Talk:List of early modern works on the Crusades

al-Iskandarānī

For the Alexandrian Crusade, you may wish to add Muḥammad ibn al-Ḳāsim al-Nuwayrī al-Iskandarānī. —Srnec (talk) 03:41, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Page size

This page already has 668,615 bytes of markup; that's far too big, and it needs to be subdivided. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:07, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes. The first obvious division point is the arrival of the printing press. Srnec (talk) 00:45, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

This is now the longest article in Wikipedia. Hanif Al Husaini (talk) 16:08, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

And it's continuing to grow. This needs to be addressed; I think the sensible thing to do is break it up into one per century, but the organization of the article at present is... complicated. I'm not sure if the non-century sections are cross-sectional, or what. pauli133 (talk) 16:32, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

I've been thinking about how to split this article and it's not easy. Here are some options:

1. Split the work by centuries. This would entail moving the odd sections (e.g., travel, archaeology) into the respective centuries. This presents difficulties to the reader because many of the works are cross-referenced across centuries (e.g., translations or updates of earlier works).

2. Split the work into before and after 1900. The same problems as #1. Both #1 and #2 make the article less usable, as most Crusader historians treat the subject as a whole.

3. Eliminate some of the hyperlinks in citations. The vast majority of the article is used by citations (readable text character count is 75k). You have to figure that anyone that is actually interested in this material is smart enough to find a copy somewhere. Some are to limited access sites, others to scans of works that simply aren't readable to modern readers. Also, the Wikipedia format for citations frequently includes links to Wikipedia articles (e.g. Catholic Encyclopedia, Dictionary of National Biography) and that takes up all lot of space.

4. Eliminate some Wikipedia hyperlinks. For example, the entry on Sir Walter Scott has links to the author and three of his works. Those works also have the same links in Scott's article, so they don't necessarily need to be in this article.

5. Split the work into two pieces: One article on the authors, another article on the works. They are basically the same article but the first doesn't have citations for the works. The second doesn't have citations for the authors.

If the objective is simply to make it smaller, the easiest thing to do is to do a combination of #3 and #4, removing enough of them to squeeze it between Tawag ng Tanghalan (season 4) and the ‎List of Hallmark Channel Original Movies. If all non-English citations were eliminated (e.g., references to German or Italian biographical articles, HathiTrust references to Latin and German works), it could possibly be below Opinion polling for the 2018 Italian general election. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 18:49, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Would it be feasible to split things up by language? One article each for historians working in English, French, German, and one for the remainder, or some such? pauli133 (talk) 19:11, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

There's no way to split this article other than by time. Reducing the content of the article would be nowhere near enough. Onetwothreeip (talk) 07:41, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Grampinator, it would be helpful if the content that is in sections outside of centuries was placed into those century sections. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:51, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

What's the objective here? If it's just to make it smaller, then how small? The suggestions of splitting it by time don't really work for reasons that I'll be happy to explain. I am planning to split off the Historiography section as that's going to have some significant expansion, and move some material to the associated Wikipedia articles on the individual authors. Is there anyone that works on Crusades articles for Wikipedia on this thread? I'd like to hear their view on this subject. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 19:09, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

The objective is to split the article. Most articles shouldn't be more than 100,000 bytes but while splitting this article into two would mean that two articles would be still well above that amount, it would not be as severe of an issue as the size of this article currently. If there is space that can be removed without adversely affecting the content, that would be even better. The article is already split by centuries within the article, so it makes sense for that to form the basis of separating the article. You may want to look through history-related WikiProjects to find other editors who are enthusiasts of the Crusades. Onetwothreeip (talk) 20:09, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

The article is many times larger than it reasonably should be, in order to be both readable and editable in a comfortable manner by all users (and to be a reasonable data burden on the mobile crowd). There are three options: cut it up by time period, cut it up by subject area (somehow), or reduce the content. It can't remain this large. pauli133 (talk) 21:57, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

It's not that simple to separate the sections as many of the entries tie to ones in a different century. Each one would need to be rewritten. Even at that, the Nineteenth Century would be over 200k. I fail to see how creating a mess of 14+ articles meets any objective other than to make it smaller. I do plan on spinning off the last two sections into separate articles as additional material is being accumulated. And yes, at least one of them will be over 100k. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 18:45, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

There's no need to split this article into 14 articles, as some centuries can be combined. It would be easier to spin off those articles now and add to them there, and I am willing to assist. Onetwothreeip (talk) 22:51, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

@Dr. Grampinator: I have split the 19th century section into its own article. Is there any other content in this article that should be moved over? Onetwothreeip (talk) 02:50, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

There is no consensus for doing this, which isn't as simple as you are letting on. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 05:54, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

There is very clearly consensus here to split the article. This article is the largest on Wikipedia. It's very simple to split this article, as the article is already separated into sections. Please self-revert. Thanks. Onetwothreeip (talk) 07:08, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Well, you want to split the article and I don't, so that's hardly consensus. Despite what you say, it is not that easy to split, considerable work is required. FYI, this is part of a multi-part work "Historians of the Crusades" that still needs to be written. It will reference sources for the Crusades, collections of Crusader sources, this article, modern historians of the Crusade, and one other in the works. This reflects how actual Crusader historians list things in their bibliographies. I don't understand the "longest article" comment. There will always be a longest article. If we split this one, won't the next one also need to be split, and so forth. Wont' the split article eventually become the longest again? Dr. Grampinator (talk) 18:44, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

There is no consensus to split this article, because no one has framed and asked the question. It is a useful article, so Dresser has an article on German WP, who knew, I didn't and have learnt something useful in a quick flick through the article. At 78kb readible words it is questionable even if it is too big, for a consumer of the information that would seem to make it usable. Would splitting make it more usable—I don't think so, it would just create a bunch of articles that no one uses. Is there a technical reason why size is a problem? No one seems to have come up with one. Personally, I think Dr G's good faith work should be accepted at face value and left as it is. That is of course, unless someone can come up with both an objective reason to split and a consensus gaining proposal for what that split should be. Everything else is just pedantry. Norfolkbigfish (talk) 18:53, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

I think the consensus is pretty clear on this talk page, and I am notifying the all previous participants: @Pigsonthewing, Srnec, Hanif Al Husaini, and Pauli133:. Despite what you say, it is not that easy to split, considerable work is required. This article is actually quite easy to split, as I have demonstrated when I split off the 19th century section. This is typical for large articles which are already separated into sections. I don't understand the "longest article" comment. There will always be a longest article. If we split this one, won't the next one also need to be split, and so forth. The problem is that this is an article which is too large itself, and it just so happens that this is the largest article on Wikipedia. I have no problem with the content itself, and it's a shame that the size of this article makes the content less accessible. There is clearly enough work in the article for multiple articles, and that can easily be expected when this article has several centuries worth of detailed information. It's true that splitting this article would mean another article would be the largest on Wikipedia, and that article would likely have to be split as well, as there are many articles which are too large for one article, and this one happens to be the largest. Wont' the split article eventually become the longest again? An article that is 200,000 bytes would certainly not be the largest Wikipedia article.

At 78kb readible words it is questionable even if it is too big, for a consumer of the information that would seem to make it usable. 78kb in prose is reasonably large for an article, but there are multiple measures of article length. Currently the markup size is 700kb, which is well over any guidelines for how large an article should be, and this doesn't include the sizes of templates and page features outside of the article. Would splitting make it more usable? It would make the content within the article more usable, certainly. Currently the content for the latter centuries is buried underneath a lot of content for the prior centuries. Is there a technical reason why size is a problem? No one seems to have come up with one. I would recommend WP:SIZE which goes into fair detail, but to put it briefly, we want to minimise loading and scrolling times (particularly on mobile devices, and slower computers, internet connections), and to increase the time that people read the content. Personally, I think Dr G's good faith work should be accepted at face value and left as it is. I don't think there are any concerns or issues being raised with the content itself, and I certainly don't see any need to change the content itself either.

I hope this addresses any concerns. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:04, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

I hate to keep saying this, but it is not that easy to split this article. Your attempt to split off the Nineteenth Century needed a lot of work on both articles to make them usable and have either article readable as a unit. Even with your split-off, this article was 504k, and it would've been the 4th largest article, just behind the enlightening subjects as Tawag ng Tanghalan (season 4) and List of Hallmark Channel Original Movies, both of which are being heavily edited on a daily basis. The third, List of Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign endorsements will be irrelevant come next month. So it is reasonable to assume that, at some point in the near future, it would need to be further reduced. Your claim of a 200k article is the spin-off, not the original. Similarly, the claim for mobile users being disadvantaged is a red herring. No one in their right mind is going to access this article on their phone. And it loads just fine on my iPad.

This article is not written for the casual reader who wants to learn about the Crusades. It is a reference article, not a browsing article. You may not like the structure or flow, but that is how Crusader historians organize this material. I didn't make this up. If you were reading, say the Routledge Companion to the Crusades, and needed some more information and a particular historian or history, this is where you would go. There is no source accessible on the Internet or hardcopy that you can go to. It also expands Wikipedia as a source for Google searches on authors or works not otherwise found her. That being said, Section 10. Archaeology... is one that could be feasibly split off which would move it to position #2 behind the Tawag article. Again, it can't just be cut and pasted. The content in both articles has to be massaged. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 21:42, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

I would be very interested to hear what you see that challenges for splitting this article to be, and the work that would be needed to split the 19th century section. If you mean that this article would still be 500kB after a split of that section then yes that's correct, and splitting another 100kB from it would put it much further down the list. The fact that "no one in their right mind is going to access this article on their phone" is exactly the problem with having so much content on one page. Wikipedia's content needs to be as accessible as possible.

I don't have an issue with the content of this article, but it is important that all articles are easily understood and accessible to English speakers, including those who want to know about the historiography of the Crusades. Wikipedia doesn't do bibliographies, we do encyclopaedia articles.

It's good that the Archaeology section can be split into a new article, but the article would likely become the largest article again as those other articles you mention inevitably get split as well. The main indicator would have to be the size of the page itself, more than the relative position. Onetwothreeip (talk) 22:02, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Well, I have loaded this on my phone, Samsung A70 so nothing special and the page is perfectly usable, although I take Dr G's point that only a madman would try this. So clearly there is no technical reason for the split. I also refreshed my memory of WP:TOOBIG and the policy appears to be on readible prose. At 78kb, this article is large, but not so large that the policy requires or even recommends splitting. Splitting the article presents far more problems than it solves. Crusade academics are an argumentative bunch, put two in a room and you get three opinions. Furthermore, many of the narratives of older sources are unreliable, politically and religiously partial, to remove context as some editors do in the crusade topics leads to statement that appera true in WP, but are actually highly contested. While translated, sources come in a variety of modern and older languages. This is a List, making editorial judgements without consensus would be wrong. Other opinions would be welcome and I accept that I could be wrong, but at the moment there is no consensus. Norfolkbigfish (talk) 11:17, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Leaving aside the anecdote that you being able to load the page on your phone means there are not any technical issues, nobody is arguing that the article should split on the basis of readable prose size alone, but WP:TOOBIG does explicitly recommend splitting an article of this readable prose size, probably should be divided. Readable prose is one measure of size, the other two being wiki markup size and browser size. We know what the wiki markup size is, and we know that it's the largest on Wikipedia, indicating there are clear issues. I don't see how you can say WP:Article size is a policy about readable prose size, when the first paragraph of the lead section lists the three measures of an article's size. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:04, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Page Size, Continued

It is clear that your intent is to split this article regardless of any argument against that view. For example, you say, and I quote "WP:TOOBIG does explicitly recommend splitting an article of this readable prose size" when it actually says "Probably should be divided (although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading material)." I think that you will agree that the term "explicitly recommend" that you use and what it actually says are quite different. In the middle of what was some of us trying to reach an accommodation, you claimed that you have a consensus and went ahead and split the article, despite arguments against just that. And then you changed the name of the article to something that it isn't. When it was pointed out that your "fix" would render it the 4th largest article that would soon require further splitting, you first claimed that it was only 200k, and then admitting that it was 500k, agreed that it would need to be split again. Your first position was that each article should be under 100k. Then, no, it was that it just needed to be smaller, but declined to answer the question, how small? I have spun off two pieces and am investigating splitting off a third, but it apparently must meet some goal that you are unable to articulate.

Here's another one of your comments: "I don't have an issue with the content of this article, but it is important that all articles are easily understood and accessible to English speakers, including those who want to know about the historiography of the Crusades. Wikipedia doesn't do bibliographies, we do encyclopaedia articles." I'm sorry, but this article will not be understandable to your average English speaker. As a native English speaker myself, there are many things that I understand and many more that I don't, including a lot of Wikipedia articles. I have learned to live with that, investing the time in those areas that I am interested in. Dumbing down the article will not assist the generic "English speaker" in understanding the subject matter, which is not "the historiography of the Crusades." There is not even a consensus as to what that phrase means. You also seem to think that Wikipedia doesn't do bibliographies, which would come as a surprise to the many contributors in Category:Bibliographies by subject. Splitting the article will not achieve the goals you laid out in that statement. If you really feel that strongly about what you said, put the article up for deletion.

You keep wanting to understand why the sections can't just be separated. Well, here goes. As an example, the first four entries in Section 2 have five references to later sections. One is to Henri-Victor Michelant, who can only be found in French Wikipedia. Same goes for Paul E. D. Riant. A third is to Girolamo Golubovich who has no Wikipedia reference of any language that I could find and must be found in the databases for Bibliothèque nationale de France or WorldCat. These would need to be explained. Otherwise, they're just names without meaning. These authors appear frequently in Crusader articles in Wikipedia as their works are frequently referenced, and occasionally someone wants to find out more about them. Most non-English Wikipedia references are in French, German or Italian Wikipedia, but one is in the Norwegian Wikipedia. Each section is not stand-alone. This article was written with a particular objective in mind as were its companion articles, reflecting how Crusader historians do it. To split it would require rewriting. Let me repeat that just for emphasis, to split it would require rewriting. It's a lot of work to create a product that would be more confusing.

As a mathematician, I am familiar with the concept of well-ordered sets, particularly those that have a largest element. There will always be a largest Wikipedia article. This one is it for now, but won't be forever. I seems that things are reversed, that it's a solution (move this article down the "longest article" list) in search of a problem. And the logic keeps changing. First, you're worried about mobile users. After that's addressed, there's something else. You keep moving the goal posts, your argument is a Red Herring. Wikipedia lays out guidelines for article size and this one appears to meet them. Get together a review group and propose some solutions to this "problem." And find someone who wants to invest the time, only to have the "problem" come around again. You know what my vote will be. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 06:58, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

First of all I'd like to thank you for your detailed remarks. This goes a fair way to understanding your concerns and allows me a clear opportunity to respond to them.

For example, you say, and I quote "WP:TOOBIG does explicitly recommend splitting an article of this readable prose size" when it actually says "Probably should be divided (although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading material)." Yes, saying something "probably" should happen is a recommendation, and that's only for readable prose size. The markup size and browser size is far larger than that as well.

In the middle of what was some of us trying to reach an accommodation, you claimed that you have a consensus and went ahead and split the article, despite arguments against just that. I would be very interested to hear the accommodation you have in mind, as it would please me greatly to find some common ground on this.

When it was pointed out that your "fix" would render it the 4th largest article that would soon require further splitting, you first claimed that it was only 200k, and then admitting that it was 500k, agreed that it would need to be split again. It looked like you were talking about the section that was split off into its own article (the 19th century section which was 200kB), not the main article after the split, so that's just nothing more than a miscommunication. The article certainly should be split to reduce it below 500kB as well, and getting it to 400kB would take the article to about ninetieth on the list, but that shouldn't be the main focus. What you said initially was If we split this one, won't the next one also need to be split, and so forth. Wont' the split article eventually become the longest again?, which sounded like you were referring to the article that was created from the split.

And then you changed the name of the article to something that it isn't. I did that to make the article title more concise as per our guidelines, but that's a completely separate issue and not as important as the page's size.

I'm sorry, but this article will not be understandable to your average English speaker. It should be, but that's a separate issue. I don't have an opinion on whether this article is understandable or not.

Splitting the article will not achieve the goals you laid out in that statement. I agree, splitting the article is only a recourse for the size of the article.

As an example, the first four entries in Section 2 have five references to later sections. This is not a problem, the same reference can be used multiple times and on multiple articles.

To split it would require rewriting. Splitting articles doesn't require rewriting them, especially when they are from sections of the larger article. It's mostly a matter of transferring the content into their own articles, and adding some things at the top and bottom.

There will always be a largest Wikipedia article. This one is it for now, but won't be forever. You are correct to say that the issue is not that this is the largest Wikipedia article. That is simply an indicator of the problem, and as I've said before, addressing the ranking isn't the point.

First, you're worried about mobile users. After that's addressed, there's something else. You keep moving the goal posts, your argument is a Red Herring. This is absolutely still a problem for mobile users and how it works on your iPad doesn't change that. There certainly are other issues with an article being this size, but that remains an issue for the reasons I've outlined and the reasons listed at WP:TOOBIG. I hope this adequately responds to your comments and we can find a way forward. Onetwothreeip (talk) 09:07, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

So by way of summary, what do we know. We know the at 78kb of readible prose that readible prose is not ad issue. This is an enormous subject that meets the caveat in the guidelines (although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading material). The page loads quickly and successfully on a number of different devices, in fact no one has come up with a device that the page doesn't load on. Therefore Browser page size is not an issue. Wiki Markup Size is large due to the number of hyperlinks, but I can't anywhere that mandates or recommends a limit for this, so we can safely ignore.

Using the usability criteria from Wikipedia:Article size then:

• Reader issues, such as attention span, readability, organization, information saturation, etc.

No problem, at 78kb readible prose

• Editor issues, such as talkpage tension, arguments over trivial contributions, debates on how to split up a large article, etc.

What contention there is seems to be a minority interest, with only one editor pursuing a split.

• Contribution issues, such as articles ceasing to grow significantly once they reach a certain size, even though there is still information on the topic that could be contributed

This looks pretty comprehensive, but knowing those Wikipedeans interested in the subject there will be no barrier to further recommendations.

• Other technical issues, such as limitations of mobile browsers.

None identified.

All in all looks pretty much in good shape, and there is no merit in the suggestion that the article should be split Norfolkbigfish (talk) 12:15, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

The guideline is that articles of this readable prose size should be split, and this topic certainly does not have such a scope that justifies added reading material. A list of historians of a particular period and series of events is a deliberately narrowed scope. A page of this size takes much longer to load depending on factors such as internet speed, computer processing speed, and other pages or programs being run. This is especially a concern for mobile devices, which is the clear technical issue identified by our guidelines. Hyperlink formatting does not account for much of the article's size, but if there are an excessive amount then let's work to remove them. Stating that "only one editor" supports a split of the article is untrue; @Pigsonthewing, Srnec, Pauli133, and Hanif Al Husaini: are the other participants of this discussion, and I am not the one who started the discussion. Onetwothreeip (talk) 02:20, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

@Dr. Grampinator: Is there anything in this article you would like to split into another article at some point? Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:23, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Onetwothreeip—no objective case for splitting this article has yet been made. No consensus for the split has been demonstrated and no one else has posted in favour since 20th December. I suggest you let this matter lie, it is starting to look like axe grinding. Norfolkbigfish (talk) 10:15, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

The reasons have been extensively described and are not unique to this article, you just disagree with them. When it comes to counting the editors who have or haven't favoured, we cannot count you as you were explicitly WP:CANVASSed to be here by Dr. Grampinator on your talk page. I am now asking Dr. Grampinator if they intend on splitting any part of the article, now or in future. Onetwothreeip (talk) 10:35, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

RFC: This article has less than 50kb of readable prose & numerous sections, therefore it is reasonable in terms of size and structure

This article has less than 50kb of readable prose & numerous sections, therefore it is reasonable in terms of size and structure. Norfolkbigfish (talk) 14:51, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

• Support This article loads efficiently on multiple devices, is clearly sectioned and at 78kb of readable prose for 7 centuries of sources seems reasonably sized. Norfolkbigfish (talk) 14:50, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
• RfCs are required to be neutrally-worded, this one is not. It not even asking a question. Furthermore, at 689,564 bytes of wiki-code, this article is not only too large, but is horrendously so Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:09, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Pigsonthewing, you are an experienced wikipedian, perhaps you could elaborate on why the size of wiki-code presents an issue and draw our attention to what WP policy it contravenes? Norfolkbigfish (talk) 22:40, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

• Absolutely nothing about this article is reasonably sized, it is burdensomely large for readers on data-limited connections, and it presents significant challenges for loading and editing for me (at the very least). Splitting sections or groups of sections into separate articles is trivial and does not compromise the information being presented in any way. pauli133 (talk) 19:30, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
• Clearly not a valid RfC but nonetheless Pauli133 is absolutely correct. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:52, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

In response to the above comments I have reworded the RFC as a question. Perhaps Pauli133 could add some detail to what looks like subjective anecdotal comment. Norfolkbigfish (talk) 22:48, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

That's an incredibly bad faith argument given you said Well, I have loaded this on my phone, Samsung A70 so nothing special and the page is perfectly usable, although I take Dr G's point that only a madman would try this. Onetwothreeip (talk) 23:10, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Not at all Onetwothreeip, no bad faith in intention or act. I can find no technical problem, so I am interested to know what other editors have found. There is a lot of comment, but little objective evidence. Norfolkbigfish (talk) 23:31, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Actually, I just did a test edit on my phone and it works fine, as good as any other article on WP. As a POV the madman comment stands as I cannot see why anyone would want to edit any article on WP on a phone. The size of this one seems to make no difference. Norfolkbigfish (talk) 23:39, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

You have now rendered it an ungrammatical mess ("as such it of a reasonable size and structure?"), which no-one can sensibly answer. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:47, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

• It's too long. I calculate a different readable prose size (57 kB), but that's not very relevant as readable prose size is a bad measurement for a list (most of which is not prose). For lists a common sense approach is needed. Here, a split would be in order. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:27, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
• @Norfolkbigfish, Pigsonthewing, Pauli133, and Finnusertop: What are the participants' thoughts on simply moving the 19th century list into the same article with the 20th and 21st centuries? Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:22, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

  19th century is still a very large section (230k!), and represents a pretty distinct period in the development of scholarship, especially in Europe. I'm leery of combining them as a permanent solution. On the other hand, I've got no objection to shifting the arbitrary start and end times from 1800/1900 to others (post-Napoleonic to WWI, for example), if that makes sense for the material being covered. Or not, if it wouldn't help anything. pauli133 (talk) 00:08, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

  It would seem arbitrary to me, and the rationale isn’t clear. For me any splitting requires the support/sourcing to a reputable academic or academics, otherwise it is WP:OR. Michaud was born in the 18th century and lived to 1839. Scott lived until 1832. Same with Mills. Some periods make sense e.g. Reformation, Enlightenment while some like this blur. The Colonial schools didn't get started until after WWI and post-colonialism until after the foundation of the State of Isreal. Modern historiography can be argued to have only have started with Runciman in the 50s. Tyerman's 2011 discusses it quite well. Dr G seems to be working on reducing the size, perhaps it is best to wait and see where he gets to before revisiting this? Norfolkbigfish (talk) 17:57, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

  The article is already divided by centuries, so those questions have already been answered. Nothing to do with original research. Onetwothreeip (talk) 20:24, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

• Si ze is fine Policies like WP:TOOBIG was written a decade ago when computers sucked more. Computers have gotten much more powerful since then and arbitrary limits like 100kb makes no sense anymore. I'd imagine, for the article's audience, people researching the historiography of the crusades, one (huge) article is much more convenient than one that is arbitrarily split. ImTheIP (talk) 13:57, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Let us know when you've obtained consensus to rewrite - or delete - WP:TOOBIG. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:19, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
    • Not sure this comment is either constructive or helpful Pigsonthewing. I would have thought an experienced Wikipedian would behave better. Norfolkbigfish (talk) 17:57, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
      • I would have thought an experienced Wikipedian such as you would know better than to cast such false and snide aspersions. I take it WP:TOOBIG remains unaltered? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:44, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
• Process comment: This RfC is not even formatted a question, let alone a neutral question as required by WP:RFCNEUTRAL. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 09:31, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
• I don't understand the need for this RfC. Yes, the article is really big. It could be trimmed considerably by formatting the text and references better. But what's this RfC for? Splitting? Deleting? Assurance that it shouldn't be changed at all? PraiseVivec (talk) 15:23, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
• This isn't an article, it's a book. While it's no longer the longest on the entire encyclopedia (now coming in at #60 with 409,433 bytes), it is still a whopping 29,259 words long. Wowzie zowzies! To compare, Of Mice and Men is 29,160, and The Old Man and the Sea is a paltry 26,601. Not only are they both novels, they're also fairly straightforward narratives regarding a handful of characters. This article, on the other hand, contains a mind-boggling ensemble of them over the course of seven hundred years. Is there anyone who could take this in one sitting? Length guidelines aren't just about whether readers' silicon hardware can handle long articles! And it's not as though it is particularly difficult to split this article up; it's already separated into mostly-independent sections by century. Each of these sections could easily pass muster as its own article. While I'm sympathetic to the idea that poorly-chosen breakpoints could mislead readers by implying a false importance to whatever distinction is chosen, I think it'd be quite possible for everyone to think about it and agree on something that makes sense (a process which seems to have germinated already). jp×g 21:02, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

• (Summoned by bot) As others have noted, this isn't a sufficiently framed/worded RfC. Beyond that, it seems more or less unambiguous that it's too long. The question is what to do about it. I think some people seem to imply (or fear that people imply) "too big = delete". Too big can mean tightening the inclusion criteria or the amount of information we include. Too big can also mean splitting it up into multiple lists. I tend to think a little from column A and a little from column B is in order, but none of this is likely to be resolved under this particular RfC. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 02:38, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
• Okay The length is fine. ~ HAL333

Process issues aside, and I accept it is badly worded, it appears that there is no consensus on whether this article is too large. I'll close the rfc on that basis. Norfolkbigfish (talk) 21:01, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Background and Context of this Article

A bit of history on this article (referred to here as Later Historians) might be useful in discussing this RFC. This is part of a larger article called Historians and Histories of the Crusades (referred to here as Historians) which was actually begun in its current form in June 2020 with the expansion of an existing article called list of sources for the Crusades. Concerns about its size led to the creation of two other articles under Historians, including Later Historians. Again, concerns on size led to material being moved to other articles and the creation of a new article, list of modern historians of the Crusades (Modern Historians) on 29 December 2020. Material is being moved from Later to Modern in a careful way to maintain the readability and appropriateness of the larger article Historians.

So, Later Historians is being split, but apparently not as fast as some would like. Also, my inquiries as to how long is acceptable ranged from "under 100k" to "just smaller." I would suggest the angst about the length of the article at least wait until I have finished what I had committed to, as the complaints began the day after the newly created article, Modern, began to be populated. I am continuing to move material from Later to Modern, but I want to do what makes sense and is readable to those with some knowledge of the Crusades. Despite the desire to make it "easily understood and accessible to English speakers," that goal is not achievable. If that is the criteria, then the article should just be deleted.

I have written over 500 articles for Wikipedia and professionally edited thousands more, and I have been accused of being naive and a bad researcher, and have never been in the middle an editing war. I was therefore surprised that I was accused of malfeasance in dealing on this matter. I have reviewed the governing Wikipedia policy on this matter and am sure my behavior was appropriate. I can't say the same for simply splitting a complex article (badly at that) in the middle of an otherwise friendly discussion on size and renaming it incorrectly. I realize that this is a hot-button issue for some, but there will always be a largest article. Right now it is Later; it won't be forever.

I am working on a daily basis to right-size the overall Historians and, in particular, Later Historians. It isn't going to happen in a day, or even a week. I suggest the discussion be postponed at least until the article is finished. Yes, Later will be smaller. There might even be a new article based on Section 10, as I have discussed earlier. I can't commit to how small or how soon at this minute. Frankly, dealing with this issue on a near-daily basis is getting frustrating. Issues are raised and then addressed, only to have the issue change and the reappear a few days later. I hope this answers the latest question, which I have answered over and over again. For future reference, I am a "he", not a "they". I believe in the 21st century, "they" is reserved for people identifying as non-binary. I think "he /she" would have been better.

@Dr. Grampinator: First of all "they" isn't reserved for people identifying as non-binary, it is also (and primarily) used to refer to a person without respect to their gender. Which material are you intending to move from this article to List of modern historians of the Crusades? I would also recommend you to be aware of WP:OWN. Onetwothreeip (talk) 22:00, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps the size of the article could be reduced by using a less verbose referencing style? For example, some of the references are just links to the works in question. For example, instead of:

Essays on Archaeological Subjects: and on various questions connected with the history of art, science and literature in the middle ages (1861).<ref name=":178">Wright, T. (1861). [https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000270791?type%5B%5D=author&lookfor%5B%5D=%22Wright%2C%20Thomas%2C%201810-1877.%22&ft= Essays on archaeological subjects: and on various questions connected with the history of art, science and literature in the middle ages]. London: J. R. Smith.</ref>

write

[https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000270791 Essays on Archaeological Subjects]: and on various questions connected with the history of art, science and literature in the middle ages (1861).

You could probably cut the article by 30% or so by this trivial change. Also, why is each author's name duplicated? Instead of "Jean Germain. Jean Germain (1400–1461)," why not just write "Jean Germain (1400–1461)." Perhaps also look into using shortened footnotes to reduce the article size further. ImTheIP (talk) 14:07, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your constructive comments. And, yes, the citations are clearly a problem. When I first started editing this series of articles ("Sources..." was the first at 14k), I was chastised for using an abbreviated format for citations and so that's why you see them as they are. For example, the "template" citations (Catholic Encyclopedia, etc.) contain lots of information, like the hyperlink to the Wikipedia article "Catholic Encyclopedia." So, in response to the desire to cut the article size, I've been eliminating non-essential information from those (a work still in progress). Many of the others are to HathiTrust references, and what I have done is copy the APA citation and add the hyperlink to the book. (I'm pretty sure you are really supposed to add another line for the link, but that would really blow things up.) I'm going through an cleaning the words up, getting rid of things line lengthy commentary in Latin or German, but I'm a novice when it comes to cleaning up the hyperlinks. Occasionally, some WikiBot will come through and do something, but I'm never sure what.

I looked at that citation that you referenced, and clearly all the superfluous material is the result of my clumsy navigation. I have tried to be careful in that area and have obviously failed. As you can see from my moniker, I am not of an age that understands the intricacies of the "Internets." I can try to fix things but I fear any effort on my part will make things worse. In the meantime, I continue to winnow down the article as best I can.

The citations do sometimes provide additional information not in the writeup. For example, if X wrote a treatise in 1807, but the only one available in the 3rd edition published in 1815, with some editor Y, I'll leave that information in. Like I said, I'm in the process of cleaning up what I can, relying on others (human or bot) for assistance. It also may be worse as some of the references are supposed to have ISBNs and the format has lots of internal links, but so far the issue hasn't surfaced.

The "duplication" issue was actually given a lot of thought. The original "Sources..." was in table format and was easy to follow in a short article, but as it grew the format was too cumbersome. Given the size of these articles, it was felt that it was important to be able to quickly scan a page for top level information. Our first thought was to do as you suggested, but some of the references had a Wikipedia link and others didn't, so there wouldn't be a consistent look to each entry. Also many names are longer that what the person (or in some cases, document) is known by, and so the bolded portion can be a shortened version. This is particularly true for Arabic names, which tend to be lengthy, but also for modern authors such as J. B. Bury and C. E. Bosworth who are usually recognized by their initials. Your suggestion is the format used in the articles "List of Crusades..." and "Collections..", but not in the much longer "Sources.." and this one and "Modern..." and "Archaeology..." It seems like a lot of work for not much gain.

I am probably going to spin off Chapter 6 to a separate article, which will make the third one spun off as well as material moved to "Collections..." It makes no sense to move the 19th century material to "Modern...." That article was spun off on 29 December and has already tripled in size and will continue to grow as more historians (of which there are many) and referenced works are added. Besides a move that makes no sense, "Modern..." would soon be the largest article and then we're going to have to go through this all over again. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 17:16, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Splitting this article

This article is currently one of the longest on the wiki with ~425,000+ bytes, which is far too long. Also, after looking at the section sizes, the 19th century section seems to be a significant outlier and takes up at least half of the article size at ~220,000+ bytes, so I suggest splitting it into its own article: List of ninteenth century historians of the Crusades. Blubabluba9990 (talk) (contribs) 22:55, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

I support the proposal. zsteve21 (talk) 13:38, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Note: it has already been done on 02:45, 29 December 2020‎ by Onetwothreeip: List of Crusades historians (19th century). But Dr. Grampinator has refused to recognise this by restoring the "Nineteenth century" section here on 05:53, 29 December 2020, (and later by trying to PROD the article in July 2021, which was then DEPRODded; see also Talk:List of Crusades historians (19th century)#Article deletion). On the other hand, a few minutes later, on 06:19, 29 December 2020‎, Grampinator did split off List of modern historians of the Crusades, recognising it was deemed too long.

A January/February 2021 RfC (on this talk page) then resulted in No Consensus whether the article was too long. Curiously, it was started and closed by the same person, Norfolkbigfish, who was already involved since at least 18:53, 29 December 2020 (voicing a strong opinion against a split), in contravention to WP:NACINV (see also WP:NACD).

I would cautiously suggest there is some unfinished business here. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 15:10, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

The splitting off of the 19th century piece was done without consensus and reversed. The split article was supposed to be deleted, but apparent it still lives but has not been maintained. As a result of this discussion, the original article was split into the following four pieces:

• List of later historians of the Crusades
• List of modern historians of the Crusades
• Historians of the Crusades: archaeology, cartography and numismatics
• Historical sources of the Crusades: pilgrimages and exploration

The fifth, Historians of the Crusades: the auxiliary sciences of history, has been proposed for deletion by Srnec as it is confusing and redundant. At this point, I think it should be deleted. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 17:17, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Where did Srnec propose that? Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 22:11, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Format of article

The formatting of the article is nonsense, repeating every single name for no reason whatsoever. And no, Dr. Grampinator, this is certainly not a well-established format within Wikipedia. Please undo your edit. All my warmest wishes, ItsKesha (talk) 14:32, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

ItsKesha The format is the Wikipedia format for descriptive lists, slightly modified so that the "name" field is not followed by a carriage return, but rather continued on the same line for readability. And the name is not repeated for every name--some of them are shortened versions, usually the more common use of a longer name. The format that you are proposing has been tried along with other variations (e.g., bullets, numbers, sections) and they don't really work here as a presentation tool. The structure of the article has been acceptable for many years by the Crusades Task Force of the Wikiproject Military History and has been in use in many other articles. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 17:44, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

No it isn't the format, that's nonsense. If the name of the historian is already there, it clearly doesn't need to be repeated, and it should be the most commonly used name, not a shortened or lengthened version. There's literally no way it wouldn't work without repeating the name. If you look at any article in this Template:Glossaries of science and engineering, you'll find how how the article should be formatted. All my warmest wishes, ItsKesha (talk) 10:24, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

ItsKeshaFirst of all, this is a descriptive list, not a glossary. And even in the articles you provided there are many variations provided, including ones with models similar to the one used here as I pointed out yesterday.

Also, you would like to have things changed so that only the commonly used name is shown. That doesn't work very well for the Arabic or Persian names, and is contrary to common WP practices. Most biographical articles have for a title the commonly used name, with the article beginning with the full name and alternative names.

What you are proposing is a major rewrite and restructure of a stable article that is within Wikipedia guidelines and has been reviewed by dozens of experienced editors that are core Crusader contributors.Dr. Grampinator (talk) 16:51, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

I mean, it appears that this article serves a highly similar purpose as those glossary articles, there isn't a great deal of difference on the face of it, and you haven't done anything to dispute that. I'm proposing the repetition of names is removed, so how on earth do you conclude that that is a "major rewrite and restructure"; I did around half the job already before you reverted me! List articles aren't biographical articles, therefore both common and full names aren't necessary. And please use :: to paragraph correctly when responding. All my warmest wishes, ItsKesha (talk) 19:52, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're saying here. This is a descriptive list and there is no prescribed format for them. It is similar, not identical, to a glossary and many of the glossary examples that you provided are of the same format. In fact, if you use the glossary template on this subject, you will get the existing article. The repetition of names occurs in many articles. We could make each entry a separate subsection but that would make the article unwieldy. As I have said before, this format has been used and reviewed many times and the people using it as a resource have found it effective. Many of the historians here do not have a separate Wikipedia entry, so it appropriate to include information, like other names, here. A brief description is included with citations to other biographical sources. No one claimed that it was a complete biography, but provides enough information towards the purpose of the article. I'm sorry I didn't use ::. I don't usually use them and, since it's just the two of use conversing, really, what's the point? Dr. Grampinator (talk) 01:49, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

lol the very first words you said in this discussion were "The format is the Wikipedia format for descriptive lists", now you're saying "there is no prescribed format here"? The repetition of names doesn't occur in any articles or you'd be able to give me 20 examples. And it doesn't matter if you usually use :: or not, you're doing it wrong as per WP:THREAD. All my warmest wishes, ItsKesha (talk) 12:11, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

You are quite right, I originally misspoke. This is biographical descriptive list for which there is no prescribed Wikipedia format. But it is still subject to WP rules about lists, biographies, etc., and should follow generally accepted practices. If you look at the Routledge Companion to the Crusades by Peter Lock, among others, you will see a similar format.
As to the "20 examples," I found several in the examples you provided above and there are many more. Are you saying repetition is not allowed from a title (what is bolded in the article) and the text that follows? The intent is not to exactly replicate, but have the title the commonly used name for search purposes and the full name(s) and variations for completeness. As I pointed out, many of these entries do not have a WP article and so this is the sole reference here.Dr. Grampinator (talk) 01:30, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

"Routledge Companion to the Crusades by Peter Lock" isn't a Wikipedia article. Please link me an example of even one list article such as this which repeats the names immediately within the same sentence. And I'm not talking about the title of the article, you know I'm not. It doesn't matter if entries have a Wikipedia article or not, there is no need whatsoever for name repetition in this manner. MOS:SURNAME will inform you of this. All my warmest wishes, ItsKesha (talk) 10:44, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Glossary of the American trucking industry, Glossary of group theory, Glossary of mill machinery, Glossary of string theory

The first one literally doesn't do what you are saying it does. I presume the other three are the same? And if you're now arguing that this article is actually a glossary, read this. All my warmest wishes, ItsKesha (talk) 10:34, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Glossary of mill machinery does immediately repeat most entries but uses a "the" in many cases. There are numerous examples that don't use an article, but that's not the point. I never said this article was a glossary. It isn't. It is a descriptive list (which a glossary is also) which have similar rules. The real difference is a glossary is alphabetically ordered, and Wikipedia glossaries have have a blank line between the "term" (the bold in the article) and the "definition" (what follows the bold). In glossaries, each entry is a separate section. In glossaries in print, there is no blank line generally, as space is at a premium. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 01:41, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

If it's not a glossary, why are you banging on about what a glossary is? All my warmest wishes, ItsKesha (talk) 12:29, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Primary sources

Just like List of collections of Crusader sources, this list has great potential, but currently does not comply with WP:PRIMARY. References to primary sources themselves (WP:SELF) do not establish their notability, nor their relevance for inclusion in the list.

• Per WP:LOW, Complete lists of works, appropriately sourced to reliable scholarship (WP:V), are encouraged.
• Per WP:BIB, It should be possible to verify that each entry in a bibliography meets the inclusion criteria. If an entry has a Wikipedia article, merely wikilinking it to the article verifies it because the reader can navigate to the article and determine if the entry meets the inclusion criteria. If an entry does not have a Wikipedia article and there might be any doubt that it belongs in the bibliography, it should be cited with a reliable source that verifies its relevance.

I think this is a fixable problem. All that needs to happen is referring to a reliable secondary source which identifies a particular historian and/or their work as a 'later historians of the Crusades'. I'm sure such reliable secondary sources exist, although it would depend on the definition of 'later historians of the Crusades'. If secondary reliable sources agree that this is essentially anyone writing about the Crusades from the 13th through 19th century, that should be easy to do. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 17:43, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Original research

This list has great potential, but currently does not comply with WP:NOR. This is particularly true for making potentially contentious claims. Reliable secondary sources are needed to establish who or what is 'prominent', 'important', 'interesting', 'notable', 'seminal' or 'relevant', not unsourced statements (WP:V) or primary sources (WP:PRIMARY).

• Per WP:PRIMARY: Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation.
• Also per WP:PRIMARY: Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so. Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them.

Therefore, one cannot say Book X written by Historian Y about the Crusades is important.[1]
[1]. Historian Y, Book X.
I think this is a fixable problem. All that needs to happen is referring to a reliable secondary source which identifies a particular historian and/or their work as 'prominent', 'important', 'interesting', 'notable', 'seminal' or 'relevant'. I'm sure such reliable secondary sources exist. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 17:53, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

The intent here and with the entire series of articles is to provide lists of works and authors related to the Crusades. The citations are generally to the works themselves. I have no problem getting rid of terms like "notable", etc. There are eight list articles plus a summary one and they took several years to create. I don't think it's feasible to include a citation from a secondary source for each entry as to why it is included. There are many works that are viewed by historians as important in the historiography of the Crusades, but, again, that view is not universal. Current historians don't agree amongst themselves as to which works to emphasize. Even the so-called original sources are subject to debate as to accuracy and/or relevance.

I've tried to just list everything without judgement so that Wikipedians working on Crusade-related articles can see what's what. There are articles on historiography that try to capture relevance, etc., but they come short as the experts have strong disagreements. There does not seem to be a consensus as to what constitutes a crusade and I'm trying to avoid these arguments in these lists.

It's not my view that the use of qualifies like notable is egregious here, but maybe in some cases. For example, in the description of Lodovico Dolce's 1572 work, the word "notable" came from his Wikipedia article. The identification of the encyclopedia articles as notable comes from Lock's companion to the Crusades and maybe could be cited.

Let's keep the dialog going. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 18:36, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your response, I appreciate it. I can also understand that you have invested a lot of time in compiling these lists, and that is quite commendable. It is unfortunate that more efforts are required to bring them in line with Wikipedia's standards, which apply to all content and all users, including you and me. WP:BURDEN states: Attribute all of the following types of material to reliable, published sources using inline citations: (...) all material whose verifiability has been challenged. As it happens, I have challenged some of your material, so Any material lacking an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the material may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source. By placing [citation needed] tags, I'm giving you time and opportunity to do this. (There is no set time for this, and in lists/articles like this there is no need to hurry, but it would be nice if you (or other users) could do that within, like, a year). If you don't think it's 'feasible' to support material that is challenged, then that is unfortunate for you, I'm afraid; we can't indefinitely have WP:MERCY on texts which do not comply with the rules. (Note that at this point I do not think this list should be deleted, just that some sentences here and there cannot remain as they are now, and will have to be removed if they remain unsupported for long). I can relate, I've written a lot of texts that I couldn't support when they were challenged, so I learnt it the hard way. The lesson is to always cite your sources as you are writing the text, so you can always show that what you've written is accurate and relevant.

I empathise with your frustration about how scholars have constant disagreements about what constitutes a crusade. As a historian myself (also here on Wikipedia), I'm in such disagreements with colleagues all the time. ;) However, that wouldn't be an excuse for me to just give up on trying to define what a Crusade is, and to lump everything together that I personally think is relevant to the Crusades, and publish that all on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not an WP:INDISCRIMINATE collection of information; we do have WP:LISTCRITERIA to comply to. Nor could I go around saying that, say, Napoleon's campaign in Egypt and Syria was the 117th Crusade based only on my own criteria and counting, without listing reliable secondary sources (WP:OR). If we want to play the game of Wikipedia, we must follow the rules, even if we don't like the rules or have trouble following the rules.

As to the mentions of 'notable', if you found these elsewhere in Wikipedia, you're allowed to WP:COPYWITHIN Wikipedia, that saves you time and effort. Otherwise, I would advise you to avoid such words, because it could go against WP:OR, WP:NPOV, or something like MOS:NOTED (in sentences like It should be noted that Book X has long been influential...; you can just rewrite that as Book X has long been influential...).

Yes, let's keep this going, I think we could work (a few) things out. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 19:37, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

PS: @Dr. Grampinator: You should take Srnec's article Recovery of the Holy Land as an example. They did a great job on properly defining the subject of the article, and providing reliable secondary sources for every claim. Just yesterday I asked citations for all works in the list that didn't have an article, or whose author's bio didn't indicate that said work was about recovery of the Holy Land (WP:BIB). Just this morning Srnec immediately provided a reliable secondary source for each of them, and so I thanked Srnec. :)

Providing reliable secondary sources and not doing original research is certainly feasible, especially for smaller articles. I'm not in a hurry for you to provide citations that fast, but I think it's reasonable for me to expect you to try and provide them within about a year. As said, these lists and articles have great potential, but the community may well expect certain issues to be fixed within a reasonable amount of time rather than remaining unaddressed indefinitely. If you accept that, other users, perhaps including myself, may be willing to help you. :) Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 07:55, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

@Nederlandse Leeuw. I've copied some other editors @Srnec, @Norfolkbigfish, @Borsoka, @Firsteleventh that have worked on these articles or have an interest in the Crusades. As a matter of history, I started working on a small and inadequate article on sources of the Crusades in June 2020. It listed the original Latin chronicles of the First Crusade, a couple of Arab works and one on the Second Crusade, and claimed to be complete. Adding to it, this grew into the current Historians and histories of the Crusades which is an introductory article with eight supporting list articles. Collectively, these articles list many hundreds of historians (and other authors) and their works that are of interest to the Crusades.

Earlier this week Nederlandse Leeuw began making large numbers of "citation needed" or "original research" notations on these articles which were massive and, frankly, too hard to keep up with. The first demand is that each entry be accompanied by a secondary source citation to show why it's relevant. The second demand is that all "original research" be eliminated. The third demand is that these list articles be split so that each article's mark-up size is less than 100k.

Let me address the last one first. We've been through the "let's split the article because it's too big" many times. The standard is for readable text, not mark-up text.

The second one is nonsense. There is no research here. If one modern historian thinks a work is great and another one thinks it's crap, do we qualify the entry as thus? If you don't like the modifier, change it.

The first is not possible. The example of Srnec adding references was not that time consuming, as most of them came out of Leopold. To do it to these articles would take hundreds of man-hours and make the lists unreadable.

My frustration was further aggrevated by the insulting nature of the remarks above. A good example is: "I'm afraid, we can't indefinitely have WP:MERCY on texts which do not comply with the rules." Really? We can't? I have never seen such a condescending discussion on Wikipedia. A least they've given me a year to accomplish my task. (I thought Wikipedia was a collaborative enterprise. I didn't know that someone could just task me to do something.)

Nederlandse Leeuw raised the possibility that these articles should be deleted, that they are so bad and egregious, that they fail some many of the rigid rules of Wikipedia, twelve of which are cited. These articles cannot be tolerated in this pristine environment of purity. Apparently, they are just too far from the norm. Maybe they should be deleted.

If Nederlandse Leeuw feels these changes are so important, let them make them. Don't task me to do it. I'm not a historian, but they apparently are. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 22:22, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Dear @Dr. Grampinator:, I'm sorry that I have apparently made you feel insulted, that was never my intention. I believe I have tried my best to be very friendly towards you and your work, I've given you compliments, I've patiently explained which issues I think existed, and said that the issues that I have seen are fixable. I have given you the time to fix it, I have offered to help you, I have said others are probably also willing to help you. I'm not sure what I've done wrong to upset you. If it is because my notations in these articles were massive and, frankly, too hard to keep up with to you, then I'm sorry, but it is not your sole responsibility to fix all these issues yourself alone just because you originally created them. These articles are the responsibility of the Wikipedia community as a whole, it is not about you personally. There is no need to worry (so much).

Some of the things you are saying now are not accurate.

I have not raised the possibility that these articles should be deleted (...). On the contrary, I said: (Note that at this point I do not think this list should be deleted, just that some sentences here and there cannot remain as they are now, and will have to be removed if they remain unsupported for long).

I have not demanded that these list articles be split; I have suggested that two of them (Historians of the Crusades: archaeology, cartography and numismatics and Historians of the Crusades: the auxiliary sciences of history) could be split, I never said they had to be split. If you don't want them to be split, that's fine; please say in what other way you would like to address the scope issues with them. (I'm not proposing splitting any other articles/lists at the moment, just these 2. There is no need to bring up those 2 split proposals on this talk page anyway, they are separate issues).

WP:NOR is not nonsense, but a core policy. If you do not know/understand how it works, please read it (and perhaps ask questions about it) until you do. Every Wikipedia article needs to comply to it. (I haven't made up that rule, so don't blame me).

Of course it is possible to make each entry accompanied by a secondary source citation to show why it's relevant. You've already spent many hours editing these articles. And you don't have to do this all yourself, other users (including me and the people you tagged) can help, because these articles are the community's responsibility, not yours alone. Moreover, per WP:LOW and WP:BIB, it is required to support every entry (that doesn't have its own article) in a list; these lists must follow the same rules as the rest of Wikipedia. Also, there's no reason to think it would 'make the lists unreadable' (Recovery of the Holy Land hasn't suddenly become 'unreadable' when Srnec added a few sources when I asked).

Again, sorry that you were insulted, that wasn't my intention. I have only been explaining the rules to you. The rule in question is called WP:MERCY, in full 'Begging for mercy'. (Although the name of that rule may sound somewhat condescending, I didn't make it up, so again, don't blame me). Your argument that [these articles] took several years to create. I don't think it's feasible to include a citation from a secondary source for each entry as to why it is included. is reminiscent of the fictional example argument I worked so hard on this article. Do you really want to put my contributions to waste? mentioned at WP:MERCY. In other words, such arguments are besides the point; just because you don't like the implications of a rule, doesn't mean the rule is too demanding. As I illustrated with examples from my own experiences, I should have better read the rules if I didn't want texts I had worked on for a long time to be removed for failing to comply with the rules for reliable secondary sources. These rules apply to me, you and everyone else, I'm not singling you out. If I spent 100 hours writing stuff that doesn't comply to the rules, nobody needs to have 'mercy' on my stuff either.

A[t] least they've given me a year to accomplish my task. (...) I didn't know that someone could just task me to do something I'm sorry, but you appear to have misread what I said: (There is no set time for this, and in lists/articles like this there is no need to hurry, but it would be nice if you (or other users) could do that within, like, a year). It's just a suggestion, not a demand, let alone a task that I can give you personally (lol, I'm not that powerful). It's not 'your task (alone)'; as said, these articles are the community's responsibility, not just yours. Indeed, Wikipedia [is] a collaborative enterprise. Perhaps you are confused by the idea that as the creator of an article, you are the 'owner' and/or sole caretaker of that article? This is not true, but if you thought it was true, then that could explain why you take some of these suggestions and notitions so personally? When I place a template like Template:Primary at the top of a page you created, that doesn't mean you are the only user who needs to fix the issue. It would be nice if you did, but if you don't feel like it, you can always leave it open for other users to do it. We are a community, a collaborative enterprise.

If Nederlandse Leeuw feels these changes are so important, let them make them. Thank you. Then please do not revert my efforts to do so by placing those notations and templates. They are just a first step at making changes to improve articles that we all are responsible for keeping up to standards.

To close out with a compliment: you do not have to be a historian to write about history on Wikipedia. Especially if you're not an expert in the field, the work you have done on these articles/lists is quite extraordinary and laudable. (It's quite possible that, by now, you know much more about the Crusades than I do ;) ). I think these articles/lists should be kept, but improved. I'm saying that certain improvements are necessary to have them comply to the rules, this is not your personal task to fix, I'm not tasking you, I don't even have the authority to task you anything. So no worries. :) Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 23:47, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

@Nederlandse Leeuw's conciliatory last paragraph is welcome: well done @Dr. Grampinator on some exhausting editing, I am sure that all can agree there is no need to delete the aricles, there is no need to split the articles and that NL isn't the WP police empowered to make Dr G act according to anyone's understanding of WP policy. That said he does have a point. My understanding is that listed works cannot be sourced to themselves, they do need reliable secondary sources. As such it is probably within the scope of WP:OR. That said I don't think it a big issue unless someone was attempting to raise these articles up the assessment scale. There are many WP that are much worse than this one. Afterall the inventor of the toaster article was completely fake, even though it managed to comply with WP:RS. Norfolkbigfish (talk) 11:00, 20 January 2023

(UTC)

@Nederlandse Leeuw, @Norfolkbigfish. There are many strings of thought going on here, so let's try to separate the emotional from the rational and try to get a baseline for discussion. First, there are a series of eight list articles on Crusades historians and histories, tied together with a summary article Historians and histories of the Crusades. I prepared the vast majority of this material and it was generally reviewed and corrected by the receiptients of my original response. (NF--chime in if this is incorrect). I don't feel I own these articles, but have a vested interest in maintaining them, their usability and correctness.

I logged on one morning this week to find that six of these articles were being edited by NL, levying some pretty hefty requirements. I took offense to the nature of the discussion that followed, but that's all behind us. Let's talk substance. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 17:50, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

List of later historians of the Crusades

Let's look at NL's first issues with this article:

Historians of the Crusades are generally of two types. (NL's comment). This is the first sentence of the overview of an article. That usually defines the scope of the article. As this article is subordinate to the larger one, it really needs to be in context of the bigger picture. And, isn't that the whole distinction between primary and secondary sources. Why is this original research?

Biographies of the more important of these authors can be found in The Crusades—An Encyclopedia (2006), edited by historian Alan V. Murray. Isn't is clear that it is according to Murray?

General histories and chronologies of the Crusades, either comprehensive studies or ones narrowly targeted.. This sentence defines what is in the article. Why would it need a citation?

Regional histories of Western Europe or the Middle East during the Crusader era and, if relevant, beforehand.. Isn't is obvious that these would be important to understanding the Crusades?

Ecclesiastical works.. I don't understand why this would need a citation. The Crusades were Holy Wars and guided by ecclesiastical works among others. Isn't this obvious?

Works of fiction or art deemed important by modern Crusades historians.. This is an introduction. Not all items need to be listed.

Two good sources for biographies are available. Good point. Fixed.

Lock's tome, also provides an interesting perspective on the authors and their works. Good point. Fixed.

I hope you can see my dilemma. Many of the later comments are good and will be fixed this morning. But I think the questions I raised above need to be answered. To me, they are fundamental that should have been discussed. I'll address the other issues later. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 17:50, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Hello Dr G, I'm glad we are working together on the issues. :)

Your first question about Historians of the Crusades are generally of two types. is already a complicated one to answer, because it is all related to the wider questions: what is a 'source', what is a 'historian', what is 'contemporaneous', what is 'later'? etc. These are important questions to answer when defining the scope of the article or list you are writing, and these questions lie at the root of many issues that I have identified.

Historians of the Crusades are generally of two types. is a regular claim that requires an RS to back it up. I could also have added a [citation needed] template here instead, but I went for [original research?] in this case because it reads as if this is your personal conclusion, not something you read in a book or journal that you forgot to cite. I would assume that you have read more Crusades history literature than I, so you probably know better than I if scholars (historians and others) in this field generally categorise each other (and perhaps themselves) in two types, or if there are lots of different ways to group them. But, without having read as much as you, I would suspect that the latter is the case, simply because Crusades history is such a large and complex international field, therefore there are probably many ways in which scholars can and have been grouped by themselves and each other in the past. There doesn't have to be a consensus on which groups there are; it is okay if you just cite a handbook or standard work whose groupings you have chosen to follow for the purposes of this article. Example:

According to Lastname (year), historians of the Crusades can be divided into two groups: authors who were born before or while the Crusades took place, and authors who were born after the Crusades were over.[1]
References

[1]. Lastname, Firstname, Full Title of the Book (year), p. [pagenumber]. Location: Publisher. ISBN code.

However, I am not sure if you would find such a reference in this case, because of two further issues with the three sentences following it:

• First, why should we consider the authors of works, the original sources, that were done contemporaneously with the historical events "historians"? Some of them were, but most of them were probably not (certainly not in the modern sense of the word "historian", which I would roughly define as someone who is trained in critical source analysis to make the most accurate description possible of what probably happened in the past. I myself happen to be such a person: I'm trained to do this, but that doesn't mean that I'm always doing it right ;) ). If I write about a traffic accident that I saw happen yesterday, that doesn't automatically make me a 'historian', just an 'author'. I would only be a 'historian' if I critically analysed multiple sources about the traffic accident and summarised my conclusions. It's possible for a historian to be witness to an event, but their own eyewitness testimony is not enough on its own, and it rarely happens that a historian has personally witnessed the events they write about: historians base their work on sources created by others including witnesses (which could include a returning Crusader verbally telling them a story of what they experienced, or writing an eyewitness account about it and the historian analysing this account). Taking List of sources for the Crusades#Original Latin chronicles of the First Crusade as an example: 'an anonymous chronicle[r]', 'a Poitevin priest', 'an unknown monk', 'a participant in the First Crusade and eventually chaplain', 'a priest who participated in the First Crusade', 'a historian, presumably German', 'a Bavarian abbot of Aura and participant in the Crusade of 1101', 'abbot of Saint-Remi', 'bishop of Dol-Bretagne', 'a Norman chaplain', and 'a Benedictine historian'. If we disregard the modern sense of "historian", we could argue that the anonymous chronicler and the German and Benedictine historians were 'historians' (compiling and summarising sources, writing down what they think happened), but the other authors apparently were primarily clerics, churchmen, some of whom were participants in the earliest Crusades (and thus witnesses). It's of course possible for clerics to be simultaneously 'historians', but that can get difficult pretty quickly and devolve into semantic disputes (which I'm not eager to engage in). I think it makes more sense just to call these people 'authors' and their works 'works' or 'sources', that saves us a whole lot of trouble trying to define what a 'historian' is and isn't, and who does or doesn't qualify as one. And especially because the authors are often anonymous or we know very little about them, I think it's better to put the writings front and centre rather than the people who wrote them (this goes for all articles and lists within Historians and histories of the Crusades, but we'll get to that later).
• Second, why is the later 13th century not contemporaneou[s] with the historical events according to you? Taking your (rather excellent!) new article Fall of Outremer into account, which you have dated to 1272–1302, adding that at the end of it, The Crusades to liberate Jerusalem and the Holy Land were over. It seems to me, then, that the later 13th century up to the first three years of the 14th century are still contemporaneou[s] with the historical events, are they not? Moreover, according to a broader understanding of the word contemporaneous, authors who were born in or before 1302 and wrote about the Crusades (especially if they had witnessed them firsthand, or had heard about them from witnesses, but only wrote down their experiences a few years or decades later) would count as 'contemporary': Someone or something living at the same time, or of roughly the same age as another. The works didn't exist yet before 1303, but the authors did, and so the works could still be considered contemporaneous. As such, a case could be made to include parts or the whole of the 14th century into the realm of contemporaneous sources. In the article List of sources for the Crusades, the opening sentence seems to allow such a broader interpretation: contemporaneous written accounts and other artifacts of the Crusades covering the period from the Council of Clermont in 1095 until the fall of Acre in 1291. One entry included in this list is Chronique du Templier de Tir [alias Deeds of the Cypriots, French: Gestes des Chiprois] attributed to an unknown author referred to as the Templar of Tyre (fl. 1315–1320). This is an interesting case, because the author was born around 1255, but wrote this work around 1315–1320, that is, the early 14th century. So you've included Chronique du Templier de Tir as a 'source' (e.g. contemporaneous written account [for the Crusades events of 1095–1291]) in the List of sources for the Crusades, but the Cronique could also easily qualify as a later work, written in the later 13th century through the 19th, and thus the Templar of Tyre as a later historian. Obviously, some overlap is sometimes inevitable, but we've now got a pretty large period from c. 1250 to c. 1350 that could fit authors and works in both lists, and no objective criteria provided by scholarly RS to group them.

To summarise: the lack of secondary reliable sources to define the scope in the Overview section not only makes it difficult for the reader to understand which authors and which works fit into which context, but you also seem to have made it difficult for yourself to settle upon a scope for this list (and the List of sources for the Crusades), and maintain it as you added more contents. So in short, I am trying to help you define the scope of your list by asking what you are basing these criteria on, so that we can make it easier for everyone to group, read and understand the contents of those articles. I'd like to emphasise that I don't have all the answers, but I do know that these are the kinds of questions that need to be answered in order to fix several important issues in your lists and articles. And I and other Wikipedians could help you find those answers if you like. :) Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 12:09, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

On Murray: it's a bit of an odd sentence in general. It has no citation, so are you as a Wikipedian saying that Murray has correctly identified a subset of all the authors mentioned in his 2006 book are 'important'? Then that is original research, because you are inserting your opinion about the quality/relevance of Murray's work in identifying 'the more important of these authors'. It would also not be good enough to just add a citation to Murray's 2006 book itself, that would contravene WP:PRIMARY, because that would mean Murray is saying about his own work: 'The authors that I have included in this book are important because I say so.' Obviously, we can't just take Murray's own word about his own work at face value, because even historians like me and him make mistakes. In a case like this, we need a WP:TERTIARY source: a work by another scholar (a tertiary source) who says Murray 2006 (a secondary source) has done a good job at identifying 'the more important of these authors' (of the primary sources of the Crusades). Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 12:57, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

The subdivision of the "later works" into the 4 categories you've mentioned could constitute original research (for the same reason that objective criteria provided by scholarly RS to group them are needed to distinguish the scopes of List of sources for the Crusades and List of later historians of the Crusades). If Murray 2006 has made this subdivision into 4 categories, then it is okay; please cite the page in question where he wrote this.

This sentence defines what is in the article. Why would it need a citation? Because a claim like this needs to be verifiable by RS per WP:V. Please cite Murray's page if he wrote about it.

Isn't is obvious that these would be important to understanding the Crusades? No, what is relevant/important to understanding the Crusades is something only RS can say. Please cite Murray's page if he wrote about it.

I don't understand why this would need a citation. The Crusades were Holy Wars and guided by ecclesiastical works among others. Isn't this obvious? It is to you and me, but not necessarily to the average reader. Please cite Murray's page if he wrote about it.

This is an introduction. Not all items need to be listed. That's not the point of my tag after Works of fiction or art deemed important by modern Crusades historians.: I'd like to know according to whom "modern historians' have deemed works of fiction or art important." Please cite Murray's page if he wrote about it.

Thanks for fixing the last two. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 13:26, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

@Nederlandse Leeuw, @Norfolkbigfish. Continuing with NL's comments:

Martin Luther (1483–1586), a German theologian and seminal figure in the Reformation. According to the linked article. A quick link would have checked that.

Original sources, first codified in the seminal Gesta Dei per Francos (1611) by Jacques Bongars... This is a introductory sentence and shouldn't need a citation. The subsequent write-up shows that Bongars work was important but not necessarily seminal. Certainly not original research, but a change was made.

L’Histoire de l'Empire Othoman, où se voyent les causes de son agrandissement et de sa décadence, 4 volumes (1743). A seminal work on the Ottoman Empire used as a reference for Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Later scholarship has questioned the reliability of some sources. In my opinion, the use of the work by Gibbon make is seminal, but I've changed it. The questioning of the reliability of the sources is discussed in the translator's Wikipedia article and need not be further referenced.

Capitularia Regum Francorum, 2 volumes (1780). Second edition of the seminal. Fixed.

Finally, the work presents the capitularies of Charles the Bald and later Carolingian kings. This is a statement of fact that one can glean from the work itself. Why would you need a further citation?

Heroines of the Crusades (1857). A stylized history of women important to the Crusades including...They are important according to Bloss. Otherwise she wouldn't have put them in the book.

The first encyclopedia article on the Crusades is credited to Denis Diderot in the 18th century. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, three notable encyclopedia articles appeared. These are Philip Schaff's article in the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopaedia of Religious Knowledge; Louis Bréhier's two works on the Crusades and their Bibliography and Sources in the Catholic Encyclopedia; and the work of Ernest Barker in the 11th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, later expanded into a separate publication. All three have interesting bibliographies showing histories deemed important at the time. This has been fixed.

I'll continue to work through NL's concerns, though it seems many need clarification and most could have easily been fixed with cursory look. The broader concerns about secondary sources will not be so easy, but let's get to them once the easy ones are cleared out. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 19:04, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Just a quick response: I've received your tags. It's late in the evening here and I'm too tired to carefully look at everything right now, but I just want to say I'm very happy with Norfolkbigfish chiming in and all three of us agreeing on a constructive approach. :) I'm glad to see Dr G has already fixed some of the issues I have identified. I will also concede some others of them were probably not a problem after all, e.g. Martin Luther is indeed mentioned as a 'seminal' figure of the Reformation; I just tagged every time the words 'prominent', 'important', 'interesting', 'notable', 'seminal' or 'relevant' were mentioned in a sentence followed by a reference to a primary source (which comes down to the author of a book being 'important' because the book he wrote says he was 'important', which is obviously circular logic), but in Luther's case it's pretty commonly accepted that he played an essential role in the Reformation, and you're right his bio's lede even says so. Anyway, that's it for now, I'm going to bed soon, but will have a more detailed look tomorrow. :) Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 22:39, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

List of collections of Crusader sources

@Nederlandse Leeuw, @Norfolkbigfish. I'm continuing to work through NL's issues. Moving on the List of collections of Crusader sources, NL made a number of changes with regard to capitalization which are fine. However, the following caveat was added: "This article relies excessively on references to primary sources. Please improve this article by adding secondary or tertiary sources." which I dispute for the following reasons:

The works here are collections of works about the Crusades, and therefore are not primary, but rather secondary, sources.

Some of the collections are works that would be considered secondary. For example, the Archives de l'Orient Latin (AOL) are collections of papers by 19th century historians on the Crusades. This would be tertiary.

Without getting into philosophical issues like Russells paradox, it seems like this article does rely on secondary sources. This view seems to be borne out by NL's article List of skeptical organizations in which organizations are either not subject to citation or referred to ESCO. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 21:00, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Hi Dr G. What counts as a 'primary', 'secondary' or 'tertiary' source all depends on perspective. It's true that these are all secondary sources, but as I wrote: References to works themselves do not establish their notability or their relevance for inclusion in the list. At the start of this very talk page section, I have explained why (as well as in the "Primary sources" section above on this talk page). I could reformulate it as follows:

One cannot say Collection of Crusader Sources X compiled by Historian Y is notable.[1]

[1]. Historian Y, Collection of Crusader Sources X.

Historian Y cannot make their work notable simply by writing inside their own work that it is notable, and Wikipedia has no reason to take Historian Y at their word. I can write in my book: I am important. This book is important. Everyone should read my book. all day long, but if no serious scholar thinks my book is important, then there's no point in referring to my book as important just because it says so (because for claims that I make inside my book about myself and the book itself, my book is a primary source). You don't make yourself notable. Others either do or do not recognise you as notable. Just like with the Murray 2006, we need a WP:TERTIARY source. The template you quoted also says that this is sometimes necessary: ...adding secondary or tertiary sources.

The fact that AOL may be considered 'tertiary' from the point of view of Crusader sources (primary sources), because it has 'collections of papers by 19th century historians on the Crusades' as intermediary (secondary sources), means AOL can be cited to support the inclusion of 'collections of papers by 19th century historians on the Crusades'. But the inclusion of AOL itself in this list requires the citation of yet another independent tertiary source (which we might even call quartenary source). (It this case it does not, because Revue de l'Orient Latin has its own article so it can pass WP:BIB without a citation). The mere presence of AOL as a tertiary source on this list also doesn't mean other secondary sources on this list do not require citations to tertiary sources in order to establish their notability and their relevance for inclusion in the list; they still do.

The List of skeptical organizations is a bit of a different situation because it's not a bibliography, but similar to AOL passing WP:BIB without a citation because it has an article and is thus independently notable and its inclusion on the list can be verified through that article, the organisations on the list pass WP:LISTCOMPANY by virtue of having an article and thus do not necessarily require a citation. (I did delete a redlink someone else inserted about a non-organisation that didn't belong in the list, so thanks for pointing it out).

Alright, that was enough levels of Inception for now. ;) Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 15:50, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Historians of the Crusades: archaeology, cartography and numismatics

I don't support the renaming of this article as the focus is the historians. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 02:36, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Hello Dr G. :) Could you explain your reasons for focusing this article around the historians/authors rather than the works/sources they wrote? 2 years ago, you yourself actually suggested that it may be a better idea:

Clearly the title is a problem, hopefully the content isn't. I'm not 100% sure of what you (Borsoka) are questioning, but it think it is why are they called historians. That's probably a bad word, as most aren't, and maybe sources is a better word. I can point you to a number of Crusades compilations that identify that pilgrimages, archaeology, geography, etc., are sources for Crusader histories (...). I think the title is wrong, but I'm not sure how to right it (...). I['m] open to suggestions for titles, structure and content. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 06:11, 11 January 2021 (UTC) (emphasis by me).

As I said earlier today above about the Later historians list: I think it makes more sense just to call these people 'authors' and their works 'works' or 'sources', that saves us a whole lot of trouble trying to define what a 'historian' is and isn't, and who does or doesn't qualify as one. And especially because the authors are often anonymous or we know very little about them, I think it's better to put the writings front and centre rather than the people who wrote them. You and Borsoka seemed to have already roughly agreed on that 2 years ago. That makes three of us agreeing to put the focus on the sources/works rather than the authors, so that we can solve the problem of having to identify them as 'historians' or not. :) Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 14:21, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Historical sources of the Crusades: pilgrimages and exploration

NL's proposed changes and responses:

Surveys of the Holy Land were sponsored by the Palestine Exploration Fund, beginning in 1864, including those by Claude R. Conder, Edward Hull, and Herbert Kitchener.. This is in an introductory section, and is explained fully in the linked article.

Other collections include Recueil de voyages... (1882–1916) by Charles Henri Auguste Schefer and Henri Cordier; Early Travels in Palestine (1848) by Thomas Wright; Cathay and the Way Thither (1866) by Henry Yule; and those identified in Titus Tobler's Bibliographia Geographica Palestinæ.. Why would we need a citation for an obvious statement?

Pilgrimages before the Crusades. Descriptions of pilgrims to the Holy Land began long before the Crusades, as early as the 3rd century AD.. Change to title made. The sentence in question is a description of what is below. No citation is necessary.

Many of the biographies of the early popes in Liber Pontificalis were authored by Jerome.. Supported by the citations. Deleted.

Historia Ecclesiastica. A continuation of the work of Eusebius of Caesarea by the same title, Historia Ecclesiastica covers the church from 305 to 439, including the pilgrimage of Saint Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, and her finding relics of the True Cross, including nails and the Titulus Crucis.. Covered in citation.

Vita Genovefae Virginis Parisiensis. Citation provided.

Pilgrimage of Arculfus in the Holy Land (about the year A.D. 670).. Reference Wikilink.

De locis sanctis (Concerning Sacred Places), a work by Adomnán based on Arculf's account.. Reference Wikilink.

Saint Wlphlagio. De Sancto Wlphlagio (7th century), a priest in the Holy Land.. Reference Wikilink.

Bernard the Pilgrim. Bernard the Pilgrim (fl. 865), a Frankish monk.. Unclear what you want cited. Bernard the Pilgrim was a Frankish monk who flourished ca. 865 as stated in the linked article.

Aḥsan al-taqāsīm fī maʿrifat al-aqālīm (The Best Divisions in the Knowledge of the Regions).. Described in Wikilink.

During the Crusader Era to follow tomorrow. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 03:02, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

This is in an introductory section, and is explained fully in the linked article. That depends on what you mean by "introductory section". In the context of sections on English Wikipedia, 'introduction', 'intro' or 'introductory' usually refers to the 'WP:LEAD section' (or 'lede section'): In Wikipedia, the lead section is an introduction to an article and a summary of its most important contents. It is located at the beginning of the article, before the table of contents and the first heading. According to the MOS:LEADCITE guideline, information in the lead section of non-controversial subjects is less likely to be challenged and less likely to require a source. But the "Overview" section in this article is after the table of contents and the first heading, therefore it does not fall under the MOS:LEADCITE guideline, and therefore does require a source, because it is part of the MOS:BODY sections. It's good to have an "Overview" section like this in order to not make the lead section too long, but it does fall under more strict WP:V rules.

But my [citation needed] was actually meant for the entire second paragraph, especially the first and second sentence: Notable early travelers include Marco Polo, ibn Battūta, Odoric of Pordenone, John Mandeville, Bertrandon de la Broquière, Marino Sanuto the Younger, and Felix Fabri.Later travelers to include diplomats, were Jean Thenaud, Evliya Çelebi, and Richard Burton. Once again this is a situation in which mentioning supposedly 'notable' people up front requires a secondary or even tertiary source, otherwise it is not just WP:UNSOURCED, but could also constitute original research. We Wikipedians are not in a position to say who or what is notable or important; only reliable sources can do that for us, and we need to cite them rather than giving our own impression, opinion or conclusion.

Why would we need a citation for an obvious statement? For the same reason I just mentioned: we Wikipedians are not in a position to decide which collections deserve to be mentioned up front in an Overview section as notable examples that stand out in/from the rest of the list. Even if you don't use a word like 'notable' when describing these collections, the way you place them here as examples shows that you accord higher importance to them than the other ones mentioned in the list, and doing so simply requires justification. And the way to justify that is to cite a tertiary source that says these collections are somehow more notable, important, relevant etc. or otherwise simply 'better' examples than the rest in the list.

Pilgrimages before the Crusades is a better title, thanks. But the bigger problem of this section that I noted on the talk page, namely There is no evident reason for inclusion of Christian European pilgrimages/explorations of the Holy Land before 1096 if the subject of the article is 'the Crusades'., still remains. Either the scope of the article must change, or this material will have to be removed or split off (my preferred option).

Descriptions of pilgrims to the Holy Land began long before the Crusades, as early as the 3rd century AD. This is a regular factual claim that requires RS for WP:V. We can cite Baldwin 1969, p. 69 for this claim, I checked it and it matches, so I fixed the issue myself.

I'm glad you addressed the other issues. You're right about Bernand the Pilgrim, I'm not sure why I tagged him, his article is enough. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 15:09, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Let's Start Again

@Nederlandse Leeuw, @Norfolkbigfish. It's morning on the West Coast and I am met with 12 responses from NL totally over 8k in text just from last night. I cannot possibly keep up with this. I have spent all week trying to answer these questions and they keep growing exponentially. Is there some Wikipedia rule about over commenting? Are these articles that bad? They have survived for years with good, constructive comments. Until this week. I suggest NL limit questions/comments to five per day and allow me to respond. I don't expect this to happen and so will continue to answer them one at a time. But I'm not going to spend all day doing it only to find dozens more then next day. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 18:30, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm sorry, you're right. I often give more information than necessary. I'll try to be more concise in the future. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 18:50, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

@Nederlandse Leeuw, @Norfolkbigfish. This is exactly my point. I couldn't ever finish my thought before getting an edit conflict. Here's what I was continuing with.

Historians of the Crusades are generally of two types. How could this be controversial? As an author of a Wikipedia article, can I not say what the article is about? Isn't this the basic difference between primary and secondary sources?

Yes there is some overlap between some authors that could be considered both primary and secondary sources. For example, Lawrence of Arabia and Winston Churchill.

Yes, many of these "historians" were not historians.

Is this a perfect dichotomy? No. Do you have a better one? Is so, what.

Biographies of the more important of these authors can be found in The Crusades—An Encyclopedia (2006), edited by historian Alan V. Murray. This is obviously true as Murray is a renown historian and would not include a biography of a person who wasn't important. By definition, if an individual is included in an encyclopedia, they are important.

These are the first two sentences that elicited pages of response. We cannot move on until we all agree on these basic facts. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 18:55, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

How could this be controversial? I spent a lot of text explaining why it could be controversial. It would be nice if you read it. Thanks! Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 19:00, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

@Nederlandse Leeuw, @Norfolkbigfish. I did read your write-up and you're hitting the nail right on the head. It is quite complicated and if you read the literature, it doesn't help much. But rather than continuing to say the same thing over and over again, I looked at some approaches and try and reconstruct in my mind where this came from. The consensus of Runciman, Tyerman (in Murray), Mayer (in the Wisconsin study) and Brehier (in the Catholic Encyclopedia), there are two categories: original sources and modern works. They differ on their definitions and don't really specify where the delineation is. That was my original approach--you can see the second article of the series as "sources." In reading these works, there was also a category of works that were collections, hence the third article. As I was writing the Modern section, it got too long and needed to be split. The split point was selected to be the 20th century, with the earlier called "Later" and the more recent ones "Modern."

Can it be said better? Perhaps in retrospect it should say three categories, sources, later and modern. My point is there has to be some sort of delineation as the lists get too long. Is it original research? No, I just picked a point in time. It's a little fuzzy in the 13th and 14th centuries, but everything is open to discussion.

Your discussion above is right on, and I went through every point as I was working on this. But, these are just lists and these are great thought for the article Historiography of the Crusades (which is a challenge in itself). I can give you precise references discussed above, but if you're looking for a precise citation, we're out of luck.

The ball is back in your court for a suggestion. NF can chime in at anytime. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 19:58, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

I did read your write-up and you're hitting the nail right on the head. Thanks, I'm glad you say so! :D

...and try and reconstruct in my mind where this came from. (...) if you're looking for a precise citation, we're out of luck. This is another very important reason to always cite our sources. I constantly forget where exactly I read something. References are as much a tool for others to verify the accuracy of what I wrote as it is for myself. In this case, knowing where you read their definitions and categorisations is pretty crucial, because citing them might be able to justify the scope and perhaps even very existence of all your Crusades articles and lists, and avoid problems with original research.

I just picked a point in time. That is original research by definition. We Wikipedians should not do this. I've had so many texts of mine deleted because I didn't base such decisions on reliable sources, but just on what seemed right to me. :/ I would implore you to base the scope of your articles/lists/information on reliable sources, and not just picking something, to avoid the frustrations I've had.

The ball is back in your court for a suggestion. Alright, well, I was thinking about trying to find those definitions and scopes in Runciman, Tyerman (in Murray), Mayer (in the Wisconsin study) and Brehier (in the Catholic Encyclopedia). We need to start finding RS sources somewhere, so let's look for the places where you thought you had read the information we're looking for. :) Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 20:41, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

As far as the debate above, tl:dnr. But I will try to pour oil on the water on this one. As useful start would be state what you are trying to achieve in this debate, understanding each others motivation may lead you to finding you are closer than this discourse might indicate. I suspect that is an over zealous application of the WP policies combined with a misunderstanding of how WP goes about citing sources. WP is not real life, and it is not academia. Any statement, fact, opinion, assumption needs citing to a WP:RS and often also needs attributing in the text to who made it. The irony is that WP doesn't even care whether the statement is correct only that it has a WP:RS. I remember the singer Mike Scott (Scottish musician) talking about correcting his own WP article. His edits were reverted. He challenged this, the article was wrong, he knew it was wrong because he was there. The answer came back, it didn't matter, he wasn't WP:RS for his own life he needed it cited in a published work. On the other hand most articles in WP haven't been assessed and are pretty poor. These Dr G's articles are much better than many, a sense of proportion might be helpful. Norfolkbigfish (talk) 20:43, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

I think you are describing my and Dr G's position pretty accurately. I would say that I'm not so much 'overzealous' as I may be 'overwhelming': I think I'm fair in applying WP policies, but am trying to address too many issues at once and thereby just stressing out Dr G, who doesn't know where to start (apologies again, I should keep things smaller and simpler). I would take the liberty to disagree with what you say at the end (and also said earlier) about most articles in WP haven't been assessed and are pretty poor. These Dr G's articles are much better than many,, because of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. I just happened to run into this set of articles because I was writing about historiography of another military conflict. I saw the issues in them, got motivated to try and do something about it, and that is fine. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 20:57, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

@Nederlandse Leeuw, fair point on WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS although I am sure you would agree that these articles have merit that warrant their retention (and improvement) Norfolkbigfish (talk) 12:32, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 12:46, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion: What if we renamed this article List of early modern works on the Crusades, the scope being anything written about the Crusades between 1500 and 1800 (the early modern period)? It doesn't matter who wrote it or why, or what kind of work it is, just when. This is a very easy criterion to maintain and follow, and solves the many issues I have laid out in my write-up, which Dr G said 'hit the nail right on the head'. (These are largely the same issues as the "historian" question in #Historians of the Crusades: archaeology, cartography and numismatics). I would also suggest that we would expand the scope of List of sources for the Crusades from c. 1250~1350 (current situation) to 1500, thereby covering all Middle Ages including things like the Chronique du Templier de Tir (Deeds of the Cypriots), the Smyrniote crusades (on which the Book of Chivalry mentioned in the List is based), the Crusade of Varna etc. This would lead to the following order:

• List of sources for the Crusades (1095–1500)
• List of early modern works on the Crusades (1500–1800)
• List of Crusades historians (19th century) (1800–1900)
• List of modern historians of the Crusades (1900–present)
• (List of collections of Crusader sources (created from the 17th century to present about the 1095–1500 period))

To me, it seems like the missing piece of the puzzle. I do recognise picking the year 1500 may require some justification to save it from the accusation of original research. But 1500 is generally recognised as the border between Middle Ages and early modern period, and the Crusades are heavily associated with the Middle Ages as a whole. What do you think @Dr. Grampinator: @Norfolkbigfish:? Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 14:55, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

@Nederlandse Leeuw, @Norfolkbigfish. I think we're making progress. I still contend that setting the cut at 1900 wasn't original research, but I like this construct with some modifications:

I support changing the name of List of later historians of the Crusades to List of early modern works on the Crusades.

I do not support splitting off the 19th century. The article List of Crusades historians (19th century) was split off by a rogue edition (see the discussion of December 2020 above). I don't want to get into all the reasons now, but it's a lot of work to do so with limited benefit.

List of sources for the Crusades should not be added to as it is too large as it is. I will create another article that would cover the period from 1291–1500 and pull material from the appropriate current articles. Maybe it's title would be List of sources for the later Crusades or List of sources for the Crusades after the 13th century. Either one works for me.

When I expanded the original List of sources, my interests were only in that time period. I have since written Fall of Outremer and History of the Knights Hospitaller in the Levant and am currently working on an article about the Crusades in the 14th century. So I know a little bit more about the subject than I did and could coherently write to the sources of the later Crusades.

Historians of the Crusades: the auxiliary sciences of history should be deleted as it is redundant and not well-formulated.

So the structure of the article Historians and histories of the Crusades would be:

• List of Crusades to Europe and the Holy Land
• List of sources for the Crusades (1095–1291)
• List of sources for the later Crusades (1291–whenever) (new article)
• List of collections of Crusader sources
• List of early modern works on the Crusades (1500–1900) (renamed)
• List of modern historians of the Crusades (1900–present)
• List of works about the archaeology, cartography and numismatics of the Crusades (renamed)
• Historical sources of the Crusades: pilgrimages and exploration.

I think this works well. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 18:01, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

If this is acceptable, I suggest moving the discussion to the parent article and work the issues methodically as the new article gets created (which could be in a couple of weeks.) Dr. Grampinator (talk) 18:06, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Without wishing to be too pedantic I would suggest List of Crusades in Europe and to the Holy Land is more precise. I wouldn't date the end of the later crusades, if only because if we are pluralist and count the Holy League that carries us well into the 18th century. I also wouldn't get hung up with 1500 as a criteria because that is really difficult to justify. For example I am English, and the convention here is to date the beginning of the early modern period to the Battle of Bosworth in 1485.

After that it is more subjective, we often use the long nineteenth century (1789 to 1914) which is probably a better match to the historiography, giving a contemprorary period following World War I, the Mandate for Palestine, decolonization etc Norfolkbigfish (talk) 19:48, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

I always hate when you start off a paragraph with "Without wishing to be too pedantic...." As to the title of the article, Srnec had previously changed it to List of Crusades and so you should probably just create a redirect. I've already made your correction in the first line of the article. The dates above are just a guideline. As you know, I'm not particularly hung up on the break points.

I'm working from what's in List of Crusades which stops at 1578. If you want to expand that, it's on you to list the Crusades and identify the sources. I'm good only through 1350 at this point. But it's good to have a collaborative project for a change. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 20:47, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Interesting developments. I generally like the way in which this is going. I do have a question: if we are going to split off a new list for (1291–whenever), do we want this list to

A: only include sources for Crusades that happened after 1291? or

B: any sources about the Crusades in general that were written after 1291?

With the phrasing sources for the later Crusades, Dr G seems to be going for A, but my idea was B. My suggestion was not just a broad understanding of "the Crusades" which would inclyde Smyrna, Varna etc. in the Late Middle Ages (1300–1500; I'm not sure how common the term "later Crusades" is, and how broad it is?), but also any source about the Crusades in the Levant between 1095 and 1302 that just so happened to have been written after 1302, e.g. the Chronique du Templier de Tir (c. 1315–1320).

The concept that I see now at User:Dr. Grampinator/sandbox/Sources mixes A and B. It says that it is A (contemporaneous written accounts and other artifacts of the Crusades covering the period around the fall of Acre in 1291 until the Crusade of King Sebastian in 1578.), but also includes examples of B. For example, Jean de Joinville's Life of Saint Louis was written in 1309, so it is a late medieval source. However, it is not a source for the later Crusades, but for the Seventh Crusade (to Egypt) and Eighth Crusade (to Tunis) in the mid-13th century. Moreover, because the term 'later Crusades' has apparently been extended by some to 1578, and as Norfolkbigfish said even into the 18th century by others; that means it would broadly overlap with 'List of early modern works on the Crusades'.

I think this is impractical. Wouldn't it be a better idea to split off a List of late medieval works on the Crusades (alternatively, List of late medieval sources on the Crusades)? The contents would practically remain the same as they are now, but the scope would change into something far more manageable. All we need to check now is the date of publication, which is the least controversial and ambiguous of all factors that I have seen so far, and the reason why I'm suggesting this reorganisation by the broad terms 'the Crusades', 'sources/works', and generally accepted timeframes. (@Norfolkbigfish: I'm sure there are historians who prefer Constantinople 1453, Bosworth 1485, Granada 1492, Columbus 1492, Charles V 1515, Luther 1517 etc. etc., but 1500 is pretty generally taken as the threshold between Middle Ages and early modern times, and this is frequently conventionally used on Wikipedia already in lists, categories, sections etc.). It fits in the established pattern: late medieval works, early modern works, modern historians(/works?). Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 00:04, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Lets not forget Flodden (1513) ;-) but in terms of the crusades, most of us seem to accept the fall of Rhodes as a useful demarcation point. Firsteleventh (talk) 18:05, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

OK, np - this seems to be progressing happily now, so I'll step back. I am really only commenting now, the helpfulness of which seems unclear. Norfolkbigfish (talk) 10:00, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

You're going to have to cut me some slack here. We're trying a relatively major restructuring of a complex set of articles and naturally there's going to be some issues as to what goes where. If you don't agree on the general structure that you proposed then we're back to square one.

The 13th and 14th centuries have always been a problem in categorization. Take Benedetto Accolti the Elder. It's included in RHC which is generally regarded as original sources, which it clearly isn't. Jean de Joinville clearly belongs in the first original sources (and it is there already), so maybe it doesn't belong in the second one.

I'm going to continue to reorganize as you suggested so we have a baseline. If something has to be moved, then move it. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 00:27, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Reorganization complete. This is the baseline for changes. Let's move the discussion to Historians and histories of the Crusades. One issue at a time please. If something obviously needs to be moved, like Jean de Joinville, then just do it. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 00:37, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for renaming this list! :D I am really glad we reached agreement on that.

At the moment, I've got no comments to make on Historians and histories of the Crusades yet; as the top article of them all, I think we should deal with it last.

I would prefer continuing with some of the things we discussed above about the other articles/lists. Any preference? Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 22:50, 23 January 2023 (UTC)