Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Inanna/1

Inanna

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

Result: Kept This has been open long enough and the original issue has long been dealt with Aircorn (talk) 01:55, 9 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Issues with neutrality (criteria 4). User:Skyerise has been acting like she WP:OWNs the page, bullying and threatening other users into letting her views stand. See Talk:Inanna#Removal of dubious Greek equivalence and User talk:HaniwaEnthusiast#Astarte. In the latter user talk page link Skyerise asserts that her personal religious beliefs should be considered on equal footing with reliable sources, which might indicate an original research (criteria 2) problem as well. -Apocheir (talk) 23:16, 24 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from StainedGlassSnake

I think this is a very reasonable concern, and it does indeed seem to violate criteria 2 and 4. I'm particularly concerned by the discussion on User:HaniwaEnthusiast's talkpage including the tone and content of Skyerise's messages, and their use of an edit warring notice as part of an edit conflict that they were part of themselves. It does not seem to me that the purpose of the three-revert rule is to ensure that anyone's alterations to an article can stand as long as they have the endurance to keep posting it repeatedly and only one person is opposing them, though the edit conflict should never have happened in the first place. The issues raised regarding the source for the mention of Persephone in an article on Inanna from the article's talk page were never addressed, and lines such as "And try to keep it conversational, I'm not interested in your page long lectures. Don't you know how to talk to people?" are certainly inappropriate under WP:RUDE when an in-depth discussion of the point at hand is being provided. StainedGlassSnake (talk) 13:24, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Problem is User:HaniwaEnthusiast's "in-depth" discussion is not completely honest. He dismisses a source first by claiming the author had no qualifications: turned out the author was Alumni Distinguished Professor emeritus of History at North Carolina State University. Then HW hints and something about that author having right-wing views and that that makes the source unsuitable. A Google search found no such common knowledge about the author nor any related news items. IMO, HW's complaints are nothing but academic rivalry between himself and the author of the cited source. As for "rude" - HW also started that by referring to my personal beliefs, which I hadn't shared, as "dubious spiritual beliefs." That's an intentional personal attack levied after my information about the author of the cited work didn't kowtow to his desire to discredit the source. I told him quite clearly that unless he retracted that personal attack, I had no reason to humor his long messages which now could not relied on to be entirely accurate. I don't think it's reasonable to ask another editor to read that potentially unreliable pedantry and sort out the true from the false. But y'all are welcome to do that. Oh, any my prounouns are she/her. Skyerise (talk) 14:59, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - The author in mention indeed lacks qualifications, and on top of that endorses heinous conspiracy theories such as Gunnar Heisohn's "new chronology" ventures. He isn't quoted in any papers or books about Inanna or Mesopotamian religion as a whole written by actual experts in the field (ex. Andrew George, Joan G. Westenholz, Wilfred G. Lambert, Jeremy Black, Frans Wiggermann, Manfred Krebernik, Gábor Zólyomi, the list goes on - I'm sure that as a self-proclaimed expert Skyerise is familiar with these authors) and his theories stand in opposition to the most basic assumptions (he basically describes Inanna as a child-snatching boogeyman!). Putting that aside: this article never really deserved the star. The sources prior to my attempt at fixing it were to a large degree outdated, fringe or irrelevant, and the overall quality of information presented was pretty low and hardly in-depth. The same can be said about many other Mesopotamian mythology articles on wikipedia, which seem to prioritize haphazard antiquated "interpretations" of myths and dubious Greek parallels, and worst of all until recently even List of Mesopotamian deities was basically arranged according to fringe theories of the Helsiniki school (Parpola and his students) which is an object of scorn from most authors. Also, I'm a woman.HaniwaEnthusiast (talk) 15:25, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    - See, being a Alumni Distinguished Professor emeritus of History is what we call a qualification. But do feel free to add a rebuttal from any of the authors you mention. If Riddle is so wrong, surely someone besides yourself has actually said so, right? Skyerise (talk) 17:13, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      - Here are a few summaries of mr. Riddle's work for your enjoyment: "Riddle sometimes departs from careful analysis and forces his thesis on the data" (Michael Walton in The Sixteenth Century Journal), "Riddle accumulates materials which do not always say what he claims," "there are many errors" (to specify - he gets basic mythology information wrong, ex. calling ARTEMIS a goddess of love; all of this courtesy of Helen King, in this review); yet another critical review can be found here. Noticing a pattern yet? All of these come from credible journals in the field Riddle is purportedly an expert in, which it not history as a whole, but merely some aspects of history of medicine, also - not from random websites, astrology magazines or self-published esotericists. I think in the context of this discussion it's worth bringing up your other dubious sources, by the way. For instance, you seem to treat self-published extremely fringe Jungian pseudohistory site metahistory.org as some sort of authority, as seen in the article Simhamukha. I do not think you're the one who should be asking others to muster stronger evidence.HaniwaEnthusiast (talk) 17:43, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        There you go, insulting me again. Basically this is a disagreement between two editors. Plus there is the editor who added the information in the first place, as I did not add the statement that you object to. The most reasonable step, which I believe I've mentioned before, is to take it to the reliable sourcing noticeboard. As it stands, you don't seem to have support from other editors with respect to the unreliability of the source. In such a case, the content stays until there is a consensus about the reliability of the source. Since no other editors have stepped up to support you, then it's up to you to find that support before removing the material. I've got no vested interest here other than making sure you follow process and have a consensus for the removal. Skyerise (talk) 17:48, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        I agree with them. This content should be removed Remove this content (talk) 21:56, 25 October 2021 (UTC) — Remove this content (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]

Focus on the criteria

Please do not use this forum to continue old disputes. All we care about is how it fails the WP:GACR. If there are concerns with editors behaviour then they need to go to another noticeboard. There is a serious risk of turning away editors well versed in the Good Article process if the above back and forth continues. Aircorn (talk) 20:28, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. From what I can gather this seems to be a dispute over whether the lead should say This is similar to some aspects of Greek myths of the abduction of Persephone and whether John M. Riddle is a reliable source for making that statement. Is this correct? Aircorn (talk) 23:15, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- The issue is that user H.E. removes things based on her own opinions, and makes up the reasoning later. Cue complaints about the other two sources I added (one which was already being used in the article) in 1, 2, 3... Skyerise (talk) 15:38, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - That is not an issue that we deal with here. We have WP:BRD and if discussion goes nowhere WP:RFC for most complaints of this nature. Otherwise you can try your luck at WP:ANI if you think the issue is behavioral (but that is likely to be an unpleasant experience for everyone). What I am looking at is, at least superficially, a pretty decent article. Editors that think it fails the WP:GACR need to explain why. For example it fails WP:LEAD at the moment as the Persephone stuff is not mentioned in the body. This is an easy fix. It either gets expanded in the body, moved out of the ~~body~~ lead or deleted as being undue. @Apocheir: you opened this by saying it had issues with neutrality. Can you explain more on how this is not neutral as it is not obvious to me and the links you provided are editors sniping at each other. Aircorn (talk) 17:37, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    - I agree. I don't think the article fails GA. Could it be improved? Sure. But I've seen no analysis of precisely how it supposedly fails WP:NPOV. Skyerise (talk) 17:49, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    - It seems the material preceding the Persephone detail, about the connection with the cycle of the seasons, is also only to be found in the lead. Skyerise (talk) 18:06, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      - Then the same should happen to that material too. The lead is a summary of the body, so it should not introduce any new information. It appears to come down to WP:UNDUE and WP:RS, which is best discussed on the talk page. From what I can see you seem to be in the minority there. That's fine, edit here long enough and consensus will fall against you occasionally. If you feel strongly about it I suggest starting an WP:RFC as that can bring in outside voices. Another option is to propose a compromise. Maybe suggest moving it to the body and attribute it according to John M. Riddle .... If its just a sentence in the body the claims of UNDUE are weaker and if you take it out of wikivoice it mitigates the reliable source concerns. Either way none of this seems to rise to the level of demoting the whole article. Aircorn (talk) 18:44, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        The Riddle source is gone, replaced by two other sources. Doesn't need to be in the lead, that's just where the editor who added it put it. I haven't figured out how or where to integrate that content yet, or even how much needs to be moved. Skyerise (talk) 19:32, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm still concerned that this article lets one user's POV dominate. User:Katolophyromai and User:HaniwaEnthusiast have both stated that they think the similarities between Inanna and Persephone are overemphasized. Individual users may have other concerns that I haven't been able to tease out of their flame wars, as well. I am not an expert on this topic, I just happened to see the fighting over it and became interested. If everyone else comes to an agreement, I'll be happy to withdraw this reassessment. I encourage them to speak up. -Apocheir (talk) 23:07, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You do realize that I didn't add the material? This is not a POV I'm pushing into the article. This is material that's been here for a while, added by other editors over time and, given the number of sources for it, should certainly remain in the article despite whatever academic rivalries are leading to calls for its removal. Skyerise (talk) 23:12, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Skyerise: I am the editor who originally rewrote this article and nominated it for GA back in January 2018 in the first place. The version of this article that passed GA contained no mention of Persephone in the lede; the only mention of comparisons of any kind to Persephone was near the bottom in the "Later influence" section and it was only one line, cited to the Assyriologist Samuel Noah Kramer. Also, the line was actually comparing Ereshkigal to Persephone, not Inanna, so it was probably not really relevant in this particular article anyway.

The line in the lede comparing Inanna to Persephone that is at the center of this contention was added by Titus III in a single edit on 12 August 2021 without any kind of citation. The line is not present in any version of the article before that date. HaniwaEnthusiast immediately reverted the edit and you immediately reverted her edit. You are, as far as I can tell, the only one currently arguing for the inclusion of this line in the lede.

I do think it might be worth mentioning somewhere that scholars have, rightly or wrongly, compared Inanna to Persephone. Walter Burkert, who is cited in support of the statement in the lede currently, was probably the foremost scholar of connections between ancient Near Eastern and Greek religions in the twentieth century, so, if he has indeed made this comparison, it is certainly noteworthy. It does not, however, belong in the lede. —Katolophyromai (talk) 00:19, 28 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've never argued that it belongs in the lede. By all mean, move it. Skyerise (talk) 15:26, 28 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at pg 109 of Burkert's Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual, it seems to be making quite a different claim from the sentence in the article. He compares the Adonis myth with Inanna's Descent; the abduction of Persephone (as in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter) does not feature. He actually describes the relationship between the Hellenistic and Roman Adonis myth and the myth of Dumuzid as seeming to be of 'different worlds'. He then goes on to note, however, that in the Christian period, beginning with the Apology of Aristides (an anti-pagan tract), Christian authors began to add the element of Aphrodite going down to the underworld to seek Adonis and of Adonis returning to the living world for part of the year. His hypothesis is that the 'Sumerian-Semitic' myth was added as an appendix to the Greek narrative in the late period. All that to say I don't think it supports the claim made on the page, though it could be used to support Greek authors identifying Ereshkigal with Persephone, Tammuz with Adonis, and Ishtar with Aphrodite in the 2nd century CE onwards. StainedGlassSnake (talk) 13:15, 29 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

To be fair one persons views dominate most articles, but I agree that Skyerise needs to follow consensus. You are unlikely to find experts here either though and I am usually happy to defer that knowledge to the editors that have done the work getting it to GA status (in this case Katolophyroma). It seems to be overkill to suggest delisting a pretty decent article based on one disputed sentence. Aircorn (talk) 02:23, 1 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It does seem that the fighting was out of proportion to the issues with the article. (Which is a common state of affairs...) -Apocheir (talk) 18:16, 7 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Closing?

It's now been months since there was any discussion on this reassessment, the content about Persephone appears to no longer be in the lead, and the dispute about this point appears to have died down. A quick glance over the article suggests that it is in pretty good shape. Can this now be closed as keep GA, or are there any remaining concerns? Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 11:56, 5 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I think it is well past time to close it. Aircorn (talk) 22:12, 8 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]