Talk:Christianisation of Scotland

GA Review

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

Reviewer: West Virginian (talk · contribs) 20:51, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Sabrebd, I will engage in a thorough and comprehensive review of this article within the next 48 hours. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns in the meantime. Thanks! -- West Virginian (talk) 20:51, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

That is great news. I look forward to seeing what you have to say. Thanks for taking this on.--SabreBD (talk) 21:20, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

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

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Sabrebd, I've completed a thorough and comprehensive review and re-review of this article, and I find that it exceeds the criteria outlined for passage to Good Article status. Prior to this article's passage, however, I have shared below some comments and questions that must first be addressed. Thank you for all your hard work on this article! -- West Virginian (talk) 22:24, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, no copyvios, 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):

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:

Lede

• Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section, the lede of this article adequately defines the Christianisation of Scotland, establishes the necessary context, and explains why the Christianisation of Scotland is otherwise notable.
• The image of the illuminated page from the Book of Kells has been released to the Public Domain and is therefore acceptable for use here.
• The lede is otherwise well-written, consists of content that is adequately sourced and verifiable, and I have no further comments or questions for this section.
• It wouldn't hurt to wiki-link the first mention of Scotland in the first paragraph of the lede.

 Done.

• Pagan probably doesn't need to be capitalized in this usage.
• "taken root" may border on Wikipedia:COLLOQUIAL, so I suggest "been established" or something similar. This is merely a suggestion.

I went for "to which Christianity had already spread" to avoid implying something organised.

• It may be helpful at the end of the last paragraph to render Continent as "Continental Europe" and wiki link it to the Continental Europe article.

 Done.

• This section is otherwise well-written, consists of content that is adequately sourced and verifiable, and I have no further comments or questions for this section.

Background

• The image of the "Cernunnos" type antlered figure is licensed CC BY-SA 3.0 and is therefore acceptable for use here.
• Again, does Pagan need to be capitalized?
• The image of the map of political centres in early Medieval Scotland is released into the Public Domain and is therefore acceptable for use here.
• Would it be too tangential to mention Candida Casa?

I added it further down where there is more detail on Ninian.

• Wiki-linking East Lothian wouldn't hurt here, and Skye, too.

 Done.

• This section is otherwise well-written, consists of content that is adequately sourced and verifiable, and I have no further comments or questions for this section.

Early spread and missions

• The image of the nineteenth-century painting is released into the public domain and is therefore suitable for use here.
• In the mentions of Fletcher and Markus, they should be introduced as historians.

 Done

• Wiki-link Strathclyde.

 Done

• The image of the Class II Kirkyard stone is licensed CC BY-SA 2.0 and is therefore suitable for use here.
• The image of Benedict Biscop has been released into the public domain and is therefore acceptable for use in this article.
• "Conversion of the Pictish élite seems likely to have run over a considerable period," make work better as "Conversion of the Pictish élite is assessed to have taken place over a considerable period,"

 Done

• This section is otherwise well-written, consists of content that is adequately sourced and verifiable, and I have no further comments or questions for this section.

Controversies

• The image of "Roman" tonsure has been released into the Public Domain and is therefore good to go for its inclusion in this article.
• When mentioning saints, either the abbreviations "St" or "St." should be used throughout the article consistently.

 Done

• Perhaps I missed this in the text somewhere, but is there a discussion of which if any of the Celtic Christian forms of religious practice were held over from pagan ritual? I'm assuming that many of them are, which led to this conflict with Roman forms of religious practice. If so, this should be expounded upon in the Controversies section.

Since we know almost nothing about Celtic religious practice it is pretty much impossible to answer that question. Also it would be wrong to think of Celtic Christianity as unorthodox. There were issues about Easter and the tonsure, but they did not disagree on doctrine or even the authority of Rome.

• The image of St. John's cross which stood outside Iona Abbey is licensed CC BY-SA 2.0 and is therefore suitable for inclusion here.
• Archie Duncan should be introduced here as Scottish historian or historian.

 Done

• Did the Vikings' paganism have any other effects besides slowing the spread of Christian influence? Did any of their pagan ritualistic practices lend any influence to the Scottish Christianity? This is mostly to satisfy my own curiosity, but definitely points to look into.

Not as far as I know. Again we don't know much about them and the obvious things (human sacrifice and means of burial) could not be tolerated after conversion.

• This section is otherwise well-written, consists of content that is adequately sourced and verifiable, and I have no further comments or questions for this section.

Conversion of Scandinavian Scotland

• The image of the drawings of the coin of Olav Tryggvasson is released into the Public Domain and is therefore suitable for use here.
• This section is otherwise well-written, consists of content that is adequately sourced and verifiable, and I have no comments or questions for this section.

Significance

• The image of Kinloss Abbey is licensed CC BY-SA 2.0 and is therefore suitable for use here.
• Would it be superfluous to also discuss the marriage of Malcolm III of Scotland and his wife Saint Margaret of Scotland, who was of Wessex and of the Latin Christian faith and its effects and influence on the Scottish Christian kirk, which further strengthened its connection to the Latin church from the Celtic church.

I think it is a bit out of the scope of this consequences paragraph (it is several hundred years after papal authority has been accepted) and is dealt with in other articles, such as Christianity in Medieval Scotland.

• This section is otherwise well-written, consists of content that is adequately sourced and verifiable, and I have no comments or questions for this section.

• Sabrebd, thank you for your thoughtful and timely responses to my comments and suggestions. I always learn a great deal from your articles, and appreciate the research you put it to each and every one. It is hereby a privilege for me to pass this article to Good Article status. Congratulations on yet another job well done! -- West Virginian (talk) 22:50, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

• Many thanks for all your work on this review West Virginian, helpful and prompt as every. Much appreciated.--SabreBD (talk) 08:09, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Article title -ize vs. -ise

@Sabrebd: Other articles with Christianization in the title currently use the -ize spelling (see Category:Christianization). I think it would be good for the sake of consistency, to change this article title to conform with the others. I understand WP:ENGVAR may warrant the use of the other spelling. But, it is my understanding that the -ize spelling is often incorrectly seen as an Americanism in Britain. Either spelling (-ise or -ize) is considered by some style guides to be acceptable anywhere but the US (where only -ize is used). So, per MOS:COMMONALITY as the -ize spelling is acceptable everywhere (the ratio between -ise and -ize stands at 3:2 in the British National Corpus), it could be used. Those reasons combined push me to the rationale that this article should use the -ize spelling for conformity within the encyclopedia. If other articles on the same topic that are named in the same manner didn't use the -ize spelling, it wouldn't be so much of an issue. Articles such as History of England and Middle Ages use the -ise spelling for Christianization, which is fine there. However, for example if the history of other European countries all used the -ize spelling and the England article didn't, I would advocate the same thing. If most of the articles on Christianization used the -ise spelling (for the title etc.), I'd advocate the opposite perhaps (though MOS:COMMONALITY would make me ponder advocacy of that).—Godsy^(TALK_CONT) 20:40, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Hi @Godsy:. The fact that creeping standardisation (or standardization) has led people to change titles on these articles is really not as significant as you seem to believe. The Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon England has been back and forth as editors move it and (presumably British) editors move it back. The ENGVAR really trumps standardisation and in fact is designed specifically to do so. By changing all the spellings in this article to fit the -ize title you have tacitly admitted this. ENGVAR says that that local articles should follow local spellings in cases like this. Logically the spellings in the article should match the spelling in the title, but in order to do that the appropriate variety of English needs to be in the article as well as the title. The upshot is, please respect ENGVAR and stop worrying about standardisation.--SabreBD (talk) 09:00, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

If I were to play the devil's advocate, I'd agree with you for two reasons. For the sake of internal consistency within this article, -ise or -ize should be used when the spelling can vary (not just on christianise specifically). So based on that I could see keeping the -ise spelling, as a few other words use it within the article. Secondly, as it concerns the British Isles, British English is the appropriate for the title per WP:TITLEVAR. Though "a form that represents only minority local usage is chosen because of its greater intelligibility to English-speaking readers worldwide" gives the basis for taking the -ize position, I doubt it would be an issue for readers, as the spellings are so similar.—Godsy^(TALK_CONT) 15:57, 9 July 2015 (UTC)