Wikipedia:Peer review/Black Death/archive1

Black Death

Been working on and maintaining this article for a while. I like its chances at FAC, as it seems to me comprehensive, has good references, and plenty of useful images, and it's only 32 kB at this point. I'm just afraid I've overlooked something, so I'd appreciate if anyone could take a look at it. Thanks a lot. --Dmcdevit 00:02, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

• I've given it only a quick look, but it seems quite comprehensive to me. Mgm|^(talk) 11:48, May 22, 2005 (UTC)
• It appears to be an excellent article. There are probably a few more words that could be cross-linked, but nothing of significance. I'm not sure whether you are interested in adding a Media section? For example, the Hugo award-winning novel Doomsday Book is based on time travel back to the era of the Black Death? There's also the classic movie The Seventh Seal. — RJH 18:47, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
  • In fact, I really like the idea of an overarching "Black Death in literature" section to deal with contemporary and modern things. I don't know if cinema really counts as literature, but can't come up with a better name. Working on it now... --Dmcdevit 20:40, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
    • I think I've done all that I can with the modern literature section, and I'll be fleshing out the more contemporary stuff soon. --Dmcdevit 02:39, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
• And I have two specific requests. I am just putting in the literature section a little at a time, which has quotes. Is there a policy on how to put in longer quotes, because they are usually indented and a slightly smaller text, so I just did that my own way, but I don't know if that's correct. And also, could anyone check on the copyright status of the images? Some of the tags worry me. Anyway, thanks for your input. --Dmcdevit 21:30, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
• Content is great, but the lead should better summarise the content of the article, there are also a few format things you may want to play around with. Do the Alternative explanations have to be broken up with h3's, it increases the length of the TOC and they're only short paragraphs. Counterarguments and Miscellaneous could lose the bullet points, lists tend to go down like a ton of lead on FAC. Trim the see alsos, most of these are already in text links. Image:BlackDeath graph.jpg is a pretty average diagram, if you or someone else redrew it, you'd clear up the uncertain copyright and have a diagram that looked a lot better. Image:Map of Death.jpg that you uploaded should have a better description of where it came from on the image page, otherwise the rest of the images look good in terms of copyright. There are a lot of numbers, you may want to use some sort of footnote, or innote reference system to make it clear where the data came from (this will definately come up in FAC so its best to address it before you get there). --nixie 23:38, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
  • I just got rid of the bullets and and extra headings, and I agee it's better. In fact, those headings disturbed the flow, adding nothing, and I didn't really even need to add any transtions. I've also just gotten rid of the Miscellaneous section entirely, as it's a strange place to put things, so i just merged them into other sections. As for the map image, it came from a .edu university site, but I've done a search and frustratingly can't find it now. I don't really know how to search for specific images rather than just perusing the web sites, but in all honesty, I think it's redundant with the better map at the top. --Dmcdevit 03:11, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
    • Since Image:Map of Death.jpg is a duplication of the one in the lead you might just want to send it to {{ifd}}. You could move another pic into the lead and move the map down to be with the relevant text.--nixie 04:26, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
      • Just removed the duplicate map and moved the other one. --Dmcdevit 04:49, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
• I've been a contributor to the article, see some problems before it goes FAC. I can work on when my time and focus allows, or others might too.

• The last paragraph of the section "Signs and Symptoms" is awkward. It talks about a wide variety of social and economic effects which already have their own section, repeats. It also touches on some topics that are not yet covered elsewhere that should be. The text just needs to be re-integrated into the new structure.
  • Actually it was the last two paragraphs, and they don't belong at all. Thanks for pointing this out. I remember writing those, but that was before the "Signs and symptoms" section existed, I think. I don't know why they were there, but I moved the last one to economic effect, since it was about governmental economic controls instituted, and the other to the beginning of the "Patterns" section because it was about the plague's precursor. --Dmcdevit 05:57, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
• The "Social Change" and "Economic effects" I think need a re-examination as they both discuss some of the same issues, but come to different conclusions. A bit confusing.
  • I see what you mean. I've attempted to fix this by condensing the "economic effects" and the class system effects in "social effects" into one "socio-economic effects" section, which seemed to make more sense and make it less splintered. The economic and social effects in this respect really can't be separated. I think it works better the new way. --Dmcdevit 23:02, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
• The references and external links section needs some organization. See First Crusade for how it could look (a FA I worked on). We need a section of "Contemporary sources" for example.
  • I really like that example, so I changed around the references section. --Dmcdevit 04:49, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
• There is not much discussion of the "live for today because you might die tomorow" effect. Liquor consumption rises, crime rises, death-culture emerges.. all things that remain to this day, we can easily recognize as "modernity", versus the age before (13th C), which was more religiously pious and less recognizable to us.

Stbalbach 00:59, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Does it also need to be inCategory:Asian history?--nixie 11:58, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

• Good point, just added the categories for Middle East, Asia, and Eurasia history. --Dmcdevit 22:13, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
• Lots of great stuff, so some observations:

1. The selected sources and further reading needs to be reworked to eliminate the ambiguity. Further reading could include a work on the topic that has never been consulted by the page authors, instead simply made available for the interested reader. Including that in with the sources that were actually used by the page authors means that it is impossible to tell if there is more than one actual source for the article. Please split the section into separate "References" and "Further reading" sections, unless all the listed sources were actually used, then just name the section references.
2. A lot of important facts are left uncited. Please prioritize the article by the most important facts in it and cite those (using footnotes or parenthetical inline citations, etc) directly to the most reliable source available. I can pick out many that need citations if you like, but as a contributor to the article, I'm sure you can too.
3. The explicit focus on European sources seems improper. Basically I'm saying what is the topic? Is it the plague that happened in Europe at the given time, or is it the worldwide plague that happened. Does the term "Black Death" unequivocably mean the former? Why? If so, then where is the article on the plague in the rest of the world? If not, then a focus on European issues is improper.

   Well, really, yes, it does usually only refer to Europe. the term Black Death itself is overwhelmingly used to refer to the European outbreak within the worldwide pandemic. It's like having an article on the Northern Renaissance, which is a subset of the larger Renaissance. Especislly when we refer to "Black Death" in the academic field of history it is as solely the European plague. And the plague in other areas, like China, is referred to by other names. --Dmcdevit 20:38, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

   Ok then the discussions of the plague in Asia are straying from the topic, except when specifically discussing origins of the European plague. It is important to define the topic and stick to the topic. You can cover related events in the rest of the world at the time, but the coverage should be focused in one part of this article and summarized. Also, why this article/term is about Europe should be made clear. Just note the above, ideally with citations, that the term exclusively refers to the European plague. Then ideally create or link to the article(s) on the plague in other parts of the world. - Taxman ^Talk 20:08, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)

4. The recurrance section could use some expansion. Recurrances happened, but on what scale? Why don't we hear about those nearly as much? The mention of the London fire seems out of place, because what effect would that have on keeping the black death out of anywhere else in Europe or the Mediterannean? Is that fire really so central to the issue for some reason?
5. If the cause of the attack is unknown, then statements like "Bubonic plague struck various countries in the Middle East during the pandemic..." are improper, unless there is specific evidence for that statment to be also true, even if the overall cause was not Bubonic plague.

   Good point. I think that comes from the (bad) habit of using "bubonic plague" and "Black Death" interchangeably. I think I've cleared it up, and all references to bubonic plague state that it is a theory. --Dmcdevit 21:01, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

   Well the fact that they have been practically used interchangeably could be made even more clear too then. - Taxman ^Talk 20:08, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)

6. Was the population of China at the time really only estimated to be 37 million? That is the inferred number from saying 2/3 died = 25 million.

   Well, that depends upon how you define the borders (during the Mongol rule, the borders would have been much different, not just our "China"), but actually I wouldn't be too surprised. Remember, the population of all of Europe, including the Baltic, East, and Balkans, is normally estimated at ~75 million. And China had been through some severe wars and famines just before. But I'm no expert, so I'll see if I can't find that cited somewhere else. --Dmcdevit 20:30, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

   True, sounds good. - Taxman ^Talk 20:08, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)

7. Oh yeah, one more, the depopulation section gives the reasons why the European deaths were concentrated in the cities, and the next section states that the Middle Eastern deaths were more rural. What gives? There's either an inconsistency or more information is needed. I'll look for more if you like, but thought that was a good start. - Taxman ^Talk 14:58, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

This article has much that is good, but I have some problems with it, some major and some not so major.

I think that the article paints with a pretty broad brush, which in a general article, such as this, is not always a bad thing, however I think this is a bit too broad. For example, this passage has a host of problems:

In Western Europe, the sudden scarcity of cheap labor provided an incentive for landlords to compete for peasants with wages and freedoms, an innovation that, some argue, represents the roots of capitalism, and the resulting social upheaval caused the Renaissance and even Reformation. In many ways the Black Death was good for peasants, at least in Western Europe, because of the shortage of labor they were in more demand and had more power, and because of the reduced population, there was more fertile land available; however, the benefits would not be fully realized until 1470, nearly 120 years later, when overall population levels finally began to rise again.

First off there are the weasel words "some argue". Who exactly? More serious is the actual argument. Although the Black Death might have had some hand in shaping the Renaissance and Reformation, it did not start them. Both were part of a pattern of recurring movements. There were multiple "classicisizing" periods in European history (See for example, the Carolingian Renaissance and 12th century Renaissance). There were also multiple reform movements stretching back to St. Benedict. Whatever the influence of the Black Death, the invention of the printing press surely had a greater impact, especially on the Reformation.

"the Black Death was good for peasants". It is never good to die of a horrible disease, or, if you survive, to watch your children, or parents, and many of your neighbors die. Moreover, the argument that the Black Death was good for the Peasantry is a bit suspect. If, as seems to be the case, your yardstick for measuring prosperity is population levels, then you cannot claim that having more land per person is the cause of the prosperity, otherwise, when the population rose, the prosperity would disappear. However, population levels are not a good measure of prosperity, otherwise China and India would be the most prosperous countries on Earth. Even when a better yardstick is used, there has been a great deal of criticism of the "Black Death was good for the Peasantry" thesis, which should be included.

I was somewhat surprised to see that the section on contemporary literature did not quote The Decameron, which contains one of the most famous descriptions of the plague. However there are advantages to using less famous quotes.

However, this section bothers me:

A few were famous writers, philosophers and rulers (like Boccaccio and Petrarch), but most were quite ordinary people who happened to work in a job requiring literacy, a rare talent; most often, this meant a low-level, peasant monk. For example, Agnolo di Tura the Fat, of Siena, records his experience:

This implies that Agnolo was a monk, which he wasn't (The five children are a big clue.) I'm not sure that I would categorize literacy, as a "rare talent" in the fourteenth century. Someone was reading Chaucer, and the Romance of the Rose, and using all of those Books of Hours and it wasn't just monks. Also, it took money to become a monk. There were few "peasant monks" and those that did exist probally weren't literate. Of the three authors quoted, not one was a monk. (Henry Knighton was a Canon, which is not the same thing.)

One final quibble. The image Image:BlackDeath graph.jpg is, as has been noted, lackluster and of questionable copyright status. It is also misleading. Because the baseline is set at 40M rather than zero, it appears that a much greater percentage of the population died than actually did. Dsmdgold 04:23, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)