Wikipedia:Featured article review/Inaugural games of the Flavian Amphitheatre/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was delisted by Nikkimaria via FACBot (talk) 4:32, 26 February 2022 (UTC) [1].

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Inaugural games of the Flavian Amphitheatre

Notified: User talk:Yomangani; WT:CGR; WT:ROME; WT:HIST; WT:SPORTS; WT:HOLIDAY; WT:FESTIVALS, talk page notification2021-12-31

Review section

This article (2007 promotion) is predominantly sourced to ancient writers who, as the article explains, are considered to be of questionable reliability; modern scholarship is cited only sparingly. That's a problem for several reasons: it means that the article lacks the high-quality sourcing required by the criteria, but it also opens up the article to original research and synthesis issues. For instance, statements like "[Dio's claim] conflicts with the work of Eutropius" can't just be cited to Dio and Eutropius: secondary sources are needed to draw that sort of contrast. There seem to be further issues, for instance with reference formatting, but the sourcing (which has already resulted in the placement of an orange cleanup banner) is the primary problem. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 06:55, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

• Delist. Has to be rewritten. T8612 (talk) 08:07, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

No examples of modern scholarship that should be used are given, either here or on the talk page notification. The talk page notice is only three weeks old, and the cleanup banner was placed the next day by an IP. T8612, please see the FAR instructions; delist or keep are not declared in the FAR phase; FAR is not for automatic delisting. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:22, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

• I don't have either of these, but from a quick search I'd be looking at The Oxford Handbook of Sport and Spectacle in the Roman World (with chapters on "The Colosseum" and "Theatres of Cruelty: Games of the Flavian Emperors" looking like plausible starting points) and Blackwell's A Companion to the Flavian Age of Ancient Rome ("Flavian Spectacle: Paradox and Wonder" looks promising). Also possibly A Monument to Dynasty and Death: The Story of Rome's Colosseum and the Emperors Who Built It by Nathan T. Elkins would be worth looking at – it is apparently written for a general audience but is recent (2019!), gets a decent write-up in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review, and looks as though at least it has a decent chunk of notes/further reading to mine. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 10:24, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks; that is the kind of information that should be provided in talk page notifications of pending FAR, else we are perceived as, or become, an automatic delisting page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:27, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

  Ideally it would be, yes. I only came across this as a result of this FAR, however! (On further reflection, I'm also struck by how the article uncritically treats De Spectaculis as a description of the inaugural games when Coleman's 2006 edition/commentary, which is cited, begins its introduction "all that one can say with moderate certainty about this book of epigrams is that it comprises an untitled collection of uncertain length celebrating a series of unspecified occasions in honour of 'Caesar' (unnamed); and it is attributed to Martial". Given there's a whole subsection on sources, this is the kind of thing which should maybe be discussed!) Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 10:33, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks again for providing direction for article improvement. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:42, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

• Delist (I've never been one for too much procedure) - This is based way too much on ancient sources (whole sections of it), which are of questionably reliability (WP:V), as explained above, and whose interpretation by Wikipedian editors opens up all sorts of WP:NOR and WP:NPOV issues. It is clear that an article which seemingly fails, in large parts of its content, all three core content policies, cannot be a "featured article". RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:23, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

  RandomCanadian please see the FAR instructions; Keep or delist are not declared in the FAR phase, which is for listing items for improvement (and hoping they will happen). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:40, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

FARC section

Issues raised in the review section include sourcing and neutrality. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:15, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

• Delist. Tagged as lacking reliable references. DrKay (talk) 17:23, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
• Delist issues raised above have not been addressed (t · c) buidhe 08:56, 14 February 2022 (UTC)
• Delist - I've removed the unreliable sources tag as overkill tag-bombing, but agree that we need secondary sources in places here, noting the concern in the FAR section that at least one modern source is questioning that an ancient source that is frequently used here may not actually be referring to this topic. There's also a number of spots where it's stated that ancient sources disagree, where it would be best to also include modern views on which one is more likely accurate. Hog Farm _Talk 14:43, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
• Closing note: This removal candidate has been delisted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please leave the {{featured article review}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:32, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.