Wikipedia:Featured article candidates

Media review - pass

Hi Toby, let's hope that the review gets more attention this time. From what I can tell, not much has changed media-wise. The image https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rain_World_animation_-_Green_Liz_(shortened).gif was added. It is CC BY-SA 3.0, has a caption and an alt text. Apart from that, there were some minor changes to alt texts and captions of other images. See Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Rain_World/archive1#Media_review_-_pass for the previous media review. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:05, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

MSincccc

• Comments to follow. MSincccc (talk) 08:12, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

Lead

• As an initial comment, I suggest adding the relevant language template (“Use...English”).

MSincccc (talk) 08:15, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks MSincccc! Added that template and look forward to your comments. MCE89 (talk) 11:28, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

Airship

Probably not going to do a full review, but it should be said: if the current version was promoted, it would be the ~15th-shortest FA ever. Are you sure this article is absolutely comprehensive? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 10:12, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

UC

I'd been wondering when this would show up here -- delighted that it has. Will chip in here soon. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 20:24, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Image review

• How does the image gallery align with WP:GALLERY?

• File:Phryne_seduces_the_philosopher_Xenocrates,_Angelica_Kauffmann_1794.jpg: source link is dead

• File:Jean-Léon_Gérôme_-_A_Roman_Slave_Market_-_Walters_37885.jpg: the original work needs a US tag

• File:Phryné_-_opéra-comique_en_2_actes_...,_musique_de_C._Saint-Saëns._-_affiche_-_F._Marcotte_-_btv1b53187307n.jpg: what is the author's date of death? Nikkimaria (talk) 05:00, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

The date of the author's death is not necessary as c:Template:PD-old-assumed applies. ―Howard • 🌽³³ 12:52, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

Media review

• File:Taylor Swift - Question...?.png: OK
• File:Question...? by Taylor Swift (sample).ogg: OK

―Howard • 🌽³³ 15:17, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

MSincccc

• Placeholder. MSincccc (talk) 15:51, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Image review

• File:Elalmaalaire.jpg: OK
• File:Vicenteamigo.jpg: copyvio, this is not an own work from 2008 as I managed to find it in a 2006 blog post. I am nominating it for deletion on Commons.
• File:Ciudad de Mexico - 1194 - Auditorio Nacional.jpg: OK

―Howard • 🌽³³ 11:48, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Comments by Dentsinhere

Overall, a very nice article, though I have some comments.

• There are some MOS:LQ violations (e.g. the last sentence in "Legacy")
• Mentions of El Alma al Aire or Más (or possibly other albums) in reference titles should be italicized. Quotation marks only around the titles should be replaced with italics too. (WP:CONFORM)
• Capitalization of reference titles should be consistent, most usually only title case or sentence case.
• "Recording took place at the Hit Factory in Miami, Florida, with Emanuele Ruffinengo in charge of the album's production;" → "Recording took place at the Hit Factory in Miami, with Emanuele Ruffinengo in charge of the album's production;" Could also wikilink The Hit Factory considering that it is only linked in the infobox.
• he changed both his composing manner and his favorite accompanying musicians. – Looking at the source for this, it says "the musicians who accompany him have also enjoyed playing a lot." (using machine translation), not that he changed/swapped them.
• while José Miguel Carmona of Ketama fame collaborated on the record as well. – Rephrase "fame collaborated"
• Rating it three out of four stars, Shumski praised – Might also want to mention that this is for Chicago Sun-Times.
• "'El Alma al Aire' reveals its immense magnetism" → "El Alma al Aire reveals its immense magnetism"
• opining that while it was not one of best albums like Más – Rewrite "it was not one of best albums like Más" (word salad-like)
• "remarked that El Alma al Aire was a turning point for the artist's career stating he" → "remarked that El Alma al Aire was a turning point for the artist's career, stating he"
• Italicize "El Alma Al Aire: 20 Aniversario" in "Track listing"

- Dents (talk2me 🖂) he/him btw!!! 01:56, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

Image review

• Suggest adding alt text. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:36, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Done, thank you Crystal Drawers 🍌 ^{(wanna talk?)} 12:39, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Support from GGOTCC

This is an excellent article, well done! I have watched little of my show, but many of my friends are fans. I think I would be a good person to review the plot section to ensure it makes sense to someone unfamiliar with the topic. It took me two full reads to find something to mention here. While not an outright issue, some of your multi-clause sentences get tangled which make it difficult to read on the first pass.

• "electrically shocked" is linked to shockwave. I am not sure what you intended

Good catch, I meant to link it to "electrical injury", which has now been fixed

• "who was told by the doctors who assisted with Eleven's birth that she had died during it." This is unclear who "she" refers to. I think the wording of "Terry lives" is also confusing if Terry is unconscious in Becky's house.

Clarified that it was Eleven who was presumed dead

• "Terry in a comatose-like state, and, by going into her mind and going through her memories, realizes that Dr. Brenner stole her away from Terry," I am also unsure which "her" is referred to if not Terry. Eleven?

Yes, it is referring to Eleven

• "Terry has been trying to show her". If I understand, adding "subconsciously" would make more sense if Terry is unconscious

Added

• "Wolfhard later stated that he has not told" Do you mean "was not"?

Changed

• In the lead section, it would make sense to mention how the episode builds the overall plot of Eleven mastering her skills.

Added

• Cliffhanger can be linked to

Added

• "The main criticisms from fans were the placement of the "divisive" episode in the season's timeline". While this is a correct use of "divisive", referring to fans make it seem that the criticism is divisive, rather then the placement of the episode. Perhaps "disjointed", "disruptive", "disconnected", or "incongruous". It is up to you if you want to change anything.

Changed to disjointed

GGOTCC 17:21, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the review and the support! I have implemented all of your changes, which I believe have strengethed the article a lot :) Crystal Drawers 🍌 ^{(wanna talk?)} 18:16, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

This article would pass with flying colors! GGOTCC 18:24, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Crisco comments

• In addition to the issues for use in Britain, several small denominations of sterling were struck during William's reign for colonial use, two of these, the half farthing and silver threepence, were later issued for use in Britain. - Period or semi-colon after "colonial use", with capitalization to suit.
• William, Duke of Clarence before - William, Duke of Clarence, before
• William Wyon was born in 1795 in Birmingham, into a family many of whom were medallists or worked in die engraving. - This feels a bit rough. Is there a way to smooth it a bit?
• who had been promised the position, for which he was ineligible as a foreigner. - Maybe "who had been promised the position despite being ineligible as a foreigner"?
• Jean Baptiste Merlen (also known as Johann Baptist Merlen) was of Flemish origin, and had been working on official medals in Paris under the French First Empire. - I don't think the comma is necessary here.
• Wyon began his preparations for King William's coinage even before George IV had died, obtaining a sketch of William from the sculptor Francis Chantrey in April 1830, taking care that no word reached George's ears. - Feels like a bit of a run-on. Maybe split/simplify?
• Nevertheless, by late 1830, it publicly appeared little or nothing had been done to prepare King William's coinage. - Is "or" correct here? Would "And" be more accurate?

No. The source says "little or nothing was being done about the new coinage".

• Wyon's initials WW is - Wyon's initials WW are, no?
• Wyon may have been influenced in the choice of design for the crown by an offer from a potential benefactor stating that he would remember Wyon in his will if the Mint in 1831 issued a crown depicting the entirety of the King's arms - That's a lot of subordinate clauses. Any way to simplify?

Even a direct quote isn't going to help much, I'm afraid.

• The shilling and sixpence surround their denominations with a wreath of oak.[21] The fourpence, designed by Wyon,[16] introduced in 1836, is the only British silver coin to bear the image of a seated Britannia - Perhaps "designed by Wyon[16] and introduced in 1836"?

I've cut the "introduced in 1836" as it is mentioned in the previous paragraph.

• The threepence and three halfpence have reverse designs by Merlen with wreathed numerals on the reverse and resemble the Maundy money, whose reverse designs, by Merlen are unchanged from the previous reign. - I'd split this, as this paragraph is only two sentences otherwise, and the sentence itself could be simplified.
• It depicts Britannia helmeted and bearing a trident, and holding a shield bearing a Union flag, above a rose, shamrock and thistle representing England, Ireland and Scotland. - Another sentence that could probably benefit from being split.
• Richard Sainthill - Perhaps a short description to clarify why his view is pertinent?
• "Thee is equally great expression - "Thee" typo in the source?
• However, a start was made on reform of the Royal Mint's administration, run then for private profit by the Company of Moneyers, with (in 1830) a reduction by a third of the salary of the master of the Mint, and in April 1837, abolition of the automatic funding of the Royal Mint from seignorage and from a payment from the consolidated fund, a subsidy which had begun when Sir Isaac Newton was master of the Mint a century before. - This sentence is a bit unwieldy; I'd split in two, maybe even three.
• refused importation of the new coins, returning them to the colony's London agent, and stating that they were "unsuitable and not such as required - Maybe no comma before the "and"?
• Penny (British pre-decimal coin should be corrected to Penny (British pre-decimal coin)
• Designs for the new coinage, together with an example of the sovereign - Comma after sovereign?
• Designs for the new coinage, together with an example of the sovereign were submitted to Victoria by the master of the Mint, Henry Labouchere, on 15 February 1838, with the required designs having been described by an order in council dated 26 July 1837. They were approved on 26 February 1838 - Only two sentences in this paragraph... with the compound sentence opening this paragraph, perhaps split it? Same with the following paragraph. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 17:47, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. I think I got everything.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:55, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

• Support - Thanks. As a lay reader who only ever learned about numismatics through your articles and Godot's pictures, this looks to meet the FA criteria to me. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 19:01, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

MSincccc

• Comments to follow. MSincccc (talk) 05:43, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Lead

• I would suggest adding the relevant language template (Use ... English) to the mainspace.
• You could link "obverse" to Obverse and reverse.
• "range in denomination" → "ranged in denomination"
• "though the former was not minted for circulation and the latter was struck only for colonial use" → "although the former was not minted for circulation and the latter struck only for colonial use"
  • So as to avoid repeating "was".
• "ordered it be used exclusively" → "ordered it to be used exclusively"
  • More idiomatic?
• William's reign saw no great innovations in coinage, but saw the start of reform at the Royal Mint
  • How about "William's reign saw no great innovations in coinage, but marked the start of reform at the Royal Mint"? It avoids repeating "saw".

More to come. MSincccc (talk) 05:54, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Background

• You could link to the "Duke of Clarence".

I think not. This strikes me as a low probability link.

• You could link to Birmingham, though I suppose most are aware of it.

It is a major city and my understanding is we don't link such.

• In 1817, Thomas Wyon died.
  • British English would omit the frontal comma in similar sentences.
• You could link "Flemish origin to Flemish people and to the article medallist.
• In 1828, Wyon was given the position of Chief Engraver and Pistrucci made Chief Medallist, at equal salaries.
  • The article Young Head coinage uses smallcase for "chief engraver" and "chief medallist". Could we do the same here?
• "Until Charles III in 2022, he was the oldest person to become the British monarch."

→ "Until 2022, when Charles III acceded, he was the oldest person to become British monarch."

I think mine is less convoluted for the same information.

• There was internal conflict as to who should be his successor between William Wyon and
  • How about There was internal conflict as to whether William Wyon or similar phrasings?
• "joined in by their partisans"

→ "joined by their partisans"

• "for he was, like Pistrucci, a foreigner ineligible by statute for the permanent salaried posts"

→ "as he was, like Pistrucci, a foreigner ineligible by statute for permanent salaried posts"

The only positions he was ineligible for were those that involved taking the custody of coinage dies. Linecar mentions that is according to an act under Willim III. So he could have filled another salaried position. So the "the" is necessary.

I think I'm up to date.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:40, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

MSincccc (talk) 16:47, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Preparation

• You could link to Master of the Mint.
• In 1824, Wyon had secured a similar machine.
  • The frontal comma could be dropped here.
• Mark Jones, in his biography of Wyon, suggested that the two were anxious
• Once William was king, Wyon could work on the new coins without concealment, working from a low-relief bust of William provided by Chantrey.
  • This sentence could be rephrased so as to avoid "work... working".
• as William desired.
  • Do we need the phrase? What does the source say?

The source quotes from the two statements by Herries of 28 October and 15 November, (28 October) "His Majesty's entire approbation of the Engraving of the Head of His Majesty for the new Coin executed by Mr Wyon, from the model prepared by Mr Chantrey". I think it's important to stress that Wyon's work had William's support, which was not always the case with kings and engravers (George IV's conflict with Pistrucci, who was accurate but unflattering, comes to mind).

Also from the same page, "His Majesty, who was pleased to command that the effigy on his coins should be taken from the Bust which was executed at the time by Mr Chantrey ..." (15 November)

• "it publicly appeared little or nothing" → "it appeared publicly that little or nothing"
  • Cleaner?

I think it is better as is.

• "to different die sizes" → "onto different sizes"
  • More idiomatic?

Engravers at the time worked on plaster models which were then reduced and from which dies to strike coins could be made. I'd leave the die in.

MSincccc (talk) 04:57, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Designs

• "She bears a shield bearing a Union flag" → "She bears a shield bearing the Union flag"
• You could link to Britannia.
• Wyon's reverse design for the copper coinage, depicting Britannia, is almost unchanged from the design he created for George IV,
  • You could drop "created for".

That would leave " ... the design he George IV." In any event, I think that Wyon made the design for the copper pieces needs to be included. It is mentioned in the table with the images but I can't count on the reader getting that far.

MSincccc (talk) 05:06, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Reactions

• We have one long quote each from Till and Sainthill in this section. Could the quoted portions be trimmed?

I'm reluctant. It is all we have. William's coinage does not get the attention Victoria's does.

• The numismatist William Till commented in an 1835 article
  • Do we know where the article was published?

In the Mirror of Literature, Amusement and Instruction, a mouthful which if laid on the reader, would distract them.

MSincccc (talk) 07:24, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Production

• when Sir Isaac Newton
  • You could add an nbsp&; here since it appears across two lines on my Android.

Between which words?

Between "Sir" and "Isaac". MSincccc (talk) 04:05, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

• You could link to Halfpenny (British pre-decimal coin).

It is linked on first usage and in the photo section.

• "master of the Mint" → "Master of the Mint"
  • Since the article of the post and its numerous holders use so. Please let me know if I am mistaken.
• "run then for private profit by the Company of Moneyers" → "then run for private profit by the Company of Moneyers"
• "century before" → "century earlier"
  • More idiomatic?
• its parliamentary mandate died with the end of the parliamentary session
  • Is "died" the best version that can be used here, or are there finer alternatives?
• likely because of complaints the smaller half sovereign was too close in diameter
  • You could insert a "that" after "complaints".
• The threepence, struck for use in Britain beginning in 1845, would prove more popular, and supplant it.
  • Do we need the comma after "popular"?
• They proved unpopular, and poured back to the colonial government.
  • Do we need the comma after "unpopular"?
• "and most every year after that"

→ "and in most years after that"

• • A suggestion.
• "This change meant that a new coinage would be prepared."

→ "This meant that a new coinage would be prepared."

• This article uses both "order in council" and "Order in Council".

Bottom line

• My apologies if my comments (and queries) have been longer than usual. That's all from me. I look forward to your response. MSincccc (talk) 16:30, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. Where not commented, I've gone ahead and done it. Thank you for a most thorough review.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:46, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

I’ve responded to one of your queries above.

Apart from that, everything looks fine as it is. I will support the nomination. Good luck with it, and I look forward to your next article on a coinage. MSincccc (talk) 04:11, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for that. the nbsp you asked for will be added. Wehwalt (talk) 16:27, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Image review

36 images on this one... will be some work:

I have collapsed it because it is long. ―Howard • 🌽³³ 22:30, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for that ... sorry about the error. I borrowed the template from the last coinage article. All fixed. Wehwalt (talk) 22:46, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Seems acceptable now. ―Howard • 🌽³³ 22:49, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

MSincccc

• Comments to follow. MSincccc (talk) 05:30, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Lead

• After some days gaining her trust,
  • How about rephrasing it? "Several" would be more idiomatic.
    • Done. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 13:23, 22 March 2026 (UTC)
• after which she was strangled and her body dumped in an isolated location
  • How about "isolated spot"?
    • Spot feels overly informal. Swapped with "place". — Chris Woodrich (talk) 13:23, 22 March 2026 (UTC)
• "Newspaper coverage was extensive, lasting for months" → "Newspaper coverage was extensive and lasted for months"
  • Smoother?
    • Done. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 13:23, 22 March 2026 (UTC)
• "finding great commercial success" → "which found great commercial success"
  • • Not done. As this is referring to one specific pressing, I feel that the -ing construction is smoother. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 13:23, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Background

• You could link to Shanghai on first mention in the article body.
• You could link to modernity and cosmopolitanism.
  • Done both. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 13:23, 22 March 2026 (UTC)
• "western and eastern cultures" → "Western and Eastern cultures"
  • Done. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 13:23, 22 March 2026 (UTC)
• "through the 1890s and 1900s" → "during the 1890s and 1900s"
  • Not done. Growth was also rapid before that. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 13:23, 22 March 2026 (UTC)
• "Becoming known by the 1900s as the "Brothel of Asia"" → "By the 1900s, it had become known as the ‘Brothel of Asia’"
  • Cleaner phrasing?
  • Done. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 13:23, 22 March 2026 (UTC)
• tabloids regularly discussed the intricacies of the business
  • How about "tabloids regularly covered"?
  • Done. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 13:23, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Also, congratulations on the promotion of The Great Mecca Feast. More to follow. MSincccc (talk) 06:12, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Biographies

• "Her father died in her childhood" → "Her father died during her childhood"
  • More idiomatic? I leave it to you.
    • Done. — Chris Woodrich (talk)
• "gaining a reputation for her singing voice and her beauty" → "gaining a reputation for her singing and beauty"
  • Avoids repetition of "her".
    • Done. — Chris Woodrich (talk)
• "She at first took residence with a popular courtesan" → "She initially took up residence with a popular courtesan"
• including the prominent madame Xu Di.
  • Do the sources say "prominent"?
  • The source says, "Elected Premier of Flower Affairs (huawu zongit) in the winter 1917 courtesan elections (see discussion later in this chapter), in the autumn of 1918 [Lianying] began to work together with Xu Di, a courtesan who had also won an official title". Official recognition in one of these flower elections feels like sufficient justification for "prominent". Herschatter also uses the word prominent on page 439, "Jewelry and suicide were also entangled in a 1920 case when Xu Di, a prominent Shanghai courtesan, was robbed of her diamonds and other jewelry in Hankou. Reports appeared in every newspaper that she had committed suicide, but several days later she was spotted by one of her customers at a Shanghai tailor shop. Xu Di explained to the customer that she had fainted, not died."  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 13:28, 22 March 2026 (UTC)
• "Finishing four years later, he spent time in Beijing and Hong Kong" → "After completing his studies four years later"
• being known to frequent the cinemas,
  • Done. — Chris Woodrich (talk)
  • You could drop the "the" before "cinemas".
    • Done. — Chris Woodrich (talk)

MSincccc (talk) 13:09, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Murder

• Facing pressure to return the ring, he chose to rob a courtesan. As his target, he chose Lianying.
  • You could avoid repeating "chose".
    • "Decided. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 14:21, 22 March 2026 (UTC)
• "Wu brought with a third man"

→ "Wu brought a third man with him"

• • Went with "Wu brought with him", as there is a subordinate clause in commas after "third man". — Chris Woodrich (talk) 14:21, 22 March 2026 (UTC)
• "adorned in numerous pieces of jewellery"

→ "adorned with numerous pieces of jewellery"

• • • Done. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 14:21, 22 March 2026 (UTC)
• "As the night passed"

→ "As the night wore on"

• • More idiomatic?
    • I've had some pushback with overly idiomatic phrasings. I've gone with "Later that night". — Chris Woodrich (talk) 14:21, 22 March 2026 (UTC)
• "carried in such newspapers as"

→ "carried in newspapers such as"

• • Fixed the split infinitive. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 14:21, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

MSincccc (talk) 14:07, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Cultural impact (Press)

• Yan worked variously as a translator for the Franco-Chinese Mining Company and as a clerk for the French Tramway Company, both in Shanghai.- Here, Yang is introduced as a clerk who is later unemployed.

The killing of a famous courtesan by an educated businessman immediately "scandalized and mesmerized the city's chattering classes".- Yang is now called an "educated businessman". He was educated, but was he in any business as well apart from being a translator and clerk?

• Seems I went beyond the sources. Replaced with "youth". — Chris Woodrich (talk) 11:20, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

• You could add a footnote about the Warlord Era, even though it's not necessary to do so.

• Added a very basic note as an introduction.  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 11:20, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

• , but rather that Zhu had provided his friend with a substitute.
  • You could make the sentence clearer by mentioning "Zhu Zhija" since it might be mistaken for Baosan.
    • Good point; Zhu Zhija hasn't been mentioned in a bit, and Baosan is right there. Added. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 11:20, 23 March 2026 (UTC)
• "baseless claims that she had fled a life of debt, that she was continuing her career" → "baseless claims that she had fled a life of debt and was continuing her career"
  • So as to avoid repeating "that".
    • Refactored. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 11:20, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

MSincccc (talk) 06:21, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Cultural impact (Literature)

• "recount of her life and career" → "account of her life and career"
• "This fifty-eight page booklet" → "This fifty-eight-page booklet"
  • Hyphenated since it is a compound modifier.

Cultural impact (Theatre)

• "bring the murder to stage" → "bring the murder to the stage"
• "with one act performed per day" → "with one act performed each day" – more idiomatic?
• "selling out tickets for the two months of its run" → "selling out tickets throughout its two-month run"
• "tickets were regularly sold out" → "tickets regularly sold out"
• "finding popular acclaim in Hangzhou" → "finding acclaim in Hangzhou"
• You could link to the article History of Shanghai.

Cultural impact (Music)

• You could link to Dream sequence on first mention.
• "phonographic recording" → "phonograph recording"
• "acapella" → "a cappella"
• recorded variously by Zhang Yijin and Wang Jifan
  • Do we need "variously" here?

Cultural impact (Film)

• "served as the inspiration for several films" → "served as inspiration for several films"
• "but known in Chinese as ‘Yan Ruisheng’" → "but was known in Chinese as ‘Yan Ruisheng’"
• "The case later served as an inspiration for Jiang Wen's" → "The case later served as inspiration for Jiang Wen's"
• Viewer reviews were generally negative, with particular focus on its slow pacing and loose narrative
  • Does the source also review the audience or is it only the critics? If it's the latter, how about dropping "viewer"?

Bottom line

• That's all from me. My apologies if I was being overly idiomatic in my suggestions. I hope that my comments have been helpful. Best, MSincccc (talk) 14:17, 23 March 2026 (UTC)
  • All applied, though I used "inspired" to sidestep "an inspiration/inspiration"; I've always heard it as "an inspiration", with the article. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 15:05, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

    I will support the nomination. Good luck with it. MSincccc (talk) 15:19, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

    @Crisco 1492 I was quietly counting on a cheeky "thanks" button click or a note from you after the full review — but alas, I live to review another FAC. MSincccc (talk) 04:44, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

    Sorry, RL stuff distracted me. Thank you! — Chris Woodrich (talk) 10:49, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Comments by Wehwalt

• "courtesan election" This is something the reader may puzzle at. Cannot a few words of explanation be spared here?

• I've rephrased to "gaining the title "Prime Minister of Flower Country" in 1917." to avoid the issue, as it is explained in more detail in the body. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 17:52, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

• "amidst a wheat field" Can this not be phrased more simply?

• Changed amidst to "in". — Chris Woodrich (talk) 17:52, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

• "a sizeable expatriate community" would a term such as "Western" or "European" profitably be added here?

• The expatriates were predominantly European, but there was also a growing Japanese population (with some Koreans, though not as sizeable). — Chris Woodrich (talk) 17:52, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

• "Execution" (subsection heading) Is there really no alternative to this? It might be thought to refer to the killing, which it does but ... I would just call it something else.

• How about "implementation"?  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 17:52, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

• where he was remanded to the Shanghai Mixed Court" Legalistically, this seems an odd phrasing. One can be remanded to jail, or one's case to a lower court, but a person to a court like this reads oddly to me as a lawyer. However, if it's what the source uses, that's fine. But what I'd prefer is something like his case was assigned to the Shanghai Mixed Court.

• How is "for trial by the Shanghai Mixed Court"?

• "Although the defence challenged the admissibility, both men confessed to the crimes;" Should be a period at the end, and I would add "of the statements" after "admissibility".

• I had used the semi-colon to link with Yan, but switched with a period. Also added "of the statements". — Chris Woodrich (talk) 17:52, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

• "with the remainder eliminated through 1925;[65] courtesan houses thus moved to the French Concession, where the practice remained permitted.[66]" Maybe "by [the end of] 1925" for "through 1925" (depending on what the source said and "allowed" for "permitted".

• Done. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 17:52, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

• I think you may be linking to the wrong World Book.

• Swapped with World Book Company [zh]. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 17:52, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

• " such that entertainers were often asked to give live" I might say "so much so" for "such".

• Done. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 17:52, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

• "failing to promote the public morality" cut "the", I think.

• Done. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 17:52, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

• "the drafting of censorship policies" cut "the drafting of"

• Done and nixed the publisher, as that content is elsehwere. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 17:52, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

• Should refs such as 20 (referring to the North-China Herald) have italics?

• Huh, I remembered that breaking the SFN template. Done.  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 17:52, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

That's all I have. Very interesting.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:02, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

• Responded above. Thank you! — Chris Woodrich (talk) 17:52, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

  Support very enjoyable follow up to the article on the film we are running at TFA this month. Your suggestions look fine to me. Wehwalt (talk) 01:43, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

  Thanks muchly! — Chris Woodrich (talk) 10:49, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Comments from Z1720

I did a copyedit of the article, mostly to tighten up the language. Feel free to revert anything unhelpful. Overall, no concerns and happy to support. Z1720 (talk) 00:25, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

• Thank you muchly, Z1720. I have restored three earlier wordings, as follows:

Shanghai in particular gained a reputation as a centre of sex work. - I have restored "in particular" to maintain emphasis on how it was an outlier compared to China's other major cities

I have changed to "with his case to be heard by the Shanghai Mixed Court in the International Settlement", mostly because I prefer references after punctuation. If there's a way to tighten phrasing further, I'm happy to work it in.

In 1938, the case was again adapted to film, this time by Kwan Man-ching - I've restored "the case was again adapted to film" as the source does not specify that it was a remake of the earlier film (remakes being attested in Republican Chinese cinema at least as early as the 1935 remake of Lonely Orchid [1926]), and thus I believe "again" makes this sentence less potentially ambiguous. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 00:33, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

HurricaneZeta

First thing I noticed is that the lead image is grainy. Is there a better image to put in the lead? It's also not particularly representative - the one for Amazon River is a high-quality satellite image so something similar would be better in my opinion. HurricaneZeta^C 22:38, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

I'll look for a less grainy photo. I avoided satellite images in the InfoBox because the article body text already has lots of "birds eye view" images/maps and they were getting repetitive. There are 100's of images in Commons, I should be able to find a better one. Noleander (talk) 22:42, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

I replaced the InfoBox image with this Commons image, which is 3k x 2k pixels. I tried a satellite image, but they all look really ugly in the InfoBox because the Nile satellite pics are generally very tall & skinny images (because the river runs N-S). The Amazon is different: the Amazon basin's rectangular outline is a nice 3x2 (wider than tall) so is great for an InfoBox. I could crop a Nile sat image to show only the delta, but the article already has plenty of images & text about Egypt (rightfully so) but I think the InfoBox is a good place to remind readers that the Nile goes way beyond Egypt and is green & lush in most of the southern half. Noleander (talk) 22:52, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

The image certainly looks good! A nitpick tho: "The beauty of river nile, as you progress towards Murchison falls" for the image's description on Commons doesn't actually describe the image. Icepinner (Come to Hakurei Shrine!) 14:08, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. I improved the image description in Commons so it now says "A view of Murchison Falls on the Nile River, looking east. This portion of the Nile in Uganda, between Lake Victoria and Lake Albert, is called the Victoria Nile". Also: Thanks for your great comments in the Peer Review, much appreciated. Noleander (talk) 14:53, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

I rather disagree with this new choice of image; I think we should seek an image that better represents the Nile across its full course, and (as infobox photos are primarily for identification), fits with what people would expect the Nile to be. I searched through Commons and found some possible candidates:

• Commons:File:River Nile at Karima (3) (33706717470).jpg

I think this gets across the pure size of the river well, it's very well-composed, and it shows a fairly typical riverside environment

• Commons:File:Nile Cataracts 03.jpg

The 1st Cataract is one of the most important spots on the river, and this is a good wide view that shows both the size of the river and its importance to human settlement

• Commons:File:Nile in Luxor.jpg

Similar to the former, but with better resolution, albeit not at quite as important a location

I think any of these would be nice. (And again, thank you so much for your work on this article!) Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 05:58, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

@Generalissima - Thanks for the feedback on the InfoBox image. Those three images you found are okay, but the sky seems a bit overcast & hazy in all three. Unfortunately, Wiki Commons does not have many nice pictures of the Nile that are hi-res, and capture the essence of the Nile, and have good composition. I've put together this image gallery of about 11 images (including the 3 you provided, and the current image, and the one that was in the InfoBox before that). Can you glance at that gallery and see if any of the other ones are satisfactory? Noleander (talk) 15:15, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

The_Nile_River_flows_into_the_Mediterranean_Sea_(iss071e405499).jpg, Nil 25.jpg would work well if we want to go for a satellite picture. I searched through Flickr, and was able to find one more that might be useable (though I think we'd want to crop to the left side of the picture for an infobox image); Commons:File:Nile 3rd Cataract Sudan pano.jpg Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 15:33, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

Oh, I'm liking Commons:File:Nile 3rd Cataract Sudan pano.jpg ... I'll crop that and upload the cropped version to Commons (I have not yet found a way to perform cropping within the confines of the InfoBox parameters). I'll put it into the InfoBox soon. Noleander (talk) 15:44, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

I made three cropped versions of the Flickr image ... left, middle, and right. I put them into User:Noleander/sandboxNile so you can see all three. I picked one at random and put it into the Nile InfoBox. Let me know which one you think is best. Noleander (talk) 16:22, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

I really like File:The Nile River flows into the Mediterranean Sea (iss071e405499).jpg for a satellite image. I think the one in the infobox now is the best option for a ground view, though HurricaneZeta^C 17:57, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

There's still room in the article for more images ... so both could be included. The satellite image might be tricky in the InfoBox because a lengthy caption might be required to distinguish the Nile from the Red Sea (for readers who are not savvy about geography) e.g. "The Nile river (the dark, narrow, horizontal, meandering line in the bottom portion of the image)" Noleander (talk) 18:25, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

I put that satellite image into the article at Nile#Prehistory. Noleander (talk) 18:31, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

MSincccc

• Thanks for bringing yet another vital article to FAC. I will be leaving comments shortly. MSincccc (talk) 03:57, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

Lead

• None here, except a few places in the article where I spotted double spaces. MSincccc (talk) 05:19, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

Names and etymology

• "The English name of the Blue Nile" → "The English name 'Blue Nile'"

Done. Although I used double quotes per MOS:WORDSASWORDS, because the article is using italics for foreign words; single quotes for English gloss of foreign words; double quotes for words-as-words. Noleander (talk) 15:03, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

• You could link to Lake Victoria, Lake Kyoga and Lake Albert (Africa) on first mention in the body.

Done. Noleander (talk) 15:03, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

• "as they carried sediment from upriver" → "as they carry sediment from upriver"

Done. Noleander (talk) 15:03, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

• downstream from confluence of Blue Nile and White Nile - "the confluence"?

Done. Noleander (talk) 15:03, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

MSincccc (talk) 05:19, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

Geography

• "the course from there to Lake Albert" → "the stretch from there ..." More idiomatic in this context?

Done. Noleander (talk) 17:08, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

• "a tributary flowing from the west" → "a tributary from the west"

Done. Noleander (talk) 17:08, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

• "This confluence happens in Lake No." - How about "occurs" in place of "happens"?

Done. Noleander (talk) 17:08, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

• Where the White Nile merges with the Blue Nile they are noticeably distinct colors. - You could insert a comma before "they are".

Done. Not 100% sure it is better, but it is not worse. Noleander (talk) 17:08, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

• "second largest" → "second-largest"

Done. Noleander (talk) 17:08, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

• "which then follows a large S-shape curve" → "which then follows a large S-shaped curve"

Done. Noleander (talk) 17:08, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

MSincccc (talk) 14:59, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

Sources

• The source of the Blue Nile tributary is near the town of Gish Abay, south of Lake Tana. - How about merging it into any of the previous paragraphs since it is only a single sentence?

That section identifies five distinct sources: one per paragraph. Merging two paragraphs would make it harder for readers to grasp the the sources are all separate. Noleander (talk) 17:19, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

• The distance was determined from satellite imagery, and was measured
  • Could we avoid mentioning "was" twice?

Done. Noleander (talk) 17:19, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

• "than its inflowing rivers" → "than its tributaries"

Changed to ... than the rivers that flow into the lake. I just looked up the definition of "tributary", and you are correct, it can mean rivers flowing into a lake. But I've never seen it used that way before (I've only seen it used to mean a smaller river that flows into a larger river). So, I'm reluctant to employ that (apparently) rare usage. Google says "influent" would work, but that is a super rare word. Let me know if the new blue text is not satisfactory. Noleander (talk) 17:19, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

MSincccc (talk) 16:48, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

Hydrology

• The waters of the Blue Nile are so substantial during the summer and autumn, that the White Nile backs-up during this time at the confluence. - Both British and American English would use "backs up". Also, you could drop after "autumn".

Done. Noleander (talk) 14:04, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Ecology

• industrial pollutants and sewage; ships contribute pollutants to the waters; - You could avoid repeating "pollutants" in close proximity.

Done. Noleander (talk) 14:04, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

• These arid conditions led to famines and social disruption, and also to increased environmental degradation. - You could drop "also to".

Done. Noleander (talk) 14:04, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

• "increase in frequency and severity of both dryness and drought" → "increase in the frequency and severity of droughts"

Done. Noleander (talk) 14:04, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

MSincccc (talk) 05:12, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Geography

• The article uses both "Bahr al Ghazal" and "Bahr el Ghazal" - how about using only one?
• "eventually producing the current river" → "eventually producing the current form of the river" - clearer?
• "rivers in Ethiopian and Ugandan highlands" → "rivers in the Ethiopian and Ugandan highlands" -adds the missing article
• where the modern Lake Albert and Lake Edwards are. - Isn't it "Lake Edward" or am I mistaken?
• "the Sea completely evaporated" → "the sea completely evaporated"
• After the Strait of Gibraltar reopened, the Sea refilled- same as the previous suggestion
• "Lake Victoria roughly assumed its modern shape" → "Lake Victoria assumed roughly its modern shape"
• "tilted northwards" → "tilted northward"

Done ... all of the above. Noleander (talk) 23:47, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

MSincccc (talk) 16:33, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Geological history

• "and start forming Lake Victoria" → "and to start forming Lake Victoria"

Human history

• "the Egyptian's need" → "the Egyptians' need"
• "also were within its realm" → "were also within its realm"
• "between 1613 to 1618" → "between 1613 and 1618"
• “the furthermost source” → “the farthest source” - more idiomatic?

MSincccc (talk) 04:49, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Water politics in the modern era

• "water projects to enhance the production of the cotton industry" → "water projects to enhance cotton production"
• "an agreement between Egypt and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan was formed" → "an agreement between Egypt and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan was reached"

- more idiomatic?

• "dialog" →"dialogue"
• quality of life of their populace - How about using "population" in place of "populace"?
• "kilowatt hours" → "kilowatt-hours"
• Is there any way water politics could be linked in this section? No worries if not.

Did all of the above except one: Did not add a link to water politics. I searched and could not find a decent place to put it. The Nile#Water politics in the modern era section already begins with a "further" template that directs the reader to Water politics in the Nile Basin, which should satisfy the same goal. Noleander (talk) 17:44, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

MSincccc (talk) 16:59, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

General

• You could also briefly mention that the Nile is a transboundary river.

Economy (Agriculture)

• "primarily" → "mainly" - More common in American English.
• Much of the irrigated land is within the Gezira Scheme, an extensive irrigation project initiated in the 1920s -How about "started" in place of "initiated" for simplicity?
• The primary crops in Sudan are peanuts, cotton, sesame, sugarcane, and sorghum. -You could link to some of the crops.
• and Khashm Al-Qirbah Dam- Is this the same as Khashm el-Girba Dam?

Economy (Fisheries)

• "which is more than half of the total fresh water yield from the entire African continent" → "which is more than half of the total freshwater yield from all of Africa"- More idiomatic?
• "Fish farming is performed at some places in the basin" → "Fish farming is carried out in some parts of the basin"- More idiomatic?

Did all of the preceding items except: Kept "primarily" (vs "mainly"); and kept "from ... the African continent" because that particular usage is emphasizing fish caught in freshwater lakes (inside the continent) and excludes ocean fishing. Noleander (talk) 14:19, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

MSincccc (talk) 09:14, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Economy (Hydropower)

• "Nile River, but thereafter" → "Nile River, but thereafter,"

Economy (Transportation)

• None here.

Economy (Tourism and recreation)

• The Bandingilo National Park, near the White Nile, is in South Sudan.- This has already been mentioned in the previous sentence (South Sudan has the Boma National Park, Bandingilo National Park).

Did the items above. Noleander (talk) 17:32, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

MSincccc (talk) 16:45, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

In culture (Art and literature)

• None

In culture (Myth and religion)

• You could link to cosmology and more specifically to Ancient Egyptian religion#Cosmology, if it is possible to do so.

Done. Noleander (talk) 18:01, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

• Isis was a major deity in the Egyptian religion who was strongly associated with the Nile River.- You could avoid "was" twice in the same sentence.

Done. Noleander (talk) 18:01, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

*"dated to first century BCE" → "dated to the first century BCE"

Thanks for doing that one. Noleander (talk) 18:01, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

MSincccc (talk) 04:57, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Bottom line

• That's all from me. Thank you again for the article.

MSincccc (talk) 14:11, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

@MSincccc: - Thank-you very much for your assistance: it tremendously improved the article. Noleander (talk)

Thank you. Good luck with the nomination; I’ll keep an eye on it in case anything else comes up. I will support it. MSincccc (talk) 03:36, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

UC

A very quick one for now:

• the Arabic word النيل (romanized as 'Nil'): the Arabic has the definite article on it: it's pronounced "an-Nil". UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 08:05, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

@UndercoverClassicist - Thanks for the feedback! I changed the article to In Egypt, its names use the Arabic word النيل (romanized as 'An Nil') in the forms Al-Nīl, Baḥr Al-Nīl or Nahr Al-Nīl. I got the Arabic spelling from the Badawi source. The Hurst source lists the three forms at the end of the sentence, which all start with "Al". So, there is a now a mixture of "Al" and "An". Is that a problem? Would it be simpler to remove the definite article from the Arabic? Noleander (talk) 15:32, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

Out of my expertise, I'm afraid -- I think you'd be wise to consult someone who speaks Egyptian Arabic! From what I can tell, the "proper" transcription is always "al-Nil" etc, but Arabic speakers would assimilate the l to the n because n is a "sun letter". So it's pronounced "an-Nil" in all of these contexts, but may be written in Romanisation as "al-", (I would guess) particularly in proper nouns where the Romanisation may be more conservative. Compare El Alamein, which reflects the Egpytian pronounciation even though the article remains "Al" in "proper" transcription. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 16:27, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

Alright, thanks for the insightful information. I'll figure out a sensible path forward. Noleander (talk) 16:31, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

I changed it to follow the Harold Edwin Hurst source: I removed the Arabic spelling, and left the three romanized versions; thus avoiding the definite article issue altogether. Noleander (talk) 17:26, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

From Tim riley

Drive-by – or perhaps in this case barge-by – comment: the article is mostly written in American but an English spelling has crept in with "500 metres". I'll look in again if time permits, but it's a very long article – 10,000 words! Tim riley talk 14:40, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

@Tim riley - Thanks for catching the spelling issue; I have fixed it. Article size: It was up to 11,000 words, but I struggled mightily to get it down to 10,000. It is the longest river in the world, after all :-) And a Level 3 Vital Article. Any additional feedback you can provide on the article would be appreciated. Noleander (talk) 15:36, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

@Tim riley - FYI, I've trimmed the article - now down to 9,572 words. Noleander (talk) 02:40, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Andrew Davidson

Airship

As always, these are suggestions, not demands; feel free to refuse with justification.

General

• the capitalisation of "basin" is inconsistent throughout the article, especially when following "Nile"

Done. Sources are split on whether to capitalize the "B", so I flipped a coin and went with capital "B". Noleander (talk) 13:49, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

• I'm surprised that with the superfluity of available sources, Britannica still has to be cited? Especially with the confusing citation Harold Edwin Hurst, 2025...

Regarding Harold Edwin Hurst: he was the world's foremost Nile expert in the 20th century, and his works are still cited by Nile academics in the 21st century. He was the original author of the Britannica article – which lends some weight to that article. Although he has been dead for 48 years, so some of the Britannica's "Nile" article has probably been re-written by the co-authors.

Reliability: I used Britannica as a source reluctantly, and only as a last resort. Britannica often states basic facts about the Nile that secondary sources do not state because they are so "obvious". Britannica is used in this article only to support non-contentious material.

Regarding the number of citations to the Hurst article: the Nile#Geography section this article adopted Hurst's division of the Nile Basin into seven regions. So, the article necessarily cites him once or twice for each of the seven regions of the Basin, which quickly put the number of cites over ten. Noleander (talk) 14:24, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

• There are 2,500 words of footnotes, which seems excessive.

Agree. I just reduced the footnotes from 2,625 words to 1,785 words (using Google Doc word counter). There were a large number of footnotes because a couple of months ago the article grew to 11,000 prose words, and when I trimmed the article down to 9,500 words, most of that trimmed material was pushed into footnotes. The remaining footnotes are significant; but I can remove more, if necessary. Noleander (talk) 14:51, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Lead and infobox

• Think it would be useful to have a map in the infobox? Something like File:Nile basin map.png?

I added that map to the InfoBox so we could assess it. The InfoBox had a map when I started working on the article several months ago, but I removed it because (a) it caused the InfoBox to be so tall it encroached on the following section; and (b) there were already five maps in the article body. In my opinion, a map (still) makes the InfoBox too tall and ugly. Upon further review: the tributary labels in that map are very helpful. The map is back in there now: let me know what you think. Noleander (talk) 15:36, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

• Why are those five cities in particular cited as "major"?

Three are national capitals: Cairo, Khartoum, and Juba. Those three cites are from the northern desert part of the Nile. The other two were selected to give representation to the southern highlands (in other words, I didn't want the InfoBox to be "desert centric"). Both are historically significant for the Nile: Bahir Dar is near the source of the Blue Nile; and Jinja is near one of the sources of the White Nile. The latter two could be removed if needed. Noleander (talk) 15:36, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

• "although the Blue Nile contributes over two thirds of the water and silt below the confluence of the two" is a bit clunky, especially towards the end. Good to simplify, especially in the lead. I'd say simply that Blue Nile contributes over twice the volume as the White Nile.

Done. Changed to The White Nile is longer and is considered to be the headwaters, yet the Blue Nile contributes over twice the volume as the White Nile. Noleander (talk) 18:06, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

• "and has followed its present course for about 12,000 years" this doesn't seem to be mentioned/cited in the body

Done. Added a new sentence to body text explicitly stating the most authoritative value (15,000 years); and updated lead to match (15,000). The 12,000 figure is mentioned by one or two sources, but 15,000 has more weight in the sources. Noleander (talk) 18:15, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

• "Other countries in the Nile Basin are..." the general implication is that all of these countries are fully in the basin.

Done. Changed to Other countries that lie wholly or partly in the Nile Basin are Burundi, ... Noleander (talk) 18:19, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

• The balance of the paragraph on human history seems off. As seen from Andrew Davidson's helpful {{section sizes}} addition on the talk page, the subsections of #Human history are roughly equal on prose size. But in the lead, we have five sentences relating to Ancient Egypt, and then "Nubian, Ethiopian, and Nilotic cultures" and "Egypt from Roman era to colonial era" are completely skipped until one sentence of "Search for the source of the Nile".

Done. Changed that paragraph in the lead to:

The Nile was the foundation of the Ancient Egyptian civilization, which relied on the river for nearly every aspect of life. The annual flooding of the river deposited nutrient-rich silt along the riverbanks. This soil supported crops that enabled a sophisticated society to thrive in an otherwise inhospitable desert. The Nile facilitated trade, communication, transportation, and governance. South of the second Nile cataract lies Nubia, the historical home of the ancient Kerma culture and the Kushite Empire. Many Europeans were fascinated by the Nile, and their explorations around Lake Victoria in the late 19th century located the source of the river. Among the cultures that live along the Nile in the modern era are the the Nilotic peoples, semi-nomadic cattle herders who practice nomadic pastoralism, moving their cattle seasonally in response to the Nile's floods.

Noleander (talk) 18:43, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Excellent work. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 09:46, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

• "the Nile plays a critical role in the economy of countries in the Nile basin" is anyone expecting it to play a critical role for countries outside the basin?

Done. Changed to In the modern era, the Nile plays a critical role in the economies of Egypt and Sudan, which rely on it to irrigate ... Noleander (talk) 18:45, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Names and etymology

All good here.

Geography

• Is this section the "Geography of the Nile" or the "Geography of the Nile Basin"? Are they the same thing?

That is an excellent question. This article mimics the sources, which generally conflate the Nile River and Nile Basin. I believe that sources avoid separating the basin from the river because such an effort would lead to confusion & contradictions. From a hydrological point of view: any drop of water that falls within the Nile Basin will roll downhill and end up in a tributary of the Nile, then the Nile River itself (ignoring evaporation & seeping into the ground). The only times sources sharply separate the river from the basin is when dealing with human cultures: if a culture is within the basin, but does/did not interact with the Nile or one of its tributaries, then the sources will exclude that culture from a river-oriented discussion. This article follows suit, and only mentions cultures that had significant interaction with the river. Noleander (talk) 18:54, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

• Shahin 2002 p.272 notes that the basin is one-tenth the surface area of Africa, which seems a good comparison to include for general readers who might appreciate a sense of scale more than a very big number.

Done. Noleander (talk) 19:05, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

• The map I mentioned above seems to label the different portions of the Nile (Victoria/Mountain etc.) in a way the current one in the section doesn't. Might be more helpful for readers. The current map doesn't help with understanding the sequence.

That's a good point: those labels are very helpful for readers. Definitely a strong argument in favor of keeping that new map in the InfoBox, in spite of the fact that the map makes the InfoBox rather tall. Noleander (talk) 19:05, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

• "Unlike Lake Victoria, Lake Albert is a deep lake surrounded by mountains." is Lake Victoria not surrounded by mountains?

That statement is paraphrasing one of the sources. Lake Victoria is surrounded by rolling hills. The mountains are farther west, on the west edge of the East African Rift, along the string of lakes: Lake Tanganyika, Lake Kivu, Lake Edward, and Lake Albert. Noleander (talk) 19:11, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

• Is the Albert Nile the same as the Mountain Nile? What's the difference between the two?

Done. Clarified the definitions as follows:

• Albert Nile – Segment of the White Nile flowing north from Lake Albert to Nimule
• Mountain Nile – Segment of the White Nile from the mountains of Uganda to the plains of South Sudan

The Albert Nile is a very short segment. The sources do not make clear whether the Mountain Nile includes the Albert Nile. Noleander (talk) 19:32, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

• "At the downstream edge of the Sudd swamp, the Nile is joined by the Bahr el Ghazal River (Arabic: 'gazelle river') a tributary from the west. This confluence occurs in Lake No." so is the Sudd swamp identical to Lake No?

Done. The Sudd swamp is huge; Lake No is a small lake at the north end of the swamp. Improved the wording to "At the north edge of the Sudd swamp, the Nile passes through Lake No, a small lake where the Nile is joined by the Bahr el Ghazal River (Arabic: 'gazelle river') – a tributary from the west." Noleander (talk) 19:44, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

• "it reaches into the Mediterranean Sea to a depth of 1,800 meters (5,900 ft)" do we know how far offshore this is?

I have removed that "... depth of 1,800 meters... " sentence from the article ...the cited sources do not state that fact; and I've gone through my notes and cannot find the source. I've found some new sources that cover the material (with different values), but given the size of the article, it is probably best to simply remove it. Let me know if you want similar material from new sources ... I can add it. Noleander (talk) 20:17, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

• "The final two regions of the Nile Basin are drainage basins of two tributaries: the Blue Nile basin and the Atbarah River basin." this is followed by a section on the drainage basins of four tributaries, including one whose drainage basin is larger than that of the Blue Nile and Atbarah combined...

Done. I re-organized the entire "Geography" section so the material is clearer. The seven regions of the Nile basin now map directly to the seven subsections. And the tributaries are embedded within the appropriate region section. The confusing "Tributaries" section title is now gone. Noleander (talk) 20:41, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Perhaps the description of the Bahr el Ghazal tributary would better fit in "Mountain Nile", where it is first introduced? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 09:52, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

Sources

• A little odd that this doesn't come before the discussion of the general Nile geography, which seems more logical.

Done. Moved Sources section above Geography section. Noleander (talk) 20:22, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

• Also odd that the true location of the source of the Nile isn't discussed at all!

I'll carefully review that reliable source :-) Noleander (talk) 20:22, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Hydrology

• The second paragraph seems repetitive.

Done. Noleander (talk) 21:19, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

• "The White Nile passes through the Sudd swamps before it reaches the Blue Nile; about half the water flowing into the Sudd is lost to evaporation before it flows out" again, this seems like it could be more concise

Done. Changed to As the White Nile passes through the Sudd swamps about half the water is lost to evaporation. Noleander (talk) 21:19, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

• "that the White Nile backs up during this time at the confluence" does this mean it flows in reverse, or just stays still, or what?

The sources are not clear about that. If I had to guess: the rate-of-flow slows to near zero, and the water level in the swamp rises (but the water does not flow backwards). Noleander (talk)

• I am not sure about the "Water sources and sinks" subsection. What additional information am I meant to be getting from the tables that I would not get from a simple list of countries/stations and whether they are a source or a sink? Especially considering that every table has the disclaimer "Data does not include impacts of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, completed in 2025", which seems to amount to "everything may be wrong now".

The water balance information is critical for two reasons:

1. Many hard-science sources talk about the hydrology data at great length; and
2. The hydrology tables illustrate the water scarcity issues in the Nile Basin. Some experts predict that the basin population may nearly double in the 21st century; and if a long-term drought were to afflict Ethiopia, it could lead to famine and international violence. (See, e.g., Bunbury 2023 pp 43-44,61,70).

For those reasons, the Nile article is obligated to present the statistics. To display the information, choices include (in order of increasing verbosity):

a) No tables; use simple prose

b) No tables; use lists (perhaps bullet lists)

c) Tables: collapse some, un-collapse others

d) Tables: un-collapse all

In my judgement, (a) is not true to the sources, nor to the gravity of the information. (d) is not bad, but might be overwhelming to lay readers. So that leaves (b) or (c), both of which use roughly the same amount of vertical real estate. Tables (c) are 100x more flexible than lists (b), and will enable the article to evolve and grow in the future decades. So, the article is using (c) now.

Regarding the fact that the GERD dam was just completed in 2025: If anything, that makes the tabular data even more important. Consider this scenario: the year is 2050, a drought has hit North Africa, and the GERD reservoir level is falling. Water discharge from the dam is far below normal, and crops in Sudan and Egypt are failing due to lack of irrigation. The future editors of WP will want to update the Nile article to show the historical changes to the the flow of the river: How much water reached Egypt annually in 2020 (when they stared filling the GERD reservoir)? How much reached Egypt in 2025 (GERD filled)? How much in 2030? 2040? How much after a drought had been going on for 5 years? 10 years? These future WP editors will probably evolve the tables to look like this:

More information Country, Water balance 2020 ...

Hydrology table may expand to look like this:

Country	Water balance 2020	Water balance 2030	Water balance 2040
Ethiopia	1111	222	333
... more countries ...	888	000	999
Egypt	333	444	555
Sudan	6666	7777	3333

Close

The hydrology tables in today's Nile article are the baseline for this important information.

In summary, the scientific sources (as opposed to the cultural sources) heavily cover the hydrology statistics; and a tabular layout is essential to presenting the information in an organized fashion. As the 21st century unfolds, the tables can evolve to display essential water scarcity data. Noleander (talk) 22:00, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Alright, an argument from coverage in the sources is the best way to establish WP:DUEWEIGHT, so I can accept that. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 10:01, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

Ecology

• "There are 36 industries that discharge their pollution sources directly into the Nile, and 41 into irrigation canals." do the groups overlap or are they separate?

Unknown. The source is a 2005 report by the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) which summarizes some older data including a 1980 report which examined 360 industries and found that 36 of the 360 discharged directly into the river. I cannot find a copy of the 1980 report. From context (in the 2005 report) it appears that all 360 industries are distinct, but I cannot be certain. Noleander (talk) 00:18, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

Well, I think the reader gets the point, so that's fine. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 10:01, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

• "The sacred ibis was important in the ancient Egyptian religion, and millions of the ibis were ritually sacrificed, leading to the eventual extinction of the species in Egypt" our article African sacred ibis state they were present well into the second millennium AD; not sure ancient Egyptian sacrifices can be said to have led to the extirpation...

Done. Thanks for catching that mistake. It now reads "... The species became locally extinct in Egypt in the late 19th century, but remains common in central and southern Africa." Noleander (talk) 00:31, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

Geological history

• "One hypothesis describes the Nile's geological history as a sequence of five evolutionary periods." ... is there a consequence to this sentence I'm not seeing?

Done. Changed the wording to "One hypothesis describes the Nile's geological history as a sequence of the following five evolutionary periods." ... the following five paragraphs then describe the five periods (one per paragraph). Also, the attached footnote contrasts it with an alternative hypothesis that uses eight periods. Noleander (talk) 00:36, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

• When did Obweruka disappear?

Done. I added a footnote stating "Obweruka existed from about 7.5 MYA to 2.5 MYA." The source also says that around 2.5 MYA that paleolake started draining to the west, implying it existed for a brief while after 2.5 MYA, but they don't go into details. Noleander (talk) 00:51, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

Human history

• Don't think sentences should begin with "and".

Done. Noleander (talk) 00:55, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

• I don't think the order/naming of the cataracts is ever explained in prose, which makes it somewhat confusing when numbers start getting dropped in.

Done. Enhanced the Nile#Main Nile section to explicitly name all six (1,2,3,4,6). In conjunction with the existing map in the Nile#Sources section that shows all cataracts, readers should be satisfied. Noleander (talk) 01:01, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

• Are there any details about how the Kerma culture/Funj Sultanate/Ethiopian Empire had relationships with the Nile, instead of just listing where and when they existed?

No, I could not find many specifics about how they interacted with the river (except the Dinka/Nuer pastoral migrations). If one were to follow WP:PROPORTION to the letter, the article would probably not mention those cultures at all because 98% of the cultural material in the sources focuses on Egypt & Islamic Sudan. I'm using editorial discretion and making a special effort to include Nubian/black cultures - in other words, to avoid being too Egypt-centric. Noleander (talk) 01:16, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

• Does footnote bh ("In 1857, John Hanning Speke and Richard Francis Burton started a search...") really add to the existing text?

Done. Removed that footnote (along with 20 or 30 other minor footnotes). Noleander (talk) 01:08, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

• Should the "Search for the source of the Nile" subsection be better placed as a subsection of "Sources", where it could be better integrated with the existing text?

I went back and forth on that choice. In the end, I feel it is better within "Human History" because that section is a list of human interactions with the river. Whereas the "Sources" section is primarily a statement of present-day geographical data. Noleander (talk) 03:25, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

Water politics in the modern era

• Footnote bl needs a citation.

Done. Removed the footnote (I think the statement is true, but I cannot find a source that directly supports it). Noleander (talk) 01:22, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

• "Egypt reserved the right ... Egypt assumed the right ... Egypt assumed the right" is a trifle repetitive.

Done. Changed to "Egypt reserved the right to monitor the Nile flow in the upstream countries, to undertake river-related projects without the consent of upriver nations, and to veto any construction projects that would adversely affect Egypt." Noleander (talk) 01:28, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

• "Egypt and Sudan in the north wielded more power than the other ten nations to the south" comes up around three times

Done. Eliminated repetition. Noleander (talk) 01:34, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

• If a "Declaration of Principles" was signed in 2015, what was the point of the subsequent talks in the US, the African Union, and the UAE, and the request for UNSC intervention?

The sources do not clearly explain (see Ranjan 2024, pp. 28-29). Reading between the lines, the 2015 Declaration of Principles was apparently very vague, and skimpy on details, numbers, and deadlines. Also: Egypt & Ethiopia didn't trust each other to carry-out whatever they signed. But that is speculation on my part. Noleander (talk) 01:38, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

Economy

• "The southern nations have few irrigation canals, instead relying on extensive rainfall: the amount of soil water used annually for crops in the south is 229 km3, which is more than twice the total annual water flow of the Nile River (about 100 km3)." this sentence largely duplicates what's just been said

Done. Noleander (talk) 02:52, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

• "accounts for the majority of inland (fresh water) fish caught in the African continent ... is more than half of the total fresh water yield from the entire African continent" more duplication

Done. Noleander (talk) 02:52, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

• Nile boat is linked as a hatnote under Ancient Egyptian civilization but doesn't get a mention here?

Done. I removed the hatnote link to Nile boat because the term "nile boat" is not a commonly used term by academics, and the term is not well defined. The Nile boat article is a bit misleading in its current form; and linking to it could confuse readers. The article Ancient Egyptian royal ships is better quality, but has a very narrow focus. Noleander (talk) 03:02, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

• Be wary of MOS:SOB in note bw.

Done, I think. The footnote IDs have changed over the past couple of days, but I assume that is the footnote that listed a dozen parks near the Nile? If so: that footnote has been deleted. Noleander (talk) 03:07, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

• This article implies that the purpose of the proposed Jonglei Canal was to improve navigation, but the relevant article indicates its purpose was increasing agriculture on the lower Nile.

Done. Changed wording to "Plans to build a canal through the swamp – called the Jonglei Canal – were initiated in the early 20th century with the goal of providing more water to grow cotton in Egypt. Construction was ...". Noleander (talk) 02:08, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

• It feels like the third paragraph of "Transportation" would work better as the first.

Done. Noleander (talk) 03:09, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

• "along with the nearby temples that were moved during construction to avoid becoming submerged" this feels like it should have been discussed already

The temple relocation was discussed above in the section Nile#Post-colonial era - "An international campaign to save some monuments from becoming submerged by the new reservoir ...". Noleander (talk) 03:12, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

My mistake. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 10:01, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

In culture

• Seems very non-modern focused. No mention of the renowned Death on the Nile and adaptations, recent political pop songs from both Egypt and Ethiopia, productions such as The Wizard of the Nile, etc.?

... working on this one now ... Noleander (talk) 03:13, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

I might add to the above later. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:45, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Metalicat

Partial review from a non-specialist. I have no background in Ming history, so my comments are limited to prose, structure and what I can assess as a lay reader. Questions below are genuine questions, not rhetorical objections; if there are good reasons for the current approach I am happy to be educated.

Lead

• the court was rocked by scandal when a man named Zhang Chai armed himself with a wooden staff and broke into the Forbidden City — "rocked by scandal" reads as editorialising. a man named Zhang Chai armed himself with a wooden staff and entered the Forbidden City lets the facts speak for themselves.

• In 1601, the Wanli Emperor finally succumbed to the pressure of his mother and the officials — "finally succumbed" editorialises the timeline; the reader can already see from the dates that it took fifteen years. In 1601, the Wanli Emperor yielded to pressure from his mother and officials

• The lead's third paragraph narrates the Zhang Chai case in considerable detail (the wooden staff, the two eunuchs, their execution, continuing speculation). The lead should summarise the significance of the incident rather than retell it. A sentence or two establishing that the heir's safety was threatened and that the affair implicated figures close to Lady Zheng would be sufficient, with the detail left to the body.
  • All done.

Body

• It was evident to those around him that he preferred Zhu Changxun — "it was evident to those around him" is a weasel construction. Who observed this? If the source is Huang, attribute it: According to Huang, the Emperor clearly preferred Zhu Changxun. If multiple sources state this, naming them would be stronger still.

• the aforementioned (thirteen) officials — "aforementioned" is legalistic. the thirteen officials

• lead, autumn mineral, human milk and cinnabar—all tonic drugs in traditional Chinese medicine—which were provided to him by the Emperor's eunuchs — The em dash parenthetical makes this sentence unwieldy. Consider splitting: lead, autumn mineral, human milk and cinnabar. All four were recognised tonic drugs in traditional Chinese medicine, and were provided to Li by the Emperor's eunuchs.
  • All done.

Structure

• The section headed "Emperor" is vague. "Reign" or "Enthronement and reforms" would better signal the content.

• "Illness and death, the Red Pill Case" — the comma joining two distinct concepts in a heading is awkward. Either a colon ("Illness and death: the Red Pill Case") or separate subsections would read more cleanly.
  • All done.

Comprehensiveness

• This may reflect my unfamiliarity with the field, but the article currently ends with the Family section and does not discuss how historians have assessed the Taichang Emperor's reign or death. For an emperor whose death generated the Red Pill Case, is there secondary literature on interpretation or legacy that could support a brief "Historical assessment" section? If the sources simply do not exist for this, that is a perfectly reasonable answer.

This was an enjoyable read.

Metalicat (talk) 00:34, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

@Metalicat The sources do not mention it, only focusing on the emperor's death and the subsequent events. Min968 (talk) 07:52, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for making those edits. Fair enough, thats it from me. Metalicat (talk) 13:42, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

To clarify my position: support on the basis of what I reviewed. My comments above were limited to prose, structure and readability as a non-specialist; I did not systematically assess sourcing, comprehensiveness from a subject-expert perspective, or image licensing. The issues I raised have all been addressed. Metalicat (talk) 23:57, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Векочел

• "He justified the delay by stating that he was waiting for a son from the Empress." Could you briefly mention the Ming succession rules or write it into a footnote?
• "In 1589, the Emperor agreed to appoint Zhu Changluo as his successor." A few paragraphs down, it says the Wanli Emperor appointed him as heir in 1601. Could you please clarify what action was taken on the successor in 1589?
• "[Zhang Chai] had intended to use the stick to resolve a conflict with two eunuchs he did not get along with." Could you elaborate in a footnote the nature of the conflict between Zhang and the eunuchs?
  • Source: It was later concluded that Zhang, who was mentally unstable, planned to use the stick to deal with a personal conflict involving two palace eunuchs he had encountered outside the city.

It sounds like a significant event in Zhu Changluo's life.

• "Among the first to be summoned were Zuo Yuanbiao (鄒元標; 1551–1624) and Feng Congwu (馮從吾; 1556–1627)". Does the source say what positions Zuo and Feng were appointed to?
  • Source: Among the first to be recalled were Tsou Yiian-piao (1551-1624) and Feng Ts'ung-wu (1556-1627?), both of whom were associated with what has come to be known as the Tung-lin movement.
• "On 13 September, he was visited again by the physician". Name the physician if possible.
• "Zhu Youjiao officially ascended to the throne on 1 October 1620." Can you please provide his regnal name?

Векочел (talk) 00:26, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

@Векочел All done. Min968 (talk) 02:57, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Support Векочел (talk) 17:27, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Image review - pass

Hi Mattximus, happy to do the image review. The article contains the following images:

• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pachysentis_lenti.jpg

  from an open access article, CC BY 4.0

• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pachysentis_lauroi.png

  from an open access article, CC BY 4.0

• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:World_location_map_(equirectangular_180).svg

  own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Acanthocephala_LifeCycle_lg.jpg

  from U.S. federal government, PD

• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Side-striped_Jackal_(Canis_adustus)-_rare_sighting_of_this_nocturnal_animal_..._(13799300905).jpg

  from Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0

• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fox_-_British_Wildlife_Centre_(17429406401).jpg

  from Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0

• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Common_brown_lemur_(Eulemur_fulvus)_male.jpg

  own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tayra_-_Male,_Brazil.jpg

  own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nasenbaer_Nasua_nasua_Zoo_Augsburg-04.jpg

  own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Geoffroy%27s_Marmoset_1.jpg

  from Flickr, CC BY 2.0

• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CostaRica_ManuelAntonioNationalPark_Racoon_(pixinn.net).jpg

  own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sapajus_libidinosus_paraguayanus.jpg

  from Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0

• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Crotalus_atrox_USFWS.jpg

  from National Digital Library, PD

• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Naja_haje_(1).jpg

  from Flickr, CC BY 2.0

The images are relevant to the text and placed in appropriate locations. They have captions and alt-texts. Several captions may have issues with periods. As far as I'm aware, a caption should only end with a period if it is a full sentence. However, several captions with a full sentence lack a period and some without a full sentence have a period.

I saw there that there was a discussion about the gallery of hosts at the bottom in the last review. I find the gallery helpful and I don't think there is a strict rule against it. Phlsph7 (talk) 14:42, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

• Thank you for the thorough image review Phlsph7! I believe I've fixed the period issue with all the images. Mattximus (talk) 19:04, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

  Looks good, that takes care of the remaining concern. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:11, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

Image review

• File:Marmon-Herrington_Armoured_Car_Mk_III_(9685391849).jpg: OK
• File:Rhodesia.png: OK
• File:Caricature-1780-press_gang.jpg: OK
  • Looking closer, this needs alt text. The {{Conscription}} template does not have it. ―Howard • 🌽³³ 12:50, 18 March 2026 (UTC)
    • Well spotted - added Nick-D (talk) 09:04, 19 March 2026 (UTC)
• File:National_service_period_in_Rhodesia_between_1957_and_1979.png: license should be c:Template:PD-chart
  • Done Nick-D (talk) 09:04, 19 March 2026 (UTC)
• File:Rhodesian African Rifles, Lake Kariba, December 1976, 3.png: OK
• File:Rhodesian Eland Mk7.jpg: OK
• File:Net migration of white people from Rhodesia between 1965 and 1979.png: license should be c:Template:PD-chart
  • Done Nick-D (talk) 09:04, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

―Howard • 🌽³³ 12:28, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

• Thanks a lot for this review. Nick-D (talk) 09:04, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

  Image review is passed. ―Howard • 🌽³³ 22:18, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

Drive by comments from Noleander

• Coloured vs black: Some readers unfamiliar with Africa might not understand the distinction between those two designations in this article. US readers, in particular, may think both terms refer to the same populace. Can this be clarified somehow? Examples where readers may get confused:
  • Coloured and Indian men were also subjected to conscription but were assigned less important roles. The great majority of the population, who were black, were exempt from conscription until shortly before the end of the war. - In the 1st sentence, some readers will think coloured includes black. The second sentence will clarify for some readers, confuse others.
    • Good point - I've swapped this around. Nick-D (talk) 10:46, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

• • The coloured and Indian ethnic groups were also treated as inferior by the whites, with black Rhodesians facing the most extensive racial discrimination. - Some readers may think that blacks are same as (or subset of) coloured.

Consider adding a prominent and clear statement defining and distingishing the two terms where the terms first appear (even in the lead, if necessary)

I've added some text and a note explaining this. Nick-D (talk) 10:46, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

• ... and Rhodesia's situation deteriorated... - A bit vague. Can the article be more specific: Inflation? Violence? Chaos? Starvation? Fighting related to the civil war? Fighting unrelated to the civil war? International pressure?
  • This is referring to the military situation - I've clarified this. Nick-D (talk) 10:46, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

• Looks like an interesting article! Noleander (talk) 04:41, 20 March 2026 (UTC)
  • Thank you for your comments. Nick-D (talk) 10:46, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

Icepinner

I vividly remembered this incident (having experienced its impacts), so seeing it up on FAC is a surprise. A quick disclosure that I am one of the top 5 contributors to this article, but all my edits took place around the incident. I have also consulted with other users on this matter, and they said that it was okay. Due to this, I will not support or oppose this nomination. Icepinner (Come to Hakurei Shrine!) 00:17, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

Also as an FYI, ZKang gave me permission off-Wiki to BOLDly address comments, so keep that in mind. Icepinner (Come to Hakurei Shrine!) 15:00, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

Background

• "The MRT network began" link Mass Rapid Transit (Singapore) here? You should also put the full name here
  • Done.--ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 01:50, 19 March 2026 (UTC)
• "and the stretch between Outram Park MRT station and Clementi MRT station" perhaps rephrase it to "Outram Park and Clementi stations"? It's already established that the system is the MRT, so no need to repeat it.
  • Done. I guess the copyeditor changed it.--ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 01:50, 19 March 2026 (UTC)
• "A power outage at Buona Vista station led to service disruptions on the EWL, NSL and the Circle Line (CCL) in April 2016.[11][12]... Another power outage on the EWL, NSL and CCL occurred in October 2020.[11][14][15]" Is it necessary to mention these incidents? Sure, they are there to establish context, but there have been a myriad of power outages on the MRT since its operation. The mentioned power outages lasted for 2-3 hours, but I felt like this was the case with most of the MRT power outage incidents?
  • Well, these are mentioned by news outlets which were discussing past incidents before this disruption. So I mentioned them. If another editor felt they aren't relevant, then I will remove.--ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 01:50, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

Incident

• "At about 9 a.m. Singapore Time (SGT)" have colons per MOS:TIME?
  • Done.
• Footnote a: "initially reported as 1.6 km (0.99 mi)" First word should be capitalised...
  • Done.
• "suspended train services between Queenstown and Boon Lay stations" link Boon Lay MRT station here.
  • Done

Repair and migration works

• "engineers had to use mechanical jigs" link Jig (tool)?
  • Done
• "On 29 September, In a joint statement, SMRT and LTA" ah...
  • Fixed

Impact

• "given the emainations' full duration" emaination...?
  • Examinations. Typo
• "the National Transport Workers' Union" link National Trades Union Congress here?
  • Not sure, given NTWU is kinda a union within NTUC
    • It's mentioned in National Trades Union Congress#Service Sector Unions, so I'd link it.
      • Ok done.--ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 01:56, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

Investigation

• "Jumadi Husani from the Road and Transport Authority in Dubai said the axle box, bogie, and train wheels should not have come off under normal circumstances, and suggested it might be due to improper installation of parts after maintenance or that the defective component are not replaced" " Iirc, Husani's statement was initally a quote, hence the singular quotation mark?
  • Fixed

Aftermath

• "the upcoming Jurong Region Line" link Jurong Region Line
  • Done

Lead

• "Experts described the incident as "rare".[2]" this already mentioned in the body, so no need for the lead per WP:LEADCITE
  • I mean, I thought quotes need citations everywhere and claims needed to be cited. I will keep it there for now.--ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 01:50, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

TheNuggeteer

I will do the source review. I will continue later. I am done reviewing. 🍗TheNuggeteer🍗 (My "blotter") 02:10, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

• "between Outram Park station" please tell why this station is important, as it is not mentioned in the lead.
  • Because... the MRT network opened in stages? And this affected segment opened in 1988?
• "The East–West Line (EWL) is operated by SMRT Trains" source does not show this.
  • Source says: SMRT operates the North-South Line, East-West Line, Circle Line, Thomson-East Coast Line and the Bukit Panjang LRT.
• "The Kawasaki Heavy Industries C151 first-generation trains" not mentioned in source 6.
  • The trains, which cost around $827 million, will replace 66 first-generation trains which have been in service from the time the MRT started more than 30 years ago. The wikilink also made it clear the Kawasaki C151 is the first generation train.

• Still, in my opinion, that is original research. The brand and type of train is not even mentioned by the source, just said as "66 first-generation trains". I do not know where Kawasaki Heavy Industries C151 comes from.

• Another source later in the article specifies it, but for now I shall leave it as a footnote.--ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 01:42, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

• "in April 2016" add the day (25 April 2016)
• "In November 2017, a software error in the EWL signalling system caused the Joo Koon rail accident when two trains collided at Joo Koon station" you should add the day and the number of injuries, like the Clementi rail accident mentioned above.
  • Done (for both).--ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 02:23, 20 March 2026 (UTC)
• There is something wrong with the link of the MOT final report; use this archive link instead

• The MOT. not LTA

• Oops. Fixed.--ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 01:42, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

• "At about 9:00 a.m. Singapore Time (SGT)" not mentioned in the page.
  • Mentioned in FN17. That report is more to cite what the train number is
• "The dislodged bogie damaged the third rail" the specific rail is not mentioned in the source.
  • Mentioned in FN17.

• Then why is FN20 placed at the end of the sentence and not both FN17 and FN20?

• • FN20 also mentions the third rail.--ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 01:42, 23 March 2026 (UTC)
• "Power cables and two of the three damaged point machines" source says all three.
  • Corrected.--ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 02:23, 20 March 2026 (UTC)
• ""the axle box, bogie, and train wheels should not have come off under normal circumstances, and suggested it might be due to improper installation of parts after maintenance or that the defective component are not replaced"" some of this shouldn't be placed in quotes
• "by Alstom Movia R151 trains" the brand is the only thing mentioned in the source after, not the type. Please also add an instance of source 65 after this sentence too.
  • Done.--ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 01:42, 23 March 2026 (UTC)
• Please put both instances of source 49 at the last paragraph of Aftermath to the end of the paragraph.
  • It's to attribute to the currency conversion.--ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 01:42, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

  @ZKang123: why didn't you ping me? All issues seem to be resolved, so I will support this for FA. Good job! 🍗TheNuggeteer🍗 (My "blotter") 12:18, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Crisco 1492

• dislodged, derailing the train, and damaging the track and equipment between Clementi and Dover stations. - No comma after "derailing the train", as both are effects of the dislodgement rather than parallel constructs
  • Fixed.--ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 06:30, 23 March 2026 (UTC)
• Services resumed on 1 October. feels like it would be better in Paragraph 2, as it deals more with the disruption, while Paragraph 3 focuses on the aftermath.
  • Done.--ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 06:30, 23 March 2026 (UTC)
• The LTA report concluded the failure began with degraded grease in an axle bearing that caused overheating and fire damage to the chevron springs, leading to the detachment of the axle box and the train derailment near Dover station. - Are any of these technical terms worth wikilinking? "Axle bearing", "chevron springs"?
  • Did some wikilinks, although to more general terms (bearing and springs).--ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 06:30, 23 March 2026 (UTC)
• switchover - When a verb, is switchover one word or two (switch over?)
  • I think it's two words
• Before moving the train back to Ulu Pandan Depot, - You've mentioned several stalled trains; since I'm assuming you're referring to T310, would it be possible to make this more explicit?
  • I said T310 train then.
• The next day, SMRT and LTA reported that their engineers made "significant progress" with the maintenance and the completion of heavy rail delivery work. - Feels like "had made" is appropriate here, as they are announcing something that was in the past at the time it was announced.
  • Fixed.--ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 06:30, 23 March 2026 (UTC)
• said "the axle box, bogie, and train wheels should not have come off under normal circumstances, and suggested it might be due to improper installation of parts after maintenance or that the defective component are not replaced". - Two things. One, as this is a direct quote, as I understand WP:V there should be a reference here. Two, the construction of "said" in Wiki-voice and "suggested" in the direct quote is a bit awkward. Any chance of reworking this?
  • I did reworked.--ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 06:30, 23 March 2026 (UTC)
• too burnt and damaged in the incident - Is "too" necessary here?
  • Fixed.--ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 06:30, 23 March 2026 (UTC)
• Because SMRT was required to continue regular maintenance of old trains still in service,[65] SMRT had authorised two extensions to this interval through an internal waiver process - Perhaps replace the second SMRT with a synonym? ("The company", "it", etc.) — Chris Woodrich (talk) 03:12, 22 March 2026 (UTC)
  • Went with "the operator".--ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 06:30, 23 March 2026 (UTC)
• Support - Looks good, lah! — Chris Woodrich (talk) 22:26, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Simon Harley

• Wouldn't it be better to use cite book instead of cite web for the Navy Lists? e.g. The Navy List for June 1943. Vol. 2. National Library of Scotland. 1943. p. 1878. To take that June 1943 issue as an example, it seems odd for a 2258 page edition in two volumes to be rendered as an article rather than a book.

Sure, done. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 09:49, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

• Do the full names of the captains really have to be given? If so, then possibly reference the pages where you got the full name.

Probably not, reduced to initials. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 09:49, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

• Possibly add RN, RNR and RNVR as appropriate after the captains' names.

Done. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 09:49, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

• More to come. —Simon Harley (Talk). 06:02, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

ZKang123

Will leave a review.--ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 06:17, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Design, description and construction:

• Many ships of the class were modified while they were under construction So these ships weren't originally intended for this class?
• included a total of "a total of" is redundant.

Career:

• During the balance of 1940, What does "balance" mean here
• Personally, I will try to avoid WP:PROSELIST given most sentences here tend to begin with dates (e.g. "During 1941", "On 1 July 1941" etc.) Also, in fact within the same paragraph, you don't have to keep mentioning the year since it's also largely in chronological order.
• conducting a total of 17 convoy escorts Again "a total" is unnecessary
• as her crew was not considered "politically reliable" because they were not aligned with Josip Broz Tito's Partisan forces. A bit of a run on here (...as ...because...); would suggest splitting
• The requirement to return Partizanka was a painful blow to the Yugoslavs Why does Partizanka need to be returned?
• This occurred in the immediate aftermath of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and was part of a significant fleet expansion. How did this transfer come about? Like, did Egypt purchase the ship or loan it?

These are all my comments. Quite short, but in good shape for FA.--ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 04:48, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

UC

I will definitely come back here for a proper review -- just one quick one for now.:

• Scholars from the 19th century proposed various derivations, which were dismissed in the early 20th century by Alfred Chilton Pearson, who suggested that the name may be related to amalós (ἀμαλός, 'soft, tender, weak') and amálē (ἀμάλη, 'sheaf, bundle').: I was pleased to see Pearson here, as I did a bit of work on his biography -- but are we perhaps investing him with too much authority? He was a Greek tragedy man, really, not a philologist -- does he really get to "dismiss" all of these earlier suggestions so completely that we don't even mention them? I notice that we later mention Gruppe's, but it takes a bit of thinking to realise that this is one of the hypotheses Pearson was talking about initially. I suppose what I'm missing here is a sense of whether anyone nowadays thinks these earlier suggestions were completely wrong, and indeed what they make of Pearson's.
  • The honest answer is "probably" (though we aren't all that spoilt for choice here). I've reworked this paragraph a little: we now mention a few 19th-century etymologies, and we put a bit less faith in Pearson. The other option is that we just delete a few sentences. Let me know what you think. – Michael Aurel (talk) 12:42, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

  I like the way it's framed in the new version -- it does a good job of setting out the different hypotheses and the movement over time as to which are taken seriously. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 15:19, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

• Gerard Mussies has derived Amalthea's name from amalthḗs (ἀμαλθής, 'not softening'), which he sees as referring to the goat's udder, taut with milk: I'd put this at the end, and put a date on it: at the moment we go from late C19th -> 1917 (why not give that date specifically?) -> 1999 -> 1917.
  • I was split between the current order and the one you're suggesting, so I'm happy with that. Done. Specified dates for both. – Michael Aurel (talk) 12:42, 16 March 2026 (UTC)
• which some scholars interpret as "Goat's Mountain", and thus as a reference to the story of Amalthea -- because of the ἀμαλθής connection? Or because she's meant to have used a goat to rear him?
  • Amalthea was herself often the goat. We did mention this in the second sentence of the lead (in some accounts from the Hellenistic period (c. 323–30 BC) onwards, as the goat itself), but I'm happy to add something like "who was sometimes described as a goat" after thus as a reference to the story of Amalthea, if you think it helps. – Michael Aurel (talk) 12:42, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

  I think that would be useful. We can always find some phrasing that doesn't imply that this is new information. EDIT: on reflection, if the "Amaltheia = goat" thing only dates to the Hellenistic period, then this is potentially very shaky, but that's not your problem as long as we're faithfully reporting the scholars' views (do those scholars think the connection is older?) UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 22:13, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

  Thinking on it again, I suppose it could also be a reference to the version in which Amalthea is merely the owner of the goat. Our wording was "a reference to the story of Amalthea", which I think left open both possibilities. That said, at least two of the cited scholars do appear to believe it's related to the version in which she is a goat; Hutchinson is the only one who properly develops this into an argument that Amalthea was a goat before she was a nymph. I think we were previously conveying the opinions of the cited scholars fairly, but prompted by your comment I've made the wording a bit less strong (now "as related to the story of Amalthea") and I've removed the additional opinion from Hutchinson that the version as a goat was older. Erring on the side of caution won't hurt anyone. (I did have an additional reason for including that idea from Hutchinson, which was that several other sources – and quite why, I don't know! – describe the version in which Amalthea is a goat as the earlier one. It's possible, though, that this is a result of not being aware of the account from the Eumolpia, or only counting it as from Eratosthenes himself, so perhaps we shouldn't worry about this too much.)

  Ultimately, we have a fair bit of choice with how we present things here. We want to vaguely gesture at the idea that her absence from Hesiod and the mention of Aigaion might mean something, without pushing the reader into any definite conclusions. Athanassakis writes that the absence of Amalthea (and the Kouretes) from Hesiod "is worth some speculation on our part", which is a good way of putting it. I've now added an opinion from Athanassakis to the effect that Amalthea comes from the Cretan tradition, which might be a better approach. Let me know what you think. – Michael Aurel (talk) 01:24, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 07:41, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks very much for stopping by, UC. I've had a go at these few, and will look forward to further comments. – Michael Aurel (talk) 12:45, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

• The "horn of Amalthea" is mentioned as early as the archaic period (c. 800–480 BC) by poets such as Anacreon and Phocylides: the date range here is a bit misleading, if these are the only two: Anacreon, probably the older, was born in the 570s.
  • Yes, Choliamb has said the same thing below. I think I used this wording because it's how it was phrased in the sources (already in the archaic period, already in the Archaic period), but it's probably better that we're more specific: now "as early as the 6th century BC". – Michael Aurel (talk) 16:14, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

Let's do a few more:

• As early as the 6th century BC, there are references to the "horn of Amalthea": this is a bit classicist-ese, and I don't think it's very idiomatic (at least in non-classicist English). Suggest something like References in Greek literature to the "horn of Amalthea" are known from as early as the 6th century BC.
  • The original sounded alright to me, but I might be a bit stuck in classicist-ese. I've gone with From as early as the 6th century BC, there survive references, as I think saying that things "are" in the 6th century BC might've been what sounded off to you? Your wording is definitely good, but it'd require restructuring the sentence a fair bit. – Michael Aurel (talk) 12:43, 23 March 2026 (UTC)
• There is disagreement among scholars -> "Scholars disagree"?
  • Yes, that's obviously better. Done. – Michael Aurel (talk) 12:43, 23 March 2026 (UTC)
• a scholium on Aratus's version (that is, a marginal note in one of the text's manuscripts): as this is the lead and the term "scholium" isn't used again until the body, you could do "on a marginal note in a manuscript of Aratus's version".
  • I think that works. Done. – Michael Aurel (talk) 12:43, 23 March 2026 (UTC)
• In the 2nd-century AD Fabulae: I think it's always worth saying roughly what sort of source we're dealing with.
  • Probably sensible. Now "In the Fabulae, a 2nd-century AD mythological handbook". – Michael Aurel (talk) 12:43, 23 March 2026 (UTC)
• Other accounts of Zeus's upbringing describe Amalthea as related to Melisseus, the king of Crete: I think it's worth being clear that Melisseus is a mythical king: it's entirely possible to mythical accounts to relate mythical characters to historical people (cf. Aeneas!)
  • That's a good point. Now "the mythical king of Crete". – Michael Aurel (talk) 12:43, 23 March 2026 (UTC)
• Among the few surviving representations of Amalthea in ancient art are a 2nd-century AD marble relief, which depicts her as a goat suckling Zeus, behind two dancing Kouretes, and multiple coins and medallions from the Roman Empire: a bit of a run-on sentence.
  • Split the sentence after "Kouretes". – Michael Aurel (talk) 12:43, 23 March 2026 (UTC)
• According to Pearson, Gruppe's theory was refuted by the discovery of amaltheúein, previously attested only in later sources, in a fragment from the writings of the 5th-century BC tragedian Sophocles: there's a piece of logic missing here: I assume Pearson thinks that the Amalthea legend postdates Sophocles? That doesn't seem to chime with our archaic poetry.
  • Pearson notes that Amalthea doesn't appear as Zeus's nurturer in the earliest known sources; the first one we mention in the article is the Eumolpia, which we say was probably composed in or before the second half of the 4th century BC. I've tried making this explicit in the body in a few ways, but I can't shake the feeling that we're getting into too much detail on a fairly insignificant point. I've moved this sentence into a note and added the explanation there; this means that we now move from Gruppe's theory straight to Pearson's alternative view. – Michael Aurel (talk) 05:45, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

  Looks good to me. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 06:36, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

• "the Aegean mountain" on the island of Crete, which some scholars interpret as "Goat's Mountain": I think we need to help the reader here by saying that the Greek word for "of the goat" (αἰγός) is close enough to the name of the sea (Αἰγαῖος, especially if the former is turned into an adjectival form by reasonably conventional means, that the confusion is plausible. Possibly best as an EFN. Hopefully at least one of your cited sources makes this clear? UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 07:44, 23 March 2026 (UTC)
  • Unfortunately, none of them do! I've done this: some scholars interpret this as "Goat's Mountain" (aigós, αἰγός meaning "goat's"). It doesn't exactly solve the problem, but it at least gives the reader some inkling of how one gets from "Aigaion" to a goat. I can try something more explicit if you like, though the sourcing might become trickier. I've also introduced the mountain as "Mount Aigaion" (to make the link with "aigos" a bit more obvious), and have used double quotes for the translation, as 'goat's' doesn't look right to me. – Michael Aurel (talk) 12:32, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

    The name Aegeus (who obviously gives his name to the sea) derives from αἴξ and is often rendered as "goat-man" in literal translation: I'm struggling to find a really good online source that makes this explicit, but there's enough pretty-good ones that you could definitely use one of them. (edit: now you've edited to Aigaion, this may not be necessary). UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 16:42, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

    Yes, I can find some sources along those lines, and that would allow us to be more explicit. What sort of formulation did you have in mind? My only hesitation with mentioning "Aegeus" as a middle link between "Aegean" and "aix" is that we of course don't want to imply that any of the cited scholars mention that name. Judging by the parenthetical you've added, though, you perhaps don't think this is a problem anymore? – Michael Aurel (talk) 13:59, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

    Correct -- now Aegeus would be more confusing than helpful, probably. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 14:00, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

• Jumping ahead, but note 67 (as it is now): Ab Iove surgat opus (translated as "Begin the work with Jupiter" by Frazer 1931, pp. 268–269), while Aratus begins with Ἐκ Διὸς ἀρχώμεσθα ("Let us begin from Zeus"). Frazer is being pretty loose here, as you know, and this has the unfortunate effect of making the parallel less apparent: both use the subjunctive, so it would be good to have a "let..." in both. Boyle and Woodward's Penguin Classic, at p. 116, has "let the work rise from Jove".) In general I'd favour using a more modern translation, especially if there are material differences, and perhaps extra-especially given that Frazer is hardly primarily known as an Ovidian. I would be tempted to restate the Ovidian line number (5.111) here (we did give the whole lot a few lines up). Also as you know, Ancient Greek and Latin don't generally begin sentences with capital letters, so I wouldn't do that here. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 06:41, 24 March 2026 (UTC)
  • Agreed with all of that, and done: replaced Frazer, given the line number, and decapitalised. I've also replaced Frazer with Boyle and Woodward for the citation to Ovid's entire account (that is, Frazer's translation is now gone from the page). – Michael Aurel (talk) 13:54, 24 March 2026 (UTC)
• A minor thing, but we should explain what a nymph is on first mention.
  • I've gone with "a type of young, female divinity". The "divinity" part is actually a tad problematic, which I think is why I avoided this, but it's probably the best explanation we can fit in here. – Michael Aurel (talk) 13:54, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

  Does anyone argue that nymphs are not divine? The Homeric poems reliably call Thetis and Calypso goddesses, for instance. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 14:18, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

  I'm not sure it matters that much – given that we don't actually disagree on the wording we should use here – but there are several references to the idea that nymphs are mortal, or at least that their immortality is not the same as the major gods. The ones I know about are this Hesiodic fragment, HH 5 (see onto the next page), and Pindar fr. 165 SM. This isn't really to suggest that they weren't divine (there are other sources which call them goddesses), but it does mean that calling them "divine" has a few asterisks attached. – Michael Aurel (talk) 22:11, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

  Interesting -- though doing the multiplication with the Hesiodic fragment, you come out to a bit under 200,000 years (is that a poetic way of saying "functionally forever"?), and I'm not convinced that we're meant to take those lifespans literally: surely Hesiod knew that deer don't live for thirty-six human generations? But the Homeric Hymn is pretty unambiguous, and it's interestign that the Greeks seem to, as you say, think about different sorts of immortality. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 07:39, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

  Yes, "functionally forever by human standards" is roughly what's meant, I think, and yes, definitely not meant to be taken too literally. Larson, in her Greek Nymphs (the best work on the subject), p. 30, puts it as follows: Relative to humans, nymphs were immortal, but relative to the Olympian gods, they were not. – Michael Aurel (talk) 14:00, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

• the river god Achelous (who was in the form of a bull) for the hand of Deianeira, and during the fight Heracles pulled off one of his opponent's horns: this is equally minor, but in lots of depictions, he has the horn in whatever form he's in, and he often only had the one to begin with. We might do sometihng like "pulled the horn off the head of the river-god Achelous during his fight with him for the hand of Deianeira." (or decide that this is all too minor to bother with)
  • Hmm. I'm not sure I'm cottoning on to what your suggestion is. You're definitely right that Achelous was often depicted as a horned man-bull hybrid in art, but he was just a bull in Pindar's account. Let me know what I'm missing. – Michael Aurel (talk) 13:54, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

  Ah, if we're talking specifically about Pindar here, no problem. The point was that it's not necessarily necessary, in the mythology in general, to mention that A. was in bull form. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 13:59, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

• According to the Bibliotheca of Apollodorus, the 5th-century BC mythographer Pherecydes described the horn's ability to provide endless food and drink as desired, and considered it to belong to the nymph Amalthea. ... In the same passage in which he cites Pherecydes, Apollodorus (1st or 2nd century AD)... -- firstly, Ps-Apollodorus's dates are in the wrong place: secondly, as you know, "Apollodorus" is easily and traditionally confused with Apollodorus of Athens, so I might be tempted to say something like "the mythographer Apollodorus". I know you've got the dates but I think a brief gloss would still help.
  • Ps-Apollodorus's dates are in the wrong place was actually intentional (this was brought up at the GA review), but I've moved them to the first mention, and reworked how we introduce him. I would generally agree with adding "mythographer" (that's the way I normally do it), but in this case we call Pherecydes a mythographer later in the sentence, and the descriptor feels slightly more important in the latter case. – Michael Aurel (talk) 03:40, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

And some more:

• the daughter of Haemonius, whose name, meaning "Thessalian": well, pretty much. You might want to EFN (perhaps citing here, p. 88) that Haemon was the mythical father of Thessalus, the mythical ancestor of the kings of Thessaly who gave his name to their kingdom.
  • No good reason not to do that, so done (though using a different source). – Michael Aurel (talk) 03:40, 26 March 2026 (UTC)
• describes the nymph Amalthea as the daughter of Haemonius, whose name, meaning "Thessalian", indicates that she is separate to the nurse of Zeus: I don't understand this bit.
  • Unfortunately, Fowler doesn't explain why he thinks this (he says nothing more than the article does). My guess is that this is because Amalthea is generally Cretan when she's his nurse. We could add on something like "who is generally Cretan", but I think that'd be moving into OR. Definitely open to suggestions on how to rework things here. – Michael Aurel (talk) 03:40, 26 March 2026 (UTC)
• a now-lost work of astral mythology attributed to the 3rd-to-2nd-century BC scholar Eratosthenes; "Pseudo-Eratosthenes" is the name given to the author of this summary: this is a bit clumsy. I can have a think on some neater formulations, if you like, but suspect you'll get to one before me.
  • This one has been rephrased a few times, most recently upon the suggestion of a reviewer below. I've gone for a new formulation, though I'm not sure if it's any better. – Michael Aurel (talk) 03:53, 26 March 2026 (UTC)
• the now-lost Eumolpia, probably composed in or before the second half of the 4th century BC, and attributed in antiquity to the mythical poet Musaeus: see my previous comment about trying to indicate the rough nature of our sources, though I appreciate that's tricky for a lost work.
  • We can't be certain about the nature of the Eumolpia, but in this case we luckily have "probably" right there. It's now "probably a theogony composed in". I realise that one might protest that we need to explain the term "theogony", but in that case I'd probably just go for something basic like "poem" (I'm quite cautious about throwing any more information at the reader here than we already do). – Michael Aurel (talk) 03:53, 26 March 2026 (UTC)
• She appeared in the account of Zeus's upbringing from the now-lost Eumolpia, probably composed in or before the second half of the 4th century BC, and attributed in antiquity to the mythical poet Musaeus. This account is described in a summary of the Catasterismi, a now-lost work of astral mythology attributed to the 3rd-to-2nd-century BC scholar Eratosthenes; "Pseudo-Eratosthenes" is the name given to the author of this summary. According to Pseudo-Eratosthenes, in the version by Musaeus: this is a lot of words for what ends up being fairly small fry (exactly how this version of events gets down to us). Again, I'm happy to have a think on how to make it more concise.
  • We do refer to information from Pseudo-Eratosthenes and the Catasterismi themselves lower down (as you've now seen), so I think we probably need to give give some idea of how they fit in. This part was previously much more condensed, but I spread it out because I was concerned it'd be impenetrable to the average reader. Definitely open to suggestions, though. – Michael Aurel (talk) 03:53, 26 March 2026 (UTC)
• had asked that Gaia, their mother, secrete her away to a Cretan cave -> "had asked Gaia ... to secrete"? I think you generally secrete something in somewhere, incidentally.
  • I've used "conceal" here, and rephrased things slightly. – Michael Aurel (talk) 06:08, 26 March 2026 (UTC)
• it specifies that the weapon Zeus uses against the Titans is the aegis (an attribute of Zeus and of the goddess Athena in Homeric epic).: presumably it specifies that the aegis is the goatskin? It may be worth saying that we usually don't know exactly what the aegis is, but it's generally taken to be either an animal skin, a cloak or a shield (the latter two possibly made from the former).
  • This is actually what this passage was trying to say, but you've correctly pointed out that it can be read differently. Hopefully now better. I've also added "which varies in form depending on the source" to the parenthetical. – Michael Aurel (talk) 04:06, 26 March 2026 (UTC)
• At the end of the account given by Pseudo-Eratosthenes, the text contains a lacuna (or gap), where he would have described Zeus as placing the goat among the stars: we surely need to say something like "probably", "scholars believe" -- we can't speak for certain about a text we don't have.
  • Probably wise. Done. – Michael Aurel (talk) 04:06, 26 March 2026 (UTC)
• Miller points to a garbled scholium on the account by Aratus: this is a bit unclear: it sounds as if Aratus wrote a garbled note next to Ovid's account.
  • Good catch. Fixed. – Michael Aurel (talk) 04:11, 26 March 2026 (UTC)
• whose mention of ambrosia and nectar flowing from the goat's horns may have been related to the young Zeus's nourishment: I think we should help readers here by saying that ambrosia and nectar were the food and drink of the gods.
  • Yes: we include that explanation at the first mention of ambrosia and nectar. – Michael Aurel (talk) 04:11, 26 March 2026 (UTC)
• Upon realising the deception, Cronus scours the earth for his son, while his sister Hera carries the infant to Crete: I know it's Zeus's sister, but it sounds like we mean Cronus's sister.
  • Very true. Fixed. – Michael Aurel (talk) 04:11, 26 March 2026 (UTC)
• Parenthetical referencing is depreciated, and there's no explicit exception for footnotes, though there's some grey areas when you mention a source in running prose. Where we have something like Hyginus also states that these three are "the ones that are called Dodonian Nymphs (others call them the Naiads)" (Smith & Trzaskoma, p. 158)., the MoS would suggest replacing the last parenthetical reference with a footnote-within-a-footnote.
  • Hmm. I'm not really following. WP:PAREN says This also does not affect explanatory footnotes. – Michael Aurel (talk) 04:11, 26 March 2026 (UTC)
• a cave on Cretan Mount Dicte: "Cretan Mount Dicte" is not a proper noun: we could do something like "the Cretan mountain Dicte", "Crete's Mount Dicte", or "on Mount Dicte on Crete".
  • Done. – Michael Aurel (talk) 04:18, 26 March 2026 (UTC)
• the name of Zeus in Latin literature: I would generally prefer equivalent, since (as you know) the joins between Greek and Roman deities are not as smooth as poets like Ovid would like us to believe.
  • I'm happy with that. Done. – Michael Aurel (talk) 04:18, 26 March 2026 (UTC)
• later states that Amalthea also raises Aegipan ('Goat-Pan'). Nonnus, a 5th-century AD Greek writer, describes the god Pan as the shepherd of the goat Amalthea: is there a way to phrase this so that it's clear that "Goat-Pan" isn't referring to an item of kitchenware?
  • It took me a moment to understand what you were talking about! I've explained who he is in words, rather than giving a translation of his name. – Michael Aurel (talk) 04:18, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

MSincccc

• Comments to follow. MSincccc (talk) 13:55, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

  Thanks for taking a look at this one, MSincccc. I've responded to these comments, and will look forward to further points. – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:32, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

• As a starting comment, I would suggest adding the relevant language template to the mainspace ("Use American/British English or similar"). It certainly helps. MSincccc (talk) 13:57, 16 March 2026 (UTC)
  • Seems sensible, so done. – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:30, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

Lead

• "or, in some accounts from the Hellenistic period (c. 323–30 BC) onwards, as the goat itself" → "or, in some Hellenistic-period accounts, as the goat itself"
  • That one's saying something slightly different, I think: the word "onwards" is doing an important job there, as she was also described as a goat in some accounts from after the Hellenistic period (eg. Apollodorus). – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:30, 17 March 2026 (UTC)
• In modern art, she has been the subject of 17th- and 18th-century works by sculptors such as Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Pierre Julien and painters such as Jacob Jordaens.
  • How about inserting a comma before "and painters"?
    • Sure, done. – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:30, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

MSincccc (talk) 14:05, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

Mythology (Horn of Amalthea)

• "generally described as able to produce" → "generally described as being able to produce"
  • More idiomatic?
    • That's slightly better, I think, so done. – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:30, 17 March 2026 (UTC)
• the tale of this horn seems to have originated as an independent tradition to that of Zeus's raising
  • How about "from that of Zeus's raising" or "independent of that of Zeus's raising"? I leave it to you.
    • Yep, that's better. I've used a slightly different wording, but done. – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:30, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

A few more suggestions. More to follow. MSincccc (talk) 17:11, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

Mythology (Nurse of Zeus)

• she is then handed over to the nymph Amalthea
  • Who is the "she" here or should it be a "he"?
    • Recent typo on my part. Now fixed. – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:56, 18 March 2026 (UTC)
• from the now-lost Eumolpia, probably composed in or before the second half of the 4th century BC
  • How about "in or before the later 4th century BC"?
    • We could, but I think "second half" is a slightly more accurate representation of the cited sources (as we say in the note, West suggests a date in the latter part of the 4th century BC). – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:56, 18 March 2026 (UTC)
• "gives him as a newborn child" → "gives him as a newborn"
  • Done. – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:56, 18 March 2026 (UTC)
• the goat who nurses the young Zeus
  • Is "young" necessary here or could it be safely dropped?
    • This is a fair point: I use the phrase "the young Zeus" quite a bit, when the reader has probably got the picture by now that he was a child. I've dropped a few of these. – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:56, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

MSincccc (talk) 16:54, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

Mythology (Merging of traditions)

• You could link "scholiast" to scholia.
  • We linked it just above on "scholium", so I won't link it again, but I see your point that some readers won't initially understand that "scholiast" means "the author of a scholium". I've added a brief explanation in brackets. – Michael Aurel (talk) 01:35, 19 March 2026 (UTC)
• In Ovid's account, presented in his Fasti,
  • Nothing wrong with the sentence, but if you don't mind changing the style it could be shortened.
    • I'm guessing that what you're suggesting is something like "In Ovid's Fasti"? That'd work too, and it's a bit shorter, but I think the current version is fine (we've already mentioned that it's Ovid's account, so the specification that it appeared in the Fasti is a separate phrase because it's the new piece of information here). Open to other suggestions, though, if you had something else in mind. – Michael Aurel (talk) 01:35, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

  The present version is fine as it is. Mine was only a suggestion. Meanwhile, there are two more suggestions below, which you might have missed. More to follow. MSincccc (talk) 08:11, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

• Amalthea is once again the owner of the goat,
  • Do we need "once again" in this case?
    • This one's doing a helpful job, I think: as we note below, Ovid's "source for the narrative's overall outline" is Eratosthenes, an important part of which is his choice to make Amalthea a nymph. The wording used by Gantz (cited here) is that Ovid "returns us to the idea" that she was the owner. – Michael Aurel (talk) 08:10, 19 March 2026 (UTC)
• "as well as through his description of the goat as "Olenian"" → "and by describing the goat as "Olenian""
  • A suggestion.
    • Yes, that's better. Done. – Michael Aurel (talk) 08:10, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

MSincccc (talk) 08:54, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

Mythology (Later versions)

• such that he "could not be found in the sky, on earth, or on the sea"
  • How about "so that"?
    • Done. – Michael Aurel (talk) 23:55, 20 March 2026 (UTC)
• To prevent Cronus from hearing the cries of the young child, Amalthea brings together the Kouretes and hands them shields and spears, which she instructs them to clang noisily around where the child lies.
  • This one could be rephrased to reduce its wordiness; I leave it to you.
    • Yes, it could. I'm not sure if it's what you had in mind, but I've done a bit of rephrasing here. – Michael Aurel (talk) 23:55, 20 March 2026 (UTC)
• "which presents an account of the goat Amalthea's nursing of Jupiter (the name of Zeus in Latin literature)" → "“presenting the goat Amalthea’s nursing of Jupiter (the name of Zeus in Latin)" or similar versions.
  • You could trim the sentence.
    • Hmm. To my ears, that one implies that the events are recounted in the same place, which isn't really what we mean (we use the word "later"). – Michael Aurel (talk) 23:55, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

I hope you don't mind the few suggestions above. I will try to conclude my review in the days to come. MSincccc (talk) 08:28, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

In art (Ancient)

• She is represented either as a nymph or goat,...
  • You could insert an "a" before the "goat".
    • Done. – Michael Aurel (talk) 23:55, 20 March 2026 (UTC)
• "the latter the more common form" → "the latter being the more common form"
  • More idiomatic?
    • It might be, yes, but I read that as saying something like "the latter entity the more common form", which is a bit different. If it's felt that this is too elliptical, I'd probably go for "the latter of which is the more common form". – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:02, 21 March 2026 (UTC)
• two Kouretes carry swords and shields, one on each side of the pair
  • "The pair" feels a bit redundant.
    • Removed. – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:02, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

MSincccc (talk) 17:15, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

In art (Modern)

• You could link "Flemish" to Flemish people and "Frisian" to Frisians.
  • Yes, that's sensible. Done. – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:02, 21 March 2026 (UTC)
• You could link to grotto as well.
  • We could, though I think most English readers are acquainted with that word. – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:02, 21 March 2026 (UTC)
• "It was under the ownership of Scipione Borghese by 1615" → "It was owned by Scipione Borghese by 1615"
  • More idiomatic? I leave it to you.
    • That also works, though I avoided that phrasing because of the repetition of "by". – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:06, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

  How about "By 1615, it was owned by Scipione Borghese"? MSincccc (talk) 14:34, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

  I think that might be a little better when considering this phrase on its own, but it might make it sound as though "by 1615" also applies to the latter part of the sentence (may have been seen as containing a political meaning). – Michael Aurel (talk) 23:32, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

• "a valuable receptacle containing goat's milk" → "a valuable receptacle of goat's milk"
  • Mmm. If I'm honest, that's seems pretty much the same as the current version. Happy to be swayed, though. – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:06, 21 March 2026 (UTC)
• "the room which contained the grotto" → "the room that contained the grotto"
  • In British English, "that" is smoother in restrictive clauses.
    • Done. – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:06, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

Bottom line

• @Michael Aurel: I realise that my knowledge of classics is limited compared to that of specialists such as UC or Choliamb, but I hope you found my suggestions helpful. That's all from me. I look forward to your response. MSincccc (talk) 04:32, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

  Thanks again for your comments, MSincccc. I think I've addressed all of them, but let me know if you have any further concerns. – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:09, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

  @Michael Aurel I have responded with one more suggestion above. Rest assured, the article is in good shape, and I will leave it to others to help you with points that require greater subject knowledge.

  I will support the nomination. Good luck with it. MSincccc (talk) 14:37, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

  Thanks for your support, MSincccc. – Michael Aurel (talk) 23:32, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Image review

• File:Relief_Amaltheia_Adrasteia_Zeus.jpg: CC BY-SA release is acceptable, but the file should not have the PD-Art tag as this is a photo of a 3D relief, not a 2D artwork
  • This image has now been removed (see the amazing wall of scholarship below!), but I've fixed it anyway. – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:50, 17 March 2026 (UTC)
• File:Gold oktadrachm of Ptolemy IV Philopator MET DP139890.jpg: CC0 release is acceptable, but again this is not a 2D artwork so PD-Art tag is irrelevant
  • Yup, done. – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:50, 17 March 2026 (UTC)
• File:Base with reliefs of the birth of Zeus (Rome Mus Cap 1944) 04 crop.jpg: OK
• File:Gianlorenzo bernini, la capra amaltea, ante 1615 (galleria borghese).jpg: OK
• File:The Childhood of Zeus (Louvre) by Jakob Jordaens.jpg: OK
• File:Jupiter als kind gevoed met melk van de geit Amalthea, RP-P-BI-2610.jpg: needs dating in caption
  • I wasn't able to find a date for that one; I've done some more digging, but still no luck. I've instead added the dates for Bolswert's life, which is what most sources give; they at least make clear that the print wasn't produced long after Jordaens's painting. Does that seem alright? – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:50, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

  The file entry says quite explicitly the object is dated to "between 1596 and 1659", although I'm skeptical of this given that it implies Bolswert (born c. 1586) could have made such a work at 10 years old. Providing the lifetime of the artist is an acceptable alternative as I see it. ―Howard • 🌽³³ 04:40, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

• File:Nicolas Poussin - Jupiter enfant nourri par la chèvre Amalthée.jpg: OK
• File:Amalthea Julien Louvre CC230.jpg: OK

―Howard • 🌽³³ 14:29, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for the review, Howardcorn33. I've responded to the above points. – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:54, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

@Michael Aurel: an additional image review as you have since added a new one:

• File:Campana relief of Amaltheia nursing Zeus (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek T 138).jpg: OK

No apparent issues now. ―Howard • 🌽³³ 04:43, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

Metalicat

Dropping in with some drive-by comments, mainly on prose and MOS.

Lead

• The lead doesn't mention the etymology discussion, which has its own section. A sentence on the name's uncertain origin would round it out per WP:LEAD.
  • This is a sensible suggestion; I've tried doing it in a few ways and can't quite get it to work, though. Both pieces of information (the uncertainty about the name's etymology, and the possible allusion in the Theogony) aren't important enough to mention in the lead's first paragraph, at the beginning of the second, or in a separate paragraph. We could add both (or one) of them after the discussion of her mythology, but that would mean the lead follows a different order to the body (and there's no meaningful connection between the etymology and ancient or modern art). MOS:INTRO says that the lead should summarize the most important points covered in an article, and I'd argue that the "Etymology and origins" section doesn't contain any of the article's "most important points". Let me know if you think this is a reasonable approach (or if there's a part of the MOS I don't know about which says that each section should be reflected in the lead). – Michael Aurel (talk) 16:02, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

Prose

• Zeus's mother Rhea gives him as a newborn child to Themis, who hands him over to the nymph Amalthea, who has the infant reared by a she-goat: three chained "who" clauses. Consider breaking this up.
  • Agreed. Used a semicolon. – Michael Aurel (talk) 01:06, 17 March 2026 (UTC)
• the tale of this horn seems to have originated as an independent tradition to that of Zeus's raising: "independent tradition to" reads oddly; independent tradition from or a tradition independent of would be more natural.
  • Yup, already done per above. – Michael Aurel (talk) 01:06, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

MOS

• Hyphenation of century-dates is inconsistent: "3rd-century BC poet" (hyphenated as a compound adjective, correct) appears alongside "the 3rd century BC" (unhyphenated as a noun phrase, also correct), but there are a few places where hyphens are missing in the adjectival form. A quick pass would catch these.
  • I've done a Ctrl+F for "century" and I think they're all correct, but I've possibly missed something. Could you point me to where you noticed the issue? – Michael Aurel (talk) 01:06, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

Otherwise this appears to be a very clean, well-sourced article. Metalicat (talk) 17:33, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks very much for these comments, Metalicat. Let me know what your thoughts are on the two outstanding points. – Michael Aurel (talk) 16:05, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

On the lead point, I think that's a perfectly defensible reading of MOS:INTRO. The etymology section is interesting but doesn't contain information that a reader needs in the lead to understand the article's subject. Satisfied on that.

On the hyphenation, I've gone through every instance of "century" in the article and I think you've got them all right. The adjectival forms ("the 3rd-century BC poet", "the 2nd-century AD marble relief", "the late-1st-century BC writer") are consistently hyphenated, and the noun phrases ("the 6th century BC", "the 4th century BC", "the 2nd century AD") are consistently unhyphenated. I may have been second-guessing myself on a read-through rather than spotting an actual error. Apologies for the false alarm.

No other issues from me. Metalicat (talk) 20:25, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

Nice, and no problem. Thanks again for the comments. – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:57, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

Choliamb

I enjoyed this article and learned a lot from it. It covers the ground thoroughly and the expected secondary sources (Gantz, Fowler, etc.) are cited, but what I particularly admire is the meticulous citation of the ancient sources that lie behind these modern syntheses. These citations make the article much more useful as a reference tool for readers who already know something about the subject, without in any way reducing its value for more general readers who never look at the notes and just want to know the stories. Secondary sources are consistently provided, in keeping with Wikipedia policy, but the notes also point interested readers directly to the ancient sources on which those secondary sources depend, rather than forcing them to waste time searching through a secondary source looking for a citation of the specific ancient passage in question. This is especially useful in a mythological article where many of the ancient sources are obscure and unfamiliar: scholia on Aratus and Callimachus and Hellenistic catalogues of catasterisms are more difficult to track down, even for specialists, than passages in Herodotus and Livy, and the citations provided here will save readers (as they saved me) a lot of time and unnecessary clicking and scrolling. I wish more of Wikipedia's articles on classical mythology, and on classical topics in general, would adopt the same approach.

I'm very glad you like them, and you've summed up perfectly my views as to why their inclusion is valuable. It takes a little while to add them all (especially the scholia and fragments), so it's nice to hear that someone has made use of them. – Michael Aurel (talk) 23:27, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

I'm sure there will be plenty of advice about style from the regulars here, so my comments are restricted to a few matters of content that caught my eye. Most of them are trivial, but a couple (on the Amaltheum of Cicero's friend Atticus and the so-called Amaltheia relief in the Vatican in particular) are more substantial.

• The "horn of Amalthea" is mentioned as early as the archaic period (c. 800–480 BC) by poets such as Anacreon and Phocylides. Anacreon and Phocylides both date to the 6th century, so why not just say that, rather than placing them within a span of three centuries? The preceding paragraph already makes it clear that Amaltheia doesn't appear in Hesiod, which is the natural place to look for her. Does she appear in any other sources of the 8th or 7th century? If so, they deserve a mention; if not, then what this sentence means is "the horn of Amaltheia is mentioned as early as the 6th century".
  • Agreed, and UC made the same point. I've used exactly that wording ("as early as the 6th century BC"). – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:46, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

• commonly referenced in comedies, such as those by Cratinus, Aristophanes, and Antiphanes (who date to the 6th to 4th centuries BC). Similarly, better to describe these as writers of the 5th and 4th centuries. It's possible that Cratinus, the oldest of them, was born near the end of the 6th century, but all of his dated plays belong to 5th century. As far as we know, there is no such thing as a 6th-century Greek comedy.
  • I suspect I read a source which placed the start of his life in the late 6th century BC. Even if he was born a bit before 500 BC, though, he obviously wasn't writing plays during his early childhood. Fixed. – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:46, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

• an element also mentioned by the 4th-to-3rd-century BC poet Philemon I know that "poet" here means "comic poet" and "comic poet" means "playwright", but I suspect that most Wikipedia readers, when they see the word "poet" without any qualification, will probably not assume that Philemon was a writer of comedies for the stage. Perhaps "comic poet" or "comic playwright" instead?
  • Definitely a good idea, because it links back to what we've mentioned above about comedies. I've used "comic poet". – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:46, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

• The 1st-century BC Roman writer Cicero, in a letter to his friend Atticus, mentions an amaltheum, most likely a shrine dedicated to Amalthea. On Atticus's estate there was such a shrine, which included illustrations of Amalthea's mythology. Cicero, seeking to erect a similar structure in Arpinum .... The source cited here is Petersson's biography of Cicero, and what he says is accurately reported, but the idea that Atticus's Amaltheum contained painted illustrations of Amalthea's mythology is fantasy -- not Petersson's fantasy, but the fantasy of Otto Schmidt, whose account in Ciceros Villen (Leipzig 1899), pp. 15ff., Petersson has followed in every detail and repeated as if it were established fact rather than speculation. We know absolutely nothing about the form of the Amaltheum, and there has been much speculation about the kind of place the word refers to: suggestions include a garden, a building, a garden with one or more subsidiary buildings or pavilions, an artificial grotto, a wing of the estate, or even a nickname for the entire estate. Writing "erect a structure", as the article currently does, begs the question, and uses words that Cicero never uses. Cicero's letter (Att. 1.16) is in fact very little help: he simply asks Atticus to tell him what his Amaltheum is like, and in particular how it is decorated and how it is laid out (velim ad me scribas, cuiusmodi sit Ἀμαλθεῖον tuum, quo ornatu, qua τοποθεσίᾳ). The word used for decoration here (ornatus) covers any kind of furnishing, ornament, or decoration, not specifically paintings, much less paintings depicting the mythology of Amaltheia. As far as the contents of the Amaltheum go, we know only two things: a passage in Cicero's De legibus (2.7) implies that it had plane trees in it (or perhaps around it); and another sentence in the same letter of Cicero states that it contained inscriptions or verses (epigrammata) honoring Cicero himself. This has often been combined with a passage in the life of Atticus by Cornelius Nepos (18.5–6), where he says that Atticus had a collection of portraits of notable Romans and that "under the portraits he described the accomplishments and the offices held by each man in not more than four or five verses". Taken together, these passages have persuaded many scholars that the Amaltheum contained a series of portraits of distinguished Romans accompanied by inscribed elogia, of the sort known from other Roman portrait galleries. That is the limit of our knowledge; the rest is speculation. For a summary of the 19th-century literature on these questions, see F. G. Moore, "Cicero's Amaltheum", Classical Philology 1 (1906), pp. 121–126; and for more recent discussion and bibliography, see G. Sauron, "Un "Amaltheum" dans la villa d'Oplontis/Torre Annunziata?", Rivista di Studi Pompeiani 18 (2007), pp. 41–46, as well as Sauron's earlier article, "De Buthrote à Sperlonga: A propos d'une étude récente sur le thème de la grotte dans les décors romains", Revue Archéologique 1991, pp. 3-42, which contains a section subtitled "L'Amaltheum d'Atticus à Buthrote" beginning on p. 5. (Henri Lavagne's account of the Amaltheum in Operosa Antra, which is cited in this WP article in connection with Marie Antoinette's grotto at Rambouillet, must be used with great caution; it contains much that is imaginary and the discussion is distorted by his insistence that the Amaltheum on Atticus's estate must have been an artificial grotto of some sort. For the weaknesses in his argument, see Sauron 1991, pp. 7–8.) How much of any of this belongs in the Wikipedia article is open to question; perhaps none at all, since it tells us more about Cicero and Atticus than about Amaltheia. And because Cicero says nothing about the myths (except to ask Atticus to send him whatever poems and stories he has), this short paragraph on the Amaltheum sits rather uncomfortably in a section that is otherwise devoted to the later mythographic tradition. If you keep it, perhaps it would be more appropriately given a separate section, grouped together with other sources in which the name of Amaltheia is used metaphorically to denote gardens and other places of exceptional fertility and abundance (see the next comment).
  • These two sentences have been somewhat neglected throughout the article's history; they've been moved multiple times, always awkwardly squished somewhere. I did develop some suspicions upon encountering Lavagne's work whilst researching the Rambouillet dairy – a "grotto" and a "shrine" aren't exactly the same thing – but I apparently didn't look into the matter further. Thank you for pointing me to those sources. I agree that discussing the Amaltheum in a section on the use of "Amalthea's Horn" to refer to places of fertility would work. In my eyes, then, the first question is whether we ought to have such a section.

Very reasonable people could have chosen a different approach, but my general philosophy towards this article has been that it's about Amalthea as a mythological figure, and so each section (and preferably paragraph) should add to the reader's understanding of the evidence for her mythology, or of how that mythology has been represented in later contexts. (The exception to this is the paragraph about her name's etymology, though these are fairly standard.) The article which overlaps the most with this one is Cornucopia. The approach taken here has been that pieces of information about the horn are only included if they are required to understand the mythological traditions surrounding Amalthea. For example, we don't mention the cornucopia's role in the iconography of deities such as Tyche and Pluto, or Miltiades's dedication of an ivory horn at Olympia. If I were a reader, the inclusion of a section devoted to the use of "Amalthea's Horn" as a name for places of fertility would raise questions about why we don't discuss other appearances of the horn. I certainly think we could go all the way in the other direction and include a full discussion of it – Wernicke, for example, covered both in the same article – but that would require shifting the article's approach quite a bit. Another consideration here is WP:NOTDICT, the general thrust of which is "Wikipedia is about things, rather than words"; I fear that if we included a general discussion of the use of Amalthea's name, the next few reviewers who set up shop down below would cite that policy. All of this said, there's no good reason to avoid mentioning that bit from Diodorus Siculus, as we already present his account. I've added that onto the end, and mentioned the spot belonging to Gelon in a note.

Given the above, I've placed the part about the Amaltheum after the account from Diodorus Siculus. Sauron's articles have been used as sources (as well as Sinn, who you mentioned below), and I've kept the discussion brief; mention of Cicero's letter has been omitted altogether, for example. (If we did include that, we'd need to find a new translation, as Shackleton Bailey renders the word as "Shrine of Amalthea"!) A red link has been added to the word "Amaltheum", as I think it's been demonstrated in this discussion that there exists ample sourcing for the topic to have its own article. Doing all of this has the unfortunate consequence of retaining the problem you've highlighted above: the part about the Amaltheum doesn't fit nicely into a discussion of the later mythographic tradition. To make the placement slightly more natural, the bit about Cicero could perhaps be directly connected to the use of "Amalthea's Horn" for places of fertility, now that the two ideas are adjacent. We also could change the section's heading to "Later versions and references", though I'm not sure that's better. The other option would be to simply remove this part and include a link to Amaltheum in the "See also" section once that article has been created; I'm not opposed to doing this. I've also removed the opinion about the Amaltheum from Lavagne in the paragraph about Julien's sculpture (though I've retained him for a different statement, unrelated to Cicero, for which he should be fine.) – Michael Aurel (talk) 02:37, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

This all seems very sensible to me. I agree that this article is no place for a detailed discussion of Atticus's Amaltheum, and because it doesn't tell us anything about Amaltheia herself, it's hard to know where to place a brief mention of it. I think the way you've done it now is as good as any. I've added a couple of very short additional comments on other matters to my support below. Choliamb (talk) 15:08, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

• Diodorus Siculus, in a euhemerist reworking of Amalthea's myth, describes her as an especially beautiful young woman, who is wed to Ammon, the king of Libya. Ammon gives her a region of great fertility which is shaped like a bull's horn, and which, taking its name from her, comes to be known as Amalthea's horn. Diodorus goes on to say that, for this reason, later generations call any place of remarkable fertility and fruitfulness "Amalthea's Horn". I think this is worth mentioning, because there is other evidence for the metaphorical use of "Amaltheia's Horn" to describe a particularly a rich garden or other tract of land, without any direct reference to the myths. See Athenaeus 12.542a, which states, on the authority of the Hellenistic tyrant and historian Douris of Samos, that among the properties owned by Gelon, the tyrant of Akragas, was a spot in Calabria set in a beautiful, well-watered grove and known as Amaltheia's Horn. (Secondary sources for this include Lavagne, p. 262, and Sauron 1991, p. 7, cited above.) I think this is where Atticus's Amaltheion probably belongs too, as another example of the use of Amaltheia's name to evoke qualities of fertility and abundance, in this case the beauty of some particular part of Atticus's estate in Epirus. Lavagne (pp. 261–262) sets it in this context, and some of his comments remain valid, as long as you disregard his assumption that the Amaltheum must be a grotto. This metaphorical sense is also what lies behind the use of the word amaltheum by Neo-Latin writers of the early modern period, who use it as a generic title for a copious anthology of information, especially lexica of various kinds: e.g., the Amaltheum Castello-Brunianum (a medical lexicon); the Amaltheum Prosodicum (a dictionary of Latin vowel quantities for poets who need to distinguish their long syllables from their shorts); the Amaltheum Botanicum (a lexicon of plant names); and the Amalthea Onomastica (a grandiose universal lexicon). By this time, obviously, the metaphor is completely dead, and there is no conscious allusion to the nymph or the goat; only the notion of richness and abundance remains. Whether you choose to include any of this in the article is up to you, but if you do, perhaps the metaphorical uses in Diodorus and Athenaeus could be grouped together with Atticus's Amaltheum in some way, so that they don't get lost in the discussion of mythographic minutiae that occupies the rest of the "Later versions" section.
  • I've ended up responding to this as part of the previous point. – Michael Aurel (talk) 02:37, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

• Amalthea was the subject of a sculpture by the Baroque sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Instead of "by", perhaps "attributed to"? As I understand it, the attribution, although universally accepted, is a modern conjecture based largely on stylistic considerations and unsupported by any documentary evidence. Please correct me if I'm wrong; this is far outside my field.
  • No, you're correct, and this is probably a better way of putting it. Done. – Michael Aurel (talk) 08:05, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

• A few comments on the list of references:

1. Frazer's commentary on the Fasti was published in 1929 by Macmillan in London: see here. The Cambridge digital "edition" is just a scan of the original. They have a lot of nerve charging fifty bucks per volume for PDFs of a work in the public domain in both the UK and the US! Better to cite (and link) the free and entirely legal online versions at HathiTrust or the Internet Archive, rather than the paywalled version at CUP.

   Oops, this one was very obvious. Fixed. – Michael Aurel (talk) 08:05, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

2. The title of Marshall's Teubner edition of the Fabulae is simply "Hyginus, Fabulae". That's what is printed on the title page. The bracketed addition <mythographus> after Hyginus's name, which you presumably found in some online catalogue, is a gloss added by the Deutsche Bibliothek for disambiguation and cataloguing purposes. Also worth noting that the 2002 edition is the second edition.

   I imagine so. Fixed and noted. – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:46, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

3. Petersson's biography of Cicero was published in 1920 by the University of California Press; see, e.g., here. The Biblo and Tannen version is a photographic reprint.

   Fixed, though I highly doubt he'll be in the article much longer! – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:46, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

4. D. R. Shackleton Bailey (cited here as the editor of the Loeb edition of Cicero's letters) is normally referred to as Shackleton Bailey, not Bailey, and alphabetized under S.

   Fixed. – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:46, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

The so-called Amaltheia relief

I have left for last the problem of the lead image. The TLDR version is this: The so-called "Amaltheia relief" in the Vatican (inv. 9510) is described in both the image caption and the text of the article as a depiction of Amaltheia feeding the infant Zeus, but this identification is incorrect. The scholarly consensus for the last century and a half is that the relief has nothing to do with Zeus and Amaltheia, but instead depicts a maenad feeding an infant satyr. The iconographic evidence for that interpretation is incontrovertible. The long version follows, and I apologize in advance for the length.

The relief in the Vatican was part of the Giustiniani collection in Rome from the 16th century onward, and already by that time it seems to have been identified as Zeus and Amaltheia. This interpretation was elaborated at great length by Karl Böttiger in the first 50 pages of Amalthea, oder Museum der Kunstmythologie und bildlichen Alterthumskunde (Leipzig 1820), vol. I, pp. 1-54, an influential work which you may have encountered during your research for the article. For this reason, the name "Amaltheia relief" became permanently attached to it, and has remained attached to it today, even though it is known to be inaccurate.

The problem with the traditional identification is that the infant drinking from the horn in the relief has pointed ears, similar to the ears on the figure of the young satyr or Pan at the entrance to the cave on the right side of the relief. This is clearly visible in the Commons photo used in the article, as well as in Theodor Schreiber's Die hellenistischen Reliefbilder (Leipzig 1894), plate 21, and in the detail photo in H. Herdejürgen, "Östliche Bildhauerwerkstätten im frühkaiserzeitlichen Rom: Bemerkungen zu den Spadareliefs", Antike Kunst 44 (2001), pl. 18.4. It is even clearer when standing before the relief itself, as reported by scholars who have studied it in person. This fact, overlooked or ignored in the 18th century, was well known by the mid-19th century; see the discussion in O. Benndorf and R. Schöne, Die antiken Bildwerke des lateranensischen Museums (Leipzig 1867), pp. 16–18, no. 24, which gives a brief summary of the debate up to that time. Since no Greek or Roman sculptor would have depicted Zeus with pointed ears, a feature which in classical art invariably signifies a bestial nature, the few 19th-century scholars who clung to that interpretation were forced to argue that the ears had been reworked, or that the entire head was a modern restoration. But this was a desperate and untenable defense: the restored parts of the relief are well documented (see the detailed list of restorations in Benndorf and Schöne, and the drawing in Die hellenistischen Reliefbilder, facing plate 21, in which the restored bits are shaded). Although there is a long diagonal break that runs up through the neck of the infant, clearly visible in the Commons photograph, the head itself is of one piece with the ancient background and is certainly ancient. This is stated unequivocally by W. Helbig, "Zum Amalthea-Relief", Archäologische Zeitung 21 (1863), col. 45. There is no indication the the ears have been reworked, and indeed, why would anyone have done so, given that it contradicts the interpretation of the relief that had been favored ever since its discovery?

Helbig in 1863 saw the obvious conclusion: "Wir haben also ein Genrebild aus dem dionysischen Kreise vor Augen: einen Satyrknaben, der von einer Bakchantin getränkt wird", a Dionysian genre scene in which an ivy-crowned maenad offers a drink to a baby satyr. For those who wonder whether an infant satyr would be depicted with human feet, as the child is here, further proof comes from a small fragment of another Roman relief, also in the Vatican (Museo Pio-Clementino, inv. 567), which preserves the figure of an infant satyr drinking out of a cup. For a photo of that figure, see H. Herdejürgen (cited above), pl. 18.3. Except for the replacement of the horn with a cup, the child in that fragment is a mirror image of the child in the so-called Amaltheia relief: he is in the same position, with one leg outstretched and the other folded beneath it, arms upraised and bent at the elbow to hold the vessel to his mouth, and pointed ears but human feet. In this fragment, however, the identification of the child as a satyr is established beyond doubt by the presence of a tiny satyr's tail emerging from the small of his back. The two reliefs are clearly related, and the usual assumption is that they both look back to a common model: this was first proposed by Helbig in 1863 and is still the prevailing view today; Herdejürgen, for example, writes on p. 26, note 23, "Die typologische Übereinstimmung der beiden ausschreitenden Figuren dürfte vorbildbedingt sein".

The evidence was reexamined by H. von Steuben in the fourth edition of Helbig's Führer durch die öffentlichen Sammlungen klassischer Altertümer in Rom, ed. H. Speier (Tübingen 1963–1972), vol. I, no. 1012; he emphasized the child's Satyrohren and the other Dionysian aspects of the relief and firmly rejected the old interpretation: "die Szene wurde einst also zu Unrecht aus der Zeuskind, das von Amalthea genährt wird, ... gedeutet". Since that time most scholars have seen no need to relitigate the case. In contemporary art historical scholarship the relief is generally referred to as the "so-called" or "sogennante" Amaltheia relief, or the word "Amaltheia" is enclosed in scare-quotes, to indicate that the traditional name is no longer considered accurate. The identification of the infant as a satyr is taken for granted, as a fact that requires no further argument (see, e.g., Herdejürgen's passing mention on p. 26 of the "Satyrkind auf dem sogenannten Amaltheiarelief"). The most recent detailed discussion of the relief that I am aware of is in Stephan Lehmann, Mythologische Prachtreliefs (Bamberg 1996), pp. 139–145; it's not available online and I don't have immediate access to it, but it's clear from the citation in Herdejürgen (p. 26, note 21) that he too considers the infant a satyr and rejects the identification as Zeus and Amaltheia (witness the scare-quotes around the name "Amaltheia" in his table of contents, available here). Herdejürgen's note also implies that the same view is held by Friederike Sinn in her discussion of the relief in a forthcoming volume of the catalogue of sculptures in the Museo Gregorio Profano in the Vatican. (It's possible that the relief is also discussed in a new book by Mariella Cipriano, Rilievi mitologici di lusso, which was published in 2023. This I have not seen.)

There are evidently a few outliers who still cling to the old identification, and you have managed to find a couple. Miller's views on Augustan poetry may deserve respect, but he, unlike the scholars mentioned in the previous paragraph, is no authority on ancient art in general or Roman sculpture in particular, and his treatment of the iconographical evidence in the article cited here is, to put it gently, naive. Why Martin Henig, who ought to know better, included the relief as a depiction of Amaltheia in his article in LIMC is a more difficult question, and one I cannot answer. (He conveniently does not mention the ears, which relieves him of the necessity to explain them.) But a few stubborn deniers can't change the scholarly consensus that has developed over the last century and a half. In debates about ancient art it is rarely possible to prove that one view is right while another is wrong, but this is one of the few cases in which the evidence allows for certainty. The syllogism is very simple: (1) The infant in the relief has the pointed ears of a satyr or other beast (this is not in dispute); (2) it is inconceivable that any Greek or Roman sculptor would have depicted the infant Zeus with such ears; therefore, (3) the infant in the relief is not Zeus (and the woman not Amaltheia). I don't see any way around this reasoning, which is presumably why Henig ignores it.

What to do? The image of the Vatican relief, lovely as it is, must go. Can it be replaced with another image of Amalthea in human (rather than goat) form? There is at least one good candidate: the terracotta relief in Copenhagen (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek T 138) (= no. 2 in the LIMC article). On this relief see Hermann von Rohden, Die antiken Terrakotten IV: Architektonische römische Tonreliefs der Kaiserzeit (Berlin 1911), pp. 8–9, 245, and plate 10. Here the figures of the Kouretes clashing their shields, which frame the image of the child and nurse, put the identification beyond dispute. There is no modern photo of this in the Commons, but the illustration in Rohden is now PD and I have uploaded it as File:Campana relief of Amaltheia nursing Zeus (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek T 138).jpg. The resolution and quality are not great, but perhaps they are good enough for Wikipedia purposes? I leave it to you to decide whether you want to include it in the article, either as the lead image or somewhere else. If not, the other choices for the lead image are an ancient depiction of Amaltheia as a goat instead of a woman (like the base in the Capitoline Museum, is already in the article), or a modern painting or sculpture, like the ones discussed in the section on modern art. In articles on ancient topics, my personal preference is for an ancient image if one is available, but there are certainly editors who feel differently. In the end, any solution is fine with me, as long as the satyr relief is removed.

Cheers, Choliamb (talk) 22:42, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

Wow, thank you very much, Choliamb! I greatly appreciate you putting all of this together. I've removed the Vatican relief, and I'll make sure to add that image from Rohden. I had stumbled across the idea that the Vatican relief represented a maenad and satyr (when researching a different article, actually) but – generally trusting the LIMC – I assumed that it was the outdated identification. I'll probably come around to these points after addressing the other comments above, as some of these (particularly the one about Cicero) will require some thought. Thanks again! – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:21, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

I'm more than satisfied here; to be honest, I expected more pushback on the Vatican relief, which is why I gave such a long explanation above. You've cited Sinn's discussion in the Gregorio Profano catalogue; I haven't seen this, but I know and admire her work on the Roman sculpture collection in Dresden and I'd be interested to see what she says about this relief. I gather you have access to it, so if you have a moment or two to spare in the coming weeks or months and you can email me a copy of her comments (quick and dirty phone photos of the relevant pages would be fine), I'd be grateful. My email address is on my Commons userpage under c:User:Choliamb/Use of images.

I have two three additional short comments:

(1) Your note on the Campana relief in Copenhagen led me to Buddensieg's article, which is a mine of fascinating information. He isn't someone I've encountered before, but he was evidently an interesting guy, who worked on topics ranging from classical antiquity to the pottery of the Weimar Republic. Perhaps worth an author link to Tilmann Buddensieg in the list of references?

Definitely, it seems I missed that one. Added. – Michael Aurel (talk) 23:22, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

(2) In your note on Poussin and Bonasone (currently n. 126) you write that Bonasone (and through him Poussin) was inspired by a painting by Giulio Romano. Assuming that this is a reference to The Nurture of Jupiter in the British Royal Collection, I can see the resemblance in composition, especially in the nymph reaching back for the honeycomb, but the differences are as striking as the similarities. In Giulio Romano's painting, the disgruntled goat is being held, apparently against her will (note the shepherd's knee on her neck), in a remarkably awkward and undignified position. What's more, she's not the only goat in the scene: the rest of the herd is observing the situation uneasily from the left side of the painting, presumably wondering who will be pressed into service next!

Yes, that's the one from Romano. I'm not entirely sure whether you're referring to the Poussin painting pictured in the article, but it's worth noting that it's the one from 1639, and that the painting from around 1636 to 1637 (File:La Nourriture de Jupiter - Poussin - DulwichPG.jpg) is the one we mention in that sentence. It clearly did influence the 1639 painting to a degree, though, as you've correctly pointed out with the nymph reaching back. Verdi (the cited source) has some interesting discussion about how the 1639 painting "lacks the Dulwich picture's bucolic intimacy", and how it "possesses an abstract harmony and finality that are often characteristic of Poussin's later versions of a subject and testify to his increasingly rational approach to pictorial composition". – Michael Aurel (talk) 23:22, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

(3) Perhaps add a citation of Athenaeus 12.542a to the note about Gelon (currently n. 96), since you're so scrupulous about citing the ancient sources elsewhere?

Yes, that's a sensible move. Done. – Michael Aurel (talk) 23:22, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Happy now to support this fine article. Cheers, Choliamb (talk) 15:08, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

Wonderful. Thank you again for your detailed comments, and now for the support. Given that I now know so much about the history of this relief's scholarship, I'm almost tempted to say that we ought to have a separate article on it. Perhaps I'll create such an article at some point. It's also possible that I'll add back a mention of the Vatican relief to this article, but only to say something like "it was once thought to represent Zeus's nursing, an identification which is now rejected". There are multiple reliable and accessible sources, including the LIMC, which only mention the incorrect identification, so I don't think it hurts for Wikipedia to set the record straight. I've also requested that the Commons image be moved away from "File:Relief Amaltheia Adrasteia Zeus.jpg", and sent through Sinn's discussion of the Vatican relief. (I received that PDF, by the way, from Wikipedia's resource exchange. I'm not sure if you're aware of that venue, but I though I'd mention it. Most users are asking for a source to help them write an article, but I can't see why conducting an FAC review wouldn't be perfectly reasonable grounds to request something.) – Michael Aurel (talk) 22:20, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

The rationale for RX is that a source will be used to improve an article -- in my book, that covers improving it by reviewing it and leaving useful comments. I've used RX in the past to request a source I needed to use for a WP:CLOP check. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 17:06, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Jens

• Achelous reclaimed this horn by trading it for a magical horn he obtained from Amalthea, a daughter of Oceanus. – I have difficulty following here. Maybe you can reformulate to explain this a bit more slowly? Did Achelous get a magical horn from Amalthea which he then gave to Heracles in exchange for his own horn?
  • That's pretty much correct. It seems the text itself is ambiguous as to whether he obtains the horn before or after the battle. What we could do is reformulate this so it's from Heracles's perspective, though I'm not sure that's better. Let me know what you think would help. – Michael Aurel (talk) 11:50, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

• This account is described in an epitome – by an author referred to as "Pseudo-Eratosthenes" – I found this a bit difficult to read as well. Again, maybe split the sentence, and I strongly recommend to add an in-text explanation of "epitome" per WP:MTAU.
  • I've replaced it with "summary", as that's essentially what it is, and we don't need to throw any more terms and ideas at the reader here. I've also split this sentence with a semicolon. – Michael Aurel (talk) 08:29, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

• out of fear, the Titans (the gods from the generation before Zeus) – The in-text explanation is not helpful here as titans have been mentioned multiple times before already?
  • I think I added the introduction "the Titan" to Themis later on, which caused this to be the second place we mention them. Changed that description for Themis to "the goddess" (she's not necessarily who we have in mind when we talk about Zeus's battle with the Titans). – Michael Aurel (talk) 08:29, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

• At the end of the account given by Pseudo-Eratosthenes, the text contains a lacuna - Confused by the structure, the paragraph was about Aratus? Why Eratosthenes all of a sudden? If it is about Eratosthenes, why is this not in the paragraph where his account is discussed?
  • Your confusion is understandable, and this is why we had to give all that explanation in the earlier paragraph. There are three sources here: the Eumolpia, the Catasterismi, and the summary of the Catasterismi. The first two are lost, and the third is extant. The first is attributed (spuriously, of course) to Musaeus, the second is attributed to Eratosthenes, and the author of the third is given the name "Pseudo-Eratosthenes". The account which was attributed in antiquity to Musaeus (and which scholars believe appeared in the Eumolpia) was conveyed in the Catasterismi, and this recounting survives in a summarised form in Pseudo-Eratosthenes's work. The first paragraph of the "Nurse of Zeus" section is about the account attributed to Musaeus (and is at the start because the Eumolpia chronologically falls before the other sources), so we state what we know about that account from Pseudo-Eratosthenes. The Catasterismi itself was a work of astral mythology (as we note when we introduce it), so it makes sense that it would have described Zeus as placing the goat among the stars (information which presumably wasn't present in the Eumolpia). Because it's a work of astral mythology, information from the Catasterismi which hasn't come from an earlier source should be placed in the section about versions from works of astral mythology.
  • As this is all pretty convoluted, I'm definitely open to suggestions as to how it could be presented in a more comprehensible manner, though I'm also not sure it matters too much if the reader doesn't perfectly understand all of this (most will just want to hear the stories). As long as they understand a few basic points – that Musaeus wasn't a real guy, that the text which included the account attributed to him is lost and known only through later sources, and that the later source(s) we discuss here is a work of astral mythology – I think it's probably alright. Let me know what you think. – Michael Aurel (talk) 07:49, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

• a mythological handbook attributed to Hyginus' – You use to introduce ancient authors bit not this one? You seem to introduce him with full name in the notes only, any reason why he is treated differently?
  • In the case of the Fabulae, the attribution to Gaius Julius Hyginus is generally considered incorrect. I've gone with which has been attributed to Gaius Julius Hyginus (I want to include the name "Hyginus" somehow, because it's ubiquitous in scholarship), and I've mentioned the probable falsity of the attribution in the note. – Michael Aurel (talk) 11:50, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

• while Hera carries the infant to Crete, – Can't follow here. Where is Hera coming from all of a sudden? She is not introduced or linked, too.
  • This is from moving the explanation of the Theogony's version into a note, I think. She's now "his sister Hera" (and is linked). – Michael Aurel (talk) 11:50, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

• the goddess Night – Why not "Nyx"?
  • In the context of Orphic literature, scholars consistently refer to Nyx as "Night". I couldn't actually tell you why they do this, but my view is that we should generally follow suit in such cases; I did the same over at Nyx#Orphic literature when I wrote that section. – Michael Aurel (talk) 08:29, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

• Kouretes – I think these should be explained in-text.
  • This one's actually been resolved as a result of doing something for UC above. – Michael Aurel (talk) 01:27, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

• Alberto Bernabé [es]'s – I found this quite awkward. Maybe reformulate "The … of Alberto Bernabé [es]" so that the interwiki link is not in between the name and the "'s"?
  • Yes, that's a sensible move: it's now According to the reconstruction of the poem by Alberto Bernabé [es]. – Michael Aurel (talk) 11:50, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

• Why is Psychro Cave not mentioned or linked?
  • My impression is that the identification of the Dictaean cave with Psychro is now generally rejected; that article, unfortunately, presents a somewhat misleading picture. If you'll excuse the shameless self-promotion, the third paragraph I recently wrote at Cult of Zeus#Crete probably gives a more accurate summary of modern scholarly opinion. See, for example, Prent's Cretan Sanctuaries and Cults, p. 339: As discussed in the previous chapter, the identification of the Psychro cave with the Dictaean Antron mentioned in ancient literary sources is probably incorrect and even the issue of its proposed dedication to a cult for Zeus must remain open to question. ("Dictaean Antron" just means "Dictaean cave".) In 1988, Charles Crowther proposed that Mount Dikte was the mountain Petsofas, which is near the sanctuary of Zeus Dictaeus at Palaikastro; not all scholars are as confident about this identification as Furley and Bremer (who, in their Greek Hymns, Vol. 2, p. 9, call it "virtually certain"), but I do think recent scholarship has broadly trended in that direction. If your general point is that when describing most accounts we don't include a location more specific than "Crete" (the exceptions here are Ovid and Apollodorus), I think that's fairly reasonable. It might be possible to work in the specific location in a few other places (although it won't be anywhere other than Ida or Dicte, currently mentioned in the accounts from Ovid and Apollodorus, respectively). – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:32, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

• Great article overall! --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:43, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

  Thank you, Jens Lallensack! Let me know if you have any comebacks, particularly on the point about Heracles and the horns. – Michael Aurel (talk) 11:52, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

• Support – looks good to me. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 08:05, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

A.Cython

Clarification, I am not an expert on the topic so my comments should be viewed from the perspective of a casual reader. Also, I am relatively new in providing comments at FAC so consider my comments optional. Either way I found the work to be excellent.

• Too many parenthesis. I understand their function, but I think there are opportunities where this can be minimized to ease the reading flow, perhaps replacing in some instances with commas. I give a few examples,
  • he receives an oracle advising him to use the goat's skin as a weapon in his war against the Titans (because of its terrifying nature). could it not be read as "the goat's skin as a weapon, due to its terrifying nature, in his war against the Titans."
    • Done, though by removing the brackets and adding a comma after "Titans". – Michael Aurel (talk) 12:02, 19 March 2026 (UTC)
  • According to De astronomia (a work of astral mythology probably composed in the 2nd century AD),[34] which also recounts the narrative from Musaeus,[35] this weapon which Zeus uses against the Titans is the aegis. the reader to reach to the relevant information had to go through an explanation in (...) and then a secondary statement. It is a bit much. Perhaps something like: "According to an astral mythology work De astronomia,{{efn| provide here the rest of the information }} this weapon which Zeus uses against the Titans is the aegis."
    • Agreed. I've done it differently (with a semicolon), but this should now be better. – Michael Aurel (talk) 12:02, 19 March 2026 (UTC)
  • which suggests the breast of a human (rather than the teat of a goat) → "a human, rather than the teat of a goat"
    • Done, though without the comma. – Michael Aurel (talk) 12:02, 19 March 2026 (UTC)
  • Pope Paul V (another member of the Borghese family) this can be viewed as a sarcastic comment, perhaps changed into "Pope Paul V, who was also part of the Borghese family."
    • I've used that wording – which solves the possibly of interpreting this as sarcastic – though I've kept the brackets here. – Michael Aurel (talk) 12:02, 19 March 2026 (UTC)
• In Amalthea_(mythology)#Modern, there are two pictures (the two in the middle) that are very similar, almost mirror image of each other. They were made by different artists and used different techniques, but still is it this a bit redundant? If I understand correct the spirit of the WP guidelines is for us to pick the most representative material, not listing everything, correct? Feel free to ignore this but I felt these two were too similar and I could not find a good explanation in the main body.
  • The general approach here is that we include pictures of the works discussed in the most detail in the body. Bernini's sculpture is discussed in the first paragraph, the works by Jordaens, Bolswert, and Poussin in the second, and the statue by Julien in the third. The bit where we mention the engraving is A print after this painting by the Frisian engraver Schelte a Bolswert. I think it'd be nice to keep it, though I'm not hugely attached to it. (If you click onto the image you can also see the Latin inscription at the bottom, which might be interesting.) – Michael Aurel (talk) 12:12, 19 March 2026 (UTC)
• Fewer words help with reading flow
  • relief, which depicts her → "relief, depicting her"
    • I've read it a few times both ways and I think the current version sounds slightly better to me, though I'm having trouble justifying why. Feel free to mount a counterargument. – Michael Aurel (talk) 12:23, 19 March 2026 (UTC)
  • described as being able to produce an → "described as producing an"
    • This one might shift the statement slightly, I think: we're talking more about a power or capability of the horn. (I think "generally described as producing an" might imply that most appearances of the horn in myth involve someone using the horn to create an inexhaustible supply of food.) – Michael Aurel (talk) 12:23, 19 March 2026 (UTC)
  • though the horn is there part of a different story Either "there" is not needed or something is missing, i.e., "is there as part"
    • Nice to see you've checked the notes (I don't think many reviewers do). I've just removed this parenthetical, as it wasn't really needed. – Michael Aurel (talk) 12:23, 19 March 2026 (UTC)
• a valuable receptable spelling? A.Cython(talk) 04:36, 19 March 2026 (UTC)
  • Yup, typo. Fixed. – Michael Aurel (talk) 12:12, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

  Thanks, A.Cython! I've responded to these comments; let me know if you have any further concerns. – Michael Aurel (talk) 12:26, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

• Support for FA status for me. Thank you for addressing my concerns. A.Cython(talk) 00:05, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

caeciliusinhorto

While ancient Greek women is my usual area, I tend to stick firmly to the real rather than mythical ones, and I see that you've already been thoroughly cross-examined by some excellent classics editors so I can't find anything particularly content-wise to quibble about, but I do have a few prose issues.

• In the poem, Luc Brisson and West believe that Amalthea was the wife of Melisseus: incredibly nitpicky, as this is ambiguous only theoretically – I don't seriously propose that anyone is going to interpret the text in this way – but Brisson and West are not characters in the poem and pedantically you probably intend Luc Brisson and West believe that in the poem Amalthea was...
  • No, fair enough; if you're going to nitpick, this is the place to do it. Your phrasing works, so I've gone with that. – Michael Aurel (talk) 11:27, 26 March 2026 (UTC)
• Heaven knows I'm guilty of this too and should look to the beam in my own eye, but the article tends towards overextended sentences propped up by comma after comma after comma. I'd be tempted to split some of them up for readability's sake; for instance the sentence beginning In the same passage in which he cites Pherecydes ... could be split into two with ... retells this story. He describes ...
  • Yep, there's no question that this is a flaw in my writing style. I've split that sentence (with a semicolon, as I think we need the reader to understand that this is the Amalthea from the myth of Achelous in particular). I've also split a few others. – Michael Aurel (talk) 11:27, 26 March 2026 (UTC)
• rationalise Amalthea as a goat: this is the word Bremmer uses, but I really don't understand what "rationalise" is meant to mean in this context. Callimachus' version still has Zeus looked after by a nymph and suckled by a goat, it's just that Amalthea is the goat rather than the nymph – how is that more rational?
  • It's a good question, and one I'm not sure I can answer spectacularly well. My impression is that by turning Amalthea into a goat Callimachus shifts the myth slightly closer to something historical, and Zeus slightly closer to human. As you correctly note, the nymphs are still there, but the fully fledged goddesses are absent, and just beforehand he describes the umbilical cord as falling to the ground (which is a reworking of this passage from the Theogony). This ties into Callimachus's broader aims in the hymn and his drawing together of material from various sources (matters I'm not remotely qualified to comment on!). I see your point, though, that this is all going to be rather opaque to the uninitiated. I suppose we should probably do something here, though I'm not sure what: definitely open to thoughts and suggestions. – Michael Aurel (talk) 11:27, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

I must run now, but possibly will have a few more comments once I've given the article time to digest – it's certainly thorough! Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 21:01, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

@Caeciliusinhorto: thanks! Appreciate you swinging by. I've tended to these points, but feel free to throw in some more if you so please. – Michael Aurel (talk) 11:30, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

Comments by Bgsu98 (3/14/26)

Lead

• "The Elementary Education Act 1870 was intended to provide sufficient elementary schools for all children. Schooling was made compulsory up to the age of ten in 1880 and free at the elementary level in 1891. The minimum school leaving-age was increased to 12 in the 1890s and to 14 by the Education Act 1918." -- a few stylistic recommendations.

• I've done the third of these. I think the first two sound more natural as they are now. Llewee (talk) 23:04, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

• "By the end of the period, a third of adolescents entered secondary school." --> Recommend using the past tense and not the past progressive.

• I think this might give the impression that it's referring to a third of everyone who had been adolescent during the period, rather than a third of those who were adolescents at that point. Llewee (talk) 23:17, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

• "Secondary schools taught an academic curriculum which reflected parents' aspirations for their children." --> Missing apostrophe on "parents".

• done Llewee (talk) 23:20, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

Welsh education in the early- to mid-19th century

• Isn't "percent" one word? Regardless, I would recommend simply writing 58%, 26%, etc.

• "Per cent" is the British way of spelling it. I have been told to write it in words in previous reviews of my work. I have gone through the article to make sure it is consistent.--Llewee (talk) 00:53, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• "knowledge of the three R's" --> I would recommend rewriting as "academic knowledge", or something similar.

• "The three r's" is quite a common phrase to refer to a basic education focused on literacy and numeracy. I don't think think there is any harm in including it, especially as its meaning is explained.--Llewee (talk) 00:53, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

Terminology

• "Elementary schools, equivalent to primary education, were most people's sole experience of schooling." --> This sentence reads awkwardly.

• I don't think anything can be done about that sorry. I think primary education is a better link than primary school. The former is about the concept in general rather than a specific institution. Llewee (talk) 12:00, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

"I don't think anything can be done about that sorry"? You sentence is written awkwardly and there's nothing you can do about it? What does "equivalent to primary education" mean without a verb? Also, "most people's" is weird phrasing for a formal setting. Bgsu98 (Talk) 18:02, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

You don't need to be rude. I have slightly reworded the sentence but I don't think restructuring the whole thing would work. Llewee (talk) 20:10, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• "Young children in elementary schools were referred to as the infants." --> Recommend removing the "the".

• Given the word "infants" has other meanings, I think the phrase "the infants" help convey that it's a specific category of schoolchildren. It's also the wording used in the source. Llewee (talk)

The fact that there is a wikilink makes it clear what meaning you are using. And the "the" is super awkward. Bgsu98 (Talk) 18:02, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

Changed this Llewee (talk) 22:02, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• "Their age range overlapped with elementary schools..."

• done Llewee (talk) 16:17, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• "The usual starting age at Welsh secondary schools was 12[21] and many students only attended for a few years.[22]" --> Citations must go after punctuation marks or at the end of sentences, so source no. 21 needs to be moved to the end of the sentence.

• Where is that a policy? It just says inline citations are "close to the material it supports, for example after the sentence or paragraph" at WP:CITETYPE. The citations are covering different parts of the sentence. Llewee (talk) 16:17, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• "The term England was often used to refer to the whole of the island of Great Britain in this period, including Wales.[26]" --> This seems largely irrelevant to this topic; recommend removing altogether.

• The terms are used interchangeable at various points in the article so I think it's helpful to include context. Llewee (talk) 16:18, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

Historical context, 1870 — 1939

• "Most of Ireland left the United Kingdom forming the Irish Free State in the early 1920s." --> Unsourced, but also irrelevant to this topic; recommend removing.

• I have removed this. Llewee (talk) 16:40, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• "Numerous unsuccessful proposals were made to create a National Council of Education during this period; a committee of Welsh officials that would have authority over Wales's education system." --> Recommend shuffling the sentence thusly: "Numerous unsuccessful proposals were made to create a National Council of Education, a committee of Welsh officials that would have authority over Wales's education system, during this period."

• done Llewee (talk) 16:40, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• "...recalled about the street where she was born in Pontypool" --> Recommend rephrasing as "spoke (or wrote) about the street..."

• I prefer the previous wording as it emphasises that she was writing a long time later. Llewee (talk) 16:40, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• "Recall" is a transitive verb; it needs a direct object or nothing at all, but not a prepositional phrase. The "about" in that sentence needs to go. Bgsu98 (Talk) 17:27, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• done Llewee (talk) 17:49, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• "The expanding[40] middle-class were interested in Welsh culture.[34]" --> Move source no. 40 to the end of the sentence.
• "The Cymru Fydd (Wales Will Be) movement promoted Welsh nationalism[40] and the idea of home rule began to be debated.[46]" --> Move source no. 40 to the end of the sentence.
• "It started to fall, thereafter, but the economic recovery was slower in South Wales than in most parts of the United Kingdom."

• It seems fine as it is to me. Llewee (talk)

Laws, politics and administration

• Is "Nonconformist" a proper noun or not?

• It is I think from the article on the subject. I have fixed the cases where it wasn't capitalised.--Llewee (talk) 23:26, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• "In others, there was more controversy which sometimes led to a referendum of local people." --> This sentence is unclear.

• added footnote explaining Llewee (talk) 21:56, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• "The usual argument made against their creation was that it would increase, local taxation, the rates." --> I have italicized this portion of the sentence that reads very awkwardly.

• reworded Llewee (talk) 17:44, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• "There were sometimes allegations that local landowners put pressure on their tenants to vote against."

• done Llewee (talk) 17:44, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• "there were complaints that Nonconformist leaders coerced their religious followers into voting a certain way."

• done Llewee (talk) 17:44, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• "Electoral behaviour often differed from national elections."

• I think that would be putting to much emphasis on the point. The source doesn't say that it was especially common. Llewee (talk) 17:44, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• You use a hyphen in the phrase "school-leaving age" earlier in this article, but not here. Pick one.

• taken out the hyphen--Llewee (talk) 00:30, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

• "children who wished to leave school at the age of twelve took the Labour Proficiency Examination, in the three R's."

• I have taken out the apostrophe but I don't understand why you want to remove that part of the sentence. Llewee (talk) 17:44, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• "Compulsory education was extended to disabled children between the 1890s[3] and the First World War.[19]" --> Move source no. 3 to the end of the sentence.
• You have some ages given as numbers and some spelled out. Pick one to use consistently.

MOS:SPELLNUM says to spell out sometimes, and use digits other times. I have not looked at this article to see if it applies the MOS:SPELLNUM algorithm correctly, but it should not use "all one or all the other". Noleander (talk) 01:01, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

Per MOS:SPELLNUM: “Comparable values near one another should be all spelled out or all in figures, even if some of the numbers would (or could) normally be written differently.” Bgsu98 (Talk) 01:08, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

In previous reviews I have been told to write single digit numbers in words and double digit numbers in figures, in general, I try to do that Llewee (talk) 17:44, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

In the third paragraph of this section, you have some two-digit numbers spelled out and others written as digits. This is another example of the inconsistency to which I referred yesterday. Bgsu98 (Talk) 17:49, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

I've fixed those now. Llewee (talk) 20:47, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• "These authorities were partially responsible for funding all state schools in their areas"

• I think "would be" works better here as it's describing a new situation. Llewee (talk) 17:44, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

"Would" is used for hypotheticals. This is not a hypothetical situation in the past; therefore, the past tense is called for. Bgsu98 (Talk) 17:53, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

changed to "were to be" Llewee (talk) 21:11, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• "All Welsh counties, with the exception of Radnorshire and Brecknockshire, refused to fully implement the new system at the end of that year."

• That's would imply that they were expected to start implementing the system at the end of 1903. That isn't clear from the source. Llewee (talk) 17:44, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• "...a reference to the Coercion Acts."

• The term "Coercion Acts" was used to refer to a large number of laws passed over several centuries. I think adding "the" would give the impression it was referring to a specific thing. Llewee (talk) 17:44, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

The fact that "Acts" is plural makes it clear that the sentence is not referring to one specific thing. But the phrase "to Coercion Acts" sounds awkward. Bgsu98 (Talk) 17:57, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

In my mind, "the Coercion Acts" would suggest a couple of laws, passed at about the same time, to achieve the similar objective. Can we just agree to disagree about this? Llewee (talk) 21:17, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

Not sure what the bold highlighting above (throughout this review) is supposed to signify. In at least six of them, the grammar and spelling looks perfect to me. But maybe I'm not understanding the intent of the bold? Noleander (talk) 01:01, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

What's in bold is my recommended correction. Bgsu98 (Talk) 01:06, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• I think the plural of "curriculum" is "curricula". At least according to my spellcheck.

• done Llewee (talk) 17:44, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• "a medical department was set up in the Board of Education, and LECs were required to appoint school medical officers and conduct physical examinations of pupils."

• It's a list of things so "and" is between the final two things in the list. Llewee (talk) 17:44, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

There is no "and" there at present. That's why I included it here; it needs to be added. Bgsu98 (Talk) 17:51, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• There is an "and" between the point about school medical officers and the final point about medical inspection.

If "conduct physical examinations of pupils" is your last element in a sequence, then it needs a subject in front of it like all of the other elements in this list. As written, "LECs were required to appoint school medical officers and conduct physical examinations of pupils" is one element. Bgsu98 (Talk) 18:23, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

added "they were also obliged to" before "conduct" Llewee (talk) 22:07, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

Private, charitable and specialist schools

• "The government assumed that after the 1870 Act, 5% of children..."

• added apostrophes Llewee (talk) 18:19, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• "Certain schools existed to cater to wealthy families[78] and these households sometimes sent their children away to be educated.[79]." --> Move source no. 78 to the end of the sentence.
• "They were often criticised by school inspectors; for instance, being considered unhygienic." --> Recommend rewriting as "They were often criticised by school inspectors for being unhygienic."

• There were multiple criticisms but I don't think it's necessary to list them all here.Llewee (talk) 18:19, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• "They later became widespread across Wales and England..."

• done Llewee (talk) 18:19, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• "The Waifs and Strays Society and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children established orphanages..."

• I don't think we need to write "the" twice. Llewee (talk) 18:19, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

Llewee: I am maybe 1/4 of the way through the article and have generated a laundry list of comments as you can see above. There are numerous errors: excessive and improperly-used semicolons, citations placed mid-sentence and not after puncutation, inconsistent uses of numbers v. words, improper use of the past progressive when the simple past should suffice, and so on. I recommend another close re-reading of this text. I do not want to continue doing this review at this point until some efforts are made toward improving the prose. Let me know when you've had a chance to examine my comments and further improve your article before I return to it. Oppose until substantial improvements are made. Bgsu98 (Talk) 22:19, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

@Bgsu98, just as a drive-by comment: citations being placed mid-sentence is not necessarily disallowed; per WP:TSI, if that citation only supports the part of the sentence immediately preceding it, then the location of the citation is fine. Of course, putting the citation at the end of the sentence is acceptable, but is by no means required. Your other comments are fine. – Epicgenius (talk) 01:09, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

User talk:Epicgenius: I have been told the opposite in the past. And of course I have passed along that information to others. Thank you for your clarification. Bgsu98 (Talk) 20:49, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

Bgsu98, I have responded to your comments and given the rest of the article a tidy up.--Llewee (talk) 00:30, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

Comments from Noleander

• He was complementary of elementary school teachers at a time when they were often viewed with little respect,... Supposed to be complimentary?

• fixed--Llewee (talk) 21:37, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

• The proportion of day school pupils at private school ... Can the term "day school" be defined at first use with a footnote or parenthesis? I'm guessing it is British term for "not a boarding school"?

• That is one of the meanings but the main point here is the contrast with sunday schools, I have added a footnote.--Llewee (talk) 22:18, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

• Candidates tended to be elected to represent religious factions; by the end of the 19th century, this was replaced by political party affiliations in larger towns. - The word "replaced" is a bit ambiguous: could mean "legally mandated change"; or could mean "gradually evolved".

• m-dashes: I think some m-dashes have spaces on either side, which is prohibited by WP:DASHVAR

• fixed--Llewee (talk) 22:55, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

• m-dashes: some book cites use m-dashes for date range xxxx—yyyy, but MOS:RANGE says that n-dashes should be used for a range of numbers.

• ditto--Llewee (talk) 23:02, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

• I see that Bgsu98 has identified quite a few grammar issues ... I'm chagrined, because I did a peer review on this article, and I feel bad that I did not find those before the article got here to FAC. That reviewer wrote "I do not want to continue doing this review at this point until some efforts are made toward improving the prose. Let me know when you've had a chance to examine my comments and further improve your article before I return to it." ... it would be nice if they could continue with their review: they clearly have outstanding copy-editing skills.

• Grammar is not one of my talents but I hope the condition of the prose has improved a bit now.--Llewee (talk) 23:09, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

• Size: The article is at 11,910 prose words, which is well above the 9,000 size recommened by WP:SIZERULE. I know that guideline is not a mandate, but most other FAC nominations are under 11,000. For example, Manhattan Project feed materials program is 10,253 prose words.

• Images: the images are very informative, engaging, and relevant. I have not examined them for free-to-use status.

• Typo? ...by school boards in elementary' school buildings ... the apostrophe after the word "elementary"?

• Fixed--Llewee (talk) 23:41, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

• Why in quotes Around the time of the First World War, the subjects listed on inspection reports as being taught at elementary schools included "English, Arithmetic, history and geography, music and drawing". Some schools taught practical subjects, such as "needlework, laundry, handicraft, hygiene and school gardens" - Unless there is some reason to doubt the source, just list the topics in the encyclopedia's voice.

• Why quotes: The subjects taught included "book-keeping, shorthand, cookery, woodcarving, ambulance work and handicrafts"

• Why name the source: John Hughes, a professor of education, commented in 1928 that the teaching of Welsh-speaking children in English was still common "in backward schools and areas".Johnes comments that some physical punishment for speaking Welsh at school likely continued in the early 20th century If those sources are reliable, simply state the facts in the encyclopedia's voice; if not reliable: remove it entirely.

• The article seems to have a bit more detail than normally seen in FA articles, such as:
  • School boards were elected every three years.
  • Around 18 governesses were working in Anglesey in 1871.
  • Research relating to a group of teachers who worked in the Rhondda, during the late 19th century, suggested that a clear majority had attended training colleges. -> Of the teachers in Rhondda, a majority had attended training college.
  • Schools employed young people to help adult staff with teaching.
  • Young members of staff sometimes struggled to control their pupils or were themselves distractable.
  • They had to be at least sixteen, or fifteen in rural areas, to allow for them to attend secondary school before their training.
  • Parents tended to be supportive of corporal punishment but could become angry if they considered discipline excessive; mentions of parents complaining about the issue appear in school records.
  • Roald Dahl wrote that he had few memories of attending Llandaff Cathedral School in the 1920s;[123] one of his recollections was being caned for playing a prank on a shopkeeper.[124] The headmaster told his mother that corporal punishment was a part of British education which she, being a foreigner, could not understand. - Anecdotal.
  • The society continued to build some schools during this period, for instance, opening one in Gyffin, Caernarfonshire in 1910.
  • Morgan Thomas wrote that she found writing and arithmetic lessons difficult at her Welsh elementary school.[166] She recalled history[167] and drawing[168] lessons more fondly, while, her first years at school were focused on play.[169] She indicates that pupils were taught to be polite and deferential to authority. - Anecdotal. Not high priority in a large article.

• I think using her recollections is helpful as my sources on elementary schools are a weaker on the early 20th century than the late 19th.--Llewee (talk) 00:16, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

• • Daniel Parry-Jones [Wikidata], who was born in 1891 and a Welsh-speaker with difficulties understanding his lessons,[214] remembered learning at school that English was "the language of the boss-nation. Vaguely we knew that something had happened in the past to bring about such a state of things, which we now calmly accepted and went our own way of business." - Anectdotal
  • Clio was a training ship docked in the Menai Strait; it was designed to prepare adolescent boys from various backgrounds to become sailors[309] and received visits from school inspectors. Unless Clio became famous for some reason, probably too trivial?
  • ... etc ...

• Regarding the list above: The examples fall into three categories:

1. Too trivial for an encyclopedia
2. Anecdotal: a fact about an individual person (not about Wales or schools)
3. Self-evident fact (always true in all schools in the world)

If the article were small, including some trivial or anecdotal facts might be okay. But at nearly 11,454 words, the article is on the large size ... will the verbosity be off-putting to readers? Can the text be tightened and made more engaging?

• That's all for now. Noleander (talk) 04:28, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

• Noleander I have carried on condensing down the article and its now under 11,000 words. --Llewee (talk) 00:12, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

• Looking at the FA criteria (FACR), my assessment of this article is:

• 1a) Well-written - See below
• 1b) Comprehensive: - Meets FACR
• 1c) Well-researched, good sources, & Verifiable - Meets FACR But I have not done a spot check.
• 1d) Neutral- Meets FACR
• 1e) Stable - Meets FACR
• 1f) Copyright, etc- Meets FACR
• 2a) Lead - Meets FACR
• 2b) Structure & sections- Meets FACR
• 2c) Citations- Meets FACR
• 3) Media - Meets FACR. Images are excellent and informative. I believe all have Alt text. I have not done a free-to-use review of the images.
• 4) Size - See below

• 1a) PROSE: The FA criterion is: "its prose is engaging and of a professional standard". Regarding "engaging": the topic is a bit dry for my tastes; but that reflects on my tastes, not the prose. Regarding "professional", reviewer User:Bgsu98 above found it wanting and wrote "Let me know when you've had a chance to examine my comments and further improve your article before I return to it. Oppose until substantial improvements are made". I'm curious to see if recent copy editing by the nominator has resolved those concerns.

• I chose one section at random to examine ("Legacy"). I got as far as "There was also a growing awareness that the Welsh language was declining which education was sometimes blamed for." before I gave up. Plus, there is the inexplicable use of a semicolon instead of a colon to introduce a quote in the preceding paragraph. Bgsu98 (Talk) 16:26, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

• 4) SIZE: The size is currently 10,704 prose words, which exceeds the 9,000 words suggested in WP:SIZERULE. That guideline provides an exception: "Probably should be divided or trimmed, though the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading material." [emphasis added]. This nominator had a similar article last year in FAC, History of education in Wales (1701–1870), which was 10,200 words and was promoted to FA. Manhattan Project feed materials program was just promoted at 10,372 words. Query: The date range of this article is 1870-1939, does that range come from the sources? Or was it an arbitrary range selected by WP editors?

• Thank you for the review, I will be away for the next couple of days as I have a real world deadline on Thursday but will carry on working on the article after that and review your nomination on the weekend. There is a lot of support in the sources for a starting point of about 1870. The issue came up at the end of the sister article's FA nomination. The 1939 end point reflected the end of a chapter in the first book I used when writing this series of articles. I also think it makes sense as plans for postwar education reforms started to be made during WW2. Llewee (talk) 21:42, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

• That's all I have for now. I'll come back around 10 April 2026 and make a second pass. Noleander (talk) 15:48, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Support Comments from Noleander

• I did a peer review of this, so I'll continue here with a FAC review.

• Prose size: this is a Level 3 WP:Vital article with about 2 million page views per year. So exceeding the 9,000 word guideline from WP:SIZERULE by about 18% seems acceptable.

• Clairfy/wording:

For a nonspinning, uncharged black hole, the radius of the event horizon, or Schwarzschild radius, is proportional to the mass, M, through [formula omitted] where rs is the Schwarzschild radius and M☉ is the mass of the Sun.   For a black hole with nonzero spin or electric charge, the radius is smaller, until an extremal black hole could have an event horizon close to [formula omitted] half the radius of a nonspinning, uncharged black hole of the same mass.

These two sentences contain several important facts. The bold text should say For a black hole of the same mass with nonzero spin or electric charge, the radius is smaller. The current text puts the " black hole of the same mass" far away at the end of the 2nd sentence where most readers won't make the connection. Suggest make this 3 sentences by breaking the 2nd sentence into two; and adding words as shown in the blue text above.

• • I have reworded this per your suggestion. Shocksingularity (talk) 02:35, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

• Same green text as immediately above: "... until an extremal black hole could have an event horizon close to..." The word "until" reads awkwardly and will confuse some readers. I think it is trying to say "... in the limit where rotational speeds and charge are extremely large ... the radius approaches half the radius of a non-spinning uncharged black hole of the same mass." Or something like that.

• • I changed this to As a black hole's charge and spin approach the maximum allowed value, the radius of the event horizon nears [formula]. Does this sound better to you? Shocksingularity (talk) 02:35, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

• Ref Check tool says that Book citations are not showing city/location consistently: "Inconsistent use of Publisher Location (3 with; 23 without)". Probably easiest to remove the "location" field from the 3 book templates that have it.

• • I removed the location field. Shocksingularity (talk) 02:35, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

• Ambiguous: ... can be inferred through its interaction with other matter and with electromagnetic radiation such as visible light. There are two ways to read that: does "interaction" apply only to matter? or also to EM radiation?

• • I changed this to can be inferred through its interaction with matter and electromagnetic radiation.... Hopefully that makes it clearer (that it applies to both). Shocksingularity (talk) 00:35, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• Does the Evolution section need an introductory sentence or two? That section follows the Formation section, but it may not be clear to readers what Evolution section covers. Consider 1 or 2 sentences at the very start of Evolution section that say something like "After a black hole is formed, it may experience additional events or transformations, including merger, ... etc ..."

• • Done. Added this to the lead: After a black hole forms, it may change through phenomena such as mergers, accretion of matter, and evaporation via Hawking radiation. Shocksingularity (talk) 00:35, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• Merge Open questions section with Alternatives section into a "Future research" or "Areas of investigation" section? The phrase "Open questions" is a bit idiomatic, and in fact there is a box on the right side that uses the alterntive term "Unsolved problem" ... which is it? You and I know, but readers w/o native English knowledge may get confused by the two phrases. And the "Alternatives" section is also discussing an open question, true? To clarify for lay readers: Consider merging both sections into one called "Areas of investigation" .. (and "Alternatives" becomes a subsection under the merged section).

• • Done. Good idea. Shocksingularity (talk) 00:35, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• Done for now. I've gone over the article, and I'm struggling to identify any possible improvements: prose, style or citations. In conjunction with the Peer Review I did on this article a couple of weeks ago: I'm leaning support. Ping me in a few days, around 17 March, and I'll make a final pass. Noleander (talk) 22:29, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

  @Noleander: Pinging per request. Shocksingularity (talk) 03:30, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

RoySmith

I was watching the PR, so I'll jump in with both feet now.

TompaDompa

I meant to weigh in on the peer review, but never found the time. I'll try to do better here. At minimum, I should be able to find the time to take a look at the "In fiction" section (I am the main author of the black holes in fiction article). If I haven't got round to it in a week or two, please ping me. TompaDompa (talk) 23:39, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

I'm sure some of the FAQ hard core will object, but if we're going to do fiction, surely we need to mention the drink. RoySmith (talk) 23:57, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback! I am currently quite busy, but I will work on those edits as soon as I have time. I just wanted to let you know that I did read them. Shocksingularity (talk) 04:44, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

In fiction

I'll start with looking at this section, and we'll see if I find the time to look at the rest.

• The section has a {{main}} template linking to Black holes in fiction. I don't think this section does a very good job at being a summary of that article per WP:SUMMARYSTYLE. The balance of different aspects does not seem right, and there is nothing about supermassive or micro black holes, for instance.
• The balance of sources used for this section strikes me as a bit peculiar. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy, and Science Fiction Literature Through History: An Encyclopedia are all high-quality sources on science fiction written by established experts on the genre, but the other sources are quite a bit more marginal (not counting Kip Thorne, who is a great source on black holes in general and if anything too close to Interstellar to be appropriate to cite there, but not really someone known for insights on science fiction more broadly).
• I don't think File:Interstellar black hole (no lens flare).jpg adds basically anything here. There is already the very similar-looking File:Black Hole Desktop & Phone Wallpapers (SVS14146 - BH accretion disk viz desktop).png in the "Accretion disk" section, and that's a better image.
• It seems rather odd to me to speak of "Disney's The Black Hole", "Christopher Nolan's science fiction epic Interstellar", and "the 2018 Netflix reboot of Lost in Space", but omitting the authors of all the written works.
• The Skylark of Space should be in italics: The Skylark of Space.
• "As black holes grew to public recognition in the 1960s and 1970s, they began to be featured in films as well as novels, such as Disney's The Black Hole. Black holes have also been used in works of the 21st century, such as Christopher Nolan's science fiction epic Interstellar." – this seems rather trivial, no? It doesn't say much other than that black holes have continued appearing in fiction and that some of these appearances have been in films.
• "Additionally, black holes can feature as hazards to spacefarers and planets: A black hole threatens a deep-space outpost in 1978 short story The Black Hole Passes, and a binary black hole dangerously alters the orbit of a planet in the 2018 Netflix reboot of Lost in Space." – the sources cited here not being my first choice of ones to rely on for something like this aside, this sentence makes connections that I do not see those sources making.

I might take a closer look at the section later. I think it would benefit from some editing directed by the guidance laid out at WP:ANALYSISBEFOREEXAMPLES. TompaDompa (talk) 22:22, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Graham Beards

I am impressed by the quality of this contribution. I have a couple of nitpicks for now:

• The use of the {{clear}} template under Microlensing is generating too much whitespace.
  • Removed template. Not sure why that was even there. Shocksingularity (talk) 19:39, 15 March 2026 (UTC)
• Reference 5 is used in the Lead alone and not under Event Horizon. This seems odd. Are the citations necessary in the Lead? (See WP:LEADCITE)
  • I have removed the reference from the lead and moved it to the proper section. Shocksingularity (talk) 19:39, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

Perhaps more to come. Graham Beards (talk) 16:44, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

Regarding the {{clear}}, I think it generally causes more problems than it solves. The real problem is too many images which starts pushing things out of whack starting around Direct interferometry. Perhaps not all of these images are needed? The "EHT telescopes observe from different angles" one, for example, really doesn't add anything useful. Note that MOS:IMAGEREL says Images must be significant and relevant in the topic's context, not primarily decorative. At least some of the image used don't really obey that. Or perhaps {{multiple image}} (especially with direction=horizontal) could be used to get a more compact layout. Another possibility is to scale some of them down with upright=0.85 (or whatever number works). RoySmith (talk) 17:08, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• I think the general reader will be thankful for the economy of equations. This comment is just to note that I have checked the ones included for accuracy and I have not found any issues. Also, I like the way the article balances established knowledge with more speculative ideas. I have reservations about the Further Reading section, and the External Links to a lesser extent. This is not an esoteric subject. Do our readers really need this guidance? I doubt it. Graham Beards (talk) 08:41, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

  I have removed the "further reading" section and overhauled the "external links" section:

  • Replaced BBC's In Our Time podcast episode on black holes (from 2001) with more recent NOVA episode Black Hole Apocalypse (2017).
  • Fixed a dead link for ESA's black hole simulation interactive.
  • Removed a link to Hubble information on black holes that does not really provide much more information beyond what is in this article
  • Removed a Q&A last updated in 1995 that mostly covers what's already in the article
  • Removed paywalled NYT article that is mostly about low-importance/outdated/already stated information
  • Removed video of stars moving around Sag A*: we already have a video of that in the article, and the linked video is from 2008
  • Removed "Movie of black hole candidate" video (the "candidate" in question was Sag A* and the source was last updated in 2002)
  • Removed link to paper w/ videos of gravitational waves - hard to access videos, and we already have a video of GW
  • Added link to black hole parameters calculator
  • Added link to NASA simulation of falling into a black hole and explanation video
  • Added link to PBS Space Time black holes playlist

  Shocksingularity (talk) 04:33, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

• I Support the promotion of this candidate, subject to a problem-free source review. Graham Beards (talk) 16:14, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

UC

You wait three hours for a species article at FAC, and then...

• I noticed this on the European rabbit article as well: the rather pretty {{Fossilrange}} template is absolutely useless when that range is less than about 20 million years – present. This one's not quite as bad, but it's very difficult to see the marker at all at standard screen size, and harder still to register that it is a marker (rather than, say, interpreting the chart to mean that the range goes from Precambrian to Neogene). I don't think that's necessarily this nominator's or this article's problem, but I think it's worth putting out.
  • In an interesting coincidence, there's actually a template in the works by User:Chaotic Enby to deal with this sort of problem, but I'm not sure it's ready yet to implement on FACs/FAs. But there's hope! SilverTiger12 (talk) 19:18, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

    The template is coded already at {{Period fossil range}} – I was mostly waiting to see if the consensus favored its original version with the bars stacked on each other, or the sandboxed one with the zoom-in, before we could officially mark it as ready for mainspace. I was thinking whether we should make a "Neogene + Quaternary" bar or even a Cenozoic one, and this seems like a good case for it! We currently have these per period, but many recent taxa extend back to the late Neogene, given how short the Quaternary is compared to every other period. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 19:59, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

    Ooh, that's good. Personally, I'm not sure a template needs positive consensus for use in mainspace -- WP:BEBOLD and all that. We might well seek consensus if we were going to replace existing templates en masse, and of course consensus may develop not to use a template in mainspace, but fundamentally adding one is no different in outcome to making an edit (albeit a very large, complicated and code-heavy one) in the page itself -- it's just that most of the changes are physically made on a different page. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 07:33, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

I've implemented the feedback I got from other folks, and the template got a very positive reception, so I believe consensus is there! There's a Cenozoic bar, so something like the following could work: Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 14:54, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

Definitely looks like an improvement to me. We can carry on refining and improving, of course, but I'd 100% support pushing it to the article for now. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 15:13, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

• the largest living macropredatory shark and fish: what does macropredatory mean? Even for a reader who can parse it as "big" and "eating living things", the meaning isn't obvious (I had to look it up), and even then it's not particularly clear why it's a useful distinction (what's the alternative? Are non-macropredatory animals generally bigger?) It might help to give this space to breathe: something like "it is the third largest living species of fish, and the largest to feed on live prey; the two larger are both filter-feeding sharks"? Might have to move this to somewhere else in the lead to do that.

Changed. LittleJerry (talk) 23:05, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

• They are estimated to reach a length close to 6.1 m (20 ft): the last subject was "males": are we now talking about great whites in general?

Changed. LittleJerry (talk) 23:05, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

I missed this, but as MPF says below, the metric figure should be rounded to 1 sf. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 07:47, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

They said 0. LittleJerry (talk) 13:26, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

One significant figure: so the rounding to 6 we have now is correct. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 14:27, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

• They are estimated to reach ... The shark has about 300 ... White sharks: can we pick a lane on singular/plural? Personally I'm not a huge fan of "the shark eats seals" -- it makes it sound like there's just the one of them -- but either's workable as long as it's consistent.

This is typical in books and articles on species. LittleJerry (talk) 23:05, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

• On which: is it worth sticking to "great white shark" versus "white sharks"? I know we've said in the first sentence that they're the same thing, but part of me wants to interpret "white sharks" as a category of which "great white shark" is a member. See in particular The great white shark has had a fearsome reputation among the public. It is featured in the 1974 novel Jaws and its 1975 film adaptation, both of which portray it as a ferocious man-eater. In reality, white sharks normally do not prey on humans

Changed. LittleJerry (talk) 23:05, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

• Juvenile white sharks typically inhabit shallower water and cannot eat marine mammals until they reach around 3 m (9.8 ft).: the sharks or the mammals?

I think its obvious. Why would readers think the mammals?

It's grammatically rather than logically ambiguous (admittedly, it's not ridiculous that an animal would have a minimum prey size, but 3m seems rather big) -- more a matter of sub-optimal prose than likely confusion. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 07:31, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

Changed. LittleJerry (talk) 19:05, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

• Though an apex predator, the species is sometimes preyed on by orcas: doesn't an apex predator have no natural predators of its own? Or is it a bit more complicated than that?

The literature still considers it an apex predator. LittleJerry (talk) 23:05, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

I did some digging and found this article that explicitly discusses the phenomenon, calling them "coexisting apex predators" while also saying that orcas are the sharks' (only) natural predator. I think we're good here for the lead: I haven't seen how it's presented in the body yet. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 07:45, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

• White shark aggregations have attracted tourists who may view them ... in shark cages.: it sounds here like we mean that the sharks are in cages.

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 23:05, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

• . As of 2025, it is estimated to have declined in numbers by 30–49% over the past 159 years: this is slightly odd phrasing. I would go for "it is estimated to have declined in numbers ... between 1866 and 2025".

Removed.

• Major threats have included bycatching by commercial fisheries: I think it's still bycatch when we mean the action/process rather than the fish. Googling "bycatching" gets a load of results using "bycatch" like that, and nothing for the term itself.

Changed

• protective drum-lines and gillnets along beaches: what's a drum-line and/or a gillnet?

Linked. LittleJerry (talk) 23:12, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

• Several governments have enacted protections for the species, including bans on catching and killing.: suggest adding it, although I like the idea of a ban on sharks killing people.

Changed. LittleJerry (talk) 23:05, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

That's the lead: more to follow. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 21:04, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

• Juvenile white sharks typically inhabit shallower water and cannot eat marine mammals until they reach around 3 m (9.8 ft): see above, but this seems to be another candidate for false precision rounding: if the source says 3m, round to 10ft. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 14:27, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

  Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 16:58, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

I can see that others have got their (multiple rows of?) teeth into the body below, so I'll hold off to avoid duplication -- could you ping me with the comments from Femke and Noleander are addressed? UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 17:51, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Okay. LittleJerry (talk) 20:24, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

I won't put my oar in too deeply until the others have finished, for everyone's sake, but a quick one I notice on re-read:

• is also present near the coasts of South America, but appears to be uncommon: this contradicts the map in the infobox, which says it may have been extirpated from there. That latter suggestion is not mentioned in the article text, as far as I can see, and therefore is not cited. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 12:13, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

Changed. LittleJerry (talk) 13:27, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

UndercoverClassicist, how about now? LittleJerry (talk) 21:12, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Reading Femke's comments below, I can see that most (including several not marked, like "cephalopods" and "project" have been actioned, though I still have concerns here. This is, as she notes, a prominent article that can expect, more than most, a non-expert audience. It's therefore particularly incumbent upon us to make the prose clear to them, and I don't think we're doing that effectively at the moment. A few passages that I found completely impenetrable, or suspect others might:

• Most phylogenetic analyses based on molecular data or anatomical features place the white shark as the sister clade to the mako shark clade with the Lamna clade as the sister clade to all others in the family

This section's subject is already highly technical and there is no other way to put this without looking amateurish. I don't get the push to become Simple English Wikipedia. LittleJerry (talk) 21:35, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

If you look at the rules at simplewiki (for instance, their use of Basic English), you'll see that the suggestions in this review stop short far from what is required there. I'm sure I'm using more than 850 words, and that the text I'm suggesting is not suitable for children and people with learning disabilities. I'm trying to focus on a typical person without prior knowledge on the topic, who might be on the younger side (say 15), but not a child. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 08:27, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

• Teeth from the same geologic layer may exhibit significant variation in serration development and morphology

That's pretty understandable. Its not jargon, but educational language. LittleJerry (talk) 21:39, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

I disagree on both points here. Clear writing isn't amateurish in the slightest: after all, any fool can make complicated ideas sound complicated. The tricky thing is making complicated ideas sound straightforward, but that's exactly what the FA criteria require us to do. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 22:14, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

So now we're saying that "anatomical", "morphology" and "significant" are too complicated for average readers? I am perplexed by this. I need more opinions. WP:OVERSIMPLIFY states that: "It is important not to oversimplify material in the effort to make it more understandable". LittleJerry (talk) 22:29, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

I'd say 'significant' is an easy enough word, and not ambiguous in this context. Anatomical is more difficult, but perhaps can be derived from context if the context is clear enough. Serration and morphology are likely more challenging. Not sure how to reword this though. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 08:27, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

If I asked an average native English-speaking teenager what "morphology" is in the context of "morphology of the tooth". They would absolutely get it. You're confusing jargon with "official" word. We can't change Nasal mucosa to snot. LittleJerry (talk) 20:23, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Snot is in an informal register, which I agree is unsuitable for Wikipedia. If we simplify register to span from informal, plain, to formal, Wikipedia ideally choses the middle register, which is easy to read but does not feel off or childish. That's not always possible. For instance, in English, there is only an informal and formal word for tummy/abdomen, and we might have to err towards a more formal word. When we have to, we should make the surrounding text easy enough to understand for people to understand. This light jargon might not need an explanation, as many people sort of know what it is, but only as long as the context is clear.

Now, I understood this second example on first read, because climate scientists talk about coastal morphology. I can imagine that people without a scientific background would not know this. My guess is that about 30% of readers know what morphology is. I'm not sure how to simplify serrations (I saw a museum describe it as saw-like edges, which might work, but might be vaguer in some sense), but one step towards simplifying could be "Teeth from the same rock layer can differ significantly in their shape and their serrations". —Femke 🐦 (talk) 20:49, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

In addition to this, we should help readers understand why we're talking about layers of rock here -- the key point here is that geological layers correspond to (usually very long) time periods. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 21:18, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

so I have to explain geology too? LittleJerry (talk) 23:39, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

If anything, the argument for explaining here is even stronger -- it may well be true that the median reader of an article about sharks will have a higher-than-average background knowledge about sharks, but we can't rely on them having knowledge of a different field to understand what we've written. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 10:19, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

I literally changed it from strata to "geologic layer" so it can paint a visual picture. The average reader already associates geology with time. LittleJerry (talk) 12:01, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

"My guess is that about 30% of readers know what morphology is" How would you know that? You seem to be assuming that every technical word is unfamiliar to average readers. Technical does not mean its an alien language. They can easily enter the lexicon and I can guarantee that the average person is familiar with the term symbiosis. LittleJerry (talk) 23:38, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

It's a guess, so I don't know. I asked my partner, who has a PhD in an unrelated field, if he could explain morphology. Without context, he could not, with a bit of context his guess was that it means 'change' (you morph into something else). With the word symbiosis, I think the share of people who know what it means is higher, as it's a more common word that sometimes occurs in pop culture (symbionts in Star Trek for instance). With a simple enough context, that word might not need explaining. Most Wikipedia editors, and I suspect you, are highly educated and have read a lot. As such you might experience the curse of knowledge, where you overestimate the knowledge of others in topics you have expertise. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 08:20, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

On seperate note, I have quite a few copyediting points, particularly for the "Etymology and naming" section; the article could really do with a close read for MoS, grammar and stylistic consistency. I'm happy to give some illustrative examples later but an exhaustive list would be quite long. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 21:24, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Illustrative (but not exhaustive) examples:

• In the "Etymology and naming section", we occasionally (Lamia) mark, but usually don't mark, words used as words. This creates ambiguity in phrases like "Australian variant white pointer": only part of that is a name.
• described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae: only Systema Naturae (which should have lang templates) is a title, but for some reason the edition info has been sucked into the formatting.
• Note a consists entirely of a string of lower-case Latin: it needs to be rewritten to be absolutely clear what it is (the translation of Belon's book title), and formatted appropriately. The following sentence of body text is impenetrable to anyone who doesn't speak Latin.
• The province of KwaZulu-Natal, via the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board (KZN),: KZN is the abbreviation for the province, not the sharks board, and should be placed as such.
• Since 1997, the US federal government has prohibited harvesting of the white shark in US waters and any individual that is caught is expected to be released immediately: on first read, I thought that any individual that is caught meant any fisherman caught harvesting sharks.
• In 2009, white sharks were also given legal protections from fishing and capturing by the European Commission specifically Regulation No 43/2009: the end of this sentence is not grammatical, and I can't see any easy fix short of a rewrite. The Numero sign is always abbreviated with a dot, but that's not the biggest issue here.
• The "Bites" section uses single and double quotes variously (see MOS:SINGLE) and has a few easily spotted grammatical errors (e.g. Fisherman were the most likely to encounter a shark.
• an estimated 3–4 m (9.8–13.1 ft) white shark: needs a false precision fix.

In other cases, the prose is grammatical but lacks the fluency and polish needed at FA: see for instance:

Prior to the 1970s, the white shark as a species was known mostly to biologists and fishermen. The release of the 1971 documentary Blue Water, White Death is crediting with bringing the shark to public attention. The white shark's popularity would increase further with the 1974 novel Jaws written by Peter Benchley, and its 1975 film adaptation directed by Steven Spielberg. The novel and film helped create the image of the species as a dangerous man-eater. Benchley would later express regret stating "I cannot rewrite Jaws, nor make an ignoble monster of this magnificent animal

I think this is all very fixable, but it will require some close attention from a capable nit-picker: perhaps better done at PR than here. I would oppose promotion until these issues are fixed, as I think they are incompatible with meeting the criteria. Please ping me or reply if/when you've had a good pass through and are ready for another look. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 22:31, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Fixed all points except 3 and 8, since I don't know Latin nor how to fix the false precision. Mox Eden (talk) 03:47, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

MPF

• "The species is estimated to reach a length close to 6.1 m" — looks like spurious accuracy; change to 6 m, or if 6.1 m is an accurate measurement, remove 'estimated' and specify the source.

20 ft is the important measurement. LittleJerry (talk) 01:34, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

@LittleJerry Check MOS:METRIC. I'd suggest using {{convert|6|m|ft|0}} to avoid spurious accuracy. - MPF (talk) 02:12, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

• "Though an apex predator, the species is sometimes preyed on by orcas" — Clearer wording "Though often considered an apex predator, the species is preyed on by orcas". This seems to happen regularly (see e.g. here), with GWS fleeing an area if Orca are present. That GWS are preyed on, however commonly or rarely, means they are not the apex predator in the ecosystem (the term "apex predator" is heavily over-used in popular writing for a wide range of predators that are not at the apex).

They are considered to be apex predators in the literature. LittleJerry (talk) 01:34, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

• Check engvar compliance per the tag at the top of the page; I've already corrected multiple 'gray' and 'behavior', but I may well have missed some others. - MPF (talk) 01:15, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

This is US English. White sharks aren't found in UK waters. LittleJerry (talk) 01:34, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

@LittleJerry They do occur in UK waters, though only rarely; but more significantly, they are important in Australian and South African seas just as much or more than US waters, so MOS:TIES does not apply; therefore, MOS:RETAIN does apply. I just checked the history of the page (back to 2006), and it was using 'behaviour' spelling pretty consistently in the early days of the page. The engvar tag was added by @Mazewaxie in 2020 and reconfirmed in 2024; perhaps they can add their reasons for doing so - MPF (talk) 02:02, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

They are famously absent in UK waters, but I can accept Australian English. That's probably what it was made to be. Not Oxford English. LittleJerry (talk) 02:03, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

Image review

• Alt text shouldn't replicate captions

• File:Great_white_shark_size_comparison.svg: what's the source of the data used for this comparison?

• File:The_American_Museum_journal_(c1900-(1918))_(17973126708).jpg: is a more specific tag available?

• File:Lamna_nasus.jpg: source link is dead. Ditto File:Isurus_oxyrinchus.jpg

• File:Carcharodon_carcharias_skeleton.jpg needs a US tag and author date of death

• File:White_shark_Pacific.png: see MOS:COLOUR. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:36, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

Fixed all. LittleJerry (talk) 21:14, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

Support Comments from Noleander

• I did a Peer Review on this - I'll follow that up with some comments here in FAC.

• Images in the article are superlative.

• Images: Can an image be placed into the Conservation section? That section is a big wall of text with no pics. MOS:SECTIONLOC says that images are not required to relate to the section they are placed in: "An image should generally be placed in the most relevant article section; if this is not possible, try not to place an image too early, i.e., far ahead of the text discussing what the image illustrates, if this could puzzle the reader. "

Couldn't find a suitable pic. File:Atlantic Shark Institute White Shark Capture.webp probably needs to be deleted as there is no evidence that it is free to use. LittleJerry (talk) 13:26, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

• Needed word? "The great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias), also known as the white shark, white pointer, or simply great white..." is "great white" so different than "white shark" or "white pointer" to deserve a "simply"?

Removed. LittleJerry (talk) 13:26, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

• Unusual phrasing: "The white shark has had a fearsome reputation among the public..." Not sure exactly what that choice of words is trying to imply ... are those words suggesting that the shark no longer has a fearsome reputation? My gut feeling is that it is still feared thanks to Jaws & Shark Week. Can the word "had" be eliminated?

Removed. LittleJerry (talk) 13:26, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

• Word raises questions: "The white shark is the sole recognized extant species in the genus ...". The word "recognized" suggests that there is some controversy, as if some scientists have tried to add more species into the genus and were rebuffed. If that is not the case, consider removing the word. If it is the case, add some details about the dispute.

Removed. LittleJerry (talk) 13:26, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

• Only 1 of 7 books contains city of publication: Duffy, Clinton A. J.; Francis, Malcolm; Dunn, M. R.; Finucci, Brit; Ford, Richard; Hitchmough, Rod; Rolfe, Jeremy (2018). Conservation Status of New Zealand Chondrichthyans (Chimaeras, Sharks and Rays), 2016 (PDF). Wellington, New Zealand: Department of Conservation. For uniformity, suggest removing the city so it uses same pattern as other books cited.

Removed. LittleJerry (talk) 13:26, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

• Alt text for wrong animal: "A world map shows killer whales are found throughout every ocean, except parts of the Arctic. They are also absent from the Black and Baltic seas."

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 13:26, 11 March 2026 (UTC)