Talk:Siege of Paris (845)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Cdtew (talk · contribs) 14:11, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I will be happy to review this. Please allow me some time to get through the article and make comments, as my work schedule can be quite hectic. Cdtew (talk) 14:11, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

As a starting note, I see that Ogg and Zupko aren't cited with linking citations in the text, but are instead found in the footnotes themselves. I'll share what was my favorite trick I've yet found out with citations -- you may want to use Template:Harvard citation no brackets to create linking citations within your footnote "|ps=" fields. I promise I'll have the rest of this review done today. Cdtew (talk) 19:02, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Comments:

• "The Vikings, taking advantage of the fighting among the heirs of Louis the Pious, first navigated the Seine as far as Rouen in 840. In 843, men from Vestfold in Norway (then a part of the Danish kingdom), appeared on the Seine for the first time." -- The first set of Vikings were presumably not from Vestfold, but it appears what you're trying to say is something like "Vikings (from X place) raided in 840, and Vikings from Vestfold raided in 843..." Just clarifying this sentence would help.

• You should also explain who Louis the Pious was, why his heirs were fighting, and what weaknesses this caused.

• "Although Viking raids often were part of a struggle among Scandinavian nobility for power and status, Viking raids could also be derived from larger political conflicts" - You have a redundancy here that should be fixed.
• "overlordship over the Obotrites", who were? (It's usually good form to not force people to click a wikilink for basic information about the content of your article. See WP:EASTEREGG)
• "squash a rebellion" - probably not the best choice of words. Quash or "put down" is better. Squash is almost a neologism.
• " including the resulting instability in the region, " - This doesn't seem like it's placed right, or maybe it's unclearly-phrased.
• "Ragnar had previously, possibly in 841," - find a way to put this in a parenthetical or say something like "In approximately 841..."
• "one for each side of the river" - Which river?
• "Ragnar attacked and defeated one of the divisions of the smaller Frankish army, and took 111 of their men as prisoners and hanged them on an island." - Is there any information in the sources about where these places are?
• "Before arriving in Paris, the Vikings also captured Rouen" - set this in a clearer timeline -- after the battle, a week before arriving at paris? etc.
• "and began plundering the city" - You should aim to use consistent past tense instead of present participle; it's probably best to say they "plundered"
• " During the siege, a plague broke out in their camp." - This stands alone, and without much explanation. What siege? Whose camp? etc.
• "The Vikings proved superior to the Franks," - This sentence, without context, goes agains WP:NPOV; do you mean they defeated the Franks in battle? Or outmaneuvered them in the siege?
• "by the hands of Charles" - Should probably be either "at the hands of..." or "by Charles..."
• "In any case, this would be the first of a total of thirteen payments of so-called Danegeld to Viking raiders" - By the Franks? Or by all the Western Kingdoms (including Mercia, Wessex, etc.)?
• "The same Viking fleet also sacked the same year Hamburg" - "Hamburg in the same year" or "Hamburg later/earlier that year".
• "elevated in 831 to an archbishopric by Pope Gregory IV" - probably be "which had been elevated to an archbishopric by Pope Gregory IV in 831", your choice though; it's not properly structured as a sentence as-is.
• "sent an envoy by Count Coddo" - This Count Coddo character should be explained a little more.
• "initiative to cover the Saxon territory" - another area where more context and explanation would be helpful
• In the infobox, you have the Viking leader as "Reginherus (Ragnar Lodbrok?)" - probably better to say "(possibly Ragnar Lodbrok)" or something of the sort.
• For Frankish strength, I think saying "less than the invaders" needs a cite, but it's also not a good way to state it. I prefer my infoboxes to be dry, so you may want to say "Unknown", and then explain that they were outnumbered in the article body.
• [File:Viking Siege of Paris.jpg] Doesn't have a complete Public Use rationale; if it's 19th century you probably need to just go in and fill out the pre-1923 rationale, or whatever applies to the country of origin.
• Your Mawer and Ogg sources need OCLC numbers, since they won't have ISBN's. Find them at [worldcat.org].

Overall, this is an interesting article with a lot of potential, if more sources could be dug up. Right now, what it needs for GA is a bit of polishing, contextualizing, and rephrasing in areas. I'll put this on hold for a week. Apologies for the down-time since I claimed the review. Had a crazy work and weekend schedule. I'll be happy to clarify any of my comments. Cdtew (talk) 23:03, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

That's ok. I'm starting to look through the issues now. Thhist (talk) 09:41, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

OK. I should have addressed all your comments now I believe. Since they largely were relatively easy fixes (consider a "Done" mark noted for every comment), I'll let you check my edits and the article again without any specific commentary on my part; at least until any further comments/issues. Thhist (talk) 14:31, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Follow-up Comments:

• Most of the things above were done, but there were a few comments that were missed. I went ahead and made some changes, so let me know if you think any of my changes were inappopriate.
• I still think this doesn't meet 3(a): Breadth, because there's not a great explanation of why the Vikings were raiding the Franks. You say "lthough Viking raids often were part of struggles among Scandinavian nobility for power and status, they could also be derived from large-scale political conflicts", but that's sort of an unlinked premise -- in other words, how would raiding the Franks help Scandinavian nobles get power and status, or how would the raids assist them in political conflicts? Just a little more explanation would fit nicely in this article.
• Links appear to be good.
• No Dab/Duplinks

Just see if you can address these final comments within the time remaining on hold, and I think it'd be good to go. Cdtew (talk) 14:24, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree that part of the original Background contained a rather unnecessary digression, and I have rewritten the section to stay more focused: I've noted that the Viking raids alternated between both sides of the English Channel, which should indicate that geography was more important than any specific reasons for raiding the Franks in particular (the English were attacked just as much). If you have general concerns about the breadth of the article, I should probably note that the siege of Paris of 845 is a very poorly documented event (and not particularly significant either); the Siege of Paris (885–86) was a much more important and historically significant event, of which it obviously is possible to write a longer article (I've done some work on it myself). (There were also Viking sieges of Paris in 856 and 861, but these even less significant events only have articles on the French Wikipedia as of yet.) Thhist (talk) 22:53, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

I have just added some lines on reasons Charles had for paying the ransom as well. Thhist (talk) 11:25, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

The changes look good, and I think this is good to go! Watch out about that new map, though -- if you take this further, it borders on OR, so you may want to source the image details themselves to a source. I don't think that's necessary today, however. Good work! Cdtew (talk) 13:26, 16 May 2013 (UTC)