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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by GrahamColm 18:03, 16 October 2012 [1].

Istanbul

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Istanbul (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): tariqabjotu 08:01, 28 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Third time's the charm? This was nominated in early July and late August, and did not get promoted either time. As I said previously, I believe the article is exceptional and comprehensive, especially since I feel like I've nitpicked over every aspect of it in the past two and a half years. Nevertheless, it has yet to attain featured status in part because participation in the previous FACs has not been high. Indeed, despite this being less than two weeks after the last FAC failed, the FA delegates have granted permission for this to be nominated again quickly, with consideration given toward the positive feedback the article received in that second FAC. Perhaps this will be the last time Istanbul is at FAC. -- tariqabjotu 08:01, 28 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. Please check the edit summaries. - Dank (push to talk)

  • You reverted one of my edits where I changed "forty" to "40", etc. I don't have any preference, but you have to be consistent at FAC to get supports on prose ... with all the intervening edits, I think it's too late to unrevert my edit now, so please through the article writing out numbers according to some consistent rule (such as, everything under 101, or under 11, is written out except for the various special cases mentioned at WP:NUMERAL). (Possibly, it's consistent after your edits, but I thought I remembered there was a lot more to do to make it consistent than you did.)
  • "the belief that it was the precursor to the present name ...": Whose belief? Why is it important that they believed it? Why not go with the tighter "but was not the original name"?
  • Otherwise, I copyedited this a few days ago and I believe it's good to go. - Dank (push to talk) 21:26, 28 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
For the record, your suggestion (now made twice) that I "check the edit summaries" is a bit odd, considering all of your edits seemed to just have the summary "ce". So, I have no idea what is going on in each edit until I go through each one by one.
As for the issues, you've raised:
  • Please don't hold FAC supports over my head like that (i.e. "If you don't do this trivial thing, you will not get supports on an overarching criterion"). After nearly three months here, I'm not interested, and I've had it. This will likely be my last FAC for this article, regardless of what happens, and likely my last FAC for years, if not ever, due to the ridiculous nitpicking I've seen on this article, in comparison to others I've seen promoted here with similar minor issues. I've made all the percentages numerals because WP:NUMERAL requests that, but the way this article is written, numerals are the exception rather than the rule, and I'd prefer it to stay that way.
  • I actually use edit summaries, so you can just read that. Furthermore, the idea that it wasn't the original name is obvious; the first sentence of the section says "The first known name of the city is Byzantium". I know what you meant is that it wasn't the original name after the previous two names, but that's obviously not stated (nor something that should be stated). Whose belief? Those with a popular misconception? The source supports the statement and I'd rather take imprecision over a watered-down statement. Sorry.
And let me repeat, now for the third time, that I fail to understand what trips people up about this sentence. I'm not sure if there is just an unwillingness to admit that you misread a perfectly correct sentence, but unless you were to assume the sentence was written in a grammatically incorrect manner, there is no way "which has been Istanbul's major spice market since 1660" can refer to anything other than the Egyptian Bazaar. If one were to write "The school is near the hospital and the church, which is the largest building in the town", it cannot refer to the school. It refers to the thing right before it, just like most appositive phrases in the English language. Please leave it alone. -- tariqabjotu 22:14, 28 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have to agree the sentence is ambiguous (consider it a fault in English if you will), but more importantly, why is the Mahmutpasha Bazaar listed without any context? Why is it there, what does it matter that it's located between two other bazaars? Especially if you give context to both the Grand Bazaar and the Egyptian Bazaar. Perhaps in solving this issue the sentence structure would be more clear. Personally, I'd just take out the reference to the Mahmutpasha Bazaar and keep the historic context around the Grand Bazaar and the Egyptian Bazaar Mattximus (talk) 00:21, 29 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
A fault in English? Show me one sentence (from a reliable source or someone expected to write English well) in which the appositive or a nonessential clause (particularly using "which") refers to something other than the noun or phrase directly next to it, and I'll change it. But as far as I know, those don't exist. The sentence currently in the article says exactly what it's supposed to mean and means exactly what it says. The sentence I think you all are looking for is:

Mahmutpasha Bazaar is an open-air market extending between the Grand Bazaar and the Egyptian Bazaar that has been Istanbul's major spice market since 1660.

But that's not what the sentence actually says. The presence of the comma followed by "which" makes the point about the Egyptian Bazaar, the noun directly before it, and not the Mahmutpasha Bazaar. As for context... the sentence says it's an open-air market. What further context do you need? -- tariqabjotu 00:50, 29 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps I was not clear in my comment. As written: the Egyptian Bazaar was a major spice market since 1660, the grand bazaar one of the worlds oldest and largest... then the mahmutpasa bazaar is "an open-air market". So, why list this one out of any of the other bazaars, or shopping centres for that matter? What makes it special, worth adding into the Istanbul article? At least the first two have some context. Mattximus (talk) 02:11, 29 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If it wasn't located between the Grand Bazaar and the Egyptian Bazaar, it probably wouldn't be as important to the article. It's sort of a transition, so I'm not just talking about the Grand Bazaar in one sentence and the Egyptian Bazaar in the next. The fact that the two markets are somewhat close to each other (not next to each other, but certainly walking distance) and there's a market that essentially runs between them seems like a natural way to introduce the Egyptian Bazaar even if that other market (the Mahmutpasha Bazaar) isn't as interesting as the other two. It helps too that it's not as touristy as the others, so we're not just talking about the tourist places. It sounds to me, though, like its mention wouldn't be of concern if it weren't for the supposed ambiguity surrounding the sentence. But I'm reluctant to change a sentence if there's no valid way of reading the sentence as written and coming to the interpretation you and Dank have. -- tariqabjotu 02:30, 29 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Mahmutpasha Bazaar is not an historic market of Istanbul. I corrected the corresponding article last month, before my vacation (part of them in Istanbul :-)). I suspect that the article about Mahmutpasha Bazaar was conceived as a kind of commercial spam: as a matter of fact, the Bazaar is only a street with (cheap) shops attended by Anatolian immigrants, extending between the two major Bazaars. It is NOT an historic market, as the original version of the article claimed, but only one of the many streets with shops in Istanbul, and its importance, as Tariq points out, stems only from its position between the Egyptian and the Grand Bazaar. IMO, if an open street market deserves a mention for historical reasons, this is the Uzun Çarsı (the long market), which follows exactly the same path as the Byzantine Makros Embolos, an important market of Constantinople. Alex2006 (talk) 15:57, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support on prose per standard disclaimer. Okay, I can support as-is, after my edits and yours. - Dank (push to talk) 17:10, 30 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As last time, a cautious support on comprehensiveness and prose. I am not hugely familiar with the subject matter (though I enjoyed visiting :)) so other folks might pick up content issues that I can't see. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:11, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Image Review - all images are of good quality, appropriately used within the article, properly captioned, and marked with the correct licensing information. - Lemurbaby (talk) 08:20, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Source Review

  • check p. or pp. for page numbers
    Is this a general point or do you actually see a place where one is incorrectly used in place of the other? As far as I know, this is not a problem. -- tariqabjotu 09:15, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • be consistent in how you indicate publishing locations - whether or not to include the country, whether to write it out completely or abbreviate, how it is abbreviated etc
    Again, is this a general point or do you have something specific? There a consistent logic to the abbreviations. Countries or U.S. states are provided, abbreviated, unless a very well-known city (like London, New York, or Berlin) is used. It's fine. -- tariqabjotu 09:15, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • don't include page numbers for books unless you're citing a chapter, in which case the chapter and book title need to be indicated, as well as authors for both if appropriate
    Okay. And, once again, where is the problem? -- tariqabjotu 09:15, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • move journals into the References section
    I've done this because you've requested it, but I'm not entirely sure why this is preferred. -- tariqabjotu 09:15, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • consider archiving urls for websites, online docs etc using something like this site and using the archiveurl = and archivedate = parameters in your templates
    Totally unnecessary. If a link goes dead, the archive can be searched or a new source can be found. -- tariqabjotu 09:15, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Several sources are not the most authoritative for the type of information they cite: this, this, this, this, and maybe this. I'd suggest trying to find this information in a book rather than a website.
    Websites are not prima facie worse than books. For example, Emporis is a well-respected database on structures around the world. I'm not sure what your issue is with the last link; look at what it's citing, then look at the website, then look at what it's citing. And on what basis are you making the claim that Medyatava is unreliable? I've replaced the h2g2 source and I'll try to find an alternate for the Weatherbase information. -- tariqabjotu 20:10, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I've reorganizing the section to remove the WeatherBase source. Feel free to take a look, but I believe this is done. -- tariqabjotu 21:08, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • All books listed in the bibliography are cited in the body of the article.

- Lemurbaby (talk) 08:20, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Lemurbaby

- Lemurbaby (talk) 09:03, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by MathewTownsend


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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