Wikipedia:Peer review/Ionian Islands under Venetian rule/archive1

Ionian Islands under Venetian rule

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I want to get more suggestions on how to make it better as I would like it to reach GA status.

Thanks, Marcofran (talk) 15:09, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Brianboulton comments: I see this is currently a Good Article candidate. Although there is nothing to prevent a GA nominee from being peer reviewed, be careful that you don't get confused by conflicting advice from the GA reviewer and the peer reviewer. Anyhow, the following points may help you in the GA process:

• Lead: I have removed the "too short" maintenace tag as inappropriate, but that doesn't mean the lead is OK; it does need further work. Ideally, the lead should present, in no more than four succinct paragraphs, a concise summary of the article. It should mention, if only through a word or two, every significant area covered in the article. See WP:LEAD for further guidance.
• Infobox:
  • Is there any value in using an old map? It's hard to make out the islands, hard to read the details, hard to see the green. Something like File:Ionian Islands.svg gives a lot clearer picture of the individual islands and their locations.
  • The information at the top of the map, including the unexplained flags, is very confusing to the general reader. I strongly advise that you remove this stuff. If the information is significant, then include it in the text, but try and keep the infobox as simple as possible.
• Prose issues: The prose is weak. I have only been through the first section in detail, and have made a few fixes, but as you can see there are many, many faults in this short extract. Prose standards at GA are, I understand, fairly low, but if the article is ever to return to FAC it will need a lot more attention, which I regret I can't give:-
  • "some years" (in lead) needs to be more specific.
  • "which Venice was a part of" → "of which Venice was a part"
  • "only about 697 were the lagoons" reads confusingly. "only in about AD 697..." would clarify
  • "separated" → "separate"
  • The word "vassilic" is unnecessary to the meaning of the sentence and should be omitted. Also, "such us"?
  • "Despite the Pax Nicephori (803), whereby Venice was a Byzantine territory..." The word "whereby" is wrong here. I assume the intended meaning is "Despite the Pax Nicephori (803), which recognised Venice as Byzantine territory..."
  • The words "Even so" serve no purpose.
  • This paragraph concludes with the uncited short sentence: "Such treaties include the Byzantine–Venetian Treaty of 1082". This should be merged into the previous sentence, thus: "Venice became a partner of the Empire, and trading privileges were granted to it by the Emperors via treaties,[12] such as the Byzantine–Venetian Treaty of 1082". Move citation to sentence end.
  • "Muslim-controlled areas" is too vague. Be more specific. The punctuation after "areas" needs to be stronger than a comma. Suggest a semicolon, with the comma moved to after "instead".
  • "went for" sounds a bit informal Suggest "attacked"
  • "Given the fact that" is verbose. Either "As" or "Since" will do
  • "to the Crusade" → "in the Crusade"
  • "...were strained this exact period" Suggest "during this period"
  • "Moreover, styling himself..." → "Moreover, by styling himself..."
  • "There were some efforts for the betterment of the relations by the Empire of Nicaea (Nicaean–Venetian Treaty of 1219) but they later proved unsuccessful". Very clumsy. The words "Empire of Nicea" are redundant; "the relations" should be "relations", and the sentence needs to be turned to avoid the passive voice. Thus "Efforts to improve relations, for example through the Nicaean–Venetian Treaty of 1219, proved unsuccessful".
  • Another clumsy formulation: "...foreseeing the fall of Charles' power—the French King of Sicily at that time—started forming..." Perhaps "foreseeing the fall of Charles, the French King of Sicily, began forming..."
• MOS issues
  • Ndashes, not hyphens, required in page ranges (27 is correct)
  • All foreign language sources need to be labelled as such
  • Some refs lack publisher information, e.g. 67
• Images: several of the image pages require attention inrespect of inappropraite licencing, or lack of appropriate source information. If possible, seek help from one of WP's image reviewers (if you look at reviews on the FAC page you'll see who these people are).
• Couple of aditional issues:
  • One disambiguation link needs fixing. Use the toolbox top right of this review to identify, then correct.
  • One thing I spotted by chance, from late in the article: The population table requires a more formal intro than: "These are some figures concerning the population of each island during the Venetian period". But that table is so incomplete that I am dubious about whether it's worth keeping.

That is as far as I can take this review. As I am not able to watch individual peer reviews, please contact me via my talkpage if you wish to raise any issues arising from the review. Brianboulton (talk) 17:12, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

• Update:
  • I see you have made most (though not all) of the prose fixes I suggested. My prose review only ran to the first of the article's main sections, and there are no doubt other issues of this kind requiring attention in the rest of the article.
  • Disambiguation link: this is where your intended link does not go directly to the intended link page. In this case the link in question is Ionian School. Which of the four Ionian schools do you wish to link to?
  • MOS, refs etc: There are still hyphens in some page ranges, ref 67 still needs a publisher, and foreign sources are not all identified.
  • Images: the images you have chosen are probably all OK, though some of the licencing looks incorrect, and File:Corfu town 08.JPG lacks source details. That's why I suggested you talk to an image reviewer, who would help you get these things right. Brianboulton (talk) 12:27, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

llywrch comments

• "After the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, of which Venice was a part, Justinian I reconquered Venice and incorporated it into the Eastern Roman Empire's Exarchate of Ravenna" -- Uh no. That is a mishmash of 6th century history that any knowledgeable history teacher would mark you down for writing. What happened was that Justinian set out to reconquer the Diocese of Italy, & which was achieved at the end of the Gothic War, only to have the Lombards stream into Italy & shred the Roman administration into pieces. Most of these pieces were later slapped together into the Exarchate of Ravenna, which was run down due to Byzantine neglect until the Lombards finally conquered Ravenna around 750 -- although they missed some odds-&ends. One of which was Venice, which the Lombards never got around to conquering (at the time it was a collection of poor islands in the middle of a swamp) before Charlemagne swept in & extinguished their kingdom, & so it remained part of the Byzantine Empire until its inhabitants decided they didn't want to be.
• "As Venice was one of the participants in the Crusade its relations with the Byzantine Empire were strained during this period." -- That's an example of extreme understatement -- & a bit misleading. The Fourth Crusade effectively extinguished the Byzantine Empire, per se. The resurrected Byzantine Empire was the renamed Empire of Nicaea, one of the successor states to the Byzantine Empire & I don't think it had much say in how the Ionian Islands were run, due to lack of reach & resources. So I don't know exactly what you're trying to say here -- or what you want to say.
• The "Roman and Byzantine period" section under "History" -- I don't see how this relates to Venetian rule over these islands. By the time the Venetians conquered them, their administrative structure under the Romans was as relevant as the policies of Odysseus.
• The part I was most interested in reading -- how the Venetians gained control of the islands (which was piecemeal, & apparently not immediately after the Fourth Crusade) -- is buried way down inside the article, after several paragraphs about tangential issues. (Two of which I mention above.) While not everyone is interested in that, by the time I found it, & how little you actually say about it -- conquest is rarely simple & bloodless -- I've come to see that this article was badly organized. First there is a section ostensibly on Venetian-Byzantine relations, which is part of the history. Then a list of the islands Venice controlled. Then more history, of the names, date & places variety. Then sections about "Administration", "Economy", & "Demographics". The parts which could bring this article to life -- "Social structure" & "Legacy" -- receive a sentence & a paragraph respectively. All in all, I'm left with only this fuzzy sense that the Venetians conquered these islands from some other people, held them for a while, then Napoleon took them away. Nothing about Venice's strategic goals in occupying these islands, how Venetian rule affected the inhabitants -- beyond it was in some way better than under Turkish rule -- & what happened immediately after its end. How typical was Venetian rule on these islands, as compared to other Venetian territories? Were there no peasant revolts against the Venetians on these islands, unlike on Crete? Did the local governors intregue with the gentry & officials of the neighboring territories? I sincerely don't see this anywhere near a GA candidate. -- llywrch (talk) 00:51, 15 November 2011 (UTC)