Talk:Nicias

This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Greece: Politics / Athens Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Greece, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Greek politics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.GreeceWikipedia:WikiProject GreeceTemplate:WikiProject GreeceGreek Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. This article is supported by the Politics and politicians task force. This article is supported by the Athens task force. Classical Greece and Rome Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome, a group of contributors interested in Wikipedia's articles on classics. If you would like to join the WikiProject or learn how to contribute, please see our project page. If you need assistance from a classicist, please see our talk page.Classical Greece and RomeWikipedia:WikiProject Classical Greece and RomeTemplate:WikiProject Classical Greece and RomeClassical Greece and Rome Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. Military history: Biography / Classical This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.Military historyWikipedia:WikiProject Military historyTemplate:WikiProject Military historymilitary history Associated task forces: /  Military biography task force Classical warfare task force (c. 700 BC – c. 500 AD) Biography: Military / Politics and Government This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography This article is supported by the military biography work group (assessed as Low-importance). This article is supported by the politics and government work group (assessed as Low-importance). Politics Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of politics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PoliticsWikipedia:WikiProject PoliticsTemplate:WikiProject Politicspolitics Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

I've listed this article for peer review because it has been extensively rewritten with substantial additions. It was poor quality when I found it, so my work has amounted to a rescue effort.

I'd like some meaningful feedback, please, particularly from people who understand historical concepts, as I would ideally like to present the article at WP:FAC. Indeed, I've come here as recommended by FAC. Any and all pointers towards FA status will be especially welcome.

I think it's worth mentioning that we know relatively little about Nicias, although he was a major figure of his time. Most of our knowledge comes from Thucydides, but I have made significant use of later historians like Plutarch, Hammond, Bury and Meiggs.

Thanks, Spartathenian (talk) 06:52, 27 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I will do this one. History6042😊 (Contact me) 14:13, 27 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• All images will need alt text.
• There is still excessive usage of Thucydides' works as sources.
• All comments for the FA and GA nominations still apply, once those are fixed it will be closer to the GA criteria. History6042😊 (Contact me) 14:18, 27 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, History6042, and thank you for taking this on. I'll help as much as I can with any questions you have. Spartathenian (talk) 14:19, 27 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, thank you. History6042😊 (Contact me) 14:19, 27 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I can certainly work on the first two points, but I'm not sure what you mean by "comments for the FA and GA nominations"? It hasn't been to FAC yet, and the GA review was terminated by me. Thanks. Spartathenian (talk) 14:40, 27 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You said "Indeed, I've come here as recommended by FAC.". History6042😊 (Contact me) 14:57, 27 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I see! I meant the recommendation outlined for newcomers to the FAC page. I decided to come here instead of trying my luck there. As for GACR, if you want to use those within this review, I'll be happy with that. I've done a few GA reviews and I found the criteria useful.

I've added alt-text to each of the four images, and I'm reducing the number of references to Thucydides. A few of those will be necessary, I think, but I agree there are currently many more than needed.

Thanks again. Spartathenian (talk) 15:21, 27 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The nominee ending the GAR does not make the GAR comments any less applicable Czarking0 (talk) 05:44, 28 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, should any comments be "applicable", but this is a different type of review, and should be left in the capable hands of History6042. Spartathenian (talk) 07:29, 28 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Always good to see people working on classical articles, and it would be wonderful to see more of them at FAC. Personally, I have always taken articles through the Good Article process before bringing them there, and indeed there's nothing in the GA standards that isn't also (usually with more stringent requirements) also needed at FAC.

That is to say, I appreciate that it may well go through some more stages and evolution, but a couple of early comments with an eye on that final destination:

• One key guideline that applies at both is WP:PRIMARY: a primary source (in this case, an ancient text) cannot be used to vouch for the truth of a factual statement. For FAC, this means in practice that every sentence needs to be cited to a secondary (that is, modern, academic) source. A large number of the citations here are to Crawley, which I assume means that they are supported by the text of Thucydides as he translates it.
• You will need to demonstrate, for FAC, that the article is a thorough and up-to-date survey of all the recent literature about Nicias. It strikes me that the article relies heavily on Chisolm, and several other sources from the early C20th or earlier (Bury and Hammond, for example). There is quite a lot of good, more recent work on Thucydides: I'd suggest starting with Donald Kagan's four-volume series.
• There is a note at the bottom saying that the article includes text taken directly from EB 1911: that is unlikely to satisfy reviewers that its prose represents the best that contemporary writers can do.
• On occasion, we directly put primary sources against each other (e.g. Thucydides versus Plutarch): this can only be done if we're following secondary sources in doing so, and citing them as we go. In other words, a modern scholar must have made the same comparison and drawn the same conclusion.

Some good advice I received early on at FAC was to study existing Featured Articles in the general topic area and notice how they do things -- you might try Alexander II Zabinas, Odaenathus or Sennacherib. They won't be exactly the same as what you're working on, but they will give you a general sense of the "feel" of an article at this level, and sometimes will have solved the same sort of problems that you're trying to crack.

I hope this is helpful: good luck with the article. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 09:11, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]