Talk:John Papadimitriou

A few suggestions in advance of the GA review

Greetings. Just a handful of things, all minor points:

  • The link for the 1931 article on Lake Likeri in the proceedings of the Athenian Academy appears to be broken.
  • In July 1959, he uncovered two bronze statues of Artemis in Piraeus, alongside one of Apollo and a third of Athena. This is not quite right. The first two statues, which were uncovered by ditch diggers laying a new sewer, were the Apollo and the larger Artemis. A few days later, after Papadimitriou was called in to supervise further excavations, the smaller Artemis and the Athena were found. See Vanderpool's account of the discovery in AJA 64 (1960), pp. 265–267, which is probably a better source.
  • He defended his dissertation, on white-ground lekythoi, on June 12. As the title of the dissertation in the infobox shows, his subject was not white-ground lekythoi in general, but the white-ground lekythoi of one particular vase painter, Buschor's Charon Painter. The image currently in the article is a very nice lekythos, but it was painted by somebody else. Wouldn't it be better to choose an example by the painter that Papadimitriou actually studied? Buschor's Charon Painter = Beazley's Sabouroff Painter, and if you look in c:Category:White-ground lekythoi by Sabouroff Painter you'll find a bunch of examples, including this well-known one of Charon in Berlin.
  • All of Papadimitriou's Greek publications were published in polytonic Greek. But the list of published works offers a mishmash of forms, with two of the titles in polytonic and the others in monotonic. It's especially perplexing to see two articles published on successive pages in the same 1951 volume of Praktika written in two different types of Greek. There are two choices here: either reproduce the original accentuation in all cases (historically accurate), or convert all to monotonic (preferred by many modern Greek publishers). Both are acceptable, but a choice should be made and applied consistently, to avoid this unseemly tottering back and forth.

Choliamb (talk) 15:12, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

All on point as always, Choliamb. Done the first two (slightly rearranged to help me keep track): the others in the works. UndercoverClassicist T·C 06:37, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

One more thing, regarding the cave of the nymphs on Pentele. (I overlooked this the first time through because it was hidden in the section on Grave Circle B, perhaps not the best place for it.) I actually read up on this cave just last year when I was thinking about revising the dreadful article on the so-called Cave of Davelis, which is a bit lower down on the slope of Pentele. (The article is astonishingly bad; it appears to have been written by internet kooks who were chiefly interested in reports of military conspiracy and paranormal activity in the cave. Read it if you dare.) In the end I just uploaded my old photos of the cave and the quarry to the Commons and left the article as it was, because I'm lazy and really who cares? In any case, Papadimitriou did not find the cave of the nymphs himself; it was discovered by workmen who were opening up a new marble quarry on the site. As in the case of the Piraeus bronzes, P. was then called in to supervise the excavation, and he cleared part of the cave, but not all of it. See AJA 57 (1953), p. 281 and BCH 77 (1952), p. 202. It was reexamined and completely excavated in 1975, with an excellent, detailed report by P. Zoridis, "Η σπιλιά των Νυμφών της Πεντέλης", Αρχιολογική Εφημερίς 1977, Χρόνικα, pp. 4-11, available at the Hetaireia web site. (The Chronika are a separate section with its own page numbers at the end of the volume.) From footnote 2 in Zoridis I learned that in 1953 P. himelf published an article entitled "Οἱ Νύμφες τῆς Πεντέλης" in a journal called Ἐκλογή, but I wasn't able to track this down. Maybe you'll have better luck. Choliamb (talk) 13:36, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No luck on Ἐκλογή (except tracking down an eBay listing for a different edition, which at least gives an idea of the sort of publication), but otherwise I think I've now got to and fixed all of these. UndercoverClassicist T·C 20:46, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The monotonic Greek all looks good now, but the link to the Likeri article is still a problem. The new link points to the Praktika of the Archaeological Society instead of the Praktika of the Athenian Academy. I think what you want must be somewhere at this website, but I'll leave it to you to figure out how to find the volume for 1931. Choliamb (talk) 23:21, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It was -- now fixed. UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:21, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

GA review

Pass. MSincccc (talk) 13:52, 26 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This review is transcluded from Talk:John Papadimitriou/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: UndercoverClassicist (talk · contribs) 18:44, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: MSincccc (talk · contribs) 17:47, 21 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable, as shown by a source spot-check.
    a (reference section): b (inline citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    Fair representation without bias:
  5. It is stable.
    No edit wars, etc.:
  6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.
    a (images are tagged and non-free content have non-free use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
  7. Overall:
    Pass/Fail:

Images

  • The source for File:John_Papadimitriou_at_Mycenae_1953.jpg gives a source that might have details about copyright status.
    • The source given there is a scrapbook in the archives of the American School at Athens, which isn't "published" (as copies are not available to the public): given the image's date, the only way in which it could be PD is if it had been released under a free-use licence, which seems a priori unlikely -- at any rate, there's no evidence to suggest that it has, so the current approach of treating it as copyrighted and applying an FUR seems the right one. UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:19, 22 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Sabouroff_Painter_ARV_846_196_Hermes_leading_a_deceased_to_Charon_(02).jpg and File:Archaeological_museum_of_Vravrona.jpeg- Both need a tag for the original work. MSincccc (talk) 14:38, 22 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Prose
  • It should be "school teacher" in American English, not "school teacher" as in two sentences in the article.
  • Papadimitriou received his school education on Syros and in Chalcis on Euboea,... Could "Syros" be linked here?
  • Papadimitriou was appointed to a post as an assistant teacher of philology in Mouzaki,... Could "was appointed" be dropped in this sentence?
  • "Ephor" is linked twice in close proximity in the "Early life and career" section; it constitutes duplicate linking.

MSincccc (talk) 15:58, 25 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for these, MSincccc:
  • Schoolteacher is used in both American and British English.
  • "Syros" was a mistake for "Skyros", now corrected. "
  • Ephor" now linked only once.
  • Papadimitriou was appointed to a post as an assistant teacher of philology in Mouzaki is not a grammatical sentence.
UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:59, 25 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My bad. I meant:
  • Papadimitriou was appointed to a post as an assistant teacher of philology in Mouzaki,... Could "to a post" be dropped in this sentence?
MSincccc (talk) 17:02, 25 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It could, but it would need the whole sentence to be rewritten -- which might not be a disaster, but for the sake of saving three syllables, I'm not convinced it has a lot of benefit. It's certainly not something on which the GA standards would take a view. UndercoverClassicist T·C 17:09, 25 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Prose (continued)
  • Most archaeological excavation in Greece was suspended following the end of the Second World War in 1945; It should be "excavations" here since we are referring to multiple instances of excavation.
    No: we're referring to the process/concept of excavation, so the singular is correct. UndercoverClassicist T·C 18:24, 25 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • {{green|"set up following" → "established following"
  • The service's autonomy was also increased by moving it from the purview of the Ministry of Education to the Ministry of the Presidency [el], where it was supervised by the Prime Minister.

Could we link to the the Prime Minister's article rather than the office of the Prime Minister of Greece?

That's all for the prose. I hope my suggestions have been useful. MSincccc (talk) 17:56, 25 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Pointing out errors, possible links, and so on is all to the good, but I do notice that a lot of these suggstions are grammatical "rules" that don't reflect practice in professional writing, or else are matters of style and taste where you don't seem to think there is a tangible problem. Particularly at GA, the standards for prose (criterion 1a) are very low, and different writers will always have different styles and tastes: it's important to differentiate between mistakes and simply "I would do this differently". I know you've had this feedback before, and I mean it in the spirit of being helpful: you're a sharp-eyed reviewer, and it's a great benefit to Wikipedia that you're willing to take on reviews and to aim to do them well. UndercoverClassicist T·C 18:24, 25 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I understand. Thank you for your feedback. I suppose the article will be nominated at FAC in due course? MSincccc (talk) 18:27, 25 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Quite possibly: even there, though, you'll notice how often you see comments like "I would do this differently, but your approach is reasonable and consistent, so I have no complaint." You've probably noticed that lots of very prolific FA writers have quite idiosyncratic (but perfectly correct) styles, and the whole thing would break down if each of us insisted that everyone else write in exactly the same way that we would. UndercoverClassicist T·C 18:41, 25 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Source-to-text spot check

  • 2- Done
  • 12- Done
  • 16- Done
  • 50- Done

MSincccc (talk) 13:41, 26 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by History6042 talk 13:17, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  • Source: Petrakos, Vasileios (1997b). Ιωάννης Κ. Παπαδημητρίου [John K. Papadimitriou]. Έπαινος Ιωάννου Κ. Παπαδημητρίου [Praise of John K. Papadimitriou] (PDF). Library of the Archaeological Society of Athens (in Greek). Vol. 168. Archaeological Society of Athens. p. 37. ISBN 960-7036-70-0.
Improved to Good Article status by UndercoverClassicist (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 32 past nominations.

UndercoverClassicist T·C 14:18, 26 April 2025 (UTC).[reply]

  • I claim this and will review this article either today or on the weekend. WatkynBassett (talk) 17:58, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • The article was promoted to GA on 26 April 2025 and nominated on the same day. It is thus eligible.
  • The article is (very) well-sourced. I did two spot checks and they checked out.
  • The article is written in a neutral and non-promotional tone.
  • QPQ done.
  • Concerning the hooks, I love the second one. It is interesting, sourced and funny. I approve ALT1. Thank you for creating free knowledge, I learned a lot from reading the article. WatkynBassett (talk) 18:42, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:John_Papadimitriou