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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Antiochus XII Dionysus/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 22:03, 29 September 2018 [1].

Antiochus XII Dionysus

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Nominator(s): Attar-Aram syria (talk) 23:48, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

History is a witness to countless moments where a leader was so close to victory then lost all due to a miscalculation and perhaps stupid courage which lead him to fight in the front lines, getting killed in the process, leading his army to disband and his enemy to prevail. This is the summary of Antiochus XII's mistake. This king was an energetic ruler who seemed to be on the path of regaining the Seleucid Empire’s long lost prestige. He defeated Judea and came close to defeating the Nabataeans. This article will be interesting for anyone who have a soft spot for the Seleucids. Attar-Aram syria (talk) 23:48, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Dank

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  • Different people take different approaches to lead writing. Checking the history of WP:LEAD will give you a flavor of what the arguments are (although that's impractical for just about everyone). To help you get through FAC, I recommend not listing two very long, nearly identical names before you even get to a verb, so I removed the second one, the transliteration. It would be fine to put it anywhere else ... the start of the first section, some infobox, etc.
  • Consistency is needed in the notation for Seleucid years: "88-87 BC", "85/84", "230", etc.
  • It would be best to create stubs for Alfred Raymond Bellinger and Horvat Uza, rather than linking to the Italian and French Wikipedias.
  • "a certain Philotas": probably just "Philotas", or "a [something] named Philotas", or "Governor Philotas".
  • "Alexander Jannaeus as a retribution for the defeat mentioned by George Syncellus": After the first mention, here and elsewhere, don't use their first names.
  • "6th-century": probably sixth-century. At any rate, consistency is needed (for centuries under 10).
  • "Josephus called Antiochus XII the last Seleucid king, which is echoed by Malalas, according to the translation of Glanville Downey, but Antiochus XIII is generally considered to be the last Seleucid king.": Please clarify.
  • Support on prose per my standard disclaimer. Well done. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 21:44, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments. I corrected everything. If you think anything still needs adjustment, please tell me.
Looks great, thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 00:08, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Procedural note

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Attar-Aram syria, I must've missed something, when did you obtain leave to open a second solo nomination while Philip I Philadelphus is still running? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 08:52, 9 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Ian, I actually dont have a leave! I thought you are allowed two nominations at the same time. Now I think Im mixing the rule of copy editors guild with FA. It is fine to close this and I will nominate it again later since in any case it didnt get enough reviews to pass or fail. CHheers.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 09:18, 9 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Well the FAC instructions are pretty clear on that point and I figured you'd been around here enough to recall them... Thing is, when an existing nom seems close to consensus for promotion, and the nominator requests leave to open a new one, the coords generally agree. That was probably the case with Philip at the time you opened this one. Because of that, and the fact that I didn't pick up on the situation until now, when someone had already taken the time to review, I think we may as well leave this open -- but pls keep the instructions in mind for next time! Tks/cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:55, 9 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I was also confused by this, which is why I didn't comment yet, but I will return at a later date to review now that it obtained leave. FunkMonk (talk) 13:38, 9 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You are right Ian, will be more carefull in the future

From FunkMonk

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Hey FunkMonk, sorry for the late response. Im on a vacation and dont have any PC, only my phone and any editor knows what a pain it is to edit through a smart phone. I will work on your review as soon as Im home.
  • One thing I noticed about this and most other articles about Seleucid rylers of Syria, none of them are tagged as part of Wikiproject Syria. Any reason for this?
Not really, I have tagged it
  • Josephus is not linked or presented. Other historians mentioned are not presented either, only Bellinger.
Those old historians are famous, for history students. Somtimes I forget that they are not actually famous. I introduced him and the other non introduced historians
  • This[2] Citebot edit was reverted, but it does have some valuable changes, such as adding dois, correct dashes between numbers, and abbreviations of Google Books links, which should be retained.
I restored the bot's helpfull edits.
  • Everything linked in the intro should also be linked in the article body at first mention.
Done
  • Link Hadad in caption.
Done
  • "Nabataeans' oil industry" What kind of oil?
Petrol, I added this to the article
  • "This is possibly related to Philip I's attack on Damascus, but this supposition has little support" Then why was he portrayed as bearded?
It can relate to the campaign against Jannaeus or the Nabateans
  • "stretched 28 km" Convert.
Done
  • "and it would logical for the king" Be?
fixed
  • "the last Seleucid king was in fact Antiochus XIII" Give date for when his rule ended here?
Done
  • "plain stretching 4 km" Convert.
Done
  • "his Egyptian wife" Only stated in intro.
fixed
  • Is this image of any use?[3]
Used for the last section

Comments from CPA-5

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Greetings the page looks good still (I think) I can see some issues in the page. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 15:25, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • First, I can see a mix between American English and Britsh English like the words

"emphasize" (US English), "honour" (UK English), "kilometres" (UK English), "defenses" (US English), "patronised" (UK English) and posible more. Which English should the page use?

All turned to US English. kilometres is not my writing but the result of the convert template and cant be changed. 28 kilometres (17 mi). I dont think its a problem.
  • Second, titles like in this case "the Nabatean king, Aretas III" should be capitalised or in this case "the death of the king" it should be too.
Fixed
  • Third, I also see alot of historians who're not capitalised before their names like
"Byzantine monk and historian John Malalas", "historian Glanville Downey", "eighth-century historian George Syncellus",
"numismatist Oliver D. Hoover" and more. Which is weird because other historians or other scientist titles are capitalised like,
"Archaeologist Nicholas L. Wright", "Historian Uranius of Apamea", "Historian Aryeh Kasher" and more, is there a reason why they are not
capitalised?
This is where Im not sure what to do. In the current version, academic titles are capitalized when they occur in the beginning of a sentence, and thats why some are capitalized and some are not. As for capitalizing all of them, I cant understand what should be done because the policy isnt clear: Do not add academic or professional titles to names, as in Professor Colombo or Sam O'Brien, PhD. An occasional exception is made for clarifying that person's qualifications with regard to a claim attributed in an article. Any thoughts?
  • Fourth, the date Seleucid era (SE for short) is not used in alot of years why not?
Some examples 125 BC, 111 BC, 113 BC, 98 BC and more of those dates were used in the years 88/87 BC as 225 SE, 85/84 BC as 228 SE. Is there
a good reason why they shouldn't be used on those years?
I only add the SE when the source mention it. Sometimes, a scholar does not know when an event happened precisely as he only have a coin as an evidence. This coin will be dated by an SE, meaning two Gregorians, so the scholar will mention the SE and two Gregorians. Some other times, the historian write an exact Gregorian date, and then I use this date.

Coordinator comment: CPA-5, do you have more to add here? This FAC has been open a long time now and I think we need to see something happening soon or we will have to consider archiving, even with two supports. In the meantime, I think we still need a source and image review. Sarastro (talk) 20:33, 5 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Sarastro. What is the minimum number of support votes for an FA ? Now that CPA-5 supported, the article have three.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 18:28, 6 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Three comprehensive supports (meaning not supporting simply on prose, or on sources, but across the FAC criteria) has been the historical minimum but consensus for promotion is not supposed to be about the number per se. In any case, as Sarastro mentions, we need image and source reviews before considering promotion -- you can request them at the top of WT:FAC. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:37, 7 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

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No ALT text in most images. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:15, 9 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a lot for the review. I added the alt

CommentsSupport from Constantine

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The usual thorough work I've come to expect from Attar-Aram syria. I made some copyedits going along, as well as introducing the {{ill}} and {{Reign}} templates. I have a few parts that are not entirely clear:

  • "targeted at the south but not towards expansion within Syria" what exactly was the southern target then?
  • "maintaining a good relationship with the Semitic population of Damascus, who comprised the majority of the inhabitants, in order to avoid tension with Greek settlers." This also leads to some questions: Was there pre-existing tension between the Semitic populace and Greek settlers? Were the Greek settlers the mainstay of Antiochus, and he wanted to appease the Semitic inhabitants? Did Antiochus try broaden his base of support or shift it entirely?
  • "that he alone had a higher command" what exactly does the "he alone" here mean? That Phanias was the sole high official of the kingdom?
  • Currently the first paragraph of the "First Nabataean campaign and the incursions of Philip I" section is a bit unintegrated into the narrative. I strongly recommend moving the "Antiochus' first Nabataean campaign ... writings of Stephanus of Byzantium." part first, then explaining where Stephanus got his info from (the current 1st paragraph), and then modern scholarly views on this account, from Roschinski to Józef Milik.
  • "who betrayed Antiochus XII and opened the gates for Philip I" can be shortened to "who opened the gates to him"; the context is clear.
  • "as evidenced by coins dated to this period" redundant, again, the context of his portrayal on coins is clear.
  • "managed to rally his troops and weathered the attack, although he was killed" is a bit contradictory, I suggest rephrasing to "managed to rally his troops, but was killed..."

Once these are taken care of, I'll be happy to support. Constantine ✍ 14:03, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Constantine, Sorry for the delay. I did all the suggested edits. As for the Greeks in Damascus, what we know about the history of the city in this period is very scant. Practically nothing but few coins and mentions in Josephus and other later historians. So we dont know what was the case between Greeks and Arameans. Based on the appearance of Semitic gods instead of Zeus on Damascene coins, historian Kay Ehling proposed that this was an act by the side of the king to avoid any possible tension. I made it clear in the article that this is the hypothesis of Ehling. As for Phanias, the tone of the letter, according to those who studied it, indicates that he was the highest official, kind of a prime minister?
Hi Constantine, this seems about ready to close, did you want to add anything? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:40, 29 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Ian and Attar-Aram syria, yes, my concerns seem to have been addressed. Good to go. Constantine ✍ 16:34, 29 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Source review

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The nominator has asked me if I'll do a source review, which I will do over the weekend. More soonest. Tim riley talk 18:40, 28 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Review: The sources are from a wide range of publications, and appear to a non-expert to be authoritative and relevant. They are presented logically and formatted consistently. Two queries: unless I am missing something (a possibility by no means to be discounted) we have two works listed under Sources that are not referred to in the Citations, above:

  • Knauf, Ernst Axel (2009). "The Nabataean Connection of the Benei Ḥezir" etc.
  • Stern, Menaḥem (1987) [1976]. "The Jews in Greek and Latin Literature" etc.

Otherwise I can see no problems with the sources. – Tim riley talk 11:14, 29 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for this review. I deleted Knauf and used Stern. Cheers--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 17:27, 29 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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