Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Battle of Lalakaon/archive1

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

The article was promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 20 June 2022 [1].

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Battle of Lalakaon

Nominator(s): Constantine ✍ 18:30, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

This article is about a battle that took place in 863 between the Byzantine Empire and Melitene, one of the frontier emirates of the Abbasid Caliphate, which marks a real as well as symbolic turning point in the Arab-Byzantine wars. The Byzantines managed to encircle and annihilate the forces of Melitene (Malatya), and kill its ruler. This set the stage for the century-long 'Byzantine Reconquista', and also allowed the Byzantines to bring Bulgaria more firmly into their cultural orbit. The article is not very large, but quite complete. It was promoted to GA and A-class several years ago, but I never got around to nominating it for FA, so it is long overdue. Any suggestions for further improvement are of course welcome. Constantine ✍ 18:30, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

• Image review—pass (t · c) buidhe 19:23, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
• Warning, this is nearly 3 weeks old with minimal participation. If there is no progress towards promotion in the next few days, it is liable to be archived. (t · c) buidhe 20:58, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

CommentsSupport by Borsoka

• As Byzantium remained the caliphate's major infidel enemy... Capital letter for caliphate?
  • Changed to 'early caliphates'.
• ...acquired a quasi-ritualistic character... Quasi-ritualistic or ritualistic (or something else)?
  • Quasi-ritualistic. There was something almost of a ritual in these raids, they were a symbolic expression of the caliphs' obligation to fight the infidel and a major source of legitimacy, but were never (after a certain point in time) actually aimed to destroy the Byzantines. At the same time, this was still actual warfare, with deaths, pillaging, sieges, enslavement, etc.
• With the waning of the Abbasid Caliphate's power after 842... The article about the Abbasid Caliphate describes the period between 775 and 861 as the "Abbasid golden age".
  • Well, sort of. The collapse of Abbasid power only occurred in the 860s, but the Abbasids stopped being a military threat to Byzantium for good after 842, and signs of disintegration were already there, in hindsight. Have rephrased accordingly.
• Consider linking "emirates".
  • Done.
• Consider using the template "(r. XXX–YYY)" when first mentioning an emperor, emir, caliph...
  • Had used it in the lede, now moved it to the main body. With Ali al-Armani, the regnal dates are not applicable as he was an Abbasid commander, not a semi-hereditary emir like Umar.
• Were the Paulicians renegades or heretics?
  • What about deleting the adjective "renegade"? It presents a Byzantine PoV.
    • 'Heretic' is IMO more of a PoV issue than 'renegade', but you make a valid point. I have removed the adjective altogether. Constantine ✍ 20:15, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
• ...(probably the governor of Tarsus)... Do we need to know it? It is an assumption.
  • Well, the balance of likelihood is that he was indeed the emir/governor of Tarsus. Will have to look up how he is described in the sources though.
  • Have re-checked this. It is a hypothesis by J. B. Bury, which Huxley at least considers reasonable. As it does not really play a role here, I have removed it. Constantine ✍ 20:15, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
• ...Tarsian army... Perhaps "Ja'far's army" since we do not know for sure that he was the governor of Tarsus? (And Tarsian is not a common adjective.)
  • Done, for comprehensibility.
• ...the Byzantine historians Genesius and Theophanes Continuatus... Perhaps "the 10th-century Byzatnine historians"?
  • Done.
• ...Persian historian al-Tabari... Perhaps "the contemporary Persian historian"?
  • Added 'contemporary' but removed 'Persian'; al-Tabari was of Persian/Iranian ethnicity, but lived and worked in Baghdad as an Abbasid official. Rephrased accordingly.
• ... Petronas (the Domestic of the Schools, or commander-in-chief of the Byzantine field army)... To be consequent, consider changing to Petronas, the Domestic of the Schools (or commander-in-chief of the Byzantine field army).
  • Done, with some modifications.
• The potential expansion of Rome's ecclesiastic influence to Constantinople's doorstep could not be tolerated by the Byzantine government... Actually, it could have been tolerated, but the Byzantines did not tolerate it. (WP:NPOV)
  • Very good point, thanks. Changed.

Thank you for this nice, short, well researched and interesting article. Borsoka (talk) 03:43, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for taking this on, Borsoka! Have dealt with most of your points, will do the rest soon. Constantine ✍ 19:17, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

I think there is only one pending issue. Borsoka (talk) 02:32, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Hi Borsoka, last issues taken care of.

Ceoil

I read this last weekend, but got distracted and forgot to comment. Hang on. Ceoil (talk) 10:46, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Ok, went through it again, made trivial edits and found nothing substantive to complain about. My review is on prose, and on that basis it excels and is very engaging and I was grounded in who is who all the way through. Given the nominator, I doubt there are issues with sourcing; from a scan and a few author checks they seem first class. I did a few google searches for surveys to check comprehensiveness, and like Borsoka above am happy that the article is necessarily short, or in this case not padded out. Support. Ceoil (talk) 12:51, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time, and for your edits, Ceoil! Much appreciated! Constantine ✍ 19:17, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Funk

• Will have a look soon. FunkMonk (talk) 17:38, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
• Give dates for the illustration captions, so the reader knows they're not contemporary with the events?
  • Good point, done.
• Link Byzantine Empire at first mention outside the into, same for other potential terms only linked in the intro.
  • Done.
• Per above, link caliphates, Muslim, Black Sea, Turkish, and Arab?
  • 'Muslim', 'Arab' and 'Turkish' are probably WP:OVERLINK. 'Arab' especially is a tricky term, as at this stage it is a political or cultural rather than an ethnic term (i.e., the 'Arab' armies likely contained many other ethnicities as well, especially Turks). Linked the other terms.
• Link terms and names in image captions (Byzantine, Asia Minor, Arab, Bulgarians)?
  • Done.
• "Only the emir's son, leading a small force, escaped the battlefield" What was his name?
  • No name is given, this is reported only in Byzantine sources. Some highly corrupted names are given in later literary references, but nothing definitive.
• "the kleisourarches" what is that?
  • Clarified.
• Link Constantinople, Rome, and Baghdad?
  • Linked, but changed 'Rome' to the 'Pope's' for clarity.
• Perhaps link ecclesiastic?
  • Removed, since the change to the Pope before implies that.
• Link baptism and baptized?
  • Done.

Hello FunkMonk, thanks for taking the time for this. I've adopted most of your suggestions. Anything else? Constantine ✍ 20:15, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

• Support - that should be it, looks good to me. FunkMonk (talk) 20:20, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Support from Gog the Mild

Recusing to review.

• "the naval Cibyrrhaeot Theme." Can a theme be naval? Perhaps 'coastal'?

And, er, that is all I can find. So I shall leave it with you, along with my support. Nice one. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:13, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Hi Gog the Mild, thanks for having a look at it. There were definitely a few 'naval themes' (see [[Byzantine navy#Naval themes]), and the Cibyrrhaeots were both the first and most powerful of these. This is a deliberate technical term. Constantine ✍ 20:15, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Well, yes. And like all technical terms in Wikipedia that may not mean much to a non-specialist reader it needs either replacing with a plain-English equivalent or an in line "translation" adding. Or, if no brief explanation is possible, a footnote. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:45, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

@Gog the Mild: But that was not the question you asked ;). At any rate, the nature of the Cibyrrhaeots is not important for this article, so I simply removed the 'naval' bit. Constantine ✍ 19:08, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

Source review - pass

• All sources are high-quality academic works
• One reference uses ISBN-13 while the others use ISBN-10, but a Bot will take care of this.
• Haldon (2001) links to the wrong book
• Spot checks: 1, 6, 9, 33 - okay

Hawkeye7 (discuss) 04:51, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

@Hawkeye7: ISBNs are as given in the original works. Haldon 2001 is the correct book, it is just that for some reason Google at some point (it used to be the correct one) mixed up its cover and data. The content is correct, e.g. look at the index and the keywords. Nevertheless, I removed the url as it will confuse people. Constantine ✍ 16:48, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 16:16, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

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