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Wikipedia:Featured article review/Penda of Mercia/archive1

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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 kept by YellowAssessmentMonkey 07:14, 22 September 2009 [1].

Penda of Mercia

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Notified: User talk:Everyking, User talk:Urselius, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Middle Ages, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject England.

FA from 2005, a few 1c issues, the WP:LEAD is a bit short and could be expanded upon, and the article could use a once-over for copyediting and flow. Overall, should not be too hard to address. Image File:Britain peoples circa 600.svg checks out okay, but File:Penda of Mercia.jpg could be standardized using commons:Template:Information. Cirt (talk) 18:31, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Examples of 1c problem spots include [2]. Examples of 1a problematic points include languages such as "Thus it may be that...", and overusage of "may...", "may have been...", etc., in a vague ambiguous method such that at times it appears that the Wikipedia editor rather than a secondary source is drawing their own WP:OR conclusions. Cirt (talk) 19:02, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It is hard to tell if the "may's" are editorial or sourced without looking at the source, of course, but considering this is 7th-century history, I would expect there to be a lot of ambivalent language in the article. We can look all of these statements up, but I'm not sure this is an example of poor prose. See Æthelbald of Mercia and other related articles - they use similar language of "may", "appear", etc. Perhaps we should sort out which statements you feel are questionable? Awadewit (talk) 19:12, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Pretty much most of the statements that use such language, especially those that use the phrase "Thus it may..." are problematic. Cirt (talk) 19:13, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It is not really clear to me why you are doubting these statements but not others. Basically because the statement is presented as a "perhaps" statement, you are doubting it, but you are accepting all of the other statements in the article as being accurately copied from the source. Why do you not believe that these statements have been accurately copied from the sources, like, apparently, you accept all of the other statements in the article? I find this quite puzzling. Awadewit (talk) 19:23, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you examine the specific statements you will see that the wording is such that it appears the Wikipedia editor is drawing inferences and making their own conclusions from the sources, or even worse yet, their own conclusions by themselves. It would be best to fix the wording and ambiguity, and have inline cites, especially for these problem spots. Cirt (talk) 19:26, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I looked at each instance of "may" in the article and they easily looked to me like something a source could have said. We can't know for sure unless we look at the source (which raises the question of why you doubt these statements more than others) and we certainly can't fix the wording without looking all of this up. Let's look at some examples:
  • Many of these twelve sons of Pybba may in fact merely represent later attempts to claim descent from him.
  • Given the apparent problems with the dates given by the Chronicleand the Historia, Bede's account of the length of Penda's reign is generally considered the most plausible by historians. Nicholas Brooksnoted that, since these three accounts of the length of Penda's reign come from three different sources, and none of them are Mercian (they are West Saxon, Northumbrian, and Welsh), they may merely reflect the times at which their respective peoples first had military involvement with Penda.
  • The time at which the battle occurred is uncertain; it may have been as early as 635, but there is also evidence to suggest it could not have been before 640 or 641.
  • Presuming that this battle took place before the Battle of Maserfield, it may have been that such an expression of Penda's ambition and emerging power made Oswald feel that Penda had to be defeated in order for Northumbrian dominance of southern England to be secured or consolidated.
  • The question of what sort of relationship of power existed between the brothers prior to the battle is a matter of speculation. Eowa may have simply been a sub-king under Penda and it is also possible that Penda and Eowa ruled jointly during the 630s and early 640s: joint kingships were not uncommon among Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of the period. They may have ruled the southern and northern Mercians respectively.
These are the first five examples of "may" in the article - note how we have words like "most plausible", "uncertain", "presuming", and "speculation" along with the "may". That hints to me, at any rate, that the "may" is justified. If you want, you can check all of these statements, because they all have inline cites as well, but I'm not convinced that the editor is drawing independent conclusions here - there is nothing at this time that makes me think we need to go through the extensive trouble of checking all of these statements against the sources. Awadewit (talk) 19:36, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The more problematic points are the uses of "thus...", "may...", etc., where there is a lack of an inline cite. Cirt (talk) 19:38, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That is a citation issue, not a prose issue. You raised the issue of 1a and pointed to these "may" sentences - I am responding to that. "May" sentences are sometimes necessary, when there is uncertainty reflected in the historical record, as we can see above. Awadewit (talk) 19:40, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, you were the one to first raise the issue of 1a on this page. I initially raised the issue of 1c. Cirt (talk) 19:44, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In your nominating statement, you said "and the article could use a once-over for copyediting and flow". I asked you to specify the 1a issues (as I assumed that is what you meant) and then you responded with "Examples of 1a problematic points include languages such as "Thus it may be that...", and overusage of "may...", "may have been...", etc.". Let's not be disingenuous here - if you didn't think 1a was a problem, you would have said "oh, you misunderstand me - I'm not saying 1a is a problem". Instead, you started listing problems. Awadewit (talk) 19:50, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I was not being disingenuous. My primary concern with the article is 1c. But I do not think it is unreasonable to recommend copyediting during a FAR. Cirt (talk) 19:54, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'll be glad to work on fixing any problems here. My Wiki time is a bit limited right now, but I should be able to get somewhere. I'll add a note about one tag below, and post more as I dig into the others. Incidentally, I agree with Awadewit that covering this period of history practically requires the use of "may", and it is not in itself an alarm bell. Opinions can sometimes be usefully attributing to specific historians, but it shouldn't appear that only one historian's viewpoint is being presented when the statement has wide acceptance. Perhaps some specific examples from Cirt would be useful?
    • For one of the fact tags it appears that a relevant footnote was present in the original edit, here. The book in question, Bassett's The Origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms, is very hard to come by; if anyone has access to a University copy and can look this up I'd appreciate it. It's not completely clear that it covers this, and the reference doesn't give a page, but it does cite Brooks' essay so it should not be hard to find the relevant part of the source.
    • The first tag, on "Oswald’s moves toward alliance with the West Saxons, who occupied territory to the south of the Mercians, could be seen as an attempt to counter Mercian power", had no citation when added. It's a reasonable comment, but should be sourced. I checked Kirby and Yorke, who are pretty thorough on this sort of thing, but didn't find anything. Given that Everyking was using Bassett, we should check that too for support.
-- Mike Christie (talk) 20:29, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'll attempt to look through my stuff also, but won't be able to get to this until at least tomorrow. If folks could definitively place fact tags on everything that they feel needs cites, that would help a bunch. Ealdgyth - Talk 21:06, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have also checked Zaluckyj, Stenton, Campbell's The Anglo-Saxons, the Blackwell encyclopedia, and I also looked at Walker's Mercia, forgetting that it doesn't really cover this period. I also checked Brown & Farr's Mercia; the only relevant-looking article is the one by Yorke, and there was nothing there. Mike Christie (talk) 21:11, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My library has the Bassett, so I can look up material in that book. Perhaps we could amass a list of items? Awadewit (talk) 21:15, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If anything else comes up that we need to check, then yes, but I have a decent library on this period and the Bassett is one of the few things that I'm missing. (Cheapest copy online: $146 dollars for an ex-lib. Bleah.) One other that might come in handy that I don't have is Higham's Convert Kings, but I think Ealdgyth has it. Penda was never converted, though, so Higham may not have much to say about him. (Nice to bump into you again, Awadewit and Ealdgyth; I've been offline so long I feel half a stranger!) Mike Christie (talk) 21:24, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
For some reason I didn't notice all the tags; I will check on the other ones this evening. The one about Oswald's sainthood, at least, is going to be easy to reference. Mike Christie (talk) 11:26, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
For the first point, I suggest we go back to original, sourced edit. That is clearly reflected in the source. I can't quite see the current information in the article in the source (however, that may be because I am unfamiliar with all of this material!). I have checked out the book, though, and can send a PDF of the "Penda" pages to whomever might request them. Awadewit (talk) 19:13, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
For the second point, this seems like a clear implication of the essay, but I would rather someone else read it over to make sure. Awadewit (talk) 19:18, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't feel all that strongly about this, because I long ago chose to abandon the FA process, but I will say that I don't understand why someone would object to language that is simply designed to convey the uncertainties surrounding so many of the historical details here. We can't state things as fact when they are nothing more than the informed speculation of various historians. Everyking (talk) 21:42, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect when we dig into the sources, we'll find that the "mays" and such-like are required, because the historians themselves aren't sure. Ealdgyth - Talk 00:57, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That is what you will find. Very little about this time and place can be considered certain. If someone has access to the sources I used, I think it would be a better use of time to use them as sources for the expansion of other articles. Everyking (talk) 01:34, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The period in question is not well covered by primary sources, it is not as amenable as, for example, the English Civil War to absolute statements of fact or chronology. Having an encyclopedia article reflect this paucity of sources and consequent levels of uncertainty is not a failing, it is a necessity. As in the case of particle physics an article can only reflect what concensus exists within the relevant scholarship, and highlight areas of doubt.Urselius (talk) 09:06, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have spot-checked a few references and they all conform with the sources. The sources are uncertain, therefore the language in our article should reflect that uncertainty. I see no reason to pursue this particular point further. Awadewit (talk) 19:07, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm currently sourcing what fact tags I can get out of my own works. There are a few spots we're going to need to acquire some of the specific works, especially Brooks' book/article on Mercia, as I don't have that. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:17, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have the PDF and can email it to you. Awadewit (talk) 19:19, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Please do! Ealdgyth - Talk 19:20, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
there are four spots that I cannot source from my library. They still have citation needed tags on them. someone else will probably need to standardize the references, and if you need more information on the specifics of the books I used, drop me a note. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:20, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've added a ref to one, but unfortunately my edition of Kirby has different pagination, so I had to cite to the section and chapter. The remaining three tags are the ones I already checked against my sources; I'll take a look at the Brooks when I get a copy. Mike Christie (talk) 00:16, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Most likely, if something has a citation needed tag, it was already cited but someone misinterpreted it or altered it in some way. (This is sadly common: if I write "The sky is blue. The grass is green" both covered by the same source, someone too lazy to check the references might get confused and add a cite needed tag after "blue".) I am pretty confident that everything in the article was cited when it went through FAC, so I'd recommend looking at the earlier versions for that. Everyking (talk) 19:23, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I sent a copy of the Brooks article to Mike Christie and Ealdgyth today. Awadewit (talk) 23:46, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Received; thank you. I will read through and see if there's anything there that might address the remaining tags. Mike Christie (talk) 01:30, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I see three cite needed tags currently in the article. I checked the old versions and see that they were not cited then, either; however, all three of them are end-of-paragraph summaries of preceding, cited speculation. There's nothing new in any of them. However, I can't really determine the best way to cite them now because I no longer have access to many of the sources I used to write this article. Everyking (talk) 19:23, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I was able to source one of these from the Brooks article in Bassett (thanks to Awadewit for sending me that). The other two I've now cut, as I can find no source; the one about the southern part of Mercia seems as though it may have been an over-reading of what Kirby says -- I reread that section of Kirby a couple of times and he doesn't say quite what he'd need to to source that sentence. I started a section on the article talk page in case someone with an interest in the article is able to source the statements at a later date. Mike Christie (talk) 00:31, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's all fine with me. Everyking (talk) 01:16, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Is there anything left to be done? Great job by Awadewit, Ealdgyth, Mike Chrisie and Everyking to bring this up to standard. I think this can be kept without going to the FARC stage. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:24, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Inconsistency in pages in citations ... some use page, others use p. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:12, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed that a while ago. Dabomb87 (talk) 00:34, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What's left to be fixed, if anything? Dabomb87 (talk) 00:34, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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