Talk:1922 regnal list of Ethiopia

Scope

This article is quite an impressive feat of work, and I must commend creator User:And Leave on their laudable efforts in putting all this together, especially because it seems to be largely based on reliable sources. Good job!

Unfortunately, there are multiple issues with this article, and I'm surprised none of them has ever been discussed on this talk page. That may be because the creator User:And Leave has written 99.4% of the text, and it wasn't published until January 2022, so there has been very little imput from anyone else.

• I do see that User:Hairy Dude raised concerns about WP:Original research on the creator's talk page just yesterday, and I share those concerns, amongst others.
• Another one I should mention up front is that it is WP:TOOBIG, namely 643 KB (29,189 words). Any article with (more than) 15,000 words (or) 100 kB almost certainly should be divided. This is one of the reasons why I will suggest a WP:SPLIT.

The main issue I see is that article seems to combine multiple regnal lists (or "king lists") presented in particular published historical documents, namely:

• List of legendary monarchs of Ethiopia#Tafari Makonnen's King List of 1922/1927, and
• List of legendary monarchs of Ethiopia#Other King Lists.

These are not Wikipedia "Category:Lists of monarchs" based on general scholarly literature. At best, I find lumping them all together impractical and confusing. At worst, I find it misleading, giving the 1922 Makonnen King List WP:UNDUE weight in an article that isn't solely about the 1922 Makonnen King List.

On the other hand, the last section Legendary monarchs from non-Ethiopian sources not a "regnal list", or about "regnal lists", but just some general prose about 3 individual monarchs. This is out of scope for this article, and possibly not in line with WP:SYNTH. I think it would be better to move this section to List of emperors of Ethiopia.

In conclusion, I think it's best to WP:SPLIT this article up into 3 new articles.

1. Regnal lists of Ethiopia: A main article which includes most of the current lead section and the section "Tradition". My suggestion would be to name this article Regnal lists of Ethiopia (as an important aspect of Ethiopian historiography).
2. 1922 Tafari Makonnen regnal list of Ethiopia, from List of legendary monarchs of Ethiopia#Tafari Makonnen's King List and List of legendary monarchs of Ethiopia#List of monarchs
3. Alternate regnal lists of Ethiopia, from List of legendary monarchs of Ethiopia#Other King Lists

• And as suggested, I would move Legendary monarchs from non-Ethiopian sources to List of emperors of Ethiopia.

All these articles should link to each other, while clearly stating the scope of each of them, perhaps through Template:About messages at the top.

I think this will make all this information more readable, navigable, properly defined and scoped, and solve the main issues I can see now. It will also make future improvements easier. Please let me know what you think. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 14:28, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments User:Nederlandse Leeuw. I appreciate all feedback on this article, especially as it has grown considerably since I first created it. The article initially only focused on the 1922 king list with additional information gradually added as I did more research. However, as you can see, it is now very long and I am in the process of trying to condense the information.

I saw User:Hairy Dude's comment and have taken it on board. I will try to stick to verified information instead of getting carried away with interpretation and theories.

I think splitting the article is a good idea. The main issue with the current page is that the 1922 king list takes up a big percentage compared to older lists. The 1922 list draws on information from older regnal lists but has many new additions that are unique to it. A separate article can be made focusing on this particular list and how it developed in response to Egyptological research of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The "Other King Lists" section was originally a way of comparing the regnal order and names on the 1922 list with older manuscripts and orally transmitted lists. I would like this information to be retained in some way in the article for the 1922 list, so that it is clear where the information comes from. Perhaps sources for names could be noted in the tables of the 1922 list, as is the case now. The pre-1922 lists could then be detailed in a separate article, instead of all lists appearing in one place.

The "Legendary monarchs from non-Ethiopian sources" can be moved elsewhere. I mainly created this section because I couldn't find information on Wikipedia on "Alchitrof", who is fictional but is the subject of a painting that readers may wish to know the context of. I'm not sure where the best place to put this information would be. Prester John already has his own article, so perhaps the information on him in this article isn't really needed, as it just summarises the information from his Wikipedia page.

The following pages could be created:

• Regnal lists of Ethiopia: This page can include information from the lead, "Tradition" and "Other King Lists" sections. I personally do not think we should have an Alternate regnal lists of Ethiopia page, as these lists are not strictly "alternate" versions of the 1922 list, but rather are older lists that inspired the 1922 version. Certain parts of the "Other King Lists" section - specifically the rulers from Menelik I to Del Naod - could be added to the List of kings of Axum page, but perhaps this might be reaching outside the scope of that article. It may be better to have a page on all pre-20th century Ethiopian king lists and mythical rulers that are mentioned in sources pre-dating 1922.
  • The Akhbar al-Zaman section is not strictly an Ethiopian king list, but rather a Coptic/Arab king list that bears similarities to a later Coptic regnal list that was appropriated by the 1922 Ethiopian king list as the "Tribe of Ori or Aram". It should therefore remain with the 1922 list as one of its sources rather than with the pre-1922 king lists from Ethiopia.
• 1922 Regnal List of Ethiopia: This page can focus on the 1922 list only and the sources that influenced it. I don't think we should use Tafari's name in the title of the article because he was not the author of the list, but simply copied it. The original author is unknown, though there are a couple of candidates that are discussed in the article (Heruy Wolde Selassie and Aleka Taye Gabra Maryam). I think it is better to not to ascribe a definite author to the list unless information surfaces that could prove who it was.
• Alchitrof could have a separate page if there is enough information for it. Otherwise I don't know where else to put this section. The List of Emperors of Ethiopia page is only concerned with historical rulers from the 10th century to 1975, so I don't think this is the best place for Alchitrof, unless a section is made for fictional emperors that were once considered historical. Prester John is the only other figure I can think of that would be part of a section on this topic.

I agree with you that splitting this page is the best way forward to make it easier for Wikipedia readers to understand the scope of the articles. Let me know if any of these suggestions sound feasible. And Leave (talk) 22:32, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

@And Leave You're welcome, and thank you for your elaborate response! Alright, so what you're suggesting is combining my suggestions #1 and #3, which practically means renaming this article to Regnal lists of Ethiopia, splitting off 1922 regnal list of Ethiopia (I would write this with lowercase r and l, because we're not talking about an official title of a document, like In the Country of the Blue Nile), and moving the last section somewhere else. I think that would already be a great first step to solve the WP:TOOBIG, WP:UNDUE and WP:SYNTH issues that I see, because it would basically split the article in two. For number of words it would probably be okay, but in terms of kilobytes, both will still be more than 100 kB, I'm afraid. But if further splits are necessary, we can always do them later. :) Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 23:11, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

By the way, just after I wrote this feedback to you, I split my own List of wars of succession into two because of WP:TOOBIG, and I gave List of wars of succession in Europe its own page. You may find List of wars of succession#Africa interesting; it includes several Ethiopian conflicts and ends with Tafari Makonnen / Haile Selassie. If you've got further sources or expansions, you can always put them there. :) Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 23:17, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

@Nederlandse Leeuw Thank you for your recommendation :)

After thinking about this some more, I suggest re-naming List of legendary monarchs of Ethiopia to 1922 regnal list of Ethiopia because the bulk of the article already focuses on this particular list. Also, most of the links to this page from other Wikipedia articles are in reference to the 1922 list. I think the "Other King Lists" section could be split off to be Regnal lists of Ethiopia.

I am considering creating a page for Alchitrof, which would provide a home for this section, but I am unsure if there is enough information to justify a separate page and I don't know if it would fit Wikipedia's WP:Notability guidelines. The page would be about a painting that is part of the Giovio Series rather than a historical or traditional figure.

Let me know what you think. And Leave (talk) 16:53, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

Sounds good! I think moving the Alchitrof section to the Giovio Series is the best solution then. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 17:10, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

@Nederlandse Leeuw I have now split the page into 1922 regnal list of Ethiopia and Regnal lists of Ethiopia and moved some text to other articles. Let me know if you have any further suggestions for these articles. And Leave (talk) 10:52, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

@And Leave Well done, thanks so much! I don't have a lot of time right now to look into the details, but from what I see this is a major improvement! Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 11:16, 16 May 2023 (UTC)