This is an archive of past discussions with User:Ifly6. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Hello! I just read Gaius Marius, which I see you've done a lot of work on and nominated for GA in 2019, and I really enjoyed it. It seems to be of GA quality to me, have you ever thought about renominating it? --Cerebellum (talk) 19:20, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
Hmm I think there's a way to nominate articles jointly, do you want me to nominate it with you as co-nominator? No worries if you're not interested. Cerebellum (talk) 20:49, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
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Hi. I avoided this before because I didn't want to get into a major dispute, but someone's complaining about the language and content of this article being biased. I don't necessarily agree, but the previous version of the article was mostly written by me, a major overhaul from the previous version, and I thought my prose was pretty good and provided a solid discussion of the topic. I wasn't thrilled to see it all being thrown out and replaced without discussion, but as I said I wasn't in the mood to spend days arguing over it. I'm sure your sources are more up-to-date, although I don't think they're going to have provided a new and novel view of the topic. From what the critical writer is complaining about, I'm guessing that your source views Sulla in a positive light and Caesar in a negative one, which is probably the opposite of the view that the scholarship I based the previous article on. But that can certainly be addressed without simply substituting one view for the other. Would you be interested in going back to the previous version, then merging your sources' newer/differing views in with it? Something less than a wholesale rewrite, but providing as much of the scholarship you based your rewrite on as seems tenable? I hate to ask it of you, but as I said, I did think my version was some of my best work on Wikipedia, and I hate to see it just obliterated. P Aculeius (talk) 12:48, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
Sure! I never intended to step on your toes in such a way, if that's how you saw it. If there are any portions you'd like me to focus on incorporating, please tell. Ifly6 (talk) 19:18, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
As to the question of Sulla. I don't have access to the same version of the OCD you used. I think this is best implied by the indexing: where mine puts Sulla under "Cornelius, Sulla..." yours seems to use "Sulla" alone. There is a similar thing with "Caesar"; my edition puts Caesar under "Iulius, Caesar, C". I'm using the 2012 4th edition. The corresponding article is by Ernst Badian, which notes explicitly that Sulla was not attempting to establish a permanent tyranny. He makes no direct connection between the dictatorship and weakening of the republic, focusing more on the impact that marching on Rome (twice!) had. (On this topic, I think I agree with this at an intuitive level; attributing importance to an archaic political institution is probably overstating its impact relative to Pompey's memorable – dubiously factual – quote of quoting laws to men with swords.)
I also re-read the original portions on the late republican dictatorship. There seems to be an equivalency drawn between Caesar and Sulla's dictatorships; there is, I feel, a meaningful difference between Caesar's permanent dictatorship and Sulla's law-giver dictatorship. Scholars believe that the latter was done to re-establish the republic. Cf Flower and my rewrite for Sulla's constitutional reforms. Caesar's, however, was unrepublican in terms that it practically replaced "the republic". I think focusing on that distinction is didactic in contextualising Sulla's republican ambitions to Caesar's military and administrative ones. (Whether Caesar would have turned out to be a good republican who restored ordinary government is speculative at best; Flower just writes "at no point did Caesar even try to restore republican politics, although he apparently paid lip service to it in... the early 40s" and that "he apparently questioned the whole meaning of res publica". Flower, Roman Republics (2010) p 163. The entry for the big Caesar in the 2012 OCD also says "he had no plans for basic social and constitutional reform".) Ifly6 (talk) 21:26, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
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In your rewrite of nobiles, you've added a couple of citations to Flower 2010, but there's no full citation to go with it – is this Harriet Flower's Roman Republics? Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 22:26, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
Oof, that's a serious omission on my part! It is Flower's Roman republics; I've added it to the source list already. Thanks for informing me. Ifly6 (talk) 02:06, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
Hi, I'm IAmChaos, wanted to drop in and let you know I just made an edit to your userpage, clearing an error that was thrown. Wanted to let you know so you don't think I'm just wandering around messing things up your stuff. Happy Editing--IAmChaos06:53, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
AfD votes
Hi, in deletion discussions you have to write in bold either Delete or Keep, not Support or Oppose, as the latter options don't make it obviously clear what you're supporting or opposing. Avilich (talk) 16:31, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
I think merging is rarely justified unless the article has existed in its current version for a long time and has good sources. If you're going to write a separate article from scratch then you won't be 'merging' anything, and if the sourcing is poor as you admit and I agree, then this is a further reason for deleting. A 'merge' simply means that the attribution to the original editor gets preserved, but this is unnecessary here since Aculeius, who added the content a mere two days ago, can just copy and paste his own content elsewhere. The article was effectively unsourced before that, so if you want to strictly 'merge', ie. recycle other users' content, you would make your article worse. Avilich (talk) 00:28, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
Fixed. (Note for self.) Something ought to be done with those pages (the disambiguation, the "First" page, and the "Second" page). Many scholars believe the "First" Catilinarian conspiracy was a fiction and did not happen. That page should be updated to reflect those doubts rather than just regurgitating the primary sources uncritically. Ifly6 (talk) 13:38, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
Why? About half of the versions of the "First" Catilinarian conspiracy don't include mention of Catiline. Ifly6 (talk) 22:11, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
Because it didn't happen... it's likely confusion/exaggeration from ancient sources and could/should be dealt with in only one article. T8612(talk)22:47, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
I agree that it didn't happen. Why then would we put it next to the "Second" Cat conspiracy, which did? Ifly6 (talk) 00:22, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
Hi, if by any chance you have time on your hands and feel brave enough, there is a need to rewrite this article: Battle of the Allia. Right now, it's just a paraphrase of Livy. It should also be renamed Sack of Rome (387 BC), or split (Battle/Sack). Nothing urgent though. T8612(talk)12:37, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
@T8612: Thanks for the pointer. I've been a bit more busy with work etc as of late. I also would like to complete the Catiline rewrites before starting on something like that; do you have any feedback on those three articles? (I know they've gotten longer and longer as the project keeps expanding to cover more things Catilinarian. Mission creep at its finest.) Ifly6 (talk) 23:23, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
Rewrites for Catiline the laddo, the "First" conspiracy, and now "the" Catiliarian conspiracy. (All linked on my User page.) Ifly6 (talk) 00:17, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
@T8612: Well, I've moved them to the main namespace now. I'm not very familiar with the early republic – I've avoided it mostly because it's so sparse – do you have any recommendations on sources for the Allia? Ifly6 (talk) 19:19, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
Since almost everything on the subject comes from Livy, the Commentary on Livy by RM Ogilvie, and especially Stephen Oakley. It's frustrating that Ogilvie's commentary is so short, but Oakley's books are monument of scholarship.
For the history of the events, Tim Cornell's Beginnings of Rome and also good stuff in Fragments of the Roman Historians. Gary Forsythe's Critical History of Early Rome. Big books though, but stimulating reads. T8612(talk)08:41, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
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I can't think of much to add. What is already there covers most what I would have thought of to put in and more. I would reorder the proscriptions to be before the lex Valeria though. Reading the OCD entry again, it mentions Sulla's campaign in Cilicia but I don't think it is at all well documented so omission is of rather little importance.
As to "Sulla's march on Rome" (the capitalisation I would take; though I am not sure about the title), we used to have an article at Sulla's first civil war (of minimal value now) but would provide a meaningful page history. That page should be moved to "Sulla's march on Rome" and un-redirected to remake an article.
If you include Plutarch's Vit, perhaps include App BCiv? Though I guess that might be a bit outside of scope for Sulla qua Sulla. Just an alternative to think about. Ifly6 (talk) 23:54, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
And just to add. I think it's sufficiently developed that you can move it into the main space without trouble. Ifly6 (talk) 23:55, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
I think the old article about Sulla's 1st civil war was really not good (not a single ref to modern sources). It's better to make a clean start.
I'm not an extremist regarding capitalisation (I'm not for Consul, Tribune of the Plebs, etc. as I've seen in some places), but I would still capitalise unique events like this. T8612(talk)07:34, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
As to replacement, I agree; I would just rather preserve the page history of the relevant topic rather than start tabula rasa. On capitalisation, I think everything should be in lower case unless it really has to be in upper case (perhaps a standard beyond that in WP:CAPS; it also leads to my agreeing with the Economist style guide on first world war). The quibbles aside, I'm going to take a look out for Keaveney's Sulla some time this week. Ifly6 (talk) 12:30, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
Not sure inline citations such as "Waters 1970 argues" would pass. You need to change them to something like "In 1970 Waters argued[1]". T8612(talk)09:20, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
Just about any substantial article which predominantly cites secondary sources and doesn't have any noticeable mistakes or omissions has a good chance at GA. I spotted nothing obvious, and I would just be bold and try GA out. Minor issues like the above can be pointed out and fixed on the GA discussion itself. Avilich (talk) 21:56, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Catilinarian conspiracy you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Iazyges -- Iazyges (talk) 02:21, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
The article Catilinarian conspiracy you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Catilinarian conspiracy for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already appeared on the main page as a "Did you know" item, or as a bold link under "In the News" or in the "On This Day" prose section, you can nominate it within the next seven days to appear in DYK. Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On This Day" column do not affect DYK eligibility. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Iazyges -- Iazyges (talk) 00:03, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Overthrow of the Roman monarchy you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Iazyges -- Iazyges (talk) 06:01, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
The article Overthrow of the Roman monarchy you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Overthrow of the Roman monarchy for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already appeared on the main page as a "Did you know" item, or as a bold link under "In the News" or in the "On This Day" prose section, you can nominate it within the next seven days to appear in DYK. Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On This Day" column do not affect DYK eligibility. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Iazyges -- Iazyges (talk) 03:42, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
Feedback request: History and geography request for comment
Ah good, I'd made my little edit, I was just worried in case anything else intervening had been inadvertently lost. Will await with interest! NebY (talk) 21:38, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
Feedback request: History and geography request for comment
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In response to your comment on my Talk page, I had a look at this article, & there is one sentence that puzzles me. The last sentence reads: "In notes, Broughton further explains that the textual tradition is unclear: this Atilius may in fact be an Aemilius and others have suggested Serranus as cognomen rather than Rutilius." Was "Rutilius" a typo for Regulus, or is there one or more authorities who believe his cognomen might be Rutilius? -- llywrch (talk) 19:38, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
It's a typo for Regulus. I confirmed at MRR 1.263 that Broughton says M. Atilius (Regulus)3 and that he notes alternative cognomen Serranus as suggested by Willems for note 3 on page 267. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Ifly6 (talk) 19:51, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
I found the issue. Around the time I was writing that, I was also writing a world-building portion for a D&D campaign my friend is DM'ing where one of the NPCs is one Publius Rutilius who is so honest that he's getting framed for corruption. Ifly6 (talk) 20:05, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
Varronian chronology
@Llywrch and T8612: Hello there. I remembered looking through some of my notes today that you all had been in a discussion sometime previously about creating an article on the Varronian chronology. Did that ever end up going anywhere? Ifly6 (talk) 10:09, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
@Llywrch: I took a look through the WP:CGR talk archives and saw that you had a draft of such an article in your sandbox. Are you still working on it? Ifly6 (talk) 11:55, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
Sorry, Ifly6, I meant to respond to your original query over the weekend, but time got away from me. Which turns out to have been a fortunate mistake, because I had forgotten I had written that draft & would have otherwise just pointed you to some general sources based on my memory. (Not surprising, since I wrote this roughly 7 years ago.) But to answer your question directly: no, I am not still working on this draft. I'm actually surprised I got as far as I had, because I as I remember I stopped working on the article because I could not find enough sources to write something I felt was satisfactory. Probably because Roman chronology of this time is a complex subject & the required further research discouraged me from continuing. You're welcome to take what I wrote & use it to create this article.
One clarification I'd make to this draft is that the "Forsythe" book I refer to is Gary Forsthe, A Critical History of Early Rome: From Prehistory to the First Punic War (Berkeley: University of California, 2006). Feel free to ping me to clarify other citations. -- llywrch (talk) 15:44, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.
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Hi Ifly6, thanks for the rigorous review of this one, which is now in much better shape than it was before. I will watchlist this page for a week or so, in case you would like to pick up on any of the other issues we chatted about. Cheers. Gog the Mild (talk) 11:44, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
Sure. I intend to make the following changes:
Change wording about Gades to "surrender". Done
Change wording about the sack to make it clear that massacres preceded plundering. Done
Add parallel citations for Livy and Polybius' narratives about the lake. Done
Add reference to and citation of Richardson's general dismissal of the lake stories. Done
Citing Coarelli Eutopia (2002) pp 47–75 for attribution
De-centring captions. Done
Add parallel citation to Livy (again) for Goldsworthy's claim about Scipio's army size. Done
Probably also convert citations for Hoyos into {{harvc}} format. Done
Thank you so much for pitching in at the DC CCI. Your edit summary seemed to be a little uncertain of the notations so I figured I'd pop in and give a quick overview of how we usually use the templates, so you don't have to second-guess yourself :)
Y is for confirmed CV, as in you actually went and compared it against the source
N is for confirmed no CV, again as in you actually checked against the sources
? is for situations where it's now a moot point - either you or someone else has removed the content from the article, making checking individual diffs redundant. (Your question mark for De Viris Illustribus (Jerome) is the correct usage)
"Pdel" means "presumptive deletion". We say this in cases where the individual has such a bad history of issues (and whose edits are so prolific) that we consider it acceptable to presume the content will be problematic and remove it on sight. Some people use to mark where they've done pdels; I use ? and write that I've done a pdel. Doug Coldwell, obviously, is a case where no one will question a pdel.
Thanks for the clarification, that makes things much clearer for me. Inasmuch, however, as the edit diffs are still there, ought some examination still be done for infringements in the diffs? Eg, pretend someone took the entire script to the Bee Movie placed it in a page and then reverted it; wouldn't the diff itself would still be a copyright violation? Ifly6 (talk) 03:21, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
The primary concern, especially as we simply don't have enough editors working in this space, is to get the problematic content out of live versions of articles. @Moneytrees can probably speak to this better than I can (and I hope will correct me if I'm speaking incorrectly), but generally revision deletion of older diffs is a secondary concern, especially if the content is unlikely to be reverted to. We also need to weigh damage to the page history against the protective value of a revdel. The newer and bigger the violation is, the more important it is to get it RD'd, to reduce the chances of anyone reverting to it, and also because RDing would do less damage to the history. Older revisions, especially ones with a significant amount of history that would have to be wiped out, are more of a judgement call.
A diff or two where Bee Movie was inserted and quickly removed would probably be revision deleted, but a paragraph of CV from 2012 that remained live for the next 1000 edits is probably not going to result in a revdel. ♠PMC♠ (talk)04:43, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
Why did you revert all my edits? And in 1931 the Harvard University Press did not publish yet the Loeb Classical Library (about Sallust, see here). --Frognall (talk) 13:05, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
Because you're looking at the wrong book. That's a separate publication. The one which is cited here is the Loeb (volume 116) version of that book, which was published – as a revised reprint – in 1931:
I noticed your notes on the talk page for that and also was directed here by two public history answers [1][2]; would you be willing to make changes to the article to reflect that? I myself do not have access to academic sources anymore; however, I'm willing to help out in the actual writing. Iseult Δx parlez moi16:16, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
How would you think the article could be written? I can't imagine much of an article other than "they didn't exist". Ifly6 (talk) 16:43, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
I think that the fact that popular perception, with much coverage, is that they did is enough for the existence of an article. We can treat it by stating in the lede that they did not exist according to modern scholarship, making the majority of the article about why modern scholarship is at this conclusion, address how this misconception came to be, and also maybe lay out the purported reforms themselves as currently incorrectly perceived. Iseult Δx parlez moi21:04, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
That seems like a fantastic draft, and if you're inclined to replace the extant article with the current contents once specific red-text numbers have been filled in, I'm not opposed. I do see a path forward for improvement wherein we might incorporate sources and text (in impact and the generally attributed section, i.e. the standing army) from the current article in a semi-merge, though that's something not particularly urgent and I'm more than willing to handle that. Iseult Δx parlez moi20:47, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
When I work on a drop-in rewrite, I usually try to work on the drafts until they could plausibly meet the GA criteria before pushing to the main namespace. If there's anything valuable in the existing article that you'd like to move over, feel free to edit the draft I have to that effect. Ifly6 (talk) 21:28, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
(tps) As someone that enjoys unlearning (and happily remembers our entire class cheating when tested on the Marian reforms), I like that draft! Would Scullard's old textbook do as a source for the red number in "Marius has also been credited with the introduction of the cohort (a unit of ### thousand men)"? He had "Marius now made the cohort the standard tactical unit (the battalion) of the legion, which henceforth consisted of ten cohorts of 600 men". NebY (talk) 21:06, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
Sure. Feel free to edit. There's also a few dangling areas where I want to expand: land for veterans, training regimens, Marius being the man introducing eagles, and most of the historiographic section. I intend to go to the Library of Congress to read Cadiou's L'armée imaginaire (and test my rusty French) some time so it may be a bit of a wait. Ifly6 (talk) 21:26, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
Added some references to Scullard, including for the cohort man counts. I have on disc the 2011 Routledge Classics edition; it feels as if I am largely using him as a target though. Ifly6 (talk) 01:35, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
DYK for Battle of New Carthage
On 26 June 2023, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Battle of New Carthage, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the martial booty seized by the Romans after the Battle of New Carthage included 63 merchant ships, numerous catapults, large amounts of weapons and more? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Battle of New Carthage. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Battle of New Carthage), and the hook may be added to the statistics page after its run on the Main Page has completed. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.
I tweaked some of your language in Brutus—overall the edits were a great improvement, although I thought some of the wording was awkward or needed more punctuation. The only thing I'm not satisfied with—and which you're better equipped to deal with than I am—is the interpretation of Dante's treatment of Brutus which suggests that Brutus was being punished for resisting God's plan for monarchy. This is the first time I've heard of this interpretation—unless my memory fails me, which is possible—but while Dante certainly idolized Caesar, I'm not sure whether his treatment of Brutus can be directly related to his feelings about medieval monarchy. It's not impossible, but this sounds like it's the interpretation of your source, Tempest, rather than a universially-accepted one. Or perhaps it merely stretches the point beyond Caesar as an ideal monarch, to a general principle of monarchy. Either way, I think it should be described as one interpretation, rather than the symbolism, which seems debatable. I'll leave you to review the sources—and perhaps other notes on Dante (I'm mainly familiar with Ciardi's)—and figure out how to handle this interpretation. P Aculeius (talk) 20:08, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I will first determine whether or not Tempest in fact said what I said she did. If she did, I'll go consult some other sources on Brutus' reception. Ifly6 (talk) 21:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
Thank you for creating Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome/Guides/Primary sources. Concerning the label of Plutarch and others as primary sources, it turns out this should have never been a subject of controversy, since the current policy includes "ancient works, even if they cite earlier known or lost writings", in that category. I added a direct link there, for good measure. Avilich (talk) 22:57, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
The article Marian reforms you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Marian reforms for comments about the article, and Talk:Marian reforms/GA1 for the nomination. Well done! If the article has not already appeared on the main page as a "Did you know" item, or as a bold link under "In the News" or in the "On This Day" prose section, you can nominate it within the next seven days to appear in DYK. Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On This Day" column do not affect DYK eligibility. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of UndercoverClassicist -- UndercoverClassicist (talk) 14:21, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
August 2023 Good Article Nominations backlog drive
I also created the article about Rhomos in 2020. The hellenicaworld.com article is word for word copied from that article. I can even see that it was copied between 12 August 2022 and 16 November 2022.
This is the specific version that hellenicaworld.com copied:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rhomos&oldid=1104131293
This is very disturbing. I just wanted to re-add the material that you removed from the Founding of Rome article, added by me in 2017.
FrinkMan (talk) 19:14, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for letting me know about those past discussions! Particularly those at Wikipedia talk:Link rot and Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard/Archive 18. I'm glad others have also noticed, even if this is a continuing problem. Are there are any ongoing discussions about the wider problem? Or did everyone lose interest and move on after those discussions in June/July? – Scyrme (talk) 17:33, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
My reading was that everyone agreed that these additions were wasteful, bothersome, and pointless (viz archives work without regard to IA Bot). And that doing anything about it might be overcome by ignoramuses who under strong misconceptions think these additions are actual contributions. The status quo therefore won out. Ifly6 (talk) 17:55, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
Seems a bit odd to surrender pre-emptively when multiple editors are in agreement and can be backed up with empirical demonstrations of archives that don't actually archive anything; "the links might break/rot in the future" doesn't hold up against the archives effectively already being broken/rotten and not preserving anything relevant.
I don't have much prior experience arguing with people about this "archive rot" problem, so I wouldn't know if it's especially controversial. Are the prospects of getting anywhere really that bleak? – Scyrme (talk) 19:06, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
@Scyrme: If you want to revive it, perhaps make a new discussion to insert language to Wikipedia talk:Link rot (eg Archive URLs should not be added for live websites.) and ping everyone involved in the last discussion (along with the relevant cruft perpetrators). I would separate out the addition here from the other options that I noted in a previous discussion. Ifly6 (talk) 20:21, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
You did a really nice job explaining the position of the no-archive-all-ists. That's the best summary I have seen of why it's so irritating and easily misused. It might be an RfC at Village Pump. I don't think changing the wording on the Link rot page will have much result because most people don't read it, follow it, and it is not a guideline or policy -- but it is a start. I work with Cyberpower at InternetArchive so am familiar with the technology of the bot. There is currently no mechanism to disable this feature on a per-Wiki basis, so if Enwiki decided they didn't want it, it would require new coding in the bot. Also Cyberpower and InternetArchive want this feature so they won't do it without the consensus of an RfC.
Some other things to consider: the bot is imperfect at determining dead links. Many sites contain soft-404s, subscription access, etc.. so the bot ignores those links and doesn't try to add archives, during normal operation. However it would add archive URLs with the archive-all option because it doesn't care if it's dead or alive.
The links added should be at least spot-checked by the user of the bot, the bot is not perfect and the user is responsible for problems. My bot WP:WAYBACKMEDIC is designed to do deep checks of archive URLs on Wikipedia pages and fix any problems in encounters, but it is very time and resource intensive so I don't run it on a regular basis - if you want me to check some of he pages you listed from Billjones94 contribs to demonstrate where problems are created (if any), I am happy to do so. I think this is ultimately going to be your best way to get Billjones94 to slow down, showing their errors. They can blame the bot, but, the edit was made by them and they are responsible for it at the end of the day. I think people will be more accepting of bot errors when a link is dead, it's an emergency situation and we are doing the best we can. But if the link is live and it's creating errors, there will be less tolerance because it's an unnecessary mistake. -- GreenC16:44, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
As a secondary note, do you think it would be possible to change IA Bot's functionality to not include archive URLs for Jstor or Worldcat? I can't imagine anyone would defend this blank page as a true "archive" of the original. Ifly6 (talk) 15:48, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
It's already the case the bot ignores them. It's set to "subscription" at iabot.org (look up "www.jstor.org"). That means the bot won't archive links to that site. But maybe it did in the past. Users have control over how the bot behaves. -- GreenC16:38, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
Typos?
I don't know if I'm looking at typos or my ignorance here. Back in 2022, you wrote in Roman Republic#Social troubles and first civil war, with clear recent sources, "Modern sources have proposed multiple causes of elite cohesion, including wealth inequality and a growing unwillingness by aristocrats to transgress political norms, especially in the aftermath of the Social War."[3] That's been changed to "causes of elite decohesion",[4] which looks plausible, but is "unwillingness" another typo or am I simply failing to keep up? NebY (talk) 12:48, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
Those two do look like typos. I've made an edit I think to fix both. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Ifly6 (talk) 19:38, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
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I reverted a substantial number of page edits, most of which added unnecessary infoboxes (an infobox is not necessary to summarise an article that is itself two sentences long); unsourced and fictitious dates of birth, death, or army service; and other errors from user Edgenut. This affected, I estimate, around 360 different pages. These mostly related to obscure Roman, Greek, and Chinese historical figures with some overlap onto historical artefacts.
I attempted to do these reversions accurately while also preserving edits that were legitimate contributions. If doing so introduced errors, I apologise. Reversions were done in good faith though rather more rapidly than I would perhaps have wanted on further reflection. If you feel as though I should fix them myself please draw my attention to them. Otherwise, I encourage you to do so yourself. Ifly6 (talk) 15:14, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
Edgenut questioned the deletion of the image he used for an infobox on Quintus Tullius Cicero. I checked, and he's right about it not being (more) anachronistic than the one that remains; but just as importantly, the image was there before he placed it in an infobox. So I've replaced it where it originally was in the article, and replied to Edgenut's comment. There could, of course, be other instances like this where an image that was already in an article got placed in an infobox by Edgenut, and then got deleted entirely when you removed the infobox. But I understand why it might not be practical to check all of his contributions to find them! P Aculeius (talk) 05:14, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
This article is a mish-mash of Eastern Roman and Byzantine terms. Any idea which were used when this article was reviewed as GA? --Kansas Bear (talk) 21:54, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
Regarding your AFD, the articles you listed were not formatted correctly for a bundled nomination. Instead you just listed them on the page. Could you please review the instructions at WP:AFD for bundled nomination and add the correct tags to the nomination? This will make it much easier for a closer who won't have to handle each page manually. It's really not complicated, you just add a code to each article title. Thanks for your help. LizRead!Talk!20:29, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
On 23 March 2024, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article PHerc. Paris. 4, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that it took a particle accelerator and machine-learning algorithms to extract the charred text of PHerc. Paris. 4 without unrolling it? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/PHerc. Paris. 4. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, PHerc. Paris. 4), and the hook may be added to the statistics page after its run on the Main Page has completed. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.
Are you sure the source cited demonstrates (not merely claims) that Clodius wasn't called "Claudius" until some point in his political career? I've always understood that he affected the spelling because he thought it looked plebeian (perhaps having first been adopted by descendants of freedmen). And I'm pretty sure I've read that in standard reference sources, though I'm not sure which—probably DGRBM or OCD2. Also, pretty sure all of his other relatives used "Claudius" and "Claudia", or at least they did most of the time. Like I said, I haven't checked, but I'll be surprised if there's any proof that he wasn't originally "Claudius"; if other references agree with the above, then maybe the source cited is just one scholar's opinion—or one of two competing theories. P Aculeius (talk) 01:28, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
The first time Clodius appears in the reliable sources for this sort of thing, he's called Clodius in letters from Cicero. Tatum 1999, now generally accepted to be the standard biography in English, and Riggsby 2002 both note that there's no ancient evidence for the claim that he took the o-form to be more appealing to plebs. I recall reading that the o-form emerged from Oscan-tinged Latin. There's no reason also to suppose he adopted it. An uncle of his is attested by inscription with an o-form name in the 90s; two of his sisters are called only Clodia.
In my rewrite – User:Ifly6/Publius Clodius Pulcher – I've followed them. As to previous reference material, a lot of them say that Clodius adopted the o-form at his adoption. Both Tatum 1999 and Riggsby 2002 convincingly note the impossibility of this when Cicero is calling him Clodius at the start of the Bona Dea affair. Riggsby 2002 also notes that the sources don't assign au- and o- forms to patrician or plebeian. And both put Clodius' plebeian turn to after the Bona Dea affair – before this he was chilling with Murena, and possibly Cicero, – which means the timeline doesn't work for adoption to appeal to the plebs. I can't find anything more recent than Riggsby that at all touch on the topic. Ifly6 (talk) 03:30, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
OCD21 makes no comment on his name, though it notes that Appius Claudius Pulcher was his brother and in her entry, Clodia his sister. (I don't remember anyone accusing her of changing her name in accord with her incestuous brother's political finagling and can't think why Cicero would leave that out. But I'm no expert let alone RS.) NebY (talk) 09:49, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
Tenney Frank at Demography of the Roman Empire
There's a broader issue at Demography of the Roman Empire#Sepulchary inscriptions which you might be able to help with. It was[5] and still is based only on Tenney Frank's 1916 paper Race Mixture in the Roman Empire. I corrected some details (columbaria aren't burials, and so on) and made Frank's stance more clear, but maybe that's not for the best. Any thoughts, ways forward? NebY (talk) 16:55, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
My first thought is to check for anything relevant in A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean. There's also the possibility that one might just want to rewrite the whole thing because people now use archaeological remains to do this sort of thing instead of hoping beyond hope that names (a proxy) inscribed on tombs, graves, etc (expensive and selective) reflect actual population (not observed). Just by way of example, this PhD dissertation I found in like 20 seconds uses a variety of modern skeletal and dental methods to assess human mobility. https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/concern/dissertations/qn59q476k. Ifly6 (talk) 19:34, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
Thanks. It seems I have access to the Companion via the Wikipedia Library, so that can go on the list. Nice point about the selective nature of inscriptions. We do have Demography of the Roman Empire#Genetic studies which has suffered a lot of edit-warring and is I think still based entirely on primary sources that don't pay much attention to whether their finds are representative - one of the questions I raised at Talk:Demography of the Roman Empire#Genetic studies, unanswered as yet. That dental study looks very much like, may actually be the one, that was being used in some WP articles a few years ago to state that the great majority of the population of post-Republican Rome were ethnically Italian, based on dentition found in two cemeteries. NebY (talk) 18:34, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
Feedback request: History and geography request for comment
An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Publius Clodius Pulcher, you added links pointing to the disambiguation pages Cato and Gaius Cato.
I saw you’ve been doing a lot of work to clean up the Quintus Sertorius wiki page. First off, thank you for that. I’m really enjoying the improvements.
I did have one question for you. I saw that you removed The Sertorius Scrolls from the fiction section for “obscure in fiction”. I am the author, and wouldn’t have noticed had I not looked to see if anyone had added my latest book in the series.
I’m curious about your criteria for deciding what’s obscure and what isn’t. I’ve sold over 200,000 copies in the series thus far, and I’ve achieved placement on numerous best sellers lists for each book in the series.
I wasn’t the one who added the citation and I’m not offended that it was removed, just curious what the criteria wiki editors might be looking at in terms of sales or cultural relevance.
Thank you again for your work on the page. As someone who has dedicated his career to the legacy of Quintus Sertorius it means a lot to me. If you would ever be willing to offer feedback or historical insight to an author, I would be happy to share my email. Thank you.
If you added back mention of your book, it would likely be WP:COI. I'm not very familiar with Wikipedia's COI policies and guidelines on this exact topic but I believe per WP:COIE any edits you make on the topic must cite independent reliable sources. As to the content itself, which I am more familiar with, I side with MOS:POPCULT:
A Wikipedia article may include a subject's cultural impact by summarizing its coverage in reliable secondary or tertiary sources (e.g., a dictionary or encyclopedia). A source should cover the subject's cultural impact in some depth; it should not be a source that merely mentions the subject's appearance in a movie, song, television show, or other cultural item.
Although some references may be plainly verified by primary sources, this does not demonstrate the significance of the reference. Furthermore, when the primary source in question only presents the reference, interpretation of this may constitute original research where the reference itself is ambiguous. If a cultural reference is genuinely significant it should be possible to find a reliable secondary source that supports that judgment. Quoting a respected expert attesting to the importance of a subject as a cultural influence is encouraged. Absence of these secondary sources should be seen as a sign of limited significance, not an invitation to draw inference from primary sources.
My interpretation of that is that here, a high quality reliable source (WP:HQRS) should mention your series. The best such source would be a discussion in a journal of classical reception or chapter in a biography on the topic of how Sertorius has been seen in following centuries. See eg Marcus Junius Brutus § Legacy which is based largely on the discussion of Brutus' legacy and reception thereof in Tempest Brutus: the noble conspirator (2017). The works that are mentioned in such a source would be the ones worth including.
(edit) I also recognise that there could be the prima facie appearance that I had it out for your specific series alone, since the other fictional entries. Deletion of the sentence emerged from citation clean up and not anything directed to your work specifically. I think the way to resolve that is to remove the uncited section Quintus Sertorius § In fiction. I will do that shortly. Ifly6 (talk) 20:15, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
Thank you so much for the clarification. I didn’t add anything or make any changes. Someone originally added it years ago, and someone else(Newfoundland Guy) clarified and cited it in April I believe. I’m just now creating an account (to speak with you) and have never made Wikipedia edits.
I have received reviews from credible institutions like Publishers Weekly, but I’m not sure that’s what you’re referring to.
That makes sense about the citation, though I’m a bit confused. Fiction authors are unlikely to be mentioned in scholarly texts outside of the extremely rare study of cultural depictions. Fiction titles should have a different burden of sources than nonfiction, and that seems to be the case on similar pages.
For example, see (Cultural depictions of Julius Caesar. Under “modern works” there are several works of fiction listed without citation from scholarly sources. With a cursory glance, it appears most similar pages contain fiction (film, books, games, etc) titles that have never been included in historical papers, but performed well enough (sales, reviews, etc) to still be included.
I may be misunderstanding, but it appears the guidelines you shared are laying out best practices for citing the cultural impact of a work, rather than rules about mentioning the work itself, which doesn’t appear to have the same requirements on the other pages I’ve looked at.
Thank you again for your work on the page and for any clarification you can offer.
The answer for their existence is rather simple: there are many bad policy-violating articles from the Wikipedia stone ages. They should be re-worked or deleted but few people have the time or courage, respectively, to do it. Many Wikipedia articles on major historical figures or events are plagued by reliance on unreliable or obsolete sources (eg the old Marian reforms or current centuriate assembly articles), reliance on original research with the primary sources (the old Lycurgus article), or simply entirely unsourced. Standards on Wikipedia about what should be included have generally risen over the last 15 years; but that has not been the same as a mass revision of existing material. Ifly6 (talk) 00:46, 29 July 2024 (UTC)
I understand what you’re saying. I agree some of these lists don’t seem to fit properly with the rules outlined in the resources you shared. However, reading through them, a few things stick out to me.
This seems to clearly apply to titles like my own and the other two which were listed previously, as the fictional character bears the name of the subject. In the case of my series, the entire narrative is based around the life of Quintus Sertorius.
The second thing which caught my attention was the paragraph immediately proceeding the second source you originally shared:
“Passing mentions of the subject in books, television or film dialogue, or song lyrics should be included only when the significance of that mention is itself demonstrated with secondary sources. For example, a brief reference in film dialogue may be appropriate if the subject responds to it in a public fashion—such as a celebrity or official quoted as expressing pleasure or displeasure at the reference. As well, a brief reference in film or TV dialogue may be appropriate if secondary sources (film critics) write about the significance of this reference to the city.”
This clarifies that this portion is about REFERENCES to the subject, as in a passing line of dialogue in a movie or a verse in a song. For this, cultural relevance needs to be established.
The first section I mentioned above was when they specifically addressed fictional characters who are a major part of the book, or especially the titular character.
There is also another section which addresses the importance of a fictional work required for inclusion. There they explain it is based on the popularity of the subject. The example stated is that listing out every novel depiction of Julius Caesar would be superfluous. Lesser known entities have less of a burden. I’m happy to send this section if you’d like to read it further.
Sertorius has received very, very few fictional depictions over the past 2,000 years. According to the pop culture guidelines, I believe the first popular fictional series exploring his life and times meets the burden of requirement stated clearly in the article. The other two books did also, as they are relevant for being the first few fictional books to bring Quintus Sertorius into the modern world.
I’m not simply trying to convince you to add my reference back. I will leave that up to you and the other editors. But I do believe the material you shared was specifically focused on REFERENCES to the subject of a page rather than works of art dedicated to them in entirety. And the burden of citations seems to be focused on nonfiction or scholarly text as stated here: “Wikipedia requires inline citations for any material challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations.” But stating the existence of a work of fiction (when it is culturally relevant for the reasons listed above) is not able to be challenged. After reading the articles in their entirety, I feel confident it is suggesting works of fiction don’t required scholarly sources, but only that they are important (rather than being one of many books on the subject) and are sufficiently focused on the subject (ie, a main character rather than a passing reference, as the latter would require a secondary source to establish the importance of the reference).
I appreciate your responses and your consideration.
Thank you for reading. I understand. If others feel the same way, I’ll happily accept the outcome. Would you like the start the discussion as editor-in-chief, or would you like me to do so? Vincentbdavisii (talk) 20:47, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
Thank you so much. I just added to the discussion. Regardless of outcome, I'm sure you're very busy, so I appreciate you taking the time to respond to my very long replies. Vincentbdavisii (talk) 22:23, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
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