Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome/Archive 43

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Archive 40 Archive 41 Archive 42 Archive 43

Move Philippics-related articles

There is an article on the Philippics generally (article is singular) and one on Cicero's at Philippicae. I can't say I've ever heard of them as singular objects since they are always referred to together (or otherwise with the designations "First" etc). It also does feel as if we could merge First Philippic, Second Philippic, Third Philippic, and Fourth Philippic into a Philippics (Demosthenes) article while moving Philippicae to Philippics (Cicero) to match. Thought I might float the idea for comment. I've done nothing substantial on the matter so far. Ifly6 (talk) 02:34, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Glancing at it, I think that the article is on the literary form established by Demosthenes and Cicero, but emulated by later writers. In this case, the singular title makes more sense than a plural one would. The article looks like it could use some expansion. If I recall, Cicero's article is at "Philippicae" in order to distinguish them from their model, and the title "Philippics" was already taken. However, as the plain title is about the general concept, it might make sense to use "Philippics (Demosthenes)" for a merged article, provided it doesn't become unwieldy in size. I understand the desire to make the Cicero article consistent, but as I've said many times, consistency should usually be secondary to convenience. I think the Cicero article can stay where it is, both because it's stable there, and because the Latin title gives it natural disambiguation, although "Philippics (Cicero)" isn't a bad alternative. P Aculeius (talk) 04:01, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
That all sounds good to me. Johnbod (talk) 04:06, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
Merging the Demosthenic Philippics articles makes sense to me. Other Demonsthenic speeches are already treated this way: we have a single article for the Olynthiacs (and, of the judicial speeches, those Against Aristogeiton and Against Stephanos). Merging all of the content currently in the four speeches on the Philippics gives us a total of 1,500 words, which is still a reasonably short article, so there are no length concerns. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 09:53, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
Personally, I wouldn't merge these articles. Demosthenes pronounced the 4 Philippics over 10 years, while Cicero made his speeches in quick succession (same with the Olynthiacs), and the 4th Philippic is disputed. Therefore the 4 Philippics are often treated separately in the literature. Philippics (Demosthenes) could be used as disamb though. T8612 (talk) 09:03, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Dispute at Herculaneum papyri

I would like to ask for additional input in a conflict at the article on the Herculaneum papyri. See Talk:Herculaneum papyri#Possible selfciting by Vito Mocella (or just see the last section at Talk:Herculaneum papyri, since the heading of the discussion is also involved in the dispute). —St.Nerol (talk, contribs) 09:23, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

It is simply on the origin of the phase-contrast technique applied to the Herculaneum papyri. With factual data, a simple truth has been restored: the primogeniture of the use of the experimental phase contrast technique to Herculaneum is clearly that of a 2015 article in which Vito Mocella is first author (https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms6895). This is a fact attested by a publication in a leading scientific journal and widely reported in the media (see for instance https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms6895/metrics or https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/16/the-invisible-library). In fact, some of Vito Mocella's statements made in 2015, when there was the wide media echo, were taken up and included in Uroll's section of same wikipedia page longtime ago. For example, the page in Italian "Papiri di Ercolano", made by someone else supposedly a long time ago, clearly shows the correct primogeniture in the use of the technique. User St.Nerol , on the other hand, claims to quote a generic phrase such as "several group proposed and used phase contrast technique ... " in a chronologically random order and without any factual corroboration.This is not about a conflict of interest, but about restoring a clear and unambiguous truth. Does St.Nerol have any factual argument to quote, other than an interview by Seals which is clearly not factual but simply the Seals opinion? — Preceding unsigned comment added by VitoMocella68 (talk • contribs) 09:54, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Mass changes of birth and death dates

@Edgenut: Your recent edits have included unsourced changes to the birth and death dates of various figures, including M Antonius Creticus (which also improperly uses |death_date= instead of leaving it blank given the range is fl.), Pontius Aquila, C Verres, Fulvia, Marcia, M Octavius, L Vibullius Rufus. These additions are not consistent with WP:V and should not be continued. Making up birth and death dates to fill in to infobox parameters is not consistent with Wikipedia policies. If you otherwise have a reliable source which gives the dates you are adding, it must be cited. Ifly6 (talk) 23:32, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Nor is there any need to add infoboxes with fictitious or imputed locations of death as in Q Salvius Salvidienus Rufus. There are a number of articles which have had barebones infoboxes added with no citations or body text support for claims made therein. Ifly6 (talk) 03:56, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
I reverted a couple of them earlier this week as "disinformation boxes", i.e. infoboxes that at best regurgitate basic information from the lead sentence, paragraph, or a very short article, as if promising something more helpful than they in fact are. I also left a note on the editor's talk page, but I don't know whether it had any effect, since I only reverted these on pages that were already on my watchlist, which most Roman biographical articles aren't. P Aculeius (talk) 04:59, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
Also an example of the kind of edit I'm talking about. Edgenut (= E) put birth and death years for Hortensia (daughter of Quintus Hortensius). But instead of picking a reasonable period of time like fl. c. 42 BC, E decided to say that Hortensia – who again is Quintus Hortensius' daughter – was born in 114 BC and died in 40. 114 is the same year that the pre-edit article says Quintus Hortensius was born. E's editing strategy here is obviously to take the first numbers that even at all look like a range and put them into the infobox. A moment's thought would have shown the implausibility of QH popping out of his mother's womb early in 114 BC to immediately impregnate someone else to have a daughter within the year! No source is given for either year. The body of the article is of no help. 40 BC seems to be drawn out of a hat, though perhaps is reasonable if E thinks Hortensia was somehow 72 years old when she gave her speech. Ifly6 (talk) 05:44, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
Another example of an obviously erroneous, imputed, and unsourced birth year. E would have us believe that Gaius Claudius Glaber held the praetorship at the age of 22. This is obviously erroneous due to the Lex Villia annalis. This is, frankly, characteristic of E's methods in these cases: a birth year is simply concocted without any regard for known Roman institutions or, as above, logic. Ifly6 (talk) 20:09, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
@Edgenut: Please stop insisting on your concocted fictitious death years, as on Hortensia. Just because someone fell out of the historical record does not mean you can say they died two years later. I haven't heard or seen any recent news about Allison Mack; that doesn't mean I can now edit her article to say she's dead. You must provide a source for such claims. WP:V. Ifly6 (talk) 00:16, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
I'm very thankful that you guys decided to deal with this, it was becoming a very annoying problem.★Trekker (talk) 20:43, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
I was only aware of ten or so Roman articles. But digging into the edit history, the number of articles vandalised with fictitious insertions is worse than the worst MSS. If you look at my contribution list right now it's just rm fictitious birth and death years over and over and over and over again. Ifly6 (talk) 20:46, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
Just counting now, I've counted at least 165 articles where these fictitious birth and death years were added or something similar. Ifly6 (talk) 21:28, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
Jesus Christ.★Trekker (talk) 23:20, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
See Ifly6 (talk · contribs). I'm pretty sure it's over c. 240 now. Ifly6 (talk) 23:30, 27 February 2024 (UTC) Rough count as of signature of 365–75 different articles. Ifly6 (talk) 00:36, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
I have reverted edits I think that should be reverted (unsourced additions to infobox especially fictitious birth, death, and service years); an infobox with like two elements on a stub article). There are at least 300+ edits in the stack. The remaining edits are those before 22:10 7 January 2024, if anyone wants to waste time reviewing them. Before around 10 January or so, E seems not to have realised he could make up birth and death years. However, there may be a substantial number of very misleading "years of service" where a citizen soldier is now asserted to have (like a coward or something) evaded serving his polis except when Herodotus or something mentioned it. Ifly6 (talk) 00:32, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Greco-Persian Wars#Requested move 28 February 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Greco-Persian Wars#Requested move 28 February 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 09:10, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Lusitania#Requested move 29 February 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Lusitania#Requested move 29 February 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. RodRabelo7 (talk) 18:41, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Discussion and move proposal at Talk:Styx

There is a discussion at Talk:Styx about (among other things) where the terms "River Styx", "Styx River", ought to redirect, as well as a proposal to rename Styx to "River Styx" and Styx (band) to "Styx". Please comment there. Paul August ☎ 22:20, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Questionable Article: Battle of Alba Longa

An editor recently created this, and has started adding links to it in other articles. However, it seems to be largely a rehash of the article about Alba Longa itself (from which a large portion apparently was copied, initially without attribution). It's ostensibly about an event that Livy mentions in a few sentences with very few details during the myth of Romulus and Remus; I haven't checked in Dionysius, but I doubt it's much more substantial there. I don't think any sources describe it as a "battle", much less "the Battle of Alba Longa"; in Livy it's an ambush of the king by some shepherds. And the article is about everything there is to know about the city and Romulus and Remus, complete with precise dates plucked from nowhere. Possibly I'm making a molehill out of a mountain here, but I'd like another pair of eyes on it at least... P Aculeius (talk) 15:02, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Well, it's just a WP:CFORK and, until someone noted an attribution, it also was WP:COPYVIO (from the rights-holder me). I think that article should be deleted or turned into a redirect. There is precedent for this in the same way Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Octavian's march on Rome was reduced into War of Mutina. Ifly6 (talk) 15:54, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
The editor in question who has been adding this also has, frankly, a very shoddy sourcing process. See eg Talk:Battle of Tauris. Or just look at his talk page for recurrent copyright problems: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. It appears little has been learnt since then, which may raise WP:COMPETENCE questions. Ifly6 (talk) 15:58, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Of just over 2400 words in the article, only 350 of them are about the actual battle, all of which are cited solely to ancient Roman sources. I'm not seeing the compelling need to have an article about this incident, rather than merging any useful original text into Alba Longa and/or Founding of Rome, which seem to be the main sources for the current content anyway. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 16:30, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
In my opinion it's worse than that too. The article just takes the ancient sources at their word on an event which almost certainly didn't happen. Livy and Dion Hal are not reliable sources for this period, except as to what Livy and Dion Hal say; everything here needs to be filtered first through modern scholarship. Ifly6 (talk) 17:01, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
We have lots of articles about mythical occurrences. And the sources aren't the problem, IMO—they're easy to supplement with modern scholarship. The issue is that there isn't much to say about the event—in Livy it's a very brief description, not a colossal battle with various forces and distinct individuals engaging in combat—compare this with the battle between Romulus and Titus Tatius, or the Battle of Silva Arsia, or the Battle of Lake Regillus. It should be covered under Romulus and Remus—only a brief mention there, but that's not much less than Livy reports—and again in Romulus—and as Caecilius mentioned, there are other possible places. I don't see the need for a stand-alone article, much less one that only mentions the subject of the article briefly! P Aculeius (talk) 17:12, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
There are multiple levels here. First, it's a copyright violation. Even if it weren't, it's a content fork. Even if it weren't a fork, there's almost nothing to talk about. Even if there were something to talk about, what there is to say cannot be substantiated with reliable sources. On this last one, the problem isn't that the article discusses fictitious events; it is that the article is unduly presenting fictitious events as if they were real. (I know we differ as to how Wikivoice should treat these fake non-existent mythological characters; I don't think we differ as to this article's fate.) Ifly6 (talk) 17:23, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
I think you should raise an AFD on it. Ifly6 (talk) 01:34, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

AFD re Battle of Alba Longa

I have started an AFD re TableSalt43's Romulean battles:

The discussion above on this page has been there linked. Ifly6 (talk) 21:57, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Apparently there is also a separate discussion at ANI. Ifly6 (talk) 07:33, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Clean up of other minor battle articles from TableSalt43

There are other articles on obscure or minor battles with minimal descriptions:

These all suffer from similarly shoddy sourcing, exceptionally long introductions etc for a battle with a description no more than a paragraph in ancient sources, and I think should all be stubified. I recently moved them all to draft but was, on consideration of the explanation, rightfully reverted. I seek a consensus that stubification should be done. Ifly6 (talk) 18:09, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

RFC proposing the MOS recommend infoboxes for articles on events, people, settlements, etc

Editors here may be interested in the RFC discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Infoboxes#RfC: Change INFOBOXUSE to recommend the use of infoboxes. The proposed MOS text begins The use of infoboxes is recommended for articles on specific biological classifications, chemical elements and compounds, events, people, settlements, and similar topics with a narrow and well-defined scope. NebY (talk) 17:32, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

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