Wikipedia:WikiProject History of Greece/Peer review/Cretan War

Cretan War

I want to see what improvements I can make to this article to make it better. Kyriakos 02:45, 8 October 2006 (UTC

Yannismarou

Very nice indeed. This is an A-Class artile for me and has the potential for FA. My main concern has to do with the prose. Not that it is bad. No! But for FA the prose must be "brilliant" and "compelling". I'm not sure that it is there yet. And in FAC there are some evaluators who will jump on you for even minor prose deficiencies (let's not tell names!). Let' give you an example. I'll start with the prose - first sentence:

"The Cretan War (205 BC–200 BC) was fought between Macedon under Philip V, Sparta under Nabis, the Aetolian League under Dicaearchus, and some Cretan cities (of which Olous and Hierapytna were the foremost) against the forces of Rhodes under Theophiliscus, Cleonaeus and later on Pergamum under Attalus I, Byzantium, Knossos, Athens and Cyzicus."

I count in one sentence five "under" and a meddling of cities, names, persons etc. And all these in such a short space! I cannot breathe! By the way, such a looong sentence for the beginning of your lead is not the best thing to do. Let's continue:

"The war was fought primarily in naval encounters around the coast of Asia Minor, in the Aegean Islands and in Crete. There were a few battles on land in Asia Minor, Attica and Crete. The war was caused by Philip of Macedon having Spartan and Aetolian pirates raid Rhodian ships. He also made a treaty with some Cretan cities. The Rhodians then declared war on Macedon and Crete.[1] The war was going in Philip's favour until Rhodes' allies Cyzicus, Byzantium and Pergamum declared war on Philip. The Macedonian fleet was defeated by the allied fleet at Chios but Philip later defeated the Rhodians at Lade. Philip swept through Asia Minor where he plundered and captured many cities in Caria. Philip attacked Athens which was convinced by Attalus to declared war against Macedon. Rome declared war on PhiIlip so Philip abandoned his Rhodian campaign which left Rhodes with their new Cretan ally Knossos to defeat their main Cretan enemies, Olous and Hierapytna and force them to sign a treaty favourable to them."

Now, in this paragraph (which, by the way, you can split), I count three times "The war was..." and also: "Philip swept ...", "Philip abandoned ...", "Philip later defeated ...", "Philip attacked...". Already dizzy! You get my point? Repetitions of the same forms of expressions. No variety. Not the best article flow. And especially in the lead which is the "mirror" of the article this is a bad thing.
Later the prose gets better, the flow is nicer, but my opinion is to ask by an outsider to slightly copy-edit the article before you go for FAC. I would do it, but I'm not a native English speaker and, as a result, I'm not the best copy-editor around. I also think it would be nice to take a look at User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a. This could give you some ideas about how to get improved in prose.
Now, some further remarks:

• In the lead again, Philip V links me to a disambiguation page. Fix that. I want to go straight to the link you want me to send me. I'm a lazy reader!
• "Prelude" could be just a bit expanded to explain the whole framework. By the way, when you mention a thing for the first time explain it for the ignorant reader. For istance, Treaty of Phoenice. What is that? You say later that "Under the conditions of the Treaty of Phoenice, Philip wasn't allowed to expand his territory westward into Illyria or the Adriatic Sea." But right now I don't have a clue. Give us straight away some idea of this thing (a few words, half sentence could be enough). The same things with Seleucid Empire and Ptolemaic Egypt. Tell us what are these things? Almost all those who will evaluate your article in FAC don't have a clue about this historical period. If you don't explain such things, they will be puzzled and confused.
• I'm not sure with this long quote of Polybius. I think it would be better for the article flow to incorporate it in the flow. By the way, according to Wikipedia recommendations, we do not "quote", but we just "quote". Hence quotation marks are recommended for quotations but not the italics.
• I read in a caption "Coin of Philip V. The Greek inscription reads ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΦΙΛΙΠΠΟΥ (coin of King Philip)." I'm not sure why you say twice "coin of Philip".
• "See also" section goes before "References". But do we need it? I suggest that you link as many as possible of these links within the main prose and get rid of this section. "See also" sections are no more in fashion!
• Alphabetize categories at the end of the article.
• Fix your external links. What is that and why are you sending us there. Include title. But is this necessary? You send us to the main page of Perseus. Why? What's the purpose of that? You already link us to Perseus in the Notes wherever appropriate. So, why is this necessary again in the external links? For me, it is not.
• I'm a "source and referencing-freak". I admit my sins! You have two primary sources and three secondary. This is not bad. For FAC it should be Ok, but, believe me, a wider variety of sources is highly esteemed. Some googling or some googlebooking could possibly provide you "treasures" you would not have imagined.

That's all! My remarks where lenghty, but, I repeat, this does not mean that the article is not good. As a matter of fact, it is very good, but my personal opinion is that it needs a slight copy-editing and these minor tweaks I mentioned. I hope I'll soon see it in FAC!--Yannismarou 10:34, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot Yanni, I'll work on it. Kyriakos 21:53, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

How is it looking now? Kyriakos 20:56, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I did some copy-editing in the lead. Does it look better? I still don't like the first paragraph. But I was more occupied with the next two pars. I may come back. I repeat that I'm not the best copy-editor but I tried to make the prose flow a bit nicer. If you find any syntactical mistakes, correct me. Some furher tweaks:

• In the lead you say "Philip rejected the Roman proposal", without telling what was this proposal.
• "With the treaty concluded, Philip's army then attacked Ptolemy's territories in Thrace. Then the Macedonian fleet ..." Two then in a row. Not nice. These are prose things that worry me! The prose must get even better!
• Oh! And something important I must have missed the first time. In the printed sources in "Notes" you must always mention pages. You don't do it now. This must be fixed, because it is demanded by FAC.

Apart from these things, the article is obviously imrpoving. Nonetheless, I cannot say with absolute confidence that it is ready for FAC.--Yannismarou 08:29, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I saw Uber Cryxic started copy-editing the article. This is very nice!--Yannismarou 18:47, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Ye. I put a request for copy editting on WPMILHIST and Uber Cryxic volunteered. And congratulations for Demosthenes

What do you think about the new type of notes? Do you think the old way of the new way looks better? Kyriakos 21:54, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

The new is more concise. I think they are Ok. But you still need to add pages in two of your sources!--Yannismarou 10:27, 30 October 2006 (UTC)