Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Battle of Tigranocerta/1

Battle of Tigranocerta

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Delisted Consensus here is that the sourcing is not strong enough for this to remain a Good Article Aircorn (talk) 00:09, 17 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The article currently contains numerous sections which are tagged with Wikipedia:Citation needed. In fact even the archived GA from 2008 contains several unreferenced sections which means that the reviewer was less than thorough in his review.

The article also heavily relies on primary sources such as Plutarch's Life of Lucullus and Appian's The Mithrdatic Wars. Such sources are not necessarily reliable when they are not contextualized and/or evaluated by modern scholarship.

"Tigranes refused Appius Claudius' demands, stating that he would prepare for war against the Republic."

"Tigranes, who was residing at Tigranocerta in the summer of 69, was not only astonished by the speed of Lucullus' rapid advance into Armenia but by the fact that he had even launched such an operation in the first place."

These two sentences clearly contradict each other.

Refs 26 and 28 should probably be converted into a notes.

"Many scholars, however", "Some historians, most notably Plutarch" - I don't know if this qualifies as MOS:WEASEL, but it can certainly be worded better. In the second case only Plutarch's opinion is mentioned.

The article is written in British Engvar but there is some American English here and there.

A lot of the information in the infobox is neither referenced, nor found elsewhere in the article. E.g. Roman Legates, Adiabenians, Corduenians, Iberians, Medians.

The lede is also referenced while it is supposed to simply summarize the content of the article.--Catlemur (talk) 17:43, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment

I did a GA Reassessment on this article on 18 May 2021 and completed this the following day. It is the only (of many) reassessments that I passed.
I spent quite some time reading Plutarch Life of Lucillius which is one of the references.
I also spent time reading Appian. The Mithrdatic Wars, another reference.
I also spent time reading all of Tigranocerta: 69 BC, another reference.
By the time I finished checking references during the review, I had a reasonable grasp of this battle, as well as a grasp of the spurious assessments by various authors of the number of participants on each side, who yelled what during the battle and the mistakes Tigranes made in his estimation of the opposing forces and his inadequate response to the threats posed.
Although there were citation needed tags on the article, I was satisfied that it merited Good Article status.
{{Subst:GAR}} reads that any editor may remove the reassessment tag if they are satisfied.
At the end of the GA Reassessment I was satisfied that this article was still meritorious of the GA status.
The review was passed on my reading of the purpose of the {{Subst:GAR}} tag.
Thereafter, Catlemur (who nominated the article for review) passed comments when the review was closed. The comments are the same as those posted above here. I was challenged on the result, and decided to stand by the review.
Catlemur challenges Plutarch's Life of Lucullus and Appian's The Mithrdatic Wars as reliable sources. He may do so, but given that this battle occurred in 69BC and there has been no criticism nor reception of these sources cited in the article, I regarded these sources as reliable.
The remainder of the comments do not raise any show-stopping issues and I wonder why Catlemur has not addressed those issues as this editor is editing numerous historical articles. I regard the final comments as those of a disgruntled editor.
My sense is that this call for community reassessment should be given a procedural close.
I am happy to receive any criticism of actions given above and the reassessment. --Whiteguru (talk) 11:22, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Whiteguru: I think you ought to be honest about what really happened. I posted my comments on the article the very moment you did, creating an edit conflict. Minutes after you posted your comments, I reposted mine and tagged you so you could address the issues I raised. I then went to your talkpage, where I received a vague reply about "giving some thought to my suggestion". Over 10 days later, none of the issues I raised were addressed while you continued to actively review other articles. To call me a disgruntled editor is a borderline personal attack. As for my supposed obligation to fix numerous issues on an article about a topic I neither care or know anything about; I will consider doing so for the sum of 3,000 euros transferred to my personal bank account.

Having written several GAs on the Roman–Seleucid War, I can assure you that Plutarch's and Appian's works have been scrutinized in academic literature, using other sources such as inscriptions, coinage etc and believe it or not there are circumstances when they are not 100% reliable. Once again the article fails WP:BCLASS due to criterion B1 as it did upon promotion in 2008, it also currently fails criterion B2.--Catlemur (talk) 12:32, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that ancient primary sources should not be cited directly unless they're backed up by recent modern sources. Delist due to sourcing issues. (t · c) buidhe 15:45, 31 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm okay with limited use of ancient sources in GAs, but stuff like However, since Tigranes had forcibly removed many of its inhabitants from their native lands and brought them to Tigranocerta, their allegiance to the king was cast into doubt. They soon proved their unreliability: when Tigranes and his army appeared on a hill overlooking the city, the inhabitants "greeted his [Lucullus] appearance with shouts and din, and standing on the walls, threateningly pointed out the Armenians to the Romans." should ideally be sourced to secondary sources. And anyway, that direct quote should be attributed inline. Also have some issues with Tigranes also possessed several thousand cataphracts, formidable heavily armoured cavalry that were clad in mail armour and armed with lances, spears or bows, which doesn't make much sense to be where it is, as it is already stated that some sources suggested many cataphracts (and are the cataphracts distinct from the cavalry mentioned elsewhere?). This needs work. Hog Farm _Talk 16:18, 31 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- I guess to make it clearer, I'm at delist too. Overreliance on ancient texts has not been addressed. Hog Farm _Talk 16:35, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - Well first than all do stop the infight, i hope who both of you stop from fighting each other. Then over the article, ancient sources are probably one sided, but that also could be for modern schoolars, so far the main sources of the battle were ancient ones, and are not unreliable, (maybe some statements are, like the political ones), the citations should probably be "acording to x, what x says", and move on. But in an ancient battle the better works probably will be from the people of that age, any new historian would need to use some of them as references on the first place. (we know who some modifications must be done to not make it a pro Roman propaganda piece in some places, but the structure of the battle is right), so altought i support modifications, i do not believe necessary to put the article into question.Nuevousuario1011 (talk) 18:06, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]