Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of sultans of the Ottoman Empire/archive1

• Comment -- Before I fully review, can some of the paragraphs in the lead be placed into a separate section because the length of the lead is tremendous.--Truco 02:34, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I will work on shortening the lead. --BomBom (talk) 03:19, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done. I shortened the lead. I think it is now of appropriate length given the importance of the topic covered. --BomBom (talk) 00:29, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Comments

General

• There is a self redirect to the article, as outlined by the dab finder tool, can that be fixed?

Lead

• 'The sultans of the Ottoman Dynasty ruled over a vast transcontinental empire from 1299 to 1922.' -- Do not bold something that is not the title, although the bolded part includes some of the title, its not the title so it shouldn't be bolded.
• 'Although its early days remain shrouded in legend, the Ottoman Empire is generally regarded by most historians to have started in 1299, when Osman I, khan (leader) of the Kayı tribe of the Oghuz Turks, managed to acquire sovereignty for his small Anatolian kingdom from the Seljuq Sultan of Rûm.' -- Remove the comma before managed
• 'He was supreme military commander and had official title to all land.' -> He was the supreme military commander and had the official title to all land.
• 'Although theocratic and absolute in theory and in principle, the sultan's powers were in practice limited.' -- Wouldn't it be better stated as were limited in practice?

Notes

• Remove bold from links.

Images

• I would seek an image check on the licensing of each image.--Truco 01:50, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Your seven comments have all been taken into account.

• The self-redirect, which was contained in the navigational template at the bottom of the page, has been fixed.
• Unbolded title in the lead.
• Comma has been removed.
• Sentence has been rephrased.
• Sentence has been rephrased.
• Unbolded links in the Notes section.
• Like I said, I went through each image several times, and am pretty sure they're all PD. Nonetheless, I have asked David Fuchs to do an image review.[2]

Thanks for your comments. --BomBom (talk) 13:09, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Awesome!--Truco 15:07, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Issues according to User:Quadell:
  • I agree that part of the lead should be split off into a section or sections.
  • There were other pretenders. They don't all need to be mentioned, but there should be a sentence to say that Ertugrul Osman is not the only one to have existed.
  • I think it would be better to include Glazer's "Turkey: A country study" in the bibliography, spelled out in full... and then the specific references would only need to list the chapter name and an abbreviated reference... like you do for Pearce and Quataert, but with a chapter in the refs.
  • I would move the "general references" down to combine with the bibliography.

Nice list! Best of luck, – Quadell ^(talk) 03:49, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done. The lead has been shortened. I removed the section about pretenders and replaced it with a more clearly-worded sentence about Ertugrul Osman in the lead. Your recommendations regarding the references have also been taken into account. Thanks for your comments! --BomBom (talk) 00:32, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

All my initial issues have been fixed. Well done! I've given it a thorough reading, and made minor adjustments for clarity, grammar, and NPOV. There are only a few remaining issues.

1. The statement "people within Turkey generally use the title of padishah far more frequently" in note (a) needs a cite.
2. The detailed material on the Ottoman Caliphate is fascinating, but it only belongs in this list in so far as it directly relates to the office of sultan. Note (b) should stay, but the sentence in the lead "Such was the importance of the Ottoman Caliphate that it actually outlived the sultanate for more than a year" should go, in my opinion. Because of this, note (c) should only be referenced at the "Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire" section of the list, and everything after "lacking any political power" should be omitted from the note. Does this make sense?
3. Should "further reading" actually be "bibliography"? I ask because I'm not sure.

Thanks, – Quadell ^(talk) 17:16, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done.

1. A reference has been added in note (a).
2. The sentence in the lead has been removed, and the footnotes reorganized accordingly. I also shortened the footnote per your suggestion.
3. You're right. It should be "Further reading" if the books were not used in the writing of the article, but merely given for those wanting to explore the subject in more detail. However, this is clearly not the case here: the article is directly referenced from the books, so I changed the section heading to "Bibliograhpy".

Thank you very much for your thorough review! --BomBom (talk) 00:09, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Support. Very good list, no objects to the content. -- Darwinek (talk) 08:15, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Support.There's more than enough information here. Summaries are of a good length, the lead and the image are also good. It looks fine to me, I'll Support.--Gökhan 11:26, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Support. For me it seems appropriate to be a featured article. I have changed Timur's origin to Turco-Mongol.[6] I have also changed Murad I's nickname from Hüdevendigar to Hüdavendigar.[7] The name may also be spelled Hudavendigar.[8] There is one more petty spelling problem in the second paragraph, it should be şeriat rather than seriat as per Turkish spelling. But I have not changed it since maybe it is preferred to use English characters only. --Chapultepec (talk) 07:05, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done. I changed the spelling to şeriat. --BomBom (talk) 13:44, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Support. Very good work. However, I would suggest the partioning of the long paragraphs into smaller ones for better readability.CeeGee (talk) 08:04, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done. I divided the third paragraph of the lead. The lead now contains four paragraphs of appropriate length. I don't think it is possible to divide any paragraph more than that, because each one corresponds to a coherent thematic body. --BomBom (talk) 13:44, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Support. The list complies with the featured list standards. Clearly a lot of hard work gone into it. A great list. WillMall (talk) 14:17, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• SUPPORT This is an important topic. The Ottoman Empire sat at the geographic juncture of several states, in several continents, over several centuries. This is deletionist mania to eliminate the list of the sultans. Such an article aids the further exploration of the individual sultans of the empire.

I second the sentiment towards breaking the article into several paragraphs. Again, terminating the article is a terrible act against meaningful scholarship on a vitally important topic. Dogru144 (talk) 20:19, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I striked the above comment since the user seems to have mistaken the FLC for a deletion request. --BomBom (talk) 09:35, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Support. Very good work. Atabəy (talk) 02:02, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Comments.

1. Constantinople is not in Anatolia. This is a serious error that needs to be corrected. The Ottoman state had three capitals: Bursa, Edirne, and then Constantinople. Only the first of these is in Anatolia. Moreover, the Ottomans are not from the Anatolian heartland, but rather the western periphery of Anatolia. I have read scholars who refer to an "Ottoman heartland" which includes early Ottoman centers like Söğüt, Bilecik, İznik, and Bursa. Aramgar (talk) 20:30, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

2. Perhaps some of the field names in the infobox ought to be adjusted. WP:UE certainly mandates that we call the Ottoman state, especially after from the 15th century, "Empire", but the sovereign is never called an "emperor". Please substitute "sultan". Footnote #4 is misconstrued: Mehmed II claimed succession to the Roman emperors but not the titles themselves. Aramgar (talk) 20:32, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done. I rephrased the first few sentences to make things clearer with regard to geography, and added information about the different moves of the Ottoman Empire's capital. I also removed "Emperor" from the infobox and replaced it with "Sultan".

Not done. I'm sorry, but the Ottoman rulers did occasionally use the title of caesar. The footnote is thus not misconstrued. I added two more scholarly references to corroborate this.

Thanks for your comments. --BomBom (talk) 17:26, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. I stand corrected. I will have to look into this further. Aramgar (talk) 20:17, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

3. I am troubled by the phrase "managed to acquire sovereignty for his small Anatolian kingdom from the Seljuq Sultan of Rûm" and believe it ought to be dropped. The association of the early Ottomans with their illustrious predecessors is based on Ottoman court propaganda of the 15th and 16th century. Though the claim likely has no basis in fact (secondary source here), it is often taken at face value by modern historians, particularly those within Turkey. Observing good summary style, it might be better to emphasize here the frontier character of the early Ottoman state rather than the suspect pedigree.

4. perhaps add Topkapı Palace to the "Official Residence" section in the infobox.

5. perhaps add the nickname Hüdavendigâr in the small typeface below Murad I. Several other sultans bore this name, but Murad is generally known thus within Turkey. I realize that this may cause problems of translation: WP glosses it "the God-liked one"; I have also seen it rendered just "The Ruler". Perhaps it should stay "Hüdavendigâr".

Otherwise, good work on this important topic. Aramgar (talk) 22:54, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done.

3. The entire phrase about the Ottomans' link with the Seljuqs has been removed. The sentence in the lead now simply reads: "The Ottoman Empire's early years have been the subject of varying narratives due to the difficulty of discerning fact from legend; nevertheless, most modern scholars agree that the empire came into existence around 1299 and that its first ruler was Osman I, khan (leader) of the Kayı tribe of the Oghuz Turks." It is sufficiently concise and neutral. There is also a wikilink to the article about the empire's early days for users wishing to have more information.

4. The Ottomans' three main palaces have been added in the infobox: Topkapı, Dolmabahçe, Yıldız

5. The name Hüdavendigar has been added below Murad I's name.

Thank you very much for your useful comments. --BomBom (talk) 02:50, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]