Wikipedia:Featured article review/Thrasybulus/archive1

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

The article was delisted by DrKay via FACBot (talk) 7:01, 13 February 2021 (UTC) [1].

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Thrasybulus

Notified: Robth, WP MILHIST, WP Classical Greece and Rome, WP Biography, WP Greece, 2020-12-24

Review section

Well, this early 2006 promotion does not meet the current standards when it comes to sourcing. I see three main issues here. First, there's some uncited text, including a significant paragraph assessing the figure and comparing him to Churchill. Second, the first paragraph of the personal life and early career section appears to almost certainly be WP:OR based on passing details mentioned in ancient sources. Lastly, this article relies very heavy on ancient sources. I have nothing against sparing use of primary sources in FAs, but we shouldn't have entire paragraphs in FAs cited solely to authors who died centuries before the time of Christ. This just doesn't muster the bar of current FA sourcing expectations. Primary creator has not edited since 2011, so I'm afraid we won't be able to get any help from that angle. Pinging @T8612: as they asked to be informed when this went to far. Hog Farm _Bacon 03:09, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

• Comment Given the vast secondary literature on the Peloponnesian War, there should be no need to cite Thucydides. There's also a large literature on Thucydides, which notes that he needs to be interpreted with caution at times. Nick-D (talk) 10:27, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

• @Nick-D: There is also no reason not to quote or cite what Thucydides says, since it is useful to have the chapters and verses where Thrasybulus is mentioned (or other salient events described) noted in the article, and because whatever the fickle opinions of historians, the words of Thucydides are in effect immutable, notable in themselves, and, despite the volumniousness of the secondary literature based mostly on them, the best evidence for the detail of the politics of the Peloponnesian War. Ancient historians are not to be used for unsupported statements of fact, but references to them, or quotations from them, must not be purged from articles just because they are old and inherently prejudiced and unreliable. They should be cited but cited with secondary sources, not in lieu of them. GPinkerton (talk) 20:48, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

• Nah, it's a primary source. We don't use primary sources where we can avoid doing so per WP:PRIMARY. Nick-D (talk) 09:39, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

WP:PRIMARY doesn't say not to use primary sources. It says "Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them.". The key point is the interpretation of primary sources. T8612 (talk) 16:24, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

• Move to FARC, the only non-bot edit since nomination is to change the URL for a book source. This isn't being actively improved. Hog Farm _Talk 05:40, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

FARC section

Issues raised in teh review section mostly concern sourcing. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:20, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

• Delist - The sourcing leaves quite a bit to be desired. Hog Farm _Talk 05:06, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
• Delist - A featured article cannot rely almost entirely on primary sources. RetiredDuke (talk) 12:26, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
• Delist. Relies way too much on primary sources. T8612 (talk) 16:24, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

• Closing note: This removal candidate has been delisted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please leave the {{featured article review}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. DrKay (talk) 17:01, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.