Wikipedia:Peer review/Pythagoras/archive1

Pythagoras

I have put considerable amount of effort into this article and it is one of my favorite articles that I have worked on during my time here so far at Wikipedia. I rewrote it back in fall of last year and it became a "Good Article" on 2 February of this year. I have decided to nominate it for peer review because I would like to hopefully bring it up to "Featured Article" status. I have already written twenty-one "Good Articles" and counting, including this one, but this will be my first "Featured Article" nomination. I have, however, already successfully nominated the article List of Mesopotamian deities for "Featured List" status and I imagine the procedures are probably very similar. --Katolophyromai (talk) 01:13, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Comments from Tim riley

This seems to me an impressive piece of work, and while I was reading it nothing of any great importance came to mind by way of improvement. You should decide which type of English the article is to be in and stick to it: at present there are BrE ("practised"), and AmE ("center", "neighboring") spellings.

I have only used American spellings in this article, so any British spellings must be leftover from before I came along. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:24, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

A few minor points:

• "Before 520 BC … Pythagoras might have met Thales of Miletus" – I'm struggling with the arithmetic of this. Thales (according to our article on him) died in c. 546BC, so the meeting must have been very considerably before 520BC.

Personally, I am highly skeptical that Pythagoras really met Thales at all and I am inclined to agree with Christoph Riedweg that the only one of these alleged teachers we can really associate with Pythagoras is Pherecydes of Syros. That line about him meeting Thales was in the article before I came along and I left it there because it is adequately cited and it offers a different perspective. Dates of when very early philosophers lived can often vary, although usually not be twenty years. It is worth noting, however, that the source cited for that statement is from 1968, which is before the publication of Walter Burkert's 1972 book Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism, which really marks the beginning of the serious, critical study of Pythagoras among modern scholars. That does not mean we cannot use it, because older sources do often contain valuable and noteworthy information, but it does mean we ought to be more cautious about what we use it for and how often. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:24, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

• I paused over the last sentence of the "Death" section: I don't see how an account of Pythagoras's death could conceivably have come from P. himself.

Sorry for the ambiguity there; that is supposed to say that Neanthes told the story about later Pythagoreans, not about Pythagoras. I never intended for it to sound as though Neanthes was claiming to have heard the story from Pythagoras, since that would be ridiculous. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:24, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

• In the "On Western esotericism" section I raised an eyebrow at the idea that Mozart (dedicated Freemason though he certainly was) had ever heard of Pythagoras, but I am quite prepared to be told I'm wrong.

I am not an expert on Mozart, but I am fairly certain Mozart would have at least heard of Pythagoras, for a number of reasons. Obviously, there is the fact that Mozart was a Mason and the Masons drew heavily on Pythagorean ideas, but there is also the fact that Mozart was a musician and, during Mozart's lifetime, Pythagoras was still widely (although probably wrongly) revered as the founder of music theory. Pythagoras is reasonably well-known today and he was even better known in earlier centuries when the classics was still seen as the foundation of a university education. For these reasons, I would be very surprised if he had never heard of him. In any case, even if Mozart had not heard of Pythagoras, he was undoubtedly indirectly influenced by Pythagoreanism through Masonry and many of the well-known Masonic symbols in The Magic Flute are of Pythagorean origin. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:24, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

• In the "In early Christianity" section, "metempsychosis" is italicised, though earlier it (correctly) hasn't been.

I have removed all instances in which metempsychosis was written in italics. I assumed that, because it is a foreign word that is not commonly used in English, it should be written in italics, but, if you say it should not be, then I will go along with that. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:24, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

• "Michel de Montaigne quoted the speech no less than three times in his treatise Of Cruelty to voice his moral objections against eating meat" – not in my copy of Montaigne's essays he didn't: there are two mentions of Pythagoras in "Of Cruelty". And Montaigne did not advocate vegetarianism: he was writing against cruel sports and inflicting pain on animals for the fun of it. In passing, as "Of Cruelty" is a chapter of Essays, I don't think it should be italicised.

I must admit that I have never read anything by Montaigne and I was entirely following the secondary source cited here. It seems I must have misinterpreted what the source was saying. I have attempted to correct the error. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:24, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

• Quotations: in general, I take the view that if a phrase is worth quoting, it is worth saying inline whom you're quoting. So, for instance, at by which point "the history of Pythagoreanism was already... the laborious reconstruction of something lost and gone". the reader may fairly ask whose these words are.

That is a quotation from the German classicist Walter Burkert, whose book Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism (1972) is widely regarded as the epoch-making work on Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism. I chose to quote this passage because it is such an succinct and accurate description of the highly unreliable nature of the sources on Pythagoras from the Roman Era. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:24, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

• Citations: when citing multiple references, make sure they appear in numerical order: see, for instance, "centuries before Pythagoras,[201][199][202][203]" and "this legend is demonstrably false,[209][118][207]". There may be other examples I have not spotted.

I was given similar advice during the GA review for Mary Magdalene, but I am not aware of any policy that says we are supposed to do this and I personally strongly disagree with it, because I have tried to arrange the citations in order of how relevant they are to the statement they are supporting. Some sources talk about specific subjects in much greater depth than others, so I have tried to list the sources that talk about the subject the most first and list the others in order of descending relevance. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:24, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

• A few phrases I think could with advantage be tweaked:
  • disagree regarding – "about"?

"Regarding" is more specific than "about," since "about" can have other meanings. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:24, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

• • pegged Pythagoras – a very odd verb in this context

It does not seem odd to me. It was using definition 2C in Merriam-Webster: "to place in a definite category : identify." This entry gives the example, "He was pegged as an intellectual." Nonetheless, because of your objection, I have switched out the word for "mocked," which is equally applicable here, since Heraclitus is clearly ridiculing Pythagoras. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:24, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

• • partially intended – "partly" intended? ("partially" is ambiguous)

I do not see how "partially" is in any way more ambiguous than "partly"; they mean exactly the same thing as far as I am concerned. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:24, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

• • situated in the eastern Aegean – does "situated" add anything here?

Probably not. I have now removed it. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:24, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

• • as one of Pythagoras's possible tutors – one of his?

The sentence before that one did not use to be there, so the name "Pythagoras" was necessary then, but now that the sentence before has been added, the name is probably no longer necessary because it is now clear who the statement is referring to. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:24, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

• • Porphyry affirms this assertion – agrees with?

They mean basically the same thing and I do not see how this new wording is any better than the original. Nonetheless, I have gone ahead and implemented your suggestion because I do not have any objections to the new wording and, if you think it is better for some reason, I will go along with that. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:24, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

• • a golden wreath atop his head – on it?

Once again, they mean the same thing and I do not see how the new wording is superior. I actually prefer the original wording because "atop" is less ambiguous than "on," since "on" can sometimes have a variety of meanings, but "atop" can only mean "on top of." --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:24, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

That's all from me. I hope it's of some use. – Tim riley talk 12:38, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

@Tim riley: Thank you very much for your feedback! I really appreciate it and have tried to implement your suggestions where I feel they are helpful. I have left replies to all your suggestions above. If you have any more comments to share or if you would like to respond to my replies above, please feel free to do so. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:24, 10 September 2018 (UTC)