Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Shigi Qutuqu/archive2

Shigi Qutuqu[edit]

Nominator(s): ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:25, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Compared to his contemporaries in the early Mongol Empire, Shigi Qutuqu stands out perhaps most for his lack of military ability—he was in command during the most serious reverse of the early Mongol conquests. Nevertheless, he had a long and productive career, serving in numerous judicial and administrative roles in China and surviving the power struggles of the 1240s and 50s until his death at 80+.

That was my nomination statement for the last FAC, which was quickly archived when IRL issues arose. This article was reviewed for GA just under a year ago by Aza24; if successful, this nomination will be used in the WikiCup. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:25, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Source review by Generalissima[edit]

Marking myself down for this one! Would you like a spot check?

Thanks Generalissima; I think only the source review is necessary, but if you're willing to do a spot-check I wouldn't say no. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:14, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Generalissima do you still intend to comment? No worries if not. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk)

Tim O'Doherty[edit]

Marker for now. Tim O'Doherty (talk) 15:53, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Tim do you still intend to comment? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:35, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'll have a look later tonight or tomorrow afternoon. Tim O'Doherty (talk) 17:04, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Went through it now, and only came up with two comments, both in the same paragraph. It's nicely written, seems comprehensive and can't see why it shouldn't get the gold star.

"Medieval historians credit him with judicial integrity and administrative quality, while modern historians ascribe a good part of the success of Ögedei's fiscal reforms to Shigi Qutuqu's actions and policies" - do modern historians say that the medieval view of integrity and administrative quality is wrong, and/or that Shigi Qutuqu's actions and policies are more important, or do they say that as well as having judicial integrity and administrative quality he was also good at fiscal reform? If it's the former then "while" seems OK, but if it's the latter I'd go with "and" to clear it up a bit.
- The latter, so changed.
"The Song dynasty ambassador Xu Ting termed Shigi Qutuqu's financial excesses "dreadful"" - Sorry if I'm being a thicko here, but do any of the preceding bits fall under the umbrella of "financial excess"? I can't see it. If not, (and again apologies if I'm misinterpreting things) does the source say anything about what was excessive? If there's nothing, I'd rephrase to something along the lines of "Financial excesses under Shigi Qutuqu were called "dreadful" by the Song dynasty ambassador Xu Ting, while [...]".
- I have rephrased the sentence and given an example of the financial excesses.

Again, great article, no reason to clog things up over two minor points. Support. Tim O'Doherty (talk) 18:50, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks Tim. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:09, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support from PMC[edit]

Also a marker for now, poke me if I don't get to it within a week. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 12:30, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Suggest footnoting or briefly contextualizing "Kurultai" in the lead as the average reader won't know this word and will have to stop and go look it up. Something like "chiefs' council" would be enough inline, or the "lit" template you use later
- Good call, I think the kurultai reference is too specific, so changed to "in the years after the empire's foundation". Better?
"He was however..." this sentence has "defeat" twice, suggest swapping for a synonym
Might want to clarify that Ögedei was Genghis Khan's immediate successor
"praise his qualities of" could be cut to "praise his"
- All done.
"reigns of Güyük and Möngke" any reason why not "reigns of Güyük Khan and Möngke Khan"?
- Sounds a bit odd to repeat the regnal title—I wouldn't say "John Tinniswood has lived through the reigns of King George V, King Edward VIII, King George VI, Queen Elizabeth II, and King Charles III", I'd say "J.T. has lived through the reigns of George V, Edward VIII, George VI, Elizabeth II, and Charles III".
  - Right, I see what you mean.
Is it worth establishing, perhaps in a footnote, when approximately the Secret History and the Jami' were written? I think noting how close or far these were from the actual events could be useful the the reader
- Done.
"The raid on Naratu..." suggest reordering this sentence (or maybe adding a short sentence before it) to first say that the account is implausible. Right now you're arguing the case before saying what you're arguing, which can be less smooth for the reader
- Good call.
"improbable because all of Hoelun's full-blooded children were adults" - implying she wouldn't adopt new kids because she was done with child-raising? Can this be made more explicit?
- Since the implication you received was partially incorrect, it clearly does need to be rephrased—the focus is on the age difference between the prospective adopted siblings.
Overall, good clear handling of two very different historical accounts
As with the Secret History and the Jami', it might be worth having a touch of chronological context for Shengwu and History of Yuan
Year for Battle of Parwan
- Both done
"more laconically by the Mongol chronicles" I'm sorry, I can't help picturing a series of irritated Mongol scribes angrily scrawling "They won. Anyway" and then slamming the scroll shut
- As I recall, it's something like "okay, so we were defeated, sure, but right after we completetely thrashed them, so it DOESN'T MATTER"
This article's a little short on images - no worries if not, but what about an image of Ogedei under the section about his rule, since there's room?
- Added.
"fiscal reforms to Shigi Qutuqu's implementation of the census and other reforms" - two "reforms" here. Possible to write around?
- Tightened.
"dismisses his loss at Parwan in one sentence" oh my god they actually did though

That's all I got. Very interesting little article! I really enjoy your prose, it's clear and to-the-point but never becomes dry. Great work. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 01:38, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for the compliments and the review Premeditated Chaos; a few responses above. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:33, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- Looking good! Responded to one comment to confirm I agree with your point, the rest of the chnages look good. Happy to support. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 22:21, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Image review[edit]

Is there no image of this individual?
- Sadly not.
File:Siège_de_Beijing_(1213-1214).jpeg: source link is dead and caption needs editing for style. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:33, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- Not sure what "for style" means, but I've edited it a bit Nikkimaria. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:14, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Matarisvan[edit]

Is foundling appropriate here? I am not quite sure about what the MOS suggests, perhaps "young Shigi" would be better here?
- I am not sure why it would be inappropriate—it seems to be a proper English word, according to online dictionaries.
Can silk be used instead of silken?
- That is I believe more accurate. Done.
Consider linking to Mongol army on first use?
- Done.
What is the rationale for linking to the Jin dynasty page in two consecutive sections?
- Error, removed.
"Having survived the new khagan Möngke": consider rephrasing this to "Having survived Möngke, the new khagan" to avoid SEAOFBLUE?
- It is clear that they are not the same link because one is italicised and the other isn't.
Consider linking, in the biblio, to Vasily Bartold, Munshiram Manoharlal, Kim Ho-dong, Bulletin of the SOAS?
- Thanks for spotting those four.
Can we add this paper by Atwood [1] and its comments to the SHM authorship question? Atwood notes that Shigi couldn't have known about Genghis' early life at the level of detail in the SHM.
- This took a bit of time to investigate; I have rewritten the respective sentence in the article but I haven't used this source, instead using Atwood's comments in his ultra-recent edition of the SHM.
Another paper I found by JA Boyle: he cites Nasawi who says Shigi was sent to attack Nishapur along with Tolun Cherbi. Boyle also cites Juzjani who says Shigi along with Sa'di and Uklan had fought in Ghor and Khorasan. Link to the paper: [2].
- A good catch; I have added the detail to the article.
Would you be open to citing this paper by William Hung on SHM authorship: [3]? It mentions Shigi only twice and has very little to say, so I can understand if you do not wish to, it is not a deal breaker.
- On account of age, I think not.
There seems to be a lot of research into Shigi in German, I cannot ascertain now if it is useful due to time constraints in translating entire papers. If you can read German, Weiers and Ratchnevsky have done substantial work on this, though they spell Shigi as Sigi, which makes most of their work not show up if you search using the former word. There also seem to be similar works written in French.
- I am aware—during the 90s and 00s, much important scholarship was done by German-speaking historians in the West. However, German is not quite the lingua franca that English is, so that situation has changed in the past decade and a half; I think general comprehensivity can be achieved without relying on foreign-language scholarship.
Are the incidents in these papers of any value: [4]? I am not quite sure as they are anecdotal.
- This is already covered in the article.
Hi AirshipJungleman29, any thoughts on the other four points? They would expand comprehensiveness somewhat, wdyt? Matarisvan (talk) 15:55, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- Hi Matarisvan, thanks exceedingly for the thought-provoking comments; responses above. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:30, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  What do you think about making the subsections of the Biography section into full independent sections? Matarisvan (talk) 16:35, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  Yes, that may work slightly better. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:18, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  I'm not 100% sure about this, but shouldn't the image of the capture of Zhongdu be on the right, as per MOS:IMAGELOCATION and MOS:SANDWICH? Other than that, happy to support this one. Matarisvan (talk) 16:22, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  Also, could I suggest some categories to add? I believe these would be justified here, wdyt?
  
  - 12th-century births
  
  - 12th-century Mongols
  
  - 13th-century Mongols
  
  - Mongol Empire task force articles (wonder why this wasn't auto added bc the article is a part of both the WikiProject and task force) Matarisvan (talk) 09:21, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  Thank you for your comments Matarisvan, especially on the areas that are not my forte. I have added the categories with the exception of the last, which is on the talk page as I believe is normal. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 09:30, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  My bad, I had not checked the talk page. Joining this FACR was great, props to you for coming up with such a great article even though there's not much material on the subject. Matarisvan (talk) 10:06, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Kusma[edit]

Intending to review this one. —Kusma (talk) 14:41, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]