Talk:Edmund Ætheling

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Edmund Ætheling/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: LT910001 (talk · contribs) 01:55, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

If there are no objections, I'll take this review. I'll note at the outset I've had no role in editing or creating this article. I welcome other editors at any stage to contribute to this review. I will spend a day familiarising myself with the article and then provide an assessment. Kind regards, LT910001 (talk) 01:55, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for waiting. In conducting this review, I will:

• Provide an assessment using WP:GARC
• If this article does not meet the criteria, explain what areas need improvement.
• Provide possible solutions that may (or may not) be used to fix these.

Assessment

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.	Websites verify content
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).
	2c. it contains no original research.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	Hard to decide without context
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	Images provide good insight into topic
	7. Overall assessment.

Commentary

Comments:

• This is a very well-researched article
• My main comment when reading this article is that it lacks contextual information, which makes it hard to read. This is particularly true in the lead, which could be fleshed-out by one or two more sentences explaining who the kings were and/or why the two were fleeing, and the births and marriage & death section, where some contextual information regarding the characters, or at least an extra sentence or two to pad out these information-dense paragraphs, is suggested. (This is a bit nebulous as a comment, I know, but I do feel that these two paragraphs are hard to read)
• This image: File:Szent_gellért_2.jpg, has a copyright flag (although being almost a thousand years old I'm not sure how it could be copyrighted...)
• If possible, would value if a pronounciation key was added after the name, to show how the name would be pronounced. This is not a requirement for GA status but I feel would improve the article's overall quality.

Apart from the short lede, which needs a little more expansion, this article can certainly get to GA status in a short timespan. I will provide a (very-quick, I expect) thorough read-through when the concerns above (image, lede, readability) are resolved. LT910001 (talk) 07:54, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

@LT910001: Thanks for your feedback. To spare myself some work, I'll try to go through these issues now:

• I've re-written the lead, which I found a bit entangled myself, but I don't understand what is difficult to read in the Marriage&Death section.
• There was no problem with the copyright, the PD template just wasn't filled in properly, which I hope it now is.

Excellent! I'm sure we can both sleep easy tonight (...). LT910001 (talk) 07:36, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

• I've added a pronunciation key. Cheers, Alex (talk) 14:59, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I'd say your simple change to the lead makes all the difference. I also note that you've been the primary creator and editor of this article, over only a month. With no outstanding issues I'm promoting this to GA status. Well done! LT910001 (talk) 07:36, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Accuracy?

There are no references in the introduction or infobox. The introduction states "After the Siege of London (October 1016), Edmund Ironside signed an agreement with Cnut the Great, in which they agreed that Cnut would rule England south of the Thames, whereas the rest, including London would remain among Ironside's possessions." This is the opposite of what other articles say. Ironside kept the land south of the Thames (Wessex), and Cnut got the rest (Mercia and Northumbria), which is the where the Danes occupied on and off for years. McLerristarr | Mclay1 21:33, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. I have corrected what I assume was a typo and added a source. Dudley Miles (talk) 22:35, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Some questions about rough expressions

Dear wikipedians.

Hello. My name is Ansokuko-San, a Japanese Wikipedian. I have some questions about rough expressions in this article. If you can specify them, please tell me.

( I am now nominating this article of Japanese version for the Good Article, but some veterans are asking me to make it more specific in some points. I need your help……)

Three points below are now being asked by veterans.

・ < Edmund and Edward were recorded as being "somewhat grown, and had passed twelve years" when they arrived in Yaroslav's capital, Gardorika [27] >

→ the veteran is asking me about the name of literatures that prove those sentences above.

・< A mid thirteenth-century letopis (chronicle) records nothing of Edmund and Edward's stay at the Kievan court, although later Russian chronicles do mention their refuge.[29]>

→the veteran is asking me about the specific name of letopis that prove those sentences.

→the veteran is asking me about later. When were those later Russian Chronicles made? He is saying there are too many Russian chronicles to find the right ones mentioned here.

These three points are all about I want to ask. I hope they are resolved.

Regards. 安息香酸 (talk) 03:53, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

This article is not reliable and should not have passed as a GA. It relies heavily on a book by Gabriel Ronay, who is an amateur who is not regarded as reliable by specialists on the period. I do not have access to Ronay's book, but I have found an article by him which summarises his views ("Edward Aetheling: Anglo-Saxon England's Last Hope", History Today, Volume 34 Issue 1 January 1984). Ronay bases his version on a chronicle of Gaimar, which he claims has been unfairly dismissed by historians. Frank Barlow wrote that "because of the twelfth-century Gaimar's inventions in his Histoire des Engleis, some very strange accounts of Æthelred's descendants are in circulation". Barlow cites Ronay's book as an example of these strange accounts (The Godwins, p. 91). It is very helpful that articles on English history are translated for Japanese Wikipedia, but unfortunately this is not a good article to translate. Dudley Miles (talk) 23:58, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

I had no idea about that.

I will look at the end of the discussion in the English version and think about the future of this article.

Thank you for your letting me know this important argument.

-安息香酸 (talk) 05:21, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

Edmund Ætheling

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Per consensus. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:17, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

The extensive biography of Edmund in this article is not supported by historians of Anglo-Saxon England, who say that there is almost no reliable information about him. Edmund and his brother Edward the Exile were sons of King Edmund Ironside and grandsons of Æthelred the Unready. It is known that Edward and Edmund were sent to Sweden as infants by Cnut to be murdered, but the King of Sweden was unwilling to kill them and sent them to Hungary, where Edmund died, possibly after a stay in Kiev. This article's far more detailed biography is mainly sourced to a book by Garriel Ronay. I do not have access to it, but I have found an article by him setting out his views, where he says that his main source is an account by Geoffrey Gaimar, who is unfairly dismissed by historians as unreliable ("Edward Aetheling: Anglo-Saxon England's Last Hope", History Today, Volume 34 Issue 1 January 1984). Simon Keynes describes Gaimar's account as "confused and (one suspects) largely fanciful" ("Crowland Salter", p. 363). Frank Barlow wrote that "because of the twelfth-century Gaimar's inventions in his Lestoire des Engleis, some very strange accounts of Æthelred's descendants are in circulation". Barlow cites Ronay's book as an example of these very strange accounts (The Godwins, p. 91 n. 25). There are other errors added after the GA review, but the basic point is that the article is fundamentally flawed as it is mainly based on an unreliable source. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:46, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Comments: I don't have a particular view on this article, but a couple of thoughts: on a rough count, there are 18 hits in the article code for "Ronay" and 53 for "sfn", which gives a rough fraction of a third of the citations being to Ronay -- which is a lot, but not enough to really say that the article is entirely based on it. Certainly, we'd still have an article even if we decided that Ronay was totally unreliable and to be declared anathema. Secondly, I'm not totally sure where WP:DUEWEIGHT and WP:OR leave our authority to determine the reliability of secondary sources: unless they're generally rejected by the historical consensus (and so much so that they're not even worth inclusion as a competing or historical viewpoint): there are reasons to be uncomfortable about Wikipedians blacklisting a peer-reviewed secondary source because we don't like its argument or methods. On a slightly different point, if Gaimar is unfairly dismissed by historians as unreliable (emphasis mine), why should we perpetuate that unfairness and continue to dismiss him?

I appreciate that this will read as opposition, and it really isn't intended to be -- this is not my field and I will leave questions of reliability and accuracy to those who know it. However, I do think it's worth bearing the considerations here in mind as we (you) go about addressing those questions. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 20:17, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

I said that it is mainly based on Ronay's book, not entirely. Many of the cites of other writers are for statements not about Edmund, for example four cites for the statement that Stephen was baptised in 985. Others are for uncontroversial statements. It would require a thorough analysis to see how many cites of other writers are for statements about Edmund, apart from the very few which are accepted by reliable sources, but I have found when reading the article that whenever a statement seems dubious, it is almost always cited to Ronay (apart from a few added after the GA review). I am not clear why you refer to a "blacklisting a peer-reviewed secondary source". Ronay's book is not peer-reviewed and it is cited as a source for statements presented as uncontroversial facts, whereas it is described by a leading expert on the period, Frank Barlow, as a completely unreliable "history" (Barlow's quotes). The article thus extensively relies on a non-RS for many unequivocal statements rejected by the historical consensus.

As to Gaimar, I should have made clear that it is Ronay's claim that he is unfairly dismissed. I quote above two leading historians as disagreeing. Gaimar is an original source, and we should only accept his statements if they are endorsed by reliable secondary sources. Dudley Miles (talk) 22:33, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

This is a really interesting point. But hopefully WP:CONTEXTMATTERS gives some relief:

"The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Wikipedia article and is an appropriate source for that content."

A sensible reading would be that a book written by a journalist does not have the same reliability as a trained historian. Or, a book written by a trained historian that has in its reviews been pulled up for certain issues, can be viewed as less reliable on those matters.

At least, without those readings, I think WP would struggle in some areas to make sensible decisions. Jim Killock (talk) 17:31, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

• Delist It's perhaps odd that B&B would let themselves be caught out like that, but the Sunday Telegraph damned Ronay's monograph with faint praise, describing it as a 'popularly written but scholarly book.' Too many important claims are cited to this one source, and as the OP has suggested, the remainder majoritively if not completely support less pertinent facts/oids. ——Serial 15:32, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
• Delist. Support as nominator. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:57, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.