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(For context, see the discussion between Paul August, Natg 19, and myself at Talk:Gaius Julius Hyginus#Hyginus.) Recently, a page on the Fabulae was split out from Gaius Julius Hyginus, with the latter article being reworked in line with the more common view among scholars that the Fabulae and De astronomia were authored by a separate Hyginus to Gaius Julius Hyginus (for sources on this, see the comment in the linked discussion which starts with By the way, regarding which Hyginus wrote what, and the one below it). Alongside these changes, Hyginus (disambiguation) was moved to Hyginus (as I think that Gaius Julius Hyginus wouldn't be the primary topic if we are treating the two authors as separate). This left numerous links pointing to the DAB page, however, and these links have been treated somewhat inconsistently – in different articles we have the name linked as [[Hyginus]], [[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]], [[Fabulae|Hyginus]], and Hyginus (ie., someone removed the link). The above-linked discussion has left a few questions:

• Should the DAB page remain at Hyginus rather than Hyginus (disambiguation)? And, if not, where should the redirect go?
• How should the name "Hyginus" be linked when in reference to the author of the Fabulae or De astronomia, in citations and in prose?
• Should we resolve the previous question by creating a separate article for their author, Hyginus (mythographer)?

Any input on these points would be appreciated. (My views on these three questions are (1) yes, (2) as suggested here, and (3) no, as I'm not sure there's anything on him that can't be covered more effectively at Fabulae or De astronomia.) – Michael Aurel (talk) 11:14, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As the discussion at Talk:Gaius Julius Hyginus#Hyginus will show, I've gone back and forth on all of this. My current opinion is that (1) the DAB page should remain at "Hyginus", that (2) links of "Hyginus" should be "[[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]]" and should be accompanied by a linked reference to the work being considered (i.e. the Fabulae or the De astronomia), and that (3) no separate article for the mythographer is needed. My reasoning regarding (1) is that it's not clear to me that there is a primary topic, and for (2), that for any linked mention of "Hyginus", although linking both to Gaius Julius Hyginus and to the relevant work might seem somewhat redundant, since each of the articles will have relevant information about the author that the other article will not have, having links to both seems preferable to me. Paul August ☎ 14:47, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think I'm in agreement with all of that. We also have the question of how the DAB links ought to be dealt with. Disambiguating all of them to Gaius Julius Hyginus would probably be an acceptable solution, though it would leave a number of instances where we link to the author but not the work. That said, I suppose such cases could just sit there until someone comes along to fix them; we're not creating any new problems, only retaining old ones (from before the move), I guess ... – Michael Aurel (talk) 14:16, 1 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes Paul August ☎ 15:12, 1 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

All links now fixed. [1] – Michael Aurel (talk) 06:34, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Great! Paul August ☎ 12:48, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Currently, this project has about ~117 30 26 23 14 9 articles in need of some reference cleanup. Basically, some short references created via {{sfn}} and {{harvnb}} and similar templates have missing full citations or have some other problems. This is usually caused by templates misuse or by copy-pasting a short reference from another article without adding the full reference, or because a full reference is not making use of citation templates like {{cite book}} (see Help:CS1) or {{citation}} (see Help:CS2). To easily see which citation is in need of cleanup, you can check these instructions to enable error messages (Svick's script is the simplest to use, but Trappist the monk's script is a bit more refined if you're interested in doing deeper cleanup). See also how to resolve issues.

These could use some of your attention

If you could add the full references to those article/fix the problem references, that would be great. Again, the easiest way to deal with those is to install Svick's script per these instructions. If after installing the script, you do not see an error, that means it was either taken care of, or was a false positive, and you don't need to do anything else. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:43, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Progress report. 117 – 87 = 30. Ifly6 (talk) 04:33, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Now just 26 remaining. Ifly6 (talk) 08:58, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Now just 3 left: Nundinae, Timeline of Cluj-Napoca, and Troy. – Michael Aurel (talk) 06:29, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

These are the now 23 remaining:

Making a new list because the last one has so many strike-outs its not very useful to look at. Ifly6 (talk) 09:34, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The final remaining source (in Nundinae) presumably refers to Johann Georg Graevius' Thesaurus antiquatum romanarum. However at least the edition on archive.org does not have numbered pages and column 7 does not verify any of the cited text (though it is at least about the Roman calendar!) Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 10:26, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, thanks! We'd narrowed it down to that location in Graevius' work, but (as XabqEfdg pointed out) the citation was lifted from Smith, and the citations in his dictionaries often contain errors in my experience. – Michael Aurel (talk) 11:29, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm absolutely shocked that we're essentially done with the whole list. Huge appreciation to the other contributors: Michael Aurel, TSventon, Caeciliusinhorto, XabqEfdg, Mariamnei. Our list might have been a bit shorter than others' (just take a look at WP:MILHIST's list!) but the fact we sorted it all out in just a few days is astonishing. This is some really excellent collaboration. (In part only possible because of the tools that have been built up around {{sfn}} and the citation template ecosystem; I want to thank Headbomb for making this possible too.) You should all be proud of yourselves for pitching in. Ifly6 (talk) 15:36, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone who has got a taste for fixing tagged issues, you can find a weekly report of all cleanup tags on CGR articles here. Currently we're a little over 10,000 issues on 6,000 articles – some are straightforward if time consuming to fix (most of the CS1 errors); others can be trickier (nearly 2,500 articles with {{citation needed}} tags). Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 15:54, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Have we a centralised list of {{primary sources}} tags? Ifly6 (talk) 16:13, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Ifly6: I believe they're grouped under §Cites unreliable sources, but not differentiated from the other cleanup tags which categorise an article into Category:Articles lacking reliable references (e.g. {{Unreliable source}} Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 18:46, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think I solved the two Harv and Sfn multiple-target errors identified on that list. Ifly6 (talk) 16:32, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I also want to note that there seem to be a lot of textual short citations (ie non-template ones) that have similar "anchor" and "multiple-target" errors. More prosaically, stuff like Doe and Roe 1950 has no corresponding bibliographic entry or Suetonius, 1 being insufficiently clear. The lack of templates means there isn't any easy way to find them centrally like Headbomb just did. I think that if we combed through our articles we would find many more issues than just ~117 (on equites I just found three seven). Ifly6 (talk) 19:31, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is quite an overlap between the articles Dominate, Low Roman Empire, Later Roman Empire and History of the Later Roman Empire, all of which talk about more or less the same time period. The Dominate article even starts stating that the phase is also known as the "Late Roman Empire", which doesn't help. Personally I would merge Low Roman Empire, Later Roman Empire (both articles even use many of the same sources) and Dominate. I don't see why the History of the Later Roman Empire needs to be a separate article when it's quite literally half of the entire history of the Roman Empire. Any ideas? Tintero21 (talk) 00:06, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I support this. They are historiography terms, and for the most part, not longer being used by recent scholarship. Mommesen’s principate/dominate, Bury’s Late Roman Empire —- now replaced by the late antiquity view, but which it self is now being revised. Biz (talk) 00:37, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yea, that seems really duplicative, making it hard for us to keep track of and maintain. Impressionistically, the phrasing "Dominate" is now disfavoured and the period is usually called the "late Roman Empire" (as in this Oxford Centre for Late Antiquity page and the title of CAH² vol 13). A merger of the pages would be worthwhile, though "Dominate" could be retained – if not renamed – to focus on the government and administration of the empire rather than its history, similar to the division in CAH vols 12–13 between the narrative and imperial government. Ifly6 (talk) 00:41, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hum, there might be some use for articles speaking on how these are older historiographical terms used in different schools of thought. But as general overviews of Roman history to think it's a bit overkill to have all of them.★Trekker (talk) 00:49, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The duplication is relatively recent

• 2005 Dominate (29.5k characters prose per DYK check tool)
• 2021 Later Roman Empire (60.5k characters prose) by User:Borsoka
• 2021 History of the Later Roman Empire (50k characters prose) split from Later Roman Empire by User:Borsoka
• 2024 Low Roman Empire (59k characters prose) translated from fr:Bas-Empire romain by User:DanielaNES as part of the Open Knowledge Association project

TSventon (talk) 01:24, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Dominate is the most problematic so should be prioritised. It’s useful, but fraught with distortionary bias now abandoned by scholarship.

In this last year, @AirshipJungleman29 has rewritten to the latest scholarship the history section of Byzantine Empire. A solution is to merge @Borsoka’s great work which uses similar but also different sources, and make it its own article, perhaps replacing the content of history of the Byzantine Empire or easier would be a new article but using the terms recent scholarship is using. The Roman Empire during Late Antiquity covers this same period and is the most neutral way to title it, also it will survive the revisions being made by today’s historians. Biz (talk) 16:47, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, much of this can be merged. If, for example, Low Roman Empire is a French historiographical construct, it should focus uponthe historiography and not venture into describing the history as it currently does. I also don't see the need for a separate "History of the Later Roman Empire" article, which can be merged into History of the Roman Empire/Later Roman Empire where appropriate. "Dominate" is also historiographical terminology, and thus should focus on the supposed characteristics and arguments for/against it. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:47, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would WP:Blank and redirect the Low Roman Empire article. It looks like a mistake as it was created by an OKA editor after Later Roman Empire and their guidance at meta:OKA/Instructions for editors#Check for similar articles in English says If a similar article already exists in English Wikipedia, then the article should not be translated. TSventon (talk) 20:15, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think Dominate, Later Roman Empire and the History of the Later Roman Empire should be separate articles, Dominate with a focus on government. Later Roman Empire could present the late Roman state as a "country" with the summary of its history, territory, governmental structure, demography, economy, etc. History of the Later Roman Empire could be its subarticle, and also a subarticle of the History of the Roman Empire. Borsoka (talk) 02:45, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Dominate is a relic of historiography. Scholars no longer uses it. You should read what Bleicken has to say, the German scholar that did a biography on Augustus.

The country view, starting from Diocletion, is where the scholarship seems to be heading so that's interesting. The issue with "Later Roman Empire" is who is using this terminology today? Biz (talk) 04:28, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think Dominate could stay, but it should be about the historiographical concept. T8612 (talk) 09:56, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think there should be an article on the governance of the late Roman empire. We have articles Dominate (If we keep an article at the name Dominate, it would probably have to be a historiographical article like Marian reforms rather than what is presented right now.), Constitution of the late Roman Empire, Tetrarchy, and probably others that escape my notice. In terms of just government (contra historical narrative) this also is highly duplicative. I suppose there are two questions: (1) should we keep the split between government and historical narrative and (2) what, if any, merger should be done and to what article? Ifly6 (talk) 18:21, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The excellent article of the Marian reforms is an great example and what I would like to see the Principate/Dominate turn into. I support the idea of splitting government and historical narrative, and merging with any article that covers this topic, or at the least revising it down. The standard can be if Principate or Dominate are mentioned in the article, it's a target. Biz (talk) 18:02, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm under the impression that Principate is still in use in current research. Just today, for example, BMCR released a review of Caillan Davenport, Meaghan McEvoy, The Roman imperial court in the Principate and late antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024. Pp. 432. ISBN 9780192865236. Dominate, I don't see at all often, however. Ifly6 (talk) 19:57, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That’s reasonable. My point is that its usage has changed; the concepts are intimately tied to each other, and they distort our understanding. For example, on p. 358 of Davenport & McEvoy (which you shared), they state: "The adoption of Christianity by the emperor and his family is the defining difference which separates the Principate from the world of Late Antiquity" Despite its continued use, this interpretation differs from Mommsen’s original definitions, which described the constitutional power from which the emperor derived his authority. I believe it would be more appropriate, and neutral, for periodisation in all articles to default to the dominant broader categories—classical and late antiquity—removing narrative explanations of the government as you suggest, while focusing the terms distinguishing the government's evolution in the context of their historiography. Biz (talk) 22:16, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to take a lead on the matter, I'd have no objection. Late antiquity isn't really my wheelhouse and what I know on the period is mostly confined to late Roman administration. Ifly6 (talk) 05:46, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I’ll review dominate once the FAR for Byzantine Empire is finalised. Life’s getting a little too busy but hey, one more article can’t hurt… Biz (talk) 03:00, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Dear citizens, the articles Forum civilium and Forum venalium have been unsourced for 15 years. Please find and add reliable sources. Bearian (talk) 19:26, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Forum civilium should probably be deleted since there are essentially no results on Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C47&q=%22forum+civilium%22&btnG=. The latter too should probably be deleted under WP:NOTDICT. Ifly6 (talk) 20:17, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Since late 2023, we have undergone the long campaign to rehabilitate the Byzantine Empire article, focussed on the latest scholarship. Now, we are turning our attention to prose quality. Soon, we plan to put it to a vote to determine whether it retains its star. Thank you in advance for your edits, Talk discussions, and FAR feedback. Biz (talk) 22:05, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have started a discussion at Template:Odyssey navbox and invite participation from other editors. Thank you. — ImaginesTigers (talk∙contribs) 10:49, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Citizens' assemblies of the Roman Republic has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Ifly6 (talk) 09:21, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]