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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Tolui/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 Gog the Mild via FACBot (talk) 12 September 2023 [1].

Tolui

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Nominator(s): ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:37, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Three million deaths in two sieges in two and a bit months; the mass rape of an enemy army; extraordinary military achievements; dying in a shamanic ritual to appease the curses of angered spirits; his wife and sons eventually ruling a continent... all these things were (allegedly) in a life and death's work for Tolui, the youngest son of Genghis Khan. This nomination will be used in the WikiCup if successful; I hope you enjoy the article. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:37, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Image review—pass

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(t · c) buidhe 01:57, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Unprecedented, that. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 08:52, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Steelkamp

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Comments to come. I will mostly focus on prose. Steelkamp (talk) 06:57, 16 August 2023 (UTC) [reply]

Prose comments

Lead

  • "Born in the late 1180s or early 1190s". Is this necessary when his approximate birth year is mentioned in the first sentence of the lead?
    • Removed.
  • "Genghis eventually passed him over..." Suggest changing this to "Genghis eventually passed Tolui over..."
    • Added.
  • "Tolui was also the husband of Sorghaghtani Beki; ..." This is worded to imply she is more important than Tolui, which seems incorrect based on page views? This could be reworded to "Tolui's wife was Sorghaghtani Beki; ...".
    • I think she might be, on balance in RS. I'll have a think about this one.
      • Ok. This won't stop me from giving a support.

Life under Genghis

  • "while the historian Christopher Atwood believes he was born in 1191 or 1192, the sinologists Frederick W. Mote and Paul Ratchnevsky placed the date in the late 1180s". The first part of this sentence is in present tense but the second part is in past tense. Is there a reason or should that be fixed? See also "the historian Carl Sverdrup estimates its size at around 7,000 men" which is in present tense.
    • Although Atwood and Sverdrup are alive, and Mote and Ratchnevsky are dead, I'm feeling that I'm violating some MOS guideline—any ideas on what precisely?
      • Not sure what MOS guideline. I checked MOS:TENSE and it does not mention this situation. I think it's fine if it's based on whether the author is alive or dead.
  • "He also had five full sisters". Any half sisters? Or half brother's for that matter. Is there a reason why it specifies "full sisters".
  • "while their final son Ariq Böke was born more than a decade afterwards." I take it a specific year of birth is not known?
    • You are correct.
  • Could it be mentioned when Temüjin became Genghis Khan?
    • Done.
  • Does Dexing have a page it could link to?
    • I don't think so, but I may be wrong—Chinese place names have changed rather often throughout history.

Khorasan campaign (1221)

  • Is is necessary to have a hatnote for Mongol invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire when that page is also linked in the first sentence of that section?
    • I've removed the hatnote.
  • "Genghis dispatched Tolui to Khorasan, to make sure..." Is that comma necessary?
    • Removed.
  • "Tolui had meanwhile marched on, this time in a south-westerly direction towards Nishapur..." This could be simplified to "Tolui had meanwhile marched on south-westerly towards Nishapur..."
    • Altered
  • "He departed on 15 May..." I think this should be changed to "He departed on 15 May 1220", because to be honest I thought this was referring to 1221 at first. Alternatively, this could be changed to "He departed nearly a month later" to make things even clearer and avoid repletion of the year.
    • Altered to something clearer.
  • "...the assault began on 7 April..." This is the same day they arrived in the city right? This could be changed to "...the assault began the day they had arrived..."
    • Changed to another wording.
  • "...on the 9th and the city captured on the 10th." Pretty sure this violates MOS:DATES. Could be rewritten as "...on 9 April and the city captured one day later."
    • That seems like more words for less clarity, so I'm going to decline.
      • I'm still pretty sure this violates MOS:DATES.
        • Humph. Fine.
  • "...cats and dogs..." This seems like overlink.
    • Probably.
  • "...recorded that after an eight-month siege the city was taken and its population slaughtered." Comma could be added after siege.
    • Done.

Regency and succession question (1227–29)

  • "and for Tolui the Mongolian fatherland near the Altai Mountains, as per tradition." Sorry, I'm not sure what the per tradition part means. Could you explain this?
    • Removed, it was basically a vague handwaving in the direction of the first sentences of the paragraph, but was sort of unnecessary.
  • "...and growing his own appanage; his actions during..." I initially thought this was the start of a list. Can the semicolon be replaced with a full stop?
    • Replaced with a "—" because the rest of the sentence is directly connected to the first part.

Life under Ögedei and death (1229–c. 1232)

  • Why is the death year in the section title prefixed with circa? The prose seems to imply people are fairly sure his death year was 1232 and the infobox does not have a circa for the death year.
    • Removed.
  • "Atwood has however theorised..." Can be replaced with "Atwood has theorised..."
  • "...that these suspicions was..." Should be changed to "...that these suspicions were..."
    • Both done
  • From the lead: "Tolui was posthumously elevated to the status of khagan by Kublai..." Is this mentioned in the body?
    • Nope, which is why there's a citation in the lead.
      • Is there a reason this can't be mentioned in the body?
        • Moved.

General

  • Tengriism is only mentioned in the infobox.
  • Borjigin is only mentioned in the infobox and the succession box, not in prose.
  • Infobox mentions there were other spouses. Is this mentioned in prose at all?
  • His age range at death must surely be larger than 40–41 given the uncertainty in his birth year. At the very least, the range should be three years by going off birth years of 1191 or 1192, disregarding the late 1180s.
    • I've removed Tengriism and other spouses from the infobox; I feel Borjigin falls under WP:BLUESKY, and corrected the date ranges.

Thanks for your comments, Steelkamp; responses above, and your next set eagerly awaited. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:29, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Support, and good luck with the rest of your review. Steelkamp (talk) 15:32, 22 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Mike Christie

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Prose comments
  • "while the historian Christopher Atwood believes he was born in 1191 or 1192,[5] the sinologists Frederick W. Mote and Paul Ratchnevsky placed the date": why the tense change from "believes" to "placed"?
    • Atwood is alive, while Mote and Ratchnevsky are not. I believe this complies with MOS:TENSE.
      I wouldn't think TENSE applies here since the topic of the verb is not the people but their opinions. It's fine as is, though I wouldn't personally want to use a style that required me to keep up to date on the deaths of the scholars I cited. I think it's more common to use the historic present for all opinions of this type. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 06:49, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "shortly after Temüjin's campaign against the Tatars, of whom the kidnapper was one". Not the most fluent phrasing, though not technically wrong. Would it be possible to move the mention of Temüjin's campaign to the start of the paragraph, and then say the kidnapper was a Tatar when first mentioned? I assume the sources draw the causal connection here, and it's not just described as coincidence.
    • Done
  • "Tolui received his niece": suggest "Tolui received Toghrul's niece".
    • Done.
  • Are any maps available? Some of the locations described are quite obscure to modern readers.
    • Added an image of the Khwarazmian Empire; File:Conquest of Jin.png seems quite good but I haven't found a suitable source to attribute it to yet. Will get back to you
  • I'm fond of punctuating with a dash, but in the two middle paragraphs of the "Regency" section you use eight of them in not much more than eight sentences.
    • Reduced in number.
  • Per MOS:POSSESSIVE it should be "Genghis's", not "Genghis".
    • I just looked at five RS's, and not one used "Genghis's". Can I IAR this?
      I wouldn't oppose on this, but since I've raised the point I can't really attest to the coords (by supporting) that this complies with the MoS. I know UndercoverClassicist would agree with you if you proposed changing the MoS to add an exclusion for words ending in an "s" sound, and I'd probably agree as well, but I suspect the argument has come up repeatedly on the talk pages there. Sorry! It's part of MoS I don't particularly like but we have to follow house style where it's defined. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 06:49, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      Dang. I suppose I should be grateful that RS has a ready-made alternative in "Genghis Khan's". Removed all instances of "Genghis'", Mike. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:02, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    The no-s tradition comes from Classics, where it's the convention for Latinate or Greek names, but we've recently had a few articles within that discipline come up at FAC (I'm thinking of Panagiotis Kavvadias and Kyriakos Pittakis here) and the consensus was that we should follow MOS rather than discipline-specific conventions. UndercoverClassicist T·C 08:58, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "It is recorded that Tolui volunteered for this fate, following a prophecy he had made during Genghis' lifetime, a peculiar account that has given rise to suspicions that Ögedei had Tolui murdered." I don't follow this -- if Tolui made this prophecy during Genghis's lifetime, how can that have a bearing on the possibility that it was murder?

Looks very good. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:27, 26 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Source review

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Source review

Links all work.

  • Can you confirm that Barthold, from 1900, is still regarded as reliable scholarship? I'm no expert on the topic but I see no reason to question the reliability of any of the other sources. I did have a look at the Mongolian Preservation Foundation but the book you cite is written by a well-regarded scholar.
  • It is still reliable as a seminal work of Central Asian history.
  • Suggest transliterating the text in FN 2.
  • It was an unreliable source added recently by a drive-by editor; I have removed it.
  • A couple of sources are missing publisher locations: Barthold (1992) and Reinert (2011).
  • The Street edition of The Secret History is missing a publisher and location; looking at the recommended citation in the PDF I can see why. I think this is OK, but I think it would also be OK to make Western Washington University the publisher, and hence make Bellingham the location.
  • Done.
  • For Barthold, is there a chapter title missing? You give Bosworth as the editor but only the book title. Similarly for Boyle.
  • Boyle was an error of duplication; Barthold is correct, as the 1992 edition was posthumous, adding the previously-omitted ending chapter, and so Bosworth edited.
  • You give an ISBN for Boyle but it's dated 1968 which makes it unlikely; is this a later reprint? If so I would use the orig-year parameter.
  • Apparently it's a 2007 reprinting. Thanks for noticing.
  • A couple of missing ISBNs for Reinert and Togan. ISBNs are not required for FAC but if you're going to provide them they should be consistent. The Secret History also does not have an ISBN but I think that's OK.
  • Reinert's template doesn't include ISBNs; added for Togan.

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:23, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much Mike Christie. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:37, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Pass. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:35, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Golden

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I reviewed this article at GAN and found it fascinating. It's definitely one of my favorite GANs that I've reviewed, so I'm happy to see it at FAC. I'll take another look at it here. — Golden talk 23:07, 29 August 2023 (UTC) [reply]

Comments
  • I echo Steelkamp's point about Sorghaghtani Beki. This was also one of my concerns at the GAN. Is she truly more popular or significant than Tolui?
  • I think they're probably about equal in significance, but I've realised the emphasis should then go on the article subject, so I've changed it.
  • "He commanded armies under his father during the first invasion of Jin China (1211–1215), but his distinguished service during the Mongol invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire secured his reputation" - I think "and" would be a better fit in this sentence than "but".
  • Done (I could've sworn I did this at GAN).
  • There is no wikilink to Genghis at his first mention in the article body: "which Genghis intended to replace".
  • Moved paragraph to better placing.
  • "The ground was subsequently ploughed over." - What's the relevance of this? Did they plough over the dead bodies?
  • No, they ploughed over the city foundations, presumably so that a new settlement couldn't be easily built.
  • "The Secret History of the Mongols, a 13th century epic poem describing Genghis Khan's rise" - You've already introduced "The Secret History of the Mongols" earlier in the article. Is a second description necessary?
  • Removed.
  • I wouldn't wikilink Islam, as I imagine most people know what it is.
  • Done.
  • "The remnants of the Jin dynasty" - Should the wikilink include "the"?
You can. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:49, 8 September 2023 (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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