Talk:Arab Agricultural Revolution/GA1

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Reviewer: HaEr48 (talk · contribs) 02:06, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Interesting topic, will review this. HaEr48 (talk) 02:06, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

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

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Thank you for working on the article, Chiswick Chap. Unfortunately I have to fail this nomination. While generally well-written, I think it's not yet at GA level. Particularly it's still far from meeting the 3rd criteria "broad in its coverage". See detailed review below

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):

   Note: earwig detected similarity with [1], but I checked it and it's clearly not a copyvio

   Thank you. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:28, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

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):

   Please explain the specific relevance of the topmost image to the topic, if any.

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   See overview comment above, and specific comments below— HaEr48 (talk) 05:25, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• About criteria #3: While the article is titled "Arab Agricultural Revolution", the article barely describe the actual "revolution" and rather went into a very detailed academic history and debate over the topic. Examples of the things I'd like to see in order to adequately cover the topic

No, the topic is academic, and the hot debate is key to the subject, whether there was a "revolution" or not. The article must reflect that. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:28, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• • What is the actual timeline of the revolution? The "8th to the 13th century" is a very long time. What are the main events of the revolution? For example, when did the crops begin to spread? When did it lead to an output that can be described as a result of a "revolution"?

Decker's timeline was indeed vague: again, that's the domain, not an error in the article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:28, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• • What was the situation before the revolution?

Outside the scope of the article, but without all the new crops and techniques, evidently. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:28, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• • Where did the key development occur? "The Islamic region of the Old World" is very broad (Spain? North Africa? Levant? Arabia? Persia? India? Central Asia? Indonesia? I think you get my point. I don't think it happened together in all of those places)

The Old World did not include Indonesia. The region referred to by Watson spread from Spain across North Africa at least to Persia. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:28, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• • If the main point is diffusion/adaptation of crop and technique, what is the difference between the Islamic era and the previous Roman and Persian era?

The article addresses that question. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:28, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• • What specific agricultural techniques led to the revolution? The article only mentioned "mechanization of agriculture and irrigation", which is a very vague term. Are there specific inventions? Who invented them and when and where? What made the inventions revolutionary?

You already noted that diffusion and adaptation are likely more accurate descriptors than invention. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:28, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• • By what indication was it considered a "revolution"? Is there a comparison of agricultural output, for example?

Once again, the term was Watson's. It was not based on outputs. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:28, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• • What makes the eighteen crops so important? How does their spread indicate a revolution?

Decker considered them so, and they formed the basis of the debate about the AAR. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:28, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• • Criteria 3b says that the article must "[stay] focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail". This article delves too much into the academic debate, could you tighten and/or summarize them?

Since the topic is Watson's thesis and the subsequent debate about it, your question here is simply mis-framed. The article is exactly focused on the topic, and there is nothing to tighten. The lead summarizes the article. I have no idea what your "them" refers to. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:28, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• • About criteria 2c (WP:OR). I feel the article uses too much WP:PRIMARY sources when talking about the debate (e.g. the works of Watson, Johns, Decker, Oleson, Wikander). I assume that they are mostly experts on the topic, so it's okay to cite them to describe the revolution itself. But if we're talking about the academic debate, these works are the "original materials close to [the] event" and "accounts written by people who are directly involved". Therefore we should only use them with care and not as extensively as the article does. If possible, please use a secondary source (e.g. a third party account of the debate).

Decker is of course the primary source, and it is clearly necessary to say what he meant by the AAR. The other authors are the major authorities involved in the debate, and we could hardly have an article without citing them. However the Paolo Squatriti is exactly a "third party", a reliable secondary source, who the article states is reviewing the old debate. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:28, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• • What's up with the capitalization of the title? Why not "Arab agricultural revolution"? Also, the first sentence already give various alternative names, it's kind of awkward for the multiple names to be followed by "... s the name given by the historian Andrew Watson". HaEr48 (talk) 05:33, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

When an article's title is the name of something, it retains the original capitalisation. Compare "British Agricultural Revolution". Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:28, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

I hope my points above explain why I failed the nomination, is useful for you if you want to bring it to the GA level. Good luck and cheers! HaEr48 (talk) 05:25, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

I believe that was a wholly wrong decision. I will rebut the points made for the record and future review by other editors. However, I will say at once there is absolutely no WP:OR here, an absurd allegation. I believe you have more or less completely failed to understand the subject and the nature of the sources used. I'll respond to the points made by editing and resubmitting, as I would not wish to work with you again. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:32, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Sure, it's certainly your right to do that. To be clear, my main reason for failing is not for being OR, but for the total lack of coverage of the revolution itself (other than the academic debate around the revolution), so in my view it is far from meeting criteria 3. HaEr48 (talk) 08:12, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) - I have rebutted all your arguments, which show in my view that you have failed to understand what the AAR was. For the record, it was Watson's theory, which was vigorously contested, that something more or less revolutionary happened in the mentioned region and period. He may have been right, wrong, or partly right, but "AAR" denotes that theory. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:32, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. I understand now our disagreement is because the different expectation of what the article is talking about. You are saying that the article is about the theory and the academic debate around it, and I expected it is about the revolution itself. In my defense, I think that way because of the title and the way the lead introduces the article. For example, French Revolution, Industrial Revolution, and others talk more about the historical events and less about the academic debate; I would similarly reject any Industrial Revolution GA nominee if they only talk about the academic debate and not the historical events. Similarly, the first sentence says that the AAR is the name given to "what [Andrew Watson] argued was a fundamental transformation"; please clarify that the article is about the theory. So, please update the intro and possibly the title of the article, not just for the GA reviewer but also for the reader who will come across your article. If possible, please also address my questions above requesting more information about the topic. Then you can nominate the article for GA again, and then the reviewer will reevaluate it based on the clarified scope. Let's not have extended discussion in this review page, because its status is already "failed" and the robot already took it off the WP:GAN listing. HaEr48 (talk) 17:12, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

• Chiswick Chap asked me for guidance regarding this review since I've listed myself as a GA mentor. I consider myself impartial and am only interested in ensuring the correct procedures have been followed. HaEr48, I don't think it's fair to quick-fail an article and then archive the review page to stop discussion. The quick-fail criteria set a very low bar for continuing on to a full review and discussion period... if there's any chance that your negative perception of an article is based on a misinterpretation, it's generally good practice to give the article's authors and nominator a chance to respond and address your concerns before failing the nomination. I'm not currently informed enough to have an opinion on whether the article fails criteria #3 – the nominator's comments seem to suggest the article is deliberately focused on the academic debate surrounding the concept, which may be appropriate, but I note that in the article's past it was much, much broader in scope. I think it's a very fair question to ask why the article takes such an abstract approach to the topic, but at the same time I'm not sure an immediate failure was the most productive course of action. HaEr48, is there any chance you'd be willing to open the review back up for second opinions, ideally from knowledgeable editors in relevant WikiProjects? – Juliancolton | ^Talk 17:01, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

• Thanks for looking at this, Juliancolton. In retrospect, now that many things became clearer I agree with you that the right action was to ask the nominator first. But when I was quick-failing the nomination, I was under the impression that the article is about the "revolution" itself (to my defence, it's the article title and first sentence that led me to that impression), and with that perspective the article was far from fulfilling criteria #3 (because it barely explains the revolution, unlike the past version), so I decided to quick-failed it based on the first bullet point in the quick-fail criteria you linked. My review comments are also based on that assumption. The scope is later clarified to be different from what I thought, but the quick-fail was already done, and the bot already processed this nomination as "failed", and that the nominator indicated that he'd like to resubmit and "would not wish to work with me" again, so I feel that it's cleaner to just start a new nomination. What do you think? HaEr48 (talk) 01:37, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

• @Juliancolton: The article must certainly be, as essentially it always has been, about Watson's theory. It was in fact greatly expanded by Jagged, who was site-banned in 2012 for partisan editing on many topics related to Islam. Unfortunately, although the expansion was cited, it was dangerously WP:OR as it all depended on the uncited assumption that the descriptions of accomplishments in the region were inevitably connected to Watson's theory: which they weren't. So, the article now tells the Watson story unadorned: shorter, but attributable. I'll resubmit, perhaps by way of peer review. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:35, 9 March 2017 (UTC)