Talk:Religion of the Shang dynasty/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Nominator: Strongman13072007 (talk · contribs) 09:07, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Remsense (talk · contribs) 18:17, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

How long would it take for a review, btw?Strongman13072007 (talk) 00:18, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

It's a fairly long, dense article, but I'm planning on having it done within the typical week span—and (fingers crossed) getting a lot of the way there in the next two days. Remsense ‥ 论 00:24, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

It seems a lot have been done and some criteria already reviewed. Anything problematic with the sources till now? Strongman13072007 (talk) 00:37, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

I hope you don't mind my jumping at this opportunity: I've been watching this page since it was created and have wanted to help, and I think an in-depth GAN at this stage would be perfect. Remsense ‥ 论 18:17, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for helping me when I initially created the page. Can you explain the things in the progress box? Strongman13072007 (talk) 00:36, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Those are each of the GA criteria, during the review I'll be updating it reflecting the state of the article as you or I make improvements. I'm a very hands-on reviewer, so I'll likely be making a lot of the improvements myself if they're clear enough, but in any case you're of course free to quibble or ask about anything I'm doing. I can be a bit of a perfectionist but I don't want that to stall the review. Remsense ‥ 论 00:39, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm pleased to help when possible. Strongman13072007 (talk) 00:41, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi. I received a Talk notification that you all were seeking comments. Did you have specific questions? I made a few copy edits to the article, including deleting the term afterlife (under funerary). Let me know if these are useful and feel free to revert if need be. ProfGray (talk) 20:39, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Feel free to contribute any critique or thoughts during the process, that'd be great! Remsense ‥ 论 22:39, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Have you done assessing any criteria? I'd be pleased to know if there is any problem. Strongman13072007 (talk) 10:43, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Hey @Strongman13072007, I apologize deeply for the delay: the same day I last posted here, I began falling under the weather. That resulted in me being unable to reliably sit upright for a few days, but I should've posted here letting you know sooner. I'm just now getting back to being able to work on this, but I can also release this review and put it back in the pool since it was unfair for me to claim it immediately if you would prefer another reviewer have a shot. In any case, I'm getting back to it if that's okay with you. Remsense ‥ 论 04:38, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

You reviewing the article is the best. Carry on with the job! Strongman13072007 (talk) 04:53, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

You can make any edits necessary, thanks! Strongman13072007 (talk) 09:31, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

@Remsense Any problem till now? Strongman13072007 (talk) 13:49, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Good Article review progress box

Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

Few questions or thoughts from an outsider

I started looking at this article, which cover considerable ground and goes into depth on many issues. The main author obviously spend a great deal of time on this article.

Prose -- Some of the writing is stilted or awkward. There are also some grammar problems. Was a translator or other writing tool used to help generate any of the text? If so, that should be disclosed.

References. Dizzying number of citations and sources, which I mostly do not have. Isn't there a way now to combine the repeated sources, while still indicating the different pages? See Template:Reference page. This would make the number of footnotes more manageable for the reader. It'd also make it much easier to review and spot check the article.

For instance, I started with the pdfs by Eno in 2010. Much of the article writing does reflect the source fairly. But then I started to wonder -- Maybe Eno 2010a and 2010b are not Reliable Sources? After all, they are from a college course, not published and not peer reviewed. Some sentences seem to be paraphrasing too closely. (But I also looked at Wu Ding, for which the contributor also used Eno.)

Example of a practical implication -- Eno 2010a mentions Zeus. Should this be omitted? If kept, I suppose it only belongs in one of the three theories of Di, right?

An aside -- speaking of the three theories of Di -- the article mostly treats Di as the "high god" -- but isn't that taking one of the three theories as normative? Might be justified, but should it be explained?

Detail. The article is well-structured. Yet, as an outsider to this field, I still wonder if some details are suitable for the broad encyclopedic article. For instance, why do readers need to know the (non-English) vocabulary for various sacrificial items or methods?

Anyway, hope some of these comments are useful. Kudos to Strongman for such dedication to this article! ProfGray (talk) 14:02, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Ah, I have a question for the creator, @Strongman13072007. When the article was first created, it was a very significant first edit. Was it based on a sandbox, copy/paste, draft or how was that done? ProfGray (talk) 14:07, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

I spent a week drafting it first before publishing. At that time I was familiarizing myself with encyclopedic prose of Wikipedia. Does it help? Strongman13072007 (talk) 14:12, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the response, what page were you drafting it in? I'm not seeing it in the edit history. ProfGray (talk) 15:44, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

I just wrote the whole thing in the edit box like in later edits. Strongman13072007 (talk) 23:08, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Prose: I write it myself, with no translators. English is not my mother tongue anyway, so writing in English is also a way for me to check my problems, thanks for reminding!

References:

+ I follow the reference style of the Late Shang article, which is rated GA. I think we can keep it that way.

+ For Eno's sources, I think they contain reliable information because Eno is an expert on this subject matter and most of this content in his lecture materials is covered in his published works (1990, 2008). For the last 3 months, I've changed quite a few citations from Eno 2010a-b to Eno 1990 and Eno 2008. But there still remain things that I ain't sure if there's any source saying the same thing, so Eno 2010a-b are still kept.

Practical implication: Eno's text says that Di's role is like Zeus to the Greeks. What he means is that Di was inevitably the highest figure in the Shang religion regardless of theories, just like the leading role of Zeus.

One more thing here: As I mentioned, all there theories of Di more or less take him as the highest figure of the religion, so calling him 'high god' is the most frequent way relevant texts refer to Di. I dedicate the Cosmology section to explain the 'ancestor' and 'celestial pole' theories. My source is mostly Didier (2009), though the text itself is very hard to read and I had to spend months absorbing it before I could form this section.

Chinese terms: ritual names like xie, yong, yi, ji and zai cannot be omitted because they were the sacrificial rituals that formed the core of Shang religious practice; ignoring them makes it harder for me to write the History section (the history involves a lot about the formation and change in those five rituals. The names of gods like River and Earth are expressed by the characters for river and earth, but they should be mentioned because in this context we understand they were gods to the Shang. The words for methods or materials is less important, but they can be useful for more intense readers.

Hope this helps! Strongman13072007 (talk) 09:31, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

@Remsense Does any of these help clear the confusion for your review? Strongman13072007 (talk) 09:34, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Certainly! I want to post my own update, and promise you that I will have a significant chunk, if not the entire review done by the end of Friday. I want to apologize again but don't want to merely apologize again—you've done a lot of wonderful work that I've been reading but still haven't been able to properly work on. Remsense ‥ 论 04:29, 17 October 2024 (UTC)