2003:31–32

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 19:39, 29 April 2009 (UTC)