Talk:Aztecs/GA1

• The Legacy section needs to describe (in some detail, I think) what is surely its core theme, namely the image of the Aztecs since their encounter with the West. For instance Benjamin Keen's The Aztec Image in Western Thought 1971 and Schwaller on Post-Conquest Aztecs. See also the articles The Other Conquest, Aztec mythology in popular culture (not a great source of citations, but a good idea of the scale of the influence).

I have gotten hold of Keen, and am using it for the legacy section. Schwaller's bibliography is mostly about the colonial period - which also needs to be expanded (I have made some subsections for the purpose) - but for that period it is pretty easy to find the sources, as they are abundant.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:00, 12 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

Good stuff. I've drafted something rather preliminary on Western culture, feel free to do what you like with it, but something of the kind is clearly needed. Finding any kind of decent source on the pop culture is tricky. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:07, 12 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

Yes, someone should write a book about that - Keen's is really good but it stops in 1971.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:09, 12 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

Ok, I think the legacy section is done now - with your help.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 09:07, 18 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

• The historiography section had been bothering me since it was uncited and somewhat opinionated. I was bold and removed it, inserting instead a paragraph on source at the beginning of the history section. I believe this removed the last uncited paragraphs from the article. If you want to take a read through and add some "cn" tags where they might be needed within paragraphs, I will be happy to provide them - I think I will need this to be able to guess where you are concerned about whether the citation coveres the entire paragraph. Otherwise I think you can strike the one with uncited paragraphs. There are three sources that need page numbers, I will add those tomorrow - or remove the source.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 13:22, 18 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

• I am working on citations and expanding some sections and pruning others. I will go away for easter break the next week, but plan to resume work once I come back. I hope this is acceptable.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 20:07, 27 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

That's fine, enjoy the break. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:31, 27 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

Now back, I have requested User:Amuseclio to help me with the legacy section over the next week or so. She is an academic specializing in colonial Mexican history.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 06:09, 5 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

OK. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:39, 5 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

• It's a bit concerning to see new refs being added without page numbers (or ISBNs), and not formatted like the existing refs which use short form in the ref list and harvard links to the full citations {{cite book |...}} or {{cite journal}} below. The MoS calls for a single style to be used throughout, and while there can be some leeway here, this is looking careless. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:11, 11 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

ISBNs are not a requirement in any citation style that I am familiar with, and I don't use them. What I do do is build referencing incrementally, adding citations as I go, formatting them gradually. Pagenumbers come when I know what specifically to cite. The legacy section currently has statements that are extremely general, bordering on the vacuous - once I start rewriting the section to be something more concrete I will add page numbers and more specific references. And format them to harvard references and add them to the bibliography. No need to worry. If you are feeling impatient you are welcome to help out. I plan to have subsections on "national symbolism", "language and placenames", "cuisine".·maunus · snunɐɯ· 10:45, 11 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

I am glad there is an explanation and that things will improve incrementally. However there is a requirement for consistency of referencing: ISBNs are present in the article, so they should be used for every book in the article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:05, 11 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

In fact there is no such requirement in the GA criteria. But I do intend to convert all long refs to harvard short refs and add them to the bibliography (also removing uncited works) - I can remove the ISBNs while doing that if you think it is important.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 11:13, 11 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

I do hope you are not going to go on arguing. There is a requirement for quality, and there should be good workmanship. I hope it will not be necessary to cite chapter and verse, it isn't my approach. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:34, 11 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

If that is not your approach we should get along fine, because it isn't mine either. A big part of the reason that I do not nominate articles for FAC but only for GAC is precisely that FAC has a MOS requirement and GA does not. I have no problem aiming for quality, but if a GA reviewer were to decide to enforce the MOS in a GA review, then I as nominator would stop the review right away.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 15:47, 11 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

• Several image captions end with a full stop but are not sentences. In these cases the punctuation should be removed.

I've fixed them. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:36, 18 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

• The caption for the image in Mythology and Cosmovision needs to be cited, as topics including the four cosmic directions are not mentioned in the text.

• By the way, what is "Cosmovision" and why is it capitalised? It isn't mentioned in the text. Perhaps "cosmology" would suit, but that isn't in the text either.

• I must just ask about the orthography. Wikipedia has articles on Moctezuma I and Moctezuma II, for instance, and this spelling is used in the included "Aztec civilization" template, but the article chooses to spell these Motecuzoma. Given the inconsistency with this more widespread Wikipedia (and I dare say common) practice, the article should at the least include a note in the text about the reasons for the choice of spelling, and provide the common spelling for these names at least once. It would of course be better for all Aztec articles to use the same spellings but that is beyond our scope here.

I am going to have to find a source that specifically talks about the different spellings, the footnote is currently based mostly on my own impression. Montezuma is definitely no longer used in scholarly works about the rulers, but I am not completely clear on how the distribution of the three other spelling variants is. My impression is that American historians tend to use motecuhzoma and sometimes motecuzoma, and Mexican scholars tend to use moctezuma and sometimes motecuzoma - but I really need to find a good reference to suppor the note. I will be looking over the next days. A search in the Oxford Handbook of the Aztecs shows all three spellings in different chapters, but the index has Motecuhzoma. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 08:25, 12 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

Many paragraphs are too long & should be split - eg the 3rd in lead. Johnbod (talk) 18:18, 18 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

I personally think this is mainly a matter of taste, but if it's reasonably possible to trim or split some of the longer paragraphs, that would be appreciated. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:31, 18 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

I disagree. In broad articles like these I prefer to keep paragraphs consolidated around a single topic. In the lead there is a requirement for the number of paragraphs, and there is a reqiurement for summarizing the main points of the article - which means that some of those paragraphs will have to be long.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 06:46, 19 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

The MOS says paras should not be too long, but does not give a limit. But, especially given that this is a very popular article, likely to be read by many doing homework etc, the evidence from research into how readers read is very clear. In particular a monster para in the lead, designed only to keep within the supposed 4 para limit ("As a general guideline—but not absolute rule—the lead should usually be no longer than four paragraphs ..." is what the policy actually says), would be better split up; a 5 para lead is preferable. Several sections are single paragraph - you should be saying "In broad articles like these I prefer to keep sections consolidated around a single topic". Johnbod (talk) 10:10, 19 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

I'll be the judge of what i should be saying. But yes, I do prefer subsections to consist of a single paragraph in broad articles like this. The "monster paragraph" which is not in fact particularly long, is also about a single topic, namely history. That is why it doesn't make much sense to break it up, since each paragraph summarizes separate parts of the topic. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 10:14, 19 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

Given the balance of opinion here and the fact it's a guideline, I intend to take no further action on this item. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:13, 20 April 2018 (UTC)Reply