Talk:Battle of the Lipari Islands

Review notes

C class. The introduction should mention the two commanders, Boodes and Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio "Asina". The article does not have a lot of information (B2 = no) which may be because it does not exist. Maybe another reviewer would be more generous. Djmaschek (talk) 02:51, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

@Djmaschek: Many thanks for looking at this. I have no intention of hawking the article around looking for a more favourable review. Mostly because yours are usually on the money: firm but fair and often with insightful (or just obvious but overlooked) pointers as to how to improve. I have expanded the lead, and added a little to the main article. This has more or less exhausted the sources I am aware of. You are correct, there isn't a lot of information on this skirmish. It is only notable because it was the first ever naval clash of the Romans and the Carthaginians. The ancient sources don't help; one modern historian comments "Polybius [excepted]. . . other sources are fragmentary, consisting of anecdotes, many of which are implausible. The very nature of the war makes it difficult for them to provide a coherent account." Gog the Mild (talk) 14:14, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Hi Djmaschek. 18 months on, hopefully a little wiser regarding the ways of Wikipedia, I have had another crack at this. I would be grateful for any comments you may have as to how close it may now be t B class. Obviously, if time or motivation don't permit then I entirely understand. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:04, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Battle of the Lipari Islands/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Hog Farm (talk · contribs) 22:14, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

It'll probably take me a couple days to get started (I'm in the process of reviewing a lengthy BLP article right now), but once I get started, I should be prompt about getting the review done. Hog Farm (talk) 22:14, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

No worries. I only nominated it four days ago. Thanks for picking it up. Gog the Mild (talk) 23:23, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Criteria

• 1. Prose ✓ Pass
• 2. Verifiability ✓ Pass
• 3. Depth of coverage ✓ Pass
• 4. Neutrality ✓ Pass
• 5. Stability ✓ Pass
• 6. Images ✓ Pass
• 7. Miscellaneous ✓ Pass

Comments

1

• Lead's a touch short. It would be nice to get a brief summary of the lead-up to the battle and the aftermath of the battle in the lead.

Expanded. See what you think.

• In the infobox, you spell Boodes without the ö, but the special character is used throughout the rest of the article. This usage should be consistent.

Done.

• I think "raided the Roman's" should be "raided the Romans'", given that Romans is a plural.

Done.

• " although hexaremes (six oarsmen per bank)" - It's not readily evident or common knowledge that the bank referred to is a tier of rowers. This can be extrapolated from the diagram easily, but images don't always show up well on mobile browsers. Is there a way that this can be explained without necessitating a WP:UNDUE length of description?

Well, I could go with

The generally accepted theory regarding the arrangement of oarsmen in quinqueremes is that there would be sets – or files – of three oars, one above the other, with two oarsmen on each of the two uppermost oars and one on the lower, for a total of five oarsmen per file. This would be repeated down the side of a galley for a total of 28 files on each side; 168 oars in total.

but that does seem to be getting undue, so I have chopped mention of the other ship types. Does that work for you?

• "Shortly after the Lipara victory, Hannibal" (in aftermath section) - Is this still Hannibal Gisco? If so, probably best to use the first name. "Hannibal" in the minds of most readers invokes Hannibal. Even though that Hannibal wasn't born at this point, it would probably still be best to avoid the confusion, given that not many readers are experts on the Punic Wars.

Done.

• "Using the corvus the Romans captured 50 Carthaginian vessels[note 3] and dealt them a sharp defeat." - Substitute "the Carthaginians" for "them". In the context of the sentence as written, the object of the pronoun is "vessels".

Done.

2

3

• Do we have any indication of how many casualties were incurred in number of soldiers? I understand this is a figure that may just not be known.

Nope. It is not even something I could off the record OR. One suspects low - possibly very low, with most of the crews bolting - but having just rechecked the five standard secondary RSs there is not a hint of this.

• You describe a later skirmish where Hannibal faced the Romans with 50 ships and lost most of them. If this action has a name/article it should be mentioned/linked.

No name. It gets a single short sentence in the primary sources - that's it. And never been named by a modern source that I am aware of. So extremely doubtful that it will ever even warrant a stub.

4

5

6

7

• See MOS:BOLDAVOID. Links should not be placed in the boldface in the first sentence.

Fixed.

• The sources are not all in alphabetical order, Shutt is listed before Rankov (not a GA factor, but still something that's worth fixing)

Fixed.

Placing on hold, Gog the Mild. I'm testing a new way to organize GAR comments, a handful of my old reviews got very stream of conciousness, which didn't always make for a clear review. Hog Farm (talk) 01:41, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Hi Hog Farm and thanks again. Your points above all addressed. Gog the Mild (talk) 11:42, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Gog the Mild - Passing now, looks good. It just occurred to me that the best way to incorporate the differences is rower placement between the ships may be as a note. Hog Farm (talk) 17:26, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Hog Farm, yeah, good thinking. I may try that in other articles. But I still think that it is a bit off topic for this one. And thanks. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:32, 27 March 2020 (UTC)