A fact from Orphanotrophos appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 6 November 2014 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that in the Byzantine Empire, the office of orphanotrophos, head of the imperial orphanage, ranked among the higher offices of state?
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1. "orphanage (ὀρφανοτροφεῖον, orphanotropheion)" - Please mention what languages that is in the paragraph."
2. "In Constantinople" - This sentence contains a link to Constantinople which is already linked in the lead.
3. "According to the Patria of Constantinople, it traced its antecedents to a series" - How about adding "back" between "antecedents" and "to".
4. "Constans II (ruled 337–361)" - I suggest this to "Constans II (ruler from 337 to 361)", also "337-361" should be written as "337-61" per WP:NUMERAL.
5. "canonized by the Church" - I don't think "Church" should be capitalized.
6. "According to a novel of Emperor Leo I the Thracian in 469" - I suggest replacing "of" with "by" as the "of" doesn't quite flow.
7. "the title of orphanotrophos" - Shouldn't "orphanotrophos" be capitalized?
Sorry it took me so long time to review this article. I will get to it now.
OK, the article meets the GA-criteria for sure with some minor errors I addressed above. I will put the article on hold so the nominator can respond to my points and suggestions. Good job. :) Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 22:44, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Jonas, I appreciate the time you spend on these reviews, but I would strongly prefer not to see a long laundry list of inconsequential MOS quibbles, many of which are not even applicable. MOS is not a straitjacket, it leaves some considerable leeway, and should be the least of your worries in a GA review, but sometimes I have the feeling that is all you check. I am pretty certain the feeling is wrong, but when you greenlight the article on the core issues of content and sourcing and get hung up on a long list of MOS sub-sub-issues, it seems odd. If the article is basically fine and has a few typos or MOS problems, then the reviewer should point them out or fix them himself, but that is IMO not his main job, which is to check readability, accuracy and verifiability. I appreciate for instance your input on the previous review on precisely these grounds, but the above review is, with all respect, probably an example of how not to do a GAR. I hope this does not come off as too harsh or ungrateful, but I felt I had to say it. You will understand why in my comments below.
For instance, the repeated language addition is nowhere prescribed AFAIK, and completely redundant since it is clear that in this article there is only one foreign language involved: Greek. I mean, one would have to be rather thick not to notice that there is a "Greek:" before ὀρφανοτρόφος, and that all subsequent foreign-looking words are in the same alphabet. If I read a historical article on Russia or China, I expect to see Russian and Chinese terms, without having to be constantly reminded of what language they are in. On the capitalization of "orphanotrophos" and the other terms derived from it, scientific practice in almost all historical works I've seen is for foreign terms not to be capitalized, unless they have become naturalized in English or are capitalized in their respective language. So you have sadrazam but Grand Vizier, and Field Marshal but Feldmarschall and maresciallo. On the dates, I once again refer you to WP:DATERANGE regarding dates with three digits. On the linking of centuries, I refer you to WP:YEARLINK.
On individual points, in point #2, precisely, C/ple is linked in the lead, but IMO all links should better be repeated in the main article body, which is also per MOS (WP:OVERLINK: "and at the first occurrence after the lead."). On #5, no, you are wrong. "the Church" as in the institution should always be capitalized, otherwise you mean "the church" as in a building. On #11, it is unknown which of the many Neapolises is meant, and pointing to a dab page is pointless in this context. On #15, no, as I am not going to dumb down the article at the expense of accuracy. A nomisma is a gold coin, but not every gold coin is a nomisma. Technical terms should be used where appropriate so that the readers become familiar with them, not replaced by equivalents unless absolutely necessary. Besides, anyone uninterested in technical terms of the Byzantine Empire is unlikely to be much interested in this article either. On #25, you are wrong, when something is of a certain century, the hyphen should be used. See the numerous examples at Category:people by century. Your other suggestions as to wording have been adopted, except for #3, where I feel that "back" is really redundant when talking about antecedents, and #4, where I don't really see the point.
Again, I hope there's no hard feelings, but as you can see most of the issues you raised are non-existent. I have no problem (indeed, I very much prefer) an in-depth review that forces me to re-examine and if need be rewrite an article top to bottom, but, as one editor to another, the above is more MOS pedantry than a review. I hope you understand my "counter-review" in the spirit of constructive criticism. Cheers, Constantine ✍ 15:12, 24 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
