Talk:Christianization

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GA Review

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

Reviewer: Willbb234 (talk · contribs) 20:00, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Hello. I've read through a lot of the article and assessed some of the sources and have come to the conclusion that the article fails the criteria. Please be aware that I have taken plenty of time to consider my decision and it's a decision I have not taken lightly. Please allow me to explain.

The lede needs some quite significant work to meet the readability standards. The first sentence is written like a dictionary definition - this is not standard in an encyclopedia article. I don't see what was wrong with the first sentence in this version of the article?

Willbb234 What's wrong with that lead sentence is that there are errors of fact in it. It says Christianization (or Christianisation) was the conversion of societies to Christianity beginning in late antiquity in the Roman Empire and continuing through the Late Middle Ages in Europe. But conversion did not begin in late antique Rome, it began in the first century in Palestine, and it did not simply continue into Late Middle Ages in Europe, it continues into our present day around the world. I can say that if you prefer it and move the definition down into the body instead. I'll give that a go and you can see if you think it's better. Jenhawk777 (talk) 23:26, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Willbb234 I have rewritten the lead and honestly I can't tell if it's any clearer. Can you look at it and tell me what you think? Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:57, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Mis-representation of sources

• It is stated in the article that For nations, this has historically been associated with missions and missionaries, and is therefore called the mission period, but I see no mention of a "mission period" in the cited source, at least not in p.57 as it is claimed.
• The convert's way of life begins to transform.. The sources states that the way of life of the community changes (emphasis mine). It's important to make this distinction.
• During this stage, Christianization establishes schools and spreads education, translates Christian writings to local languages, often developing a script to do so, thereby creating the first literature of what had been a pre-literate culture I read through pages 87 and 88 of the cited source [1] and I encountered multiple issues:

• None of the claims above are explicitly mentioned as part of this 'second stage' of Christianization.
• The source talks about the attempted Christianisation of the Javanese by the Dutch, and not about Christianisation in general. Making claims about the process as a whole from one example is unnaceptable.
• The source even states that In reality, Javanese people did not give much attention to the teachings of Christianity and so attempting to claim that this is part of a successful Christianisation process is difficult.
• There's nothing in the source about a "pre-literate culture".

• many scholars use the terms inculturation and acculturation instead, the source actually states Frequently, instead of that concept, the terms inculturation and acculturation are employed. Nothing about 'scholars' or 'many' of them.
• has led contemporary scholars to write that its traditional definition can only be used when both societies involved in exchange have some autonomy again, the source does not mention 'contemporary scholars' in the referenced pages.
• there were anti-sacrifice laws, but they were not enforced. Source doesn't talk about "anti-sacrifice laws".
  • I'm embarrassed by all of this. I know the text is correct and has good sources - I know I read it somewhere! - but I also know that I get to moving sentences around and do sometimes lose track of the citations that go with them. I am so sorry for my carelessness. I am trying to learn methods that will prevent me from ever making this mistake again. I will fix it. Jenhawk777 (talk) 23:26, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Readability and style

• According to archaeologist Anna Collar, when groups of people with different ways of life come into contact with each other, they naturally exchange ideas and practices. This sentence reads very strange. I wouldn't imagine that Anna Collar is the only person to hold this opinion, and so why is she singled out? It seems like a very generic statement.
• 'Clark' is mentioned numerous times but only later introduced as 'Anthropologist Jerry E. Clark'.
• I have a big concern over the general tone and language used in the first section. I would direct you towards Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, textbook, or scientific journal - specifically the part that says "Introductory language in the lead (and sometimes the initial sections) of the article should be written in plain terms and concepts that can be understood by any literate reader of Wikipedia without any knowledge in the given field before advancing to more detailed explanations of the topic." Using the same terms used by academics in journals will undoubtedly confuse 'the average reader'.
  • It's good to be reminded of that. I fall back into it regularly I'm afraid. Jenhawk777 (talk) 23:26, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

• There is repeated use of WP:WEASEL words. Referring to 'scholars' or 'historians' in general, particularly when the source doesn't explicitly refer to 'scholars' or 'historians', runs into issues. See the above examples.

• • What else should the authors of these books and monographs be called? The text may not say 'all scholars', but the authors are scholars, and most of them discuss other current scholars and their works, so that multiple scholars are mentioned by name. I summarize and say 'scholars', but should all those names be mentioned in the article instead? That seems to create the Anna Collar issue then. What do you suggest so it is not just Wiki-voice hanging out there on its own? Jenhawk777 (talk) 23:26, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

So, you should refer to specific scholars/historians/archaeologists when an opinion/hypothesis/suggestion is offered in the source. If it's a general observation or statement, particularly one which doesn't appear to be controversial or is quite generic, as is the case with what Anna Collar said, then you can just write this without attributing it to a certain person. The problem with the use of the term 'many scholars' is that the source doesn't mention it was claimed by 'many scholars' and so it would be inappropriate to write this. Also, if the author claims something is true, then this does not mean that it is claimed to be true by multiple scholars. If you would like to write that multiple scholars believe something is true, then you should provide multiple sources from multiple scholars to support this, not just a single source. I hope this makes sense. Willbb234 12:25, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

• There's numerous examples of close paraphrasing or instances were single words have been changed from sources and copied over. Take this part for example: Up to the time of Justin I and Justinian I (527 to 565), there was some toleration for all religions; there were anti-sacrifice laws, but they were not enforced. Thus, up into the sixth century, there still existed centers of paganism in Athens, Gaza, Alexandria, and elsewhere and now compare to the source: up to the time of Justin I and Justinian, the Byzantine emperor practiced a policy of toleration for all religions and, although there were anti-pagan and anti-heretical laws, they were not always enforced. Thus, up to the sixth century, we still find centers of paganism in Athens, Gaza, Alexandria, and elsewhere. It's almost exactly the same content just with a few words switched around.
  • That should be in quotes. I sometimes forget them. Sometimes I put them at the start of a quote and forget them by the end. Sometimes I just forget. I'm old. Jenhawk777 (talk) 23:26, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Other issues

• It is claimed that Christianization has never been a one-way process and when groups of people with different ways of life come into contact with each other, they naturally exchange ideas and practices but later it is claimed that In the case of missionaries and the American Indians, the process of acculturation was purposely one-sided.. Alternative definitions of acculturation are then offered, but this just seems to add to the confusion. There needs to be more clarity regarding definitions, or if sources don't help with clarity it needs to be presented in a better way to show that there are differing opinions here. It also doesn't help that this discussion is separated and so it feels disconnected.

The concentration of issues in this article is really concerning to me and so I must quick fail this article. I find the very close paraphrasing a real issue which steps into the region of copyright problems, something I think a GA needs to stay well clear of. The interpretation of sources is also a concern as outlined above. Kind regards, Willbb234 20:00, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Willbb234 Thank you sincerely for all of this. I worked on this article for 6 months and I find that sometimes when that kind of focus is required for that long, it is easy to get myopic and miss things. Another set of eyes can make all the difference, and I think you have done that here. I will work at fixing all of these things. I will get back to you when I think I have addressed them all. Thank you again for your input, it will make the article better and that's what matters. Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:40, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Your comments are very understandable. If you would like me to take a look at some other parts of the article, please let me know and I will try my best, although this will probably take a bit of time to work through. I would recommend having a copyeditor take a look (WP:GOCE) as there are more issues than what I have identified above and you could request some further comments regarding tone and style. Willbb234 23:09, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

I'll do it. Thank you. Jenhawk777 (talk) 23:28, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

GA review - discussion

Willbb234. In response to all issues mentioned, the article has been revised and hopefully simplified, objectionable material has been removed, references checked and/or replaced, the copy-vio has been run, and hopefully, the article is improved because of your input. Thank you. If you agree, I would like to renominate. Unfortunately, you can't review since you have now had input into the article, but hopefully I will get someone just as good. Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:10, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

@Jenhawk777: just a few comments from me.

• The lede seems a bit short per the recommendations set out at WP:LEDE.
• There needs to be some wikilinks in the lede such as to Christianity and Roman Empire.
• thrown off balance is not encyclopedic language. If this is the language used in the source, then I would recommend placing this in quotation marks. In fact, the language used throughout the intial paragraph in Individual conversion seems too technical or 'fancy' for Wikipedia. The whole sentence The normative form of Christian conversion begins with an experience of being thrown off balance through cognitive and psychological disequilibrium seems like it would belong in a paper, not on Wikipedia.
• You need wikilinks to Protestant, New Testament and Eucharist. Confirmation shouldn't be wikilinked in the header.
• In the confirmation section, there is some text which is presented as a quote. This needs a source and a mention of who said it.
• There's a general lack of wikilinks. Things like the temple Evora and Roman goddess Diana should be wikilinked.
• Some individual countries have whole sections devoted to describing their Christianisation, while Africa gets a small mention in Global Christianisation, and Asia doesn't really get any mention at all. South America doesn't have much of a mention either. It doesn't seem like the article is weighted correctly. I think the sections on individual countries of Europe should be condensed into one section (probably named Europe) which would give room for other continents to be covered. The article is already over 11,000 words so I think these other sections would need to be condensed first. Willbb234 13:45, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Willbb234 Sorry for the delay, I have been out of town. These are good comments and I appreciate them.

• I am okay with a short lead for such a long detailed article. Trying to summarize all of it would make the lead too long. There's no rule against it, and in this case, I think it works best.
• You are right that there are not enough wikilinks. Usually someone comes along and adds those for me. I'm waiting on them now, but I am guessing they are waiting on us to finish up first. If they don't show, I will do it.
• Fixed the quote.
  • I am weighing the last comment. I think it is just and true and that right now the article is indeed too western focused. I like and agree with that insight, and think that should be fixed. It's how that troubles me.
  • There are 50 countries in Europe, but no one before me made any effort to include them all. I did not add to their number or subtract any. Those sections were unreferenced, and I did that, and added some text to correct content. I don't know how or why they picked the countries they did. Which leaves me with a dilemma.
  • There are 54 countries in Africa. Northern Africa was Christianized as part of the Roman Empire, and it is mentioned there - a short mention - but a mention. If I add a representative sampling of Africa in the same way Europe is done, it will double the length of the article. I don't know how to even begin to go about choosing which countries to include. Half of Africa is Christian now.
  • Perhaps the best approach is to begin with cutting content on the European countries down. We did that for another article, and can do that here easily enough. In fact, we could cut the mention of most individual countries completely out, and just go with the general statements about the Christianization of Europe in different eras. Leave out individual countries altogether - or at least not include more than a paragraph on each. I could add some more in general on Africa and move Russia into an Asian section. Shorten it too of course. What do you think?
    • I can't include the entire world, but I am thinking that expanding the modern global section (with the editing of Europe) might produce the balance we want. I am out of town off and on, and working on another article as well. It will take me awhile. I'll get back to you after I get your input here - or anyone else who wants to weigh in on the shape and focus of this article. But I will do something with this. Thank you for your help. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:11, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

@Jenhawk777: thanks for your reply. There's already a lot of articles that cover the Christianisation of various countries, regions or peoples, so I think it's fine to cut these down and just link to the main article.

• Christianisation of the Germanic peoples could be summarised and included in the article and some notes on how this perhaps differed to other Christianisations across the world or Europe could be added. The section on the Franks could also be included here as they were a Germanic people. The current sub section on the Germanic peoples refers more to their conversion than the Christianisation. I think there's a subtle difference between the two (you know more about this than I do) as Christianisation can also refer to the changes in society in buildings that occur over time. Great Britain and Ireland could probably be placed in one section titled British Isles. I'm just trying to suggest ways in which the article could be cut down and refined, reducing the number of sections for ease of navigation.

• Good work on the Africa section I think it looks really good, but once again, it seems like this might turn out very long if you address individual countries. I'm not really too sure what to suggest, but I think if you talk about the general Christianisation of Africa and then refer briefly to individual countries or kingdoms then this would help to keep the section concise.
• The Eastern Europe section starts with "In Asia". Is this correct?
• The Christianization of places and practices section focuses almost exclusively on the early centuries of Christianity and particularly within the Roman Empire, despite the fact that Christianisation of specific places has been occuring for the past 2000 years all across the world (see Christianized sites, although even this article is still slightly skewed towards the Christianisation of Roman paganism). This could do with some brief mentions of places across the world which were Christianised, such as the establishment of the Catholic Church in South America or the earliest churches in North America.

Hope I'm making some sense and I think the article looks nice, so good work on that. Willbb234 13:42, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Willbb234 Thank you! Those are some good suggestions for cutting back. I had not finished doing that even though I am adding elsewhere - and will probably need to cut the additions some as well, but had to start somewhere. I intend to come back to Asia after Africa, and yes, Eastern Europe is often referred to as being part of the Asian continent. I am not really sure where the "line" would be, but Russia is definitely there. I want to put some discussion of the secret church in China there as well.

Christianized sites do not happen to the same degree as they did, so that's why there is an early focus. Conversion is Christianization by definition in the first section. The Americas have a mention under colonialism. Since I am picking what seems like a reasonable sampling of times and places, some are mentioned in one time period and not in another. I think that's all that can be done in a wikipedia article. It has to demonstrate the varieties of methods and outcomes to identify what Christianization is and has been and I think that's all that can be done. It will never be as thorough as we might like, but it will be representative. Please agree that's the best that can be done here! Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:40, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Willbb234 Have rearranged and deleted and added, but I think all I have left to do is China, which I am working on right now and will finish in the next hour. This article is now (9484 words) "readable prose size". It will be a bit more after China, but I will keep it as short as possible. Otherwise, it seems pretty done to me.

What do you think? Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:32, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for your response. I'll take a look soon and get back to you. Willbb234 19:53, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

If it's true that conversion is Christianisation, then why do we have separate article for Christianisation and Conversion to Christianity. I'm not trying to catch you out, but surely there's some differences between the two words and so they might address slightly different things? Willbb234 19:58, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Willbb234 You are right, they do address slightly different things but that's exactly why we need both articles you reference. Christianization is more than just individual conversion; conversion is a subset of Christianization, so it's appropriate it has its own daughter article. Christianization also includes sites - which also has its own daughter article - and nations - so the parent article which mentions all three is also called for.

That's it - I think - I have run Earwig again, and it is dinging on two sets of quotes, but they are properly quoted, I checked. I didn't forget the quotation marks this time! Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:00, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Willbb234 I want to renominate. I have done all the alt descriptions of all images and checked their copyrights. I have checked all quotes. I have checked that all references have a 978 isbn or a url where they can be accessed. I have checked them for accuracy. I have done a spot check of citations - especially those I could not quite fully remember just in case I had moved something incorrectly as has happened before. All content is 100% accurate and cited correctly. I reorganized - again - just slightly to best reflect time and place and who did what. I believe the article is focused and clear, even though it is talking about three parts of one thing. I think it gives a broad overview without excessive detail but enough detail to get a genuine impression of what's being discussed. I don't think there is any jargon of any kind and that any reasonably intelligent sophomore could follow what's said. I think - I have tried - to fully cooperate and address every concern you had. I do hope that I did not miss anything. I do think the article is improved because of your input. You definitely raised the bar, and I am honestly glad of it. I want to renominate but will call for a peer review - although you have done a good one already - if you think that should be done first. I will wait to hear your opinion before acting on either approach. Thank you again. Sincerely, thank you. You have made a huge contribution to the quality of this article. Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:58, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

@Jenhawk777: ok, thanks for letting me know. Of course, it's not up to me whether you renom so if you feel that the article is ready then please do so. I can review again if you'd like, but I'd imagine you'll probably want another set of eyes on this and I'm not sure that I can do the best job. I usually try and review as thoroughly as possible (see this review, for example), but sometimes I do come across as tough, so I apologise for that. Unfortunately, it might be a little while before someone picks up the review - it turns out that the longer articles usually get ignored in the queue. When someone does get round to it, you're more than welcome to ping me and I can try to take another look if needs be. I'm not sure how active I'll be in the future though, so I can't guarantee anything. Willbb234 21:16, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanx for the swift response. You have already contributed a lot, so I can understand if you feel done. 'Tough' is always okay with me. I didn't take it personally, I took it as good faith, and in responding, I have no doubt at all the article is better. You have nothing to apologize to me for, but thank you being so considerate.

I know about long articles. All the ones I do are. I go looking for articles that need citations, updating, etc. and do total rewrites on occasion. This one has been rewritten three times now. I am feeling pretty good about it now, whereas before I figured a reviewer would catch and I would fix whatever was not 100%, now I feel as though it already is 100%. Thanx to you and your 'toughness'.

Don't ever apologize for having a commitment to quality for the Encyclopedia. Too many don't. I do - even if I occasionally fail to hit the goal on my first try. Other editors like you help me achieve that. We have to work together, and you didn't just abandon me after failing the article. You stayed and helped. Feel free to be done any time, but you are always welcome back. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:30, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Peer review

Please participate even if you are not willing to take on the official role or a full review. Comment on any section or any aspect. All comments will be taken seriously. You can comment here or at Wikipedia:Peer review/Christianization/archive1. Thank you all! Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:53, 20 August 2023 (UTC)