Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Leo IV the Khazar

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

No consensus to promote at this time - AustralianRupert (talk) via MilHistBot (talk) 02:30, 7 May 2018 (UTC) « Return to A-Class review list[reply]

Leo IV the Khazar

Instructions for nominators and reviewers

Nominator(s): Iazyges (talk)

I am nominating this article for A-Class review because it has passed GA, and I believe it meets the criteria. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 15:45, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. The article as it stands has several shortcomings and should IMO not be a GA in the first place.

In terms of scope, it is a brief narrative overview of Leo's reign, and omits entirely both the wider context that he, the empire, and his contemporaries acted in and the important issues of the day, most notably Byzantine Iconoclasm. The article requires considerable expansion from someone well versed in the period and the relevant literature to be a stand-alone topic. One only needs to look at Leo IV's article at DIR, written by the Byzantinist Lynda Garland, to see what such an article could and should look like.
In terms of sources, the article makes use of generalist or outdated sources, and contains very little in terms of more specialist works dedicated to the period, namely only one (Byzantium and Bulgaria, 775-831). Fundamental reference works like the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium or the Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit are missing, as are essential works on the period such as Haldon's Byzantium in the Iconoclast era. c. 680–850, Rochow's Kaiser Konstantin V. (741–775) and Speck's Kaiser Konstantin VI, which one would expect to be included as main sources. It is also never a good sign when Finlay, who wrote in the mid-19th century, is cited as "Finlay, George (2017)", and Bury, who wrote at the turn of the 20th century, as "Bury, J. B. (2015).". It shows that the author has no real grasp of the scholarship.

I support and commend Iazyges's aim to bring Byzantine emperors' articles to GA, but the truth is that simply nominating them for reviews is not enough; the topic is so obscure that even the most well-intentioned GA reviewers simply won't know what they should be looking for, unless they have expertise on the subject. As I've noted elsewhere, most of these articles require considerable work before they can be labelled comprehensive or even complete, and the sources used in them are sub-par. Constantine ✍ 22:43, 12 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: Seems way too short for A-class status, especially given the topic. Totally agree with Constantine’s comments about this article after a bit of research. Some more issues here:

Link to the article on “theme” in order to make it easier for readers to understand.
No mention of his wife in the body until the last section.
Only one section, really need more information.
Link to the section of the Arab-Byzantine War for the Abbasid invasion section.

Randomness74 (talk) 23:26, 18 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Co-ord comment: @Iazyges: G'day, given the feedback above, I propose that this review be closed so that you can work on this outside the review process. Are you happy for me to close it now, or would you like to attempt to address the comments above first? Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 11:41, 5 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@AustralianRupert: Sounds good, I've been quite busy IRL, so I doubt I'd be able to fix all of it quickly. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 02:22, 7 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No worries, I have released the bot. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 02:29, 7 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.