Talk:Sino-Roman relations/GA2

GA Review

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Reviewer: Iazyges (talk · contribs) 00:10, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

• (✓)1. well written?
• (✓)2. Verifiable
• (✓)3. Broad
• (✓)4. Neutral
• (✓)5. Stable
• (✓)6. Illustrated

Good job overall. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 00:10, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! Damn. That was quick. Cheers. Pericles of Athens^Talk 00:39, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Reversing quick passage

Iazyges approved both this article and Caracalla for GA over the course of 16 minutes, and had been active doing other editing in the hours before. An article with over 6600 words and 140 footnotes from several dozen sources takes quite a while to review properly. Further, the article has had a few dozen edits in the couple of days it had been nominated; while this isn't necessarily a stability issue, nevertheless the reviewer should wait until the article is finished—or at least query the nominator as to progress—before completing a review.

While I haven't examined this article the way I did Caracalla, it's clear that there simply wasn't enough time to check for prose issues, whether the lead properly summarizes the article (and doesn't have any significant facts that aren't in the body); in short, this could not have been a thorough review that properly addressed the GA criteria. I am therefore reversing the listing of the article as a GA. If Iazyges is willing and able to do a thorough review of this article, including identifying the many prose issues, then I look forward to seeing it, but after this initial far-too-swift passage, I believe there should be a double-check before the nomination is ultimately approved. Please note, PericlesofAthens, this has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of your article, only with the problematic review. I hope that this review can be reconstituted; if not, then I'll make sure it gets back into the nominations pool with no loss of seniority. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:18, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

BlueMoonset (talk · contribs) Sorry, I admit my lack of experience in this, ill go through both more thoroughly, suggesting edits to anything wrong with it. i'm currently doing the same with caracalla. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 02:26, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

I see. I understand that these things take time, so no rush is necessary if Iazyges needs to comb through the article. In the meantime, it appears that the article is still listed on the GA nominations page and Iazyges is still listed as currently reviewing it. Regards, Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:28, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Suggestions. (more to come)

"Sino-Roman relations were essentially indirect throughout the existence of both empires. The Roman Empire and the ancient Han dynasty progressively inched closer in the course of the Roman expansion into the Ancient Near East and simultaneous Chinese military incursions into Central Asia. However, powerful intermediate empires such as the Parthians and Kushans kept the two Eurasian flanking powers permanently apart and mutual awareness remained low and knowledge fuzzy." re-write this, maybe "Sino-roman relations were indirect, as the empires never shared a land border, even though they became closer due to the roman conquest of the middle east, and the han dynasty's conquest of central asia. The two empires were separated by the parthians and the kushans, as such all they only knew of each other through the stories of the parthians and the kushans which spread along the trade routes they shared such as the silk road.

I'm not sure how that's entirely different from the original paragraph. In fact, it introduces problems, because the Romans didn't conquer the entire "Middle East" and the Han-dynasty of China didn't conquer the whole of "Central Asia", which your suggestion almost seems to imply. Also, are you a native speaker of English? There's something about your last sentence that seems...off. For starters, it is not a complete statement. Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:05, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

PericlesofAthens (talk · contribs) I was still waking up while writing it, as I look over what ive suggested its not the best, Ill work on it. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 21:51, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Full Suggestions

Feel free to tick when done if you feel it will help, or x if you feel it would be bad. I'll remove the WIP when im done.

• 1) "However, powerful intermediate empires such as the Parthians and Kushans kept the two Eurasian flanking powers permanently apart and mutual awareness remained low and knowledge fuzzy." Maybe change the ending to "However, powerful intermediate empires such as the Parthians and Kushans kept the two Eurasian flanking powers permanently apart and mutual awareness between them remained low, and they knew very little of each other."
• 2) "Only a few attempts at direct contact are known from records." maybe "Only a few attempts at diplomacy are known from records"?
• 3) ", the same region Chinese sources claim the Romans first landed." perhaps some expansion, does this mean the chinese believe the romans landed with boats in vietnam, or is landed meant to mean something else?
• 4) " Florus seems to have confused the Seres with peoples of India, or at least noted that their skin complexions proved that they both lived "beneath another sky" than the Romans." this conflicts with the lead paragraphs which say "In classical sources, the problem of identifying references to ancient China is exacerbated by the interpretation of the Latin term "Seres," whose meaning fluctuated and could refer to a number of Asian people in a wide arc from India over Central Asia to China." Perhaps it could be fixed as such "Florus uses the term seres for the people of india, or at least noted that their skin complexion proved that they both lived "beneath another sky" than the romans."
• 5) "While the existence of China was clearly known to Roman cartographers, their understanding of it was rather murkier." May be just me but i feel like murkier isnt very encyclopaedic, maybe "rather less"?
• 6) "It is perhaps no surprise then that Marinus and Ptolemy had relied on the testimony of a Greek sailor named Alexander, most likely a merchant, for how to reach Cattigara" maybe start this out with "It is no surprise"
• 7) ", with a capital city 1,500 miles northeast from India that he called Khubdan (from Turkic word Khumdan for the Sui and Tang capital Chang'an)," is this roman miles or american miles? also maybe a (this many km)
• 8) "he Weilüe also listed what it considered the most important dependent vassal states of the Roman Empire, providing travel directions and estimates for the distances between them (in Chinese miles, li)." Maybe list a few, I realize that emesa and Nabataean Kingdom are listed, but maybe a few more, immediately after this sentence?
• 9) "Both the Old Book of Tang and New Book of Tang record that the Arabs (Da shi 大食) sent their commander "Mo-yi" (摩拽伐之, Pinyin: Mó zhuāi fá zhī, i.e. Muawiyah I, as governor of Syria before becoming the Umayyad caliph, r. 661–680) to besiege the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, and forced the Byzantines to pay them tribute." This is set out a bit weirdly, maybe the "i.e. Muawiyah I, as governor of Syria before becoming the Umayyad caliph, r. 661–680)" should be removed.
• 10) in the previous thing when it says florus confused the seres with the indians, conflicts again with a quote saying "Nay, the Seres came likewise, and the Indians who dwelt beneath the vertical sun, bringing presents of precious stones and pearls and elephants, but thinking all of less moment than the vastness of the journey which they had undertaken, and which they said had occupied four years. In truth it needed but to look at their complexion to see that they were people of another world than ours."
• 11) Those are my suggestions. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 22:51, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi again. If you don't mind, I've taken the liberty of numbering your bullet points, so that they may correspond with my own, and to avoid confusion as I address each of your points. I found points 7 & 8 to be the most helpful and have amended the article accordingly. Yule was most certainly referring to English miles (i.e. Imperial unit of measure also used by the United States), not Roman ones. I've added kilometers as you've suggested. I've also provided a lengthy footnote listing all the dependent states identified by Hirth and Hill, respectively. I did not include the list in the paragraph itself, since that would have broken the narrative, especially when the example of Petra is already given to highlight their different views (which you've acknowledged). I also slightly amended the bit about Muawiyah I, although I did not remove it altogether for reasons stated below. As for your other points: Pericles of Athens^Talk 01:24, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

• 1) Your suggestion seems to be wordier than the original, when Wikipedia entries should use crisp, clear, concise language. There's nothing inherently wrong with the word "fuzzy"; it's a commonly used word (ala phrases such as "fuzzy logic" etc.) and is found in the Oxford English Dictionary, as well as the Merriam-Webster dictionary.
• 2) "Direct contact" is preferable to "diplomacy" here because, as the article explains repeatedly, we are not sure if these were official diplomatic missions or simply bands of merchants who claimed to be representatives of their rulers.
• 3) The word "landed" needs some sort of explanation? It's a commonly-used word in a maritime context (e.g. "the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock") and is adequately encyclopedic terminology. Someone with a firm grasp of English would understand this statement as meaning the Romans landed on the shores via sailing vessels. In fact, "landed" can only mean one other thing, exclusively in a modern context: landing an airplane. People trekking across the land do not "land" at a place where they arrive. You can, however, "land" on something by falling on it, like falling off a cliff and "landing" on top of something below, like a bed of rocks (for instance).
• 4) I'm merely repeating Ostrovsky's interpretation of that passage by Florus. I slightly disagree with Ostrovsky, but my opinion doesn't matter; the only thing that matters is what the sources say (hence my cautious language of "seems" instead of using a firm, definitive statement). Your suggested solution is radically different from Ostrovsky's interpretation, and we are not allowed to twist the words of source material to come to a conclusion that we prefer. In fact, it lines up well with the introduction section by demonstrating the ambiguity around the identification of the "Seres" in Roman sources. I think you should discard this point entirely.
• 5) Again, along with "fuzzy" mentioned above, there's really nothing wrong per se with the word "murky," another word that is used commonly enough and understood by English speakers. Your suggestion to use the phrase "their understanding of it was rather less" doesn't makes sense gramatically, either. The word "less" is a preposition and an adverb; it is only used as an adjective in completely archaic English, and even then it was rarely used that way. Saying "rather less" sounds awkward. What you're looking for here is another suitable comparative adjective, like "hazier" or "blurrier", yet "murkier" sounds even more appropriate than these.
• 6) I've used the word "perhaps" here for a good reason, as a suggestive segue from the previous statement, since the source cited for that sentence does not mention the word "surprise" at all.
• 9) As for this bit about Muawiyah I, I've reworded it a bit, but that part must absolutely stay in the article, otherwise it removes the context of the passage almost entirely, which is to demonstate that the Chinese sources knew the key figures in this conflict by name (hence proving that the passage is about the siege of Constantinople and not some other event).
• 10) And again, this is a translation of a Latin passage that has been interpreted differently by Ostrovsky. Other reliable sources can be presented that may negate what Ostrovsky had to say, but his input shouldn't be discounted merely on the basis of another author's chosen translation (and your interpreation of that translation).
• 11) Thank you for taking the time to review the article! I hope you enjoyed it. Pericles of Athens^Talk 01:24, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Instead of the word "fuzzy", as described above, I've decided to go with the word "limited", which basically conveys the same meaning in this context. Does that suit you? Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:25, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

@PericlesofAthens: Sounds good.

• I think the article as of now meets good status, @BlueMoonset: do you agree?

Iazyges, I'll need some concentrated time to look at it. There's a chance that will be later tonight, but it's more likely to be Wednesday. I'll get back to you as soon as possible. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:33, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi BlueMoonset. Did you find any problems with the article? Iazyges seems content with the changes that I've made. Pericles of Athens^Talk 00:22, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

PericlesofAthens, this is a very long article, and to properly review it I also need spotcheck some of the online sources, so it's taking me a while to work my way through. So far, so good, though the five-paragraph lead runs up against the MOS:LEAD requirement, which puts the max at four paragraphs. I'm not sure whether there's any flexibility in the criteria there; it's hard to see how the current paragraphs might combine, yet all of the information feels like it ought to be there. Be assured that I will report back once I've completed examining the article; I've been busier this week than I expected. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:41, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

BlueMoonset: thanks for the prompt response! I've gone ahead and combined the first two paragraphs in order to meet the MOS guidelines about the number of paragraphs to be found in the lead section. Do let me know if there are any other glaring issues or mistakes that can be easily fixed before you lay out any larger or more detailed concerns. Cheers. Pericles of Athens^Talk 01:29, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi again BlueMoonset. Life is hectic sometimes, that I can fully understand. Should I go ahead and contact another user to look through the article, though, if you're a bit too busy to comb through it? At the very least, Iazyges didn't find any major glaring flaws. Pericles of Athens^Talk 10:40, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

PericlesofAthens, I would appreciate a bit more patience. To do a proper review, which includes delving into available sources, takes time, even when life isn't hectic (which it is, a bit, just now). You can certainly ask someone else to also look through it if you wish—more eyes never hurt—but I intend to make my way through the article nonetheless. Given that Iazyges is a new reviewer to GA who has taken on a very long and complex article and had issues in doing so, that no glaring flaws were found doesn't mean they don't exist, even if I'm not expecting to find any. Indeed, in what I've read so far, the article is very well written, and I haven't found any issues with the prose meeting the "clear and concise" criterion. However, one generally finds a few things here and there, which seems to be the case here.

Returning to the lead section, the section on "Da Qin" is more detailed in places than what is mentioned in the body of the article—"Da Qin" appears three times here, but only twice in the body, and the lead goes so far as to mention Pulleyblank, though he is not mentioned in the body. While I don't have direct access to the Pulleyblank source, one of your online sources (depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/weilue/notes11_30.html) quotes from it, and that quote, called Dà Qín, Great Qín, apparently thinking of it as a kind of counter-China at the other end of the world, is to my mind too close to the lead's unquoted text, known as "Da Qin", Great Qin, apparently thought to be a sort of counter-China at the other end of the world. I'd suggest quoting the original, which would probably necessitate mentioning Pulleyblank earlier, but if you decide to paraphrase further, then I'd certainly quote "counter-China" if that term is used. However, this level of detail should probably be in the body of the article; if you use "counter-China" in the lead, it should also be in the body.

I also have a question about orthography. "Fu lin" is almost invariably in italics, but "Da Qin" is not italicized. Why are they not treated the same—both in italics or both in (excuse the seeming pun) roman? Thanks again for your patience. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:34, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

BlueMoonset: Excellent points! I have addressed each one of them as you can now see in the article. I've moved the Pulleyblank material to the body of the article and wrapped quotes around the "counter-China" phrase that he used. Mind you, I was not the one who originally added that to the introduction, although I thought the quote too indispensible to remove. I wasn't too sure where to put it or explain it in the body beforehand, but I now believe it fits well with the geography section. As for the italicization of "Fu lin" versus "Daqin", I've decided to remove the italics around each and every instance of "Fu lin" in the article, so that it corresponds with how "Daqin" is treated. Thanks for getting back to me, and again, I realize how busy you must be. I offered the reminder about the article simply because I am not too busy now, but by the end of the month I'll be far too busy to edit Wikipedia in a heavily-focused or concentrated manner. I might be entirely inactive, actually. I've already alerted the copy-editors' guild about this article, so I don't know if there's much else I can do. Unfortunately, my old copy-editor pals (from my Wiki glory days of writing FAs almost a decade ago) seem to be rather inactive these days. In either case, thanks for bringing up these concerns. Cheers. Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:23, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

PericlesofAthens, thanks for the updates. However, I'm afraid that simply quoting "counter-China" is not sufficient; the overly close paraphrasing is still intact. That sentence needs to put in your own words (aside from the quoted material), or the whole (not only "counter-China") must be quoted. I think you also might want to consider introducing Pulleyblank before that initial sentence, since it also comes from him and is his characterization. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:56, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Good catch! I've reworded it significantly and attributed both statements to Pulleyblank. Pericles of Athens^Talk 03:45, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Comments from BlueMoonset

General comments

As noted, the article is very well written. There are a few general issues that I believe need to be addressed.

• Although this is not a specific requirement at the GA level, the article has a lot of wikilinks—there's a great deal of blue. While there are a lot of unfamiliar terms, there is also a significant amount of MOS:OVERLINK. A term or name should only be linked the first time it appears in the article, and, if that first time was in the lead, it can also be linked in its first appearance in the body as well. A few examples: "Daqin", "Wenxian Tongkao" and its author "Ma Duanlin", "Book of Later Han", and even "Syria". You'll want to remove duplicate links throughout. There are also links for very common terms, also frowned on: I removed one for "sea". Another consideration is whether the wikilink is truly relevant/useful. Finally, WP:LINKSTYLE notes that Items within quotations should not generally be linked, which is something you'll want to look out for.
• The dating should be consistent. The article starts out with AD and BC, but later introduces CE and BCE. Please pick one pair and stick with it. See MOS:ERA; note that the one place where this consistency should not be enforced is within a quote, which should be left unchanged.

Embassies and travels

• In the Embassy to Augustus subsection, the middle of the Yule paragraph abruptly switches from the first century to a millennium later. The material in the latter half does not belong here; it has nothing to do with the Augustus visit, and chronologically leapfrogs ahead of this material and the next several subsections. It needs to go elsewhere, perhaps with the rest of the Ma Duanlin material (a construction like "As will be shown below" should be avoided in an article). I did have a question about the second sentence in Yule: the word "mused" seems odd to me and not appropriate for an encylopedic article: "speculated" or "theorized" seems more accurate.

• Henry Yule's full name is given three times in the article, and each time it is wikilinked. Normally, I'd suggest using his last name on subsequent introductions, but "Yule" alone has another meaning, so I'd only do this when the names are in close proximity.

• In the Envoy Gan Ying subsection, Haixi is defined twice. I'd recommend combining the two at its first mention, perhaps giving the general meaning and then the literal one.

• In the First Roman embassy subsection, I've done some minor edits. I think the phrase "lobbed at" is too informal for an encylopedic article; please reword.

Trade Relations

• In the first Roman exports to China paragraph, you start out in BC[E], and later give a date of 166. I'd specify AD/CE for 166, and be careful to ensure, throughout this section, that any possibly ambiguous date is given its era. For example, the fourth paragraph talks about "by the 2nd-century", which is probably AD/CE, but could be BC[E]. Better to specify.

• In the final Asian silk in the Roman Empire paragraph, the first sentence reads as if Pliny the Elder's claim also includes "much of Rome's coinage…", and I think these are two separate things. You will want to rephrase this (perhaps simply by reversing the two factors).

• In the first Archaeology paragraph of the Roman and Byzantine currency discovered in China subsection, I don't think "scanty amount of" is a good phrasing (try "few" if appropriate, or "small number of" if too many for "few"), and its link to "Circulation (currency)" is not a useful one and should be deleted. Also, I believe that "mid" in constructions like "mid 2nd century" always requires a hyphen (you'd want hyphens between both words here).

• In the final Hypothetical military conflict paragraph, Matthew's Greek Hoplites article needs to be turned into a proper inline reference and added to the end of the paragraph.

That's all I noticed in this check. I haven't yet had time to do a spotcheck of the individual online sources, which I still hope to do. Thank you very much for your patience. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:42, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Response by PericlesofAthens

Hi BlueMoonset! Thanks for spending your time to carefully review this article. I have attempted to address each of your bulleted points, as you can now see in the article, although there are a couple of these points that I find objectionable.

• I have only slightly reworded the bit about Pliny the Elder (turning "claim" into "claims" plural), because I think you've gotten confused here about what Pliny has said. Perhaps you missed the mentioning above about 100 million sesterces, a specifically-cited figure by Pliny. He did not mince his words; he was clearly speaking about coinage. To avoid ambiguity, I have mentioned the 100 million sesterces outside of the (first) quotation as well (and provided a link to "sesterces" outside of the quotation), to make it emphatically clear that Pliny was referring to coinage.
• Although the article does suffer from some overlinking, which I have started to address in earnest, I can't express how much I detest this guideline, which I consider to be immenseley short-sighted. Wikipedia is a living encyclopedia, in that anyone can just come along and reword and rework anything that's been written before. I have witnessed dozens of articles (yes, even GAs) where passages have been altered significantly and in these moments editors often fail to provide links for what has been refashioned. Having only one link for an item in the entire article means the link can often go missing for months if not years on end without anyone noticing. These are sometimes incredibly vital links, critical for navigation and readers' understanding of terms used in the article. I'm willing to link specific items only once for each major section; I think it is entirely reasonable that each item may be linked once in every major section to follow. I am not very good at spotting these, so I'm going to need some help with that beyond the GA review (I've alerted the guild of copyeditors, which have thus far been very helpful to my article on Sogdia, so I'm sure they'll address the same concerns here).

Aside from these, I have conformed the dating convention to BC/AD only, moved the material about Ma Duanlin down to its appropriate sub-section as you requested, defined "Haixi" only once per your advice, removed any and all links found within block quotes, reworded items like "mused", "lobbed," and "scanty" as you suggested, hyphenated "mid-2nd-century AD", and fixed Matthew's inline citation. The article is looking very polished as a result! Again, thanks for critiquing the article and pointing out these various flaws, which I probably wouldn't have spotted otherwise. Pericles of Athens^Talk 23:02, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

You're welcome, PericlesofAthens. There is just one thing that wasn't done, the Matthew Hoplite citation. While you moved the inline source citation of his bio to the end of the paragraph, that bio has no information on what the article contains and cannot support the facts given in that paragraph. What needs to be done is to take the actual title and journal of the article that he wrote, turn it into an inline source citation, and put that at the end of the paragraph. Otherwise, this looks great, and I'm very happy with the work you've done. Once this makes GA, you might want to consider a peer review to see whether this is ready to make a run at the Featured Article process. (I've never written an FA myself, so I'm not very familiar with the how the standards are judged.) BlueMoonset (talk) 00:35, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

I don't have access to his work, so I've decided to remove his claim altogether. It's a fringe theory within a fringe theory anyway. Pericles of Athens^Talk 01:18, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Is this review still active? Pericles of Athens^Talk 04:24, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi BlueMoonset. Have you had a chance to cross-check the references? Pericles of Athens^Talk 23:13, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

User:BlueMoonset: could you please respond? I appreciate the input you've provided so far, but I feel as though you've placed this article review on the "back-burner", so to speak, for over two weeks now. As far as GA candidacies go, I think I've been rather patient with this one. If you remain unresponsive for another whole week, no offense, but I think that I would then request someone else to review this GA candidate. Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:19, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

PericlesofAthens, I have to apologize. I have been unable to carve out sufficient time to check references, and when I picked a likely one to start my spot-check—FN9, the Hirth 2000 [1885] one from Fordham with 36 citations—I realized it would take far more time than I am prepared to spend on an article I hadn't intended to review in the first place. I am therefore putting in a request for a second opinion, since I am more convinced than ever that Iazyges has neither the experience nor the wherewithal to properly conduct a GA review to the required depth. I'm also sorry that this means you will likely have to wait a while longer, but at this point I cannot approve the article without doing the sources check. (If you would prefer, I can instead put this back in the pool of articles needing a reviewer without loss of seniority.) BlueMoonset (talk) 03:24, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Hmm. Okay. The Hirth source is available online, though, in the link provided for that source. The other sources are perhaps also available on Google Books. Nevertheless, if you don't feel up to the task, feel free to put this article back into the pool for other reviewers to tackle. Thanks for the input you've provided thus far; it has certainly led to noticeable improvements of the article. Regards. Pericles of Athens^Talk 07:12, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

GA review redux

Hi User:PericlesofAthens, I've accepted your request for a 2nd opinion. Look forward to working with you. I've got a reasonable background knowledge, but this is my first GA rodeo, so feel free to give me tactful hints when necessary. NPalgan2 (talk) 05:24, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Reply

That's great! Thank you, NPalgan2, for taking the time to review this article. I'll wait patiently for your input. Cheers. Pericles of Athens^Talk 07:43, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Very preliminary impressions

• User:PericlesofAthens This article is obviously very impressive, but it should state its scope unambiguously and early on. When an article has such a large scope it’s very hard to summarize it well in the lead. I thought I was reading an article on 'relations between the Western Roman Empire and China during the Han and Jin’ for some time. (The first paragraph of the lead really gives that impression.)
• It feels artificial after a certain point to just focus on Byzantines in China, especially once you reach the Yuan. Article split/merge? I feel that Graeco-Roman geographers’ knowledge of the Far East and vice versa could be hived off into separate articles with a great increase in readability.
• From lead: "kept the two Eurasian flanking powers” - the phrasing from the map, "occupied the opposite ends of Eurasia, with the Parthian Empire and Kushan Empire in between” seems much better, 'flanking' is unclear unless you know what was being meant anyway
• References should be moved out of lead.
• You say "powerful intermediate empires such as the Parthians and Kushans kept the two Eurasian flanking powers permanently apart”. I wondered if your intended meaning was “prevented the territorial expansion of the two empires from joining up” until later in the article. The lead should explain that maintaining control the silk trade was the motive for Parthian and Kushan impeding Sino-Roman relations as it's an important point.
• From lead: "but Gan was dissuaded by Parthian authorities from venturing beyond the Persian Gulf.” From body " Mesopotamia, then under the control of the Parthian Empire. While he intended to sail to the Roman Empire, he was discouraged when told that the dangerous trip could take up to two years.“ The Hou Hanshu says it was sailors who told him this, not authorities. See here for an interesting theory (don’t know if you saw this): https://books.google.com/books?id=gzJf1KgqrWQC&pg=PA125
• Inconsistency, even outside of quoted text between Fu-lin and Fu lin and Da Qin and Daqin, use and non-use of hyphens - why Mo-yi and not Moyi, etc?
• Just as an aside, is there any convention in the scholarly literature about tone marks in transcriptions of ancient material? Sometimes I see Da Qin, sometimes Da4 Qin2. NPalgan2 (talk) 08:35, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Also see 137-8 here. 'conjectured'? https://books.google.com/books?id=WVPFCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA137#v=onepage&q&f=false NPalgan2 (talk) 09:32, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Second Reply

Hi NPalgan2! Thank you for bringing these points into consideration.

• I have edited the article accordingly, making the naming conventions for "Daqin" and "Fulin" fully consistent throughout the article.
• I've removed most of the citations from the lead except for those with direct quotes, or at the least single quoted words, which I'm afraid are going to need citations regardless of being in the lead section (those are the rules).

PericlesofAthens I'm pretty sure the quotation marks around "Seres" et al. are unnecessary, as they aren't quotations in any real sense. LEADCITE requires us to source a quotation in the lead to properly cite someone's opinion, but sourcing "Seres" to Schoff doesn't add anything. NPalgan2 (talk) 06:10, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

• I've reworded that problematic sentence in the first paragraph of the lead that you've brought to my attention.
• The tone marks are handled in the separate article for Daqin and elsewhere in the article with a single instance of tonal Pinyin where necessary. Beyond that we do not need any special attention for tonal marks. This is the English Wikipedia, after all, and considerations about Mandarin pronunciation aren't that relevant. In fact, they're highly irrelevant considering how Mandarin did not exist as a language during the Han and Roman period. The Old Chinese dialects were quite different, and so were those of Middle Chinese. Mandarin didn't develop until the last two centuries of the contemporaneous Eastern Roman Empire (i.e. Byzantine Empire).

That was what I expected, I just noticed Pulleybank was doing Da4Qin2 throughout which, seemed odd as, as you you say, modern Mandarin pronunciation so different. NPalgan2 (talk) 06:10, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

• Speaking of which, I hotly contest in the absolute strongest terms any suggestion to split material from the article based solely on the idea that the Byzantine Empire doesn't seem "Roman" enough to you as a reviewer. This might be your subjective opinion, but it is not fit for an encyclopedia where the Byzantine Empire is defined as the Eastern Roman Empire. There was no difference, historically speaking, and the mere conception of a "Byzantine Empire" that is separate from the Roman legacy is a later 19th-century invention and anachronistic distortion. In sum, the "Byzantines" considered themselves to be Roman, continued to dole out Roman citizenship, and maintained Roman traditions, laws, customs, etc., despite the territorial losses over the centuries. This article is also no place for a contrarian debate on that subject.

I was unclear - I was not suggesting that the Byzantines weren't Roman, just noting that by the Yuan dynasty there were so many Europeans in China that splitting out the Byzantines among them into a separate article seemed odd instead of having them in the other Europeans in Medieval China article. I'd still suggest considering having a separate article just on relations with the Western Roman Empire, especially as there was so long between Wu of Jin and the 'Fulin' embassies of the Tang. NPalgan2 (talk) 06:10, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

• The "Byzantines" are mentioned in the first paragraph of the lead: "Others are recorded as arriving in 226 and 284 AD, with a long absence until the first recorded Byzantine embassy in 643 AD." Also, the last two paragraphs of the lead discuss the Eastern Romans. To be frank, I don't think the article is unwieldy or unreasonably large at this point to warrant splitting such material, especially since there is no valid basis for splitting material based on it being "Byzantine" or not.

There's WP:TOOBIG to consider which others will be sure mention if you go for FA at over 100k. NPalgan2 (talk) 06:10, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

• As for Greco-Roman knowledge of Chinese geography being placed in a separate article, that's an interesting suggestion, although I'm not highly convinced that that sub-section is too unwieldy either. The article "Daqin" goes into some detail about the Chinese knowledge of Western/Mediterranean geography. I'm not entirely sure what title I'd give to an article about Rome's knowledge of Chinese geography. It's a much more arcane topic than Sino-Roman relations as a whole, and I'm afraid that creating such an article and diverting all that material over there would be a near total waste in terms of limited viewership. As it stands now this article doesn't get much attention. I'd imagine no more than two or three measly views a day for an article with a convoluted title like "Ancient Roman geographical musing and knowledge of China during its Eastern Han period." Besides, the article "Serica" should be fairly sufficient for that purpose, albeit discussing a rather different set of topics than the sub-section in question.Pericles of Athens^Talk 10:00, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

I do feel the article is unwieldy. The section on the sailor Alexandros's travels in Burma and Vietnam, Maes Titanus who went as far as Kashgar, this is not just China but half of Asia, and there's no indication of such material in the lead paragraph. Roman knowledge of the Far East could be a good article. NPalgan2 (talk) 06:10, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Third Reply

• Fair enough. I've now removed all citations from the lead section and moved them into the body of the article where appropriate. I had to add a sentence or two in order to achieve this, though.
• It is not unusual for several Wikipedia articles to cover the same sub-topics. For instance, just because we have an article on Valley Forge does not mean we should eliminate that similarly-named section from the page on George Washington. Sometimes gutting things from Wikipedia articles does not improve them, especially since it rips much of the context away from the article. It is perfectly acceptable for Europeans in Medieval China to discuss the Byzantines, even though that's not the main focus of that article. Meanwhile, the Byzantines can also be simultaneously covered here in Sino-Roman relations, because we're still talking about Romans (notice how this article does not meander into a discussion about Europeans more generally, aside from a couple passing references and a few links to Europeans in Medieval China). Besides, the Fulin section has about five paragraphs (minus the block quote). That's not inordinate in size if we observe any given Wikipedia article, especially given the central importance of the diplomatic travels. That's kind of the whole point of this article.
• Also, I'm not sure why you brought up the Western Roman Empire (WRE), which wasn't established until the tail-end of the 3rd century AD and even then didn't become permanently split until 395 AD with the death of Theodosius I, who ruled over both the eastern and western halves of the empire. I'm also unaware of any instance where the WRE conducted direct relations with any dynasty of China; I'm really perplexed as to why you brought this up. Were you trying to refer to the previously united Roman Empire?
• If there were to be an article on the subject of Roman geographical knowledge about China at all, I wouldn't use the term "Far East"..."East Asia" is more geographically apt and betrays less of a cultural bias/obvious Western perspective. Even then it's kind of a misnomer, because I went to some length carefully explaining how the Romans did not have a definitive geographical knowledge of Asia, conflating huge swaths of it with one region or another, and falsely believing that China was two countries instead of one (although that was a political reality for quite some time during the period of division between the Jin and Sui dynasties). I'd steer clear from making such a split article for multiple reasons, one of them being the trouble of titling such an article and another being the legitimacy of splitting the material in the first place. As it stands now, Serica does a fairly good job of supplementing the information found in this article. If people want to know more about Roman geographical knowledge of the East, then they can visit that article or others that are linked such as Magnus Sinus. Besides, creating an article that is almost identical to Serica, but merely with a different title and a few superficial differences, is in violation of Wikipedia:Content forking.
• When and if the present article gets to the size of 100k then we can certainly have that discussion, perhaps in a future FA candidate review. However, I have no plans for expanding this article and to be frank about it, there's not much more to add aside from semi-relevant news blurbs like the skeletons in Roman London thing (I was reluctant at first even to add that; in fact, someone else did and I didn't see the need to remove it).
• Perhaps Maes Titianus does not deserve his own sub-section and can instead be mentioned in a little blurb somewhere; his absence in the lead section is a very valid point. I'll remove the sub-section and move some of that material elsewhere. However, I thought it was fairly clear why the sailor Alexandros was mentioned several times in the article. This is clearly directly related to the maritime trade between Greco-Romans and Han Chinese the preceded the first alleged diplomatic encounter. You're also thinking too much in terms of modern borders. Half of Vietnam was under the control of the Han Empire, and it is in this region that the Chinese histories explicitly state the Romans first landed in order to trade. It is simply imperative to include the information about Alexandros and to mention him where he is relevant (i.e. the geography and trade relations sections, respectively). Pericles of Athens^Talk 10:28, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Just to update things for you, I have gone ahead and removed the section on Maes Titianus, shifting some of the material to a different section. Pericles of Athens^Talk 14:36, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Great. Perhaps clarify what is meant by 'relations'? After all, sometimes Wikipedia:You do need to cite that the sky is blue. Note that Blue and Sky both do this. Something like: "Sino-Roman relations refers to the flow of artifacts, rumors and occasional travelers that occurred between China and the Roman Empire, starting in the Han Dynasty with … and by the of by the fall of Constantinople many foreign devils..." That would be enough nitpicking and I can get on to just checking the article. NPalgan2 (talk) 05:20, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

One other suggestion: change the two images in the lead - as the article is going to cover right up to 1453, having one picture mentioning the Han dynasty and the other the trade routes of the 1st century BC is misleading as to scope. NPalgan2 (talk) 05:39, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

I have edited the lead paragraph once more to reflect your recent suggestion (a very good one I might add). However, the map thing is a bit trickier. It's pretty difficult to find decent maps on Wikimedia. They're not always available. Hunting for them usually takes a while. I'll give it a shot, but I don't think I'm going to find something more useful than the maps already found in the lead. They do pertain to Antiquity and don't cover the Middle Ages, unfortunately, but they are of good quality and quite informative. We're lucky to have them at all. Hopefully there's something that can be added. If so I'll shift one of the current maps down to the body of the article, because I would hate to lose either one of them. Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:05, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Done some minor copy editing, feel free to revert anything. "While Syrian jugglers were renowned in Western Classical literature, Chinese sources from the 2nd century BC to 2nd century AD mention them as well.[72]" (Maybe mention the name Li-Kan again, and further support Bell's claim with https://books.google.com/books?id=AXrHi31KN9YC&pg=PA260 ? NPalgan2 (talk) 10:19, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

• "Richthofen's identification of Cattigara as Hanoi was widely accepted until archaeological discoveries made at Óc Eo (near Ho Chi Minh City) in the Mekong Delta suggested that site may have been its location.[117] At the formerly coastal site of Óc Eo, Roman coins were among the vestiges of long-distance trade discovered by the French archaeologist Louis Malleret in the 1940s.[114] These include Roman golden medallions from the reign of Antoninus Pius and his successor Marcus Aurelius as well.[4][118] In regards to latitude corresponding with Ptolemy's account, Granville Allen Mawer mentions Óc Eo, where Roman goods and native jewelry imitating Antonine Roman coins have been found, as a possible location for Cattigara.[11] However, he also mentions Kauthara (in Khánh Hòa Province, Vietnam) and Kutaradja (Banda Aceh, Indonesia) as other plausible sites for that port city.[11]" This needs editing. NPalgan2 (talk) 10:25, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
• "Chinese histories for the Tang dynasty (618–907 AD) record contacts with merchants from "Fulin" (拂菻), the new name used to designate the Byzantine Empire, the continuation of the Roman Empire in the east.[25][84] During the 19th century Hirth and Yule identified Fulin as the Byzantine Empire.[25][84][85] " Maybe mention the eis-ten-polin derivation? NPalgan2 (talk) 10:28, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
• "since Roman products like glass were valued as exotic items yet glass was also produced locally, even in China.[121][125] In fact, locally produced Chinese glasswares date back to the Western Han era (202 BC – 9 AD).[128] " Edit this down maybe? Why is the precise date when glassmaking began necessary? And "locally, even in China"? NPalgan2 (talk) 10:31, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
• "Yule mentions how in the early 3rd century AD a ruler of Daqin sent an envoy with gifts to the northern Chinese court of Cao Wei (220–265 AD) that included glasswares of various colors.[82] Several years later a Daqin craftsman is mentioned as showing the Chinese how to make "flints into crystal by means of fire," which the Chinese noted with positive feedback." Edit for style again? Also, the Roman craze for silk is interesting, but maybe Seneca's denunciations and some of the other material could be moved to History_of_silk? NPalgan2 (talk) 10:35, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
• "While observing that the Romans had a nominum emporion (i.e. recognized trading port) in Southeast Asia, Dougald O'Reilly claims that there is little evidence to suggest Cattigara was Oc Eo, the Roman items found there being indicative at least of the Indian Ocean trade network extending to the ancient Kingdom of Funan.[118] He lists the other Roman items found there as being glass beads and bracelets.[118]" Editing here again. And "nominum emporion"? Insert link to emporium (antiquity)? And, um, sir, sir, I'm sorry, sir, but I don't get what the nominum is? http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=nominum&la=la
• I think that if the article is going to say Cattigara was probably Oc Eo, all debate over the other identifications should be put immediately after the first mention in the article body or put in a footnote. NPalgan2 (talk) 11:13, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

• • NPalgan2: I have cited Braun (2002) in further support about the claim of Roman-Syrian jugglers in Western Classical literature (since Braun quotes Juvenal on this issue and elaborates the extent to which they were well-known throughout the empire). Thanks for pointing out this source.
  • I reverted only two of your edits, the first because you are not allowed to place links directly inside a block quotation (see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking#General principles), and the second because you removed the capital "E" in Parthian Empire. While you are generally correct about the other instances of capitalization, "Parthian Empire" is a proper place name and title for that historical country. Notice how this capitalization is consistent with the titles for other empires in the article (e.g. "Roman Empire," "Han Empire," "Kushan Empire").
  • I have edited the "Roman exports to China" section to fix some of those sloppy, broken sentences. I have also moved the mention of the other possible sites for Cattigara right after the first mention of Oc Eo in that section. Keep in mind those are sites suggested by Mawer (2013); they do not necessarily reflect scholarly consensus. Most authors I've read concur that Oc Eo is the most likely site for the port described by Ptolemy.
    • Perhaps then put the other sites for Cattigara in a footnote if most scholars accept Oc Eo? I disrupts the flow of the article. NPalgan2 (talk) 01:58, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
  • "Maybe mention the eis-ten-polin derivation?" I'm sorry, I do not follow. Are you trying to say that, etymologically, Chinese "Fulin" (拂菻) is derived from "Constantinople"?
    • I saw something suggesting that, like eis-ten-polin=Istanbul, polin=Fulin. NPalgan2 (talk) 01:58, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
  • I have edited the two sentences about Chinese-produced glasswares.
  • I have edited the sentence about the possible Roman glassware blowers in China.
    • Still needs editing I think - "Trade items such as spice and silk had to be paid for with Roman gold coinage, since Roman products like glass were valued as exotic items, yet glass was also produced locally in China" may be change to "Trade items such as spice and silk had to be paid for with Roman gold coinage, but although there was some demand in Chinafor Roman glass, glass was also produced locally in China ..." and shift that discussion of the trade balance up to the Pliny quote instead of wheeling back to the subject after the seneca quote. NPalgan2 (talk) 01:58, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure why you want to remove material about silk in the Roman Empire. It was the most important commercial item produced in China that was purchased in the Roman Empire.
    • Yes, but perhaps a sentence or so saying silk was so highly valued it caused a trade imbalance is sufficient in *this* article. For comparison, I'm sure that a future encyclopedia about Sino-American trade relations might note that Americans imported lots of iPhones but not an American complaining iPhones caused social anomie like the Seneca quote. NPalgan2 (talk) 01:58, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
  • "Nominum emporion." Hah! Don't look at me. I'm simply quoting Dougald O'Reilly here, who cites a certain Miksic (2003). In either case it is superfluous to keep the Latin phrase here while the English phrase "recognized trading port" can suffice. I've also reworded those two sentences, which I admit are rather awkward. Pericles of Athens^Talk 17:31, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Fourth reply

• Hi User:NPalgan2! As you've requested, I've shifted the discussion about other sites for Cattigara into a footnote. I've also added a new dual footnote system to separate lengthy footnotes from the shorter, regular ref notes.
• In the Chinese section for the article Names of Istanbul it does not cover the "Fulin" connection to eis-ten-polin/Constantinople, starting only with terminology that existed since the Ming dynasty. Perhaps you remember the source you recently read that has this information? It's not that big a deal, though, and certainly shouldn't effect the outcome of the GA process. I am slightly curious about this possible etymological derivation, though.

An article of Hirth's: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3087494 Not that big a deal, but interesting. (However I see someone else casting doubt on this: https://books.google.com/books?id=VYaMuV3N5vUC&pg=PA127 ) NPalgan2 (talk) 19:57, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

I much prefer the description offered by Samuel N.C. Lieu than that of Hirth, who is a pretty outdated source despite retaining general reliability. I might add this discussion about etymology in the article Daqin, although I think it's perhaps unnecessary to elaborate here in this article about the origins of that historical title for the Eastern Roman Empire. Given their strong diplomatic and trade relationship, to say nothing of the various Persian-speaking peoples who lived in Imperial China, it makes perfect sense that the Chinese would borrow the Persian/Bactrian/Sogdian word for the Roman Empire. Pericles of Athens^Talk 22:20, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

User:NPalgan2: check out the new section Daqin#Etymology in that Wiki article, where I've provided an explanation for the possible origins of the term Fulin. Perhaps I'll even link Fulin to that section, although I'm wary of doing so, since I want to keep the Chinese written characters for it in this article as well. I don't exactly want to give readers the impression that Fulin has its own article yet. Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:00, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

• I have edited the silk trade sub-section as you've requested, rewording the problematic sentence and shifting another up towards the previous paragraph (i.e. the one just before the quote from Seneca). I think it's a marked improvement in terms of how that sub-section now flows from one paragraph to the next. Good catch.
• "Sino-American trade relations might note that Americans imported lots of iPhones" I see the analogy you're trying to make here, but I'm still not convinced. When most readers visit this article they're going to expect some sort of discussion about silk, thanks to the legacy of the Silk Road (which the humorously cantankerous Warwick Ball refutes, yet he also makes a poignant observation that the spice trade with India had a much greater impact on the Roman economy). I don't think silk is comparable in the same way that the modern-day (American) iPhone is comparable, for starters. The Chinese had a virtual monopoly on silk until the Byzantines smuggled silk worm eggs in the 6th century. That means for six entire centuries (from c. 50 BC) the Chinese benefited wholesale from the silk trade that spanned all the way to Europe. Besides, that sub-section isn't too wordy or huge. It's significantly smaller than the previous sub-section about Roman exports to China. I don't think I'm giving that particular sub-section any WP:Undue weight in comparison to other topics covered in the article. In fact, given the prominence of this topic among academics and WP:Reliable sources when they discuss the relationship between ancient Rome and Han China, one could even argue that I'm considerably downplaying the subject in this article. The largely indirect Sino-Roman relationship wasn't defined by competition or conflict over territory and vassals like Rome's relationship with neighboring Parthia; it was built on trade, the cornerstone of which was the silk trade. To overlook this or gut it from the article would be unacceptable, I think.Pericles of Athens^Talk 17:41, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Ok, we'll leave it in. NPalgan2 (talk) 19:57, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

NPalgan2: hi Palgan. It's been over a week since we last discussed this article. Are you still actively reviewing the article? Is there any other major item to critique or do you consider the review to be near the finish line? Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:43, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Dear NPalgan2: it has now been over two weeks since you last responded here. Should I be concerned with the progress of this review? This article already had a bump in the road when User:BlueMoonset decided that he did not have sufficient time or interest in this article to pursue the GA review. Do you have plans to finish this review or are you also relieving yourself from that duty? So far there have been two other reviewers who have essentially come and given their approval of the article. From my previous experience with GA's this has to be the longest candidate I've ever kept open and with the most reviewers I've ever seen, to the point where a few more would make it seem like an FA candidacy process instead. Can we please move this along? I was not expecting this to go past the New Year into 2017. Pericles of Athens^Talk 13:14, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Well, this is the last day of 2016. I've had this review open since September and thus far four people have reviewed it, with two of them passing it, another abstaining, and another now totally unresponsive. Could those moderating Wikipedia:Good article nominations please do something about this? NPalgan2 is apparently inactive on Wikipedia now. Pericles of Athens^Talk 14:07, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Another GA review

This is my first time conducting a GA review but I know the criteria. Feel free to correct me if I've messed anything up.

Verdict: GA quality achieved (image copyright, which I didn't check thoroughly, excluded).

1. Well written? Yes. I don't see any spelling or grammar errors. I also don't see any other types of typo or writing error such as incorrect capitalization or spaces before commas.

Item to discuss: in "The final recorded embassy arrived in 1091", 1091 is not followed by AD or BC whereas every other date in the article is.

Item to discuss: In a caption, Tashkurgan is described as being "the doorstep to China". Is "doorstep" the right word here, or would "customary entry point" be better?

Item to discuss: In the caption of the first map, there is written (amongst other info) "attributed to del Chierico". I think his forename should be given as well.

Item to discuss: In the caption to Ptolemy's 11th Asian regional map, should those semicolons be there or should they be commas?

2. Verifiable? Unsure, probably yes

Every assertion in the body of the article has a citation. However, there are some that are just author surnames, dates and page numbers. I don't know if that's considered verifiable for a published paper or if a source title is needed. I suspect that these citations are considered verifiable.

3. Broad in its coverage? Yes

a. It covers everything relevant? Yes

b. It stays on topic? Yes

4. Neutral? Yes

There's a few examples in the article of a point of view being immediately contrasted with an opposing point of view.

5. Stable? Yes Info is being moved around in a minor way due to responses to the GA reviews. That's fine. There is no edit warring.

6. Illustrated? Yes

a. Legal copyright status? Unsure To be honest, I'm not going to check every image. I checked three and the copyright looked fine on them.

b. All images are relevant with suitable captions? Yes

One more comment that isn't part of the GA criteria and therefore won't obstruct getting the GA status: I notice that no Chinese spelling is supplied for Daqin. There's one supplied on the Daqin article, though, as I'm sure you know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mochicat (talk • contribs) 02:36, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Thank you kindly for this review, Mochicat! I have reworded the image captions as you've requested. I also added an "AD" after that one instance of "1091"; good catch! Del Chierico's full name is rather long, so I decided to add only his given name, Francesco. As for the inline citations with the author's surname, year, and page number, the full reference information for these sources are found in the "references" section just below "footnotes" at the bottom of the article. ;) You'll find that roughly half of Wikipedia articles follow this format, although some editors choose to write out the full reference information in a "notes" section, essentially combining the footnotes and bibliography sections into one. In either case thank you for taking the time to review this article. Cheers! Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:35, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Everything had been addressed by the multiple reviewers at this point, and there don't appear to be any hiccups. Since people keep leaving before wrapping up the review, I'll just close this one myself. The level of detail in this review was both impressive and a little bit overkill, all things considered. Wizardman 14:23, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Thank you kindly, User:Wizardman! I'm so glad that it is finally over. Have a Happy New Year! Pericles of Athens^Talk 14:30, 31 December 2016 (UTC)